JP2011090546A - Program-interlocked content distribution server and program-interlocked content distribution system - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To add a search term suitable for search for related information related to a broadcast content to a search term comprised of only keywords directly included in metadata; to expand the search term to a search term partly including keywords other than the metadata or comprised of only keywords other than the metadata; and to present an appropriate program-interlocked content to a user. <P>SOLUTION: A program-interlocked content distribution server 10 has a metadata acquiring section 101, a search term generating section 102 that extracts a search term which is recognized as being related to the broadcast content from search terms included in a past search history by utilizing relevance to the metadata and uses the extracted search term as a new search term, a related data acquiring section 103 that acquires a search result which is the related information of the broadcast content from a search server 40, a content creating section 104 that creates and stores a program interlocked content using the metadata and the search result, and a content distributing section 105 that distributes the program interlocked content to a client terminal 20. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2011,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a program-linked content distribution server and a program-linked content distribution system for distributing linked content created by collecting information related to broadcast contents such as television broadcasting.

  Currently, terminal devices that can be connected to both the television broadcasting network and the Internet, such as television receivers that can be connected to the Internet and computers that incorporate tuners for television broadcasting, have become widespread. Patent Document 1 discloses a system that displays an information area on a part of a display screen of a currently viewed television program, and displays detailed information and related advertisements regarding the currently viewed program in this information area. . The information displayed in the information area includes a link to information available on the Internet or an electronic program guide (EPG), and when the viewer selects the link, the information acquired from the link destination is displayed. It is displayed in the information area or the entire display screen.

  Incidentally, since the system disclosed in Patent Document 1 automatically acquires and displays information related to content such as a television program, the information that can be acquired is also limited. In addition, it has not yet provided an interface that supports user's spontaneous behavior such as purchasing products introduced in a program or searching on the Web for a keyword that is interesting in the program.

  On the other hand, there has been proposed a content viewing apparatus capable of viewing content provided in various formats in a complex and seamless manner (for example, see Patent Document 2). The content viewing apparatus receives broadcast program content and displays it on the display unit, while notifying the user that there is information related to the currently viewed content by using metadata added to the content. Specifically, the metadata is interpreted in order from the beginning of the data, and notification information is generated by tags included in the data. For example, notification information about a <url> tag in a <product> tag is generated. Since the <url> tag is access information for accessing the homepage on which a certain product is posted, it generates notification information notifying that the details of this product can be examined on the Internet, and information area To display.

International Publication No. 00/056072 Pamphlet JP 2009-5260 A

  However, the above-described conventional content viewing apparatus has the following problems. That is, the generation of a search term used to search for related information such as advertisements is performed using words or sentences included in the metadata (hereinafter, a group of meaningful character strings, symbols, and numbers that can be used as search terms). Therefore, there is a problem in that related information that cannot be retrieved unless it is a keyword other than the keyword included in the metadata cannot be presented to the user. If the intention of the metadata creator does not match the user's interest, or if the situation that occurred after the creation of the metadata has a significant effect on the relevant information that evokes the user's interest, It cannot be provided to the user.

  The present invention has been made in view of the above points, and adds a search term suitable for searching related information related to broadcast contents to a search term consisting only of keywords directly included in the metadata, and metadata. Provided is a program-linked content distribution server and a program-linked content distribution system that can be expanded to a search term that includes only keywords other than the above or a search term that includes only keywords other than metadata and can present appropriate program-linked content to the user. For the purpose.

  According to a first aspect of the present invention, metadata acquisition means for acquiring metadata about broadcast contents via an information transmission medium, and a search term including keywords included in the acquired metadata are generated. A search term generating means for extracting a search term that is recognized to be related to the broadcast content from search terms included in the search history, using the relationship with the metadata, and using the search term as a new search term; A server that processes a word as a search query is requested to specify a search word from the search words generated by the search word generation means, and a search result that is related information of broadcast contents is received from the server. A program-linked content presented to a user using related data acquisition means, metadata acquired by the metadata acquisition means and search results acquired by the related data acquisition means. A program-linked content distribution server comprising: content creating means for creating and storing a file; and content distribution means for delivering program-linked content instructed from a client terminal to the client terminal that is a request source is there.

