Pricing of Information Services Using Real-Time Databases: A Framework for Integrating User Preferences and Real-Time Workload (Best Paper Runner Up)

Many revolutionary information products are being offered or envisioned in electronic commerce setting. Since an economic paradigm and mass customization are implicit in electronic commerce, these products must be produced and delivered at appropriate prices with user desired service characteristics such as response time, correctness, and completeness. In this research, we investigate the information services pricing with response time (or delay) as the only service characteristic since response time can implicitly characterize other quality attributes such as correctness. In order to recognize customers’ preferences, real-time databases, where transaction processing is time-cognizant, are central to information providers and can be thought of as “manufacturers” of customized products. We propose to capture user preferences by a priority pricing mechanism based on economic theory. This pricing is concerned with database access and is independent of content pricing. Our approach has a natural overload management and admission control 1 2 techniques that can potentially increase collective benefits. Our model is evaluated using simulation and is shown to outperform a system without access pricing mechanism with respect to both system wide benefits and RTDB performance.