JP2003186900A - Information providing device, information providing method, recording medium with information providing program which can be read by computer recorded thereon and information providing program - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To solve the problem that it has been difficult to provide a chance for a couple of persons who agree with each other in desired condition, happen to meet each other and therefore, remaining a closed service, in a service using position information. <P>SOLUTION: To provide an information providing device containing a means to store individual information of a registered user, a means to store the present position information of the registered user in correspondence with the individual information, a means to receive the data containing search condition information to search for the desired user from the registered user, a means to search for the user whose position information with the present position information of the search requester satisfies the conditions in regard to the range contained in the search condition information, a means to transmit the search result information containing the present position information of the searched user are provided. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2003,JPO

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention records an information providing device, an information providing method, and an information providing program for providing useful information to a user by utilizing position information transmitted from an information processing device such as a mobile phone. The present invention relates to a computer-readable recording medium and an information providing program.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art GPS (Global) provided in mobile phones
A service has been proposed in which position information indicating the current location of the user is detected by the Positioning System) function and transmitted to the server, and the server uses the position information to provide useful information to the user.

In Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-218250, GPS provided on a mobile phone carried by each member of the group
The current position detected by the function is centrally managed by the server,
A technique for displaying the result on a mobile phone of each member together with a peripheral map is disclosed. According to this technology, each member of the group can confirm their current position with each other.For example, if you want to go to a theme park in the group, and each member of the group wants to take a free action individually and then re-assemble it can.

[0004]

[Patent Document 1] Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No.
In the 001-218250 publication, each member of the group can approach each other while confirming the surrounding map and the current position of the member and finally meet each other, but each member is registered as a group in advance. It is not possible to provide an opportunity for strangers who meet the desired conditions among strangers who happen to be present in the theme park to meet each other by accident, so it is a closed service. It stayed.

An object of the present invention is to provide a service that effectively utilizes position information.

[0006]

The present invention provides a means for storing personal information of a registered user, a means for storing the current positional information of the registered user in association with the personal information, and a current location of the search requester. Means for receiving data including position information of the registered user and search condition information for searching for a desired user from the registered users; and current position information of the registered user from the registered users; The positional relationship between the search requester's current position information and the search requester's current position information is used to search for a user who satisfies the condition related to the range included in the search condition information, and the current position information of the searched user. And a means for transmitting the search result information including the information providing device.

The present invention also provides an information providing apparatus, characterized in that the degree of detail of the retrieved current position information of the user is changed according to the disclosure level included in the personal information.

Further, the present invention is characterized in that the disclosure level includes a level at which peripheral information calculated based on the current position information of the registered user and map information accumulated in advance is disclosed. To provide an information providing device.

Further, according to the present invention, the search result information includes the information when the searched user has previously permitted the disclosure of information indicating his / her contact information. Provide a providing device.

Further, according to the present invention, when the searched user does not permit disclosure of information indicating his / her contact in advance, the searched user is notified of the information regarding the search requester. An information providing device is provided, which inquires whether or not the disclosure of the information indicating the contact information of the user is permitted.

Further, according to the present invention, the personal information of the registered user includes acceptance condition information for determining whether or not to accept the search requester, and the personal information of the search requester and the acceptance condition information. An information providing device characterized by determining whether or not to include the registered user in the search target based on the comparison result of (1).

Further, in the present invention, the search condition information further includes information on personal information of a registered user, and a desired user is searched from the registered users based on this information. Provide a device.

The present invention further comprises means for storing personal information of the registered user, means for storing the current position information of the registered user in association with the personal information, and transmission information.
Means for receiving data including search condition information for searching a desired user from the registered users, and current position information of the registered user from the registered users is included in the search condition information. There is provided an information providing device including means for searching a user who satisfies a condition regarding a range to be searched, and means for transmitting the transmission information to the searched user.