  According to the first aspect of the present invention, a search term that is associated with broadcast content is extracted from search terms included in a past search history by utilizing the relationship with metadata, and a new search term is extracted. Because it is a search term, it can be expanded not only to search terms consisting only of keywords included in metadata, but also to search terms that include keywords other than metadata in part or only keywords other than metadata. Program-linked content can be presented to the user.

  In the program-linked content distribution server, the search word generation means calculates a relevance between each search word included in the past search history and the broadcast content, and generates a set of the search word and relevance The search history reflecting means and the related word selection means for arranging the search words in the order of the degree of relevance and selecting the search words having the same set of relevance exceeding the threshold as new search words can be provided. .

  In the program-linked content distribution server, the search word generation unit manages a user's usage history for each program-linked content and uses each search used for searching related information based on each program-linked content. A user service usage history reflection unit that reflects the user's usage history in the relevance level of the word, and the related word selection unit ranks the search terms when the relevance level is changed by the user service usage history reflection unit. It is good also as a structure which rearranges these from large to small.

  According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided a metadata providing server that provides metadata about broadcast contents, a search server that processes a search query to search related information, and program-linked content that creates and distributes program-linked content. A program-linked content distribution system comprising a distribution server and a client terminal to which the program-linked content is distributed, wherein the program-linked content distribution server transmits metadata about broadcast contents as an information transmission medium. Metadata acquisition means acquired via the search keyword and a search term composed of keywords included in the acquired metadata are generated, and a relationship with the broadcast content is recognized from the search terms included in the past search history. A search term is extracted by utilizing the relevance with the metadata, and a search term generation means for making a new search term, Related data for requesting a server to be processed as a search query by specifying a search word from the search words generated by the search word generation means and receiving a search result as related information of broadcast contents from the server Acquisition means; content creation means for creating and storing program-linked content to be presented to the client terminal using the metadata obtained by the metadata acquisition means and the search result obtained by the related data acquisition means; And a content distribution means for distributing the program-linked content instructed from the client terminal to the requesting client terminal.

  According to a third aspect of the present invention, a process for acquiring metadata for broadcast content via an information transmission medium, a search term including keywords included in the acquired metadata, and a past search history. Extracting a search term that is associated with the broadcast content from the included search terms using the relationship with the metadata to make a new search term, and processing the search term as a search query Requesting the server to specify a search term from each of the generated search terms, receiving a search result that is related information of broadcast contents from the server, and the acquired metadata A step of creating and storing program-linked content to be presented to the client terminal using the acquired search result, and the program-linked content instructed from the client terminal by the request source. A step of delivering to the client terminal, a program linked content distribution method is characterized in that comprises a.

  According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, a computer generates a search term including metadata acquisition means for acquiring metadata about broadcast contents via an information transmission medium, and a keyword included in the acquired metadata. A search word generation unit that extracts a search word that is recognized to be related to the broadcast content from search words included in a past search history, using the relation with the metadata, and sets it as a new search word A search result specifying the search word from the search words generated by the search word generation means to the server that processes the search word as a search query, and a search result that is related information of the broadcast content from the server The related data acquisition means for receiving the data, the metadata acquired by the metadata acquisition means, and the search result acquired by the related data acquisition means are presented to the user A content creation unit to create and save a program linked content is a program for functioning as a contents distribution means for distributing the program linked content instructed from the client terminal to the requesting the client terminal.

  According to the present invention, a search term suitable for searching related information related to broadcast contents is added to a search term consisting only of a keyword directly included in the metadata, and a search partially including keywords other than metadata. The search term can be expanded to include only keywords other than words or metadata, and appropriate program-linked content can be presented to the user.

System configuration diagram of a broadcast-linked content distribution system according to an embodiment of the present invention Diagram showing a specific example of metadata The figure which mainly shows the structure of the functional block of a search term generation part Conceptual diagram in which user search history reflection unit creates (metadata + α) type search terms Conceptual diagram in which the user search history reflection unit creates a search term that does not include metadata keywords (A) The figure which shows the co-occurrence probability of each keyword, (b) The figure which shows the pair of a search word and a relevance degree The figure which shows the relationship between the search term and the user use history for metadata Sequence diagram showing the processing flow up to creating program-linked content Sequence diagram showing the processing flow for delivering program-linked content to client terminals Sequence diagram showing the processing flow corresponding to the special playback operation on the client terminal

Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.
The broadcast-linked content distribution system according to the present embodiment acquires metadata created for the broadcast contents for each broadcast program, and in addition to a search term consisting only of keywords included in the acquired metadata, Search for search terms that have a relevance to the broadcast content from the search history (referred to as a search term used since it is a search term used in the past), and use searches that have a degree of relevance greater than a predetermined value. Let the word be a new search term. Search for related information using search terms generated from keywords included in metadata and newly added search terms based on relevance to broadcast contents from past search history, and use related information from the search. Create program-linked content. The program-linked content is distributed in response to a request from the user.

