Bureaus that are membership organizations or service providers
- Bbbonline.org - a web better business bureau
- BizRate Guide - publishes an on-line popularity charts
- Netcheck.com - a web chamber of commerce
- Wabureau.com - another source of help for consumer disputes
- ThePublicEye.com - a Good Webkeeping Seal of Approval
- Truste.com - allows sites to display its Trustmark logo if the enrolled site meets privacy guidelines.
- Verisign - sells digital certificates and signatures
Shopping Agents and ShopBots
Expectations for shopping agents vary widely. Some people would be happy if they could find a product on the web at any price. For them the search engines at an internet mall or the online shopping services found on Excite or Yahoo might, with great patience, suffice. Some people mistakenly think of these engines as shopping agents. Regardless, if you look long enough, you will probably find a vendor for almost any kind of specialty merchandise these days.
Others are bargain shopping and want to find the best price available anywhere on the web. This is much harder and seldom accomplished because standards for agents are still evolving and there is no single agreed on format for SKU numbers and prices. The software for comparison shopping has been variously named shopping agents, shopping bots and shopbots. Sites that claim this capability are 90% hype and 10% reality.
By volume the largest grossing web markets are books, computer items, and airline tickets. The web being what it is, these are, of course, in a constant state of flux. Many other kinds of products can be found at virtual shopping malls, but finding them and comparing them is difficult without something like a Universal Product Code. The book trade equivalent of a UPC for books and tapes is called the ISBN and for magazines is called the ISSN. A shopping agent is little more than hype if it can not at a minimum compare apples with apples. Most of them can't. The ISBN makes book shopping agents unique and a lot easier to implement. So there are lots of them and compared to other kinds of shopping agents. They perform rather well. Early music agents failed because key online music outlets sabotaged such agents by blocking them. Your boycott of such outlets as a conscientious consumer is one way to respond. Such outlets are typically hiding their high prices.
Shopping agents are still in their infancy. Many companies are working hard using various approaches to develop products that not only compare products, but keep looking for them over time so that you can be notified as new items that suit your personal tastes become available. They may also be able suggest other items that might substitute for or enhance the item you are looking for. The approach called collaborative filtering is used to suggest other items you might like based on the combined experience of others who bought the item you want. This mechanism is now in use at the better online book and music sites. Several online booksellers have also installed notification systems with which a user can keep abreast of certain kinds of books as they are announced or released. The early portion of this page is dedicated to consumer usability. More advanced topics are presented toward the end of the page for the technically inclined.
Technical Resources
General purpose search software
- Blaze Web - a PC package from Datalytics for parallel web searches (review)
- Cybersearch - searches the web, your LAN or your PC hard drive with Verity (review)
- Fastfind - a searching aid from Symantec for the PC only (ZD Devhead)
- NetAlive.com - a developer tool for programmers and news viewer for PC
- NetBots - Macintosh utility that lets you send virtual "agents" out on the internet
- Phantom for webmasters by Maxum - web crawler, indexer & search engine, Mac & PC
- SurfJet Agent Downloads and Updates for Macintosh
- WebSleuth - PC multiple engine web searching tool from Prompt Software (review)
- WebSeeker - a quality search product from Blue Squirrel for the PC
- Also see Search Techniques and Tools Gopher Hole for comments on 7 PC tools or one of this summary PC Search Tools
Licensed Agent and Personalization Software Technology
- AffiliateBots - off the shelf shopbots available for hire
- Aglets Workbench - a technology demonstration from IBM for mobile agents
- DataBuster - an Aptronix software agent engine using patented fuzzy logic
- FrictionlessValue Comparison - private label service to commerce sites and portals
- InfoMagnet - personalized search and retrieval filtering from CompassWare
- Net Perceptions - makers of personalization technology used by Amazon
- One-To-One - software by Broadvision for the operation of personalized sites
- General Magic - intelligent agents based on its Tabriz AgentWare technology
- Twisted Links tool - from agent software maker Context Media
- Intelligent Agent Systems & Applications - links to technology leaders
Agent Resource Sites
- AgentLand - Bots/Intelligent Agents (aka botspot.com)
- Agents Abroad - Gigantic link list of agent related resources
- Network Commerce and Intelligent Agents - extensive link list of resources
- UMBC Agent Web - extensive site of links and content including this list
- Agent Technologies - extensive agent links with knowbots, modeling, Java, AI, VR
- Software Agents - assistant, believable, coordinated, info integration, mobile agents
- Intelligent Agent Resource Links for people and sites devoted to agents, AI and hypertext
- Agents '97 Related Sites - link list of interesting agent and AI sites
- The Web Robots Page - includes a database of robots, a FAQ and references
Articles
Short Articles
- Intelligent Agents Go Car Shopping (from PC Magazine) - about General Magic
- SHOPPER research project for grocery shopping - simulation of agent tasks
- Company Pushes Personal Agent Standard by Virginie Pelletier about yourcommand
- New Payment Systems Hope to Cash In - forbes article on virtual money
- ZDnet Directory of E-money Players - brief link list by category
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- Feature Articles
- Welcome to the future of online shopping by Sam Meddis from USA Today
- I'll have what she's having by Fred Hapgood in CIO WebBusiness - Dec. 1996
- Procurative Powers by Leigh Buchanan in CIO WebBusiness - May 1997
- Intelligent Software by Pattie Maes founder of Agents, Inc, agents as helpful
- Commercial Software Agents Survey - the responses to three key questions
Academic
- Intelligent Agents - Prof Mark Nissen, 1995 (122K) with bibliography
- Scalable Comparison Shopping Agent(.ps.gz) (20pp) ShopBot writeup with bibl.
- A GLOBAL STUDY OF COMMERCIAL WEB SITES - by James Ho with bibl.
- The Next Economy? by De Long and Froomkin (67K) [draft]
- What's an Agent, Anyway? A Sociological Case Study by Lenny Foner at MIT
- MIT research papers and talks by Rob Guttman - Papers/talks on Kasbah & Bazaar
- AMEC: Agent-mediated Electronic Commerce - projects and papers from MIT
- Oren Etzioni's Home Page - a list of publications by the cofounder of Netbot, Inc
- Agent-Based Engineering, the Web and Intelligence - by Charles Petrie, IEEE Expert
- PayPal.com Case Study - good comparison of cybercash methods
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Bibliographies and Indices
- The Collection of Computer Science Bibliographies (Karlsruhe)
- Indices - computer science oriented
- Bibliography on intelligent agents and multi-agent systems
