WO2007040230A1

WO2007040230A1 - Content viewing system and content viewing method

Info

Publication number: WO2007040230A1
Application number: PCT/JP2006/319802
Authority: WO
Inventors: Masayoshi Son
Original assignee: Softbank Bb Corp.
Priority date: 2005-10-05
Filing date: 2006-10-03
Publication date: 2007-04-12
Also published as: JP5144009B2; TW200731801A; JP2007104439A

Abstract

A user terminal (1) acquires a user behavior data, which is a user operation history, in advance; receives both a main part content data and clip data via a communication network (2); selects, based on the user behavior data, the clip data; and inserts the selected clip data into the main part content data. The clip data have been weighted in accordance with the attributes of the clip data themselves. An agent program executing part (110) counts and stores parameter values in accordance with each of the attributes of information to which user operations are directed. An advertisement data selecting part (106) performs a clip data selection based on the count of the parameter values corresponding to the attribute of the clip data, also based on the weight of the clip data and further based on the viewing history of the clip data. In this way, when a content delivered via the communication network is viewed on the user terminal, it can be avoided to reproduce the same video clip in a monotonous pattern.

Description

Specification

Content viewing system and content viewing ¾i method

Technical field

TECHNICAL FIELD [0001] The present invention relates to a content viewing system and a content viewing method for viewing streaming content delivered via a communication network such as the Internet via a user terminal such as a personal computer.

Background art

In recent years, content viewing systems that distribute content such as video streams via communication networks such as the Internet are becoming widespread. In this content viewing system, a user terminal having a communication function, such as a personal computer, is connected to a distribution server on a communication network and plays a video stream of a program distributed in response to a distribution request to the distribution server. Can watch.

[0003] When distributing this content, there is a system that inserts a video clip for transmission / advertisement between the main parts of a program, and charges the advertiser for the advertisement / advertisement, as in television broadcasting. It is being introduced.

[0004] By the way, in advertising / advertisement to users, it is more effective to give priority to products and services that match the user's hobbies and preferences. For this reason, conventionally, a method has been proposed in which the playback operation is controlled so as to pray the user's hobbies and preferences based on the user's operation history and to execute advertisements and advertisements according to the analysis results.

As a conventional system for controlling the operation of a device based on the user's operation history as described above, for example, the operation history is accumulated in the operation remote controller, and the accumulated operation history is networked. Via a server that has a hobby / preference analysis function, and the server sends information that matches the user's preference as a result of usage history analysis to the bidirectional remote control to control the operation of the device (for example, Patent Document 1). By applying such a system to the reproduction of advertisements, the operation of the device can be controlled so as to reproduce advertisements that meet the user's hobbies and preferences. However, in the conventional system disclosed in Patent Document 1 described above, the same advertisement / advertisement information is repeatedly reproduced as long as it matches the user's hobbies and preferences. In some cases, the pattern of advertisements becomes monotonous, making users tired, and the effectiveness of advertisements may be reduced.

Patent Document 1: Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-203168

Disclosure of the invention

[0007] Therefore, the present invention has been made in view of the above points, and when viewing content such as streaming distributed through a communication network such as the Internet on a user terminal such as a personal computer. In addition, the issue is to provide a content viewing system and a content viewing method that can appropriately distribute more effective information for advertisement and advertisement to viewers.

[0008] In order to solve the above-mentioned problem, the present invention provides a content viewing system and method for viewing a content distributed through a communication network on a user terminal, the user operating on the user terminal Agent program execution unit that acquires and accumulates user trend data that is history, a communication interface that receives main content data that is the main part of the content and clip data that is inserted into the main part content via the communication network, and user trends Based on the data, a data selection unit for selecting clip data, a content reproduction unit for reproducing the data while inserting the clip data selected by the data selection unit into the main content data, and a viewing history of the clip data A viewing data storage unit is used.

In the present invention, the clip data is weighted according to the attribute of the clip data, and the agent program execution unit sets the parameter value according to the attribute of the information that is the target of the user operation. The data selection unit selects the clip data based on the count of the parameter value corresponding to the attribute of the clip data, the weight of the clip data, and the viewing history of the clip data. Do.

[0010] According to the present invention as described above, by inserting the clip data for advertisements selected based on the user operation history into the main content data, the hobby of the user It is possible to provide advertisements that match the preferences. When playing back the clip data, the user selects the clip data according to the history of viewing the clip data. For example, by reducing the priority of the data already viewed or the most recently viewed, the same It is possible to prevent the clip data playback pattern from becoming monotonous, such as avoiding repeated playback of clip data in a short period of time.

