AC WebWorks

E-commerce Buono II Brutto II Cattivo

The trailer for Sergio Leones epic movie The Good he Bad and the Ugly boasted For these men the

Civil War wasnt hell it was practice (1) Similarly chemists who are spaghetti Western cinema buffs and heavy Web users might say The Internet isnt purgatory its practice This column will examine

e-commerce reagents concepts and Web sites which will change the practice of analytical chemistry Some suppliers will value to their products others will merely put UD Web sites and a few will do it all poorlv Thus some of the changes will be

onnrl sotne bad and others ucrlv

E-commerce is touted as the pump that will drive business in the next millennium The soaring fates ofAmazoncom eBay and others continue to fuel the prices of the inishytial public offerings of online companies stocks Some estimates place online advertisshying at over S8 billion by 2002 with online

sales reaching $1 trillion Chemistry has not been left out e-commerce sites specifically for chemists have been synthesized What do online information warehouses such as ChemExper (httpwwwchemexperbe) ChemWeb (httpchemwebcom) and ChemCenter (httpwwwacsorg) have in common with directories such as Chemcy-clopedia (httppubsacsorgchemcy) and LabGuide (httpwwwpubsacsorg labguide) and with retail sites such as Chem-Connect (httpwwwchemconnectcom) SciQuest (httpVwww sciquest com) Lab-Deals (httpAvwwlabdeals com) e-Chemi-cals (httnVwww e-chemicals com) ChemQuoteChemSell (httnVwww

IMAGESreg COPYRIGHT 1999 PHOTODISC INC WWWCHEMEXPERBE CHEMWEBCOM SCIQUESTCOM

camsoftcom) Chemdex (httpwww chemdexcom) PipeLine (httpwww sigma-aldrichcom) and others They are probing the frontiers of e-chemmerce and of customers comfort with online transactions

Chemists can now buy analytical instrushymentation bid on spectrometers order chemicals and request journal articles via the Web Many of the items are tangible but others involve intellectual property that is highly intangible and quite fugacious Everyone is struggling with new distribushytion paradigms

Ray Dessy Virginia Tech

Analytical Chemistry News amp Features September 1 1999 629 A

AC WebWorks

E-buying The present Despite the amount of free material on the Web surveys by the Financial Times indishycate a growing endorsement by users mershychants and transaction-makers of the deshyveloping dollars and cents sales proshycesses (httpwwwftcomftsurveys q4a42htm) E-commerce software vendors are providing up to 128-bit Secure Socket Layer protocols that sell peace of mind for Web-based transactions (httpwww verisigncomserverprodsecureindex html) But recent estimates claim that more than half of all shopping carts on the Web are abandoned before the virtual check-out counter Total advertising revenue

t o 11T

but the price per click-thru (the number of times a user clicks on an ad) and the price npr impressinn ffVie tiumhpr of

times a banner ad fallen Both customers and suppliers have a ereat deal to nearn Fvery hndy is PYneri ri

At present most transactions in the virtual mall take place by credit card Most of us dont realize that the pathway between our credit card scan and the bank (or other card-issuing agency) may involve 4-6 way stations the consumer the merchant an independent service organization that confirms the transshyaction the acquiring bank die card processor and the issuing bank More man you ever wanted to know about this process can be found at httpwww virtualschool edumonElectronicProperty klamondcredit card htm- httoVwww mlrtmktcomminfofaq html and http- www mktmkt comminfofathtm

Credit cards are fine for larger transacshytions but their overhead costs for small payshyments are excessive Esttmated electronic transaction costs are currently 7C for ATM cash dispersal 280 for a debit-card charge 2C for a check and 80C for rcedii tards Customshyer-to-business e-commerce must change

The Open Buying on the Internet (OBI) standard could revolutionize die way compashynies purchase medium-cost high-volume items It is designed to simplify the process of business-to-business electronic commerce (httpwwwsoftwareibmcomcommerce netcommerceobihtml httpwwwemory eduBUSINESSetP98obi)

In OBI the buyer uses a credit card or procurement account or requests credit to place an order When the virtual vendor receives the order from a cusshytomer it is parsed into multiple orders that are sent to suppliers using the OBI protocol The virtual distributor charges the buyer for the order when the item is shipped from the manufacturer directly to the buyer The distributor makes its money from commissions paid by the supshypliers SciQuest is an example of this kind of distributor We are consolidating all the [scientific] suppliers under brella Some people call us a virtual disshytributor says Scott Andrews CEO of SciQuest

Intellectual property in transition

However money isnt the only tiling that concerns vendors particularly those who disseminate intangibles such as journal artishycles How do you distribute intellectual propshyerty without losing control of it How do you continue to make a reasonable profit Change is slow because of the conservative nature of the vendors and the current habits of the purchasers But that song will change as the current generation which swings to MP3 becomes tomorrows customers for scientific information MP3 short for MPEG audio layer 3 is one of three coding schemes for the compression of audio signals (http wwwmp3com) The protocol tual audio coding and digital compression to

information that the human ear cant hear leaving what is essential for good hi-fi listening Because MP3 music files are

small they can easily be transferred across the Internet Software players abound (eg httpwwwwinampcom) and hardware players are here (eg httpwww diamondmmcom) The concept is a porshytent of what is to come

Why Consider what is happening in mushysic and extrapolate that to the dissemination of scientific literature Many musicians are using the new MP3 technology to distribute their songs to their listeners thus eliminatshying the need for record companies Although there are problems with this approachmdash copyrighted songs are sometimes sold and redistributed illegally from Web sitesmdashit gives new performers a chance In addition costs to the consumer are decreasing and

profits for the musicians increasing Although the Recording Industry Association of America has had a reactionary response to the cept the American Society of Comshyposers Authors and Publishers recently came to with MP3 com (httoVwww washingtonpost comwo-srv WPlate1999-061721Sl-061799-idx html)

