@article{Hermans_1998, title={Desperately Seeking: Helping Hands and Human Touch}, volume={3}, url={https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/626}, DOI={10.5210/fm.v3i11.626}, abstractNote={We are living in a time of increasing information overload. Many solutions have been or are being drawn up to tackle this problem. However, today’s most prominent solutions - such as Information Push and Search Engines - do not seem to be able to fully handle the problem. In this paper we will look at a number of solutions which may help us deal with information overload in the online marketplace. These solutions include "agency", agent-like applications, improvements in the information chain and - most importantly - information brokering. Some of these solutions require changes in the whole groundwork underlying the online marketplace; they are about whole new ways of interfacing with the online marketplace as well as the full employment of possibly intelligent software agents.}, number={11}, journal={First Monday}, author={Hermans, Bjorn}, year={1998}, month={Nov.} }