  Here, broadcasting is a concept including television broadcasting, radio broadcasting, video distribution on the Internet, podcasts on the Internet, and the like. Hereinafter, a description will be given mainly using television broadcasting as an example of broadcasting. The content is data composed of a moving image, a still image, sound, text, or the like that can be viewed on the client terminal, or a combination thereof. Further, the metadata is created for the broadcast content and includes at least attribute information of the broadcast content. The metadata can include various additional information related to the broadcast content.

  FIG. 1 is a system configuration diagram of a broadcast-linked content distribution system according to an embodiment of the present invention. The broadcast-linked content distribution system shown in the figure includes a content creation / distribution server 10, a client terminal 20, a metadata providing server 30, and a search server 40. The content creation / delivery server 10 and the client terminal 20 include a communication interface for transmitting and receiving data via the network 50a. In addition, the content creation / delivery server 10, the metadata providing server 30, and the search server 40 include a communication interface for performing data transmission / reception via the network 50b.

  The content creation / distribution server 10 has a function of acquiring metadata created for the broadcast content from the metadata providing server 30, a function of generating a search term using the metadata and the search history, and a relation related to the broadcast content. It mainly has a function of acquiring information, a function of creating content to be provided to a program viewing user from the acquired metadata and related information, and a function of distributing program-linked content to client terminals. In the present embodiment, the content creation / delivery server 10 is configured by a computer system including a CPU, a memory, a communication device, and other devices, and hardware resources and software resources operate in cooperation. The various functions described above are realized by an information processing organization constructed by. That is, a program for causing a computer to realize the above functions is provided.

  The client terminal 20 includes an application program that receives and uses program-linked content distributed from the content creation / distribution server 10. The application installed in the client terminal 20 has a function of requesting content from the content creation / delivery server 10, a function of displaying received program-linked content, and a function of receiving control (operation) on the program-linked content by a user and converting it into a user command. And a function of transmitting a user command to the content creation / delivery server 10.

  The metadata providing server 30 has a function of providing metadata created for broadcast contents for each broadcast program. Metadata for broadcast contents may be created sequentially in time series. The metadata providing server 30 distributes the corresponding metadata in response to a request from the content creation / distribution server 10. Instead of using a request from the content creation / delivery server 10 as a trigger, the metadata may be delivered (push-type delivery) from the metadata providing server 30 to the content creation / delivery server 10. The metadata is described in a format that can be interpreted by the content creation / delivery server 10. The metadata description format may be, for example, XML (Extensible Markup Language), but is not limited to XML. The metadata of different broadcast programs may be described in the same format, or may be described in different formats.

  The search server 40 receives the search query from the content creation / distribution server 10, acquires related information related to the search query from a WEB server connected to the Internet, an intranet, a local area network, etc. 10 to send. The search target of related information may be not only a WEB server connected via the Internet but also a directly connected database. In the following description, an apparatus that provides related information may be called a site, but includes not only a web server but also a database.

  The networks 50a and 50b may be a fixed wired network, a mobile wireless network, a short-range wireless network, or other communication circuits. The network 50a and the network 50b may be separate communication networks or may be the same communication network. In this embodiment, an example using a network has been described. However, a part for exchanging information via a recording medium such as a DVD or a CD-ROM may be included.

Next, the configuration of the content creation / delivery server 10 will be described in detail.
The content creation / distribution server 10 includes a metadata acquisition unit 101, a search term generation unit 102, a related data acquisition unit 103, a content creation unit 104, a content distribution unit 105, and a user command processing unit 106.

