JP2008282146A - Device and method for notifying document update, and recording medium - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To construct an update notification system for selecting a notification method according to a medium receiving a notice. <P>SOLUTION: A document update notification system comprises a means for specifying one or more destination media to receive notice messages by a user; a means for selecting a notification method for each specified destination; a means for forming the notice message for each destination in accordance with the selected notification method; and a means for setting priority in transmitting the notice messages among the specified destination media. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2009,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a system for automatically detecting an update of a document designated by a user and notifying the user.

  In recent years, the provision of information using WWW (World Wide Web) has been rapidly spreading. Since the types of information provided on the WWW are provided through media other than the WWW, such as new product releases and event announcements, the WWW is the only information-providing medium like a Web auction site. There are many things that exist. Users access various information provided there and select and use the necessary information.

  In the WWW, an information provider updates information asynchronously and irregularly. Therefore, the user actively accesses several Web servers in order to always have the latest information, and whether or not new information has been added or previously provided information has not been changed. It is necessary to confirm. Here, in order to obtain information that is urgent for the user, such as information on the discovery of new viruses and security holes, or information on new products registered on the auction site, the frequency according to the degree of urgency It is necessary for the user to access the Web server, which is a burden on the user.

  In order to alleviate this burden, there has been a conventional system that automatically visits a Web site to detect information updates and notifies the user. For example, the method proposed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-67283 periodically monitors a Web page registered by a user and notifies by e-mail when an update is detected. Here, in general, in a method of using electronic mail as a notification means, a user must access a mail server in order to receive a notification. For this reason, for example, a user who has received a mail on a normal PC cannot receive a notification in a situation where there is no accessible PC nearby, and there is a possibility that the speed of notification will be reduced.

In order to deal with this problem, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-73455 proposes a system capable of selecting electronic mail or text message communication as a notification destination medium. According to this method, which can deliver update notifications directly to the user's mobile terminal, the user can update the document in near real time with respect to the time when the update is detected, even in cases where quick notification is required. You can expect to receive notifications.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-67283 JP 2002-73455 A

  Here, it is assumed that there are a wide variety of forms of information required by the user. For example, when notifying an update of a page on which a change in stock price is posted, it is desirable to notify the update of the page immediately when the stock price of a brand of interest changes and the corresponding page is updated. For these needs, it is effective to use a push-type media such as instant messaging that is distributed to the terminal that the user is currently accessing. On the other hand, if you want to detect the update of multiple highly related pages instead of requiring a quick reportability, rather than notifying each time each page is updated, the update contents of those documents are By editing and notifying a document, it is possible to obtain the convenience of obtaining desired information all at once. For such needs, media such as e-mails and Web pages that can ensure listability are considered suitable. As described above, there is a need for a system that allows a user to select an appropriate notification method according to the form of a document that detects update and the purpose of detection, but this has not been realized in the conventional example.

The present invention has been made in view of such a problem. That is, the present invention according to claim 1 is a system for detecting an update of a document published on a network and notifying a user, wherein the document is uniquely identified. A means for a user to specify a document to be detected using a document identifier that can be identified by the user, and a document group that can be reached by following a hyperlink from the specified document or the document, or both are acquired via a network. A means for assigning and storing the identifier and the acquisition time to the acquired document data, searching for the data acquired at a different time having the same identifier as the acquired data from the stored data, And a means for managing the user by a user identifier that can uniquely identify the user, and a notification message. The user designates one or a plurality of notification destination media and notification destination addresses as destinations of the sage, manages them in association with the user identifier of the user, and the notification method for each notification destination designated by the user. When a plurality of notification destinations are specified, the user sets the order of sending notification messages among them, and forms a notification message for each notification destination according to the notification method selected by the user And means for transmitting the notification message to a notification destination designated by the user.

  The present invention according to claim 2 uses an instant message as a notification destination medium of the notification message.

The present invention according to claim 3 uses electronic mail as a notification destination medium of the notification message.
The present invention according to claim 4 uses a Web page as a notification destination medium of the notification message.
According to the fifth aspect of the present invention, the user can specify the timing of the update detection process and the notification message transmission for each notification destination medium.

