Patent Application
20080320510
This disclosure is related to collecting and analyzing demographic and viewing information from viewers and using the analyzed information to offer recommended viewing selections and other feedback to viewers.
The amount of video content available to viewers is increasing rapidly. Americans are no longer restricted to the major networks for most of their television viewing. Cable and satellite television continue to offer more and more niche programming, such as whole channels devoted to golf, fishing, a particular sports team, and biographies. As a result, traditional methods of collecting viewing habits and using the aggregated demographic have been strained.
Traditional methods of collecting viewing habits have included surveys and automated black boxes, such as those used by Neilson Media Company to produce the Neilson ratings. However, there are a number of difficulties with surveys and automated black boxes for collecting viewing habits. First, surveys and black boxes tend to rely on relatively large strata, such as high-level genres, large age grouping, metropolitan areas, etc., in order to determine a demographic profile. Surveys and black boxes also often fail to capture information well for anything other than the primary scheduled content, such as a breaking news story, a sporting event that goes into overtime, or advertisements presented during a commercial break. Surveys and black boxes also usually fail to integrate viewing information on video content that is not part of a live broadcast, such as content recorded for future playback or viewer-acquired content (e.g., DVD and VCR tapes). Finally, surveys do not provide real-time capture of viewing information.
Traditional techniques also fail to provide benefits to the viewers. Surveys and black boxes are focused on obtaining the viewer information for the benefit of studios, advertisers, and the networks, not viewers. Even when the traditional techniques do, a lag time exists between data collection and use of the viewing data.
The above-described deficiencies are merely intended to provide an overview of some of the problems of today's viewing techniques, and are not intended to be exhaustive. Other problems with the state of the art may become further apparent upon review of the description of various non-limiting embodiments of the invention that follows.
The following presents a simplified summary of the claimed subject matter in order to provide a basic understanding of some aspects of the claimed subject matter. This summary is not an extensive overview of the claimed subject matter. It is intended to neither identify key or critical elements of the claimed subject matter nor delineate the scope of the claimed subject matter. Its sole purpose is to present some concepts of the claimed subject matter in a simplified form as a prelude to the more detailed description that is presented later.
According to one aspect of the invention, a content recommendation method and system is provided. Numerous viewers, such as viewers with a particular type of digital video recording device, each provide a demographic profile along with information on the video content the viewer watches. In addition to live television broadcast, the video content can also include purchased/leased video content (e.g., DVDs, VCR tapes). The viewer can then get recommendations of content to watch based on what other viewers with a similar demographic are watching. Statistics, ranking and other feedback can be shared between the viewers.
According to another aspect of the invention, a content reaction method and system is provided. Numerous viewers, provide information about the video content they are watching, as well as a demographic profile. Statistics of what other viewers with similar demographic profiles are watching are generated in real-time and can be presented to the viewers. Viewers can also rank the content and vote on their favorite moment and have that feedback presented to them as well. The content reaction and statistics can also be shared with non-viewers, such as advertisers, studios, and the networks.
The following description and the annexed drawings set forth in detail certain illustrative aspects of the claimed subject matter. These aspects are indicative, however, of but a few of the various ways in which the principles of the claimed subject matter may be employed and the claimed subject matter is intended to include all such aspects and their equivalents. Other advantages and distinguishing features of the claimed subject matter will become apparent from the following detailed description of the claimed subject matter when considered in conjunction with the drawings.
The claimed subject matter is now described with reference to the drawings, wherein like reference numerals are used to refer to like elements throughout. In the following description, for purposes of explanation, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the claimed subject matter. It may be evident, however, that the claimed subject matter may be practiced without these specific details. In other instances, well-known structures and devices are shown in block diagram form in order to facilitate describing the claimed subject matter.
As used in this application, the terms “component,” “module,” “system”, or the like are generally intended to refer to a computer-related entity, either hardware, a combination of hardware and software, software, or software in execution. For example, a component may be, but is not limited to being, a process running on a processor, a processor, an object, an executable, a thread of execution, a program, and/or a computer. By way of illustration, both an application running on a controller and the controller can be a component. One or more components may reside within a process and/or thread of execution and a component may be localized on one computer and/or distributed between two or more computers.
