JP6789860B2 - Information providing equipment, information providing method, and information providing program - Google Patents

Description

The present invention relates to an information providing device, an information providing method, and an information providing program.

Conventionally, there is an information providing device that searches a plurality of contents related to the search keyword and provides the search result to the terminal device when the search keyword is acquired from the terminal device connected to the communication network such as the Internet (for example,). See Patent Document 1).

In general, such an information providing device determines the ranking of a plurality of contents in descending order of relevance to the search keyword, and sends a list listing the summary information of the contents in the order of the highest ranking content to the terminal device as search result information. provide.

The user of the terminal device can browse the content corresponding to the summary information by selecting (for example, clicking) the summary information suitable for his / her search intention from the list of summary information provided by the information providing device. it can.

Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2011-85992

However, the conventional information providing device may provide the terminal device with search result information in which summary information that does not match the search intention of the user of the terminal device is arranged at the top of the list, so that the usability is not always high. There wasn't.

The present application has been made in view of the above, and an object of the present application is to provide an information providing device, an information providing method, and an information providing program capable of improving usability.

The information providing device according to the present application includes an acquisition unit and a determination unit. The acquisition unit acquires the search keyword from the terminal device. The determination unit determines the ranking of the plurality of contents based on the degree of relevance between the plurality of contents related to the search keyword acquired by the acquisition unit and the search keyword, and the summary information of the plurality of contents. To do.

According to one aspect of the embodiment, it is possible to provide an information providing device, an information providing method, and an information providing program that can improve usability.

FIG. 1 is an explanatory diagram of an information providing method according to an embodiment. FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram showing a configuration example of the information providing system according to the embodiment. FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing a configuration example of the information providing device according to the embodiment. FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram showing a specific example of a search operation performed by the terminal device according to the embodiment. FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram showing a specific example of the ranking determination process performed by the control unit according to the embodiment. FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram showing a specific example of search result information related to the inverse proportion of the embodiment. FIG. 7 is an explanatory diagram showing a specific example of the order redetermining process performed by the control unit according to the embodiment. FIG. 8 is an explanatory diagram showing a specific example of the search result information according to the embodiment. FIG. 9 is a flowchart showing a process executed by the control unit of the information providing device according to the embodiment. FIG. 10 is an explanatory diagram showing a specific example of the order determination process and the order redetermination process according to the modified example of the embodiment. FIG. 11 is an explanatory diagram showing a specific example of search result information according to a modified example of the embodiment. FIG. 12 is a hardware configuration diagram showing an example of a computer that realizes the function of the information providing device according to the embodiment.

Hereinafter, the information providing device, the information providing method, and the embodiment of the information providing program according to the present application will be described in detail with reference to the drawings. Note that this embodiment does not limit the information providing device, the information providing method, and the information providing program according to the present application.

[1. Information provision method]
First, the information providing method performed by the information providing device according to the embodiment will be described. FIG. 1 is an explanatory diagram of an information providing method according to an embodiment. The information providing device according to the embodiment is connected to a terminal device used by a general user via a communication network such as the Internet, and when a search keyword is acquired from the terminal device, a plurality of contents related to the search keyword are searched. It is a device provided to the terminal device.

Such an information providing device determines the ranking of a plurality of contents based on the degree of relevance between the plurality of contents related to the search keyword acquired from the terminal device and the search keyword and the summary information of the plurality of contents.

Then, the information providing device provides the terminal device with search result information in which the summary information of the contents is listed in the order of the determined order. As a result, the information providing device can provide the search result information with high usability to the terminal device.

For example, as shown in FIG. 1, when the information providing device receives a search service start request from the terminal device, the information providing device causes the terminal device to display the search keyword input screen W (step S1). The user of the terminal device inputs one or more search keywords in the search keyword input screen W (step S2), selects (for example, clicks) the icon of the search button in the input screen W, and performs a search operation. (Step S3), the search keyword is transmitted to the information providing device.

When the information providing device acquires the search keyword by receiving the search keyword from the terminal device, for example, the information providing device searches the content database having a plurality of contents for the content related to the search keyword, and determines the ranking in descending order of relevance ( Step S4).

That is, the information providing device determines the ranking of the content based on the search keyword and the content of the content so that the content including the content that is likely to match the user's search intention is ranked higher. For example, suppose that the information providing device determines the ranking of the content C1 to the first place and the ranking of the content C2 to the second place.

Here, if it is a general information providing device, the summary information of each content whose ranking is determined (hereinafter referred to as "summary") is acquired, and a list listing the content summaries in the order of the highest ranking content is displayed. Provided as content search result information.

The summary here is, for example, text information such as a sentence in which the contents of each content are summarized in several lines and a sentence in which the main part is extracted from each content. Such a summary may be created in advance by a content provider, may be automatically created by an information providing device from each content, or may be created by a third party.

Therefore, the search result information provided by the general information providing device is desired by the user for the summary placed at the higher level even if the content in which the summary is placed at the higher level has a higher degree of matching with the user's search intention. The wording to be done may not be included.

In such a case, for example, if the user reads the top-level summary and the summary does not contain the desired wording, then the user reads the next summary and determines whether the summary contains the desired wording. The act of judging whether or not it may be repeated. As described above, the search result information in which the user cannot select the desired content unless the user refers to a plurality of summaries cannot be said to have high usability.

