SOFTWARE AGENT FOUNDATION FOR DYNAMIC INTERACTIVE ELECTRONIC CATALOGS

This article presents our approach toward the realization of dynamics product catalogs on the World Wide Web. The key innovation is the use of software agents that assist users in various ways during their inte raction with such catalogs. The article first explains the two basic c oncepts underlying our approach, namely, agents and locations. It then elaborates on the system architecture that realizes the multimedia ag ent-based interactive catalogs. An example scenario, drawn from the do main of fashion, is used to illustrate these concepts and techniques. From the experience in developing this and other demonstrators, some o f which are in practical use, we identified the major benefits of our approach and the opportunities entailed in the agent-based approach.