Configurable monitoring of program viewership and usage of interactive applications

• US 6,530,082 B1
• Filed: 04/30/1998
• Issued: 03/04/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 04/30/1998
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: OpenTV, Inc. (Kudelski SA)
• Original Assignee: Wink Communications Incorporated (Kudelski SA)
• Inventors: Del Sesto, Eric E., Travaille, Timothy V., Michel, Christopher J., Paquette, Jana J.
• Primary Examiner(s): Faile, Andrew
• Assistant Examiner(s): Koenig, Andrew Y
• Application Number:
  US09/071,003
• Time in Patent Office: 1,769 Days
• Field of Search: H04/N.900, H04/N.716, H04/N.710, H04/N.7025, H04/N.7173, G06/F 1.5173, G06/F 1.5163, G06/F.900, G06/F.954, G06/F.9445, 725/9, 725/20, 725/16, 725/32, 725/34, 725/100, 725/131, 725/139, 725/151, 725/14, 709/224, 709/310, 713/2
• US Class Current: 725/9
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 20/38 Arrangements for distribution where lower stations, e.g. receivers, interact with the broadcast
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/41 for identifying broadcast space, i.e. broadcast channels, broadcast stations or broadcast areas
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/64 for providing detail information
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/66 for using the result on distributors' side
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2543 Billing , e.g. for subscription services payment schemes, architectures or protocols G06Q20/00; e-commerce G06Q30/00; arrangements for billing for the use of broadcast information or broadcast-related information H04H60/21
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/25883 being end-user demographical data, e.g. age, family status or address arrangements for identifying locations of users in broadcast systems H04H60/52
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/25891 being end-user preferences retrieval of video data in a video database based on user preferences G06F16/739; arrangements for recognizing users' preferences H04H60/46; user profiles in network data switching protocols H04L67/306; processing of user preferences or user profiles in wireless networks H04W8/18
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44222 Analytics of user selections, e.g. selection of programs or purchase activity monitoring of user selections in data processing systems G06F11/34; arrangements for monitoring the user's behaviour or opinions in broadcast systems H04H60/33
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4722 for requesting additional data associated with the content
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17318 Direct or substantially direct transmission and handling of requests

Abstract

A system and method provide sophisticated analysis of program viewership by executing interactive applications that generate responses describing the viewers'"'"' behavior. A broadcast server maintains a database of interactive applications each preferably associated with a program that will be broadcast. The interactive applications preferably include monitoring interactive applications that are configured to selectively monitor viewership, interactive application usage, and reception terminal usage. When the program is broadcast, the monitoring interactive application is inserted into the broadcast feed and delivered to a broadcast receiver such as a television set-top box. The broadcast receiver includes a processor, memory, and other hardware necessary to execute the interactive application. When executed, the interactive application monitors usage of the broadcast receiver, including, for example, the program watched by the subscriber, the entry and exit paths to the program, whether the volume was changed during the program, and the usage of interactive applications. The monitored data is sent in a response packet to a local data center at, for example, the cable headend. The local data center supplements the response with subscriber information from one or more subscriber databases, including marketing information such as the subscriber'"'"'s age, race, and income. Information about all of the subscribers is aggregated by the local data center and transmitted to a master data center. The master data center aggregates all of the received information, supplements it if possible with additional subscriber information, and provides reports to the broadcaster indicating the geographic, demographic, and psychographic profiles of the program viewers.

Claims

1. A method of selectively monitoring subscriber usage of a subset of a plurality of broadcast receivers, which subset is less than the plurality of broadcast receivers, the method comprising the steps of:

receiving at the plurality of broadcast receivers an interactive application accompanying a broadcast program;

executing the interactive application at each broadcast receiver to selectively determine which broadcast receivers will be included in the subset of broadcast receivers for selectively monitoring subscriber usage;

responsive to the determination, configuring the subset of broadcast receivers to monitor specified selected attributes indicative of subscriber usage; and

storing data in the subset of broadcast receivers indicative of the monitored attributes.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising the steps of:

combining the stored data indicative of the monitored attributes from the subset of broadcast receivers; and

generating a report from the combined stored data describing the monitored attributes of the subset of broadcast receivers.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising the steps of:

specifying the selected attributes of the subset of broadcast receivers to be monitored by the interactive application;

storing within the interactive application program logic indicative of the selected attributes to be monitored; and

transmitting the interactive application to the subset of broadcast receivers.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the selected attributes of the broadcast receivers to be monitored include program viewership attributes.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein the selected attributes of the broadcast receivers to be monitored include interactive application usage attributes.

6. The method of claim 3, wherein the selected attributes of the broadcast receivers to be monitored include broadcast receiver usage attributes.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising the steps of:

determining when the broadcast program accompanying the interactive application will be transmitted on a broadcast feed; and

inserting the interactive application into the broadcast feed substantially contemporaneous with the transmission of the broadcast program.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of:

transmitting the stored data indicative of the monitored attributes from the broadcast receivers to a central database.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein a subset of broadcast receivers transmit stored data to the central database and further comprising the steps of:

aggregating the stored data indicative of the monitored attributes with subscriber information describing a subscriber with which the particular broadcast receiver that transmitted the stored data is associated; and

generating a report from the aggregated stored data and subscriber information describing the monitored attributes of the broadcast receiver and associated subscriber information.