Therefore, it is desirable that the information providing device provides a list of summaries in which summaries that are likely to be selected by the user are arranged at a higher level as search result information. However, the search result information is highly usable if the content corresponding to the summary does not match the user's search intention, even if the summary that is likely to be selected by the user is placed at a higher level. I can't say.

Therefore, as described above, the information providing device according to the embodiment first searches for the content related to the search keyword, and determines the order of the content having a high degree of relevance to the search keyword (step S4). Then, as shown in FIG. 1, a summary of the content is acquired, and the ranking of the content is redetermined based on the summary (step S5).

For example, the information providing device acquires the summary A1 of the content C1 having the highest degree of association with the search keyword, and acquires the summary A2 of the content C2 having the second highest degree of association with the search keyword. At this time, the degree of matching between the summary A2 and the search keyword may be the highest, and the degree of matching between the summary A1 and the search keyword may be the second highest.

In such a case, the information providing device redetermines the ranking of the content C1 to the second place and the ranking of the content C2 to the first place, and provides the search result information in which the summaries are listed in the order of the contents having the highest re-determined ranking (step S6). ).

In the example shown in FIG. 1, the information providing device arranges the summary A2 of the content C2 having the highest redetermined ranking at the top, and the summary A1 of the content C1 having the second highest redetermined ranking is the second from the top. Provides search result information placed in.

As a result, the information providing device can provide a list of summaries in which the summaries that have a high degree of matching with the search keyword entered by the user and are likely to be selected by the user are arranged at a higher level as the search result information. Since it can be done, usability can be improved. Hereinafter, the details of the information providing system that enables such an information providing method will be described.

[2. Information provision system]
Next, a configuration example of the information providing system according to the embodiment will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram showing a configuration example of the information providing system according to the embodiment. As shown in FIG. 2, the information providing system 1 includes an information providing device 10 and a terminal device 100.

The information providing device 10 and the terminal device 100 are connected to each other so as to be able to communicate with each other by wire or wirelessly via the communication network N. The communication network N is, for example, a WAN (Wide Area Network) such as the Internet. In the example shown in FIG. 2, one information providing device 10 and one terminal device 100 are shown, but either or both of these devices may be two or more.

The information providing device 10 stores a plurality of contents and a summary of each content, searches for the content related to the search keyword when the search keyword is acquired from the terminal device 100, and uses the list of the content summary as the search result information. Provided to the terminal device 100.

As described above, the information providing device 10 determines the ranking of the contents in descending order of the degree of relevance between the plurality of searched contents and the search keyword, and redetermines the ranking of the contents based on the summary of each content. Then, the information providing device 10 enumerates the content summaries in the order of the re-determined high-ranked contents, generates the search result information corresponding to the search keyword, and provides the generated search result information to the terminal device 100.

The information providing device 10 provides the content corresponding to the summary to the terminal device 100 when the summary is selected by the user of the terminal device 100. Content corresponding to summaries includes, for example, article content such as news, and web pages of sites that provide portal sites, auctions, weather forecasts, shopping, finance, routes, maps, travel, restaurants, web blogs, etc. Is done.

The information providing system 1 does not necessarily have to store a plurality of contents and a summary of each content. For example, the information providing device 10 is configured to search for content related to a search keyword from a plurality of contents stored in the content distribution server when a content distribution server that stores a plurality of contents is connected to the communication network N. You may.

In the case of such a configuration, the information providing device 10 sends a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) indicating the location of the content to the terminal device 100 instead of transmitting the content corresponding to the summary selected by the user of the terminal device 100 to the terminal device 100. To provide to.

Further, the information providing device 10 may be configured to acquire the summary of the searched contents from the summary distribution server when the summary distribution server for storing the summary of each content is connected to the communication network N. Further, the information providing device 10 may be configured to generate and acquire a summary of each content from each searched content.

The terminal device 100 is a device used by a general user, and is a device having a communication function, a browser function, and an information display function, such as a personal computer, a smartphone, and a game machine.

The terminal device 100 transmits a search service start request to the information providing device 10 based on the user's operation, and displays a search keyword input screen W provided by the information providing device 10 as a response to the search service start request, for example. , Display on the display unit of a liquid crystal display device or the like.

Then, the terminal device 100 provides information on the search keyword when one or more search keywords are input by the user on the search keyword input screen W and the icon of the search button in the input screen W is selected (for example, clicked). It is transmitted to the providing device 10. After that, the terminal device 100 receives the provision of the search result information corresponding to the search keyword input by the user from the information providing device 10.

At this time, the information providing device 10 searches for the content having a high degree of relevance to the search keyword, determines the ranking of the content, and lists the content summaries in descending order of the re-determined content ranking based on the summarization of each content. A list of the summarized summaries is provided to the terminal device 100.

As a result, the terminal device 100 can display a list of summaries in which summaries that are likely to be selected by the user are arranged at a higher level on the display unit as search result information corresponding to the search keyword. After that, when the summary is selected from the summary list by the user, the terminal device 100 acquires the content corresponding to the selected summary from the information providing device 10 and displays it on the display unit.

[3. Configuration example of information providing device]
Next, a configuration example of the information providing device 10 will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing a configuration example of the information providing device 10 according to the embodiment. As shown in FIG. 3, the information providing device 10 includes a communication unit 20, a control unit 30, and a storage unit 40.

