The Kasbah system is an online marketplace, a way of trading goods mediated by computer systems on the Internet [3]. Kasbah most closely resembles an online classified ad system. When a user wants to sell something (say a used CD or book) he or she registers the object for sale with the Kasbah server via a computer interface. buyers then go to Kasbah to look for something to purchase. But Kasbah adds something new: the use of software agents to negotiate a sale.
In a traditional classified ad a seller lists an asking price along with a description of the item for sale. It is understood that this price is only an initial suggestion -- a buyer will scan the ads looking for an item of interesting and then contact the seller directly, entering in a complex social process of negotiating a price. Kasbah removes the search and negotiation process. When selling an item, the seller creates a software agent endowed with the knowledge necessary to negotiate a price. In particular, the selling agent is told what price the seller would like to get for the item, how low to go, and some bargaining strategy for lowering the price over the course of a negotiation. Similarly, buyers create software agents with their own strategies for finding desirable items and getting a good bargain. These agents are then loaded into the Kasbah system where they inhabit a virtual marketplace, find parties who are buying or selling items of interest, and enter into negotiations.
The Kasbah architecture takes the virtualization of the marketplace a step further. Like online classified ads the objects and the space of the marketplace are abstracted from physical reality. The items for sale are visible and there is some sort of virtual place but they are far removed from our everyday interactions with physical objects and spaces. Unlike an online classified ad, the Kasbah system also removes the social aspect of the marketplace, the interaction with another person to make a transaction. The negotiation process is completely handled by the buyer and seller agents, software operating at the request of people but autonomously and out of sight.
The removal of social interaction further virtualizes the marketplace, takes it a step further from the physical world. What are the effects of this extra distancing from familiar reality? How do people react to the virtual marketplace where the objects and spaces are no longer real? How does the virtualization of the negotiation process further change the shopping experience? How do people understand their negotiating agents -- are they perceived as objects, or people, or some new category of entity? What aspects of traditional marketplaces can we borrow to better construct a new virtual marketplace? In order to better understand these questions, it is helpful to examine how people have interacted with the Kasbah system as it has been deployed so far.
