Business to Consumer Markets on the Semantic Web

Abstract. The emerging Semantic Web technologies have the potential to deeply influence the further development of the Internet Economy. In this paper we propose a scenario based research approach to predict the effects of these new technologies on electronic markets and business models of traders and intermediaries. We develop a concrete scenario for the domain of business to consumer electronic commerce and explain its technical realization. Furthermore, we analyse the potential impacts on market participants and highlight a range of technical and organizational obstacles which have to be solved before semantic technologies can be deployed in an e-business context.