The communication unit 20 is realized by, for example, a NIC (Network Interface Card) or the like. Then, the communication unit 20 is connected to the communication network N by wire or wirelessly, and transmits / receives information to / from the information providing device 10.

The storage unit 40 is realized by, for example, a semiconductor memory element such as a RAM (Random Access Memory) or a flash memory (Flash Memory), or a storage device such as a hard disk or an optical disk. The storage unit 40 stores the information providing program 41, the content database (hereinafter, referred to as “content DB 42”), and the summary database (hereinafter, referred to as “summary DB 43”).

The information providing program 41 is a program executed when the control unit 30 performs the information providing process according to the embodiment. The content DB 42 is a database in which a plurality of contents provided by the information providing device 10 to the terminal device 100 are stored. The summary DB 43 is a database in which a summary of each content stored in the content DB 42 is stored.

The control unit 30 is a processing unit that comprehensively controls the entire information providing device 10, and is realized by, for example, an integrated circuit such as an ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) or an FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array).

The control unit 30 has a plurality of information processing units that function when an internal CPU (Central Processing Unit) or MPU (Micro Processing Unit) reads an information providing program 41 from the storage unit 40 and executes RAM as a work area. Be prepared.

Specifically, the control unit 30 includes an acquisition unit 31, a determination unit 32, a generation unit 33, and a provision unit 34. The internal configuration of the control unit 30 is not limited to such a configuration, and may be another configuration as long as it is a configuration for performing information processing described later.

The acquisition unit 31 is a processing unit that acquires a search keyword from the terminal device 100 via the communication network N and the communication unit 20. The acquisition unit 31 outputs the acquired search keyword to the determination unit 32.

The determination unit 32 determines the ranking of the plurality of contents based on the degree of relevance between the plurality of contents related to the search keyword input from the acquisition unit 31 and the search keyword and the summary of the plurality of contents.

Specifically, the determination unit 32 includes a first determination unit 35 and a second determination unit 36. The first determination unit 35 searches the content DB 42 for a plurality of contents related to the search keyword input from the acquisition unit 31, and determines the order of the plurality of contents in descending order of the degree of relevance to the search keyword.

For example, the first determination unit 35 searches for and extracts content that includes text information of the same characters as the search keyword. In addition to the information provided to the terminal device 100, the content including the image, the sound, and the like may include text information indicating the content of the moving image and the sound for searching the content. Therefore, the first determination unit 35 also searches and extracts the content in which the text information of the same character as the search keyword is included for the content search.

Then, the first determination unit 35 determines the ranking of the content so that, for example, the content containing more text information of the same character as the search keyword has a higher ranking. That is, the first determination unit 35 determines the ranking of the content so that the content having a higher frequency of appearance of the search keyword has a higher ranking.

In addition, when a plurality of different search keywords are acquired at one time, the first determination unit 35 determines the ranking of the contents so that the content containing more different search keywords and text information of the same character has a higher ranking. You can also do it. That is, the first determination unit 35 can also determine the ranking of the content so that the content having a higher coverage of the search keyword has a higher ranking.

The first determination unit 35 comprehensively determines both the frequency of appearance of the search keyword in the content and the coverage of the search keyword by the content, and selects a plurality of contents in descending order of the degree of relevance to the search keyword. You can also determine the ranking.

As a result, the first determination unit 35 can determine the ranking of the content so that the content that is more likely to match the search intention of the user of the terminal device 100 has a higher ranking. Then, the first determination unit 35 outputs the information in which the information indicating the content extracted by the search and the information indicating the ranking of each content are associated with each other to the second determination unit 36.

The second determination unit 36 acquires a summary of each content extracted by the search from the summary DB 43 based on the information input from the determination unit 32, and redetermines the ranking of the plurality of contents based on the acquired summary. ..

The second determination unit 36 redetermines the ranking of the content so that, for example, the content containing more text information of the same character as the search keyword in the summary has a higher ranking. That is, the second determination unit 36 redetermines the ranking of the content so that the content in which the search keyword appears frequently in the summary has a higher ranking.

Further, when a plurality of different search keywords are acquired at one time, the second determination unit 36 ranks the contents so that the content containing more different search keywords and text information of the same character in the summary has a higher rank. Can also be re-determined. That is, the first determination unit 35 can redetermine the ranking of the content so that the content having a higher coverage of the search keyword by the summary has a higher ranking.

In addition, the second determination unit 36 can redetermine the ranking of the content so that the content in which the search keyword appears at the beginning of the summary has a higher ranking. That is, the second determination unit 36 can redetermine the ranking of the content so that the content having a higher appearance rate of the search keyword at the beginning of the summary has a higher ranking.

The second decision unit 36 comprehensively determines all of the frequency of appearance of the search keyword in the summary, the coverage of the search keyword by the summary, and the appearance rate of the search keyword at the beginning of the summary, and a plurality of contents. You can also re-determine the ranking of.

As a result, the second determination unit 36 redetermines the ranking of the content so that the content that the user of the terminal device 100 is likely to consider to be a summary of the content that matches his / her search intention has a higher ranking. be able to.

At this time, the second determination unit 36 can redetermine the order of the contents, for example, for the upper predetermined number of contents among the plurality of contents whose order is determined by the first determination unit 35.

