CONTENTS' RELATIONSHIP VISUALIZING APPARATUS, CONTENTS' RELATIONSHIP VISUALIZING METHOD AND ITS PROGRAM

• US 20110087773A1
• Filed: 10/06/2010
• Published: 04/14/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 10/14/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Ishioka, Takuya
• Granted Patent: US 9,026,643 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/26 Visual data mining; Browsing structured data

Abstract

There is provided a contents'"'"' relationship visualizing apparatus including a usage history acquiring unit for acquiring usage histories of multiple contents, a users'"'"' set specifying unit for specifying a content'"'"'s users'"'"' set indicating users utilizing each content by use of the contents'"'"' usage histories, a similarity calculating unit for calculating a similarity between the specified users'"'"' sets by use of a similarity index, and a network creating unit for creating a network indicating a relationship between the contents by use of the calculated similarity between the users'"'"' sets.

Claims

1. A contents'"'"' relationship visualizing apparatus comprising:

a usage history acquiring unit for acquiring usage histories of multiple contents;

a users'"'"' set specifying unit for, by use of the contents'"'"' usage histories, specifying a content'"'"'s users'"'"' set indicating users utilizing each content;

a similarity calculating unit for, by use of a similarity index, calculating a similarity between the specified users'"'"' sets; and

a network creating unit for, by use of the calculated similarity between the users'"'"' sets, creating a network indicating a relationship between the contents.

2. The contents'"'"' relationship visualizing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a partial network extracting unit for extracting a partial network meeting a predetermined reference from the created network.

3. The contents'"'"' relationship visualizing apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the partial network extracting unit extracts a partial network made of contents whose similarity between users'"'"' sets meets a predetermined reference from the created network.

4. The contents'"'"' relationship visualizing apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the partial network extracting unit extracts a partial network made of contents belonging to a cluster meeting a predetermined reference from the created network.

5. The contents'"'"' relationship visualizing apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the partial network extracting unit extracts a partial network made of contents having a characteristic meeting a predetermined reference from the created network.

6. The contents'"'"' relationship visualizing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a content aggregating unit for aggregating multiple contents meeting a predetermined reference into one content and aggregating usage histories of the multiple contents into one usage history.

7. The contents'"'"' relationship visualizing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the usage history acquiring unit acquires usage histories of multiple contents having attributes corresponding to the selected contents'"'"' set depending on a contents'"'"' set selecting result.

8. The contents'"'"' relationship visualizing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the network creating unit creates a network indicating a content by a node and indicating a contents'"'"' relationship by a link connecting the nodes.

9. A contents'"'"' relationship visualizing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the usage history acquiring unit acquires usage histories of multiple contents in each of at least two mutually-different periods, and

the network creating unit creates a network indicating a contents'"'"' relationship in each of the at least two periods.

10. The contents'"'"' relationship visualizing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the similarity calculating unit uses any one similarity index among Jaccard coefficient, Simpson'"'"'s coefficient and cosine similarity to calculate a similarity between the specified users'"'"' sets.

11. The contents'"'"' relationship visualizing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the similarity calculating unit uses any one similarity index among Pearson'"'"'s product-moment correlation coefficient, Euclidean distance, Mahalanobis'"'"' distance and kernel function to calculate a similarity between the specified users'"'"' sets.

12. A contents'"'"' relationship visualizing method to be performed by a contents'"'"' relationship visualizing apparatus, comprising:

acquiring usage histories of multiple contents;

specifying a content'"'"'s users'"'"' set indicating users utilizing each content by use of the contents'"'"' usage histories;

calculating a similarity between the specified users'"'"' sets by use of a similarity index; and

creating a network indicating a relationship between the contents by use of the calculated similarity between the users'"'"' sets.

13. A program for causing a computer to perform a contents'"'"' relationship visualizing method, the contents'"'"' relationship visualizing method comprising:

acquiring usage histories of multiple contents;

specifying a content'"'"'s users'"'"' set indicating users utilizing each content by use of the contents'"'"' usage histories;

calculating a similarity between the specified users'"'"' sets by use of a similarity index; and

creating a network indicating a relationship between the contents by use of the calculated similarity between the users'"'"' sets.