Editor's note

Abstract

Editor's Note: Welcome to Issue 3.2This issue starts off with an article by Pier Luca Lanzi andAlessandro Strada in which they study the results of the secondTrading Agent Competition (TAC-01). Through statistical analysis ofthe public data available about the competition, Lanzi and Stradaare able to show that the TAC game qualitatively (but notquantitatively) succeeds at differentiating among agentstrategies. The second article, by Indrajit and Inkdrakshi Ray, provides asurvey of results in the study of fair exchange models. Fairexchange mechanisms provide a means by which two parties involvedin a transaction can be sure that (a) either both parties get theirdue, or neither do, or (b) evidence is collected to prove whichparty violated the contract. The paper by Srinivasan Jagannathan and Kevin Almeroth presentsan overview of some of the issues related to pricing digitalcontent on the Internet. It is well known that building a businessmodel based on the delivery of digital content is challengingbecause the marginal cost of delivering to one more customer tendsto zero. Finally, Kah-Sing Chan presents a study of the usability ofelectronic storefronts. The study is based on an analysis of thenavigational organization of the web site and survey data collectedfrom web site users. The findings suggest that retailers have along way to go towards adopting proven, usable designs for theirsites. Enjoy, Peter Wurman, Editor-in-Chief