As a result, the second determination unit 36 ranks higher as the content has a high possibility of matching the search intention of the user of the terminal device 100 and corresponds to the summary having a high possibility of being selected by the user. In addition, the ranking of the content can be redetermined.

Further, the second determination unit 36 can, for example, redetermine the ranking of the contents for all of the plurality of contents whose rankings are determined by the first determination unit 35. As a result, the second determination unit 36 may be selected by the user, for example, when all of the plurality of contents whose ranking is determined by the first determination unit 35 matches the search intention of the user of the terminal device 100. Can be ranked highest for content that corresponds to the highest summary.

Then, the second determination unit 36 outputs the information in which the ranking of each re-determined content and the summary of each content are associated with each other to the generation unit 33. The procedure for the determination unit 32 to determine the order of the contents is not limited to the above procedure.

For example, the determination unit 32 can also determine the ranking of the contents based on the degree of relevance between the plurality of contents extracted by the search and the search keyword, and the degree of relevance between the summary of each content and the search keyword.

Specifically, the determination unit 32 determines the degree of relevance between each content and the search keyword based on at least one of the frequency of appearance of the search keyword in the searched content and the coverage of the search keyword by the content. calculate.

The determination unit 32 searches each summary and search based on at least one of the frequency of occurrence of the search keyword in the summary of the searched content, the coverage of the search keyword by the summary, and the appearance rate of the search keyword at the beginning of the summary. Calculate the degree of relevance to the keyword.

Then, the determination unit 32 determines the ranking of the contents based on the calculated score of the degree of association between each content and the search keyword and the score of the degree of association between each summary and the search keyword. For example, the determination unit 32 calculates the average score of the relevance score of each content and the relevance score of the summary for each content, and determines the ranking of the contents in descending order of the average score.

In addition, the determination unit 32 performs a weighted average in which the weighting coefficient of one score of the content relevance score and the summarization relevance score is larger than the weighting coefficient of the other score, thereby performing the weighted averaging of each content. It is also possible to calculate the average score and determine the ranking of the contents in descending order of the average score. Then, the determination unit 32 outputs the information in which the order of each determined content and the summary of each content are associated with each other to the generation unit 33.

In this way, the determination unit 32 can determine the ranking of the contents based on the degree of relevance between the plurality of contents extracted by the search and the search keyword, and the degree of relevance between the summary of each content and the search keyword.

As a result, the determination unit 32, for example, even if all search keywords or many search keywords are included in the summary of the content that is unlikely to match the user's search intention. It is possible to prevent the content from becoming higher.

The generation unit 33 generates the search result information corresponding to the search keyword based on the information input from the determination unit 32. Specifically, the generation unit 33 generates a list of summaries in which summaries of each content are listed in order from top to bottom in the order of high-ranked contents determined by the determination unit 32 as search result information corresponding to the search keyword. To do.

Then, the generation unit 33 outputs the generated search result information to the providing unit 34. The providing unit 34 provides the terminal device 100 with a list of summaries that are search result information input from the generating unit 33 via the communication unit 20 and the communication network N.

After that, when the acquisition unit 31 acquires the information indicating that any summary has been selected from the terminal device 100 via the communication unit 20 and the communication network N, the acquisition unit 31 obtains the information indicating the summary selected by the terminal device 100. Output to the providing unit 34.

When the information indicating the summary selected by the terminal device 100 is input from the acquisition unit 31, the providing unit 34 acquires the content corresponding to the summary indicated by the input information from the content DB 42, and communicates with the communication unit 20. It is provided to the terminal device 100 via the network N.

[4. An example of information provision processing]
Next, with reference to FIGS. 4 to 8, a specific example of the information providing process performed by the control unit 30 of the information providing device 10 will be described. FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram showing a specific example of a search operation performed by the terminal device 100 according to the embodiment. FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram showing a specific example of the ranking determination process performed by the control unit 30 according to the embodiment.

Further, FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram showing a specific example of the search result information relating to the inverse proportion of the embodiment. FIG. 7 is an explanatory diagram showing a specific example of the order redetermining process performed by the control unit 30 according to the embodiment. FIG. 8 is an explanatory diagram showing a specific example of the search result information according to the embodiment.

As shown in FIG. 4, when the control unit 30 receives the search service start request from the terminal device 100, the control unit 30 causes the terminal device 100 to display the search keyword input screen W. The input screen W includes a search keyword input frame W1 and a search button icon W2.

The user of the terminal device 100 can input a desired search keyword by moving the cursor P to the search keyword input frame W1 and clicking the terminal device 100, for example, by operating the keyboard of the terminal device 100. After that, the user can send the search keyword to the information providing device 10 by moving the cursor P to the icon W2 of the search button and clicking it.

When the terminal device 100 is a device including a touch panel display such as a smartphone, the user can input a desired search keyword by tapping the search keyword input frame W1 and tapping the keyboard screen. Further, the user can send the search keyword to the information providing device 10 by tapping the icon W2 of the search button.

Here, for example, when the user wants to know the location of the head office of company Y, as shown in FIG. 4, three searches of "company Y", "head office", and "location" are entered in the search keyword input frame W1. The icon W2 of the search button may be operated by inputting a keyword. In such a case, the control unit 30 acquires three search keywords of "company Y", "head office", and "location" from the terminal device 100, and performs a content ranking determination process based on the acquired search keywords.