10. A system for selectively monitoring subscriber usage of a subset of a plurality of broadcast receivers, which subset is less than the plurality of broadcast receivers, comprising:

a broadcaster for providing broadcast data including an interactive application for selectively monitoring subscriber usage;

a plurality of broadcast receivers receiving the broadcast data from the broadcaster and each broadcast receiver having a memory for storing the interactive application for selectively monitoring and an engine for extracting the interactive application from the broadcast data, executing the interactive application to determine a subset of the plurality of broadcast receivers for monitoring subscriber wage, and generating a response describing subscriber usage for each broadcast receiver in the subset of broadcast receivers; and

a data center for receiving responses generated by the subset of broadcast receivers executing the interactive application for selective monitoring and generating a report describing subscriber usage of the responding broadcast receivers.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the broadcaster comprises:

a broadcast server having a stored plurality of interactive applications including the interactive application for selective monitoring and receiving a playlist describing programs broadcast on a broadcast feed for retrieving particular ones of the stored plurality of interactive applications response to the playlist; and

a data insertion unit receiving the broadcast feed and the retrieved interactive applications from the broadcast server for inserting the received interactive applications into the broadcast feed to create the broadcast data.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the data insertion unit inserts the interactive applications into the vertical blanking interval of the broadcast feed.

13. The system of claim 10, wherein the data center comprises:

a response database for holding the responses generated by the subset of broadcast receivers; and

subscriber information database for holding information about subscribers having ones of the subset of broadcast receivers and information for cross-referencing the subscribers with the responses generated by the subset of broadcast receivers.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the data center generates a report including information from the subscriber information database describing the subscribers having responding broadcast receivers.

15. The system of claim 10, further comprising:

a plurality of data centers each for receiving and aggregating responses generated by a geographically related subset of the plurality of broadcast receivers; and

a master data center for receiving and further aggregating the aggregate responses from the plurality of data centers and generating a report therefrom describing the responding broadcast receivers.

16. The system of claim 10, wherein the broadcast receivers receive the broadcast data from the broadcaster and transmits responses to the data center via a single transmission medium.

17. The system of claim 10, wherein the subset of broadcast receivers receive the broadcast data from the broadcaster via a first transmission medium and transmit responses to the data center via a second transmission medium different than the first transmission medium.

18. A method of generating a usage report describing a subset of a plurality of remote broadcast receivers, which subset is less than the plurality of broadcast receivers, receiving a broadcast feed from a broadcaster, the method comprising the steps of:

defining an interactive application specifying characteristics of the subset of remote broadcast receivers to be monitored;

transmitting the interactive application with the broadcast feed to a plurality of remote broadcast receivers;

executing the interactive application at each broadcast receiver to determine a subset of the plurality of broadcast receivers to generate responses;

responsive to the determinations, configuring the subset of remote broadcast receivers to generate responses describing the specified characteristics to be monitored;

transmitting the responses from the subset of remote broadcast receivers to a data center; and

generating a report from the responses received by the data center, the report describing usage of the monitored characteristics of the subset of remote broadcast receivers.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the step of transmitting the interactive application with the broadcast feed to the subset of remote broadcast receivers comprises the step of:

inserting the interactive application into a vertical blanking interval of the broadcast feed.

20. The method of claim 18, wherein the step of transmitting the interactive application with the broadcast feed to the subset of remote broadcast receivers comprises the steps of:

retrieving die interactive application from an interactive application database responsive to the broadcasting on the broadcast feed of a program associated with the interactive application; and

inserting the retrieved interactive application into the broadcast feed substantially concurrent with the broadcast of the associated program.

21. The method of claim 18, wherein the defining step further comprises the step of:

defining the interactive application to monitor viewership characteristics of the subset of remote broadcast receivers.

22. The method of claim 18, wherein the defining step further comprises the step of defining the interactive application to monitor characteristics of a second interactive application executed by the subset of remote broadcast receivers.

23. The method of claim 18, wherein the step of transmitting the responses from the subset of the remote broadcast receivers to a data center comprises the step of:

transmitting the responses responsive to an occurrence of a triggering event.

24. The method of claim 23, wherein the triggering event is specified by the interactive application.

25. The method of claim 18, wherein the generating step comprises the steps of:

aggregating each received response with subscriber information describing a subscriber who generated the response; and

describing the subscriber information in the report.

26. A method of monitoring program viewership in a television program delivery system having a plurality of broadcast receivers, the method comprising the steps of:

receiving at each broadcast receiver an interactive application, the interactive application configured to monitor selected attributes of particular ones of the plurality of broadcast receivers;

executing the interactive application at each broadcast receiver to determine a subset of the plurality of broadcast receivers for monitoring specified selected attributes, which subset is less than tile plurality of broadcast receivers; and

responsive to the determination, monitoring the selected attributes of the subset of broadcast receivers.

27. A computer-readable medium having store thereon instructions which, when executed by a processor in a broadcast receiver, cause the processor to perform the steps of:

executing an interactive application to determine if the broadcast receiver is one of a subset of a plurality of broadcast receivers for monitoring specified selected attributes, which subset is less than the plurality of broadcast receivers; and

responsive to the determination, monitoring the selected attributes of the broadcast receiver.

28. A computer-readable medium having store thereon instructions which, when executed by a processor in a broadcast receiver, cause the processor to perform the steps of:

executing an interactive application to determine if the broadcast receiver is one of a subset of a plurality of broadcast receivers for monitoring specified selected attributes, which subset is less than the plurality of broadcast receivers;

responsive to the determination, configuring the broadcast receiver to monitor specified selected attributes; and

storing data in the broadcast receiver indicative of the monitored attributes.

29. A broadcast receiver for selectively monitoring program viewership in a television program delivery system comprising:

means for receiving an interactive application accompanying a broadcast program;

means for executing the interactive application to selectively determine if the broadcast receiver is one of a subset of a plurality of broadcast receivers for monitoring specified selected attributes, which subset is less than the plurality of broadcast receivers;

means for configuring the broadcast receiver to monitor the specified selected attributes in response to said determination; and

means for storing data in the configured broadcast receiver indicative of the monitored attributes.