Online retailers try a new tack.
He recently bet the future of his new company on an unproven Internet strategy being pushed by a firm that is all of a year old. In fact, he says it three times in 45 minutes. The idea, as the word implies, is to offer education in the hope that it will boost commerce. Teach a man to fish, the theory goes, and maybe he'll buy a fishing rod. Fragasso's task is to create customers for Liberty Funds, a new branch of his company's mutual-fund business.