Providing contextual information for spoken information

• US 8,560,323 B2
• Filed: 06/28/2011
• Issued: 10/15/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 08/18/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Nuance Communications, Inc. (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Madhavapeddi, Shreedhar, Pollard, John F.
• Primary Examiner(s): Shah, Paras D
• Application Number:
  US13/170,463
• Publication Number:
  US 20110255671A1
• Time in Patent Office: 840 Days
• Field of Search: 704/235, 704/275, 704/231, 705/14.4, 705/14.67, 379/88.01, 379/88.04, 379/88.08, 379/88.12, 379/88.22, 379/114.13, 379/114.1
• US Class Current: 704/275
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0241 Advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0251 Targeted advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0267 Wireless devices
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2201/40 using speech recognition speech recognition per se G10L15/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2203/353 where the information comprises non-audio but is provided over voice channels protocols for multimedia information services per se H04L65/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2203/4518 Attachments to voicemail messages including annexed information, e.g. Attachments, in packet switching networks H04L51/08
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2207/18 wireless networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/4878 Advertisement messages
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/53366 Message disposing or creating aspects

Abstract

Techniques are described for providing relevant information to users (e.g., information that is at least potentially of interest to the users). Relevant information for a user may be automatically determined based on a determined context of the user and/or on a request for that information from the user. For example, voice-based information may be obtained from a user in one or more ways, and then analyzed to identify requests or other indications of information of interest and/or to otherwise determine a context of the user that corresponds to potential information of interest. Relevant information for a user may be provided to the user in various ways, such as via a voice-based response during a telephone call and/or via one or more electronic messages sent to the user (e.g., via emails, instant messages, paging messages, SMS or other text messages, etc.).

Claims

1. A method for a computing device in a voice-based service to provide relevant promotional material based on spoken information, the method comprising:

receiving a spoken voice message intended for one or more recipients that is provided by a user during a telephone call;

automatically transcribing the spoken voice message via speech-to-text translation in order to produce a text memo;

analyzing contents of the text memo to identify an expression present in the text memo, the expression comprising at least one word and being associated with one or more pieces of promotional material;

using the identified expression to select a piece of promotional material relevant to the voice message; and

sending the selected piece of promotional material with a portion of the text memo to at least one of the recipients in an electronic message, wherein a recipient is the user, and wherein the user has previously registered with the voice-based service and provided the voice-based service with one or more electronic message addresses for the user to which the electronic message is sent.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the voice-based service provides functionality to multiple users, and wherein receiving the spoken voice message provided by the user during the telephone call includes receiving the telephone call from the user using a telephone connection of the voice-based service and recording the spoken voice message during the telephone call.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the user has previously provided the voice-based service with demographic information specific to the user, and wherein the piece of promotional information is selected based at least in part on the previously provided demographic information specific to the user.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more electronic messages include at least one of an email message, an instant message, and a text message.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein sending promotional material with a portion of the text memo includes storing the promotional material together with at least a portion of the text memo in such a manner that the promotional material is provided together with the at least a portion of the text memo to a recipient who retrieves the at least a portion of the text memo.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the piece of promotional material includes a coupon and/or a promotional code.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the piece of promotional material includes an advertisement for a product and/or service.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the received voice message includes a reminder to the user to perform an action at a later time.

9. The method of claim 1 further comprising providing an audio version of at least a portion of the spoken voice message, in conjunction with the provided portion of the text memo and the provided promotional material, to at least one of the recipients.

10. A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium whose contents enable a computing system in a voice-based service to provide relevant promotional material based on spoken information, by performing a method comprising:

receiving spoken information provided by a user during a telephone call, the spoken information from the user including an expression that comprises at least one word; and

responding to the user by;

automatically transcribing the spoken information received from the user via speech-to-text translation in order to generate textual information;

analyzing the textual information to identify the included expression;

using the identified expression to select promotional information relevant to the spoken information; and

sending the selected promotional information to the user in an electronic message and in conjunction with a portion of the textual information, wherein the user has previously registered with the voice-based service and provided the voice-based service with one or more electronic message addresses for the user to which the electronic message is sent.

11. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 10 wherein the voice-based service provides functionality to multiple users and to multiple advertisers, the multiple advertisers each specifying one or more expressions and for each specified expression, providing information about an advertised product that is associated with the specified expression, so that an expression in spoken information provided to the voice-based service by a user causes the user to receive information about the advertised product that is associated with the expression.

12. A computing system in a voice-based service configured to provide relevant information based on spoken information, comprising:

a memory storing computer executable instructions of;

a component configured to;

receive spoken information from a user during a telephone call with a voice-based service; and

transcribe the spoken information received from the user using text-to-speech translation in order to generate a textual representation of the spoken information from the user; and

a component configured to send relevant information to an intended recipient of the spoken information by;

analyzing the textual representation of the spoken information from the user to identify an expression in the received spoken information, the expression comprising one or more words;

using the identified expression to select a piece of relevant information to provide to the intended recipient; and

providing the selected piece of relevant information to the intended recipient in conjunction with a portion of the textual representation of the spoken information by sending one or more electronic messages to the intended recipient using an electronic message address associated with the intended recipient, wherein the intended recipient is the user, and wherein the user has previously registered with the voice-based service and provided the voice-based service with one or more electronic message addresses for the user; and

a processor for executing the computer-executable instructions stored in the memory.

13. The computing system of claim 12 wherein the spoken information received from the user is a voice.

14. The computing system of claim 12 wherein the spoken information received from the user is a voice message and the intended recipient is another user.

15. The computing system of claim 12 wherein the identified expression in the spoken information received from the user is an expression previously indicated by an advertiser to be associated with an advertised product, and wherein the provided piece of relevant information includes information about the advertised product.

16. The computing system of claim 12 wherein the electronic message is an email message, an instant message, or a text message.

17. The computing system of claim 12 wherein the selected piece of relevant information includes a coupon and/or a promotional code.