Information and interaction in marketspace: towards an open agent-based market infrastructure
Joakim Eriksson, Niclas Finne, Sverker Janson · 1996
The lack of structure of information and interaction in current web-based electronic commerce makes partial or full automation infeasible. We describe the first steps towards an open agent-based market infrastructure, with well-defined information and interaction models allowing agents to locate relevant market participants, exchange interests, and negotiate deals. We also describe an architecture and a prototype based on these ideas, and illustrate the operation of the prototype in an example scenario. 1 Introduction Current web-based commerce is by and large a replica of real-world commerce. Customers are supposed to visit various electronic storefronts, inspect the digital displays of goods and services, and, perhaps after some comparison shopping, place an order. Unfortunately they have to do it in person. Attempts at supporting the customer through "intelligent agents" are guaranteed to be in vain, unless the underlying model is changed. It would have to be one bright agent to, ...