Coupons: A Multilevel Incentive Scheme for Information Dissemination in Mobile Networks

Integrating mobile computing and localized user interaction into the Internet requires more than simply overcoming pure routing challenges. Apart from issues such as intermittent connectivity and unreliable nodes, the human factor is becoming increasingly important. To date, user behavior has only been considered in terms of mobility patterns and incentives for encouraging cooperation. Moreover, the focus has always been on systems that aim to enforce fairness by either bringing an indirect equilibrium or by punishing "misbehaving" users. The goal of this paper is therefore to present Coupons. Coupons is an idea to define, evaluate, and implement algorithms for the emerging class of social network and information sharing applications. Coupons is a system designed to allow users to opportunistically interact and share data through a wireless medium, to overcome highly variable Internet access through adaptive localized interaction, and to incorporate an incentive scheme to make the system usable and encourage participation.