Customized today module

• US 20090063984A1
• Filed: 09/04/2007
• Published: 03/05/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 09/04/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: R2 Solutions LLC (Acacia Research Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Yahoo! Inc. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Narayanan, ViJay K., Singh, Vik, Seth, Amitabh, Agarwal, Deepak, Thrall, John, Phadke, Amit, Salisbury, Michael, Zachariah, Joe, Chen, Bee-Chung, Elango, Pradheep, Ramakrishnan, Raghu, Motgi, Nitin, Israni, Sharat, Roy, Howard Scott, Venkataraman, Chandar
• Granted Patent: US 8,065,619 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/733
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising

Abstract

A method and apparatus for customizing content presented to individual users or user segments is provided. There may be three components, a web portal and toolbar component, a modeling component, and a scoring component. The web portal and toolbar component presents content items and collects data. The web portal and toolbar component generates user event data based on the user actions. The user event data is forwarded to the modeling component. The modeling component generates content scoring functions based on user event data and attributes of content items. Content scoring functions may be unique to individual user segments. The content scoring functions based on content features generate probability a content item will be viewed. The scoring component decides which content items are placed in a portal. The scoring component uses the scoring functions generated by the modeling component to rank content items in real time.

Claims

1. A method comprising performing a machine-executed operation involving instructions, wherein said instructions are instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform certain steps including:

assembling user event data from different content segments on a portal;

wherein the user event data encodes components of user interaction with first content items within each of the plurality of content segments on the portal;

for each of a plurality of user segments, generating one or more ranking functions based on the user event data;

selecting a ranking function based a first of the user segments;

for each of a plurality of second content items for which there is no user event data, extracting a set of features for each second content item;

with the selected ranking function, generating a rank for the second content items based on the set of features for each second content item;

providing, based on the rank, at least one of the second content items.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the user event data encodes components of user interaction with first content items within each of the plurality of content segments on the portal wherein a component of user interaction is time of the user interaction.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the user event data encodes components of user interaction with first content items within each of the plurality of content segments on the portal wherein a component of user interaction a position of the content item of the first content items within the segment on the portal.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of selecting a ranking function based on user segment further includes selecting a ranking function based on context.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein context is time of the day.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of, with the selected ranking function, generating a rank for the second content items based on the set of features for each second content item further includes computing the probability of a user clicking on the second content item.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of, with the selected ranking function, generating a rank for the second content items based on the set of features for each second content item is also based in part on utility of the content items.

8. A system comprising:

first logic that is operable to assemble user event data from different content segments on a portal, wherein the user event data encodes components of user interaction with first content items within each of the plurality of content segments on the portal;

second logic that is operable to, for each of a plurality of user segments, generate one or more ranking functions based on the user event data;

third logic that is operable to extract a set of features for each second content item of a plurality of second content items for which there is no user event data;

fourth logic that is operable to generate, based on a first of the ranking functions, a rank for the second content items based on the set of features for each second content item;

fifth logic that is operable to provide, based on the rank, at least one of the second content items.

9. A system of claim 8, wherein in the first logic a component of user interaction is time of the user interaction.

10. The system of claim 8, wherein in the first logic a component of user interaction is a position of the content item of the first content items within the segment on the portal.

11. The system of claim 8 wherein the fourth logic further includes computing the probability of a user clicking on the second content item.

12. The system of claim 8 fourth logic further comprising generating a rank for the second content items based in part on utility of the content items.

13. A method comprising performing a machine-executed operation involving instructions, wherein said instructions are instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform certain steps including:

categorizing a content item to be placed in one section of a portal;

selecting a scoring function based on a segment a user belongs to;

generating a rank for the content item using the scoring function; and

based at least in part on the rank, placing the content item in a section of a portal other than the one the content item was categorized into.