  The metadata acquisition unit 101 requests metadata from the metadata providing server 30 and acquires metadata from the metadata providing server 30. Specifically, the metadata acquisition unit 101 can request the corresponding metadata by specifying a program channel and a time zone (start time and end time). Alternatively, a program channel may be designated to request updated metadata from the previous access. A plurality of program channels may be designated including designation of all program channels broadcast as program channels. The metadata acquisition unit 101 interprets the acquired metadata in accordance with a description format, converts it into an internal processing format (hereinafter referred to as an internal format), and records it. When converting to the internal format, the sentence in the metadata may be subjected to a morphological analysis process to extract a noun as a keyword. Further, the metadata whose format has been converted is input to the search word generation unit 102 and the content creation unit 104.

  The search term generation unit 102 extracts a keyword to be used as a search term from the metadata converted into the internal format input from the metadata acquisition unit 101. When the metadata shown in FIG. 2 is input, it is interpreted in order from the beginning of the metadata, and the program name “News 1030”, the performer name “Taro Yamada”, and the title representing the topic “ Extract keywords such as “general election”. A search query is generated using the extracted keyword as a search term.

  In the present embodiment, not only the keyword directly included in the metadata, but also the past search history and the relevance between the broadcast contents (broadcast time zone, words included in the metadata) Use search terms that are recognized to be relevant are extracted as new search terms.

  FIG. 3 shows functional blocks of the search word generation unit 102 and related functional blocks, and mainly shows a part related to generation of a new search word. The search word generation unit 102 includes a related word selection unit 111, a user search history reflection unit 112, and a user service use history reflection unit 113.

  The related word selection unit 111 notifies the user search history reflection unit 112 of the metaword included in the metadata input from the metadata acquisition unit 101. The related word selection unit 111 also receives a newly generated search word and relevance level pair from the user search history reflection unit 112. In addition, the user service usage history reflection unit 113 receives a set of a search word and a relevance degree whose relevance degree is updated. Then, the search terms are arranged in the order of the degree of relevance, and the search terms selected according to a predetermined rule from the one having the highest relevance are input to the related data acquisition unit 103. The number of search terms given to the related data acquisition unit 103 can be limited in accordance with a predetermined rule, such as cut off depending on the degree of relevance.

  The user search history reflection unit 112 is input with related word search history data as basic information for generating a new search term via a network or a recording medium. Search history data for related terms is actually searched for on the Internet or mobile phone network for each keyword included in the metadata during the same time period when a broadcast program containing the keyword in the metadata was broadcast in the past. A set of search terms used. In this specification, in order to distinguish between the search terms constituting the related term search history data and the search terms used for acquiring the related information related to the broadcast content, the search terms constituting the related term search history data Is referred to as a used search term. The user search history reflection unit 112 calculates the degree of association between each search word used in the related word search history data and the broadcast program, and sets the combination of each search word and the degree of association to the related word selection unit 111. Notice. In this way, the used search word extracted from the related word search history data assuming that the degree of relevance with the broadcast program is equal to or greater than a predetermined threshold value is the related word. When the search history is small and there is no corresponding related word, the metaword itself included in the metadata is set as the search word, and the degree of relevance is set in advance to notify the related word selection unit 111.

  The user service usage history reflection unit 113 receives service usage frequency data for a search term that has already been created. The service usage frequency data of the user refers to related information (program linkage) acquired in the past with respect to a search term generated from a keyword included in metadata and a new search term extracted from a search history. This is data representing the usage frequency of the user for (content). As will be described later, the program-linked content distribution system of the present embodiment displays link information on the client terminal 20 for accessing a site that provides each program-linked content searched using a search word, and the user By clicking a desired link, specific information of the program-linked content is provided from the linked site. Therefore, the service usage frequency can also be referred to as the number of link click operations (browsing history) of the user. The service usage frequency data (number of link click operations) may be obtained from the client terminal 20 or from a linked site. The user service usage history reflection unit 113 quantitatively calculates the relevance as the relevance level from the usage frequency of the user for each search word, and notifies the related word selection unit 111 of the set of the search word and the relevance level. Control is performed such that the higher the user usage frequency, the higher the numerical value of the degree of association. If the user's usage history is small, the metaword itself included in the metadata is used as a search word, and the degree of relevance is set in advance to notify the related word selection unit 111.

