Push selling—Multicast messages to wireless devices based on the publish/subscribe model

Abstract

Push technology automates the information delivery process by not requiring users to request for the information they need. Wireless has experienced explosive growth in recent years, and “ push” will be the predominant wireless service delivery paradigm of the future. A wide variety of services, alerts and messages, such as promotional content, will be delivered to consumers’ phones or PDA. However, to push information to a wireless device can be a challenge because of the problem of intermittent communication links and resource constraints on wireless devices as well as limited bandwidth. This paper explores an efficient multicasting mechanism that “pushes” pre-specified information to groups of wireless devices. The mechanism operates with limited bandwidth and also overcomes the connectivity problem. Based on the above concept, we have designed and implemented a system to multicast sales information via wireless technology. The system is message-oriented and JMS compliant.