Patent Grant
11431814
This disclosure relates generally to audience measurement, and, more particularly, to methods and apparatus to monitor media presentations.
In recent years, consumer devices have been provided with Internet connectivity and the ability to retrieve media from the Internet. As such, media exposure has shifted away from conventional methods of presentation, such as broadcast television, towards presentation via consumer devices accessing the Internet to retrieve media for display.
Media providers and/or other entities such as, for example, advertising companies, broadcast networks, etc. are often interested in the viewing, listening, and/or media behavior of audience members and/or the public in general. To monitor these behavior, an audience measurement company may enlist panelists (e.g., persons agreeing to be monitored) to cooperate in an audience measurement study. The media usage and/or exposure habits of these panelists as well as demographic data about the panelists is collected and used to statistically determine the size and demographics of a larger audience of interest.
The figures are not to scale. Wherever possible, the same reference numbers will be used throughout the drawing(s) and accompanying written description to refer to the same or like parts.
Monitoring companies desire to gain knowledge on how users interact with media devices such as smartphones, tablets, laptops, smart televisions, etc. In particular, the media monitoring companies want to monitor media presentations made at the media devices to, among other things, monitor exposure to advertisements, determine advertisement effectiveness, determine user behavior, identify purchasing behavior associated with various demographics, etc.
As used herein, the term “media” includes any type of content and/or advertisement delivered via any type of distribution medium. Thus media includes television programming or advertisements, radio programming or advertisements, movies, web sites, streaming media, etc. Example methods, apparatus, and articles of manufacture disclosed herein monitor media presentations at media devices. Such media devices may include, for example, Internet-enabled televisions, personal computers, Internet-enabled mobile handsets (e.g., a smartphone), video game consoles (e.g., Xbox®, PlayStation® 3), tablet computers (e.g., an iPad®), digital media players (e.g., a Roku® media player, a Slingbox®, etc.), etc. In some examples, media monitoring information is aggregated to determine ownership and/or usage statistics of media devices, relative rankings of usage and/or ownership of media devices, types of uses of media devices (e.g., whether a device is used for browsing the Internet, streaming media from the Internet, etc.), and/or other types of media device information. In examples disclosed herein, monitoring information includes, but is not limited to, media identifying information (e.g., media-identifying metadata, codes, signatures, watermarks, and/or other information that may be used to identify presented media), application usage information (e.g., an identifier of an application, a time and/or duration of use of the application, a rating of the application, etc.), and/or user-identifying information (e.g., demographic information, a panelist identifier, a username, etc.).
Media devices such as tablet computers (e.g., an Apple iPad®, an Asus Transformer™, etc.) present media using applications (sometimes referred to as “apps”) that access, retrieve, request, and/or present media (e.g., Internet media). Many different “Apps” exist and can be downloaded by users through app stores such as, for example, Apple iTunes®, Google Play®, etc. Hundreds, if not thousands, of apps are available in the app stores that enable presentation of media. Examples of such applications include, but are not limited to, Hulu®, Netflix®, HBO Go®, etc.
Operating systems used on media devices are often closed platforms. That is, the operating systems provide a limited set of functions that applications executed by the media device can access via, for example, an Application Programming Interface (API). In some operating systems, only a single application is executed at one time. When the media device executes the app, the app is typically run in a “sand-box.” That is, the app is not allowed to communicate with other apps executed by the media device. In some examples, apps have access to a limited set of functionality for sharing data with other apps. For example, applications executed on the iOS operating system have access to a “pasteboard” that allows applications to share information.
