The major search engines index a relatively small amount of the Web, therefore combining the results of multiple engines can return many documents, which would otherwise not be found. Cyveillance claims that there are over “3.2 billion + unique, publicly available pages exist on the Internet,” and that “the Internet is growing at an explosive rate of more than 7 million pages each day”.

Traditional Search Engines

Although, despite a flood of results in the form of 10,000 or 20,000 hits in response to a search query, not many of the links seem to contain the information we actually seek. “We wade through the first three, four, or even five results screens, then we “might” attempt to refine the search or transfer it to another search tool, only to face the same outcome: an overwhelming amount of information irrelevant to our information needs”.

Traditional search engines have a number of deficiencies including: duplicate links, periods of downtime, low coverage, inefficient user interfaces, out of date databases, poor relevancy ranking and precision, and difficulties with spamming techniques. The results from identical searches can vary from as much as 40%, but usually contain about 60% of the same information. Some provide more information than others, and the amount of web pages they index varies. Some of the search engine databases are not growing as fast as others, and they are not updated regularly. Plus, the update crawler and spider program might not be very fast, which means that their information may not be current when you find it. MetaSearch engines have been introduced to address some of these and other difficulties.

MetaSearch Engines – Online And Offline

MetaSearch engines do not own a database of Web pages; they send your search terms to the databases maintained by other search engines. The idea of querying and collating results from multiple databases is not new. Companies like PLS, Lexis-Nexis, DIALOG MetaCrawler, and Verity have been developing systems that integrate the results of multiple heterogeneous databases for a long time.

The principle operation of online and offline MetaSearch engines are exactly the same. For each request, they query multiple search engines removing dead links, duplicate results, and irrelevant information, providing one consistent interface. They are good based on where they search, ease of use, ability to focus, capacity to handle more advanced searches intelligently, and by carefully routing your search terms and Boolean operators (+ – AND, OR, etc) properly to the designated search engines. Online MetaSearch engines are accessed from websites, and require you to be online in order for them to work. They do all of the work on-line, and do not use the resources of your computer.

Offline MetaSearch engines, usually called Desktop Search Applications, are software programs that are installed on your computer. In theory, they speed up the process of analyzing, refining, collating, removing duplicates, etc., and they generally provide more advanced functionality. Results are generally produced faster because they enable you to take advantage of your computer’s processing power and memory. Plus, you do not need to be connected to the Internet to make them function. You can define your search strategy and keyword formulas “off-line”, and then go online when you are ready to perform the search.

Customized Metasearch Tools

There are online MetaSearch engines that allow you to create your own personalized portal. This is good if you do a lot of searching, or if you have many specialized interests. You can organize your favorite search engines, sites, links to news and other resources, and more. You can also link to other portals, and you can become a published expert. Offline MetaSearch tools (Desktop Search Applications) usually provide more customized features. Some can access multiple resources available on your computer (Internet, Intranet, Extranet, local hard drives, etc.), they can run multiple search processes simultaneously, and they usually provide more search engines to choose from.

Additional features include the ability to save search settings so that you can run a search again, make modifications, and track changes. They can eliminate advertisements and other distractions (paid versions), and usually have a spellchecker and thesaurus. They can automatically monitor specified Web pages for changes, plus identify and retrieve new and relevant information on any topic. They offer end-user driven searches and programmed automated searches (repeatedly without any user intervention). The results of these searches are then available for you to access at your convenience.Plus, Intelliseek’s Bullseye Pro ADK, allows you to update and to add your own search engines in order to completely customize your MetaSearch capability.

Metasearch List Page (Pseudo Metasearch)

These sites contain a collection of search boxes for different search engines, or a drop-down menu that lets you choose among a list of available search engines. These are not really MetaSearch engines, but have simply collated the work of others onto a new home page, and it is primarily just a list of links. You simply enter the appropriate search terms into the dialogue box, and submit the search. Then the search is performed on the selected search engines, and the user is presented with a list of results in exactly the same way that they would if they had gone to visit that particular site directly. You can reduce the amount of time you spend going from one site to another in order to complete your search. It might also suggest other search engines for you, which you had not considered using before.

Other Features

A growing number of MetaSearch engines are becoming portals, offering many search variations and other services, such as useful secondary, portal-like services, stock quotes, airline tickets, shopping malls, news links, games, chatrooms, free e-mail, etc., and specialized collections of web-sites and resources for businesses, web designers, movie-goers, and other services. The goal seems to be to lure as many users to the site and keep them there as long as possible.

MetaSearch Problems

But, there are also some problems with some MetaSearch engines. MetaSearch engines are at the mercy of the search engines that they choose to reference, and they are unable to affect the internal workings of individual search engines. If an engine takes a long time to return a result, then you might need to wait. While some MetaSearch engines are particularly effective and sophisticated, some of them have particular deficiencies:

• The number of search engines that a MetaSearch engine will use varies dramatically (10–1000). They simply pass your search terms along to other engines, and sometimes results can be lost if your search is complex, or if it contains more than one or two words.
• They usually only spend a short amount time in each database, and often only retrieve 10% of the queried results.
• The quantity of results does not always equal satisfaction, and often times you need to refine the results of the search by searching again inside the original results.
• The way you enter search keywords (search engine protocol) is far from standardized, and if a search engine changes, then the MetaSearch engine also might need to change in order to perform a proper search.
• They give you the impression that searching is a very simple process, when it is more complex. Some have no instructions, no hints on how to create a better or more effective search, and no way of identifying how many search engines were used.

