Advertising and electronic commerce are also becoming increasingly important to the national players.

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In the final quarter of last year, America Online made about 18% of its revenues from advertising and electronic commerce deals.

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The power of the brand may well be evidenced by the fact that when I viewed the site within the past hour, a highly respected legal electronic discovery vendor was advertising in the headline banner.

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For ECOtality's commercial charging stations, Sprint's data network will also help to process a variety of electronic payments, and even deliver digital content for advertising and information.

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Mr Murdoch says that some media firms, at least, will be able to navigate the transition as advertising revenue switches from print-based to electronic media.

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As a result, advertisers got used to paying lower costs for electronic media and seeing higher value as they could more easily measure the impact of that advertising.

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