Because communicating with applications to identify and/or monitor media presentation events on devices using a “sandbox” approach is difficult, in examples disclosed herein monitoring is enabled by adding monitoring capability to applications. In examples disclosed herein, a software development kit (SDK) is provided to application developers from, for example, an audience measurement entity. The SDK facilitates instrumenting and/or otherwise enabling applications (e.g., media applications (such as streaming video applications), news applications, browser applications, image applications, social media applications, games, etc.) with monitoring functionalities which are able to collect and transmit monitoring information to a monitoring entity. In particular, the application developers create apps that include media monitoring functionality using the SDK. Accordingly, rather than relying on a dedicated monitoring application installed on a panelist computer (e.g., a tablet, a laptop, a smartphone, etc.), instrumented applications disclosed herein are instrumented with instructions such that the instant apps effectively monitor themselves and/or user interaction(s) with the instrumented apps. In some examples, the instrumented application is referred to as a monitoring enabled application. Because the instrumented applications monitor themselves, the instrumented applications and/or the monitoring functionality provided by the SDK enables the instrumented application to, for example, notify the central facility when an app and/or media associated with the app is presented, notify the central facility what media and/or app(s) is presented, notify the central facility how the apps and/or media is being presented (e.g. via a tablet display, via a television, etc.), notify the central facility of a duration of exposure of an app and/or media associated with the app, etc. In some examples, the media monitoring functionality may be triggered by, for example presentation of a media element such as, for example, a video, audio, and image, etc.
However, just because media monitoring functionality is implemented by the application does not mean that the user has consented to be monitored. Therefore, to protect the privacy of persons not agreeing to be monitored, it is desirable to seek consent before monitoring. In principle, such consent could be gathered by every application instrumented with monitoring functionality by causing each such instrumented application to ask the user for permission to enable monitoring. However, on devices that may include many apps, the user would be asked for their permission many times. Repeatedly asking the user for their permission to enable monitoring may discourage the user from consenting to the monitoring. Furthermore, in order to marry demographic information with media exposure and/or app usage data, it is necessary to obtain such demographic information from the user. In principle, it is possible to request such demographic information whenever asking a user for permission to monitor. However, repeatedly asking the user for their permission and/or repeatedly asking the user to re-enter their demographic information is cumbersome to the user and may discourage the user from enabling monitoring. In examples disclosed herein the instrumented apps to not directly ask the user for consent to be monitored and/or further demographic information. Rather, a single registrar (sometimes referred to as a registration application) requests consent from the user to enable monitoring and collects demographic information from the user. An indication of the consent (e.g., a consent indicator) to monitoring is then stored in a shared memory location of the media device (e.g., a pasteboard, a register, a data file, etc.). The collected demographic information is transmitted by the registration application to the monitoring entity. As disclosed herein, this one registration event serves as consent to monitoring by instrumented applications. In particular, applications with monitoring functionality (e.g., instrumented applications) do not ask the user for consent, but instead check for the consent indicator on, for example, the pasteboard, etc. If the consent indicator is present and indicates consent, the monitoring functionality of the app is activated. If the consent indicator is not present and/or does not indicate consent, the monitoring functionality of the apps is disabled and/or not executed.
Consider for example, a media application instrumented with monitoring functionality. Assume the instrumented application has been downloaded to a media device (e.g., via purchase in an app store). During operation of the instrumented media application, the media application identifies whether the user has given their permission to be monitored. In examples disclosed herein, the media application checks the shared memory location to determine if such consent has been given. When the instrumented application accesses the shared memory location for the consent indicator, the instrumented application also retrieves a panelist identifier (if present) associated with the monitored media presentation. The panelist identifier is used to associate the media activity of the media device with the panelist. In some examples, the panelist identifier is the consent identifier.
The example media provider 110 of the illustrated example of
The example app store 112 of the illustrated example of
The example network 120 of the illustrated example of
The example media device 130 of the illustrated example shown in
The instrumented application 135 of the illustrated example of
The example data store 150 of the illustrated example of
The example registrar 155 of the illustrated example of
In the example of
Once the instrumented app 135 is made available at the app store, members of the general public, some of which are panelists of the audience measurement entity, may download the app to their respective media device(s) 130 via an electronic message 115 as shown in
When an instrumented app 135 is executed on a mobile device, the instrumented app 135 accesses the shared memory location to determine if the user of the mobile device has consented to monitoring. If so, the monitoring instructions of the app 135 are executed to collect monitoring information and upload the same to the central facility via electronic message 117. If the consent identifier is not present, the monitoring instructions are disabled and the app 135 is executed without collecting monitoring information and without uploading monitoring information to the central facility 170.