Conclusion

Overall, the new advanced search and customization features make MetaSearch tools very appealing. Be careful when listening to some of the negative comments you’ve heard about MetaSearch tools in the past (2 months ago). Most do a very good job of translating your search into the correct syntax required by different search engines, and they make your search experience much more efficient. They also provide a quick way for you to get some sense of the massive quantity of Web resources available on a topic, and they help you determine which individual search engine might be the best for your needs. They are not perfect, but their capabilities continue to improve, and they have an important place in the information searching process.

Author:  David Jurus

Shopbot Evolution

What are the implications of the widespread use of ShopBots and related types of autonomous agents in electronic marketplaces? How will the species of Intelligent Agents evolve? Looking ahead several years into the future, ShopBots will evolve into economic entities, interacting with billions of other self-interested software agents, including PriceBots, which are agents that set prices in order to maximize the profits for companies (just as ShopBots seek prices that minimize costs for consumers). When sufficiently widespread adoption of ShopBots by purchasers forces sellers to become more competitive, sellers will respond by creating PriceBots that automatically set prices so as to maximize profitability PriceBots will utilize price setting methods to combat the growing community of ShopBots, in a full-fledged agent-based economic war.

Automated Shopping

With time, the ShopBot will even allow you the option to remove the step of buying or shopping from your life. The rich behavioral information gathered by your LifeBot will allow it to begin to anticipate you needs and offer you options before you are even aware of the need. For example, you know that you purchase toothpaste roughly once every two months. As the ShopBot learns more about your purchasing behavior, it recognizes this pattern and begins to send a reminder to you before you need it again. You are also given the option to have the ShopBot automatically purchase toothpaste on a bi-monthly basis.If you choose to change brands, the ShopBot can provide you with options for another brand that will meet your needs based on your past purchases, and the database of information that it has.

Having determined many aspects of your personality, the ShopBot can send you a message when a new product hits the market. For example, your current car is two years old, which is the same age each of your previous cars were when you bought a new one. The ShopBot can pro-actively locate a few cars that are top-of-the-line. It sends you a message stating its about time you considered buying a new TV, it offers some suggestions of brands and features that you might like, and it finds a buyer for her old car. With the click of one button, your entire automobile upgrade is transacted for you in a ShopBot-enabled solution that removed all the time-intensive shopping she would otherwise have endured.

Conclusion

ShopBots will be caught up in a paradoxical dynamic with the customer. As the customer increasingly uses the ShopBot to find values, the ShopBot will get better at finding the types of products the customer desires, making the experience more personalized, thus convincing the customer to use the ShopBot more often. ShopBots will target merchants that meet the needs of each shopper’s profile, and will offer information other than just price (availability, features, comparisons, etc) so that customers receive a total value understanding of the products listed. The number one key driver for online shopping is getting the best price. ShopBots allow for ready price comparisons across global boundaries, and consumers will gravitate toward the best value. As prices in more affluent nations decline, developing nations will experience prices that rise toward a common mean.

Author: David Jurus

This is particularly true for the Internet because is not constrained by geographical boundaries and it is global in nature. Online merchants are able to compile complex behavioral data and catalog customer preferences in a manner never before available. Merchants who effectively analyze and utilize this data will be in the position to customize and personalize every shopper’s experience on their site. In this environment of increasing returns, those with the best customer data will provide the most value to customers.

Merchant Access

But battles over consumer privacy are now developing, and their outcome may deny merchants the total promise of rich one-to-one marketing. Ideally shoppers themselves will control merchant access to their information, but they may be willing to provide that information freely for better service. When merchant online stores acquire the ability to engage in price discrimination, consumers will of course seek ways of fighting back. One way will probably be to shop anonymously, and see what price is quoted when no consumer data is provided. Consumers can either attempt to prevent merchants and others from acquiring the transactional data that could form the basis of a consumer profile, or they can find anonymous intermediaries who will protect the consumer against the merchant’s attempt to practice perfect price discrimination by aggregating data about the seller’s prices and practices.

This leads to a growing category of info-mediaries, or parties who hold customer profiles, and make them available to appropriate vendors willing to pay for them. As ShopBots evolve, issues arise regarding the scope and limits of their functionality. A tremendous opportunity is opening for ShopBots to provide consumer quality functions, from service to advice; many ShopBots are already providing product information and recommendations. Soon, shopping services may begin to offer specialized retail environments, customer service, catalog maintenance, transaction processing, and other functions currently performed by retailers.

Collaborative Filters

Collaborative filters bring together consumers to exchange information about their preferences, and it lets you maintain your own interest database. Consumers may be able to use collaborative filtering techniques to form buying clubs and achieve quantity discounts. Or consumers will construct shopping personas with false demographics and purchase patterns in the hope of getting access to discounts. 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.

At the next level of complexity, the collaborative filter can be linked to a ShopBot. The truly interesting development comes when a customer’s personal preference data is available to every merchant that the customer visits. Upon the first visit, a merchant becomes able to tailor its virtual storefront to a fairly good model of a customer’s interest and desire.