In the ranking determination process, the control unit 30 searches for and extracts content related to the search keyword, and ranks the content so that, for example, the frequency of appearance of the search keyword and the content having a higher coverage of the search keyword have a higher ranking. To determine.

For example, as shown on the left side of FIG. 5, the control unit 30 extracts the content C1 of the “list of IT companies” and the content C2 of the “IT company research blog”. The content C1 includes map information that allows the user of the terminal device 100 to know the location of the head office of Company Y at a glance.

In addition, the content C2 includes text information that allows the user of the terminal device 100 to know at a glance the location of the head office of company Y. As described above, both the content C1 and the content C2 are contents that match the user's search intention "I want to know the location of the head office of company Y".

At this time, the control unit 30 determines the degree of association between the content C1 and the search keyword by 98% and the degree of association between the content C2 and the search keyword by 97% based on the frequency of appearance of the search keyword and the coverage of the search keyword described above. It may be judged as%. As a result, the control unit 30 determines the ranking of the content C1 as the first place and the ranking of the content C2 as the second place.

After that, the control unit 30 acquires the summary A1 of the content C1 and the summary A2 of the content C2 as shown on the right side of FIG. At this time, the content C1 includes, for example, the text information "the head office location of company Y" for searching the content, but the text information "the head office location of company Y" is included as the information provided to the user. Not included. Therefore, the summary A1 of the content C1 is "List of IT companies Company A ..., Company Y ..., Company B ...".

On the other hand, the content C2 includes the text information "the location of the head office of company Y" as the information provided to the user. Therefore, the summary A2 of the content C2 is "The head office location of the IT company research blog Y company is Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo ...".

In such a case, if the control unit 30 lists the summaries in descending order of the ranking of the contents determined in the ranking determination process, the control unit 30 first "IT" in the search result information as shown in FIG. List of companies Company A ..., Company Y ..., Company B ... "is placed in summary A1. Then, the control unit 30 places the summary A2 "The head office location of the IT company research blog Y company is Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo ..." in the second place of the search result information.

When such search result information is provided, as shown in FIG. 5, the user of the terminal device 100 first refers to the first summary A1, but the summary A1 shows the location of the head office of company Y at a glance. Do not select Summary A1 because it does not contain textual information.

The user then shifts his gaze to the second summary A2. Then, the user selects the summary A2 because the second summary A2 contains text information that shows the location of the head office of the company Y at a glance. As described above, the search result information shown in FIG. 5 is not highly usable because the user refers to the first summary A1 and the time to refer to the summary A1 is wasted.

Therefore, as shown in FIG. 7, the control unit 30 performs the content ranking redetermination process. Specifically, in the ranking redetermination process, the control unit 30 determines the frequency of appearance of the search keyword in the summaries A1 and A2, the coverage of the search keyword by the summaries A1 and A2, and the appearance of the search keyword at the beginning of the summaries A1 and A2. Derive the rate.

Then, the control unit 30 determines the degree of matching between the summaries A1 and A2 and the search keyword based on the derived appearance frequency, coverage, and appearance rate. As a result, when, for example, the control unit 30 determines that the degree of matching between the summary A1 and the search keyword is 97% and the degree of matching between the summary A2 and the search keyword is 98%, the control unit 30 redetermines the ranking of the content C1 to the second place. Then, the ranking of the content C2 is redetermined to the first place.

Then, the control unit 30 enumerates the content summaries in the order of the re-determined high-ranked contents, generates the search result information corresponding to the search keyword, and provides the contents to the terminal device 100. Specifically, as shown in FIG. 8, the control unit 30 places the summary A2 that "IT company research blog Y company's head office is located in Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo ..." at the first search result information. To do. Then, the control unit 30 arranges the summary A2 "List of IT companies A ..., Y ..., B ..." at the second place of the search result information.

In this way, the control unit 30 can improve the usability of the search result information provided to the terminal device 100 by arranging the summary A2, which is likely to be selected by the user, at the first position of the search result information. ..

[5. Processing executed by the control unit of the information providing device]
Next, with reference to FIG. 9, a process executed by the control unit 30 of the information providing device 10 according to the embodiment will be described. FIG. 9 is a flowchart showing a process executed by the control unit 30 of the information providing device 10 according to the embodiment.

As shown in FIG. 9, the control unit 30 first determines whether or not a search service start request has been received from the terminal device 100 (step S101). Then, when the control unit 30 determines that the search service start request is not received (steps S101, No), the control unit 30 repeats the determination process of step S101 until the search service start request is received.

When the control unit 30 determines that the search service start request has been received (step S101, Yes), the control unit 30 transmits the search keyword input screen W to the terminal device 100 and displays it on the terminal device 100 (step S102). ..

Subsequently, the control unit 30 determines whether or not the search keyword has been acquired from the terminal device 100 (step S103). Then, when it is determined that the search keyword is not acquired (step S103, No), the control unit 30 determines whether or not the search service termination request has been received (step S110).

When the control unit 30 determines that the end request of the search service is not received (steps S110, No), the control unit 30 shifts the process to step S103. Further, when the control unit 30 determines that the end request of the search service has been received (step S110, Yes), the control unit 30 ends the process.