  According to the sixth aspect of the present invention, the user can specify the type of update information to be included in the notification message for each notification destination medium.

  As described above, according to the present invention, it is possible for the user to select a notification destination medium and a notification method that match the form of the document to be detected for update and the purpose of the user who performs update detection. As a result, it is possible to acquire desired information at an appropriate timing without requiring labor for frequently accessing the target document. In particular, the present invention functions effectively when applied to a Web document that is updated irregularly.

(Embodiment 1)
Embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

  FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a system for implementing the present invention. Reference numeral 101 denotes a user registration unit. The user registration unit provides the registration page shown in FIG. 2 on the Web server (113). A user who uses this system first accesses the page and performs user registration. When registration is performed, each user is given a unique user ID, recorded in the user management unit (102), and logged in to the system using this user ID for subsequent access.

  Reference numeral 103 denotes a notification target designating unit for designating a document for which the user wants to receive an update notification. An identifier that can uniquely identify the document is used for designating the document. In this embodiment, it is assumed that the document to be notified is a Web page (116), and therefore, the following description will be made assuming that a URL is used as an identifier. FIG. 3 shows an example of the notification target designation screen. 301 is a URL designation field.

  Reference numerals 104 and 105 denote a notification destination designation unit and a notification method designation unit, respectively. The user who specified the notification target continues to specify the notification destination and the notification method here. One of instant message, electronic mail, and Web page can be selected as the notification destination medium (302). When an instant message or an e-mail is selected, a notification destination address is further designated (303, 304). On the contrary, when the Web page is selected, the URL of the notification page is given by the system. At that time, the URL of the notification page may be directly presented to the user, or may be displayed on the page after login to the system. FIG. 4 shows an example of a screen when the latter method is performed. A list of notification targets is displayed in 401, and an update result page is displayed when the link is followed. In this embodiment, two items are designated as the notification method. The first is selection of the number of notification target pages to be included in one message. A method of sending a notification message that describes only the result of each page update detection (hereinafter referred to as immediate notification), and the detection results of all the documents included in the specified notification target in one message Can be selected (305). The second is selection of update information to be included in the notification message (306). The update information can be arbitrarily combined with the title of the document, the URL of the document, the acquisition date and time, the difference from the previously acquired document, and the like. For example, it is assumed that only the document title and URL are described in the instant message, and other information is described in the e-mail. FIG. 5 shows an example of the notification message. FIG. 5a shows an example of an immediate notification message. Only the detection result for one page is described in the message. Only the title (501) in which the URL of the target document is embedded as a hyperlink is displayed. Here, in general, an instant message application and a mailer are linked to a Web browser, and when the title is clicked, the Web browser is activated and a page of the URL is displayed. FIG. 5b is an example of a notification message for batch notification. A plurality of document titles (502), URLs (503), and a difference (504) from the previously collected data are displayed.

  Reference numeral 106 denotes a notification destination order designation unit. When the user designates a plurality of notification destinations as one notification target, the system sets priorities among them and transmits notification messages in order from the notification destinations with the highest priority. For example, when a plurality of notification destinations are specified and an instant message is specified as the highest priority notification destination, an instant message server is first accessed to check whether the user is online. Send notification message to instant message if online. In the offline state, the notification message is not sent to the instant message, but the message is sent to the notification destination having the next priority. It is possible to notify all of the designated notification destinations, or not to notify a notification destination with a low priority when reception confirmation is obtained. An example of a notification message for implementing this is shown in FIG. This example shows notification to an instant message when the instant message is designated as the first notification destination and the e-mail is designated as the second notification destination. In addition to the notification contents shown in FIG. 5, a “send mail” button (601) is displayed. The button is a link to a program on the Web server provided by the user management unit. When the user clicks this button, the message contains a flag indicating that the user management unit will be notified by user ID or email. And a notification message of the same document is also sent by e-mail.