Conclusion

The lost privacy is not without gain: every time a customer visits a virtual storefront that has been customized to their preferences, the search time is reduced, and they are more likely to find what they want – even if they didn’t know that they wanted it. Because ShopBots will aggregate powerful purchasing profiles of their user-base, merchants will be able to target customers much more deeply and cheaply than ever before. Thus, merchants will gladly purchase these profiles in order to discover new customers, bundle goods, develop cross-promotions, and create new products. More importantly, they will also be able to price discriminate. By connecting customers with the merchants who can best service them, ShopBots will act as powerful, value enhancing info-mediaries, and both the customer and merchant have the potential to benefit.

Author: David Jurus

Statistics

Specifically, while online users gave competitive price a nine out of ten rating on “importance,” they only rated it a 7.5 on “satisfaction”. Research reveals that the majority of online shoppers review three to five sites before making a purchase. Although, online buyers, whether using an agent or not, do not necessarily always choose the lowest price. Agents can give buyers a pretty good idea of choices, but in the end, the consumer weighs many factors before keying in that credit-card number, among them merchant name recognition, trustworthiness, and track record.

Commodity goods or “search” goods dominate the total online purchases thus far. When asked to list items purchased online, 50.8% of online buyers reported purchasing books and 50.6% reported purchasing software. Higher income online users have a higher propensity to make purchases, with almost 50% of users from wealthy households having purchased online. However, middle-income households comprise the largest percentage of overall online buyers, due to the fact that they are by far the largest overall user segment.

There is also a high correlation between the user’s familiarity with the Internet and the propensity to shop online. Close to 70% of online users who have used the Internet for over two years have either browsed or bought online in the last year. As the use of the Internet expands across demographics in the coming years, so will the profile of the online shopper.

Branding

While price is an important determinant of customer choice, branded retailers and retailers a consumer visited previously hold significant price advantages in head-to-head price comparisons. Consumer loyalty can also provide pricing power; consumers are willing to pay more to buy from a retailer they have visited previously. While ShopBot consumers appear to be price sensitive, 51% of them choose an offer that is not the lowest price returned in a search – factors other than price influence consumer choice. Retailer brand identity is at least one of the factors influencing consumer behavior. While branded retailers have the lowest price for only 15% of the book searches, they make up 27% of consumer choices. Likewise, the top three unbranded retailers, who have the lowest price 36% of the time, make up only 26% of consumer choices.

Sites like amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, and borders.com are “branded retailers”. Using almost any reference point, these are the most heavily advertised and well-known retailers in the Internet book market. For example, based on a search of Altavista, these 3 retailers make up 97% of the total number of Internet links to EvenBetter’s retailers. Similarly, according to Lexis Nexis, these retailers make up 93% of the references in the press.

Shopbots Causing Economic Destruction?

The rise of agent-based shopping could be destructive. It raises the possibility of a world in which retail shops providing valuable services are destroyed by an economic process that funnels a large percentage of consumer sales into what becomes a commodity market without middlemen: people use the high-priced premium cyber store to browse, but then use a bargain finder to purchase.

People have been using this strategy to purchase for decades: draw on the sales expertise of the premium store, and then buy from the warehouse. But the scope and ease of this strategy is about to become much greater. To merchants providing helpful shopping advice, the end result will be as if they spent all their time in their competitors’ discount warehouse, pointing out goods that the competitors’ customers ought to buy. The only people who will pay premium prices for the physical good will be those who feel under a moral obligation to do so (and thus pay for browsing and information services). Thus Cyber stores that offer browsing assistance may find that they have common interests with the physical stores in the mall, which fear that consumers will browse in their stores, and then go home and buy sales tax-free on the Internet.

Conclusion

Customers are very sensitive to how the total price is allocated among the item price, the shipping cost, and tax, plus customer server can influence the ranking of retailer offerings with respect to price. Consumers use brand as a proxy for a retailer’s credibility with regard to non-contractible aspects of the product bundle such as shipping time.

At some point soon it will become practical to charge for everything on the World Wide Web. Whether it will become economically feasible, or common, remains to be seen. The outcome of this battle will have profound economic and social consequences. Which vision will dominate absent government intervention depends in part on the human motivation of programmers, authors, and other content providers. Government will surely be called upon to intervene.

Written by David Jurus

Different Results

If you notice, ShopBots do not always provide the lowest price on every item, every time. For instance, when you’re hunting for products, some ShopBots will check out the prices at popular web merchant sites, but not always other merchant websites. Plus, the price of a product can vary as much as $100 from the “same” Internet merchant’s site. It can depend on whether you found the price through a shopping link, on a Web page, or through a ShopBot search engine.

It is also because they have relationships with particular merchants, varying depths of stored databases, and differing levels of search technology. There are some ShopBots that return results only for sites they have relationships with. Others crawl many sites, but move results for merchants with which they have affiliations to the top. Remember, there are no “pure” comparison-shopping sites. Many sites have arrangements with merchants to display the retailer’s goods in a search. They need to make revenue somehow, and advertising is not the most reliable way on the Web.

Merchant Affiliations

ShopBots may have affiliations with hundreds of merchants, and it’s often impossible to know which ones. In some instances, you’ll find information about affiliations on the ShopBot’s site, but in most cases, you just won’t know if a ShopBot is favoring particular merchant sites. Only the boldest retailers will deploy ShopBots that list affiliations and competitor offerings. The problems come when a merchant pays the ShopBot a fee, and when you search for a particular item, that particular retailer always comes up on top. Some users might think the price on top is the cheapest, but it is not necessarily true.

