JP5337747B2 - Billing apparatus, billing method and program - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to a charging apparatus, a charging method, and a program for charging a fee for providing information from an information provider.

  In recent years, a system has been proposed in which life information provided by a large number of information providers is accumulated and statistically processed, and the statistical data is provided to information receivers. By using this system, the information receiver can perform marketing processing based on the provided statistical data.

  By the way, in this type of system, there is a system having a function of calculating and paying a remuneration amount for information provision from an information provider. For example, in Patent Document 1, the number of users of an angle video viewed on the main screen of each multi-angle terminal is totaled, and an edited video is generated by connecting the highest portions of the audience rating based on the tabulated audience rating. In the video distribution system, the user information of the user who viewed with the multi-angle terminal and the viewing record when the edited video generated by the video editing device is viewed by another user are stored, and based on the stored viewing record, A technique for transmitting cashback information to a user of a multi-angle terminal who cooperated when an edited video was generated is described.

JP 2009-207181 A

  However, in the system described in Patent Document 1, a reward is unconditionally paid to a user who cooperates to simply edit a video with a high audience rating. For this reason, when the above conventional technique is applied as it is to a system that processes life information provided by a large number of information providers, information provision is concentrated only in a specific time zone, and information is provided in other time zones. As described above, there is a case where the amount of information provision varies depending on the time of day. For this reason, it has been difficult to obtain high-quality statistical information in response to a request for obtaining statistical information independent of time zones.

  The present invention has been made paying attention to the above circumstances, and its purpose is to ensure a necessary and sufficient amount of information provided regardless of the time of day, thereby reducing the time bias of statistical information. An object of the present invention is to provide a charging apparatus, a charging method, and a program capable of improving quality.

  In order to achieve the above object, one aspect of the present invention is to collect life information including time information from a plurality of information provider terminals used by an information provider via a communication network and collect the collected life information. A charging apparatus, a charging method, and a program used in a system for generating statistical information based on the information and transmitting the generated statistical information to an information receiving terminal via the communication network, from the information provider There is provided accounting condition storage means for storing information representing a reward in association with the minimum number of times or frequency of provision of life information. In this state, for each information provider, the number of times or the frequency of provision of life information from the information provider is obtained for each time zone based on the time information included in the life information, and further obtained for each time zone. The minimum value is detected from the number of times or the frequency of provision of living information. For each information provider, information representing a reward corresponding to the detected number of times of provision or the minimum value of the provision frequency is read from the charging condition storage means.

  Therefore, a reward is paid according to the minimum number of times or frequency of provision of life information. For example, when life information is provided without any bias due to time zones, a reward amount is paid to the information provider. For this reason, when providing information on living, information providers become aware that the number of times of information provision or frequency is not biased by time. Statistical information can be generated and distributed.

One aspect of the present invention is also characterized by comprising the following aspects.
The first aspect divides a day into a plurality of time zones and determines the number of times life information is provided from the information provider or for each information provider when obtaining the number of times or the frequency of provision of life information by time zone. The provision frequency is obtained for each of the divided time zones.
In this way, when living information is provided without any time zone bias throughout the day, that is, even when the living information is provided uniformly regardless of the time, a remuneration amount is paid to the information provider. For this reason, the information provider becomes conscious of providing information without a bias throughout the day. As a result, for example, when it is desired to acquire information without a bias throughout the day, such as traffic information, the information receiver is more effective. High-quality statistical information can be acquired.

In the second aspect, when the number of times or the frequency of provision of life information is obtained by time period, one week is divided into a plurality of time periods by day of the week, and the life information from the information provider is provided for each information provider. The number of times of provision or the frequency of provision is obtained for each of the divided time zones.
In this way, when the living information is provided evenly every day of the week or regardless of whether it is a weekday or a holiday, a remuneration amount is paid to the information provider without any bias due to time zones throughout the week. For this reason, the information provider becomes conscious of providing information without bias throughout the week, and as a result, it is possible to collect the necessary and sufficient amount of information throughout the week without any bias between weekdays and weekends. It becomes.

  That is, according to the present invention, it is possible to ensure a necessary and sufficient amount of information provided regardless of the time zone, thereby reducing the bias due to time of statistical information and improving the quality, and the charging method, A program can be provided.

