Developing Personalized Information Services for Mobile Commerce Location-Aware Applications

Abstract — The mobile setting adds unique characteristics to applications that can be used by mobile commerce client devices, such as ubiquity and location awareness. These devices are known to be limited in terms of computational power, input/output capabilities and memory, thus enhancing the mobile browsing user experience is realistic only if perceptual and contextual considerations are addressed. In this article, we attempt to define and analyze the issues of mobility, taking into consideration factors that would attract users to mobile commerce applications. We focus on how these issues may influence the user acceptance and the quality of personalized location-based services. To improve understanding of the mobile setting, a case study of a context-aware location-based application is designed and carried out. The application is capable to identify and to depict on the map user’s current location, to search and detect routes, and to display various user personal points of interest/attractions, along user’s current route. It is a personalized application, based on Microsoft MapPoint Web Service technology, in which each user receives information which is strictly related to his identity. Finally, to review certain personalized and user-friendly features of our approach, a typical application scenario is presented