  The related data acquisition unit 103 uses, as a search query, a search term that is permitted according to a predetermined rule for a set of input search terms (including new search terms extracted from the search history) and relevance level. It transmits to the search server 40. As a rule determined in advance, only a search term having a relevance degree equal to or higher than a predetermined threshold is allowed. Further, the related data acquisition unit 103 receives the search result from the search server 40 and transfers the received search result to the content creation unit 104. Here, the search result provided from the search server 40 may be link information (for example, URL) for accessing the site.

  The content creation unit 104 creates and stores content to be presented to the user using the metadata input from the metadata acquisition unit 101 and the search result transferred from the related data acquisition unit 103. The accumulated content can be referred to as program-linked content. The content formation may be an HTML file, a Flash file, a data format read into the application, or a format consistent with the content presentation means in the client terminal 20.

  The content distribution unit 105 distributes, to the client terminal 20, a portion selected from the program-linked content created by the content creation unit 104 according to the user operation received through the user command processing unit 106.

  The user command processing unit 106 receives a user command transmitted from the client terminal by a user operation on the client terminal 20. The received user command is notified to the corresponding processing unit according to the content.

Next, processing contents until the search word generation unit 102 generates a search word will be described.
The user search history reflection unit 112 extracts the use search terms that directly include the keywords included in the metadata from the related term search history data, and calculates the degree of association between each extracted use search term and the broadcast content. . As shown in FIG. 4, it is assumed that “A” is included as a performer name in metadata for a broadcast program [P]. Use search terms including the person name “A” are extracted from the related term search history data. If only the titles are different, such as “A”, “Mr. A”, and “A-chan (Kutadata)”, it is highly possible that they represent the same person “A”. Can do. A search query is synonymous with a search term used. In FIG. 4, search query 1 = “A OR A-san OR A-chan”, search query 2 = (A AND marriage), search query 3 = (A AND marriage AND Hawaii), search query 4 = (A AND new song name) )... Are extracted. The user search history reflection unit 112 obtains the number of appearances for each of the extracted search queries 1, 2, 3, 4..., And calculates the ratio to the total number of search queries including the person name “A” as the individual search queries 1, 2, 2. Calculate for 3, 4... For example, if the marriage of the performer “A” is a topic, the related information searched by the search query 2 = (A AND marriage) or the search query 3 = (A AND marriage AND Hawaii) is interested in the user. Highly relevant information is expected. If content can be created from relevant information that is of great interest to the user, a highly satisfactory service can be provided. The ratio calculated for each search query 1, 2, 3, 4,... Represents the degree of association with the broadcast program [P] that includes the personal name “A” in the metadata. Search queries 1, 2, 3, and 4 whose relevance exceeded a threshold (for example, 7%) were selected as related terms, and included in the set of related terms (used search terms) and relevance, and metadata The related word selection unit 111 is notified of the performer name “A” as a keyword. The user search history reflection unit 112 repeats the above processing for each keyword until there is no keyword given from the related word selection unit 111. As described above, a (metadata + α) -type search term having a high degree of relevance to a broadcast program can be newly created.
However, the present invention is not limited to the case of creating a (metadata + α) type search term.

