Bluetooth mobile advertising system using pull-based approach

Bluetooth Mobile Advertising System Using Pull-Based Approach Azni H. Halim Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia, Bandar Baru Nilai 71800 N.Sembilan, Malaysia [email protected] Ahmad H. Fauzi Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, Kota Samarahan 94300 Sarawak [email protected] Abstract The focus of this paper is on the implementation of Bluetooth as a tool to provide m-advertising (mobile advertising). The paper attempts to introduce the implementation of Bluetooth m-advertising system based on user-driven concept using pull-based approach. User-driven concept gives flexibility to end users to select the preferred advertisements from the server while pull-based m-advertising provides advertisement to users based on their willingness and request. This paper also will address two issues in push-based m-advertising systems, which are spamming and time limit. 1. Introduction Mobile advertising (m-advertising) is a new approach in advertisement strategy nowadays. From marketing perspective, m-advertising refers to advertisement moving from place to place or advertisement delivered to mobile devices. Its offers a huge potential due to its ability to send unique, personalized and customized advertisement and also engaging customer to negotiate with the advertisers. Madvertising is considered as a very important class of m-commerce application because much targeted can be done. Previous works on m-advertising are using pushbased approach [1]. Push-based means the advertisements are sent to the recipient’s mobile device without their request. This may lead to spamming issues. Few studies have shown that some users may consider push-based advertisement as distracting their privacy. In addition, this may also increase chances for their devices to be spammed by others since the user must turn on the Bluetooth sensor on mobile devices for a longer period of time to receive advertisement from push based server. 978-1-4244-2328-6/08/$25.00 © 2008 IEEE Selviawati Tarmizi Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, Kota Samarahan 94300 Sarawak [email protected] Another issue with push-based m-advertising system is the limitation of time set for a user to response to a permission message sent to them, prior to receiving any advertisement. The problem may be worsening if the user does not hear the permission notification and not given any reply. Then the user may miss the advertisement on the latest promotion. Hence, m-advertising system using user-driven concept and pull-based approach could be effectively eliminating spamming and time limitation exits in pushbash approach and it also allow users to take control of the system. This research paper is aimed at developing new m-advertising marketing strategy using user driven concept and pull-based approach. The rest of this paper is organized as follow. Section 2 review some of the existing m-advertising system, section 3 highlights on implementation of the prototype and Section 4 conclusion and future works on the implication of the prototype. 2. Overview of Existing M-advertising System M-advertising is a new approach in advertisement strategy designed for mobile phones, cell phones, PDA’s and other mobile devices. The study done by [1],[2],[3] regarding the usage of Mobile Advertising System agree that the advertisement is easy to view and user interface is less complicated. There are numerous m-advertising system have been developed for mobile usage. A detailed inspection of three existing system namely, Bluetooth-Based Mobile Advertising Delivery (B-MAD) system [1], Location Based Car Park System (LDPS) [4], and Targeted Distributed Advertising (TDA) [5] system will be conducted. B-MAD system requirement need sensor and end user devices available with GPRS capability, a programming interface to Bluetooth stack for sensor and XHTML (eXtensible Hypertext markup Language) browser for the end user device. The system implements the Bluetooth Sensor in the SymbianOS series 60 version 1.x environment. The Bluetooth sensor periodically scans for nearby Bluetooth devices. For the positioning based on the Bluetooth sensor, the approach used is run the Bluetooth Sensor software on a suitable device (e.g. a mobile phone or a PDA) in a known location. This system use Push Service Indication (SI) messages to deliver notification on available advertisement. An SI message contains the description of the offered service and an embedded URL pointing to the content. The user can choose to download the content whenever (unless the message has expired) since the message is stored on the phone. Unlike B-MAP, LDPS is a dependable locating parking service using Bluetooth enable devices. The system allow user to search for available