Are product clouds the future of e-commerce?
Ask the question like we have been a good year long on what the shopping systems of the future will look like. You’d generally first get a distracted look, “Huh? Shopping system of the future?” and then usually the answer “Well, obviously like today but improved.”
It seems as if we are so accustomed to our current systems that only a few seriously imagine that e-commerce systems could look completely different - and in all likelihood they will. The look and feel of e-commerce applications are already starting change shape.
Product collage from Polyvore
Very exciting from Exciting Commerce’s point of view is therefore the revolution in data management with respect to cloud computing. Simply put, the distributed running of web applications. In this arena there are several new developments in the works.
Because just as Google has stopped using commonplace (= relational) databases to administer their massive data inventory, Amazon has also built customized internet optimal database structures. Only so can Amazon allow millions of users to access their product universe and in addition the immeasurable number of rankings and personalized recommendations.
Searching in the big list.
Both Amazon (since December 2007) and Google (since May 2008) have gone public with their database strategies. Those decisions allow us to clearly track the thought processes of these two leading database administrators (one for products and the other for information). Very relevant is the GigaOm article, ("Amazon SimpleDB 101 & Why It Matters")
"Tersely put, SimpleDB is hugely disruptive. It will take some time to evolve the new thinking patterns and new design disciplines that this technology forces us to consider."
The data isn’t catalogued anymore in the classical sense, rather stored in much simpler and easy to manage data structures.
Connections from Etsy
Google identifies BigTable as “A Distributed Storage System for Structured Data" (see Wikipedia) - and Amazon describes its SimpleDB as follows:
"A traditional, clustered relational database requires a sizable upfront capital outlay, is complex to design, and often requires a DBA to maintain and administer.
Amazon SimpleDB is dramatically simpler, requiring no schema, automatically indexing your data and providing a simple API for storage and access.
This approach eliminates the administrative burden of data modeling, index maintenance, and performance tuning.
Developers gain access to this functionality within Amazon’s proven computing environment, are able to scale instantly, and pay only for what they use."
Its fascinating to see how the tabular model (and the associated directory and catalogue structures) is losing relevance in the database world. Data is simply packed in a big list as complex data objects and then with simple operations evaluated and filtered.
It is food for thought for those who are accustomed to thinking in relational structures and see this solution as a step backwards ("Back to the Future for Data Storage").
Product cloud of Stylight
The technical developments are also fascinating because they mirror what we are seeing on content level. Structures are dissolving. Or as David Weinberger so well in his last book points out (“Everything is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder”).
The result for e-commerce is to slowly move away from thinking in already highly structured data sets, and to create or look for existing solutions which allow for a higher level of freedom and networkability.
Maybe instead of talking about product catalogues we should instead start speaking in terms of product universes or product clouds. As Weinberger might agree, maybe the bargain bin is the e-commerce model of the future. Let’s see what happens.
Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, adapted for excitingcommerce.com by Jason Soo.