MySimon, unlike some agents, doesn’t charge merchants to be part of its searches. Instead, its business model is built on commissions of 2-5% of each sale, made to a buyer who accessed the site through a MySimon search. Merchants also have the option of paying to post logos or ad banners on the MySimon site. Also, Yahoo) charges its 75 affiliates to join Yahoo’s service; where as Excite has signed up over 500 affiliates free of charge. These differing approaches have serious implications for merchants depending on these services.

What can you do about ShopBot bias?

To remove a ShopBot’s bias, use one with good sorting features, and then sort the results by price. Do the same with at least a few additional ShopBots. The merchants themselves can make the process even trickier. Some include shipping in the advertised price; others add it later. Still, others add a “handling” charge “after” you’ve entered your credit-card information. When you add in the shipping cost of the product, it dramatically rearranges which was the best price on the original search. When you buy online, you should conduct at least three searches.

Sometimes, the best price will come from the manufacturer itself, or even your local retailer. But taking a few ShopBots along on your next online shopping trip can pay big dividends. Just remember to check more than one ShopBot, sort results by price, and pay close attention to online merchants’ shipping and handling policies before you make a purchase. And keep in mind that the price you found yesterday, might change tomorrow.

Conclusion

So buyer beware: The results given by a ShopBot may be skewed toward merchants that have agreements with a specific site. Even so, ShopBots are really good for consumers. By providing large amounts of information quickly and easily they put shoppers in a position of power. When several retailers sell the exact same item for different prices, it’s easy to see which offers the best deal.

Author: David Jurus

Merchant Secondary Revenues

Online merchants tend to make additional profits by selling advertising space on their Web pages. This appears to be an adequate business model, as long as the pages are accessed by humans. Agents, however, are unwelcome customers because they are not influenced by advertisements. As a result, agents are either intentionally blocked, or barely tolerated. Plus, some ShopBots want merchants to pay them for providing information to potential customers, therefore creating the proper incentives for welcoming new business. But, once ShopBots begin to charge for pricing information, it would seem natural for merchants (the actual owners of the desired information) to also charge the ShopBots. The merchants can use another form of ShopBot (PriceBot) to dynamically price this information. PriceBots are economically-motivated agents that set prices in order to maximize the profits for companies, just as Shopbots seek prices that minimize costs for consumers. Pricebots can be used to combat the growing community of Shopbots, and it illustrates how an entire economy of software agents could be created very quickly.

Merchant Blocking

The profusion of shopping sites has created a demand for providing information from multiple merchant sites. Some merchant sites do not want ShopBots accessing their sites, claiming that universal search functions are an “unauthorized intrusion” that places an unnecessary load on it’s servers, violates intellectual property rights, and misleads users by not returning the full results of some searches. The claim is that it’s prices and the details of the merchant offers to sell, are protected by copyright, trade secret, or other intellectual property law. There are current government proposals to change the law in a way that might make the claim more plausible in the future.

So far, the discussion has operated on the basis that merchants would have an incentive to block ShopBots if they are charging higher than normal prices. Merchants who block ShopBots tend to charge higher than normal prices because they are able to take advantage of consumer ignorance of other less expensive alternatives. Some stores are gouging buyers by taking advantage of relatively high costs of search (time, energy, etc.). Perhaps stores blocking ShopBots tend to charge higher than normal prices because they provide additional service or convenience. Strangely, some merchants may have had an incentive to block it if they charged lower than normal prices. As we all know, merchants sometimes advertise a “loss leader,” and offer to sell a particular good at an unprofitable price. Merchants do this in order to lure consumers into the store where they could be attracted to more profitable versions of the same products and services (leading, in the extreme case, to “bait and switch”), or in the hope that the consumer will buy other, more profitable, goods to round out the market basket. Plus, it increases traffic to the site and increases advertising revenues.

Conclusion

Ironically, not many merchant sites actually block agents. This is for three main reasons: Agents have become more commonplace, they drive traffic to the sites, and companies recognize that comparison-shopping goes with the cyber territory. Also, because ShopBot users are pre-qualified as buyers with intent on making a specific purchase, the traffic driven to retailer sites by ShopBots has a much higher conversion rate than traffic from banners ads. Online merchants that offer strong selection and good prices may see significant increases in traffic and purchase volume due to ShopBots. Increased volume leads to increased leverage with suppliers, additional advertising revenue, and further reduction of fixed costs. Therefore, merchants who successfully use ShopBots to increase volume will be able to survive the increased price competition.

Author: David Jurus

As the size of the World Wide Web grows, manual browsing for products and information becomes increasingly labor-intensive. You need a more effective method for shopping – you need a ShopBot.

What is a ShopBot?

The term is currently used for any Intelligent Agent or “Bot” that does automatic comparative price shopping on the Web. ShopBots automatically search the Internet to obtain information about prices, products, and services. They can provide one-click access to price and product information from numerous competing retailers, and they substantially reduce buyer search time. They provide a wider selection and greater availability, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

ShopBots integrate Intelligent Agent technology, with databases of pricing and availability information provided by merchants from all around the world. Some compare more than 1,000,000 prices on 100,000 different products, and then they collate and sort the available information for the user, all within seconds. They provide consumers with easy online access to prices and descriptions of products and services. After only a few minutes visiting the site, the consumer is in a good position to make an informed choice before making a purchase.

One of the best features of some sites is that you can put “functionally similar” products side by side and easily compare characteristics and price. Some offer independent price comparisons and detailed product information both from online and traditional stores, all on the same site. In this way the consumer’s choice is greatly enhanced, and this has not been possible until now.