The present invention also includes a step of storing personal information of the registered user, a step of storing the current positional information of the registered user in association with the personal information, and a current positional information of the search requester. A step of receiving data including search condition information for searching a desired user from the registered users, the current position information of the registered users from the registered users, and the search requester's current position information. A step of searching for a user whose positional relationship obtained from the current position information satisfies the condition regarding the range included in the search condition information; and search result information including the current position information of the searched user. And an information providing method including the step of transmitting.

The present invention also includes the step of storing personal information of the registered user in a computer, the step of storing the current positional information of the registered user in association with the personal information, and the current location of the search requester. A step of receiving data including position information and search condition information for searching a desired user from the registered users; the current position information of the registered users from the registered users; and the search The step of searching for a user whose positional relationship obtained from the requester's current position information satisfies the condition regarding the range included in the search condition information, and the current position information of the searched user are included. A computer-readable recording medium recording a program for executing the step of transmitting search result information and the step of transmitting the search result information.

Also, the present invention stores the personal information of the registered user in the computer, the step of storing the current positional information of the registered user in association with the personal information, and the current position of the search requester. A step of receiving data including position information and search condition information for searching a desired user from the registered users; the current position information of the registered users from the registered users; and the search The step of searching for a user whose positional relationship obtained from the requester's current position information satisfies the condition regarding the range included in the search condition information, and the current position information of the searched user are included. And a program for executing the step of transmitting the search result information.

[0017]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION (Example 1) An example of an embodiment will be described with reference to FIGS. FIG. 1 shows a system configuration diagram. A mobile phone 1 owned by users 1 to n (n is an integer).
01 can be connected to the information providing apparatus 102 via a network. Whether the communication means is wired or wireless,
Further, the communication protocol may be any method such as a TCP / IP method or an original method.

The mobile phone 101 has a GPS function and can acquire the current position information of the user and transmit the information to the information providing device 102. Also, mobile phone 10
1 can receive the information transmitted from the information providing apparatus 102, display the information on a display screen, or output it by voice, and can provide the information to the user. In FIG. 1, the mobile phone 101 is given as an example of an information processing device for connecting to the information providing device 102, but a personal computer, a PDA terminal, a PHS (Pers) is used.
onal Handy-phone System),
Any other information processing device may be used as long as it is a device having a function of acquiring position information such as a game terminal, a communication function, and an output function.

As shown in FIG. 1, the information providing device 102.
Is a receiving unit 103 that receives data, a transmitting unit 104 that transmits data, a received data separating unit 105 that separates the received data into data related to position information and information related to user information, and position information that accumulates data related to position information. It includes a database 108, a user information database 109 that stores information about user information, a position information management unit 106 that manages the position information database 108, and a user information management unit 107 that manages the user information database 109. The information providing apparatus 102 can also be realized by a general-purpose computer by installing a program for processing the present embodiment and performing software processing.

The users 1 to n have previously registered as members of the service provided by the information providing apparatus 102. An example of the registration process will be described with reference to FIGS. S in FIG.
Reference numeral 100 indicates the flow of information and the processing content during the user registration processing. The user desiring to register transmits the user ID and the user information from the mobile phone 101 to the information providing apparatus 102. In the information providing device 102, the receiving unit 103 shown in FIG.
It is registered in the user information database 109 via the user information management unit 107.

The user ID is an identifier for identifying the person such as a name, a nickname, a mobile phone number, and a serial number assigned to each user in the information providing device 102.

As shown in FIG. 3, the user information includes the type of the user indicating whether it is an individual or a corporation, age, sex, occupation indicating whether it is a student or a working person, and the current position information of the user himself to what extent. This is information about the user himself / herself, such as the disclosure level of the current position indicating whether to disclose to the other party. These items of information can be set for each item as to whether or not to permit disclosure to the other party.

