Matthew Gertner wrote:
>It is implausible that an end user will put up with the hassle of
>paying for a zillion individual services and verifying their reliability,
>trustworthiness, etc. Nor would they likely get much value directly from an
>XML-based web service. On the other hand, if I pay a fixed fee to Yahoo and
>count on them to make sure that all the services I am using (indirectly)
>perform as required and are paid for, then I should be able to get great
>value from gluing these services together (using tools that Yahoo would
>provide).
>
If the tools are going to be built anyway, why not have them on my
laptop? B2C web services will, I assume, break down to two broad
categories - paid for and self-financing. OK, consumer web services
can't be self-financed through advertising (apart from product placement
in search engine results - yuck) but it could certainly be
self-financing if it leads people to use your paid-for services, even
if the transaction is continued in more traditional ways.
Here's what I would regard as a some plausible cases - book and CD
stores offering search / quote services to those consumers who have a
"Web Services Quote Engine" on their desktop, likewise for airlines and
train timetables. And why not a "what's on" engine for local cinemas?
How about libraries and swimming pools and gyms offering a near-trivial
"opening hours" web service that integrates to your desktop diary? And
the opportunities for relatively low-cost additional services in retail
finance are interesting.
>This is of course different from how Fortune 1000 companies will use web
>services. Exchange of business documents for EAI might use a lot of the same
>infrastructure, but the tools and business model will be very different.
>
I agree that this is likely to be a big area.
Francis.
