Generating a cover for a section of a digital magazine

• US 10,289,661 B2
• Filed: 05/23/2013
• Issued: 05/14/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 09/12/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Flipboard Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Flipboard Incorporated
• Inventors: Schaad, Raphael Mauro, Aleksandrovsky, Boris, Walkingshaw, Andrew, van Hoff, Arthur Anthonie, Weskamp, Marcos, Prag, Johan, Alexander, Eric, Feng, Eric
• Primary Examiner(s): Edwards, Jason T
• Application Number:
  US13/901,536
• Publication Number:
  US 20140075296A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,182 Days
• Field of Search: 715243
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/106 Display of layout of documents; Previewing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/131 Fragmentation of text files, e.g. creating reusable text-blocks; Linking to fragments, e.g. using XInclude; Namespaces
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/166 Editing, e.g. inserting or deleting
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/186 Templates

Abstract

A digital magazine application executing on a client device presents a digital magazine to a user including content items retrieved from one or more sources based on information associated with the user. When presenting the digital magazine, a cover is presented including an image and one or more headlines describing one or more content items included in the digital magazine. The cover may be generated by clustering content items included in the digital magazine and ranking content items in various clusters based on their characteristics. Based on the rankings, information describing content items from various clusters is included on the cover. Alternatively, the cover includes information describing content items identified based on the order in which the content items are presented by the digital magazine.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for generating a digital magazine for a user comprising:

identifying a plurality of content items from a plurality of sources for inclusion in the digital magazine by a digital magazine server, each content item including an image and text data and each source comprising a computing system providing one or more content items to client devices;

generating a plurality of groups of content items from the plurality of content items based on characteristics of the content items, each group including content items having a common characteristic, the common characteristic comprising one or more of;

a source from which the digital magazine server obtained a group of content items, an author of the group of content items, a date associated with content items of the group, a topic associated with content items of the group, a classification of content items of the group received by the digital magazine server from the user, and any combination thereof;

generating a ranking of content items within each group based on text data included in each content item within a group, prior interactions by the user with content items of the group, and popularity of content items of the group among other users;

generating an additional ranking of content items within each group based on image scores for images included in each content item within the group, an image score for an image based on attributes of the image including composition of the image, color of the image, focus of the image, and any combination thereof;

receiving a request to view the digital magazine from a client device, the request identifying a display area of the client device;

selecting a set of groups based at least in part on the display area of the client device, the set including a number of groups that is directly related to a size of the display area of the client device;

selecting a plurality of content items from each of the groups in the set, a content item selected from a group in the set having a threshold location in the ranking of the content items within the group in the set, and selecting a plurality of additional content items from each of the groups in the set, an additional content item selected from the group in the set having a highest position in the additional ranking of the content items within the group in the set;

generating a cover for the digital magazine based on the plurality of the selected content items and the plurality of the selected additional content items, the cover including a cover image from a selected additional content item of the group in the set having a highest image score and the cover including headlines for each of the groups in the set comprising text data extracted from a selected content items from each groups in the set, a headline for each group in the set obtained from a content item from the plurality of the selected content items of a group in the set having a highest position in the ranking of content items within the group of the set, at least one of the headlines comprising text data from an alternative selected content item different than the selected additional content item including the cover image where the alternative selected content item has at least a threshold similarity to the selected additional content item including the cover image and the alternative selected content item was obtained by the digital magazine server from an alternative source that is different than a source from which the digital magazine server obtained the selected content item including the cover image; and

providing the cover to the client device for presentation.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein generating the cover for the digital magazine based on the plurality of the selected content items and the plurality of the selected additional content items comprises:

selecting a content item from each group in the set of groups based at least in part on the rankings of content items within each group in the set of groups;

selecting an image included in at least one of the selected content items; and

generating the cover image based on the selected image.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein generating the plurality of groups of content items from the plurality of content items based on characteristics of the content items comprises:

clustering the plurality of content items based on metadata associated with each of the content items.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 3, wherein the metadata associated with each of the content items comprises one or more topics associated with each of the content items.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the characteristics of each content item within the group are selected from a group consisting of:

likelihood of user interaction with a content item, interaction of other users with the content item, relevance of the content item to a topic, and any combination thereof.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein receiving the request to view the digital magazine from the client device includes an indication the client device is in a locked state, and wherein providing the cover to the client device for presentation comprises:

providing the cover to the client device for presentation while the client device is in the locked state.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 6, wherein one or more content items in the plurality of content items are received from an application executing on the client device.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of content items includes a link to another digital magazine.