Furthermore, the claimed subject matter may be implemented as a method, apparatus, or article of manufacture using standard programming and/or engineering techniques to produce software, firmware, hardware, or any combination thereof to control a computer to implement the disclosed subject matter. The term “article of manufacture” as used herein is intended to encompass a computer program accessible from any computer-readable device, carrier, or media. For example, computer readable media can include but are not limited to magnetic storage devices (e.g., hard disk, floppy disk, magnetic strips . . . ), optical disks (e.g., compact disk (CD), digital versatile disk (DVD) . . . smart cards, and flash memory devices (e.g. card, stick, key drive . . . ). Additionally it should be appreciated that a carrier wave can be employed to carry computer-readable electronic data such as those used in transmitting and receiving electronic mail or in accessing a network such as the Internet or a local area network (LAN). Of course, those skilled in the art will recognize many modifications may be made to this configuration without departing from the scope or spirit of the claimed subject matter.
Moreover, the word “exemplary” is used herein to mean serving as an example, instance, or illustration. Any aspect or design described herein as “exemplary” is not necessarily to be construed as preferred or advantageous over other aspects or designs. Rather, use of the word exemplary is intended to present concepts in a concrete fashion. As used in this application, the term “or” is intended to mean an inclusive “or” rather than an exclusive “or”. That is, unless specified otherwise, or clear from context, “X employs A or B” is intended to mean any of the natural inclusive permutations. That is, if X employs A; X employs B; or X employs both A and B, then “X employs A or B” is satisfied under any of the foregoing instances. In addition, the articles “a” and “an” as used in this application and the appended claims should generally be construed to mean “one or more” unless specified otherwise or clear from context to be directed to a singular form.
Referring now to
The system 100 includes digital video recording devices 102, statistics server 104, and a communication framework 106. The digital video recording devices 102 are clients that supply viewing information and demographic information to the statistics server. Viewing information includes the viewing history of a particular user and can also include the length of time watched and the format (e.g. high definition vs. standard definition) of the content. The video content can include live broadcast television, recorded content, as well as purchased/leased content (e.g., DVDs and VCR tapes) and downloaded content (e.g., from MovieLink, Apple iTunes Video, Amazon Unbox, etc). In response, recommendations for the viewer can be received back from the statistics server, as well as real-time statistics and feedback from other viewers. One will appreciate that other devices can acts as a content client and supply the information, such as a television or a set-top box.
The system 100 also includes a statistics server 104. The service server(s) 104 can be hardware and/or software (e.g. threads, processes, computing devices). The statistics service receives and aggregates the viewing information and the demographic information of the viewer who provided that viewing information. In addition, it determines recommendation for an indicated viewer with an indicated demographic profile, such as by performing deep data mining on the received viewing and demographic information. One possible communication between a service client 102 and a service server 104 can be in the form of data packets adapted to be transmitted between two or more computers. The data packets can include the viewing information, requests for statistics or feedback, and requests for recommendations.
The system 100 includes a communication framework 106 (e.g., a global communication network such as the Internet, or an enterprise intranet) that can be employed to facilitate communications between the service client 102, service server 104, and allocation server 108. Communications can be facilitated via a wired (including optical fiber) and/or wireless technology.
Referring to
The illustrated statistical server 104 contains an information aggregating component 204, a recommendation component 206, and a statistics component 208. The information aggregating component receives the viewing information and demographic information from multiple viewers. In some embodiments, this information is stored in a database (not shown) that is later data mined by the recommendation component 206. The recommendation component 206 determines recommendations for a viewer with an indicated demographic profile. The recommendations can include content that is currently being broadcast, about to start (e.g. within 15 minutes), or purchasable content (i.e. downloadable video content, or DVD content). The statistics component 208 generates various statistics that can be supplied in real-time to viewers, such as 75% of Star Trek fans are viewing this program right now. The statistics can also be supplied to studios, advertisers, and the television networks.
Referring to
One such AI technique, a classifier is a function that maps an input attribute vector, x=(x1, x2, x3, x4, xn), to a confidence that the input belongs to a class, that is, f(x)=confidence (class). The class can represent, for example, a group of people with the same or similar demographic profiles. Since it is contemplated that numerous users will provide viewing information, there will be a large number of distinct demographic profile groups. Such classification can employ a probabilistic and/or statistical-based analysis (e.g., factoring into the analysis utilities and costs) to infer a recommended video source action for the user or to infer an action that a user desires to be automatically performed (e.g., changing the channel during a commercial break or toggling picture and picture).
