A Meta-Analysis of Emerging Infomediary Knowledge Management Systems: An Expert Systems Application in the E-Tailing Environment

Infomediaries provide online retailers or e-tailers with knowledge management systems (KMS), thus serving industry groups rather than the KMS needs of one organization. Of the three main organizational KMS activities, codification is the primary activity of the infomediary. The infomediary also provides expert system capability that uses real time data to learn and to dynamically modify recommendations. Infomediaries are an important new research area. This paper provides an analysis of what is known about infomediary functions: data collection, predicting consumer behavior, and customization of the web site. Then, the infomediary so described is placed within the research domain of KMSs with expert system components. Further research opportunities are identified.

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