Push or Pull? Design of Content Delivery Systems

ABSTRACT Advances in information technology, especially the expansion of cellular and WiFi networks, are dramatically changing how people consume digital content. These changes in user access behavior present a challenge of delivering content to a diversified consumer base. This article addresses th...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Decision sciences 2015-10, Vol.46 (5), p.937-960
Main Authors: Guo, Hong, Marston, Sean, Chen, Yuwen
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Consumers
Content Delivery Systems
Decision analysis
Delivery Delay
Information technology
Push and Pull Mechanisms
Studies
Systems design
Technological change
User behavior
Wireless networks
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Summary:ABSTRACT Advances in information technology, especially the expansion of cellular and WiFi networks, are dramatically changing how people consume digital content. These changes in user access behavior present a challenge of delivering content to a diversified consumer base. This article addresses this challenge by identifying the key factors for the design of content delivery systems (gross value of content, delivery delay, sensitivity to delivery delay, accessing cost, and processing cost) and explicitly modeling their interactions. We investigate two content delivery systems—push and pull systems, and solve for the content provider's optimal push frequency decision and consumers’ push versus pull decisions. We show that the content provider's selection of push frequency plays a critical role determining the segmentation of the consumer market into the push group and the pull group. Our findings suggest that firms should set a relatively high push frequency to cater to high‐type consumers, which leads to two consumer groups with low‐type consumers belonging to the pull group and high‐type consumers belonging to the push group.
ISSN:0011-7315
1540-5915
DOI:10.1111/deci.12169