1 is a schematic configuration diagram of an information mediation system according to an embodiment of the present invention. The block diagram which shows the structure of the information mediation server and billing server concerning one Embodiment of this invention. The flowchart which shows the procedure and processing content of the life information totaling process by the information mediation server shown in FIG. The flowchart which shows the procedure and processing content of the accounting process by the accounting server shown in FIG. The figure which shows an example of the information memorize | stored in the information provision frequency memory | storage part provided in the accounting server shown in FIG. The figure which shows an example of the accounting conditions memorize | stored in the accounting table provided in the accounting server shown in FIG. The figure which shows an example of the information memorize | stored in the information provision frequency memory | storage part provided in the accounting server concerning other embodiment of this invention.

Embodiments according to the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.
FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a configuration of an information mediation system according to the first embodiment of the present invention.
This information mediation system enables life information to be transmitted from a plurality of information provider terminals UT1 to UTn to an information mediation server ISV via a communication network NW, and from the information mediation server ISV to a plurality of information reception terminals CT1 to CTm. Statistical information can be transmitted via the communication network NW. In addition, a billing server CSV is connected to the information mediation server ISV, and the billing processing for remuneration for the information providing terminals UT1 to UTn is performed by the billing server CSV.

The information providing terminals UT1 to UTn are used by general users who are information providers, and have portable terminals such as mobile phones and PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants), fixed information terminals such as personal computers, and bidirectional communication functions. It is comprised by a television receiver or a set top box.
The information receiving terminals CT1 to CTm are used by manufacturers, sales companies, advertising agencies, and the like who are information receivers, and are constituted by personal computers.

  The communication network NW includes an IP (Internet Protocol) network and an access network for accessing the IP network. As the access network, an optical public communication network, a mobile phone network, a LAN (Local Area Network), a wireless LAN, a CATV (Cable Television) network, or the like is used.

By the way, the information mediation server ISV and the accounting server CSV are configured as follows. FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the configuration.
First, the information mediation server ISV is operated, for example, by a communication carrier, and includes an input / output unit 1, a transmission / reception unit 2, and a control unit 3.

  The input / output unit 1 includes an input device including a keyboard and a mouse, a display device such as a display, and a driver for reading information on an external storage medium such as a magnetic disk, an optical disk, or a flash memory, and charging required for charging processing Used to input and set information representing conditions.

  The transmitting / receiving unit 2 performs a charging process between the information providing terminals UT1 to UTn and the information receiving terminals CT1 to CTm according to a communication protocol defined by the communication network NW and a charging server CSV. And a function for transferring information indicating the result of the billing process. For example, TCP / IP (Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol) is used as the communication protocol.

  The control unit 3 includes a central processing unit (CPU), and generates statistical information by aggregating life information transmitted from the information providing terminals UT1 to UTn and received by the transmission / reception unit 2 according to a predetermined rule; And a function of transmitting the generated statistical information to the information receiving terminals CT1 to CTm that desire distribution.

Next, the accounting server CSV includes an interface unit 4, a control unit 5, and a storage unit 6.
Among these, the interface unit 4 performs a transmission / reception process of information necessary for the accounting process and information indicating a result of the accounting process with the information mediation server ISV.

The storage unit 6 includes a charging condition table 61, an information provision count storage unit 62, and a minimum provision count storage unit 63.
The accounting condition table 61 is used to store information indicating the amount of payment of a reward for the minimum value in association with the minimum value of the number of times of information provision totaled for each time zone.
The information provision count storage unit 62 is used to store the information provision count for each information provision time zone in association with the identification information (ID) of the information provider.
The minimum provision count storage unit 63 is a temporary storage memory for detecting the minimum value from the information provision count for each time zone stored in the information provision count storage unit 62 for each information provider in the course of the accounting process. used.

  The control unit 5 includes a central processing unit (CPU), and includes a charging condition setting unit 51, an information provision number control unit 52, and a charging control unit 53 as control functions necessary for carrying out the present invention. . These control functions are realized by causing the CPU to execute an application program stored in a program memory (not shown).

  When the system operator inputs a charging condition in the input / output unit 1 of the information mediation server ISV, the charging condition setting unit 51 stores information indicating the input charging condition in the charging condition table 61 in the storage unit 6. Perform the process.

  When the information provision count control unit 52 receives an instruction to update the number of information provisions from the information mediation server ISV, the information provision number control unit 52 follows the instruction and the corresponding information provider stored in the information provision number storage unit 62 corresponds to the corresponding time zone. To update the number of times information is provided.