[0011] In the above invention, it is preferable that the viewing history stored in the viewing data storage unit is notified through a communication network, and in accordance with this notification, billing processing related to the watched clip data is executed. In this case, according to the above-described mechanism, it is possible to perform accounting aggregation according to the reproduction frequency of clip data while avoiding monotonization of the reproduction pattern of clip data.

Brief Description of Drawings

FIG. 1 is an explanatory diagram showing a schematic configuration of a content viewing system according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an internal configuration of a user terminal according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram schematically showing operation processing in the content reproduction unit according to the present embodiment.

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION

[0013] (Configuration of content viewing system)

Embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is an explanatory diagram showing a schematic configuration of the content viewing system according to the present embodiment. The content viewing system according to the present embodiment will be described by taking as an example a case where content distributed via the communication network 2 is viewed on the user terminal 1 from the server groups 31 to 36.

[0014] Communication network 2 is constructed, for example, by connecting various communication lines (public lines such as telephone lines, ISDN lines, ADSL lines, private lines, wireless communication networks) using the communication protocol TCP / IP. This IP network includes LANs such as 10BASE-T and 100BASE-TX intranets (enterprise networks) and home networks.

[0015] Specifically, the server groups 31 to 36 include an agent distribution server 31, an advertisement distribution server 32, an advertisement submission server 33, a content distribution server 34, a viewing aggregation server 35, and a billing aggregation server. It consists of 36 and The agent distribution server 31 is a Web server for causing the user terminal 1 to install an agent program D1 described later. The advertisement distribution server 32 is a server that distributes a video clip as advertisement data to the user terminal 1 in response to a distribution request from the user terminal 1. This video clip is produced from the advertisement material D3 (moving image, still image, character information, etc.) provided from the advertisement submission server 33.

The advertisement submission server 33 provides the advertisement material D3 to the advertisement distribution server 32 in accordance with the conditions presented by the advertiser. In addition, the advertisement submission server 33 provides the submission information (advertisement data identifier, advertiser identifier, validity period, etc.) related to the advertisement material provided to the advertisement distribution server 32 to the viewing aggregation server 35 and the accounting aggregation server 35. 36 provides advertisement price information (advertisement data identifier, price according to time zone, etc.).

[0018] The content distribution server 34 has a server computer for transmitting data such as HTML (HyperText Markup Language) files, image files, music files, or the like in a document system such as the World Wide Web (WWW). It stores software content such as HTML documents and images in the content storage unit 34a. Then, the content distribution server 34 streams the thread and content through the communication network 2 in accordance with the distribution schedule or in response to a request from client software such as a web browser.

[0019] The viewing aggregation server 35 also collects the viewing data D5 and stores it in the viewing information database 35a for each user terminal. Based on the data accumulated in the viewing aggregation server 35, the viewing aggregation server 35 aggregates which user is viewing which advertisement data and when, and the aggregation result is aggregated data D6. And sent to the billing summary server 36. The billing summary server 36 calculates the billing for the advertisements for each advertiser based on the summary data D6 obtained from the viewing summary Sano 35 and the price information obtained from the advertisement traffic server 33, and the billing database 36a To accumulate.

[0020] (User terminal configuration)

The user terminal 1 is a communicable processing unit equipped with a CPU, which can be realized by a general-purpose computer such as a personal computer or a dedicated device with specialized functions. A mobile computer is a PDA (Personal Digital Assistance). ), Mobile phones, etc. included. Figure 2 shows the internal configuration of user terminal 1.

[0021] As shown in the figure, the user terminal 1 includes a communication interface 102, a content playback unit 103, an output signal generation unit 104, an output interface 105, a display unit, as a streaming reception 'playback module. 101.

[0022] The communication interface 102 is a module that transmits and receives data as packets through the communication network 2. Through this communication interface 102, content (main stream) D4, advertisement data D2, and agent program D1 are received, Viewing data D5 and the like are transmitted to the viewing aggregation server 35.

[0023] The content playback unit 103 is a module that plays back video data and audio data. In the present embodiment, the content playback unit 103 includes an advertisement data insertion unit 115 that inserts advertisement data into the main data. As shown in FIG. 3, the advertisement data insertion unit 115 analyzes the main content data D4 and detects an insertion position detection unit 115b that detects a position where clip data such as CM is inserted, and the insertion position detection unit 115b detects the insertion data. And an insertion processing unit 115a for inserting the advertisement data D2 selected by the advertisement data selection unit 106, and reproducing the data D4 and D2 while inserting the advertisement data D2 into the main content data D4.