The central facility 170 of the illustrated example is a facility of an audience measurement entity (e.g., the Nielsen Company (US) LLC) and includes an interface to receive reported metering information (e.g., metadata) from the media device 130 via the network 120. The example central facility 170 of the illustrated example of
In the illustrated example, the central facility 170 includes an HTTP interface 175 to receive HTTP requests that include media monitoring information, demographic information, etc. The HTTP requests are sent with the media monitoring information in their payload. The media monitoring information may include media-identifying information (e.g., media-identifying metadata, codes, signatures, watermarks, and/or other information that may be used to identify presented media), application usage information (e.g., an identifier of an application, a time and/or duration of use of the application, a rating of the application, etc.), user-identifying information (e.g., demographic information, a panelist identifier, a username, etc.), etc. The requests may not be intended to actually retrieve content, but are instead used as a vehicle to convey the metering information. Thus, the HTTP requests may be referred to as “dummy requests”. The central facility 170 is provided with software (e.g., a daemon) to extract the metering information from the payload of the dummy request(s). Additionally or alternatively, any other method(s) to transfer the metering information may be used such as, for example, an HTTP Secure protocol (HTTPS), a file transfer protocol (FTP), a secure file transfer protocol (SFTP), an HTTP and/or HTTPS GET request, an HTTP and/or HTTPS POST request, etc.
The example data store 176 of the illustrated example of
The example registration data receiver 177 of the illustrated example of
The example monitoring data receiver 179 of the illustrated example of
In the illustrated example, the example monitoring data receiver 179 stores and analyzes the monitoring information received from the instrumented application(s) 135 from different media devices. For example, the example monitoring data receiver 179 may sort and/or group metering information by media provider 110 (e.g., by grouping all metering data associated with a particular media provider 110, and/or associated with a particular instrumented application 135). Any other processing of media monitoring information may additionally or alternatively be performed. In some examples, the monitoring data receiver 179 adds a timestamp to the media monitoring information upon receipt. Timestamping (e.g., recording a time that an event occurred) enables accurate identification and/or correlation of media that was presented and/or the time that it was presented with the demographics of the user(s) of the media device(s).
The example SDK provider 180 of the illustrated example of
The example reporter 182 of the illustrated example of
Additionally or alternatively, popularities of different types of media across different device types may be reported. Such different types of media may be, for example, news, movies, television programming, on-demand media, Internet-based media, games, streaming games, advertisements, etc. Such comparisons may be made across any type(s) and/or numbers of devices including, for example, cell phones, smart phones, dedicated portable multimedia playback devices, iPod® devices, tablet computing devices (e.g., an iPad®), standard-definition (SD) televisions, high-definition (HD) televisions, three-dimensional (3D) televisions, stationary computers, portable computers, Internet radios, etc. Any other type(s) and/or number of media and/or devices may be analyzed. The report may also associate the media exposure metrics with demographic segments (e.g., age groups, genders, ethnicities, etc.) corresponding to the user(s) of the client device(s). Additionally or alternatively, the report may associate the media exposure metrics with metric indicators of the popularity of the artist, genre, song, title, etc., across one or more user characteristics selected from one or more demographic segment(s), one or more age group(s), one or more gender(s), and/or any other user characteristic(s).
In some examples, the media exposure metrics are used to determine demographic reach of streaming media, ratings for streaming media, engagement indices for streaming media, user affinities associated with streaming media, broadcast media, and/or any other audience measure metric associated with streaming media and/or locally stored media. While in the illustrated example, the media exposure metrics are used to provide information for streaming media, the media exposure metrics may be used to provide information for any other type of media such as, for example, websites, non-streaming media, etc. In some examples, the media exposure metrics are audience share metrics indicative of percentages of audiences for different applications and/or types of applications that accessed the same media. For example, a first percentage of an audience may be exposed to news media via a browser application, while a second percentage of the audience may be exposed to the same news media via a news reader application.
Although for simplicity, the above discussion focuses on a single media device, a single instrumented app 135, a single media provider, a single app store 112, and a single central facility 170, any number of any of these elements may be present. For example, in a typical implementation, it is expected that multiple media providers will offer multiple different instrumented apps to the public at large. Thus, it is expected that there will be many media devices accessing such apps, and that a significant portion of the users will agree to be panelists. Thus, it is expected that there will be many instances of the above processes conducted across many devices at the overlapping and/or distinct times. Thus, for example, there may be many instantiations of the machine-readable instructions disclosed in the above flowcharts operating at the same or different time. Some of these instances may be implemented as parallel threads operating on a same device.