The charging control unit 53 has the following processing functions.
(1) At a predetermined billing processing timing (for example, at the end of the month), for each information provider, the information provision count for each time period is read from the information provision count storage unit 62 and the minimum value of the information provision count is determined Processing to detect.
(2) As a result of the processing of (1) above, based on the minimum value of the information provision number finally stored in the minimum provision number storage unit 63, information indicating the payment amount of the reward corresponding to the minimum value A process of reading the billing condition table 61, generating billing information for notifying the read payment amount, and transmitting it to the information receiving terminals CT1 to CTm.

Next, operations of the information mediation server ISV and the accounting server CSV configured as described above will be described.
First, in the information mediation server ISV, the following information mediation processing operation is performed. FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the processing procedure and processing contents.
That is, in the information provider terminals UT1 to UTn, when the information provider performs an operation of inputting and transmitting the traffic volume of a certain road, for example, the traffic volume input by the information provider terminals UT1 to UTn and the traffic volume. Living information including position information indicating the observation point, time stamp information indicating the observation time zone, and user ID is generated, and the generated living information is transmitted to the information mediation server ISV.

  The control unit 3 of the information mediation server ISV receives the life information transmitted from the information provider terminals UT1 to UTn in step S31 and stores it in a storage unit (not shown). Next, in step S32, the received life information is read from the storage unit, and totalized according to a predetermined totalization rule. For example, one day is divided into three time zones consisting of morning, afternoon and night, and the traffic volume for each time zone is totaled for each road, and the average value is calculated. In step S33, the information representing the calculated total result is transmitted to information receiving terminals CT1 to CTm set in advance as information receivers. When the transmission of the counting results is completed, the process proceeds to step S34, where the user ID and time stamp information are extracted from each received life information, and the number of times of providing information including the extracted user ID and time stamp information is extracted. An update instruction is generated and transmitted to the billing server CSV.

  On the other hand, the billing server CSV starts the billing control unit 53 at a predetermined billing processing timing, for example, at the end of the month, and executes billing processing under the control of the billing control unit 53 as follows. FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the processing procedure and processing contents.

  In the description, it is assumed that the charging condition table 61 stores information indicating the charging conditions in advance. FIG. 6 shows an example of information representing the stored billing conditions. The accounting condition setting method includes a method in which an operator of the information mediation server ISV inputs and sets from the input / output unit 1, and a method in which an information receiver remotely inputs and sets information from the information receiving terminals CT1 to CTm via a communication network. Can be considered.

  The billing control unit 53 of the billing server CSV first selects one information provider whose user ID is stored in the information provision number storage unit 62 in step S41. Subsequently, in step S42, the value of the register B in the minimum provision count storage unit 63 is initialized to a predetermined maximum value.

  In this state, a time zone is selected in step S43, and the information provision count A in the selected time zone is read from the information provision count storage unit 62 in step S44. For example, when an information provider whose user ID is “1” is selected and “AM” is selected as the time zone, “3 times” is provided as the number of information provisions from the information provision number storage unit 62 as shown in FIG. Read out. Then, the read information provision count A (“3 times”) is compared with the value of the minimum provision count B in step S45. If this result B> A, the read information provision count A is set to the minimum provision count B in step S46.

  Subsequently, in step S47, it is determined whether or not the information provider whose user ID is “1” has been processed for all time zones. If an unprocessed time zone remains, the process returns to step S43 to select one of the unprocessed time zones, and the processes in steps S44 to S46 are performed. For example, when “afternoon” is selected, “5 times” is read from the information provision number storage unit 62 as the number of information provisions as shown in FIG. Then, the read information provision count A (“5 times”) is compared with the value of the minimum provision frequency B (“3 times”) in step S45. In this case, since B> A is not satisfied, the process proceeds to step S47 as it is without updating the minimum provision count B in step S46.

  Finally, when “night” is selected as the unconfirmed time zone, “0” is read out as the number of information provisions from the information provision number storage unit 62 as shown in FIG. Then, the read information provision count A (“0 times”) is compared with the value of the minimum provision count B (“3 times”) in step S45. Since B> A as a result, the value of the read information provision count A (“0”) is set as the minimum provision count B.