9. A computer-implemented method for generating a digital magazine for a user comprising:

identifying a plurality of content items from a plurality of sources for inclusion in the digital magazine by a digital magazine server, each content item including an image and text data and each source comprising a computing system providing one or more content items to client devices;

generating a plurality of groups of content items from the plurality of content items based on characteristics of the content items, each group including content items having a common characteristic, the common characteristic comprising one or more of;

a source from which the digital magazine server obtained a group of content items, an author of the group of content items, a date associated with content items of the group, a topic associated with content items of the group, a classification of content items of the group received by the digital magazine server from the user, and any combination thereof;

generating a ranking of content items within each group based on text data included in each content item within a group, prior interactions by the user with content items of a group in the set, and popularity of content items of the group in the set among other users;

generating an additional ranking of content items within each group based on image scores for images included in each content item within the group, an image score for an image based on attributes of the image including composition of the image, color of the image, focus of the image, and any combination thereof;

determining a sequence specifying an order in which content items within each group are to be presented within the digital magazine;

receiving a request to view the digital magazine from a client device, the request identifying a display area of the client device;

selecting a set of groups based at least in part on the display area of the client device, the set including a number of groups that is directly related to a size of the display area of the client device;

generating a cover for the digital magazine based on a plurality of the content items, the cover including a cover image from a content item of a group of the set having a highest image score and the cover including headlines for each of one or more groups, a headline for the group of the set comprising text data extracted from a content item from the group of the set having a highest position in the ranking of content items within the group of the set, at least one of the headlines comprising text data obtained from a different content item than the content item including the cover image, the different content item having at least a threshold similarity to the content item including the cover image and the different content item identified by the digital magazine server from an alternative source that is different than a source from which the digital magazine server identified the content item including the cover image, the headlines presented by the cover in an order specified by the determined sequence; and

providing the cover to the client device for presentation.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 9, wherein the content item of the group of the set including the cover image comprises:

a content item having a highest position in the sequence and including one or more images.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 10, wherein headlines for each of the groups of the set are extracted from content items having positions lower in the sequence than the content item including the cover image.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 9, wherein receiving the request to view the digital magazine from the client device includes an indication the client device is in a locked state.

13. The computer-implemented method of claim 12, wherein providing the cover to the client device for presentation comprises:

providing the cover to the client device for presentation while the client device is in the locked state.

14. A computer-implemented method for generating a cover associated with a digital magazine comprising:

receiving information describing a plurality of content items included in a digital magazine generated for presentation to a user of a client device by an application executing on the client device and associated with the digital magazine, each content item obtained from a source comprising a computing system providing one or more content items to client devices;

receiving content items associated with a specific source comprising an additional application executing on the client device;

generating a plurality of groups of content items from the plurality of content items and the content items associated with the additional application based on characteristics of the content items, each group including content items having a common characteristic, the common characteristic comprising one or more of;

a source from which a group of content items was obtained, an author of the group of content items, a date associated with content items of the group, a topic associated with content items of the group, a classification of content items of the group received by the application associated with the digital magazine from the user, and any combination thereof;

generating a ranking of content items within each group based on text data included in each content item within a group, prior interactions by the user with content items of the group, and popularity of content items of the group among other users;

generating an additional ranking of content items within each group based on image scores for images included in each content item within the group, an image score for an image based on attributes of the image including composition of the image, color of the image, focus of the image, and any combination thereof;

selecting a set of groups based at least in part on the display area of the client device, the set including a number of groups that is directly related to a size of a display area of the client device;

selecting a plurality of content items from each of the groups in the set, a content item selected from a group in the set having a threshold location in the ranking of the content items within the group in the set, and selecting a plurality of additional content items from each of the groups in the set, an additional content item selected from the group in the set having a highest position in the additional ranking of the content items within the group in the set;

generating a cover for the digital magazine based on the plurality of content items and the plurality of additional selected content items, the cover including a cover image from a selected additional content item of the group in the set having a highest image score and the cover including headlines for each of the groups in the set comprising text data extracted from a selected content item from each of the groups in the set, a headline for each group in the set obtained from a content item from the plurality of the selected content items of the group in the set having a highest position in the ranking of content items within the group of the set, at least one of the headlines comprising text data from an alternative selected content item that is different than the selected additional content item including the cover image, where the alternative selected content item has at least a threshold similarity to the selected additional content item including the cover image and the alternative content item was obtained from an alternative source that is different from a source from which the selected additional content item including the cover image was obtained, and at least one headline comprising text data extracted from a content item associated with the specific source comprising the additional application executing on the client device; and

presenting the cover to the user responsive to the client device operating in a locked state.

15. The computer-implemented method of claim 14, wherein the content items associated with the application executing on the client device include content items associated with the user of the client device and do not include content items associated with an additional user of the client device.