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Maybe shoes will be better sellers than books, CDs, online downloads and DVDs: Just one day after announcing its purchase of online apparel and footwear seller Zappos.com, Amazon.com posted less-than-stellar second-quarter financial results.

The e-commerce site posted a 14% gain in revenue, to $4.65 billion, but its net profit of $142 million, or 32 cents per share, was down 10% from its second-quarter-2008 figure of $158 million (37 cents).

Amazon.com blamed a steep decline in its traditional business, as well as a $51 million legal settlement to Toys "R" Us. Video-game and console sales also slumped.

Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Jeffrey Lindsay told The New York Times, "People had looked at their recent performance and assumed that Amazon was, relatively speaking, exempt from the current downturn," adding that the company's second-quarter results were "by any measure a good performance, but expectations had gotten ahead of themselves."

eBay is apparently feeling the effects of the slumping economy, as its second-quarter financial results were down across the board.

The online-auction site posted revenue of $2.098 billion, down 4% from $2.196 billion in the second quarter of 2008. Net income on a GAAP basis was $327.3 million, or $0.25 per diluted share, down 29% from the year-ago period, and non-GAAP net income of $478.6 million ($0.37) was down 16%. GAAP operating margin fell to 19.6% from 24.8%, and non-GAAP operating margin slipped from 31.9% to 28.7%.

eBay president and CEO John Donahoe said:

We drove solid second-quarter results, with strong momentum and market-share gains at PayPal and continued stabilization in our core eBay business. We are managing our business with focus and discipline, delivering on our commitments while investing in our growth priorities. I'm pleased with our pace, our progress and our performance.

> ProPublica, the independent, non-profit investigative newsroom, has launched a new tool on their Website which enables users to monitor changes made to government Websites. ChangeTracker lets users see exactly what was removed, edited or updated by showing side-by-side comparisons of sites before and after changes made to them.

> AllThingsD's Peter Kafka writes about some advice Google is giving to newspapers: overhaul your Websites. "Present to me a front page rich with interesting content selected by smart editors, customized based on my reading habits (tracked with my permission)," writes Google exec Jonathan Rosenberg "Browsing a newspaper is rewarding and serendipitous, and doing it online should be even better."

> Forbes.com has launched "Breakthroughs" a new section exploring emerging ideas in the fields of science and technology. The site will feature articles from Forbes' "Digital Tools" columnist Lee Gomes; Jonathan Fahey, who continues his "Out of the Labs" column and Matt Herper and Robert Langreth, who cover biotech. The site is sponsored by Pitney Bowes.

> Nightly.msnbc.com, the online home for NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, had a record-setting month in January with 20 million video streams. The inauguration was a top draw.

>"World News with Charles Gibson" is growing its online profile. For the week of February 2, the "World News" section of ABCNews.com was up 52% in video views and up 7% in page views compared to the same week last year.

> Twitter may have found a way to generate revenue. The free micro-blogging site plans to charge brands for using the service. The fees are not yet known. A new round of venture capital funding values Twitter at $250m.

> NBA Digital is hoping to score with NBA.com's All-Star Scene. The site features four video channels related to All Star Weekend, a four-day event beginning Thursday. Fans can also upload their own photos as well as record a video at NBA Jam Session. The four video channels will showcase players, celebrities, VIPs, and fans.

> ABC News Digital will live stream ABC News NOW's coverage of Pres. Obama's press conference tonight from 7:45-9:15pmET. The player will be embedded on the hompage of ABCNews.com ABC's Sam Donaldson and Rick Klein, senior political reporter and author of "The Note," will anchor.

> Tomorrow night in New York, David Rummel, Senior Producer of News & Documentary at NYTimes.com, and Rob Harris, a New York Times video journalist, will discuss what makes a strong video story for the Web and what qualities the NYTimes is looking for in its video journalists. Click here if you'd like to attend the program.

• NPR has transitioned the "My Cancer" blog to "Our Cancer" - an online forum designed to continue the conversation created by Leroy Sievers, a veteran broadcast journalist whose personal battle with cancer was documented on the site. Sievers died last August.

• Entertainment Studios has announced a partnership with Hulu. More than 20 full-length episodes of "Comics Unleashed with Byron Allen" will be available on Hulu. As many as 400 episodes of ES titles will make their way to Hulu through this year and next.

• HometownTimes.com, a franchisor of online news and community publications, has been recognized by Atlanta Business Chronicle as one of Atlanta's Top 25 franchises. The company launched 513 local online newspapers across the U.S. in early January.

> Today at NoonET, CNN's money guy Ali Velshi will be live on CNN.com to answer viewer questions submitted through iReport.com. In addition, CNN.com has created a special section related to Velshi's new book "Gimme my Money Back."

> Former Dow Jones VP of digital, Matthew Goldberg has been tapped as the new CEO of Lonely Planet. According to a statement from Lonely Planet parent company BBC, Goldberg will be charged with leading "multiplatform growth strategy" for the travel publisher.

> CNet reports Cisco Systems is creating a platform to allow media companies to set up their own social networks. Eos, as it's called, will allow companies to create, manage and grow their own communities by providing tools to make it easy to build the sites. We'll be heading to the Cisco booth at CES to check it out.

> Rudy Giuliani writes an op-ed on CNN.com related to the soon-to-be vacant U.S. senate seat from New York. And he doesn't once mention Caroline Kennedy's name.

> Social media company Newsgator is about to debut a new product called AdBurner. The offering will help media companies better organize ad inventory for services ranging from widgets to mobile applications.

> Interactive marketing company Razorfish has been selected as the interactive partner for TravelChannel.com, the website for the Travel Channel. Razorfish will develop a new Web site as well as enhance the site's performance metrics.