When the detection process for the minimum provision count B is completed, the charging control unit 53 proceeds to step S48 and performs the charging process as follows. That is, the minimum value of the information provision count is read from the minimum provision count storage unit 63, and information representing the corresponding remuneration payment amount is read from the charging condition table 61 based on the read minimum value of the information provision count.
For example, the minimum information provision count of the information provider whose user ID is “1” is “0” as shown in the information provision count storage unit 62 of FIG. Therefore, “0 yen” is read from the charging condition table 61 as the remuneration payment amount as shown in FIG.

  When the remuneration payment amount is determined as described above, the charging control unit 53 generates the charging information for notifying the remuneration payment amount in step S49, toward the information receiving terminals CT1 to CTm that are the payment sources. Send. In this billing information, the determined reward payment amount and the user ID of the information provider are inserted. A message indicating the reason why the reward amount is determined to be “0 yen” may be added to the billing information.

When the transmission of the billing information for the one information provider is completed, the billing control unit 53 determines in step S50 whether or not the billing process for all the information providers has been completed. If it remains, the process returns to step S41. In step S41, the next information provider, for example, an information provider whose user ID is “2” is selected, and the minimum number of times of provision is detected in steps S42 to S47 for this information provider. Then, billing processing is performed in step S48 in accordance with the detected minimum number of provisions, and the billing information is transmitted to information receiving terminals CT1 to CTm serving as payment sources in step S49.
For example, in the case of an information provider whose user ID is “2”, since the minimum number of times of provision is “2” as shown in FIG. 5, the remuneration payment amount is determined as “100 yen” as shown in FIG. , This reward payment is sent.

  Then, when a series of processes for charging for all information providers is completed, the charging control unit 53 proceeds from step S50 to step S51, and clears all the information providing times in the information providing number storage unit 62. To “0”.

  When the information receiving terminals CT1 to CTm receive the charging information, the information receiving terminals CT1 to CTm transmit remuneration payment instruction information for the information provider to the information mediation server ISV based on the charging information. When the information brokerage server ISV receives the payment instruction information, the information intermediary server ISV executes processing such as adding points for the corresponding information provider according to the instruction information or transferring consideration to the account, and the result is sent to the information provider terminal. Notify An example of an information transfer path for payment of the reward is shown by a broken line in FIG. In addition, about the payment form of a reward, various forms, such as the form which an information receiver pays directly without mediating by the information mediation server ISV, can be considered.

  As described above in detail, in this embodiment, the accounting server CSV includes the information provision number control unit 52, and the information provider server UT1 to UTn provides life information from the information provider server ISV to the information provider. When an update instruction including a user ID and time stamp information is sent, the information provision number control unit 52 updates the information provision number of the corresponding information provider stored in the information provision number storage unit 62 in the corresponding time zone. To do. In addition, the charging server CSV is provided with a charging condition table 61 and a charging control unit 53, and at the charging processing timing, the number of times of information provision for each time zone is read from the information provision number storage unit 62 for each information provider, and information is provided from among them. The minimum value of the number of times is detected, information representing the payment amount of the reward corresponding to the minimum value is read from the charging condition table 61 based on the detected minimum value of the information provision number, and the information receiving terminals CT1 to CTm To send to.

  Therefore, the day is divided into a plurality of time zones, and the remuneration amount is paid to the information provider when the minimum value is a predetermined value or more according to the minimum value of the information provision count counted for each time zone. It will be. That is, when there is no bias due to time zones throughout the day, that is, when life information is provided evenly regardless of time, a reward is paid to the information provider. For this reason, the information provider becomes conscious of providing information without any deviation throughout the day. As a result, for example, when it is desired to obtain information without deviation throughout the day, such as traffic information, the information receiver is more effective. It is possible to obtain highly-aggregated information.

  The present invention is not limited to the above embodiment. For example, in the above embodiment, as shown in FIG. 5, one day is divided into three time zones of “AM”, “PM” and “NIGHT”, and the number of times of information provision is counted for each of these time zones. The minimum value is detected from the above and billing processing is performed. In other words, it is determined whether or not information has been provided without a bias throughout the day, and billing is performed.

  However, the present invention is not limited to this. As shown in FIG. 7, one week is divided into two time zones, “weekdays” (Monday to Friday) and “weekends” (Saturday to Sunday). Alternatively, the number of times of information provision may be counted, and the lowest value may be detected from among the information provision times, and the accounting process may be performed. In this way, it is possible to collect a necessary and sufficient amount of information without a bias between weekdays and weekends throughout the week.

  In addition, the unit time for detecting the minimum value of the number of times of providing information is 1 hour, any time shorter than one day such as 9 to 17:00 working hours, non-working time 17:00 to 9 hours, etc. Alternatively, it may be set to any time longer than one day or one week, such as half a month or one month.