The new music approach isnt limited to a few scattered individushyals Audio compressiondistribushytion protocols are being propelled by IBM Microsoft Liquid Audio and ATampTs a2b so the tsunami

may well affect distribution of all intellecshytual property including scientific literature It is therefore an interesting juxtaposition that a single company sponsors the followshying conferences Electronic Commerce for Chemicals 99 and 2000 Information Manshyagement in Chemicals and Digital Distrishybution and the Music Industry 99 (http www firstconf com) Music and print pubshylishers have future

Consider the all-electronic Emerging Infectious Diseases journal from the henters for Disease Control and Prevention the citation-linking initiative for the Los Alamos e-Print Archive (httpwwwprinceton edu~harnadcitationhtml) and the Intershynet Journal lf Chemistry which all tend to eliminate the middle men (eg journal publishers) Imagine how things might change if the National Institutes of Health proceeds with E-biomed a proposed elec-

Consider what is happening in music and extrapolate that to the dissemination

of scientific literature

630 A Analytical Chemistry News amp Features September 1 1999

tronic publishing site that would have both refereed and preprint-style sections (http wwwnihgovwelcomedirectorebiomed ebiomedhtm)

It is difficult for people and institutions to change but the Internet forces us to do so faster than ever Those who experiment recognize their changing roles remain flexible and listen to the changing market will survive

E-IP The future Many software houses are proffering packshyages that can deliver print intellectual propshyerty items discretely and safely VIAex-press offers the electronic equivalent of a document courier service (httpwww viaexpresscomneoviadesign expressithtml) For those who want even more security IBMs Crypto-lopes provide copyright protection for downloadable content by enshyclosing documents until a user agrees to pay a fee for their release (httpwwwsoftwareibmcom securitycryptolorjechaithtm) To read Cryptolope material users need to install a free helper applicashytion into their Web browsers The helper application recognizes a conshytainer that encloses an encrypted document The container OTVPS the

iiQpr details of the documents

abshystract price and rules for use the user aerees to the terms the helper apshyplication renuests a key over the network to unlock the actual document Magex from NatWest is a related scheme (httpwww

1 A

magexcouk) Hopefully such distribution will syner-

gistically merge with micropayment plans which are designed for 25C-$20 billings In the US consumer economy 12 of transshyactions involve less than $20 where credit cards are not really efficient A variety of third-party approaches have been proposed (httpwwwhplhpcomtechreports97 HPL-97-14html httpwwwcsnyuedu ~mitc7205Micropayments)

Despite the advantages the dust of the Internet has dimmed some of the glitter of micropayment as the pioneer efforts known as DigiCash CyberCoin and FirstVirtual have failed to gain acceptance These ideas got lost in proprietary script schemes (print

your own special money) anonymity issues and hype Newer approaches include Carneshygie Mellon University and Mellon Banks NetBill (httpwwwinicmuedu80 netbill) Digitals Millicent project (http rpcpmitedu~pearahmicropayments Millicenthtml) Qpass (httpwwwqpass com) eWallet (httpwwwewalletcom) and lClickCharge (httpwwwlclickcharge com) A good review of micropayment plans can be found at httpwwww3org ECommerceroadmaphtml

Micropayment schemes could shine in the distribution of scientific documents where e-transmitted articles from services such as ISI Citation Databases Chemical Abstracts Service UnCover and the Linda

Hall Library cost ~$10-15 plus a copyright charge if applicable

Eventually another concept called su-perdistribution will become common for the distribution of intellectual property inshytangibles (httpwwwreciprocalcom docscommlinklhtm) In superdistribu-tion first proposed by Ryoichi Mori for software dissemination the pathway for sharing intellectual property involves a tree-like distribution chain where the traditional sales gateway is replaced by an international network of related individshyuals who forward products to interested colleagues (httpvirtualschooledumon ElectronicPropertyMoriSuperdisthtml) Cryptolope and micropayment structures would funnel fees and royalty payments back to the appropriate origins regardless of the distribution chain (httpVwww research ibm compeoplekkaplan

cryptolope-docscrypaphtml) Information could be shared fairly and profitably

The bottom line Will this all lead to a proliferation of porshytals on the Web each charging a small entry fee Probably What will Crypto-lopes superdistribution and micropay-ments do to our scientific journals Some feel that free bandwidth will allow artishycles to become longer and to include more supporting materialmdashmultimedia video audio and three-dimensional intershyactive objects Others feel that the curshyrent generations proclivity toward what Camille Paglia calls a multimedia multi-layered multitasking sensorium will reshy

sult in publication of shorter

more numerous papers Will lishy

braries select their subscriptions from those vendors who have the highest historical hit rate Will e-journals recruit and even select authors with drawing power Will authors collect a dime each their works Will scientific labs become their own publishers Will libraries adopt software with names like ChargBak oo BillThrui

Meanwhile scientists enjoy many aspects of e-journals but they are frustrated by the maze of portals that presents constantly

shifting interfaces and access restrictions Materials may be easier to access but storshying them in a useful e-format is not Artishycles and proposals may have more citashytions but less are readmdashand fewer dishygested The concept of an impact index or impact factor is being eroded And many publishers dont appreciate what value added means What has been your experishyence with e-chemmerce Analytical Chemisshytry would like to bear from vou

Thanks to Janine Hiller rnd Ed dener of Virginin Tech

(Comments are invited at rdessychemserver chemvtedu

References (1) The Italian movie title HBuono II Brutto II

Cattivo was rerrdered when translated into English to improve the phooetic rhythm

Materials may be easier to acquire

but storing them in a useful e-format

is not

Analytical Chemistry News amp Features September 1 1999 631 A