Recently I have been thinking quite a bit about the implications Web 3.0 (the semantic web) will have on eCommerce. What strikes me as probably the most important implication is the sheer fact that by having data available in a format which machines can easily digest and understand, we’ll see more and more applications which will run on top of existing websites.

Let me give you an example: Imagine a world in which the data from price comparison sites, product review services as well as company rating services is easily available in semantic formats. Now you could build a super-robust plugin for your browser which allows you to right click on any webpage which shows a product (say the Amazon product page) and access an interactive layer which presents you with the best prices for this product on the web, cross-references these prices against company ratings (how happy were customers with the displayed etailers) and also shows you some great customer reviews for the product itself. You see that eBuyer.com sells the item cheaper and has an equally good rating from it’s customers as Amazon. With a single click the plugin will bring you to the item page from eBuyer.com where you can purchase the item.

Technically you could build something like this today - and some companies already did. Usually these services/plug-ins/extensions are rather poor as their data sources are not “clean”. Information needs to be scraped, the matching needs to be done by applying some level of guesswork, etc.

Now - how would this change eCommerce? How would it change buyer behaviour if the next etailer is not only a click away but you also get all the relevant information presented in an easy to digest format. It’s an interesting future we are heading to - and a great opportunity for entrepreneurs building new services around the infrastructure of Web 3.

Posted in Analysis