Push or Pull? Design of Content Delivery Systems
Document Type
Article
Date of Original Version
10-1-2015
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.
Publication Title, e.g., Journal
Decision Sciences
Volume
46
Issue
5
Citation/Publisher Attribution
Guo, Hong, Sean Marston, and Yuwen Chen. "Push or Pull? Design of Content Delivery Systems." Decision Sciences 46, 5 (2015): 937-960. doi: 10.1111/deci.12169.