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BotSpot® Bi-Weekly Newsletter November 22, 2000 Changes Blowin' In the Wind By Brian
Proffitt It is easy to spot someone who shops online at this time of year. Instead of that pinched-nerve, anxious expression of someone who has five more people to get gifts for and upwards of seven stores to visit to achieve this goal, you will notice a growing number of folks who have a serene, calm expression. These, then, are the online shoppers. People who have used their time and resources not to brave the long lines and parking lots in the spirit of the holidays but rather have opted to go online to get their mission of joy and giving accomplished. How regular shoppers hate them. Last year saw a record number of new online shoppers hit the Internet in a sort of massive group experiment to see if they could find satisfaction in e-shopping. The experiment seems to have worked. According to a post-1999 holiday survey made by Congnititive, 90 percent of online shoppers said their expectations were wither met or exceeded. And 80 percent of the respondents were planning on spending as much or more this coming year. The experiment may have succeeded too well, as last year we were all awash in a flood of "my-Furby-didn't-come-until-January-7" media stories. The online retailers assure us they have battened down their collective hatches for the upcoming deluge of orders, but like any relatively new system, the kinks will surely still need to get worked out. Shopping bots are one way, or course, that online shoppers can make their lives even easier this holiday buying season. But how do the online retailers officially feel about visitations by our little automated helpers? Amazon.com, the grand dame of the e-commerce world, has this to say about bots in its Conditions of Use policy: "This license does not include any resale or commercial use of this site or its contents; any collection and use of any product listings, descriptions, or prices; any derivative use of this site or its contents; any downloading or copying of account information for the benefit of another merchant; or any use of data mining, robots, or similar data gathering and extraction tools." Not exactly friendly. On the other hand, eToys has no mention of shopping agents and bots in its Terms of Use, nor does 800.com. Don't expect a friendly welcome at ToysRUs.com; they merged Web operations with Amazon.com this year to meet the holiday crunch. This is just a very small sampling, of course. Veteran users of bots should already have a good feel about which sites are bot-friendly and which aren't. Gaining the full trust of e-commerce sites is no small step for the bot community to take, as more savvy online shoppers will start looking to these tools to get their holiday wish lists crossed off. I Left My Bot in San Francisco Mark your calendars for January 25, 2001 and pack your bags for the City by the Bay, for that is the time and place where the future of bots will be discussed and shared by leading bot and intelligent agent developers. BotSpot, along with BotTechnology.com, is pleased to be hosting BOT2001, a one-day seminar crammed with information on bots. Presented by BotSpot Creator and Founder Marcus P. Zillman, BOT2001 will be the event of the year for bot developers and implementors, new or experienced. At BOT2001, SearchBots, ChatterBots and KnowledgeBots will be discussed in specific defined presentations from the leaders in the field. Case studies and implementation strategies will take you deeply into the bot arena to take back specific recommendations for both marketing and research. Conference proceedings will cover all aspects of bots and intelligent agents allowing the most inexperienced observer to the seasoned professional to have a better understanding of this field. Experts will diffuse the latest hype and give you specific information on how to implement bots and intelligent agents into your marketing or research plans. For more information, visit the conference site, where you'll find a full agenda, travel and lodging information, and a list of conference participants. We look forward to seeing you there! Under New Management Long-time readers of this newsletter may be wondering at this point, "who's this new guy?" My name is Brian Proffitt, the new Managing Editor of BotSpot and author of this bi-weekly missive. I have been using the Internet since 1991, just before the National Science Foundation dropped its caretaker status of the Net and commercial sites exploded onto the scene. I am the author of over ten computer technology books and the editor of more than forty similar titles. It is my pleasure to join the Bot community as a reporter of facts and hopefully an advocate. In the coming days, I invite readers both new and old to send me their comments, complaints, and suggestions so we can keep BotSpot the most comprehensive Bot site on the Web. |
