Multi-dimensional- personalisation for location and interest- based recommendation Steffen W. Schilke Udo Bleimann Steven M. Furnell and Andrew D. Phippen The authors Steffen W. Schilke is a PhD Student, Member and Researcher, Network Research Group, University of Plymouth, Plymouth, UK and the Institute of Applied Informatics Darmstadt (AIDA), University of Applied Sciences Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany. Udo Bleimann is a Managing Director, AIDA, Darmstadt, Germany. Steven M. Furnell is Head and Andrew D. Phippen is a Senior Lecturer, both at the Network Research Group, University of Plymouth, Plymouth, UK. Keywords Internet, Information services, Mobile communication systems Abstract During the dot com era the word “personalisation” was a hot buzzword. With the fall of the dot com companies the topic has lost momentum. As the killer application for UMTS has yet to be identified, the concept of multi-dimensional-personalisation (MDP) could be a candidate. Using this approach, a recommendation of online content, as well as offline events, can be offered to the user based on their known interests and current location. Instead of having to request this information, the new service concept would proactively provide the information and services – with the consequence that the right information or service could therefore be offered at the right place, at the right time. Following an overview of the literature, the paper proposes a new approach for MDP, and shows how it extends the existing implementations. Electronic access The Emerald Research Register for this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/researchregister The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/1066-2243.htm 1. Introduction This paper introduces a next generation personalisation approach which continues the approaches of most previous personalisation projects. Besides the personalisation efforts, the location of the user and a temporal component will be taken into account. These can be considered to be the main dimensions used or applied for this new personalisation approach – hence the name “multi-dimensional-personalisation” (MDP). Other issues have to be taken into account and will be mentioned later. “Personalisation” was a hot term during the dot com era. In 1999, at a Gartner Group symposium, it was predicted that “... by 2003, nearly 85 percent of global 1,000 Web sites will use some form of personalization (0.7 probability)” (Abrams et al., 1999). It seems that this prediction did not come true. Through the meltdown of the dot com companies, a lot of the hype faded. Nowadays personalisation is seen in a broader context known as an “adaptive interface”. The first two levels (i.e. conceptual and semantic levels) represent the personalisation (the other two levels are called syntactical and lexical (adapted from Foley and van Dam, 1990)). This paper initially shows how the terms have been defined and used. Their relationship and samples of the application of these approaches are presented. It then presents how the new approach will be extended to allow the combination of dimensions of user interest, the location and the time for recommending and presenting the right information or service proactively. The approach permits the offering of personalised views on information and services in the online as well as the offline world. Additionally, it allows a user to have one specific site personalised and extends this approach to all participants (online as well as offline). One of the key issues is to organise information in a way that a system can use to support the user and pass a selection/ recommendation to the user, depending on the active user model/personality. 2. Dimensions for personalisation The proposed system applies three main dimensions, which are interest (where personalisation is usually based on), location and time. It is necessary to show the relationship to previous approaches to be able to show the extended reach of this idea fully. The first dimension is interest, which is the main factor used for personalisation nowadays. The interests of the user are taken into account to Internet Research Volume 14 · Number 5 · 2004 · pp. 379-385 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited · ISSN 1066-2243 DOI 10.1108/10662240410566980 379