The disclosure level of the current position is a national unit (disclosure level 1), a prefecture or state unit (disclosure level 2), a municipality unit (disclosure level 3), and a street address unit (disclosure level 4).
It can be set according to the degree of detail of the address of the place where the user is currently. Further, the position information grasped by the information providing device 102 such as north latitude xx degrees and east longitude yy degrees may be disclosed as it is (disclosure level 5). In this case, not only the character string "North latitude xx degree, east longitude yy degree" is displayed on the mobile phone 101, but if a mark such as "x" is displayed and highlighted along with the surrounding map, the other party Will be easier to understand. Further, peripheral information such as xx department store, yy station, zz theme park, and the like, which serves as a mark around the place where the user is currently present, may be disclosed (disclosure level 6). In this case, if the other party knows the position of the landmark building, the other party can intuitively specify the whereabouts of the person himself / herself without checking the map. Further, the distance to the other party may be disclosed such as within a radius xxkm (disclosure level 7).

These user IDs and user information are registered, for example, by accessing a home page provided by the information providing device 102 via the Internet, inputting necessary items on the registration screen of the home page, and transmitting the information. be able to. The registered information is stored in the user information database for each user ID as shown in the table of FIG. Note that the table in FIG. 2 is an example of user information and is not limited to these.

The current position information of users 1 to n registered in this service is managed by the information providing device 102. An example of the position information updating process will be described with reference to FIGS. S200 in FIG. 4 shows the flow of information and the processing content during the position information update processing. The mobile phone 101 owned by the user acquires the current position information using the built-in GPS function, and transmits the acquired position information together with the user ID to the information providing device 102 at predetermined time intervals. In the information providing apparatus 102, such information is received by the receiving unit 103 shown in FIG. 1 and accumulated in the position information database 108 via the received data separating unit 105 and the position information managing unit 106.

The transmission interval of the position information from the mobile phone 101 to the information providing device 102 may be preset as a service-specific value such as an interval of 30 minutes, or the user can freely set the value at the time of registration. You may be able to do so. Further, not only the current position information at that time at the time of transmission, but also the position information acquired at any time in the mobile phone 101 may be transmitted as position history information together with the acquired time information. That is, for example,
Location information is acquired at 1-minute intervals on the mobile phone 101,
When transmitting to the information providing device 102 at intervals of 30 minutes, 30
Information on a pair of individual time information and position information corresponding to the time is transmitted as position history information. By doing so, the trajectory of the user's movement can be known in detail, so that more detailed information can be provided to the other party.

The position information received by the information providing device 102 is stored in the position information database 108 for each user ID. FIG. 5 is an example thereof, and the position information is stored for each user ID together with the update time. Note that, as shown in FIG. 5, disclosure information of the current position may be added for each user ID.

The disclosure information of the current position shown in FIG. 5 is information corresponding to the disclosure level of the current position set for each user ID in the user information database 109, and is determined based on the disclosure level and the position information. It For example, the user 1 (in the present embodiment, for convenience, the user having the user ID 1 in the table of FIG. 3 is the user 1, the user of the user 2 is the user 2, ...), the disclosure of the current position at the time of registration is performed. When the level is set to 2, it is permitted to disclose the current position of the person up to the level of the prefecture, so the disclosure information of the current position is the disclosure level value “2” and the position information “north latitude a1. “Osaka Prefecture” is determined based on the information “degree b1 minute, east longitude c1 degree d1 minute”. Similarly, the user 2 has set the disclosure level to 6 and permits disclosure of information that serves as a landmark around the current position of the user, and thus the location information “north latitude a2 degrees b2 minutes, east longitude c2 degrees”. Based on "d2 minutes", it is determined to be "theme park xxx". The peripheral information may be registered in advance in the database in association with the latitude and longitude, and the peripheral information closest to the position information may be calculated and determined. Similarly, the user 3 has set the disclosure level to 7 and permits disclosure of information on the distance to the other party such as within a radius xxkm, so that the position information “north latitude a3 degrees b3 minutes, east longitude c3 degree d2
Based on "minutes", "within radius xkm" is determined. Similarly, the user n sets the disclosure level to 4 and permits the current location of the person up to the chome address to be disclosed, so the disclosure information of the current location is “Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo x chome address”. It has become.

