Web of things: understanding the growing opportunities for business transactions

Building on the Internet of Things (IoT), the Web of Things (WoT) refers to a realistic and easily applicable idea of connecting an abundance of daily used devices and objects, such as embedded devices (smartphones, tablets etc.), through already well-established Web standards. Modern devices (which are usually equipped with sensors), have the ability to observe and monitor their environments. Consequently, there are unique opportunities and benefits to be reaped, by creating virtual counterparts, which allow access to their functionality through well-known protocols and standards (such as REST and HTTP). In this way, a corresponding digital world of vast resources is actually generated. Such opportunities can be of immense importance for business-centric scenarios where data provided and exchanged can complement and add to existing business models, thus playing an important part in the future planning of businesses. In this paper we firstly attempt to highlight the current research approaches specifically from the view of business centric scenarios. We discuss current research directions as well as existing problems and challenges based on the WoT paradigm and its implementations. We also highlight the methods, techniques and architectures involved, especially from the perspective of Web Services interactions. We attempt to stress the importance and possible benefits of implementing WoT methods, in a number of different enterprise's operations. We focus on a domain specific application, implementing the notions of the Web of Things on medium sized enterprises, such as a network of retail stores. Finally, we study the information provided by applying the WoT approach and we analyze the influence that this information has for the future planning of business procedures.