THE INTERNET Web sites share their data to reach new customers

New software enables sites to license their databases for innovative ventures.
WASHINGTON POST
A new version of Intuit Inc.'s ItsDeductible software, which just hit retail stores, uses eBay's auction prices to estimate the value of charitable donations for tax write-offs.
Later this month, the maker of Grokker search software plans to release a Google plug-in granting access to Google's Web index through Grokker, so people can see search results as colorful, graphical maps rather than plain text.
And next week, a Chicago company plans to start selling a $36 mini-scanner called iPilot that shoppers can use to scan bar codes on products in stores, then upload the data to a computer and compare prices at Amazon.com.
All are examples of how Web sites, relying on a new generation of Internet software, are licensing their databases to business partners and outside developers in an attempt to spark innovation and reach more customers.
Getting started
"In the past six to nine months, we have started ramping up the program to license eBay's data," eBay Vice President Randy Ching said.
Ching said eBay is talking to many other companies about creating special pricing guides, including a variety of print products. Recently, PGA.com and golf retailer 3Balls.com licensed eBay's historical prices for used golf equipment to give retailers and golfers a reference for setting the value of older gear. Also under consideration are ways to tap eBay's auction prices to help appraisers value insured items when they're lost or stolen.
"The potential is limitless," Ching said.
It's been more than a year since eBay, Amazon.com and Google first opened portions of their private Web databases to outside developers as part of the "Web services" movement. Web services is a vague phrase created by the software industry to describe Internet software designed to help companies and people do business online.
Early stages
Most of this software remains in early stages of development, but the Web's top sites are starting to experiment with how data sharing might create new business models. Software executives regard this stage as similar to the early days of electricity, when people tried to figure out how power might prove useful in homes and offices, starting with simple light bulbs and evolving to washing machines, ovens and toasters.
So far, Amazon.com says, 40,000 developers have used its Web services program to create special tools. Since Amazon pays commissions to Web sites that refer buyers to Amazon, it doesn't charge for access to its Web services tools.
Google also does not charge developers for access to its search, at least not yet. Google's Web services remain in the "beta" stage of experimentation, and developers are not allowed to run more than 1,000 queries a day against the company's Web index. Yet already, Google says more than 1,000 software applications have cropped up. One is GoogleDuel, a piece of software that lets you compare which of two phrases appears more frequently on the Web pages that Google indexes.