The example media presenter 210 of
The example media monitor 220 of the illustrated example of
Audio watermarking is a technique used to identify media such as television broadcasts, radio broadcasts, advertisements (television and/or radio), downloaded media, streaming media, prepackaged media, etc. Existing audio watermarking techniques identify media by embedding one or more audio codes (e.g., one or more watermarks), such as media identifying information and/or an identifier that may be mapped to media identifying information, into an audio and/or video component. In some examples, the audio or video component is selected to have a signal characteristic sufficient to hide the watermark. As used herein, the terms “code” or “watermark” are used interchangeably and are defined to mean any identification information (e.g., an identifier) that may be inserted or embedded in the audio or video of media (e.g., a program or advertisement) for the purpose of identifying the media or for another purpose such as tuning (e.g., a packet identifying header). As used herein “media” refers to audio and/or visual (still or moving) content and/or advertisements. To identify watermarked media, the watermark(s) are extracted and used to access a table of reference watermarks that are mapped to media identifying information.
Unlike media monitoring techniques based on codes and/or watermarks included with and/or embedded in the monitored media, fingerprint or signature-based media monitoring techniques generally use one or more inherent characteristics of the monitored media during a monitoring time interval to generate a substantially unique proxy for the media. Such a proxy is referred to as a signature or fingerprint, and can take any form (e.g., a series of digital values, a waveform, etc.) representative of any aspect(s) of the media signal(s)(e.g., the audio and/or video signals forming the media presentation being monitored). A good signature is one that is repeatable when processing the same media presentation, but that is unique relative to other (e.g., different) presentations of other (e.g., different) media. Accordingly, the term “fingerprint” and “signature” are used interchangeably herein and are defined herein to mean a proxy for identifying media that is generated from one or more inherent characteristics of the media.
Signature-based media monitoring generally involves determining (e.g., generating and/or collecting) signature(s) representative of a media signal (e.g., an audio signal and/or a video signal) output by a monitored media device and comparing the monitored signature(s) to one or more references signatures corresponding to known (e.g., reference) media sources. Various comparison criteria, such as a cross-correlation value, a Hamming distance, etc., can be evaluated to determine whether a monitored signature matches a particular reference signature. When a match between the monitored signature and one of the reference signatures is found, the monitored media can be identified as corresponding to the particular reference media represented by the reference signature that with matched the monitored signature. Because attributes, such as an identifier of the media, a presentation time, a broadcast channel, etc., are collected for the reference signature, these attributes may then be associated with the monitored media whose monitored signature matched the reference signature. Example systems for identifying media based on codes and/or signatures are long known and were first disclosed in Thomas, U.S. Pat. No. 5,481,294, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.
In some examples, the code/watermark is transmitted with and/or in association with the media as media-identifying metadata. The media-identifying metadata may be formatted in a text or binary format such as, for example, an ID3 tag. In some examples, the media-identifying metadata includes the data from the code/watermark, etc. However, in some other examples, the media-identifying metadata is derived from and/or representative of the code/watermark, and/or a signature, etc. Example methods and apparatus to transcode watermarks into ID3 tags are disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/341,646, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/341,661, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/443,596, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/455,961, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/341,646, and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/472,170 which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entireties.
In the illustrated example of
The example permission monitor 230 of the illustrated example of
The example monitoring data controller 240 of the illustrated example of
The example user information solicitor 260 of the illustrated example of
The example identifier storer 270 of the illustrated example of
The example registration data transmitter 275 of the illustrated example of
The example wake up timer 290 of the illustrated example of
The example consent storer 295 of the illustrated example of
The example network communicator 280 of the illustrated example of
Significantly, the registrar 155 of
In some examples, the media device 130 may enable multiple profiles and/or user accounts to be used (e.g., a user account for a parent and a user account for a child). Accordingly, in such an example, the consent identifier indicates consent for profile(s) that have given consent to being monitored. For example, a first profile (e.g., a parent profile) may consent to be monitored, while a second profile (e.g., a child profile) may not. In some examples, cross-profile consent may be given. For example, a parent may give consent on behalf of the child to enable monitoring for the child profile as well. In some examples, multiple consent identifiers may be stored, each associated with a respective user account and/or profile. In other examples, a single identifier indicating which profiles and/or user accounts have given consent may be stored. In such examples, the users of the multi-user device are identified before monitoring begins to ensure only individuals who consent are monitored.