They also strip away many advertising and marketing elements by listing only summary information from both well-known, and lesser-known retailers. ShopBots therefore make it easier for consumers to locate and evaluate unbranded retailers, which makes it a great equalizer for Internet markets, putting small retailers on a more equal footing with their larger and more well known competitors. They are agents of economic change. ShopBots improve the process of obtaining information and they increase competition among sellers, therefore reducing the price of products and services. They create a future in which autonomous agents profoundly influence international markets.

How do you use a ShopBot?

Online shopping is easy. Just a click a couple times, type in basic information, and before you know it, your order is at your door. If you understand how to use a search engine, you can use a ShopBot. You type the name of a product that you are interested in, then the ShopBot seeks out merchants and prices, and returns a list. Most ShopBots are accessed by going to a website, and others are accessed through software that you need to download on your computer.

But, not all shopping ShopBots are created equal. A ShopBot’s specific technology is usually invisible to the user, who is simply presented with a list of online stores and prices. Some sites provide a more comprehensive set of services, including reviews of online stores, form-filling services, and buyer-feedback forums. Others let you negotiate with participating merchants for a better price.

How does it work?

ShopBot technology currently utilizes two different approaches for collecting data. The first approach periodically polls web sites and indexes their findings inside databases. When you access the ShopBot information is delivered quickly and presented as search results. A negative outcome of this method, however, is that the polled information may become dated.

The second approach uses technology that scans the Web in real time. Prices and in-stock information are more likely to reflect timely, accurate data. However, because the search is being undertaken in real time, search performance suffers. Without a third-party filter, the information returned also may be less reliable.

There are several types of ShopBot sites:

1. Branded ShopBots are identified through a ShopBot website. A user goes directly to the ShopBot site, which has an easy, non-technical interface, and from there they launch a search.
2. Portal ShopBots conduct searches under the disguise of a comparative shopper service for the major portals. They are found within the shopping channels of large portals.
3. Retailer ShopBots conduct product searches on behalf of a user of a particular retailer web site, and they are marketed as a means to increase product offerings in their site, thereby attracting and satisfying more consumers.

And these can be sub-categorized by function:

4. Product ShopBots recommend products based on past selections or constraints specified.
5. Merchant ShopBots collect price and availability information.
6. Negotiator ShopBots buy, sell, and bargain with other ShopBots based on user parameters. 

Many auction sites function as Negotiators. Users can automate their bidding by (secretly) setting the highest price they’re willing to pay within a certain time frame, then letting the software handle the interaction with other bidders. Users can either place each of their bids manually, or they can set up a bidding ShopBot to place their bids for them. Some sites encourage bidders to not only place an initial bid but also to set up “proxy bidding” in which any competing bid immediately will be met with a response up to the user’s maximum price.

Bidding services invite customers to send a price they would be willing to pay for a commodity service or good. The price competition is, however, constrained. There is no obvious way for consumers to learn what deals others have been able to secure, and the bidding services appear designed to discourage experimentation designed to find out the market-clearing price. Some require the consumer to commit to pay if the offer is accepted, and others do not, but they track the user’s behavior with a “reputation” number that goes up when a merchant’s acceptance of a bid results in a purchase and goes down when an accepted bid does not lead to a purchase. In this case, sellers will be more likely to respond to your requests if you have a high rating. The auction style creates an additional problem when you’re ready to commit to the purchase. We clicked on a link, only to find the auction over.

Conclusion

By examining current online usage patterns, it is evident that ShopBots represent added value for consumers and online merchants. Consumers are using the Internet for finding products and services, and ShopBots currently provide an efficient and informative way to search for these items. ShopBots also reduce the amount of search time for the consumer. Rather than searching three to five sites prior to making a purchase, consumers can simply insert their purchase specifications and let the ShopBot do the searching for them. When a buyer knows what they want, they value a ShopBot, because it provides a fast and efficient alternative to offline shopping. As time becomes more precious, ShopBots will become even more valuable.

Author: David Jurus

What is MP3?

MP3  (MPEG-2 Layer 3) is an audio/music file format that offers small file sizes (12:1 compression) while maintaining near CD quality.  MP3 audio file names usually end with the .mp3 file extension, so it is easy to identify the files.  The size of an MP3 file varies based upon recording quality, but most are at about 1 meg for every minute of music (2-5 megs in size). The bit-rate identifies the level of compression of an MP3, and the higher the bit-rate, the better quality MP3 (but, conversely, the larger the file size).  This combination of high fidelity and small file size has made MP3 the file type of choice for transferring audio over the Internet.

Finding MP3 Music

Searching for audio files is as easy as typing in the title of a song, name of the artist, or an album name. You can download over 120 free MP3 Agents and experience the ease and use of this new technology. Sites like MP3 Center, Pure Mac, and MP3.comidentify numerous MP3 Agents and music file sharing programs currently available on the Internet.  You can also check out the ZDNet software library for a large supply of different software programs.  Sometimes just searching in general search engines such as Lycos, Yahoo, Altavista and Hotbot also produce good results.

Kazaa is the most popular MP3 Agent combining chat features with a music player, and lets users share their MP3 libraries with each other.  This software makes finding MP3 files easy, and they have access to a massive online music community. Like most file sharing systems, no files are actually hosted on their servers.  They provide access to music files on other computers connected to the network.  There are 4 major components:

• Search capabilities able to search linked computers throughout the world.
• A chat program to enable users to chat with each other in forums based on music genre.
• An audio player to play MP3 files inside the software, in the event that users do not have an external player, or prefer not to use one.
• A tracking program to allow users to keep track of their favorite MP3 libraries for later browsing.

