Description:
Web aggregation has been available regionally for several years, but this service has
not been offered globally. As an example, using multiple regional comparison
aggregators, we analyze the global prices for a Sony camcorder, which differ by more
than three times. We further explain that lack of global comparison aggregation
services partially contribute to such huge price dispersion. We also discuss difficulties
encountered in the manual integration of global web sources. Motivated by this
example, we propose a context mediation architecture for global aggregation to
address semantic disparities of global information sources. Global aggregation services
can bring efficiency to the global market and can be useful for market research and
other business uses.