While an example manner of implementing the example media device 130 and/or the example central facility 170 are illustrated in
A flowchart representative of example machine readable instructions for implementing the registrar 155 of
As mentioned above, the example processes of
The user information solicitor 260 of the illustrated example determines if the user has agreed to become a panelist at block 305. In some examples, the user information solicitor 260 determines if the user has agreed to become a panelist by prompting the user to become a panelist. For example, a prompt may be displayed asking the user “Would you allow us to monitor your media exposure and/or app usage?” However, in some examples the user may have already indicated that they wish to become a panelist by, for example, agreeing to install the registrar 155. If the user has agreed to join the panel (e.g., become a panelist) (block 305), the user information solicitor 260 solicits the panelist for user identification and/or demographic data (block 310). In the illustrated example, the user information solicitor 260 collects the demographic information entered by the panelist (block 310). In the illustrated example, demographic information may include for example, an ethnicity, an income level, an address, interests of the panelist, and/or on the any other demographic information related to the panelist.
The registration data transmitter 275 transmits the collected demographic information to the central facility 170 (block 315). In the illustrated example, the demographic information is transmitted by the registration data transmitter 275 via the network communicator 280. In the illustrated example, the demographic information is transmitted immediately upon collecting the demographic data from the panelist via the user information solicitor 260. However the data may be transmitted in any other fashion. For example, the data may be stored in the data store 150 and transmitted to the central facility 170 at a later time.
The registration data transmitter 275 then determines a panelist identifier (block 320). In the illustrated example, the panelist identifier is determined by requesting the panelist identifier from the central facility 170. However, the panelist identifier may be determined in any other fashion such as, for example, by deriving the panelist identifier based on a social security number of the panelist, based on a phone number of the panelist, based on a hardware address of the media device (e.g. a media access control (MAC) address of the media device), etc. The identifier storer 270 then stores the panelist identifier in the data store 150 (block 325). In the illustrated example, the identifier storer 270 encrypts the panelist identifier before the panelist identifier (and/or an encrypted form of the panelist identifier) is stored in the data store 150. Encrypting the panelist identifier ensures that the identifier remains anonymous. For example, if a social security number of the panelist was used as the panelist identifier, the panelist identifier would include sensitive panelist information that should not be shared with other applications. However, if the sensitive panelist information (e.g., the social security number) is encrypted, the sensitive information contained therein is not identifiable by the other applications that may have access to the shared location in the data store 150.
In the illustrated example, the consent storer 295 stores a consent identifier in the data store 150 (block 330). In the illustrated example, the consent identifier is a binary indicator separate from the panelist identifier that indicates whether monitoring is enabled. However, in some examples, a consent indicator separate from the panelist identifier may not be stored. In such an example, the panelist identifier itself may serve as an indication as to whether monitoring is enabled. After storing the consent identifier to enable monitoring by instrumented apps (e.g., monitoring enabled apps), the process terminates. However, the process may be restarted anytime by executing the registrar application 155 on the media device 130. In some examples, the wake up timer 290 restarts the process 300 by prompting the user to join the panel. Prompting the user to join the panel may be advantageous because a user that was previously unreceptive to having media presentation activity and/or application usage be monitored may later give their consent to be monitored. In some examples, a second user of the device may be receptive to enabling monitoring functionality. Prompting the second user may result in the user agreeing to enabling monitoring functionality. Furthermore, the wake up timer 290 may restart the process 300 to remind the panelist that monitoring is enabled.
Referring back to block 305, if the user has not agreed to join the panel block 305, the consent storer 295 ensures that the consent identifier and/or the panelist identifier is not stored in the data store 150. The absence of such an indicator serves as a message to monitoring enabled apps that monitoring is disallowed. In some examples, the consent storer 295 deletes the panelist identifier and/or the consent identifier enabling monitoring. However in some examples, the consent storer 295 only deletes the consent identifier that enables monitoring. That is, the consent storer 295 may leave the panelist identifier in the data store. By leaving the panelist identifier in the data store, the same panelist identifier is used if the panelist later decides to rejoin the panel. In such examples, the panelist identifier may not serve as the consent identifier. After ensuring that no indicators enabling monitoring are stored (block 335), the process terminates. However, the process may be restarted anytime by executing the registrar application 155 on the media device 130.