  In the above embodiment, the minimum value is detected from the number of times of information provision for each time zone, and the reward amount is determined based on the minimum value and the charging conditions. However, the present invention is not limited to this. The number of times of information provision per unit time, that is, the information provision frequency is calculated for each time zone, and the minimum value is detected from the calculated information provision frequency, and the minimum value of this frequency and the billing conditions The remuneration amount may be determined based on the above.

  Furthermore, in the above embodiment, the case where the information mediation server ISV and the accounting server CSV are separately provided has been described as an example. However, the information mediation server ISV and the accounting server CSV may be accommodated in the same server. In addition, the types of information provider terminals and information receiving terminals, the configuration of the information mediating apparatus and the charging apparatus, the processing procedure and processing contents, and the charging conditions can be variously modified and implemented without departing from the scope of the present invention. It is.

  In short, the present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment as it is, and can be embodied by modifying the constituent elements without departing from the scope of the invention in the implementation stage. Further, various inventions can be formed by appropriately combining a plurality of constituent elements disclosed in the embodiment. For example, some components may be deleted from all the components shown in the embodiment. Furthermore, you may combine suitably the component covering different embodiment.

  UT1 to UTn ... information provider terminal, CT1 to CTm ... information receiving terminal, ISV ... information mediation server, CSV ... billing server, NW ... communication network, 1 ... input / output unit, 2 ... transmission / reception unit, 3 ... control unit, 4 ... interface unit, 5 ... control unit, 6 ... storage unit, 51 ... billing condition setting unit, 52 ... information provision count control unit, 53 ... billing control unit, 61 ... billing condition table, 62 ... information provision count storage unit, 63 ... Minimum provision times storage section.

Claims (7)

Life information including time information is collected from a plurality of information provider terminals used by the information provider via a communication network, and statistical information is generated based on the collected life information. A charging device used in a system for transmitting statistical information to an information receiving terminal via the communication network,
Billing condition storage means for storing information representing a reward in association with the minimum number of times or frequency of provision of life information from the information provider;
Means for obtaining, for each information provider, the number of times or the frequency of provision of life information from the information provider by time zone based on time information included in the life information;
For each information provider, means for detecting a minimum value from the number of times or the frequency of provision of life information determined for each time zone;
For each information provider, there is provided means for reading out information representing a reward corresponding to the minimum value from the charging condition storage unit based on the detected minimum number of times of supply or frequency of provision. Billing device to do.   The means for obtaining the number of times or the frequency of provision of the life information by time period divides a day into a plurality of time periods, and sets the number of times or the frequency of provision of life information from the information provider for each information provider. 2. The charging apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the charging apparatus is obtained for each divided time zone.   The means for obtaining the number of times or the frequency of provision of the life information by time zone divides one week into a plurality of time zones in units of days of the week, and provides the number of times life information is provided or provided by the information provider for each information provider. 2. The accounting apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the frequency is obtained for each of the divided time zones. Life information including time information is collected from a plurality of information provider terminals used by the information provider via a communication network, and statistical information is generated based on the collected life information. A charging method used in a system for transmitting statistical information to an information receiving terminal via the communication network,
Storing information representing a reward in association with the minimum number of times or frequency of provision of life information from the information provider in a storage means;
For each information provider, a process of obtaining the number of times or the frequency of provision of life information from the information provider for each time zone based on time information included in the life information;
For each of the information providers, a process of detecting the lowest value from the number of times or the frequency of providing life information obtained for each time zone,
A step of reading information representing a reward corresponding to the minimum value from the charging condition storage unit based on the minimum value of the detected number of times of provision or the frequency of provision for each information provider. Billing method to do. The process of obtaining the number of times or the frequency of provision of the life information by time zone divides a day into a plurality of time zones, and sets the number of times or the frequency of provision of life information from the information provider for each information provider. 5. The charging method according to claim 4 , wherein the charging is performed for each divided time zone. The process of obtaining the number of times or the frequency of provision of the life information by time zone divides one week into a plurality of time zones in units of days of the week, and provides the number of times life information is provided or provided by the information provider for each information provider. 5. The charging method according to claim 4 , wherein the frequency is obtained for each of the divided time zones.   A program for causing a computer to execute processing corresponding to each process included in the accounting method according to claim 4.

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