Motivation
The Web is a formidable medium of communication
- millions of users (corporations, non-for-profit organization, individuals, the American Congress)
- low entry cost
- publishing made easy (text, sound, picture, video)
- browsers available for free
But how do you
- filter hundreds of results from an AltaVista query
- compare dozens of products from an on-line catalogue
- “join” information from multiple Web sources
New Challenges
- automation
- interoperability (Web awareness)
- application-friendliness