parking area and make a reservation on the available parking space. After confirming the reservation slot, an authentication code will be sent to the mobile user as well as Bluetooth enable car park system. On reaching the parking slot, Bluetooth device in the parking slot can interact with Bluetooth device in the vehicle and exchange authentication details. If the authentication fails the parking systems will give an alarm. The difference between B-MAP and LDPS is it used pullbased approach to deliver its content to mobile devices by giving authentication code. This is a good feature of m-advertising in delivering the content to avoid privacy intrusion. Another existing M-advertising system is TDA. The purpose of TDA is to target advertisements towards customers in a mall-like environment by gathering information about their shopping preferences. Customer movement is tracked through sensors located throughout stores, continuously updated by the sensors, and sent to a centralized database for storage. Advertisements are presented on displays, which are located throughout the mall. Each display contains a Bluetooth device that can detect when the Bluetooth devices of customers come within range of 30-50 feet. Both B-MAP and TDA are using push-based approach. When push-based approach is used, user must turn on the Bluetooth sensor on the mobile phones for a longer period of time. The longer the Bluetooth sensor is turn on, the higher chances for user to get spammed. 978-1-4244-2328-6/08/$25.00 © 2008 IEEE 3. Implementation This section describes the structure and the flow of the system. This system uses several coding technique to implement. Basically, this is a whole system which is divided into two parts which are server and client site. The most important is this system must be easy to manage and organize. 3.1 System requirements The system requirements needed to implement this system are: 1. For client: a. Any brand of mobile phone with Bluetooth 2. For server (minimum requirement): a. Windows 2000, NT or XP Pro b. Pentium III 1.0 GHz or better c. 256 Mbytes of RAM or better d. At least 100 Mbytes of disk space for Java Wireless Toolkit software User requirements. Two main types of user are concerned for the proposed system, which are the system administrator, Client and Advertiser. 1. System Administrator a. Must have the acquired knowledge in configuring Java Wireless Toolkit software 2. Client a. Advertiser i. Any advertisers who need to publish their advertisement ii. Have register as member of the shopping mall and already configure Java wireless Toolkit in their mobile phone iii. Have the understanding and knowledge of configuring Bluetooth setting on their mobile phone. b. Client i. Any public who visit the shopping mall that has mobile phone including Bluetooth device given privilege to use the services ii. Have registered as member of the shopping mall and already configure Java wireless Toolkit in their mobile. iii. Have the understanding and knowledge of configuring Bluetooth setting on their mobile phone. 3.2. System Implementation The system is implemented using JAVA 2 Micro Edition (J2ME). The server site of Mobile advertising system has a few and functionality compared to Client site. Server Operation. Server site of the Mobile Advertising system has little functionality compared to Client site. The Server job is to provide a service so that it can be discovered by Clients. In addition, the Server also responsible to handle requests which come from Client and process them. This includes sending out advertisement and contact detail requested by Client. Before the service and connection can be established, each of the devices must have a unique ID. After setting up the ID, Bluetooth device and service need to be configured. The Bluetooth must set to general Inquiry Access Code (GIAC) that allows every Bluetooth devices in range to detect the server. All records regarding advertisement and contact number are stored into record to make it easy to publish to another Bluetooth device. Client Flow Chart. Figure 2 below refers to client flow chart diagram. The client site of Mobile Advertising System must be launched before it can be used. Once the service is started, the user will be asked whether to start the search function or not. The search function is to locate the server using Bluetooth. If server is found, then the connection will be established. Once the connection is established, the user will be redirected into Graphical User Interface (GUI) at client site application. This GUI will guide users within the application. Client will then select the category and subcategory of advertisement. This type of category contain for fast food, restaurant and other products. Client can select between promotion and contact detail to request