METHOD FOR SELECTING A SUBSET OF CONTENT SOURCES FROM A COLLECTION OF CONTENT SOURCES

• US 20120259846A1
• Filed: 03/29/2012
• Published: 10/11/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 03/29/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Acquire Media Ventures Inc.
• Original Assignee: Acquire Media Ventures Inc.
• Inventors: Rafsky, Lawrence C., Donchez, Thomas B.
• Granted Patent: US 8,838,584 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/723
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/953 Querying, e.g. by the use of web search engines
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation

Abstract

A method for selecting a subset of content sources from a collection of content sources is disclosed. A server retrieves, in response to a plurality of queries on a topic from a client, using a programmed computer, a plurality of sets of documents from the collection of content sources. The server enumerates all subsets of the plurality of sets of documents. The server calculates, for each subset, a count of effectiveness of a subset and a price of the subset. The server selects a subset having the highest calculated ratio of count of effectiveness of the subset to price of the subset. The server delivers the selected subset of the plurality of sets of documents to the client.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for selecting a subset of content sources from a collection of content sources, comprising the steps of:

retrieving, in response to a plurality of queries on a topic from a client, using a programmed computer, a plurality of sets of documents from the collection of content sources;

enumerating all subsets of the plurality of sets of documents;

calculating, for each subset, a count of effectiveness of a subset and a price of the subset;

selecting a subset having the highest calculated ratio of count of effectiveness of the subset to price of the subset; and

delivering the selected subset of the plurality of sets of documents to the client.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the retrieved plurality of sets of documents from the collection of content sources includes only those documents having relevance above a predetermined threshold.

3. The method of claim 1, where relevance of a document is an equivalent fractional story count.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the equivalent fractional story count is based on a degree of duplication between documents of an enumerated subset.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein the equivalent fractional story count is based on normalized word count overlaps between two documents of an enumerated subset.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein normalized word count overlaps are based on Jaccard Counts.

7. The method of claim 3, wherein an exact duplicate between two documents of an enumerated subset is counted as a normalized equivalent fractional story count of one.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein one document of an exact duplicate between two documents of the enumerated subset is discarded from the subset.

9. The method of claim 3, wherein a partial duplication between two documents of an enumerated subset is counted as a normalized equivalent fractional story count between zero and one.

10. The method of claim 3, wherein the count of effectiveness of a selected subset is a difference between the total number of documents in the subset and a sum of equivalent fractional story counts.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the calculated price of a subset is a sum of individual prices of documents in the subset.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one subset of the sets of documents changes over time and is updated.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the at least one subset of the sets of documents includes newsfeeds, wherein the historical end of the newsfeeds continually moves forward in time.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein the at least one subset of the sets of documents includes evergreen, wherein new content is added but old content is never purged.

15. The method of claim 12, wherein the at least one subset of the sets of documents is archival and is never updated.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of queries is assembled from a list of names or authorities used to probe each of the sets of documents.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the plurality of queries used to probe each of the sets of documents is continually changed over time.

18. The method of claim 16, wherein the plurality of queries is taken as a set, but run individually, and the answers pooled to form one set of results for analysis.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein duplication elimination, exact or approximate, and subsequent document count reduction, in whole units or fractions, are performed for each query in the set individually before merging the answers across all queries.

20. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of queries is assembled from records of actual queries submitted by users, as recorded in query log files.

21. The method of claim 20, the plurality of queries is one of a sum of all queries over a predetermined time period, a subset chosen at random, or a subset chosen by importance-bias sampling.

22. The method of claim 1, wherein a subscription set is adjusted automatically as the selected subset of the plurality of sets changes.

23. The method of claim 1, wherein the set of content sources, the types of queries in the plurality of queries, and a content budget are managed in combination as any one changes over time.

24. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium including instructions that, when executed by a processing system, cause the processing system to perform a method comprising:

retrieving, in response to a plurality of queries on a topic, a plurality of sets of documents from a collection of content sources;

enumerating all subsets of the plurality of sets of documents;

calculating, for each subset, a count of effectiveness of a subset and a price of the subset;

selecting a subset having the highest calculated ratio of count of effectiveness of the subset to price of the subset; and

delivering the selected subset of the plurality of sets of documents to the client.

25. A computer-implemented method for selecting a set of documents from a collection of content sources, comprising the steps of:

receiving, in response to an first query on a topic, using a programmed computer, a first set of documents from a first content source at a first cost;

receiving, in response to a second query on the topic, a second set of documents from a second content source at a second cost;

receiving, in response to a third query on the topic, a third set of documents from a third content source at a third cost;

selecting a combination of the second set of documents and the third set of documents when the sum of the second cost and the third cost is below the first cost and when relevance to the topic of the combination of the second set of documents and the third set of documents is greater than relevance to the topic of the first set of documents;

otherwise,

selecting the first set of documents.