Further, when the control unit 30 determines that the search keyword has been acquired (steps S103, Yes), the control unit 30 searches for the content related to the search keyword, and determines the order of each content in descending order of the degree of relevance to the search keyword (step S103, Yes). Step S104).

Subsequently, the control unit 30 acquires a summary of each content whose ranking has been determined, and redetermines the ranking of each content based on the summary (step S105). After that, the control unit 30 enumerates the summaries of each content in the order of the re-determined high-ranked contents and generates the search result information corresponding to the search keyword (step S106).

Subsequently, the control unit 30 provides the generated search result information to the terminal device 100 (step S107). After that, the control unit 30 determines whether or not the summarization is selected by the terminal device 100 (step S108).

Then, when it is determined that the summary is not selected (step S108, No), the control unit 30 determines whether or not the search service termination request has been received (step S111). When the control unit 30 determines that the end request of the search service is not received (steps S111, No), the control unit 30 shifts the process to step S108.

Further, when the control unit 30 determines that the end request of the search service has been received (step S111, Yes), the control unit 30 ends the process. Further, when the control unit 30 determines that the summarization is selected by the terminal device 100 (step S108, Yes), the control unit 30 provides the content corresponding to the summarization to the terminal device 100 (step S109), and ends the process.

[6. Modification example of information provision processing]
Next, a modified example of the information providing process according to the embodiment will be described with reference to FIGS. 10 and 11. FIG. 10 is an explanatory diagram showing a specific example of the order determination process and the order redetermination process according to the modified example of the embodiment. FIG. 11 is an explanatory diagram showing a specific example of search result information according to a modified example of the embodiment.

In the above-described embodiment, the information providing device 10 provides a list of summaries of text information as search result information, but when the user of the terminal device 100 searches for the video content, the video content is summarized as the video content. A list of thumbnails can also be provided.

In such a case, when the control unit 30 of the information providing device 10 acquires the search keyword from the terminal device 100, the control unit 30 searches for the video content related to the search keyword and determines the ranking of the video content in descending order of the degree of relevance to the search keyword. ..

At this time, the control unit 30 extracts text information indicating the content of the moving image content included in the moving image content for detecting the content from the moving image content. Then, the control unit 30 ranks the video content so that the frequency of appearance of the search keyword in the text information indicating the content of the video content and the coverage of the search keyword by the text information indicating the content of the video content are higher. decide.

At this time, for example, as shown on the left side of FIG. 10, when the degree of relevance between the moving image content V1 and the search keyword is 98%, the control unit 30 determines the ranking of the moving image content V1 to the first place. Further, when the degree of relevance of the video content V2 to the search keyword is 97%, which is the second highest after the video content V1, the control unit 30 determines the ranking of the video content V2 to the second place.

After that, as shown on the right side of FIG. 10, the control unit 30 acquires the thumbnail TN1 of the moving image content V1 as a summary of the moving image content V1, and acquires the thumbnail TN2 of the moving image content V2 as a summary of the moving image content V2.

Here, the control unit 30 acquires the thumbnail TN1 generated by extracting a part from the video content V1 as a summary of the video content V1, and extracts the thumbnail TN2 generated by extracting a part from the video content V2 to the video content V2. Get as a summary of.

The horizontal axis of the graph shown on the right side of FIG. 10 indicates the playback time of the moving image contents V1 and V2. The vertical axis of the graph shown on the right side of FIG. 10 indicates the degree of excitement (excitement) of general users who have viewed the moving image contents V1 and V2.

That is, the graph shown in the upper right part of FIG. 10 shows the high degree of exhilaration at each playback time of the general user who has viewed the moving image content V1. Further, the graph shown in the lower right part of FIG. 10 shows the high degree of exhilaration at each playback time of a general user who has viewed the moving image content V2.

The degree of exhilaration here corresponds to, for example, a large number of comments posted by general users for each of the moving image contents V1 and V2. The index of the degree of exhilaration is not limited to the number of comments posted by general users. For example, the video content such as the number of times each video content V1 or V2 has been played in the past for each playback time. Any index may be used as long as it indicates the height of evaluation for each reproduction time in V1 and V2.

Here, it is assumed that the part in the dotted line frame shown in the upper right side of FIG. 10 is the part corresponding to the thumbnail TN1, and the part in the dotted line frame shown in the lower right side of FIG. 10 is the part corresponding to the thumbnail TN2.

In such a case, the video content V1 has a higher degree of excitement of general users than the video content V2 on average in the entire playback time. However, focusing on the thumbnail portion, the thumbnail TN2 has a higher degree of excitement for general users than the thumbnail TN1.

Therefore, when the thumbnail TN1 and the thumbnail TN2 are provided as the search result information, the user of the terminal device 100 is more likely to select the thumbnail TN2, which is highly uplifting for general users.

Therefore, the control unit 30 redetermines the order of the moving image contents V1 and V2 so that the moving image content having a higher degree of excitement of the general user due to viewing the thumbnails TN1 and TN2 has a higher order. At this time, the re-determined rank of the video content V2 may be the first place, and the re-determined rank of the video content V1 may be the second place.

