SMMART

SMMART stands for System for Mobile Marketing: Adaptive, PeRsonalized and Targeted. SMMART Framework is a personalized and context-aware m-commerce application for wireless mobile devices, such as a PDA. SMMART delivers narrowly targeted promotional information to the users of wireless PDA's. It is a context-aware application, delivering promotions to the users when they are in a close proximity or inside a retail site distributing promotions. SMMART adapts to the needs of its user by unobtrusively monitoring his/her shopping habits and learning the user's personal preferences.

Here is a possible scenario how SMMART Framework can be used by a consumer named Bob who recently installed SMMART Client software onto his wireless PDA. Bob entered his musical preferences into SMMART (they include Cranberries, Dire Straits and Police) and drove to his favorite place to buy CDs. As Bob enters Urchin Megastore, the SMMART Client on his PDA establishes a connection with the store's SMMART Server and tells the server about his preferences. The server responds with a list of products that may be of interest to Bob. This list includes only products matching Bob's preferences that are currently on sale. Thus, Bob is spared from having to browse through the weekly advertising brochure with no guarantee that he will find anything interesting. Of all products that are on sale that day, only two match Bob's interests: Every Breath You Take, a compilation of greatest hits by Police, and On Every Street, a CD by Dire Straits.

Bob selects Every Breath You Take on the screen of his PDA to view more information about the promotion. As Bob clicks on this product, his SMMART Client assumes that Bob may be interested in other products by Police and its musicians. In this case, such a keyword is Sting (the lead singer of Police) and it is automatically added into the list of Bob's preferences.

Bob also decides to purchase On Every Street by Dire Straits. Clicking on this product listed in his SMMART Client has two consequences: Bob's interest in Dire Straits is confirmed and the keyword Mark Knopfler (the founder of Dire Straits) is added to his preferences.

After visiting Urchin Megastore, Bob decides to visit a local branch of Barnes & Stables, a major bookseller. At this moment, Bob's preferences include five keywords. Upon entering the store, his SMMART Client receives all current promotions matching his interests, presenting Bob with three products. Bob is most interested in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, a movie starring Sting, which Bob never saw. As Bob selects this product using his SMMART Client, Bob's interest in Sting is confirmed and his preferences are updated with a new keyword corresponding to the displayed product ? Guy Ritchie (director of this movie). Bob's SMMART Client also offers a list of related products, which include Snatch, a movie directed by Guy Ritchie.

To prove the functional feasibility of the SMMART Framework, we implemented its fully operational prototype. We chose C# and ASP.NET to implement SMMART Server running on Microsoft .NET Framework because of its streamlined support for Web Services and easy database connectivity. SMMART Client is also implemented in C# running on Microsoft .NET Compact Framework. Our inventory database runs on SQL Server 2000.

This project was supported in part by NSF award CNS-0354144.

Students

• Karthik Harihar
• John Hudson

Publications

• Available here