Next, a rule for creating a search term that does not directly include a metadata keyword will be described.
FIG. 5 is a conceptual diagram for creating a search term that does not directly include metadata keywords. This figure shows rules for creating a new search term for, for example, metadata B = performer: Taro Yamada. In this case, the broadcast time of metadata B corresponds to the time zone in which “Taro Yamada” appeared. If the metadata B includes a program corner name including “Fukushima specialty” in part, it corresponds to the time zone when the “Fukushima specialty” corner was broadcast. The user search history reflection unit 112 captures time information at which the metadata B was broadcast in order to create a new search term for the metadata B. In the example shown in FIG. 5, as the time information when the metadata B was broadcast, as of September 10, 2009, 18:23 to 18:33 (first broadcast), 2009/09/11 13:15 Minutes to 13:16 (second broadcast) and 2009 September 13, 20:36 to 20:55 (third broadcast) are captured. For each of the first to third broadcasts, the user search history reflection unit 112 narrows down to a predetermined time period (for example, 30 minutes) after the broadcast content in which B is created as metadata is started. The keywords used in the search query are extracted from the related term search history data. As shown in FIG. 5, within 30 minutes after the program corner including “Fukushima specialty” as part of the program corner name, the keyword = “Kitakata Ramen” will be broadcast after the first to third broadcasts. It always appears, and the keyword = “Aizu” appears together after the first and second broadcasts start. Kitakata Ramen is one of Fukushima's specialties and is a famous ramen name in the Kitakata region. Aizu is the name of the area (city in Fukushima Prefecture) that includes the Kitakata region. Next, the user search history reflection unit 112 calculates the co-occurrence probability for each extracted keyword from the first to the third broadcast (within 30 minutes after the broadcast). FIG. 6A shows the co-occurrence probability of each keyword. For example, since the keyword = “Kitakata Ramen” always appears after the start of the first to third broadcasts, the co-occurrence probability is 100%. Since the keyword = “crab” appears only after the start of the second broadcast, the co-occurrence probability is 33%. The user search history reflection unit 112 selects a keyword having a co-occurrence probability equal to or higher than a threshold value as a related word. FIG. 6B shows an example in which the co-occurrence probability is 60% as the relevance threshold. Using the co-occurrence probability of the selected related word (keyword) as the relevance level, the related word selection unit 111 is notified of a set of the related word (keyword) and the relevance level (co-occurrence probability). The above process is repeated every time the broadcast program B is broadcast. If there is a tendency that a specific keyword appears at a predetermined time after the start of broadcasting of the metadata B, it can be considered that the metadata B and the keyword are highly related. As described above, a new search term that is highly relevant to the broadcast content is generated for each metadata.

  Next, processing contents for learning the degree of association given to each search word from the service use history in the search word generation unit 102 will be described.

  In the specific example shown in FIG. 7, a search term = “Jingu fireworks display” composed only of keywords included in the metadata is registered for metadata = “Jingu fireworks display”. In addition, a search term “Jingu AND Yukata” including a keyword not included in the metadata extracted as a related term having a relevance level equal to or higher than a predetermined value by the user search history reflection unit 112 is registered. As a result of the search by the related data acquisition unit 103 using the search terms “Jingu Fireworks” and “Jingu AND Yukata” as search queries, a plurality of related information is acquired and stored as program-linked content. . URL1 to URL3 are one of related information obtained by searching for “Jingu fireworks display” as a search query, and are links for accessing a site that provides information having a high degree of program relevance. A URL of a site where information with a high degree of program relevance exists may be called program-linked content, and information acquired from a site accessed by the client terminal 20 using the URL may be called program-linked content. URL4 to URL6 are one of related information obtained by searching for “Jingu AND Yukata” as a search query, and are links for accessing a site that provides information with a high degree of program relevance. When the service is provided, a link is displayed on the client terminal 20 in conjunction with the broadcast program, and the user clicks a desired link (URL) to access the linked site and download the information.

  The user service usage history reflection unit 113 manages the number of times (link clicks) that the client terminal 20 browses (link clicks) at the time of service provision for each program-linked content (URL1 to URL6). The number of link clicks of each program-linked content (URL1 to URL6) is notified from the client terminal 20 or the site providing server. The user service usage history reflection unit 113 sums up the number of link clicks for each search term, and calculates a ratio to the total number of link clicks in the entire metadata. In FIG. 7, for metadata = “Jingu fireworks display”, the total number of link clicks in the entire metadata is 171 times (29 times + 142 times). In addition, the number of link clicks of the program-linked content (URL1 to URL3) corresponding to the search term “Jingu fireworks display” is 29 times, and the link of the program-linked content (URL4 to URL6) corresponding to the search term “Jingu AND Yukata” is provided. The number of clicks is 142. Therefore, the relevance of the search term “Jingu fireworks display” can be calculated as 29/171, and the relevance of the search term “Jingu AND Yukata” can be calculated as 142/171.

  Thus, the usage frequency of the user is reflected on the relevance level of each search word, and the higher the usage frequency, the higher the relevance level. By searching for related information using a search term having a high degree of relevance, content that has a high degree of relevance with a broadcast program and that may be of high interest to the user is provided.

Next, the operation of the program-linked content distribution system according to the present embodiment will be described.
With reference to FIG. 8, the process flow until the creation of program-linked content will be described.
The content creation / delivery server 10 requests metadata from the metadata providing server 30 (step S101). The metadata providing server 30 transmits the requested broadcast program metadata to the content creation / delivery server 10 (step S102).