[0024] The output signal generation unit 104 converts the content that can be played back by the content playback unit 103 into a video signal and an audio signal, and outputs the video signal to the media viewing abrasion 101b displayed on the display unit 101. A module that synthesizes and generates an output signal. The output interface 105 is a module that outputs video and audio output signals from the display unit 101 and the speaker 105a, respectively. The display unit 101 is a display device such as a liquid crystal display.

[0025] Furthermore, the user terminal 1 includes an agent program execution unit 110, an application execution unit 112, an operation device interface 111, and a user trend data storage unit 113 as modules relating to user trend data. .

[0026] The agent program execution unit 110 is a module that executes an agent program in which the agent distribution server 31 is also installed, and is usually realized by a CPU or the like. When this agent program is started and executed, it resides on the CPU, operates the CPU as an operation history acquisition unit, and generates a user trend data file. To do. The user trend data storage unit 113 is a module that stores user trend data, and is a device such as a hard disk or memory that stores and holds data files.

The application execution unit 112 is a module that executes an application such as a general OS or browser software 101a, and is usually realized by a CPU or the like. The operation device interface 111 is a module to which an operation device 114 such as a mouse or a keyboard is connected and an operation signal is input / output.

[0028] The operation history acquisition unit 116 is connected to the application execution unit 112 and the operation device interface 111, and which application is activated on the user terminal 1. Which application is active. It is a module that monitors what operations have been performed on the application and obtains them as a time-series history. For example, the operation history acquisition unit 116 acquires the coordinate position on the display unit 101 of the pointer moved by the operation device 114 on the display unit 101 from the operation device interface 111 and corresponds to the position of the pointer. Information (the attribute of the Web page being browsed by the browser, the attribute of the book or CD purchased on the Web page, the type of music or video content being viewed by the playback software) is acquired from the application execution unit 112. The operation history acquired by the operation history acquisition unit 116 is stored in the user trend data storage unit 113 as user trend data.

[0029] Further, the user terminal 1 includes, as modules related to advertisement data, an advertisement data acquisition unit 108, an advertisement data storage unit 107, an advertisement data selection unit 106, a viewing data storage unit 117, a viewing data notification unit 109, Have

The advertisement data acquisition unit 108 is a module that acquires advertisement data (clip data) through a communication interface. The advertisement data acquisition unit 108 according to the present embodiment transmits a distribution request to the advertisement distribution server 32 at a predetermined time, receives a plurality of clip data distributed in response to the distribution request, and receives advertisement data. Accumulate in the accumulation unit 107.

[0031] The advertisement data selection unit 106 is a module that selects clip data based on user trend data, and based on a predetermined calculation formula from among a plurality of clip data stored in the advertisement data storage unit 107. Then, select the clip data that matches the user's hobbies and send it to the playback unit. Note that the viewing history of the advertisement data selected by the advertisement data selection unit 106 is stored in the viewing data storage unit 117 as viewing data. This viewing data is data having an advertisement data identifier for specifying the advertisement data, and the number of times of viewing and the time as records.

The viewing data notification unit 109 notifies the viewing data stored in the viewing data storage unit 117 through the communication network 2. In response to the notification of the viewing data, the viewing totaling server 35 and the charge totaling server 36 execute a billing process regarding the viewed clip data.

[0034] (Ad selection process)

The advertisement data described above is weighted according to the attribute of each advertisement data, and the agent program execution unit 110 counts the parameter value corresponding to the attribute of the information targeted by the user operation for each attribute. The advertisement data selection unit 106 selects the clip data based on the count of the parameter value corresponding to the attribute of the clip data, the weight of the clip data, and the viewing data of the clip data. Do.

[0035] Specifically, the operation history acquisition unit 116 acquires the operation history of the user, and the attributes (target age, media type, field, etc.) of information (Web page, content viewing, etc.) targeted for each operation. , Time, etc.) are monitored, and parameter values corresponding to the attributes are added. This parameter value is held in advance by the following table data.

[table 1]

In addition, this table data has a hierarchical structure. For example, “field (ο)” in Table 1 is a parameter for attributes further subdivided into lower layers as exemplified in Tables 2 and 3 below. Value is set. The initial value of each parameter value is 0.

[Table 2] Parameter ¹ (Direct hobby (ol)

1 car

2 games

Three

4 movies

[Table 3]

Parameter Naoto Kan Business (02)

1 Politics

2 Economy

3 Law

4 qualifications

The parameter value count is added according to the user trend. For example, when an operation is performed to purchase a CD at a web page auction at 21:00, user trend data as shown in the table below is accumulated.