The update time shown in FIG. 5 is the time when the position information is received. This update time is for mobile phone 101
May be the time when the position information was acquired. In that case, the user I is requested from the mobile phone 101 to the information providing apparatus 102.
Time information may be transmitted together with D and position information. By doing so, it is possible to more accurately indicate the time when the user was at the place. In addition, the location information, the disclosure information of the current location, and the update time information may be set such that old data is overwritten with new data each time it is received, or new data is added while keeping the old data. Good. When adding new data, old data can be referred to as history information, so that the locus of position information of the user can be grasped.

Next, the flow of processing when a user searches for a user who matches a desired condition from the users registered in this service will be described with reference to FIGS. S300 of FIG. 6 shows the flow of information and the processing content during the search processing.

The user inputs search conditions to the mobile phone 101 (S301) and sends the user ID, search conditions, and position information to the information providing apparatus 102 (S302). S301
Then, the software for displaying the screen that supports the input of the search condition may be incorporated in the mobile phone 101 in advance, or at the time of the user registration process (S10).
The search condition may be input via the home page provided by the information providing device 102, as in 0). The search condition is information for searching a desired user from registered users, and includes information designating a search range. The range designation information is, for example, information about a range within a radius of 1 km from the current position of the user who requests the search, or information about a range around Osaka Station. Also, the search condition includes a user ID, a user type,
You may include items entered during the registration process, such as age, gender, and occupation. In this case, it is possible to further narrow down from the narrowed down conditions of the search range.

In the information providing device 102, the mobile phone 101
The data transmitted from is received (S303), and the user's position information in the position information database 108 is updated (S304). Next, based on the range designation information in the search condition, the users who match the condition are narrowed down from other users (S305). Next, if there is another condition in the search conditions, the users who match the condition are further narrowed down from the other users (S306). Next, the search result is transmitted to the user (S307), and the user receives the data with the mobile phone 101 (S308) and displays it (S309).

The above-mentioned retrieval processing will be described based on the concrete examples shown in FIGS. FIG. 7 shows the user information database 1
9 is an example of user information registered in 09.
Is an example of a search condition when the user 1 tries to search for a registered user of this service.

First, the user 1 displays a screen for inputting search conditions on the display screen of the mobile phone 101 owned by the user 1. FIG. 7 shows an example of the screen, in which the registrant name of the person who has registered with the service using the mobile phone 101 is displayed in the search requester name field. When a person other than the registrant uses it, an interface that allows the user ID to be entered in the search requester name field may be prepared.

Next, search conditions are input. In FIG. 8, as a search condition for specifying a range, other users within a radius of 5 km from their current location are narrowed down as search targets. Further, in FIG. 8, although other search conditions are not designated, for example, a specific user name can be designated, or the age and sex of the user can be designated. Any method can be used for the user interface for specifying, but in FIG. 7, the item to be specified is displayed as a check box, and when the check box is specified, input for further detailed setting is made. The screen is displayed.

When the input of the search condition is completed, the user ID corresponding to the user 1, the input search condition, and the current position information acquired by GPS are transmitted to the information providing device 102. In the information providing device 102, the receiving unit 103 receives the information, and the information is sent to the position information managing unit 106 via the received data separating unit 105. The position information management unit 106 accesses the position information database 108 and updates the position information, the disclosure information of the current position, and the update time value.

Next, the location information management unit 106 uses the location information database 10 based on the search condition range designation information.
A user who matches the condition is searched from eight. In this example, since the range within the radius of 5 km is specified, the condition is matched from the users 2 to n based on the position information of the user 1, the range specification information, and the position information of the users 2 to n. Search for those who do. In this example, it is assumed that the user 2 and the user 3 match the search condition.

