Log Processing

• US 20080250448A1
• Filed: 09/10/2007
• Published: 10/09/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 04/03/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Merrick, Iain, Rowe, Simon, Smith, Geoffrey R., Hecht, Greg, Killianey, Michael A., Hawkins, John Alastair
• Granted Patent: US 7,853,969 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 725/32
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0242 Determining effectiveness of advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0273 Determination of fees for advertising
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2407 Monitoring of transmitted content, e.g. distribution time, number of downloads arrangements for monitoring programmes for broadcast or for distribution combined with broadcast H04H20/14
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2547 Third Party Billing, e.g. billing of advertiser
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44204 Monitoring of content usage, e.g. the number of times a movie has been viewed, copied or the amount which has been watched monitoring of user activities for profile generation for accessing a video database G06F16/739; protecting generic digital content where the protection is independent of the precise nature of the content G06F21/10; arrangements for monitoring the use made of the broadcast services in broadcast systems H04H60/31
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4667 Processing of monitored end-user data, e.g. trend analysis based on the log file of viewer selections
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6582 Data stored in the client, e.g. viewing habits, hardware capabilities, credit card number arrangements where receivers interact with the broadcast H04H20/38
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/812 involving advertisement data advertising per se G06Q30/02

Abstract

Set top box logs are received from a television provider and processed to compensate for broadcast latency and generate normalized log data, e.g., log data that are indexed to a relative time. Channel tunes and the channel tune times of the normalized log data can be compared to expected air times of television advertisements on channels, and an impression values, e.g., projected viewers, can be generated for each television advertisement.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

receiving reporting data from a television provider;

identifying channel tunes and corresponding tune times from the reporting data;

identifying television advertisements that were aired during the tune times on channels corresponding to the channel tunes;

identifying a latency delay between an insertion time of a television advertisement at the television provider and an air time of the television advertisement at a viewing device; and

adjusting the tune times to compensate for the latency delay.

2. The method of claim 1, comprising:

identifying reliable durations based on the identified channel tunes and corresponding tune times; and

determining an impression value for each identified television advertisement based on the reliable durations.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein:

identifying a latency delay between an insertion time of an advertisement at the television provider and an air time of the advertisement at a viewing device comprises;

identifying a fixed delay based on television provider encoder hardware and software; and

identifying a variable delay based on corresponding tune times for a channel tune.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein:

identifying reliable durations based on the identified channel tunes and corresponding tune times comprises;

determining if corresponding tune times for a channel tune define a duration that exceeds a minimum dwell time threshold; and

if the corresponding tune times for the channel tune define a duration that exceeds the minimum dwell time threshold, then associating the corresponding tune times for the channel tune as a reliable duration.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein:

identifying reliable durations based on the identified channel tunes and corresponding tune times comprises;

determining if corresponding tune times for a channel tune define a duration that is less than a maximum dwell time threshold; and

if the corresponding tune times for the channel tune define a duration that is less than the maximum dwell time threshold, then associating the corresponding tune times for the channel tune as a reliable duration.

6. The method of claim 2, wherein:

identifying reliable durations based on the identified channel tunes and corresponding tune times comprises;

determining if a channel tune is an authorized channel tune; and

if the channel tune is not an authorized channel tune, then precluding association of the corresponding tune times for the channel tune as a reliable duration.

7. The method of claim 2, wherein:

identifying television advertisements that were aired during the tune times on channels corresponding to the channel tunes comprises;

identifying channels and associated advertisement time slots;

identifying corresponding channel tunes and tune times; and

identifying television advertisements associated with the identified channels and advertisement time slots.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein:

determining an impression value for each identified television advertisement based on the reliable durations comprises;

identifying an impression for each television advertisement associated with an identified channel and advertisement time slot that corresponds to a reliable duration.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein:

determining an impression value for each identified television advertisement based on the reliable durations comprises;

determining a percentage of a maximum number of reports, the percentage defined by the reporting data; and

generating an estimated impression value for each identified television advertisement based on percentage of the maximum number of reports and the number of identified impressions for each television advertisement.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein:

receiving reporting data from a television provider comprises receiving digital video recorder data related to digital video recorders; and

identifying reliable durations based on the identified channel tunes and corresponding tune times comprises;

identifying recorded durations;

determining whether the recorded durations have been played back after recording; and

identifying recorded durations as not reliable if the recorded durations are determine to not have been played back after recording.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the television advertisements comprise one or more of a television commercial, an overlay, and a text banner.

