Personalized content delivery to mobile devices

Mobile computing has become an interesting field of research due to the advancement of wireless technology. With the rapidly increasing bandwidth of wireless networks and demand of acquiring information anytime, anywhere, delivering content to mobile devices in an effective, efficient, and personalized manner has been recognized as one of the important capabilities for enabling information-on-demand. In this study, the concept of 'user profile' is used for delivering customized content to mobile users. The user profiles reside in an application server, which includes users' information interests, properties of mobile devices, and media preferences. When a wireless application receives an information request from a mobile user, it obtains relevant content from either company databases or other sources including the Internet based on keywords specified by the user, customizes it based on users' preferences and network condition, and returns it to the user. In other cases, a wireless application may automatically multicast certain information to a group of users who share the common interest via the 'push' technology. This study aims to explore effective ways to enable delivery of personalized content to mobile devices under the restrictions imposed by wireless networks and mobile devices.