| A Classification of Product Comparison Agents (2003) | |||||||||||||||||
Abstract | |||||||||||||||||
| Over the last decade of rise and growth of e-commerce, a large number and variety of electronic comparison-shopping agents have emerged on the Web, but little research has been done on classifying them. In this paper, we propose a conceptual schema for categorizing comparison-shopping agents into three groups: differentiation agents, evaluation agents and preference agents. We describe and analyze each category in detail. We suggest that comparison-shopping agents can be regarded as a species in the ecosystem of Internet. They compete and cooperate with each other for information extraction and aggregation. By extending the classification, we suggest that a new species of comparisonshopping agent will emerge driven by technology evolution and consumer demand. | |||||||||||||||||
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