Query-based models and algorithms for distributed information dissemination

We propose a general query-based framework of an information exchange system for information search and acquisition. The system is intended to support ad-hoc and potentially anonymous interactions between users of the network, while apparently providing a convenient and effective mechanism to acquire information of the “most interest.” In particular, members of the population may cooperate over a network to reliably identify and acquire the most popular “answers” to the most popular “questions,” where popularity is defined in a global sense by summing up rankings over all users. We propose a fully distributed algorithm for reliable identification of the most popular content, which attempts to minimize and balance the amount of content that needs to be examined and ranked by each user. Using a Zipf product form model for the preferences of a random user in the system, we present simulation results which suggest that the volume of content that needs to be examined by each user in the system, in order to reliably identify the k-most popular items, is effectively and approximately O(3k).