The permission monitor 230 of the example instrumented application 135 determines if monitoring is enabled (block 405). In the illustrated example, the presentation monitor 230 determines whether monitoring is enabled by checking the data store 150 to see if a consent identifier enabling monitoring is stored therein. In some examples, the consent identifier is a binary indicator indicating that media monitoring is enabled. However, in some other examples, the consent identifier is the panelist identifier.
If monitoring is not enabled (block 405), the process 400 terminates, as the user has not given their consent to be monitored. In some examples, a media device operating system allows a only single application to be executed at a time. Accordingly, in such examples after startup of the instrumented application 135, if the user has not given their consent to be monitored, their consent cannot be given while the instrumented application 135 is being executed. That is, the user must exit the instrumented application 135 to enable monitoring (e.g., by launching the registrar 155). In some examples, the media device operating system allows multiple applications to be executed at a time. In such an example, the permission monitor 230 may periodically determine whether the user has given their consent to be monitored. Additionally or alternatively, the permission monitor 230 may check the data store 150 to determine whether monitoring is enabled when the media monitor 220 detects a media event.
If monitoring is enabled (block 405), the media monitor 220 waits until a media event is detected. Media events may be triggered when, for example, the media presenter 210 begins playing a video, the media presenter 210 displays an image (e.g., an advertisement), the media application 135 is restarted, etc. If a media event is not detected (block 410), the media monitor 220 continues to wait for a media event.
While in the illustrated example monitoring does not occur unless permission and/or consent is given, in some examples, monitoring may occur regardless of whether permission and/or consent is given. However, the collected monitoring information is not transmitted to the central facility 170. That is, the monitoring functionality of the instrumented application 135 may operate, but not transmit collected monitoring data unless consent is received. Once consent is received (e.g., by detection of a consent and/or panelist identifier), the monitoring data controller 240 may transmit the previously collected monitoring information to the central facility 170 (as well as future monitoring information). In other words, the consent identifier may be retroactive in that it authorizes previous monitoring activity.
If a media event is detected (block 410), the media monitor 220 determines a media identifier associated with media presented by the instrumented application 135 (block 415). In the illustrated example, the media monitor 220 extracts media-identifying metadata from an ID3 tag transmitted in association with the presented media (see, for example, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/341,646, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/341,661, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/443,596, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/455,961, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/341,646, and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/472,170). In some examples, the media monitor 220 determines the media identifier by extracting, decoding, etc. a code, a signature, and/or a watermark embedded in the presented media.
The permission monitor 230 of the illustrated example, retrieves the panelist identifier from the data store 150 (block 420). In the illustrated example, the panelist identifier is an encrypted panelist identifier. Encrypting the panelist identifier ensures that the application 135 does not have access to sensitive panelist information.
The media monitor 220 then creates a timestamp (block 425). Timestamping (e.g., recording a time that an event occurred) enables accurate identification and/or correlation of media that was presented and/or the time that it was presented with the user(s) using the media device at that time. Usage of the media device may be identified in any desired manner.
The monitoring data controller 240 of the illustrated example then creates a record including the media identifier (e.g., the media identifier obtained at block 415), the panelist identifier (of block 420), and the timestamp (of block 425). In the illustrated example, the record is formatted as a comma separated value (CSV) record. However, any other type(s) and/or format(s) of record may additionally or alternatively be used. For example, the record may be formatted as an extensible markup language (XML) record.
The example monitoring data controller 260 of the illustrated example determines whether the record should be transmitted to the central facility 170 (block 430). In some examples, records are streamed to the central facility 170 as they are identified and/or created. If the example monitoring data controller 260 is to transmit the record to the central facility 170 (block 430), the network communicator 280 transmits the record to the central facility 170 (block 440). In some examples, records are stored in the data store 150 so that they may be transmitted in a single transmission (e.g., a single HTTP request, a single file transfer protocol (FTP) command, etc.). If the example network communicator is not to transmit the record to the central facility 170 (block 430), the record is stored in the data store 150 by the monitoring data controller 260 (block 435).