[Table 4]

On the other hand, in this embodiment, the weighting of each advertisement data is calculated by the product of the affinity parameter associated with the parameter value of the user trend described above and the correction coefficient. The affinity parameter and the correction coefficient are set in association with the advertisement data identifier (advertisement ID).

[Table 5]

Then, the advertisement data selection unit 106 multiplies the count of the parameter value and the weight of the clip data corresponding to each parameter (affinity parameter and correction coefficient), and calculates the sum of them, and from there The evaluation value is calculated based on the viewing data of the clip data (viewing count X correction value (here, assumed to be 100)). The parameter value force When calculating the product of the event and the affinity parameter, the parameter value is calculated as 0 if there is no corresponding parameter.

[0040] That is, if the evaluation value of the above-mentioned advertisement ID “xxxxr” is already viewed once, [Equation 1] Evaluation value = ∑ (affinity parameter value (Μ, Μ, ΟΙ ···)) Coefficient Count value (, o1—)) _Viewing number Correction value (= 1 + 1 + 3 X 1 4— 3 X 100. Finally, the advertisement data selection unit 106 has a plurality of clips with the highest evaluation value. Select data.

[0041] (Function and effect)

According to the present embodiment as described above, the advertisement data D2 for the advertising advertisement selected by the evaluation value calculated based on the user trend data (operation history) is inserted into the main content data D4. It is possible to provide advertisements that match the tastes of people. In particular, when calculating the evaluation value, the product of the number of viewing times and the correction value is subtracted according to the history of viewing the clip data by the user, so for example, the evaluation value of what has already been viewed or has recently been viewed. As a result, the priority for selection can be lowered, and the reproduction pattern of clip data can be prevented from becoming monotonous, for example, by avoiding repeated reproduction of the same clip data in a short period of time. .

Furthermore, in the present embodiment, the viewing data accumulated in the viewing data accumulation unit 117 is notified to the viewing aggregation server 35, and the accounting total server 36 charges the clip data that has been viewed according to the viewing data. Since the process is executed, it is possible to perform charging aggregation according to the reproduction frequency of the clip data while avoiding monotonization of the reproduction pattern of the clip data.

Industrial applicability

[0043] As described above, according to the present invention, when a content such as streaming delivered through a communication network such as the Internet is viewed on a user terminal such as a personal computer using V, the same video clip is used. By avoiding the playback in a monotonous pattern, it is possible to distribute highly effective information to users.

Claims

The scope of the claims

[1] A content viewing system for viewing content distributed via a communication network on a user terminal,

In the user terminal, an agent program execution unit that acquires and accumulates user trend data that is a user operation history; and

A communication interface for receiving the main content data which is the main content and the clip data inserted into the main content through the communication network;

A data selection unit that selects the clip data based on the user trend data;

A content reproduction unit for reproducing the data while inserting the clip data selected by the data selection unit into the main content data;

A viewing data storage unit for storing a viewing history of the clip data;

Have

The clip data is weighted according to the attribute of the clip data,

The agent program execution unit counts and accumulates a parameter value corresponding to the attribute of the information subjected to the user operation for each attribute,

The data selection unit selects clip data based on the power of the parameter value corresponding to the attribute of the clip data, the weight of the clip data, and the viewing history of the clip data.

A content viewing system characterized by the above.

[2] A viewing data notification unit that notifies the viewing history stored in the viewing data storage unit through the communication network;

A billing aggregation server that executes a charging process for the clip data viewed in response to the notification by the viewing data notification unit;

The content viewing system according to claim 1, further comprising:

[3] A content viewing method for viewing content distributed via a communication network on a user terminal, (1) acquiring and storing user trend data as user operation history in the user terminal;

Receiving the main content data which is the main content and the clip data inserted into the main content through the communication network (2);

Step (3) of selecting the clip data based on the user trend data and reproducing the selected clip data while inserting the selected clip data into the main content data;

(4) storing the viewing history of the clip data;

Have

The clip data is weighted according to the attribute of the clip data,

In the step (1), a parameter value corresponding to the attribute of the information subjected to the user operation is counted and accumulated for each attribute,

In the step (3), selection of clip data is performed based on the power of the parameter value corresponding to the attribute of the clip data, the weight of the clip data, and the viewing history of the clip data.

A content viewing method characterized by the above.

The step (5) further includes a step (5) of notifying the viewing history accumulated in the step (4) through the communication network and executing a billing process related to the viewed clip data in response to the notification. The content viewing method according to Item 3.