Morris Pondfield is the president of BiggerNET. His presentation, excerpted here, provides an overview of how intelligent agents are changing the ways people acquire knowledge and information online. He demonstrates how intelligent agents work and shows the range of uses to which this technology can be applied.

There are eight excerpts from Pondfield's presentation. He begins by explaining what intelligent agents are, and goes on to describe different kinds of bots, giving examples for each. Among the agents featured are Google, BonziBuddy, Amazon.com, AskJeeves, Ananova, and MySimon. In the last excerpt, he explains how intelligent agents can be programmed so that they appear to learn new information.

You may also download Pondfield's original PowerPoint slides, which contain additional examples as well as information about some educational uses of online agents.

Note: To watch the video clips below, you'll need to download the free RealOne Player.

About Morris Pondfield

Morris Pondfield is President of BiggerNET, an Internet business strategy consulting firm that develops and maintains solutions for businesses using the Internet and Internet tools. BiggerNet specializes in the design and implementation of Web-based Intelligent Agents– Bots for eCRM, personalization, or to create more active/engaged users. In adduition to his duties at BiggerNet, Mr. Pondfield is a faculty member at two schools in the Maryland region: Towson University, where he teaches courses on management information systems; and Villa Julie College Graduate School of Information Technologies, where he teaches Internet and information technology applications