Next, if other search conditions are set, the user information database 109 is accessed via the user information management unit 107 to further narrow down the persons who match the search conditions. For example, if the gender of the search condition is set to "female", the user 3 is excluded from the users 2 and 3, and only the user 2 is narrowed down. In this example, since no other conditions are set, this process is not performed.

Next, the search result is generated based on the disclosure conditions of the users 2 and 3. In this example, the disclosure level of the current position of user 2 is set to 6, so user 2
“Theme park xxx” is output as the search result as the peripheral information near the current position of the user 2 based on the current position information of “1” and the peripheral information registered in advance. In addition,
The update time may be included in the search result, or, if disclosure of data related to user information such as the type and age of the user is permitted, such information may also be included in the search result. Similarly, since the disclosure level of the current position of the user 3 is set to 7, the distance between the current position of the user 3 and the current position of the user 1 is calculated and “radius 3k
“Within m” is output as the search result.

Next, the generated search result is transmitted to the user 1 who is the search requester, and the user 1 receiving the search result displays the search result on the mobile phone 101. The user 1 who sees the search result considers whether to actually meet from the information on the current positions of the users 2 and 3 and the information on the user himself. As a method for meeting, if the user 2 and the user 3 permit the disclosure of their mobile phone numbers, those mobile phone numbers are also transmitted to the user 1, so that the user 1 directly connects to the user 2 , User 3 can be contacted by telephone. If the disclosure of the mobile phone number is not permitted, when transmitting the search result to the user 1 in S307, the relevant information of the user 1 is transmitted to the user 2 and the user 3, and the user 2 or the user 3 is sent. Determines whether or not to disclose its own information from the information, and when it is possible to disclose, informs the information providing device 102 of that fact. For example, if the user 2 permits the disclosure of his / her information, the information providing apparatus 102 may transmit the information including the mobile phone number of the user 2 to the user 1.

In the above example, users 2, 3
May be set in advance in the information providing device 102. The acceptance condition is a condition for allowing access to oneself, for example, the condition that the person is in his / her 30s, the sex is male, and the occupation is a working adult,
The condition is that the user ID is 1 or 3. This acceptance condition may be set so that any condition can be set, but the user information database 109
By setting the contents corresponding to the respective items registered in, it becomes easy to match the search condition with the acceptance condition.

In this way, the user 1 who is the search requester can meet the user who meets the desired conditions. (Embodiment 2) In this embodiment, the user 1 in Embodiment 1
An example will be described in which when the search condition is transmitted to the information providing apparatus 102, transmission information such as an advertisement or a message is added and transmitted. The description similar to that of the first embodiment will not be repeated.

As shown in FIG. 8, the user 1 sets the range designation by the search condition and, for example, "In the xxx department store, a bargain is made from 3:00 pm today".
And the transmission information such as a message such as "Are you waiting at Osaka station at 5:00 pm today?" At that time, other search conditions such as age and sex may be added and transmitted.

The information providing device 102 that has received these pieces of information
Then, a user who matches the search condition of a radius of 5 km is searched from among the users 2 to n, and the transmission information is notified to the searched user by means of e-mail or the like. In this way, the user 1 can transmit the specific information only to the users in the specific area or the specific range.

Further, the user has set a user ID of an acceptable user as an acceptance condition,
By setting the conditions that the age is in the thirties, the gender is male, and the occupation is a working person, it is possible to receive only the transmission information transmitted from the user who satisfies the conditions, and the transmission information from unnecessary users is transmitted. You don't have to receive.

[0046]

As described above, according to the present invention, each user can enjoy the opportunity of accidentally encountering persons who are present in the vicinity without making a promise in advance by disclosing his / her position information.

