American Web Builders Launches Comprehensive eCommerce Development Solutions to Help Small Businesses Compete in the $6 Trillion Online Marketplace

NY Weekly Staff on May 8, 2026

By: Content Strategy Division, American Web Builders

New York, NY, Six trillion dollars. That is how much money changed hands through online retail last year, give or take. Most of it went straight into the pockets of Amazon, Walmart, and a handful of companies big enough to throw millions at their websites without blinking. Everyone else got the scraps.

American Web Builders, a New York-based agency that has spent years working with online businesses on conversion and customer experience, is now making its eCommerce playbook available as a dedicated service line. This is not a company testing the waters. The agency has worked on projects for major brands and early-stage startups alike, and the new offering puts a name on what they have been doing all along and opens it up to the small businesses that need it most.

We are talking about the candle maker selling through Instagram DMs because her website does not have a cart. The supplement brand owner who cannot figure out why customers abandon the checkout page. The brick-and-mortar shop has twenty years of loyal customers but no online presence to speak of.

“Most of our eCommerce clients do not come to us with a blank slate. They come with a store that is already live but is not making money,” a company representative said. “The site exists, but nobody thought about the customer’s buying journey, the brand story, or how to turn a first-time visitor into a repeat buyer. That is where we start.”

More Than a Store, A Sales Engine

Building an online store is the easy part. Thousands of agencies and DIY platforms can do that. The harder question, the one most small businesses never get a good answer to, is what happens after the store goes live.

American Web Builders treats eCommerce as a customer experience problem, not just a web design problem. Every project starts with a conversion strategy. How does a customer find the store? What do they see first? What makes them trust the brand? What encourages them to come back? The agency’s developers, designers, and marketing strategists build the answers to those questions directly into the site architecture, the content, and the marketing campaigns that run alongside it.

This is the gap that template platforms like Wix and Squarespace are not built to close. A template store with drag-and-drop editing might get a business online in a weekend, but it will not build a brand story that distinguishes one shop from thousands of others selling similar products. It will not structure product pages with search optimization in mind, and it does not map out a paid media strategy aligned with the rest of the brand experience.

American Web Builders does all of that under one roof, with one team, on one timeline.

Photo Courtesy: American Web Builders

A Look at the Agency’s Approach

One recent project involved a nonprofit organization that came to American Web Builders with no online presence at all. The agency built the site from scratch, created a custom donation portal connected to Stripe, designed the branding, and wrote three grant proposals, including a federal funding application. The organization launched the site and reported positive feedback from donors on the user experience.

That project illustrates the agency’s philosophy. The team aims to deliver more than a website by approaching each engagement as a full digital presence project.

Other eCommerce stores the agency has worked on have focused on improvements to product page structure, checkout flow, and search visibility. The agency builds these elements into the project from the start rather than treating them as afterthoughts.

Who Should Pay Attention

Any small business owner who has tried selling online has felt like they were shouting into a void. Any founder who built a store on a template platform and watched it flatline. Any retailer who knows their product is good but cannot figure out why the internet does not seem to agree.

American Web Builders works across industries, from fashion and food to wellness, professional services, and beyond. The agency handles custom builds, SEO, content marketing, paid advertising, and ongoing maintenance as a single integrated operation.

Small business owners interested in learning more can request a consultation at www.americanwebbuilders.com or reach the team directly at sales@americanwebbuilders.com.

About American Web Builders

American Web Builders is a web development and digital solutions agency founded in 2016. The company works with startups, small businesses, and growing brands across industries, including retail, health and wellness, food, fashion, and professional services. Its team of designers, developers, and marketing strategists handles everything from custom website builds and eCommerce development to branding, SEO, mobile app creation, and ongoing site maintenance. The agency operates out of offices in New York and serves clients nationwide. More information is available at www.americanwebbuilders.com.

Disclaimer: This article contains information about American Web Builders’ services and offerings. While we strive to provide accurate and up-to-date information, readers should conduct their own research and due diligence before engaging with any web development or eCommerce services. This content is for informational purposes only and should not be considered as professional advice. Some details about services, pricing, and availability may change over time.

Hochul’s $268B New York Budget Lands Pied-à-Terre Tax on NYC Luxury Second Homes

NY Weekly Staff 2 on May 8, 2026

Governor Kathy Hochul announced a $268 billion New York State budget framework on Thursday that includes a first-of-its-kind pied-à-terre tax on luxury second homes in New York City, a measure designed to help close Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s $5.4 billion budget gap without raising broader income or corporate taxes. The deal, which arrived 37 days past its April 1 deadline, marks the latest budget agreement of Hochul’s tenure and the most delayed in New York since 2010.

But the celebration may be premature. Within hours of Hochul’s Albany announcement, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie publicly disputed that any deal had been reached, telling reporters, “There’s no deal” and calling the governor’s announcement “very premature.”

