Smart Product Networks
The project SmaProN is funded by the German Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) and investigates how Smart Products can be dynamically connected to product bundles and hierarchies. Therefore, an information technology infrastructure is developed that is based on the Tip 'n Tell architecture and the semantic product description model SPDO.
The web-based infrastructure Tip ‘n Tell enables the embedding of more significant information services into products via the integration of diverse distributed product information. The prerequisite of such a processing is a semantic description of product information (SPDO) independent of applications and based on web-semantic representation languages, above all OWL-DL.
Products with embedded information services realised by web-semantic annotated product information, are called Smart Products. On the basis of Smart Products innovative product experiences at the point of sale are enabled. To illustrate this point, a cd-player can automatically evaluate matching loudspeakers and communicate the result to the customer.
Being the foundation of the web-semantic product representation, the Smart Product Description Object (SPDO) enables an advanced and mechanical processing in terms of updates and extensions as well as the integration of contextual information.
For economic purposes, this project evaluates the adaptability of dynamic pricing models within the context of Smart Products. In particular, bundling models are developed, which arrange products of diverse manufacturers dynamically.
Furthermore, forms of interactions in natural language between the customer and the Smart Product are analysed, especially those which receive contents from heterogeneous sources, for instance community-based or paid contents.
A further field of research deals with the investigation of community-generated contents concerning the design of emergent ontologies. Through the tagging of established contents concepts are dynamically built up and altered over a longer period. As a result, at some points common vocabularies emerge. Alterations of such vocabularies may point out changed opinions within a community. In reference to product centred communities, such analyses are significant for the identification of changing needs.
Being developed in the course of the project, the diverse artefacts as, for instance, models, software or hardware infrastructure, are tested and optimised by The Research Center Intelligent Media (RCIM) in terms of continuous evaluations based on methods of Design Science, in particular the Build & Evaluate paradigm. For these purposes empirical laboratory experiments and field studies are accomplished in cooperation with scientific and commercial partners to obtain valid empirical results on the one hand and useful models and information systems for practical implementation on the other hand.
Publications
Kowatsch, T. & Maass, W.In-store Consumer Behavior: How Mobile Recommendation Agents Influence Usage Intentions, Product Purchases, and Store Preferences, Computers in Human Behavior, 26(4), pp. 697-704, 2010.Kowatsch, T. & Maass, W.
Online vs. In-Store Shopping: How Problem Solving Strategies of Decision Support Systems Influence Confidence in Purchase Decisions, 18th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS2010), Pretoria, South Africa 2010.
Janzen, S. & Maass, W.
Ontology-based Natural Language Processing for In-store Shopping Situations
Third IEEE International Conference on Semantic Computing (ICSC 2009), Berkeley, California, USA, 2009.
Kowatsch, T., Maass, W. & Fleisch, E.
The Use of Free and Paid Digital Product Reviews on Mobile Devices in In-Store Purchase Situations
4th Mediterranean Conference on Information Systems (MCIS 09), Athens, Greece, 2009.
Towards a Framework for Knowledge-based Pricing Services Improving Operational Agility in the Retail Industry. CEUR Workshop Proceedings Vol-530 edited by Vincenzo D'Andrea, G.R. Gangadharan, Renato Iannella, Michael Weiss.
2nd International Workshop on Enabling Service Business Ecosystems (ESBE’09), co-located with the Mediterranean Conference on Information Systems (MCIS 2009). Athens, Greece. 2009.
Janzen, S. & Maass, W.
CoRA - Interactive Communication with Smart Products
Workshop AmI Blocks at the European Conference on Ambient Intelligence (AmI-08), Nürnberg, Germany, 2008.
  | AmI_Blocks08_CoRA_Interactive_Communication_with_Smart_Products_final.pdf | 6.79 MB |
Janzen, S. & Maass, W.
Smart Product Description Object (SPDO)
Poster Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Formal Ontology in Information Systems (FOIS2008), Saarbrücken, Germany, 2008.
| W.Maass_&_T.Kowatsch_Paper_Award.pdf | 764.04 KB |
Maass, W. & Varshney, U.
Preface to the Focus Theme Section: 'Smart Products'
Electronic Markets, 18(3), pp. 211-215, 2008.
Maass, W. & Kowatsch, T.
Mobile Decision Support vs. Interpersonal Sales Communication: Predictors of Buying Intentions for Price Bundles
Proceedings of the 21st Bled eConference, Bled, Slovenia, 2008.
| Maass-Kowatsch_Mobile_Decision_Support_for_Price_Bundles.pdf | 178.90 KB |
Maass, W., Filler. A. & Janzen, S.
Reasoning on Smart Products in Consumer Good Domains
In: Mühlhäuser, M., Ferscha, A. and Aitenbichler, E.: Constructing Ambient Intelligence, CCIS 11, Springer, 2008.
Kowatsch, T., Maass, W. , Filler, A. & Janzen, S.
Knowledge-based Bundling of Smart Products on a Mobile Recommendation Agent
Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Mobile Business (ICMB). IEEE Computer Society Press. Barcelona, Spain, 2008.
| Knowledge-based_Bundling_of_Smart_Products_on_a_Mobile_Recommendation_Agent.pdf | 1.63 MB |
Maass, W., Filler, A. & Janzen, S.
Reasoning on Smart Products in Consumer Good Domains
Workshop AmI Blocks at the European Conference on Ambient Intelligence (AmI-07) , Darmstadt, 2007.
Maass, W. & Lampe, M.
Integration of Standardized and Non-Standardized Product Data
In Koschke, R. & Rödiger, K.-H., editors, Informatik 2007, Lecture Notes in Informatics, Berlin, Springer, 2007.
| SP_Logistics_Integr_Standard_and_NonStand.pdf | 107.22 KB |
Maass, W. & Janzen, S.
Dynamic Product Interfaces: A Key Element for Ambient Shopping Environments
Proc. of 20th Bled eConference, Bled, Slovenia, 2007.
| Maass_Janzen_07_dynamic_product_interface.pdf | 302.02 KB |
Maass, W. & Filler, A.
Tip 'n Tell: Product-Centered Mobile Reasoning Support for Tangible Shopping , Proc. of MSWFB 2007: Making Semantics Work For Business, part of 1st European Semantic Technology Conference, Vienna, Austria, 2007.
| Maass_Filler_MSWFB07.pdf | 87.05 KB |
Maass, W.
A Tentative Design Model for Smart Products
Proc. of Workshop Design of Smart Products, Furtwangen, 2007.