Dot Com News from Week of December 11, 2000

• 12/15/00 - InfoUSA, a provider of directory assistance on the Internet, will cut about 250 positions from a staff of 1,958 employees in a move to bring the company's expenditures in line with revenue. They also reportedly will close its entire VideoYellowPages subsidiary.

• 12/15/00 - HomeGrocer.com has laid off 100 more employees bringing the total to 150 jobs cut since being acquired by the Webvan Group in September. More layoffs are expected in the future as the company's operations are absorbed by Webvan.

• 12/15/00 - eToys, an online toy seller, issued an earnings warning, saying that revenues for its third fiscal quarter could be half of what analysts expected. eToys said it will run out of cash around the end of March because of revenue shortfalls. eToys has begun exploring options to sell the company or its assets and the announcement of layoffs will come early next year.

• 12/15/00 - Macromedia Inc.'s majority-owned entertainment Web site shockwave.com said it would buy AtomFilms for stock, and cut costs by letting go a third of the combined staff. AtomFilms shareholders would own 30 percent of the combined entity.

• 12/14/00 - Finance.com posted on their Web site the following message: "Finance.com will discontinue service on December 31, 2000. At that time, all visitors will be automatically directed to Citibank® Online, which is Citibank's enhanced online financial center."

• 12/14/00 - Digital Broadband, a Massachusetts-based DSL services company serving 1,000 customers in the northeastern US, said it is laying off most of its staff and looking at options due to dried-up resources for new financing in the digital subscriber line (DSL) market.

• 12/14/00 - Internet consultancy Agency.com has cut its workforce by 190 employees and will close the company office in Vail, Colorado.

• 12/14/00 - In an effort to cut costs amid lower customer demand and tight capital markets, MessageMedia Inc. plans to reduce its work force by about 100 jobs.

• 12/14/00 - San Francisco-based Organic said it plans to eliminate about 270 jobs and warned that fourth-quarter revenue will be lower than anticipated.

• 12/13/00 - RealNames, which maintains a simplified system of addressing Web pages that bypasses URLs, has been shrinking its work force markedly throughout the year. They announced plans to lay off more employees by the end of the year. Since June, the company has shed through layoffs or attrition nearly 60 percent of its employees. RealNames insists the additional layoffs has nothing to do with the dot-com reductions in staffs affecting the industry.

• 12/13/00 - EZ Inc., formerly Bidhit.com, an Internet transactional marketing and e-commerce company, announced the company will cease normal business operations effective December 15. Assets of the company, including EZbid.com intellectual property, are for sale.

• 12/12/00 - In an effort to turn a profit by the end of 2001, Web-search company Ask Jeeves is eliminating 180 positions, which is 25 percent of its staff.