In such a case, as shown in FIG. 11, the control unit 30 arranges the thumbnail TN2 of the video content V2 having the first redetermined ranking at the highest position, and the thumbnail TN1 of the video content V1 having the second highest redetermined ranking. Is provided to the terminal device 100 with the search result information in which

In this way, the control unit 30 can provide the terminal device 100 with search result information in which the thumbnail TN2, which is likely to be selected by the user of the terminal device 100, is arranged first. Therefore, even when the control unit 30 provides a list of thumbnails of the moving image content as a summary of the moving image content, the usability of the search result information provided to the terminal device 100 can be improved.

The control unit 30 can also redetermine the ranking so that the moving image content from which the thumbnail with the larger movement of the moving image is extracted from the acquired plurality of thumbnails has a higher ranking. As a result, the control unit 30 can provide the terminal device 100 with search result information that is placed higher in the thumbnails that are more likely to attract the user's interest in the terminal device 100, thus improving the usability of the search result information. Can be made to.

[7. Hardware configuration]
The information providing device 10 in the embodiment is realized by, for example, a computer 1000 having a configuration as shown in FIG. FIG. 12 is a hardware configuration diagram showing an example of a computer that realizes the function of the information providing device 10 according to the embodiment. The computer 1000 includes a CPU (Central Processing Unit) 1100, a RAM (Random Access Memory) 1200, a ROM (Read Only Memory) 1300, an HDD (Hard Disk Drive) 1400, a communication interface (I / F) 1500, and an input / output interface (I). It includes a / F) 1600 and a media interface (I / F) 1700.

The CPU 1100 operates based on a program stored in the ROM 1300 or the HDD 1400, and controls each part. The ROM 1300 stores a boot program executed by the CPU 1100 when the computer 1000 is started, a program that depends on the hardware of the computer 1000, and the like.

The HDD 1400 stores a program executed by the CPU 1100, data used by the program, and the like. The communication interface 1500 corresponds to the communication unit 20, receives data from another device via the communication network and sends it to the CPU 1100, and transmits the data generated by the CPU 1100 to the other device via the communication network.

The CPU 1100 controls an output device such as a display or a printer, and an input device such as a keyboard or a mouse via the input / output interface 1600. The CPU 1100 acquires data from the input device via the input / output interface 1600. Further, the CPU 1100 outputs the generated data to the output device via the input / output interface 1600.

The media interface 1700 reads a program or data stored in the recording medium 1800 and provides the program or data to the CPU 1100 via the RAM 1200. The CPU 1100 loads the program from the recording medium 1800 onto the RAM 1200 via the media interface 1700, and executes the loaded program. The recording medium 1800 is, for example, an optical recording medium such as a DVD (Digital Versatile Disc) or PD (Phase change rewritable Disk), a magneto-optical recording medium such as MO (Magneto-Optical disk), a tape medium, a magnetic recording medium, or a semiconductor memory. And so on.

When the computer 1000 functions as the information providing device 10, the CPU 1100 of the computer 1000 executes the information providing program loaded on the RAM 1200.
As a result, the computer 1000 realizes the functions of the acquisition unit 31, the first determination unit 35, the second determination unit 36, the generation unit 33, and the provision unit 34. Further, the HDD 1400 realizes the function of the storage unit 40, and stores the information providing program 41, the content DB 42, the summary DB 43, and the like.

The CPU 1100 of the computer 1000 reads and executes these programs from the recording medium 1800, but as another example, these programs may be acquired from another device via a communication network.

[8. effect]
As described above, the information providing device 10 according to the embodiment includes an acquisition unit 31 and a determination unit 32. The acquisition unit 31 acquires a search keyword from the terminal device 100. The determination unit 32 has a plurality of contents C1 and C2 related to the search keyword acquired by the acquisition unit 31 based on the degree of association between the search keyword and the summaries A1 and A2 of the plurality of contents C1 and C2. Determine the ranking of content. As a result, the information providing device 10 can improve the usability of the information provided to the terminal device 100.

Specifically, the determination unit 32 includes a first determination unit 35 and a second determination unit 36. The first determination unit 35 searches for a plurality of contents C1 and C2 related to the search keyword acquired by the acquisition unit 31, and determines the order of the plurality of contents C1 and C2 in descending order of the degree of relevance to the search keyword. The second determination unit 36 acquires the summaries A1 and A2 of the plurality of contents C1 and C2, and redetermines the order of the plurality of contents C1 and C2 based on the summaries A1 and A2.

Further, the information providing device 10 includes a generating unit 33 and a providing unit 34. The generation unit 33 enumerates the summaries A1 and A2 of the contents C2 and C1 in the order of the contents C2 and C1 having the highest rank redetermined by the second determination unit 36, and generates the search result information corresponding to the search keyword. The providing unit 34 provides the search result information generated by the generating unit 33 to the terminal device 100.

As a result, the information providing device 10 can provide the search result information in which the summaries A1 and A2 are listed in the order determined in consideration of the summaries A1 and A2 of the contents C1 and C2 to the terminal device 100. Usability can be improved.

In addition, the second determination unit 36 ranks higher the content C2 in which the search keyword appears frequently in the summaries A1 and A2. As a result, the information providing device 10 can provide the search result information in which the summary A2, which is likely to be selected by the user of the terminal device 100, is arranged at a higher level, so that the usability of the search result information can be improved. it can.