What the Pied-à-Terre Tax Does

The proposed tax targets one-to-three family homes, condominiums, and co-ops in New York City valued at $5 million or more, when the owner maintains a primary residence outside the city. The annual surcharge is aimed at out-of-city ultrawealthy buyers and global elites who use New York real estate as a wealth-storage vehicle rather than a home.

State officials project the levy will generate at least $500 million in annual revenue for the city, though independent analyses have raised questions about that figure. According to The Real Deal, an analysis from the New York City Comptroller’s office estimates the tax could apply to more than 11,200 properties but may collect between $340 million and $380 million once rental exemptions and shifts in owner behavior are factored in.

The measure marks the first time such a tax will be enacted in New York State, after more than a decade of failed proposals from successive mayoral administrations. According to the Mayor’s Office, the tax has the support of 93 percent of New Yorkers in recent polling.

Hochul Holds the Line on Income and Corporate Taxes

Despite the new pied-à-terre tax, Hochul rejected broader tax hikes pushed by Mamdani allies and progressive groups, including increases to personal income taxes on those earning $5 million or more and a higher corporate tax rate on large businesses.

“There’s not a corporate tax. There’s not an income tax. I held true to what I said,” Hochul told reporters during her announcement, referencing her campaign-era pledge ahead of her November reelection bid.

She also turned down a last-minute push from Mamdani and City Council Speaker Julie Menin to roll back the state’s Pass-Through Entity Tax (PTET) benefit, a change the city estimated could have brought in $1 billion in additional revenue.

The decision drew criticism from progressive allies. Gustavo Gordillo, co-chair of the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, told NY1 that Hochul “consistently underestimates the political costs of ignoring what New Yorkers want,” pointing to recent Siena polling showing the governor’s lowest approval and favorability ratings in a year.

Tipped Wages, Climate Law, and Immigration Provisions

Hochul's $268B New York Budget Lands Pied-à-Terre Tax on NYC Luxury Second Homes (2)

Photo Credit: Unsplash.com

Beyond the pied-à-terre tax, the budget framework includes several other measures with significant implications for New York industries and workers.

The plan eliminates state income taxes on up to $25,000 in tipped wages starting in tax year 2026, mirroring part of President Donald Trump’s federal tax agenda and offering relief to New York’s hospitality and service sectors.

The deal also adjusts the 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, moving the deadline for the state to release carbon emissions regulations from 2030 to 2028 while introducing a new interim target of a 60 percent emissions reduction by 2040. The 2050 net-zero target remains unchanged.

On immigration, the budget bars New York local police from being deputized by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and prohibits state and local law enforcement from acting as civil immigration agents. All law enforcement officers will also be banned from wearing masks except in cases of operational necessity. The provision follows reported comments from Trump administration border czar Tom Homan suggesting more ICE agents could be sent to New York.

The agreement also includes $40 billion in school aid, the highest education allocation in state history, and $28 billion in total aid for New York City, an increase of $9 billion since Hochul took office.

Wall Street and the Griffin Effect

The pied-à-terre tax has already drawn pushback from Wall Street’s wealthiest. Billionaire Citadel founder Ken Griffin, whose $238 million Central Park South penthouse Mamdani singled out in a Tax Day video, called the mayor’s messaging “creepy and weird” and said New York “doesn’t welcome success” under the new administration. Griffin announced Citadel plans to expand in Miami over New York City in response, according to CNN Business.

The episode highlights a structural quirk of the city’s property tax system: Griffin’s 23,000-square-foot penthouse, the most expensive home ever sold in the United States, is currently assessed at just $9.4 million by the city’s Department of Finance, which values condos and co-ops as if they were rental buildings rather than at market value.

That assessment gap has prompted Hochul’s office to back off using assessed values to determine which properties qualify for the new tax. According to The Real Deal, the governor’s team now plans to use comparable sales data and other valuation mechanisms to identify properties worth more than $5 million, addressing concerns that the city’s Department of Finance routinely undervalues high-end residential real estate.

What Comes Next

The framework still needs final approval from the state legislature, and Heastie’s pushback signals significant unresolved issues remain, particularly on the financial side of the budget. Voting on the budget bills could take place as soon as next week.

For the pied-à-terre tax to begin generating revenue in fiscal year 2027, which starts July 1, 2026, the city would need to establish a new property valuation and collection system in less than two months — a timeline several real estate analysts have described as ambitious.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman criticized the budget in a statement, calling it a “triple threat” of higher taxes, record spending, and rising utility costs. Hochul, meanwhile, framed the deal as proof that the state can address affordability and city finances “without raising statewide taxes at all.”