  The information specified in 104 to 106 is recorded in the user management unit in association with the user ID.

  107 The notification destination is the document acquisition unit. The document data is obtained by accessing the document existing at the URL designated by the notification target designating unit via the network I / F (108), and the obtained data is stored in the storage device (109). The URL and the acquisition time are given to the stored data.

  110 is an update detection unit. The URL of the acquired data is searched from the storage device, and if data having the same URL has been collected at least once in the past, an update is detected with the data acquired this time. Here, a plurality of methods can be considered as criteria for determining whether or not there is an update, but the present invention does not prescribe this.

  111 is a notification message creation unit. The notification destination medium and the notification method are acquired from the user management unit, and a notification message is created for each notification destination medium as shown in FIG.

  Finally, 112 is a message transmitting unit that accesses a server (113 to 115) corresponding to the notification destination medium and transmits a message.

  Next, the processing flow of this system from page collection to message transmission will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. When one page is collected (701), it is determined whether a page with the same URL has been collected in the past (702). If it is collected, an update is detected between the data and the current data (703). If not collected, it is a new page and no update detection is required. Subsequently, it is determined whether or not there is an update (704), and if it has been updated, the process moves to a notification process. If it has not been updated, the process for this page is terminated. The first step in the notification process is to determine whether an instant message is designated as the first notification destination (705). If the instant message is designated as the highest priority notification destination, the access status of the user is judged (707). If the user is logged in to the instant message service, an instant message message is created (709). Subsequently, it is sequentially determined whether or not notification is specified for other media (712 and 714), and if specified, a notification message is created for each medium (713 and 715). When the creation of the necessary message is completed, the notification method is determined (716). If immediate notification is specified, a message is transmitted and the processing related to this document is terminated. If batch notification is designated, it is determined whether the data collected this time is the last document included in the notification target (717). If it is the last document, it is ready to perform batch notification for this notification target, so a message is transmitted and the processing for this document is terminated. If it is not the last document, the notification message is stored until the processing of the collected data is completed (719), and the processing relating to this document is ended.

  Next, if it is determined in 707 that the user has not logged in to the instant message service, the next notification destination candidate is determined (708). If mail is designated as the second notification destination, a mail notification message is created (710), and then it is determined whether a web notification is instructed (714). Conversely, if the Web is designated as the second notification destination, a Web message is created (711). Since the subsequent processing has already been described, the description thereof will be omitted.

  Finally, if it is determined in step 705 that the instant message is designated as the first notification destination and the following is reached, it is determined whether mail is designated as the first notification destination (706). If mail is specified, a mail notification message is created (710), and then it is determined whether Web notification is specified. If mail is not specified as the first notification destination, a Web message is created (711), and it is then determined whether notification by mail is specified. Since the subsequent processing has already been described, the description thereof will be omitted. In this embodiment, the instant message can be specified only as the highest priority notification destination, but it is possible to shift the notification destination to the instant message even when other media is specified as the highest priority notification destination. For example, by using a means such as a mail reception confirmation flag or a check of access to a web page, an instant message is sent when a message is not opened after a certain period of time since the notification message was sent. A method of making a notification destination is conceivable.

(Embodiment 2)
Next, another embodiment of the present invention will be described.

  The basic configuration of the system is the same as in the first embodiment. However, the method of selecting the notification method is different. In the first embodiment, the user selects a notification method. In this embodiment, the system selects automatically. FIG. 7 shows an example of the notification method setting screen. An automatic setting flag (801) is added to the setting screen described in FIG. 3 (see FIG. 8). When the user enables this flag, the system automatically selects a notification method for each specified notification type.

  The present invention is not limited to only the system, apparatus, and method for realizing each of the above-described embodiments, and each of the above-described embodiments is applied to a computer (CPU or MPU) in the system or apparatus. A case where the above-described embodiments are realized by supplying program code of software to be realized and causing the computer of the system or apparatus to operate various devices according to the program code is also included in the scope of the present invention. .

