news.bbc.co.uk— Intelligent software "agents" that can negotiate on behalf of web shoppers are about to be set free on the net.
Aug 6, 2009View in Crawl 4
"Heuristics are commonly used in computer science to find an optimal solution to a problem when there is not a single "right answer"."Well, not really. They're rules to come up with a decision but there's no guarantee it's an optimal decision.
Actually, this works quite well for the buyer. Quite bad for the seller.... thus the system is doomed.Unless the system blacklists certain customers (who would simply buy from fixed-price outlets instead) you can't stop people from simply entering $1 (or the lowest allowable "bid") on everything, repeatedly, to quickly reveal the lowest offers. Besides, data would quickly accumulate comparing what others have paid for the same product leading to a quasi fixed-price scheme anyway.It's a neat idea but simply disadvantages sellers too much to be widespread.
4antistupidAug 6, 2009
"Heuristics are commonly used in computer science to find an optimal solution to a problem when there is not a single "right answer"."Well, not really. They're rules to come up with a decision but there's no guarantee it's an optimal decision.
jeffsback2223Aug 6, 2009
And I will ignore them with the speed and grace I ignore spam with.
antdudeAug 7, 2009
"Welcome back Mr. Anderson, we miss you."
Closed AccountAug 7, 2009
Wait, your saying actually having to obey the laws of supply and demand instead of capitulating to price fixing is bad?
dranokAug 7, 2009
Actually, this works quite well for the buyer. Quite bad for the seller.... thus the system is doomed.Unless the system blacklists certain customers (who would simply buy from fixed-price outlets instead) you can't stop people from simply entering $1 (or the lowest allowable "bid") on everything, repeatedly, to quickly reveal the lowest offers. Besides, data would quickly accumulate comparing what others have paid for the same product leading to a quasi fixed-price scheme anyway.It's a neat idea but simply disadvantages sellers too much to be widespread.
upgoingDec 17, 2009
interesting...zzXz