Method and system for service providers to personalize event notifications to users

• US 7,469,250 B2
• Filed: 12/07/2004
• Issued: 12/23/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 12/10/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Cresp, Jacques, Livigni, Fabrice, Bazot, Philippe, Sert, Richard
• Primary Examiner(s): ROBINSON, GRETA LEE
• Application Number:
  US11/006,117
• Publication Number:
  US 20050138063A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,477 Days
• Field of Search: 707/10, 707/104.1, 707/102, 707/100, 709/201, 709/203, 709/204, 709/206, 709/207, 709/238, 340/825, 340/825.01, 719/318
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/335 Filtering based on additional data, e.g. user or group profiles filtering in web context G06F16/9535, G06F16/9536
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation

Abstract

Personalized notifications are delivered to end users. A service provider receives, a content description from a content provider. The content description defines keywords, values attached to each keyword and a localization of values attached to each keyword in a piece of content. Each time a subscription request for a notification service related to the received content description is received from an end user, keywords values and the delivery channels selected by the user are recorded. A notification rule associated with the end user based on the selected keyword values and the localization of the selected keyword values in the content is generated. Each time a piece of content related to the content description is received from the content provider, the received piece of content is adapted to comply with the generated rules. For each rule previously generated, the values contained in the adapted piece of content are checked against the values as defined in the rule for each localization.

Claims

1. A method for delivering personalized notifications to at least one user for at least one delivery channel selected by said user, said method comprising the steps of:

receiving a content description from a content provider, said content description defining, for a piece of content received from said content provider, at least one keyword, said at least one keyword having at least one attached value, and a localization of said at least one attached value in said piece of content, wherein said content description comprises hierarchical relationships between each corresponding said keyword;

recording said at least one attached value and said at least one delivery channel selected by said user each time a subscription request for a notification service related to said content description, is received from said user;

generating a notification rule associated with said user based on said selected at least one attached value and said localization;

adapting said piece of content related to said content description to comply with said notification rule each time said piece of content is received from said content provider; and

checking for each localization, said adapted piece of content against said notification rule each time said piece of content is received from said content provider and for each rule previously generated; and

delivering personalized notifications to said user.

2. The method according to claim 1 wherein said recording step includes a preliminary step of generating a user interface based on said received content description.

3. The method according to claim 2 wherein said generating step includes a step of personalizing a generic user interface based on said at least one keyword, said at least one attached value and said hierarchical relationships included in said received content description.

4. The method according to claim 1 wherein, a hierarchical level is defined in said content description for said at least one keyword, each keyword of lower hierarchical level being associated with a keyword of higher hierarchical level.

5. The method according to claim 3 wherein said personalizing step includes a further step of displaying said hierarchical relationships through a plurality of trees, one tree for each top level keyword, each keyword value selected by said user resulting in the display of the values of one or a plurality of keywords of lower level associated with the keyword corresponding to the selected value.

6. The method according to claim 1 wherein said content description includes an indication for said at least one keyword whether or not the choice of several values is allowed.

7. The method according to claim 1 including a preliminary step of specifying a content type and a content format.

8. The method according to claim 1 wherein said content description is an XML (extended Markup Language) document.

9. The method according to claim 1 wherein said adapting step comprises a further step of adapting said piece of content based on said localization.

10. The method according to claim 1 wherein said checking step comprises a further step of sending a notification to said user associated with said notification rule, through at least one of said delivery channels if a match occurs between the values as defined in said notification rule and the values found in the adapted piece of content.

11. The method according to claim 1 wherein said checking step comprises a further step of ignoring said piece of content if no match occurs between the values as defined in said notification rule and the values found in said adapted piece of content.

12. The method according to claim 1 wherein said checking step is executed by means of a standard notification engine.

13. A system for delivering personalized notifications to at least one user for at least one delivery channel selected by said user, said system comprising:

means for receiving a content description from a content provider, said content description defining, for a piece of content received from said content provider, at least one keyword, said at least one keyword having at least one attached value, and a localization of said at least one attached value in said piece of content, wherein said content description comprises hierarchical relationships between each corresponding said keyword;

means for recording said at least one attached value and said at least one delivery channel selected by said user each time a subscription request for a notification service related to said content description is received from said user;

means for generating a notification rule associated with said user based on said selected at least one attached value and said localization;

means for adapting a piece of content related to said content description to comply with said notification rule each time said piece of content is received from said content provider; and

means for checking said adapted piece of content against said notification rule each time said piece of content is received from said content provider for each notification rule previously generated; and

means for delivering personalized notifications to said user.

14. A computer program product to deliver personalized notifications to at least one user for at least one delivery channel selected by said user, said computer program product comprising:

a computer readable medium;

first program instruction means for receiving a content description from a content provider, said content description defining, for a piece of content received from said content provider, at least one keyword, said at least one keyword having at least one attached value, and a localization of said at least one attached value in said piece of content, wherein said content description comprises hierarchical relationships between each corresponding said keyword;

second program instruction means for recording said at least one attached value and said at least one delivery channel selected by said user each time a subscription request for a notification service related to said content description is received from said user;

third program instruction means for generating a notification rule associated with said user based on said selected at least one attached value and said localization;

fourth program instruction means for adapting a piece of content related to said content description to comply with said notification rule each time said piece of content is received from said content provider;

fifth program instruction means for checking said adapted piece of content against said notification rule each time said piece of content is received from said content provider for each notification rule previously generated; and

sixth program instruction means for delivering personalized notifications to said user and wherein said first, second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth program instruction means are recorded on said medium.