Further, since location information and personal information of each user can be centrally managed and disclosure and concealment of such information can be flexibly set, mutual access is permitted when the conditions between the users are matched. Therefore, it is reasonable.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 shows a system configuration diagram of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram for explaining the flow of information during user registration processing of the present invention.

FIG. 3 shows an example of data registered in a user information database of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a diagram for explaining the flow of information at the time of updating position information according to the present invention.

FIG. 5 shows an example of data stored in a position information database of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a diagram for explaining the flow of information at the time of search processing of the present invention.

FIG. 7 shows an example of user information registered in a user information database of the present invention.

FIG. 8 shows an example of search conditions when searching for registered users according to the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

101 mobile phone 102 information providing device 103 transmitter 104 receiver 105 Received data separation unit 106 Location Information Management Department 107 user information management unit 108 Location database 109 User Information Management Department

Front page continuation (51) Int.Cl. ⁷ identification code FI theme code (reference) G06F 17/60 506 G06F 17/60 506 H04Q 7/34 H04B 7/26 106A 7/38 109M H04Q 7/04 C

Claims (11)

[Claims] 1. A means for storing personal information of a registered user, a means for storing the current position information of the registered user in association with the personal information, a current position information of a search requester, and the registered user. Means for receiving data including search condition information for searching a desired user from among the registered users, current position information of the registered user from the registered users, and current position information of the search requester And a means for searching for a user whose positional relationship between them satisfies the condition related to the range included in the search condition information, and a means for transmitting search result information including the current position information of the searched user. And an information providing device including. 2. The information providing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the degree of detail of the searched current position information of the user is changed according to the disclosure level included in the personal information. 3. The disclosure level includes a level for disclosing peripheral information calculated based on the current position information of the registered user and map information stored in advance. The information providing device described in. 4. The search result information includes the information when the searched user has previously permitted disclosure of information indicating his / her contact information. Information providing device. 5. When the searched user does not permit disclosure of information indicating his / her contact information in advance, the searched user is notified of the information regarding the search requester, and The information providing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the information providing apparatus inquires whether to permit disclosure of information indicating a contact address. 6. The personal information of the registered user includes acceptance condition information for determining whether or not to accept the search requester, and the personal information of the search requester is compared with the acceptance condition information. The information providing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein it is determined whether the registered user is included in the search target based on the information. 7. The search condition information further includes information on personal information of a registered user, and a desired user is searched from the registered users based on this information. Information providing device. 8. A means for storing personal information of a registered user, a means for storing current position information of the registered user in association with the personal information, transmission information, and a desired user from the registered users. Means for receiving data including search condition information for searching for, and a user among the registered users whose current position information satisfies the condition related to the range included in the search condition information. An information providing apparatus including: a searching unit; and a unit that transmits the transmission information to the searched user. 9. A step of storing personal information of a registered user, a step of storing current position information of the registered user in association with the personal information, a current position information of a search requester, and the registered user. Receiving data including search condition information for searching a desired user from among the registered users, the current position information of the registered user from the registered users, and the current position information of the search requester. And a step of searching for a user whose positional relationship between them satisfies the condition regarding the range included in the search condition information, and a step of transmitting search result information including the current position information of the searched user. And a method of providing information including. 10. A step of storing personal information of a registered user in a computer, a step of storing the current position information of the registered user in association with the personal information, and a current position information of the search requester. A step of receiving data including search condition information for searching a desired user from the registered users; a current position information of the registered user from the registered users; and a current position of the search requester. And a search result information including the current position information of the searched user, the positional relationship between the both being obtained from A computer-readable recording medium recording a program for executing the transmitting step. 11. A step of storing personal information of a registered user in a computer, a step of storing the current positional information of the registered user in association with the personal information, and a current positional information of the search requester. A step of receiving data including search condition information for searching a desired user from the registered users; a current position information of the registered user from the registered users; and a current position of the search requester. And a search result information including the current position information of the searched user, the positional relationship between the both being obtained from A program to execute the steps of sending and.