Updated on 6 June 1996 by ausweb96@scu.edu.auAusWeb96 - Example Theme

Agent Technology In Electronic Commerce and Information Retrieval on the Internet


Bassam (Sam) Aoun sam@picasso.ece.curtin.edu.au


The paper discusses BargainBot, an interactive
search agent that facilitates searching for particular
product items on the Internet. BargainBot is currently being trialled
on bookstores, allowing users to simultaneously search multiple
bookstores for the details of particular books.

Electronic commerce is considered by many to be the next growth area
on the Internet. As well as secure transactions and practical payment
methods, the presence of search agents to assist searching for
particular product items on the Internet will be become increasingly
important to the success of Internet electronic commerce.

Whilst the sheer mass of information on the Web is already hindering
effective information retrieval, the collective size of the Web is
relatively small. Currently, the Web represents a fraction of 1% of
the world's publicly available information. However exponential growth
of the Web will increase this figure to an estimated 80% by the year
2000. With rapid growth comes the increasingly difficult task of
navigating the Internet. The ability to efficiently extract what is
absolutely relevant to a user's information needs will become crucial
to its effective use. Agent technology will aid this process.

Of interest to those seeking future solutions to effective information
retrieval on the network, the paper discusses agent technology in
Internet electronic commerce as well as general information retrieval
on the Internet. Resource migration transparency, effective
information querying, information retrieval on an intranet, and the
personalisation of agent technology will also be discussed.

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AusWeb96 - The Second Australian World Wide Web Conference, 7th to 9th of July 1996, at the Conrad Jupiters Hotel, Gold Coast, Australia. Contact: Ms Julie Burton, Norsearch Conference Services at Southern Cross University, PO Box 157, Lismore, NSW 2480, Australia. Phone (066) 20 3000 (From outside Australia +61 66 20 3000) Fax: (066) 22 1954 (From outside Australia +61 66 22 1954). Email: ausweb96@scu.edu.au.