The e-DIAMOND e-commerce platform: market validation

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Introduction

By 2002, information scientists and librarians are pretty much accepting of electronic information – we regularly use the Internet, send and receive e-mails, and access databases such as MEDLINE or Infotrac. We think nothing of it, it is just another tool of our trade. Most of our users would also have more than a passing familiarity with the World Wide Web; according to the National Statistics Office February 2002 Omnibus Survey, about 50% of adults in Great Britain have accessed the Internet at some time for personal use and 39% of all families have home Internet access. Some 42% (of that half of the adult population that access the Internet at all, so 21% of all adults) have made purchases over the Internet. Those 79% who had not made purchases over the Internet mentioned security concerns (23%) or preferred to shop in person (21%). A further issue, that did not come out in the survey, is the nuisance of having to enter repeatedly credit card details – sometimes for quite small amounts.

It is clear that the stage has not yet been reached when electronic purchasing is as familiar and easy as a trip to the shops! Businesses wishing to trade electronically have to answer the some difficult questions:

• How can I persuade people (or businesses) into making repeated payments or micro-payments online?
• How can I reduce the customer irritation at repeatedly having to enter account details, especially when the items (or articles, or copyright payments, or services) only costs a Euro or two?
• How can I keep down the cost of all these transactions?
• How can I maintain security for so many transactions?
• How can I supply an e-Commerce service that offers a large selection without the need to switch site?
• Can I provide a better service, one, for example, that offers an alternative to repeated credit card payments, such as a monthly bill for all e-Commerce transactions?

An innovative response to these issues was pursued under EU funding. The e-Diamond project developed an e-trading and e-commerce platform (eTNA) with an entirely new perspective on marketing, trading and purchase over the Internet.

UKOLUG was invited to join the e-Diamond Consortium following the departure of another partner and by that time the project was well into the first stage – the development of a business plan. The e-Diamond project, which ran for 16 months, produced and market validated an e-commerce and e-trading platform under funding from the European Commission Trans European Telecommunications Networks (TEN-Telecomm) programme. The e-Diamond product is a new generation of e-Commerce platform that enables end users to undertake e-Commerce transactions from different sources using a single billing account. The platform comprises an infrastructure with an underlying secure distributed network of independent e-Diamond Service Providers (eDSPs) who form an eDSP network promoting and selling third-party services and goods. The system has a number of innovative features intended to instill in users the necessary confidence to use online purchase as a normal way of life. UKOLUG was the work package leader dealing with the market validation and, together with COBIDOC in the Netherlands, managed the end-user selection and devised the necessary tests to market validate the product.

The e-Diamond platform will help address the issues of end user confidence in e-Commerce transactions and offer secure and structured e-Commerce networks, a single billing point without the need to enter personal and financial data, and end-user mobility. The introduction of a professional search language and associated data structures will make searching for information fast and relevant. The introduction of a mature business model and a scalable platform will facilitate the take-up of e-Commerce services by content providers, large to very small companies, local traders serving local markets, and local, regional and central government departments. The e-Diamond platform could also be used as the basic building block for the creation of e-Commerce networks for the dissemination of cultural heritage and other e-content creation programmes.

Goals of the project

The overall aim of e-Diamond was the creation of a platform that would enable end users to undertake electronic transactions from any point of the e-Diamond network using a single billing account without the need to enter personal or financial details. The platform comprises an underlying secure distributed infrastructure to serve the different suppliers of the trading network who are selling their information, services and goods. When on the market, the platform will be equivalent to an operating system for e-Commerce and e-Trading networks.

The project was based upon real experiences in this type of trading infrastructure. The partners have already participated in the creation of Europe’s largest virtual subscribed technical information services network bringing together the data of Europe’s largest online technical data providers.

Expected benefits

e-Diamond aimed to cultivate the end users’ confidence in e-Commerce and foster online transaction services as an utility service common to the normal way of life. The platform (eTNA) offers:

• monthly payment for the transactions executed,
• a network of independent vendors across national boundaries,
• networking of local SMEs and small traders, as well as government departments and public bodies,
• a reference platform to help commercialise EC content projects from Info2000 or e-Content programmes,
• potential access to cultural heritage networks in TEN-Telecom proposals.

Market validation

UKOLUG tested end users’ reactions to:

• barriers to e-Commerce, and their elimination by e-Diamond;
• the use of a professional search language;
• the security of the service offered;
• networked e-Commerce; and
• the level of acceptance of the e-Diamond business and commercial models.

It may help to think of the model from a library point of view. A library may licence the platform as an eDSP, offering its own and its content suppliers’ informational and heritage resources to both its users and staff. The library is also connected to other eDSPs by way of the e-Diamond network and is thus able to offer a range of other products, adding value to its service. One advantage of this model is that it offers a possibly acceptable approach to charging users for some electronic resources.

Through the Group’s participation in the e-Diamond project, UKOLUG and CILIP members were offered an early opportunity to test a secure means of online purchase. There were irregular column in the UKOLUG Newsletter to keep members up-to-date and researchers received feedback to the project from a sample of members from all CILIP SIGs as it moved through the testing stages.