RE: [xml-dev] XML for Video, Pizza Shops & TakeOut

["Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@ingr.com>]

LendingTree.com.  "When banks compete..." and so on.

It works for awhile but tends to flatten out in 
price so location still works to the advantage 
of the largest chain if all other things are equal. 
But the point of competition is make sure that 
all things aren't equal so one has to be clever. 
Room ambience as differentiator; e-co policies 
as differentiators, etc, so that personalization 
is the key.

Still, that is an active request system (point 
of sale).  The fascinating bits are the languages 
for achieving intelligent personalization given 
the need to maintain location-dependancy and 
identity anonymity (the pretend location issue). 

Do I want it to push information to me or pull 
based on location and currently active context? 
How much AI do I want it to do, that is, could 
it use the HumanML values and dynamically decide, 
or should I choose a context for a time scope and 
set it to announce only the matches? Context selection 
based on a standard for the set of human contexts 
has very interesting possibilities for location-dependant 
services.

One always open the phone book and look but what 
fun is that?

len

-----Original Message-----
From: Joshua Allen [mailto:joshuaa@microsoft.com]

That is an interesting point about chains and e-commerce.  The Internet
was supposed to make global commerce more accessible to the
independents, but in many ways it gives an advantage to the big places.
For example, since a chain like Rite-Aid has branches everywhere, I can
go online and request a refill even if I am in Florida, and it will be
filled at the nearest location.  Same deal with book stores -- when you
mix brick-and-mortar chains with online, you can do things like look up
a book online and request that it be held at the nearest Borders with
stock so you can go pick it up without waiting for UPS (too bad Borders
or B&N doesn't do that).  One potential answer to this dilemma is to
have the independents pool their resources and provide a service.  For
example, www.cornerdrugstore.com lets me shop online at a number of
independent pharmacies.  This beats having all of them maintain their
own sites, because I feel as if I have more freedom to "shop around" and
compare prices.  And I also know that I only have to remember one URL to
get a whole variety of stores rather than one chain.  Obviously this
idea doesn't work for everything, and the scope of the bureau has to be
sufficiently narrow; but I thought this was an interesting example of
how the independents can provide a competitive alternative to the
monolithic services.