A support vector machine (SVM) is an example of a classifier that can be employed. The SVM operates by finding a hypersurface in the space of possible inputs, which hypersurface attempts to split the triggering criteria from the non-triggering events. Intuitively, this makes the classification correct for testing data that is near, but not identical to training data. Other directed and undirected model classification approaches include, e.g. naïve Bayes, Bayesian networks, decision trees, and probabilistic classification models providing different patterns of independence can be employed. Classification as used herein also is inclusive of statistical regression that is utilized to develop models of priority.
The artificial intelligence component 208 can employ various artificial intelligence based schemes for recommending video content based on the viewing information of other users and demographic profile of the viewer receiving the recommendations. Specifically, artificial intelligence engine and evaluation components 252, 254 can be associated with the recommendation component. Further, the artificial intelligence engine and evaluation components 302, 304 can be employed to facilitate automatic actions that it is inferred the user desires performed (e.g., automatically tuning to a program that has a high degree of confidence that the viewer wants to watch it).
Various directed and undirected model classification approaches include, e.g. naïve Bayes, Bayesian networks, decision trees, and probabilistic models providing different patterns of independence can be employed by the AI engine component 252. Classification as used herein also is inclusive of statistical regression that is utilized to determine the recommendations.
As will be readily appreciated, the system can employ classifiers that are implicitly trained (e.g. via the viewing information and demographic information received). The use of expert systems, fuzzy logic, support vector machines, greedy search algorithms, rule-based systems, Bayesian models (e.g., Bayesian networks), neural networks, other non-linear training techniques, deep data mining, data fusion, utility-based analytical systems, systems employing Bayesian models, etc. are contemplated and are intended to fall within the scope of the hereto appended claims.
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One skilled in the art will appreciate that the components illustrated in
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Although not shown, in one embodiment, each viewer in a household has his/her own demographic profile and viewing information. In some embodiments, a collective user, such as a mother and son, can have a shared demographic profile and viewing information so that recommendations can be received for content appropriate for both individual users. In some embodiments, each user needs to enter a password to access his/her own profile.
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Generally, program modules include routines, programs, components, data structures, etc., that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types. Moreover, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the inventive methods can be practiced with other computer system configurations, including single-processor or multiprocessor computer systems, minicomputers, mainframe computers, as well as personal computers, hand-held computing devices, microprocessor-based or programmable consumer electronics, and the like, each of which can be operatively coupled to one or more associated devices.
The illustrated aspects of the invention can be practiced in distributed computing environments where certain tasks are performed by remote processing devices that are linked through a communications network. In at least one embodiment, a distributed computing environment is used for the allocation system in order to insure high-availability, even in the face of a failure of one or more computers executing parts of the allocation system. In a distributed computing environment, program modules can be located in both local and remote memory storage devices.
A computer typically includes a variety of computer-readable media. Computer-readable media can be any available media that can be accessed by the computer and includes both volatile and nonvolatile media, removable and non-removable media. By way of example, and not limitation, computer-readable media can comprise computer storage media and communication media. Computer storage media can include both volatile and nonvolatile, removable and non-removable media implemented in any method or technology for storage of information such as computer-readable instructions, data structures, program modules or other data. Computer storage media includes, but is not limited to, RAM, ROM, EEPROM, flash memory or other memory technology, CD-ROM, digital versatile disk (DVD) or other optical disk storage, magnetic cassettes, magnetic tape, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices, or any other medium which can be used to store the desired information and which can be accessed by the computer.
Communication media typically embodies computer-readable instructions, data structures, program modules or other data in a modulated data signal such as a carrier wave or other transport mechanism, and includes any information delivery media. The term “modulated data signal” means a signal that has one or more of its characteristics set or changed in such a manner as to encode information in the signal. By way of example, and not limitation, communication media includes wired media such as a wired network or direct-wired connection, and wireless media such as acoustic, RF, infrared and other wireless media. Combinations of the any of the above should also be included within the scope of computer-readable media.
