Joakim Eriksson's talk described an agent-based infrastructure that he and his colleagues are building to automate market interactions, such as searching for business partners, negotiating, and settling a deal. Although the Web can be used for such purposes, it is not quite adequate because: 1) the data on the Web is unstructured (there is text, graphics, video, etc.), and 2) the type of interaction offered by web browsers is not tailored to business transactions.
The main focus of the work is to develop information and interaction models. The information model should satisfy the following requirements: 1) the data should be presented as structured knowledge; 2) the participants' interests and their potential business deals should be adequately represented by well-defined description languages; and 3) the approach should be object-oriented. With respect to the interaction model, it must be simple, but able to model a wide range of types of market interactions. Examples of primitives one can use to carry out an interaction in their model are: ASK, TELL, NEGOTIATE, OFFER, ACCEPT, and REFUSE. Joakim then showed how information is represented and how interactions are modeled under their approach through a number of examples. The examples included direct transactions between two individuals, someone seeking the help of a broker, and an auction.
Joakim then briefly talked about other components of Market Place, the project that the work in this paper is part of. One of the components connects Market Place with the Web, allowing users of one system to use the other. The Market Place group is also developing agents that have roles (brokers, auctioneers, buyers, etc.). The system will be tested in Spring 1997.
During the question period, Eran Gabber asked about the use of English as a universal language in their system. Joakim said that the Web also has this problem, and that the Market Place is not trying to solve it. Instead, they plan to just plug in solutions, once they are available.