For Mamdani, the pied-à-terre tax represents a partial victory — a tangible step toward his “tax the rich” platform — but falls well short of the broader income and corporate tax overhaul his campaign envisioned. As the mayor put it Thursday, his administration is “fighting every day” to ensure the wealthy “contribute what they owe,” with more battles in Albany likely ahead.

Dr. Ashok Gupta of TheraNow on Why Clinicians Reject AI Tools, Even When Leadership Mandates Them

NY Weekly Staff on May 8, 2026

By: Eva Keller

There is a pattern playing out across health systems right now that most executives would rather not talk about. Leadership approves a new AI tool, the procurement team signs off, the IT department runs the integration, and then six months later, the clinicians still aren’t using it. Not because they’re resistant to technology. Not because they don’t understand the value. But because nobody asked the right question before the build even started.

Dr. Ashok Gupta, founder of TheraNow and a Doctor of Physical Therapy who has spent over a decade deploying technology inside live clinical environments, has watched this pattern repeat itself more times than he can count. His diagnosis is straightforward. “Healthcare doesn’t lack innovation,” he says. “It lacks implementation.”

That distinction matters more than most people in health tech want to admit. The industry has spent years celebrating new tools, platforms, and AI capabilities while consistently underestimating how difficult it is to make any of them stick in real clinical workflows. The result is a graveyard of well-funded products that failed not because the technology was wrong, but because the integration was an afterthought.

Gupta uses a simple analogy to explain where most founders go wrong. “A lot of founders like us start building a product first,” he says. “You’re building a house, but we don’t have power, water, or sewer.” In other words, the infrastructure that makes a product usable within a health system must come before the product itself. Distribution strategy, workflow integration, and data pipeline compatibility are the utilities. Without them, even the most sophisticated AI tool is just an isolated piece of software sitting outside the systems clinicians actually use every day.

Epic controls a dominant share of the EMR and EHR market in the United States. For any enterprise health tech product, integration with Epic is not optional; it is the difference between existing inside a clinician’s workflow and requiring them to leave it entirely. “If your clinicians have to actually leave the software and get onto a standalone website,” Gupta explains, “that’s where you’re asking to break the workflow.” And in healthcare, broken workflows don’t get repaired. The tool gets abandoned.

This is the core reason clinicians reject AI tools even when leadership mandates them. The mandate addresses adoption from the top down. The workflow problem operates from the bottom up. When a new tool adds steps, creates friction, or requires a clinician to context-switch mid-patient interaction, the path of least resistance is always to work around it. Over time, workarounds become habits, and the tool quietly disappears from daily use, regardless of the policy.

Gupta sees this failure mode as entirely preventable, but only if builders are willing to prioritize workflow fit over feature richness from day one. “If your tool requires a massive behavior change, adoption fails,” he says. “If it reduces the workload inside the existing workflows, ROI follows.”

The practical implication for health system leaders evaluating new AI tools is to stop asking what the tool can do and start asking where it lives inside the existing workflow. Does it require clinicians to open a separate platform? Does it ask for data input at a point in the process where clinicians are already focused on patient interaction? Does it create a new task or eliminate an existing one?

TheraNow has built its entire AI strategy around eliminating tasks, not adding them. The focus is on using AI to remove the administrative load that was never supposed to be part of clinical work in the first place, such as documentation, coding accuracy, and compliance checks. “We’re focused on building infrastructure inside health systems,” Gupta says, “not just software.”

That framing is the difference between a tool that gets mandated and a tool that gets used. In healthcare, those are rarely the same thing.

Canvas Hack Disrupts 9,000 Schools Worldwide as ShinyHunters Demands Ransom

NY Weekly Staff 2 on May 8, 2026

A cyberattack on Canvas, the learning management system used by more than 30 million students and teachers globally, disrupted classroom access at thousands of schools and universities on Thursday, May 7, 2026, after the hacking group ShinyHunters breached parent company Instructure for a second time and posted ransom messages on user login pages.

The breach hit during finals week at many U.S. universities, locking students out of exams, course materials, and grade portals. Instructure restored service for most users by Friday morning, though Canvas Beta and Canvas Test remained in maintenance mode as of publication.

What Happened in the Canvas Hack

Students and faculty logging into Canvas on Thursday afternoon were greeted by a message from ShinyHunters claiming the group had breached Instructure “again” and threatening to release stolen data unless a ransom was paid by May 12, 2026.

The message read in part: “ShinyHunters has breached Instructure (again). Instead of contacting us to resolve it they ignored us and did some ‘security patches.'” The group instructed affected institutions to consult cyber advisory firms and contact ShinyHunters through the encrypted messaging app Tox to negotiate a settlement.

Instructure responded by placing Canvas, Canvas Beta, and Canvas Test into maintenance mode while it investigated the incident. The company said it first detected unauthorized activity on April 29 and identified the May 7 intrusion as related to the same vulnerability.

