Coordinating multimedia services using software agents

As a way to coordinate both the usage and offering of multimedia services, an environment based on software arc agents is described. Each user has a personal agent that represents the user within the environment. The user can configure the agent according to preferences and assign it tasks that the agent performs . The tasks typically consist of finding the suitable service providers and the desired content and presenting this information to the user in a concise format. The provider of the multimedia services is also represented by an agent that makes the offered services virtually available for, the user agents.