  In this case, the program code of the software itself realizes the functions of the above-described embodiments, and the program code itself and means for supplying the program code to the computer, specifically, the program A storage medium storing codes is included in the scope of the present invention.

  As a storage medium for storing such a program code, a hard disk, flexible disk, optical disk, magneto-optical disk, CD-R, DVD, magnetic tape, nonvolatile memory card, ROM, CD-ROM, or the like can be used. .

  In addition, the computer controls various devices according to only the supplied program code so that the functions of the above-described embodiments are realized, as well as an OS in which the program code is running on the computer. The program code is also included in the scope of the present invention when the above-described embodiments are realized in cooperation with (operating system) or other application software.

  Further, after the supplied program code is stored in a memory provided in a function expansion board of a computer or a function expansion unit connected to the computer, the function expansion board or function expansion unit is based on an instruction of the program code. It is also included in the scope of the present invention when the CPU or the like provided in the above performs part or all of the actual processing and the above-described embodiments are realized by the processing.

It is a block diagram of the system which implements this invention. It is an example of the user registration screen which the system which implements this invention provides. It is an example of the setting screen of notification object. It is an example of the update notification method by a Web page. It is an example of the notification message from which the notification method differs. It is an example of the notification message for performing notification to a plurality of media. It is a flowchart showing the process of the system which implements this invention. It is an example of a setting screen for causing the system to automatically select a notification method.

Claims (10)

A system that detects the update of a document published on the network and notifies the user of the update.
Means for a user to specify a document to be detected using a document identifier that can uniquely identify the document;
Means for acquiring the specified document or a document group that can be reached by following a hyperlink from the document, or both, via the network, and storing the acquired document data with the identifier and the acquisition time;
Means for retrieving data acquired at different times having the same identifier as the acquired data from the stored data, and detecting an update between the two;
With
In addition, means to manage users with user identifiers that can uniquely identify users,
Means for a user to designate one or more notification destination media and a notification destination address as a destination of the notification message, and manage the notification message in association with the user identifier of the user;
Means for the user to select a notification method for each notification destination designated by the user;
Means for the user to set the order of sending notification messages between them when a plurality of notification destinations are specified;
Means for forming a notification message for each notification destination according to the notification method selected by the user;
Means for sending the notification message to a notification destination designated by the user;
A document update notification device.   The document update notification apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising means for automatically selecting a notification method according to a notification destination medium designated by the user.   2. The document update notification apparatus according to claim 1, wherein one of the notification destination media of the notification message is an instant message.   2. The document update notification apparatus according to claim 1, wherein one of the notification destination media of the notification message is an electronic mail.   The document update notification apparatus according to claim 1, wherein one of notification media of the notification message is a Web page.   The document update notification system according to claim 1, wherein one of notification method items designated by the user for each notification destination medium is a timing of update detection processing and notification message transmission.   2. The document update notification system according to claim 1, wherein one of notification method items specified by the user for each notification destination medium is a type of update information included in the notification message. A method for detecting an update of a document published on a network and notifying a user,
A user specifies a document to be detected using a document identifier that can uniquely identify the document;
Acquiring the specified document or a document group that can be reached by following a hyperlink from the document, or both, and storing the acquired document data with the identifier and the acquisition time; and
Searching for the data acquired at a different time with the same identifier as the acquired data from the stored data, and detecting an update between the two,
Have
And managing users with user identifiers that can uniquely identify users;
A user designates one or a plurality of notification destination media and a notification destination address as a destination of the notification message, and manages the notification message in association with the user identifier of the user;
A user selecting a notification method for each notification destination designated by the user;
When a plurality of the notification destinations are designated, the user sets the order of sending notification messages among them; and
Molding a notification message for each notification destination according to the notification method selected by the user;
Sending the notification message to a notification destination designated by the user;
A document update notification method.   The document update notification method according to claim 8, further comprising a step of automatically selecting a notification method according to a notification destination medium designated by the user.   A computer-readable recording medium having recorded thereon either a program that functions as an apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 6 or a program that causes a computer to execute the method according to claim 7.

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