The Gnutella site has also distinguished itself as one of the foremost authorities on file sharing programs as well.  Agent MP3 uses newsgroups as a source to find MP3s.  Songs can be saved separately or in a group, and searches can be conducted by category: classical, dance, rock, etc. MP3 Album Finder finds full albums, and single MP3 files on the Internet and on FTP servers.  It resumes downloads if it loses its connection, retries when sites are busy, and tells you all the information you need to know.  MP3 Grouppie is a MP3 newsgroup-monitoring agent that allows previewing of music, and since you’re downloading from a computer located at your Internet service provider, downloads always occur at the fastest possible speed.

MP3-Wolf is a search robot that continuously scans the Internet, and it can locate, sort and verify 10000’s of music files and links per hour. Planet.MP3Find claims to find any song, by any artist, in under 60 seconds, and it automatically locates and determines which MP3 Music Servers are online. TrackSeek is completely multi-threaded, which means it can check many search engines at the same time, and it combines the power of multiple search engines to bring you one of the most comprehensive MP3 search programs available. REAL MP3 Finder is multi-use and utilizes many different search engines to find MP3 files and lyrics!

3PMMP3’s MP3 Alert Service will search for MP3 files regularly and send you an email when music is available, so you don’t need to check back every day in the hope your song has appeared.  Rio Port is a full-featured jukebox that allows you to copy, download, organize, and playback digital audio files. Enhanced features allow you to burn audio CDs from WMA & MP3 files for playback on any CD player! You can even listen to streaming audio and view video clips.  There are also Meta Search engines that allow you to search many of the major search engines and directories all at once.  There are also download managers that manage downloads for you.  They can schedule downloads to take place while you’re sleeping, and they will automatically re-start interrupted downloads, resuming where they left off.

Playing MP3 Musicfiles

If you’re using Windows, you can play MP3s using Windows Media Player, or even better, you can try Winamp or Sonique.  If you have a Mac try Soundjam or  Macast  (or MVP for PC/Mac).  Plus, you don’t necessarily need a computer to play MP3 music files.  There are some very cool portable MP3 players on the market.  In addition, there are a few car MP3 players emerging to bring warmth to those long lonely drives around the block.  A great comparative list of portable and car players can be found at MP3.com.  There are also a lot of other units summarized and reviewed at MP3car.com.  If you have access to a CD-R burner, you can copy MP3 music files to a data CD, or convert the MP3 files to WAV format and burn the wave files to an audio CD for playback.

Now if you’re a purest DJ type and you actually want the beats of the songs synchronized, check out Virtual Turntables from Carrot, or Visiosonic’s PCDJ, which will allow you to do actual DJ type effects going from one MP3 song to another.  You can also try other software for mixing and special visual effects.  You can create a playlist containing all the MP3 files you have on disk, and there are many other MP3 databases programs that help you keep track of all your MP3 files.

MP3 Quality

Does MP3 offer good sound quality?  Well, it depends on your equipment, the quality of the recording, and your hearing capability.  Good encoding software really makes a difference.  Some encoding software produces results that sound awful, whereas other software produces good results.  The BladeEnc encoder produces MP3 files that are usually acceptable.  The LAME encoder, an open source project, is another good free alternative. Musicmatch Jukebox lets you encode at all bit-rates using a version of the Fraunhofer encoder.

128 Kbps compression is on the low side, while 192 Kbps done by a good encoder should sound pretty good under most circumstances (but higher kbps produces higher quality).  Uncompressed CD audio data requires a transfer rate of 1,411.2 kpbs (16 x 2 x 44,100), so MP3 data encoded for 128 kbps is compressed by a factor of 11.025.  Kbps (kilo bits per second) refers to the rate at which the audio data would need to transfer for real time playback.  It is also a measure of how much the audio data has been compressed in creating the MP3 files.

Making MP3 Musicfiles

Making MP3 music files is easy, and you can create MP3 files from any recorded music you have.  If you are recording a song off a CD, you will usually need a recorder (or “ripper”) that extracts it as a wave file. Exact Audio Copy is a good ripping program that produces good clean rips in difficult situations (tricky hardware, CDs in poor condition, etc.).  Then, you’ll need an encoder to make the wave file into an MP3. There are free burner programs from Feurio and Fireburner.  There are also some specialized programs that clean up the effects of scratches and noise during recording.  You can also record to MP3 from tapes or vinyl albums.  You can connect the output/headphone socket to the line-in of your sound card, and then use a program such as Cakewalk or Goldwave to record to WAV files.

You can also record streamed audio such as web radio using a standard WAV recording program such as Total Recorder or Goldwave, which will let you record and then encode the WAV file with any MP3 encoder.  It’s important to make sure that you are intercepting the digital stream before it is sent to the soundcard, instead of digital-to-analogue.  There are software programs for editing MP3 files, but editing MP3 files is tricky since MP3 is frame based.  In any case, there are programs that will perform some basic slicing of MP3 files.  If you want to do more than simple snips, you will need to decode to WAV and use a WAV editor like Cakewalk or Cool Edit.