from server. Client will receive feedback from server which contain available promotion and contact detail. Client who is advertiser also can edit or add promotion and publish it. After that, client will make other request and continue the same process. START START SERVICE SEARCH CONNECTION? Server Flow Chart. Figure 1 below refers to server flow chart indication overall process of Bluetooth connection. First, server launches the system and will open connection for Bluetooth devices. Bluetooth connection are connected when server open its connection. After server open the connection, server can continue to next process, which is accept client request or stop the service and then close the Bluetooth connection. At the client request process, server will find the match result based on request by client and the reply the result to client. The same process continues for next request by client. YES ACCEPT CONNECTION USER SELECTION TYPE 1 TYPE 2 ADVERTISEMNET 3 ADVERTISEMNET 2 ADVER TISEMENT 1 TYPE 3 TYPE 4 TYPE 5 TYPE 6 TYPE 7 PROMOTION TYPE 8 TYPE 9 CONTACT DETAIL NO REQUEST TO SERVER RECEIVE FEEDBACK FROM SERVER DISPLAY FOR PROMOTION S T A R T O P E N C O N N E C T IO N S T A R T NO DISPLAY FOR CONTACT DETAIL NO S E R V IC E ? EDIT? USER INPUT? NO R E A D Y T O A C C E P T C L IE N T ’S R E Q U E S T ? PUBLISH? YES FINISH P R O C E S S R E Q U E S T Figure 2. Client Flow Chart P R O M O T IO N C O N T A C T R E P L Y C L IE N T ’S R E Q U E S T F IN IS H D E T A IL S T O P S E R V IC E C L O S E C O N N E C T IO N Figure 1. Server Flow Chart 978-1-4244-2328-6/08/$25.00 © 2008 IEEE 4. Discussion and Future Work The proposed system is implemented in a masterslave configuration. A master contains the available advertisements (server) and sent them to the slave (client) when requested. More that one slave may connect or interact with the master at the same time when requesting advertisements as shown in figure 3. The system has been tested on two mobile phones, which one of then acts as the master and another one as the slave. Java Wireless Toolkit [6] is used to execute the system and demonstrate its operation. will enjoy the benefit of mobile lifestyle by making use the benefit of mobile technology and its application. 6. References [1] Aalto,L., et al. Bluetooth and WAP Push based location aware mobile advertising system, in Proceeding Second International Conference on Mobile Systems, Application and Services. Boston, MA,USA:ACM Press, 2004. Server (Master) Client (slave) Figure 3. System architecture for Bluetooth Mobile Advertising System Based on the description of the system implementation above, it shows that users retrieve advertisement from the server. With this implementation, the time out issues for permission response is eliminates. The spamming issue is also addresses since users initiate all the requests. At this phase, the system is using text based since it is easier for the users to understand the advertisement. For future enhancement, multimedia element can be implemented to the advertisement to make it more interactive. Hence, this will attract more users. Although the system can overcome privacy issue such spamming, however, many more security issues are lacking such as encryption capabilities. These issues will be tackled accordingly in the future. 5. Conclusion In this paper we presented m-advertising system using pull-based approach. The advantage of the system is all advertisements received by users are based on their requests. This approach can eliminated spamming issues in m-advertising system. Although security issues not fully address in this project, however, major issues like spamming has been resolved. Users now can freely accept or retrieve any advertisement and not worrying about being flooded by unwanted messages. As mention in the previous section, future enhancement should be focus more on other security issues. Not only issues related to Bluetooth security itself but issues such as content and availability of the system to users. These to ensure that the community 978-1-4244-2328-6/08/$25.00 © 2008 IEEE [2] A.Ranganathan and R. Cambell. Advertising in a Pervasive computing Environment. In proceeding of the 2nd International Workshop on Mobile Commerce. Atlanta, Georgia, USA 2002 [3] H. Joanna and M. Isomursu. User Experience on Location-Aware Mobile Services. In Proceeding of OZCHI 2005, Canberra, Australia 2005 [4] Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Anna University, Chennai, INDIA (2005), Location Dependent Parking Services through Bluetooth, URL http://www.acadjournal.com/2005/v15/part6/p1/Locati on Dependent Parking Service Throught Bluetooth_AOIJ-files/filelist.xml [ accesses 11 February 2007] [5] R. Das, D. Sharpe, Advertisement, URL Targeted [6] Java.sun.com, Java Wireless Toolkit. Distributed