The monitoring data controller 260 of the illustrated example determines whether a storage threshold of the data store 150 has been met or exceeded (block 445). In the illustrated example, the threshold represents an amount of time that records may be stored in the data store 150 before being transmitted to the central facility 170. Records may be stored for, for example, one hour, one day, one week, one month, etc. However, any other type of threshold may additionally or alternatively be used such as, for example, a storage limit (e.g., 1 kB, 64 kB, 1 MB, etc.). If the storage threshold is exceeded, the network communicator 280 transmits the store records to the central facility 170 (block 440). The media monitor then continues to wait for media events from the media presenter 210 (block 410). If the storage threshold is not exceeded, the media monitor 220 continues to wait for media events from the media presenter 210 (block 410).
While in the illustrated example, a storage threshold is used to determine when to transmit monitoring information, any other way of making such a determination may additionally or alternatively be used. For example, monitoring information may be transmitted to the central facility 170 at a fixed interval (e.g., 30 minutes, 3 hours, 1 day, 1 week, etc.), monitoring information may be transmitted in response to an external event (e.g., user pushes a synchronize button, the central facility 170 requests updated monitoring information, the instrumented application 135 is started, the instrumented application 135 is exited, etc.).
The example HTTP interface 175 provides the registrar 155 to the media device (block 510). In the illustrated example, the registrar 155 is provided via an “app store” 112 such as, for example, Apple iTunes, Google Play, etc. In some examples, the registrar 155 is provided directly to the media device via, for example, a website, a mailed compact disc, etc. In some examples, the registrar 155 is provided to a media device manufacturer and/or reseller. In examples where the registrar 155 is provided to the media device manufacturer, the media device manufacturer may design (e.g., develop, produce, manufacture, etc.) the media device with the registrar 155 as an integrated component. In examples where the registrar 155 is provided to the reseller, the reseller may install (e.g., modify, alter, adapt, etc.) the media device to include the registrar 155 at or prior to the time of sale of the media device to the retailer and/or to the end user (e.g., the consumer).
The example registration data receiver 177 receives demographic information from the registrar 155 (block 530). In the illustrated example, the demographic information is received when the registration data transmitter 275 transmits the demographic information received from the user to the registration data receiver 177. In response to receiving the demographic information (block 530), the registration data receiver 177 generates a panelist identifier associated with the panelist. In some examples, the panelist identifier is generated based on the demographic information. The registration data receiver 177 provides the panelist identifier to the registration data transmitter 275 of the registrar 155 (block 540). The panelist identifier is then stored in a shared memory (e.g., a pasteboard) by the identifier storer 270 for use by the instrumented application 135.
The example monitoring data receiver 179 collects monitoring information (block 550). In examples disclosed herein, monitoring information includes, but is not limited to, media identifying information (e.g., media-identifying metadata, codes, signatures, watermarks, and/or other information that may be used to identify presented media), application usage information (e.g., an identifier of an application, a time and/or duration of use of the application, a rating of the application, etc.), and/or user-identifying information (e.g., demographic information, a panelist identifier, a username, etc.). In some examples, the collected monitoring information is correlated with the received demographic information by the reporter 182 to create media metrics and/or application usage statistics.
The processor platform 600 of the illustrated example includes a processor 612. The processor 612 of the illustrated example is hardware. For example, the processor 612 can be implemented by one or more integrated circuits, logic circuits, microprocessors or controllers from any desired family or manufacturer.
The processor 612 of the illustrated example includes a local memory 613 (e.g., a cache). The processor 612 of the illustrated example is in communication with a main memory including a volatile memory 614 and a non-volatile memory 616 via a bus 618. The volatile memory 614 may be implemented by Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory (SDRAM), Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), RAMBUS Dynamic Random Access Memory (RDRAM) and/or any other type of random access memory device. The non-volatile memory 616 may be implemented by flash memory and/or any other desired type of memory device. Access to the main memory 614, 616 is controlled by a memory controller.
The processor platform 600 of the illustrated example also includes an interface circuit 620. The interface circuit 620 may be implemented by any type of interface standard, such as an Ethernet interface, a universal serial bus (USB), and/or a PCI express interface.