Real Time Chat, Trading, Newsgroups, UseNet

There are many groups that talk about MP3 technology, especially the usenet groupsalt.music.mp3 and alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.  Try searching on Deja News for “mp3” and you will get a lot of results, or use special programs specifically designed for retrieving MP3 files from newsgroups (NewsShark), and other “file trading” programs such as iMesh, Spinfrenzy, and MediaShare.  To use IRC, you’ll need an IRC program, and MIRC is probably the best known.

MP3 Agents – Legal Issues

Are MP3s legal?  Well, like VCRs, and CD-Rs, yes they’re legal.  It’s what you do with them that make them questionable.  There are many sites offering free, legal downloads, although there seems to be many sites that are fostering the illegal distribution of copy-written material.  The Transcript of the chat held by the musical band Metallica, with ArtistDirect and Yahoo expresses some very serious concern.  The Recording Industry of Association of America (RIAA), the National Music Publishers Association (NMPA), the Business Software Alliance (BSA), and many others are very active on the subject, and they have filed several large-scale lawsuits.  Plus, they have established the the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI), which is a forum that brings together more than 180 companies and organizations representing information technology, consumer electronics, security technology, the worldwide recording industry, and Internet service providers.

But, there is a group of highly respected musicians such as Madonna, B.B. King, Prince, the Eurythmics, Bono (U2), the Dave Matthews Band, Green Day, and Chuck D who are expressing open opinions on the subject.  The RIAA and NMPA say, “we are not suing a technology, we are suing a company that is stealing work that does not belong to them. They cannot build a multi-billion dollar business on the backs of other people’s work”.  According to a report released from Forrester Research, the music and book publishing industry stands to lose billions in revenue from online file sharing, and there is not much anyone can do about it.  Digital Security Systems or lawsuits don’t seem to be able to stop Internet theft of content.  It only takes one person to break the encryption, and then it is available to everyone in the world.  It seems that music consumers will move to underground Internet services, and it is estimated that record labels will lose billions of dollars because of file sharing (book publishers too).  Musicians will actually benefit from this technology and it is proving to be a good way for small bands to gain a wider audience.

Conclusion

The combination of high fidelity and small file size has made MP3 the file type of choice for transferring audio over the Internet.  Searching for MP3 audio and music files is as easy as typing in the title of a song, name of the artist, or an album name.  MP3 allows you to store hundreds, or even thousands of your favorite hits with complete playlists and database management tools.  MP3 Agents and file sharing services are changing the face of the entire music and publishing industries, and they are impacting the whole Internet.  It is also proving to be a good way for small bands to gain a wider audience.  Sites that embrace artistic work will see the profits that traditional publishers lose, and artists will start to move toward self-publishing on their own websites. Everything is changing and it is starting to get exciting.  There are large companies, famous artists, the massive public, and big money involved.  It will be very interesting to see how everything turns out.

Author:  David Jurus

Some peer to peer networks are centralized, which means they have a central computer server to help direct traffic. This makes them easier to use, but also makes them vulnerable to lawsuit. Other networks aredecentralized, also referred to as distributed, like Gnutella and Freenet. Because these decentralized networks have no central server, each user must connect to a computer that’s already connected, a generally more cumbersome process. This lack of a centralized computer (or centralized organization of any kind) means there’s no way to stop or censor these networks. File sharing services didn’t just upset the music business, they introduced a completely new way of using the Internet. Before P2P, Internet users could only download from Web sites or FTP sites. But when Web surfers are connected to a P2P network, they can also download from each other’s hard drives. This is an enormous change. The innovative brilliance of this concept has been obscured by the controversy it has created, the legal battles, its challenge to the very necessary idea of copyright. But the issues raised by file sharing doesn’t change the fact that it makes the Net’s offering exponentially bigger. Peer to peer networking is here stay. Judging from the fact that Napster grew to over 30 million users in about two years, P2P file sharing has already become one of the central forces shaping the Internet. Napster is already gone, but it was only the first of dozens and probably hundreds of peer to peer networks. Many other developers have taken this concept and added their own twist. An entirely new cottage industry has sprung up: developing file sharing networks, swapping everything from music to videos to graphics to, well, whatever.

Forrester estimates record labels and book publishers have lost billions of dollars because of file sharing. Forrester interviewed 50 entertainment companies that produce five different kinds of content — music, movies, books, video games and television. While executives interviewed said that they will use DRM technology to stop file-sharing and sue Internet companies and consumers that don’t respect their copyrights, but that effort will be futile. Although, for now, movie companies have less to fear. The ways consumers use music are different from the ways people use movies. Pay-per-view and video rental business model serves consumers in the way they want, and it provides a cushion for the movie industry to transition to digital distribution over time. The next generation of peer-to-peer networks will need to offer media companies, enterprises and content owners a way to control, track and monetize their media assets.  They will integrate digital video content, digital rights management and commerce technologies into its peer-to-peer network. Business models that depend on content control won’t reap sustainable revenues. Publishers should treat file sharing services like competitors, and not presume it’s going to go away. They think of themselves as manufacturing companies, but that’s not the way consumers think about music. They want to be able to access music as a service. Sites that embrace artistic works as service to be provided and not a commodity to be manufactured will see the profits that traditional publishers lose, as will artists that move toward self-publishing.  File sharing networks are actually proving a good way for small bands to gain a wider audience. Musicians, authors, and third-party service companies will actually gain billions of dollars according to Forrester.

