A peer-to-peer recommender system for self-emerging user communities based on gossip overlays

Gossip-based peer-to-peer protocols proved to be very efficient for supporting dynamic and complex information exchange among distributed peers. They are useful for building and maintaining the network topology itself as well as to support a pervasive diffusion of the information injected into the network. This is very useful in a world where there is a growing need to access and be aware of many types of distributed resources like Internet pages, shared files, online products, news and information. Finding flexible, scalable and efficient mechanisms addressing this topic is a key issue, even with relevant social and economic aspects. In this paper, we propose the general architecture of a system whose aim is to exploit the collaborative exchange of information between peers in order to build a system able to gather similar users and spread useful suggestions among them.

► We study two P2P approaches for building communities made of similar users. ► We first analyze classical, user-centric gossip solutions. ► We also propose a novel, vote-based, community building protocol. ► Our approach elects community representatives using a gossip exchange of information. ► Our solution enhances the spreading of recommendations in a multi-interests scenario.