In the illustrated example, one or more input devices 622 are connected to the interface circuit 620. The input device(s) 622 permit(s) a user to enter data and commands into the processor 612. The input device(s) can be implemented by, for example, an audio sensor, a microphone, a camera (still or video), a keyboard, a button, a mouse, a touchscreen, a track-pad, a trackball, isopoint and/or a voice recognition system.
One or more output devices 624 are also connected to the interface circuit 620 of the illustrated example. The output devices 624 can be implemented, for example, by display devices (e.g., a light emitting diode (LED), an organic light emitting diode (OLED), a liquid crystal display, a cathode ray tube display (CRT), a touchscreen, a tactile output device, a light emitting diode (LED), a printer and/or speakers). The interface circuit 620 of the illustrated example, thus, typically includes a graphics driver card, a graphics driver chip or a graphics driver processor.
The interface circuit 620 of the illustrated example also includes a communication device such as a transmitter, a receiver, a transceiver, a modem and/or network interface card to facilitate exchange of data with external machines (e.g., computing devices of any kind) via a network 626 (e.g., an Ethernet connection, a digital subscriber line (DSL), a telephone line, coaxial cable, a cellular telephone system, etc.).
The processor platform 600 of the illustrated example also includes one or more mass storage devices 628 for storing software and/or data. Examples of such mass storage devices 628 include floppy disk drives, hard drive disks, compact disk drives, Blu-ray disk drives, RAID systems, and digital versatile disk (DVD) drives.
The coded instructions 632 of
Example systems disclosed herein enable monitoring usage of apps and/or exposure to media presented via apps. Disclosed example systems are advantageous in that they avoid burdening consumers with repeated requests for consent to be monitored and/or repeated requests for demographic information. Further, such example, systems enable the collection of detailed measurement data that may be tailored to the specific app instrumented with the monitoring instructions (e.g., a first set of monitoring instructions may be used for a first app and a second set of monitoring instructions, different form the first set, may be used by a second app different from the first app). Nevertheless, this different monitoring functionality on different apps can be activated by a single (i.e. same) consent identifier on a media device. Further, instrumented apps can be made available to the public at large without fear that persons who are not panelists will be monitored against their wishes. Moreover, any and/or all such instrumented apps may collect monitoring information whenever accessed by a consenting user (i.e., a panelist). The instrumented apps can, thus, be downloaded without a priori knowledge of the panelist/non-panelist status of the requesting user. Moreover, all of this monitoring can be accomplished within a tightly controlled sand box environment such as the environment provided by the iOS operating system of Apple devices. Significantly, in examples in which multiple different instrumented apps (e.g., a first instrumented app and a second instrumented app) exist, monitoring across these different apps is achieved without using a dedicated, on device meter (ODM). As a result, the audience measurement company is able to develop comparative usage metrics for different instrumented apps and/or media ratings for media accessed via different instrumented apps, even in a sandboxed environment that would not support an ODM such as those used in a traditional computer based media monitoring system such as that disclosed in Coffey, U.S. Pat. No. 5,675,510.
Although certain example methods, apparatus and articles of manufacture have been disclosed herein, the scope of coverage of this patent is not limited thereto. On the contrary, this patent covers all methods, apparatus and articles of manufacture fairly falling within the scope of the claims of this patent.
This patent arises from a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 16/814,618, filed on Mar. 10, 2020, and entitled “METHODS AND APPARATUS TO MONITOR MEDIA PRESENTATIONS,” which arises from a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 16/278,603, filed on Feb. 18, 2019, and entitled “METHODS AND APPARATUS TO MONITOR MEDIA PRESENTATIONS,” now granted as U.S. Pat. No. 10,623,511, which arises from a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/299,139, filed on Oct. 20, 2016, and entitled “METHODS AND APPARATUS TO MONITOR MEDIA PRESENTATIONS,” now granted as U.S. Pat. No. 10,212,242, which arises from a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/828,971, filed on Mar. 14, 2013, and entitled “METHODS AND APPARATUS TO MONITOR MEDIA PRESENTATIONS,” now granted as U.S. Pat. No. 9,503,536. Priority to U.S. application Ser. Nos. 13/828,971, 15/299,139, 16/278,603, and 16/814,618 is hereby claimed. U.S. application Ser. Nos. 13/828,971, 15/299,139, 16/278,603, and 16/814,618 are hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entireties.
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