Predicting content choices by searching a profile database

• US 6,757,691 B1
• Filed: 11/09/1999
• Issued: 06/29/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 11/09/1999
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Oath Inc. (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Original Assignee: America Online Inc. (Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc.)
• Inventors: Escobar, George D., Welsh, Patrick
• Primary Examiner(s): ROBINSON, GRETA LEE
• Application Number:
  US09/436,703
• Time in Patent Office: 1,694 Days
• Field of Search: 707/104.1, 707/10, 707/5, 707/200, 707/4, 707/100, 705/10, 705/26, 705/27, 709/218, 725/46, 345/721
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• 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 21/44224 Monitoring of user activity on external systems, e.g. Internet browsing
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4668 for recommending content, e.g. movies
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4756 for rating content, e.g. scoring a recommended movie
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4826 using recommendation lists, e.g. of programs or channels sorted out according to their score
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17318 Direct or substantially direct transmission and handling of requests
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99948 Application of database or data structure, e.g. distributed, multimedia, or image

Abstract

Managing a user'"'"'s content choices includes predicting one or more content choices that are likely to be of interest to a user based on a degree of matching between a psychographic profile for the user and available content. The predicted content choices are then presented to the user.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method of managing a user'"'"'s content choices, the method comprising:

receiving an identifier associated with a user and indicating a psychographic profile for a group of multiple users;

searching a profile database to access the psychographic profile indicated by the identifier;

predicting one or more content choices that are likely to be of interest to the user based on a relationship between the accessed psychographic profile and available content; and

presenting the predicted content choices to the user.

2. The method of claim 1, in which the identifier is received from a content provider.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising monitoring the user'"'"'s activities and continually refining the associated psychographic profile based on the user'"'"'s activities.

4. The method of claim 3, in which monitoring comprises monitoring one or more of a user'"'"'s inputs, the inputs including keystrokes, mouse clicks, remote control button activations, or any combination thereof.

5. The method of claim 3, in which monitoring comprises detecting patterns in the user'"'"'s inputs.

6. The method of claim 3, in which user activities comprise a user'"'"'s visit to a content choice, a user'"'"'s purchase of a product, or a user'"'"'s history of content selections.

7. The method of claim 3, in which user activities comprise a user'"'"'s response to one or more questions or prompts.

8. The method of claim 1, in which the psychographic profile is based on a user'"'"'s behavior.

9. The method of claim 8, in which the user'"'"'s behavior comprises browsing and purchasing patterns.

10. The method of claim 1, in which the psychographic profile is based on other users'"'"' behavior.

11. The method of claim 10, in which other users'"'"' behavior comprises demographic or affinity patterns of users.

12. The method of claim 1, in which the relationship is based on external conditions.

13. The method of claim 12, in which the external conditions comprise weather conditions, temporal conditions or user location conditions.

14. The method of claim 1, in which the relationship is based on expert choices.

15. The method of claim 1, in which the relationship is based on premium content provider choices.

16. The method of claim 1, in which the relationship is based on ranked lists of content choices.

17. The method of claim 1, in which predicting one or more content choices comprises randomly selecting one or more content choices.

18. The method of claim 1, in which the relationship is based on probability-weighted mappings from a psychographic profile to one or more categories of content.

19. The method of claim 18, in which a content category comprises a variety of experiences, resources, and capabilities of content choices that fall within one or more of the content categories.

20. The method of claim 18, in which content categorization comprises accessing and classifying a substantial plurality of content choices.

21. The method of claim 20, in which content categorization comprises analyzing data within content to determine relationships among content data.

23. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining a user'"'"'s psychographic profile by determining a configuration of a user'"'"'s computer system.

24. The method of claim 1, in which presenting the predicted content choices comprises outputting the content choices to a content provider.

25. The method of claim 24, in which outputting the content choices to the content provider comprises causing the content provider to display content choices in an electronic programming guide.

27. The method of claim 1 in which the content choices include audio.

28. The method of claim 27 in which the audio includes music.

29. The method of claim 1 in which the available content includes audio.

30. The method of claim 29 in which the audio includes music.

35. The method of claim 3 further comprising refining the psychographic profile based on the monitoring.

36. The method of claim 3 further comprising building a psychographic profile based on the monitoring.

37. The method of claim 5 further comprising encoding and storing the detected patterns.

38. The method of claim 5 in which detecting patterns further comprises detecting patterns in real time.

39. The method of claim 5 in which detecting patterns further comprises detecting patterns while the user is offline.

40. The method of claim 5 which detecting patterns comprises tagging one or more selected user inputs.

41. The method of claim 40 in which tagging comprises XML tagging.

42. The method of claim 40 in which tagging comprises buy-decision logging.

43. The method of claim 40 in which tagging comprises homepage tagging.

44. The method of claim 40 in which tagging comprises Favorites/Bookmark list tagging.

45. The method of claim 40 in which tagging comprises repeated-site-visit tagging.

46. The method of claim 40 in which tagging comprises recommendation tagging.

47. The method of claim 40 in which tagging comprises plug-in tagging.

22. A computer-implemented method of managing a user'"'"'s content choices, the method comprising:

receiving an identifier associated with a user and indicating a psychographic profile for a group of multiple users;

searching a profile database to access the psychographic profile indicated by the identifier;

predicting one or more content choices that are likely to be of interest to the user based on a relationship between the accessed psychographic profile and available content,

in which the relationship is based on probability-weighted mappings from a psychographic profile to one or more categories of content,

in which content categorization comprises accessing and classifying a substantial plurality of content choices,

in which content categorization comprises analyzing data within content to determine relationships among content data;

in which data relationships include;

relevancy that indicates whether the data is what the user is searching for,

parallax that indicates a different view of the same data exists,

registry that indicates an object with which the data is affiliated,

selection that indicates how the data was collected,

analysis that indicates if another piece of data exists that is critical of the current data,

construction that indicates a structure of the data, and

position that indicates a realtime position and direction of the user; and

presenting the predicted content choices to the user.

26. Software in a computer-readable medium comprising instructions for causing a computer system to perform the following operations:

receive an identifier associated with a user and indicating a psychographic profile for a group of multiple users;

search a profile database to access the psychographic profile indicated by the identifier;

predict one or more content choices that are likely to be of interest to the user based on a relationship between the accessed psychographic profile and available content; and

present the predicted content choices to the user.

31. The software of claim 26 in which the content choices include audio.

32. The software of claim 31 in which the audio includes music.

33. The software of claim 26 in which the available content includes audio.

34. The software of claim 33 in which the audio includes music.

48. A method comprising:

maintaining one or more user-independent psychographic profiles, each psychographic profile corresponding to user content preferences for a group of multiple users;

assigning an identifier to a psychographic profile;

associating the identifier with a first user;

associating the identifier with a second user;

predicting content choices for the first user based on the psychographic profile assigned to the identifier associated with the first user; and

providing to the first user a personalized electronic programming guide listing the predicted content choices.