It has been a good couple of weeks for the darlings of the dot.com boom.

eBay has doubled its earnings on the back of a surge in online auctions and online bookseller Amazon.com, after racking up combined losses of £2.1 billion in the past six years, reported a net profit of £3.6 million for the final three months of the year.

This might not seem like much for a company posting a £700 million ($1 billion) quarter but it compares with a £381 million loss in the same period last year, so you can guess the Seattle-based company is pleased.

At least, Jeff Bezos' business has survived, which is more than can be said for some other companies. This is all the more amusing because Mr Bezos originally planned to call it Abracadabra.com but was warned off by his lawyer who misheard the name as cadaver.com.

Mr Bezos was not the only person to play on the company's name, with sceptics referring to it as Amazon.bomb and Amazon.toast.

Amazon's figures are the latest evidence people are using the internet to buy more than embarrassing products like condoms and Ronan Keating CDs, which can only be good news for everyone involved in the industry, even though good news can often provide a basis for difficult decisions.

UK retailer John Lewis, which "never knowingly undersold", is reported to be closing buy.com in the UK after its own web site had a bumper Christmas. johnlewis.com took 1,000 orders a day in the run up to Christmas and the company has decided there is little point running both sites in parallel.

She might not be a darling of the dot.com generation but Kay Hammond's quest to become an e-bride is amusing if nothing else.

Although tighter security has reduced the number of bids on QXL for Ms Hammond's hand in marriage, she could be well on the way to becoming Mrs Webb.

Mr Webb, the second person to bid for Ms Hammond, has offered £251,000, an increase of £1,000 on the initial bid from a user calling himself andrew1901.

Brighton-based virtual pop group Gorillaz need your help.

The band is nominated for five awards, including best British group, single, album, video and dance act but, in order to win, will need help fighting off strong challenges from the likes of Craig David and the Stereophonics.

You can vote for them, or the other nominees, at the Brit Awards 2002 web site.

If only we could vote on who Ms Hammond should marry.

www.amazon.com
www.johnlewis.com
www.gorillaz.com
www.qxl.com
www.brits.co.uk