Conclusion

Consumers have spoken, and they demand access to content by any means necessary. Neither digital security nor lawsuits will stop Internet theft of content. Napster’s power stood as an indication of what Forrester Research terms “collapse of control.” File-sharing services are among the fastest growing Web sites ever. Lawsuits against file sharing companies haven’t exactly stigmatized online trading of pirated music – music consumers will always move to underground Internet services. The innovative brilliance of this concept has been obscured by the controversy it has created, the legal battles, its challenge to the very necessary idea of copyright. But the issues raised by file sharing doesn’t change the fact that it makes the Net’s offering exponentially bigger.

Author: David Jurus

But let’s move this to another level. Imagine a world where all electronic devices spontaneously synchronize with each other to help you manage your life, to consult, to transact, to travel, to do business, or to share an idea. Where you can have instant, automatic access to all your personal and business information, wherever you are, whenever you want. Where you can access your e-mail and the Internet from anywhere. Where you are able to instantly network with airlines, hotels, theatres, retail stores and restaurants for automatic check-in, meal selection, purchases and electronic payment right from your living room. You will have a Personal Area Network that serves all of your needs. When you think of it, you are linked to it.

Wireless Connectivity

We are entering a new era where full wireless connectivity is at our fingertips. Just like the Internet made it possible to connect all the computers of the world, we can connect all the appliances, devices, and computers in our everyday life. Everything is going to be connected. Plus, you can use it at home, at work, in your car, at the airport, virtually anywhere anytime, without the high cost, sophisticated networks, cables, etc.

Okay, so this all sounds really great, and you hear about this all the time. But what will make it all work? Well, some people think that the answer is a new technology called Bluetooth.

What is Bluetooth?

Well, in its most basic form, it’s just wireless communication. Where cables now connect many devices, a wireless Bluetooth connection provides low-cost wireless communications and networking between appliances, PCs, mobile phones and just about any other electronic device that you have. This will enable total connectivity to the Internet and other devices, anytime, anywhere.

More specifically, Bluetooth technology embeds tiny, inexpensive, short-range transceivers into devices. The short-range communications standard allows wireless data communications at ranges of about 35 feet (10 meters), and it operates on the globally-available unlicensed radio band, 2.45 GHz, supporting data speeds of up to 721 Kbps on three voice channels.

Bluetooth’s main strength is its ability to simultaneously handle both voice and data transmissions. It’s capable of supporting one asynchronous data channel and up to three synchronous voice channels, or one channel supporting both voice and data.This combination allows such innovative solutions such as a mobile hands-free headset for voice calls, print to fax capability, and automatically synchronizing PDA, laptop, and cell phone address book applications.

Who created Bluetooth?

In early 1998 a group of computer and telecommunications industry leaders, including Intel, IBM, Toshiba, Ericsson, and Nokia, began developing a way for users to connect a wide range of mobile devices quickly and easily, without cables. To ensure that this technology is seamlessly implemented in a diverse range of devices, these leaders formed a special interest group in order to design a royalty-free, open specification technology, code named “Bluetooth.”, which comes from the tenth century Scandinavian king, Harald Bluetooth. The Bluetooth SIG quickly gained membership from companies such as 3COM/Palm, Axis Communication, Compaq, Dell, Lucent Technologies UK Limited, Motorola, Qualcomm, Xircom and they encourage other companies to offer products that take advantage of a standardized, wireless means of connection.

Bluetooth is a built-in feature in more than 100 million mobile phones in several million other communication devices, ranging from headsets and portable PC’s to desktop computers and notebooks. Research firm Dataquest forecasts that the number of Bluetooth-enabled devices will continue to grow in the future.

How can you use Bluetooth?

Imagine that:

• An alarm notifies you when you moving away from your wallet, your keys, or your children.
• Your mobile phone allows you to send pictures and video, instantly to anyone, anywhere in the world.
• Your computer morphs from business to personal as you enter your home. An electronic bulletin board in your house automatically adds your scheduled activities to the family calendar, and alerts you of any conflicts.
• At the grocery store, you have preloaded your preferences for various food products into your PDA. As you walk through the isles, your PDA detects other Bluetooth PDAs and exchanges prices and preference information, and tells you about the best deals in the store. Plus, you can even download the latest coupons for your favorite products.
• You arrive at the movie theater to find a long line at the ticket counter. Using your Bluetooth technology PDA, you can confirm and pay for your tickets, avoid the long line, enter the theater, and take your preferred seat.
• As you enter a restaurant, you are handed a Bluetooth device which allows you to send messages, and communicate with others in the bar, to order and pay for food and beverage, and to participate in games such as Trivia and Clue.
• At the airport, you can avoid long lines by using your PDA to order an electronic ticket and automatically select your seat. The airline’s on-line system checks identification via the “ID-tag” feature built into your PDA and confirms your reserved seat. You then use Bluetooth technology laptops, PDAs, and other devices to access your office or home-based servers via the airline server. Using voice-over IP, you also make “free” Internet voice calls courtesy of your airline.
• As you enter a theme park, a map of the park appears on your display. You can view the schedule of activities for the park, the rides, etc., and your own personal electronic tour guide is downloaded to your PDA.

Conclusion

Technology like Bluetooth will alter the way we live our everyday lives. It provides for total connectivity making it easy to communicate with just about everything. There are so many possibilities for this type of technology, and it will simplify many problems for us. We will all benefit from one standard that will make everything connect, and it is good to know that many of the top international companies have agreed on one system. Are you ready to surf from the sofa?

Author: David Jurus