In addition, the second determination unit 36 ranks higher as the content C2 has a higher degree of coverage of the search keywords by the summaries A1 and A2. As a result, the information providing device 10 can provide the search result information including many kinds of text information desired by the user of the terminal device 100, so that the usability of the search result information can be improved.

In addition, the second determination unit 36 ranks higher the content C2 in which the appearance rate of the search keyword at the beginning of the summaries A1 and A2 is higher. As a result, the information providing device 10 can provide search result information that allows the user of the terminal device 100 to find the desired summary A2 simply by referring to the beginning of the summary A2, thus improving the usability of the search result information. Can be made to.

Further, the second determination unit 36 raises the ranking as the moving image content has a higher degree of excitement for general users by viewing the images included in the thumbnails TN1 and TN2. As a result, the information providing device 10 can improve the usability of the search result information provided to the terminal device 100 even when the information providing device 10 provides a list of thumbnails TN1 and TN2 of the moving image content as a summary of the moving image contents V1 and V2. ..

In addition, the second determination unit 36 raises the ranking as the movement of the images included in the thumbnails TN1 and TN2 is larger. As a result, the information providing device 10 can provide the terminal device 100 with search result information arranged higher than the thumbnails TN1 and TN2, which are likely to attract the interest of the user of the terminal device 100. Therefore, the search result information Usability can be improved.

Further, the second determination unit 36 redetermines the order of the contents C1 and C2 for the upper predetermined number of contents among the plurality of contents C1 and C2 whose order is determined by the first determination unit 35. As a result, the information providing device 10 has a higher rank as the content C2 corresponding to the summary A2, which is the content having a high possibility of matching the search intention of the user of the terminal device 100 and having a high possibility of being selected by the user. As such, the ranking of the content can be re-determined.

Further, the second determination unit 36 redetermines the order of the contents C1 and C2 for all of the plurality of contents C1 and C2 whose order is determined by the first determination unit 35. As a result, the information providing device 10 may be selected by the user when all of the plurality of contents C1 and C2 whose order is determined by the first determination unit 35 matches the search intention of the user of the terminal device 100. Content C2 of the highest summary A2 can be ranked highest.

[9. Others]
Although some of the embodiments of the present application have been described in detail with reference to the drawings, these are examples, and various modifications are made based on the knowledge of those skilled in the art, including the embodiments described in the disclosure column of the invention. It is possible to practice the present invention in other improved forms.

The above-mentioned information providing device 10 may be realized by a plurality of server computers, and depending on the function, it may be realized by calling an external platform or the like by API (Application Programming Interface) or network computing, and the configuration is flexible. Can be changed to.

1 Information providing system 10 Information providing device 20 Communication unit 30 Control unit 31 Acquisition unit 32 Decision unit 33 Generation unit 34 Providing unit 35 First decision unit 36 Second decision unit 40 Storage unit 41 Information provision program 42 Content DB
43 Summary DB
100 terminal device

Claims (9)

An acquisition unit that acquires search keywords from the terminal device,
A first determination unit that searches for a plurality of contents related to the search keyword acquired by the acquisition unit and determines the ranking of the plurality of contents in descending order of relevance to the search keyword .
Among a plurality of contents ranking is determined by the first determining unit, as the target content the higher predetermined number, retrieves a summary information of the plurality of contents, on the basis of the summary information, the plurality of content information providing apparatus characterized by comprising a second determination unit configured to re-determine the ranking. The second determination unit
The information providing device according to claim 1 , wherein the content having a higher frequency of appearance of the search keyword in the summary information is ranked higher. The second determination unit
The information providing device according to claim 1 or 2 , wherein the content having a higher degree of coverage of the search keyword based on the summary information is ranked higher. The second determination unit
The information providing device according to any one of claims 1 to 3 , wherein the content having a higher appearance rate of the search keyword at the beginning of the summary information is ranked higher. The second determination unit
The information providing device according to any one of claims 1 to 4 , wherein the content having a higher degree of excitement of the viewer due to viewing the image included in the summary information has a higher ranking. The second determination unit
The information providing device according to any one of claims 1 to 5 , wherein the content having a larger image movement included in the summary information has a higher ranking. A generation unit that enumerates the summary information of the content in the order of higher ranking content determined by the second determination unit and generates search result information corresponding to the search keyword.
The information providing device according to any one of claims 1 to 6 , further comprising a providing unit that provides the search result information generated by the generating unit to the terminal device. A computer-executed method of providing information
The acquisition process to acquire search keywords from the terminal device,
A first determination step of determining a ranking of the plurality of contents in order relevance is high and the plurality of the content searched by the search keyword associated with the search keyword acquired by the acquisition step,
Among a plurality of contents ranking is determined by the first determining step, as the target content the higher predetermined number, retrieves a summary information of the plurality of contents, on the basis of the summary information, the plurality of content information providing method characterized by comprising a second determination step of re-determining the ranking. The acquisition procedure to acquire the search keyword from the terminal device and
A first determination procedure for searching a plurality of contents related to the search keyword acquired by the acquisition procedure and determining the ranking of the plurality of contents in descending order of relevance to the search keyword .
Among a plurality of contents ranking is determined by the first determination procedure, as the target content the higher predetermined number, retrieves a summary information of the plurality of contents, on the basis of the summary information, the plurality of content information providing program for causing to execute a second decision procedure for re-determining the order to the computer.

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