No abstract

Neutral" electronic marketplaces fail because their structure and mode of operation does not allow for the effective accommodation of multiple business models that could serve the interests of a critical mass of adopters. We propose a fresh approach for the creation of economically viable "neutral" electronic marketplaces showing that this can be accomplished through the ability to transcend taxonomical classifications with a generic agent-mediated ontology and, simultaneously, through the provision of flexible and active decision support. Taxonomies may stifle innovation by imposing artificial boundaries through categorization schemes and levels of abstraction. The proposed architecture addresses this issue underlying a "liquid" e-hub that may mutate from one taxonomical classification to another.

If effectively utilized, modern technologies such as ontologies and software agents hold the potential to inform the design of the next generation of E-Hubs. In terms of their evolution, we argue that taxonomies as tools hold the danger of stifling innovation as they may implicitly impose boundaries on the problem domain. We proceed to use one that is well-referenced in the literature and identify a number of issues that can be seen as limiting factors, proposing a generic and agent-mediated architecture that holds the potential of addressing them.