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Chapter 2 E-commerce fundamentals 75

Table 2.5 Different types of online intermediary

Type of intermediary Characteristics Example
Access portal Associated with ISP or mobile service provider • Orange (www.orange.co.uk)
• Sky (www.bskyb.com)
Blog Content updated through time, typically • Blogger (www.blogger.com) hosts many
text-based, but can include video or audio blogs
delivered by RSS feeds (see Chapter 3 for • Many company blogs are created using
details) Typepad or Movable Type
(www.movabletype.com)
Directory Listings of sites and businesses details in • Business.com (www.business.com)
categories Yell (www.yell.com)
Geographical (region, May be: • Google country versions
country, local) • horizontal • Yahoo! country and city versions
• vertical • Craigslist (www.craigslist.com)
Horizontal or functional Range of services: search engines, directories, • Yahoo! (www.yahoo.com)
portal news recruitment, personal information • Microsoft MSN (www.msn.com)
management, shopping, etc. • Google (www.google.com) which for a
long period just focused on search
Marketplace or auction May be: • EC21(www.ec21.com)
site • horizontal • eBay (www.ebay.com)
• vertical
• geographical
Price comparison site Compares products or services on different • Kelkoo in Europe and Asia
or aggregator criteria including price (www.kelkoo.com)
• Epinions in US (www.epinions.com)
Publisher site Main focus is on consumer or business news • BBC (www.bbc.co.uk)
or entertainment • Guardian (www.guardian.co.uk)
• ITWeek (www.itweek.co.uk)
Search engine Main focus is on search • Google (www.google.com)
• Ask (www.ask.com)
• Baidu in China (www.baidu.com)
• Naver in S. Korea (www.naver.com)
Media type May be: • Audio podcasts, for example Odeo
• voice (audio podcasts) (www.odeo.com)

• video (video webcasts) • Video, for example YouTube
Delivered by streaming media or downloads (www.youtube.com)
of files • Multimedia publisher, e.g. BBC
(www.bbc.co.uk)
Vertical intermediary Covers a particular market or niche audience • Construction Plus
such as construction with news and other (www.constructionplus.co.uk)
services • Chem Industry (www.chemindustry.com)
• Barbour Index for B2B resources
(www.barbour-index.com)
• Econsultancy (www.econsultancy.com)
• Focuses on e-business resources