Rakuten, a company that runs the largest Japanese e-commerce site, has agreed to purchase Buy.com for a quarter of a billion dollars. The purchase was made with the intention of making Rakuten’s marketplace a viable competitor with e-commerce juggernauts eBay and Amazon. Since the site’s inception in 2000, Buy.com has grown to over fourteen million more »

Borders’ seven-year online marriage to Amazon is back in the separation phase. For the first time since 2001, you can actually order books, DVD’s and music from the company itself on your computer, even as Borders admits it is pursuing a possible sale of the company. Its CEO tells the Associated Press that a sale won’t matter; a web presence will be necessary for the bookseller’s business model no matter who owns Borders.

Most analysts say Borders still has a fight on its hands with Amazon for the hearts and minds of booklovers everywhere. Jeff Bezos’ company remains the 800-pound gorilla in cyberspace and with new ventures like the Kindle e-reader and Amazon Web Services for developers, it’s aiming at new levels of influence within the overall technology industry.