Towards Context-Aware Mobile Web 2.0 Service Architecture

Abstract

The emergence of new lightweight Web technologies and the development of mobile devices leads to a situation, where the users can consume the same Web services regardless of the place, time and device. Mobile devices are equipped with networking capabilities and sensors that provide versatile context and user-community information. This information enhances the user experience as it can be used to compensate the limited means of input. We present a context-aware mobile Web 2.0 service architecture that connects user context and community information with the Web services. This convergence enables the development of device-independent services that are enriched and personalized with user context and community information. Mobile middleware may be needed for efficient delivery of this information from the mobile device to the Web services. Four novel communication models for the delivery are introduced, namely centralized control, centralized services, peer-to-peer services, and pure peer-to-peer. The purpose of the models is to offer a secure and reliable platform for creating new services. Finally, we study virtual communities and market structures of the proposed models from a multidisciplinary point of view. We claim that the selected technical model determines the prospective market structure.