Web service agent for auctioning - iBid

Abstract

Online auction activities are very popular recently. The demand of cross auction platforms activities keeps on increasing at the same time. However, most of the current 3rd party applications are focus on single platform and provide limited function to users only. To provide better using experience to users, a new concept of generic biding agent is needed. After a series of research, the new bidding agent, iBid, is developed. It offers different kinds of functions to users, like searching, buying, selling and site management. Also, some advanced functions are included in this application, such as item filtering, price estimation, selling tips and user's interest report. To increase the accuracy of the application, iBid adopt string similarity analysis algorithm to perform high quality item filtering. Also, iBid applies Cristian's algorithm to perform time synchronization. The value and the possibility of developing a generic platform for different online auction websites are also summarized in this project. The final goal for iBid to achieve is provide a cross-platform, accurate and multi-function environment to the users. To guarantee this idea is feasible, various testing and evaluations are conducted in this project. According to the evaluation result, further extension of iBid can be written.