  In the content creation / delivery server 10, the received metadata is converted into an internal format and recorded (step S103). When converting to the internal format, only useful parts (for example, keywords) are extracted from the metadata. It is also possible to perform a morphological analysis process on texts in the metadata and extract nouns as keywords.

  The content creation / delivery server 10 generates a search term using the metadata, and transmits the search term as a search query to the search server 40 (step S104). The generation of the search term is as described above. That is, if a new (metadata + α) type search term is to be created, the user search history reflection unit 112 extracts the use search term that directly includes the keyword from the related term search history data and extracts it. The degree of association between each search term used and the broadcast content is calculated. A related word consisting of a used search word having a relevance level equal to or higher than a predetermined value and the relevance level are reported to the related word selection unit 111 as a set. Also, if a search term that does not directly include metadata keywords is created, for example, if a broadcast including specific metadata is broadcast a plurality of times, the same time zone (predetermined time after the start of broadcasting) ) Is extracted from the related word search history data in the same time period, and the co-occurrence probability is calculated for each keyword. A keyword having a co-occurrence probability equal to or higher than a predetermined value is set as a related word, and the co-occurrence probability is notified to the related word selection unit 111 as a relevance degree. A method for extracting related words (used search words) having a high degree of relevance to the broadcast content from related word search history data is not particularly limited, and rules other than those described above can be applied as appropriate. The related word selection unit 111 selects a related word having a high degree of relevance as a new search word, generates a search query, and outputs a search request to the search server 40.

  In the search server 40, a search is performed on a search target set in advance with respect to the search query received from the content creation / distribution server 10, and a search result is obtained (step S105). The search target may be a WEB server connected to the Internet, an intranet, a local area network, or the like, or a database directly connected to the search server. In the search server 40, the search result of the searched related information is transmitted to the content creation / delivery server 10 (step S106).

  The content creation / delivery server 10 creates and accumulates content from the recorded metadata and the search result transmitted from the search server 40 (step S107).

  The processing from step S101 to step S107 is repeatedly executed at a predetermined interval.

  As described above, in step S104, search words that are highly relevant to the broadcast program are generated in addition to the metawords directly included in the metadata, and the search results and metadata obtained by searching for related information using these search words as a search query are used. Program-linked content is created and stored.

  Next, a processing flow for distributing program-linked content to the client terminal 20 will be described with reference to FIG. Note that the distribution process shown in FIG. 9 is executed in parallel with the processing flow described with reference to FIG.

  It is assumed that an interface screen for selecting program-linked content is displayed on the client terminal 20. When the user designates the content to be viewed on the interface screen, the content number of the designated program-linked content is notified to the content creation / delivery server 10 according to the user's operation (step S201). Since the program-linked content is linked to the broadcast program, the content can be specified by specifying the broadcast channel and time. If the time is not specified, it can be considered that the time at the time of operation is specified. For example, the user is notified of the content number of the program-linked content related to the content of the viewed television program only by specifying the broadcast channel of the viewed television program, and the program-linked content is transmitted to the client terminal. 20 can be downloaded and viewed.

  The content creation / distribution server 10 distributes the program-linked content corresponding to the content number notified from the client terminal 20 from the stored program-linked content to the client terminal 20 (step S202).

  The client terminal 20 receives the program-linked content distributed from the content creation / delivery server 10 and presents it on the client terminal 20 (step S203).

  Next, a processing flow corresponding to a special reproduction operation at the client terminal 20 will be described with reference to FIG. The processing corresponding to the special reproduction operation is executed instead of the processing flow described with reference to FIG. 9, and is executed in parallel with the processing flow described with reference to FIG.

  In the client terminal 20, it is assumed that the user performs a special reproduction operation such as rewinding or fast-forwarding the content on the program-linked content being viewed. The client terminal 20 designates the program-linked content to be newly viewed based on the user's operation instructing special playback, and notifies the content creation / delivery server 10 (step S301).

  The content creation / delivery server 10 extracts the program-linked content corresponding to the content designation notified from the client terminal 20 from the stored program-linked content and distributes it to the client terminal 20 (step S302).

The client terminal 20 receives the program-linked content distributed from the content creation / distribution server 10 and displays it on the client terminal 20 (step S303).
The present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiments, and various modifications can be made without departing from the spirit of the present invention.