In a statement, Instructure said the attacker exploited an issue tied to its Free-For-Teacher accounts and that it has temporarily shut down those accounts as a result. The company also said it notified the FBI, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and international law enforcement partners.

Scope of the Breach

ShinyHunters claims the attack affected nearly 9,000 schools worldwide and exposed data belonging to roughly 275 million users, including more than 3.65 terabytes of records. The full scope has not been independently verified.

Affected institutions include all eight Ivy League universities, including Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, and the University of Pennsylvania. Public university systems such as Rutgers, Stanford, Duke, Georgetown, MIT, Penn State, and multiple University of California campuses were also impacted, along with California State University campuses including Sacramento State, Long Beach, and Humboldt. K-12 districts in California, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Nevada, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, and Wisconsin reported disruptions, as did international institutions in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, and the Netherlands.

In Australia, the federal government’s National Office of Cyber Security is coordinating a response. In the Netherlands, 44 educational institutions reported impact, according to the umbrella organization Universities of the Netherlands.

What Data Was Compromised

According to Instructure, the compromised data may include names, email addresses, student ID numbers, and private messages between users on the Canvas platform. The company stated it has found no evidence that passwords, dates of birth, government identifiers, or financial information were involved in the breach.

ShinyHunters has disputed the scope as described by Instructure. In a statement to the Daily Californian, the group claimed to have stolen more than 600,000 records from UC Berkeley alone, including student and staff email addresses, names, student IDs, course enrollments, and private messages.

The Daily Pennsylvanian reported it confirmed ShinyHunters had obtained Penn user data after the group shared a sample that included Canvas user accounts and internal messages between students and faculty.

Impact on Students During Finals

The attack came at a disruptive time for higher education, with many U.S. universities holding final exams. At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, one student was kicked out of a Microbiology 303 exam mid-test, according to The Daily Cardinal. Students at the University of Pennsylvania reported being logged out while studying for finals, forcing professors to distribute course materials through alternative channels.

Several institutions extended deadlines, rescheduled exams, and asked faculty not to penalize students affected by the outage. At Sacramento State, Provost Erika Cameron emailed faculty asking that students not be penalized as a result of the incident.

The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction removed Canvas access from NCEdCloud, the state’s sign-on portal for K-12 schools, until officials determine it is safe to restore. The Wake County Public School System also removed Canvas from its student portal and instructed staff and students not to use the application.

Who Is ShinyHunters

Canvas Hack Disrupts 9,000 Schools Worldwide as ShinyHunters Demands Ransom (2)

Photo Credit: Unsplash.com

ShinyHunters is a cybercrime group founded in 2019 or 2020 that has been linked to several high-profile data breaches. According to Luke Connolly, a threat intelligence analyst at cybersecurity firm Emsisoft who spoke with the Associated Press, the group is described as a loose collection of teenagers and young adults based in the United States and the United Kingdom.

The group has previously claimed responsibility for breaches at Ticketmaster owner Live Nation in 2024, where it said it stole the personal details of 560 million customers. It has also been linked to attacks on Vimeo, Salesforce, McGraw Hill, and the K-12 student information system Infinite Campus.

ShinyHunters previously targeted the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard, and Princeton in November 2025, leaking 1.2 million lines of data after the universities reportedly refused to pay ransom demands.

In 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice sentenced 22-year-old French citizen Sebastien Raoult, an alleged member of ShinyHunters, to three years in prison and ordered him to pay more than $5 million in restitution.

What Comes Next

ShinyHunters set a May 12, 2026 deadline for Instructure or affected schools to contact the group and negotiate a settlement. It remains unclear whether Instructure plans to pay the ransom.

According to DataBreaches.net, the Instructure listing was removed from ShinyHunters’ dark web leak site after the defacement of Canvas login pages, which security researchers say could indicate that Instructure or affected institutions have made contact with the group, though the company has not confirmed any communication.

Instructure has advised users that no immediate action is required and said it is continuing to investigate. Affected schools have advised students and faculty to monitor official institutional channels for updates and to be cautious of phishing attempts that could follow the breach.

Canvas is used by approximately 41 percent of higher education institutions in North America, according to Inside Higher Ed, making it the most widely deployed learning management system on the continent.

Menu

Explore New York Weekly™

Legal & Support

  • Get published in New York Weekly™

Founders, executives, and brands ready to build credibility through publication.

Get Published

Follow Us

Facebook Instagram Linkedin

New York Weekly™ is not responsible for the content of external websites.

Copyright ©2026 Matrix Global, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Use of any part of this site implies acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. The content on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached, or used in any way without the prior written permission of New York Weekly.

Explore New York Weekly™

Legal

Explore New York Weekly

Legal

A Matrix Global Publication

New York Weekly™ is not responsible for the content of external websites.

Copyright ©2025 Matrix Global, LLC. All Rights Reserved.