12. A system, comprising:

an impression processor configured to;

receive impression records from a television provider and receive television provider metadata, the impression records defining channel identifiers, associated tuning events and associated tuning times reported by tuning devices, and the television provider metadata including insertion times and intended display times of television advertisements;

adjust the associated tuning times to compensate for television processing latency; and

generate normalized impression records, each normalized impression record including a television provider identifier, an insertion identifier, and a time duration; and

an impression filter configured to;

compare the normalized impression records to filtering rules; and

identify reliable normalized impression records based on the comparison.

13. The system of claim 12, comprising:

an impression analyzer configured to;

correlate the reliable normalized impression records with advertisement insertion records to determine reported impressions for corresponding television advertisements; and

estimate projected impressions for the corresponding television advertisements based on the reported impressions.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein:

the impression analyzer is configured to;

determine a percentage of a maximum number of impression records, the percentage defined by the number of received impression records; and

estimate the projected impressions for the corresponding television advertisements based on percentage of the maximum number of impression records and the reported impressions for the corresponding television advertisements.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein:

the impression processor, impression filter, and the impression analyzer are configured to iteratively update the projected impressions during an impression time window based on subsequently received impression records from the television provider during the impression time window; and

further comprising an impression recorder configured to generate advertiser billings based the projected impressions after the expiration of the impression time window.

16. The system of claim 12, wherein:

the impression processor is configured to;

identify the latency delay as the time between an insertion time of a television advertisement at the television provider and an actual display time of the television advertisement at a viewing device.

17. The system of claim 12, wherein:

the impression processor is configured to;

identify the latency delay as the time between an intended display time of a television advertisement and an actual display time of the television advertisement at a viewing device.

18. The system of claim 12, wherein:

the impression processor is configured to;

identify a fixed delay based on television provider encoder hardware and software; and

identify a variable delay related to insertion times.

19. The system of claim 12, wherein:

the filtering rules define a minimum dwell time threshold; and

the impression filter is configured to identify a normalized impression record as a reliable normalized impression record if the associated tuning time is greater than the minimum dwell time.

20. The system of claim 12, wherein:

the filtering rules define authorized channel identifiers associated with corresponding impression records; and

the impression filter is configured to preclude identification of a normalized impression record as a reliable normalized impression record if the channel identifier of the normalize impression record is not one of the associated authorized channel identifiers.

21. A computer implemented method, comprising:

receiving impression records from a television provider, the impression records defining channel identifiers, associated tuning events and associated tuning times reported by tuning devices;

adjusting the associated tuning times to compensate for television processing latency;

generating normalized impression records based on the adjusted associated tuning times, and that include television provider identifiers, insertion identifiers, and time stamps; and

filtering the normalized impression records to identify false positive impression records.

22. The method of claim 21, comprising:

correlating the normalized impression records with advertisement insertion records to determine reported impressions for corresponding television advertisements; and

estimating projected impressions for the corresponding television advertisements based on the reported impressions and the identified false positive impression records.

23. The method of claim 21, comprising:

defining an impression time window; and

iteratively processing impression records based on subsequently received impression records from the television provider during the impression time window.

24. The method of claim 23, comprising:

generating advertiser billings based on the projected impressions after the expiration of impression time window.

25. A system, comprising:

means for receiving reporting data from a television provider, identifying channel tunes and corresponding tune times from the reporting data, and identifying and adjusting for a latency delay between an insertion time of a television advertisement at the television provider and an air time of the television advertisement at a viewing device; and

means for identifying television advertisements that were aired during the tune times on channels corresponding to the channel tunes and determining an impression value for each identified television advertisement.