With reference again to
The system bus 808 can be any of several types of bus structure that may further interconnect to a memory bus (with or without a memory controller), a peripheral bus, and a local bus using any of a variety of commercially available bus architectures. The system memory 806 includes read-only memory (ROM) 810 and random access memory (RAM) 812. A basic input/output system (BIOS) is stored in a non-volatile memory 810 such as ROM, EPROM, EEPROM, which BIOS contains the basic routines that help to transfer information between elements within the computer 802, such as during start-up. The RAM 812 can also include a high-speed RAM such as static RAM for caching data.
The computer 802 further includes an internal hard disk drive (HDD) 814 (e.g., EIDE, SATA), which internal hard disk drive 814 may also be configured for external use in a suitable chassis (not shown), a magnetic floppy disk drive (FDD) 816, (e.g., to read from or write to a removable diskette 818) and an optical disk drive 820, (e.g. reading a CD-ROM disk 822 or, to read from or write to other high capacity optical media such as the DVD). The hard disk drive 814, magnetic disk drive 816 and optical disk drive 820 can be connected to the system bus 808 by a hard disk drive interface 824, a magnetic disk drive interface 826 and an optical drive interface 828, respectively. The interface 824 for external drive implementations includes at least one or both of Universal Serial Bus (USB) and IEEE1384 interface technologies. Other external drive connection technologies are within contemplation of the subject invention.
The drives and their associated computer-readable media provide nonvolatile storage of data, data structures, computer-executable instructions, and so forth. For the computer 802, the drives and media accommodate the storage of any data in a suitable digital format. Although the description of computer-readable media above refers to a HDD, a remote computers, such as a remote computer(s) 848. The remote computer(s) 848 can be a workstation, a server computer, a router, a personal computer, portable computer, microprocessor-based entertainment appliance, a peer device or other common network node, various media gateways and typically includes many or all of the elements described relative to the computer 802, although, for purposes of brevity, only a memory/storage device 850 is illustrated. The logical connections depicted include wired/wireless connectivity to a local area network (LAN) 852 and/or larger networks, e.g., a wide area network (WAN) 854. Such LAN and WAN networking environments are commonplace in offices and companies, and facilitate enterprise-wide computer networks, such as intranets, all of which may connect to a global communications network, e.g. the Internet.
When used in a LAN networking environment, the computer 802 is connected to the local network 852 through a wired and/or wireless communication network interface or adapter 856. The adapter 856 may facilitate wired or wireless communication to the LAN 852, which may also include a wireless access point disposed thereon for communicating with the wireless adapter 856.
When used in a WAN networking environment, the computer 802 can include a modem 858, or is connected to a communications server on the WAN 854, or has other means for establishing communications over the WAN 854, such as by way of the Internet. The modem 858, which can be internal or external and a wired or wireless device, is connected to the system bus 808 via the serial port interface 842. In a networked environment, program modules depicted relative to the computer 802, or portions thereof, can be stored in the remote memory/storage device 850. It will be appreciated that the network connections shown are exemplary and other means of establishing a communications link between the computers can be used.
What has been described above includes examples of the various embodiments. It is, of course, not possible to describe every conceivable combination of components or methodologies for purposes of describing the embodiments, but one of ordinary skill in the art may recognize that many further combinations and permutations are possible. Accordingly, the detailed description is intended to embrace all such alterations, modifications, and variations that fall within the spirit and scope of the appended claims.
In particular and in regard to the various functions performed by the above described components, devices, circuits, systems and the like, the terms (including a reference to a “means”) used to describe such components are intended to correspond, unless otherwise indicated, to any component which performs the specified function of the described component (e.g. a functional equivalent), even though not structurally equivalent to the disclosed structure, which performs the function in the herein illustrated exemplary aspects of the embodiments. In this regard, it will also be recognized that the embodiments includes a system as well as a computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for performing the acts and/or events of the various methods.
In addition, while a particular feature may have been disclosed with respect to only one of several implementations, such feature may be combined with one or more other features of the other implementations as may be desired and advantageous for any given or particular application. Furthermore, to the extent that the terms “includes,” and “including” and variants thereof are used in either the detailed description or the claims, these terms are intended to be inclusive in a manner similar to the term “comprising.”