  The present invention is applicable to a program-linked content distribution system that creates a program-linked content from related information related to the broadcast content of a broadcast program and distributes it to a client terminal.

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 Content preparation delivery server 20 Client terminal 30 Metadata provision server 40 Search server 50a, 50b Network 101 Metadata acquisition part 102 Search term generation part 103 Related data acquisition part 104 Content creation part 105 Content distribution part 106 User command processing part 111 Related Word selection unit 112 User search history reflection unit 113 User service use history reflection unit

Claims (6)

Metadata acquisition means for acquiring metadata for broadcast contents via an information transmission medium;
A search term composed of keywords included in the acquired metadata is generated, and a search term that is recognized to be related to the broadcast content is selected from the search terms included in the past search history. A search term generation means for extracting a new search term using
A server that processes a search term as a search query is requested to specify a search term from the search terms generated by the search term generation means, and a search result that is related information of broadcast contents is received from the server. Related data acquisition means,
Content creation means for creating and storing program-linked content to be presented to the user using the metadata acquired by the metadata acquisition means and the search result acquired by the related data acquisition means;
Content distribution means for distributing program-linked content instructed from a client terminal to the requesting client terminal;
A program-linked content distribution server comprising: The search word generation means calculates a relevance between each search word included in the past search history and the broadcast content, and generates a set of search words and relevance, a user search history reflection means, The related terms selection means for arranging the search terms in order of magnitude and selecting as a new search terms a search term of the same set as the relevance degree exceeding the threshold;
The program-linked content distribution server according to claim 1, further comprising: The search word generation means manages a user's usage history for each program-linked content, and uses the user according to the degree of relevance of each search word used for searching related information based on each program-linked content. User service usage history reflection means for reflecting history,
The related word selection means rearranges the order of the search words in order of magnitude when the degree of relevance is changed by the user service usage history reflection means.
The program-linked content distribution server according to claim 2. A metadata providing server that provides metadata for broadcast content, a search server that processes a search query to retrieve related information, a program-linked content distribution server that creates and distributes program-linked content, and the program-linked content includes: A program-linked content distribution system comprising a client terminal to be distributed,
The program-linked content distribution server is
Metadata acquisition means for acquiring metadata for broadcast contents via an information transmission medium;
A search term composed of keywords included in the acquired metadata is generated, and a search term that is recognized to be related to the broadcast content is selected from the search terms included in the past search history. A search term generation means for extracting a new search term using
A server that processes a search term as a search query is requested to specify a search term from the search terms generated by the search term generation means, and a search result that is related information of broadcast contents is received from the server. Related data acquisition means,
Content creation means for creating and storing program-linked content to be presented to the client terminal using the metadata acquired by the metadata acquisition means and the search result acquired by the related data acquisition means;
Content distribution means for distributing program-linked content instructed from the client terminal to the requesting client terminal;
With
A program-linked content distribution system characterized by this. Acquiring metadata for broadcast content via an information transmission medium;
A search term composed of keywords included in the acquired metadata is generated, and a search term that is recognized to be related to the broadcast content is selected from the search terms included in the past search history. A process of extracting and using as a new search term,
A process for processing a search term as a search query, requesting a search by specifying a search term from each of the generated search terms, and receiving a search result that is related information of broadcast contents from the server;
Creating and storing program-linked content to be presented to a client terminal using the acquired metadata and the acquired search result; and
Delivering the program-linked content instructed from the client terminal to the requesting client terminal;
A program-linked content distribution method comprising: Computer
Metadata acquisition means for acquiring metadata for broadcast contents via an information transmission medium;
A search term composed of keywords included in the acquired metadata is generated, and a search term that is recognized to be related to the broadcast content is selected from the search terms included in the past search history. A search term generation means for extracting a new search term using
A server that processes a search term as a search query is requested to specify a search term from the search terms generated by the search term generation means, and a search result that is related information of broadcast contents is received from the server. Related data acquisition means,
Content creation means for creating and storing program-linked content to be presented to the user using the metadata acquired by the metadata acquisition means and the search result acquired by the related data acquisition means;
Content distribution means for distributing program-linked content instructed from a client terminal to the requesting client terminal;
Program to function as.

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