Competitive market-based allocation of consumer attention space

ABSTRACT

The amount of attention space available for recommending suppliers to consumers on e-commerce sites is typically limited. We present a competitive distributed recommendation mechanism based on adaptive software agents for efficiently allocating the "consumer attention space", or banners. In our approach, each agent bids in an auction for the momentary attention of each consumer. Successive auctions allow agents to rapidly adapt their bidding strategy to focus on consumers interested in their offerings. We demonstrate the feasibility of our system by an evolutionary simulation, and reflect on the advantages of this distributed market-based approach.

REFERENCES

• 1: S.M.Bohte,E.H.Gerding,and H.La Poutre. Competitive market-based allocation of consumer attention space.Technical Report forthcoming,CWI, Amsterdam,2001.
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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  K. Computing Milieux
  K.4 COMPUTERS AND SOCIETY
      K.4.4 Electronic Commerce

Additional Classification:
  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.2 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
        I.2.11 Distributed Artificial Intelligence
            Subjects: Multiagent systems

  J. Computer Applications
  J.7 COMPUTERS IN OTHER SYSTEMS
      Subjects: Consumer products

General Terms:
Measurement, Performance, Theory