Context Services

This service category is still a bit difficult to explain. I created the category in order to describe communities. Communities offer the user a set a very integrated services. In contrast Tele-Services focus on a single service. However combining a few Tele-Services into one service does not make a Context Service. There must be something extra. I am not sure what that extra is. As a sub-categorisation I use the idea of user group size and characteristics. Some Context Services are available for anyone, such as Entry Portal. Other Context Services cater for a small group which can be identified on demographics (age, gender, etc.). Other Context services seem to cater around a specific interest (cars, sport, etc.). And finally there are Context Services that take the individual as centre (Personal Portal). I still have a lot of problem with this category as it is not function based like the other categories. I still need some way to express the increased functionality of this services category.

• Affinity Portal

  These services of a highly integrated set of services geared towards affinity groups. An affinity group is defined by a set of common interests, such as sport, music, etc. A sub-categorisation could be made based on all possible interests (a bit to big though)

• Demographic Portal

  Services that offer a highly integrated set of services geared to communities, which can be based on demographic characteristics. Sub-categorisation is possible through a certain (set of) demographic properties, such as age, gender, living location, etc.

• Entry Portal

  Services that offer an integrated set of services geared to all Internet users. Usually these services are used as generic start pages, i.e. it is what a user sees when he starts his browser.

• Personal Portal

  A service that combines multiple services that are unique for each user.

Tele-Services

Tele-Services finds its inspiration in words like Tele-Information, Tele-Shopping and Tele-Working. We take here a functional approach. The idea is that for different functions different services (and providers) are required. So we do not care whether a service is about cars, the weather, people or whatever. It is the function that counts. Notice that Tele- is followed by an active verb. I follow this custom. Tele-Services can be seen a single service. A Tele-Service has a single service where it is very good at. I use verbs from the perspective of the user, he is doing the shopping, the learning, etc. So Tele-publishing is a wrong term, it is from the wrong perspective. Some services combine multiple Tele-Services into a single provider. Shopping is here a good example. Normally a shopping process consists of getting information on a product, make a selecting and the actual buying. However one sees more and more that these processes are chopped up and provided by multiple Service Providers. The Tele-Service category can be roughly chopped up by the processes in a buying process. These processes are gathering information, selecting, buying and consuming the product or service. And one can define multiple consuming processes depending on what is consumed and how that is done. There is no way to enumerate all the consuming processes.

• Broking

  Services that offer broking services bring demand and supply together on an equal basis. A broker is an equal partner between the two partners. A broker has two set of services: one for the supplier and one for the demander. The service set under Tele-Services describes the demander. The service set for the supplier can be found under Broker Tele-Enabler Enabling Services. A sub-categorisation can be made on the broked item, such as a car, a house, yourself, etc.

• Informing

  An Informing tele-service helps a user to get informed. The content on such a service is gather and created by humans. Note that this contrasts with a Search Tele-Services, where the content is all aggregated by machines.

• Searching

  This service allows it's user to search through information. Usually this information has been gather by the Service Provider in some way.

  • Free

    These Search Tele-Services allow users to specify the details of the search query. Usually this means that the user can specify one or more words that must be searched for.

  • Predefined

    A predefined search service allows a users to browse the answers of a query that has been predefined by the Service Provider. This can be a list of the most popular, the most recent, everything alphabetically ordered, etc. answers.

Enabling Services

Services that enable business processes. These are generic services and can be used in multiple other services.

• CRM

  All services that help to support the Customer Relationship Management function in a company. Sub-categorisation can be done on the basis of the various CRM-functions.

  • Marketing

    Services that support the Marketing function of a company.

    • Advertising

      Services that help advertising a company

• Generic

  These services offer a very generic functionality. This implies that such a service can be used in any part of a company and is not restricted to some business process. Often such a service can be seen as a replacement for an application on a computer.

  • NewsReader

    Services that allow a user to read news-feeds that are published in RSS- or Atom-format. This is a MicroContent Client Service

• SDO

  Service Development and Operations. Any process that involves the development of a service and offering it to customers.

• Tele-Enabler

  These services allow the user to create Tele-Services.

  • Broker

    Services that offer broking services bring demand and supply together on an equal basis. A broker is an equal partner between the two partners. A broker has two set of services: one for the supplier and one for the demander. The service set under Tele-Services describes the demander. The service set for the supplier can be found under Broker Tele-Enabler Enabling Services. A sub-categorisation can be made on the broked item, such as a car, a house, yourself, etc.

  • Publishing

    These services allow user to publish their content on Internet. There exist various sub-categories, which depend differ only on the publishing format. The corresponding Tele-Service is the Informing Tele-Service.

IT-services

Services that are extremely generic and related to the management of IT.

• Data

  This IT-services are strictly related to data, such as storage, transformation, etc.

• Processes

  Services that provide IT-specific processes

  • Application SP

    Application Service Providers are services that manage an application (created by either from a third party or themselves) on behalf of a customer.

• Interface

  Services that provide a special interface to data.

  • Visualisation

    Services that visualise data in a special way.

Network Services

Services related to the transport and networking of bits. These services do not care what is transported, nor for which purpose.