Method and system for matching appropriate content with users by matching content tags and profiles

• US 20050240608A1
• Filed: 04/27/2004
• Published: 10/27/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 04/27/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Kyndryl Incorporated
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Tamlyn, Ralph, Jones, Gregory L., Phoenix, Brian N.
• Granted Patent: US 8,386,488 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2237 Vectors, bitmaps or matrices
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2282 Tablespace storage structures; Management thereof
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/235 Update request formulation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/285 Clustering or classification
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles

Abstract

A method and system is provided for classifying and labeling information content (e.g., websites, databases, or the like) and also for profiling a user (e.g., interests or responsibilities) for accessing the information content, both using a coordinated labeling technique so that content from multiple sources may be searched, identified and/or presented to the user according to the user'"'"'s profile. This technique provides an ongoing update of information content and sources while at the same time filtering out unnecessary information that is irrelevant to the user'"'"'s profile, resulting in more focused availability of information to the user. The user profile is matched with content of interest (as tagged by content creators reflective of categories that is also employed by a user profile) and matching content information may automatically be updated and made available to a user, in conformity with the user'"'"'s profile. Content providers may now jointly use a common labeling scheme to improve the experience of their users and to provide content providers a technique to associate users with common facets of classification.

Claims

1. A method for providing information to a user, the method comprising:

defining one or more user profile vectors (UPVs) based on user information;

defining one or more content tagging vectors (CTVs) based upon content objects;

comparing the one or more UPVs and the one or more CTVs to generate a list of matching content identifiers (MCIs) which is associated with relevant information content; and

providing the relevant content information based on a triggering event.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising updating stored content identifiers (SCIs) in response to transmitting the content information to the user workstation.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the comparing step utilizes content time stamps to detect updated content information.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the user information is a submission of a user profile for compiling the one or more UPVs, the user profile containing information of at least one of a user'"'"'s interests, a user'"'"'s responsibilities, and a security classification.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the user profile identifies at least one of a geographic interest, a predefined interest dimension and an industry interest.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising encoding the geographic interest to reflect a hierarchical relationship.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the triggering event is at least one of a user log-on, a scheduled process, a change in user profile, a difference in a time stamp, and a change in content information.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the defining a content tagging vector includes defining at least one of an industry category, a geography category, a region category, a security indication, a predefined category, a content type and an audience for the content objects.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the geography category includes defining a geographic hierarchical relationship.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more UPVs and the one or more CTVs employ a substantially common categorization.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating at least one of one of an html file, xml file, and a standard generalized markup language (SGML) file reflective of at least one of the one or more CTVs and the content objects.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising sending the html to a workstation for use in generating navigation pages.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating navigation pages based on the content information.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one of the defining the MCI step, the comparing and the providing steps is initiated periodically.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one of the defining the MCI step, the comparing and the providing steps is initiated based on a change to a user profile.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the change to a user profile is caused by a proxy entity.

17. The method of claim 1, further comprising comparing the list of MCIs with stored content identifiers (SCI) for determining whether the relevant content information is already present on a user workstation.

18. A method for managing content information, comprising:

tagging user profile information as categories;

tagging content information as categories;

comparing the tagged user profile information and the tagged content information categories to determine a common set of categories;

retrieving the content information associated with the common set of categories; and

updating a user'"'"'s workstation with the retrieved content upon a triggering event.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the categories represent a substantially common categorization scheme.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the categorization scheme includes a hierarchical structure of one or more categories.

21. The method of claim 18, wherein the at least one of the categories includes one of an industry category, a geography category, a region category, a predefined category, a security indication, and a content type.

22. The method of claim 18, wherein the triggering event includes at least one of a user log-on, a scheduled process, a change in user profile, a change in content information, and a difference in a time stamp.

23. The method of claim 18, wherein the user profile information contains information of at least one of a user'"'"'s interests, a user'"'"'s responsibilities, and a security classification.

24. A method for providing categorized information to a user, the method comprising:

tagging a user profile having descriptors of at least a user'"'"'s interests and a user'"'"'s responsibilities with at least one of a time stamp and one or more categories;

providing information content by labeling one or more content objects and tagging the information content with a time stamp and the one or more categories;

detecting a change in at least one of the user profile and the one or more content objects based on at least one of the time stamp and the one or more categories; and

updating a workstation based on the detected change.

25. The method of claim 24, wherein the one or more categories include at least one of a geographic category, a predefined category, and an industry category.

26. The method of claim 25, wherein the one or more categories are hierarchical.

27. The method of claim 24, wherein the providing includes at least one of initiating, deleting, and updating at least a subset of the information content and includes time stamping the at least a subset of the information content.

28. The method of claim 24, further comprising detecting a deletion of an information content object, and as a result, deleting references to the deleted information content object at a time different from a physical deletion of the information content object.

29. The method of claim 24, further comprising detecting the change in the information content object based on the one or more categories and physically replacing the content object at time substantially different from deletion of unused references to the information content object.

30. The method of claim 24, further comprising updating the time stamp when at least one of the content object changes, the category of the content object changes and the user profile changes.

31. The method of claim 24, further comprising creating navigation pages comprising at least one of a link to an information content site, an abstract of the information content, and a security indication.

32. The method of claim 24, further comprising sending the information content to a workstation using meta tags for building navigation pages on a workstation.

33. The method of claim 24, wherein the providing information content includes building and tagging the information content with a content submission tool and storing the tagged content information in a database.

34. A method for providing information to a user, the method comprising:

developing user profile information with category tags;

developing content profile information with category tags;

comparing the combined set of tags to determine matching tags;

retrieving the content associated with the matching tags; and

updating a workstation with the retrieved content based on a triggering event.

35. A system for providing information to a user comprising:

a means for defining one or more user profile vectors (UPVs) based on user information;

a means for defining one or more content tagging vectors (CTVs) based upon content objects;

a means for comparing the one or more UPVs and the one or more CTVs to generate a list of matching content identifiers (MCIs) which is associated with relevant information content; and

a means for providing the relevant content information based on a triggering event.

36. A computer program product comprising a computer usable medium having readable program code embodied in the medium, the computer program product includes at least one component to:

tag a user profile having descriptors of at least a user'"'"'s interests and a user'"'"'s responsibilities with at least one of a time stamp and one or more categories;

provide information content by labeling one or more content objects and tagging the information content with a time stamp and the one or more categories;

detect a change in at least one of the user profile and the one or more content objects based on at least one of the time stamp and the one or more categories; and

update a workstation based on the detected changes.