Crowd formation based on wireless context information

A computer implemented method comprising:

• obtaining wireless contexts of a plurality of mobile devices of a corresponding plurality of users;
• and
• forming one or more crowds of users based on the wireless contexts of the plurality of mobile devices, wherein forming the one or more crowds of users comprises:
• identifying a subset of the plurality of users as a plurality of relevant users;
• computing a similarity metric for each pair of relevant users from the plurality of relevant users based on the wireless contexts of corresponding ones of the plurality of mobile devices;
• and
• forming the one or more crowds of users based on the similarity metrics computed for the pairs of relevant users.

A computing device comprising:

• a communication interface communicatively coupled to a network;
• and
• a controller associated with the communication interface and adapted to:
• obtain, via the network, wireless contexts of a plurality of mobile devices of a corresponding plurality of users, wherein for each mobile device of at least some of the plurality of mobile devices, the wireless context of the mobile device comprises a wireless Personal Area Network (PAN) context of the mobile device comprising information identifying one or more PAN-enabled devices detected by the mobile device and a quality metric for each of the one or more PAN-enabled devices detected by the mobile device;
• and
• form one or more crowds of users based on the wireless contexts of the plurality of mobile devices.

A computing device comprising:

• a communication interface communicatively coupled to a network;
• and
• a controller associated with the communication interface and adapted to:
• obtain, via the network, wireless contexts of a plurality of mobile devices of a corresponding plurality of users, wherein for each mobile device of at least some of the plurality of mobile devices, the wireless context of the mobile device comprises a wireless Local Area Network (LAN) context of the mobile device comprising a quality metric for each wireless LAN of the one or more wireless LANs detected by the mobile device;
• and
• form one or more crowds of users based on the wireless contexts of the plurality of mobile devices.