System and method for processing a clickstream in a parallel processing architecture

• US 9,129,032 B2
• Filed: 10/24/2007
• Issued: 09/08/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 03/07/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: comScore, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Compete, Inc. (comScore, Inc.)
• Inventors: Cancel, David, Gillett, Christopher C.
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen, Thuong
• Application Number:
  US11/923,485
• Publication Number:
  US 20080177778A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,876 Days
• Field of Search: 709/224, 709/246, 707/102, 715/704, 715/745, 715/779, 705/8, 705/10
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/958 Organisation or management of web site content, e.g. publishing, maintaining pages or automatic linking
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising

Abstract

An aspect of the present invention relates to tracking a computer user'"'"'s web browsing behavior by collecting web browser click events as a clickstream and and processing the clickstream in a parallel processing architecture.

Claims

1. A method of recording web browser click event data, comprising:

providing a data collection agent (DCA) that records web browser click events across a plurality of web sites;

receiving the web browser click events from the DCA, as a click-stream, at a data collection server (DCS);

processing the click-stream to generate a web browser usage pattern;

identifying communications to present to the user, wherein a content of each communication is based on a result of processing the click-stream;

identifying a frequency of communication, based on a presentation parameter, wherein the presentation parameter is controllable by the user; and

transmitting the communications to the user at the identified frequency, wherein when the web browser usage pattern is generated, a new visual media segment is generated based at least in part on the web browser usage pattern, the new visual media segment requesting a further user action disposed entirely within the visual media segment.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising creating a time series ordered list of web browser click events for an individual user.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising tracking a sequence of events for an individual user.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising removing personal information from web browser click events, wherein removing user personal information comprises replacing personal information in the web browser click events with a plurality of characters.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the processing generates a competitive comparison of web site viewing trends.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein processing comprises ordering the web browser click events into categories of collected events.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein processing comprises:

determining which of the web browser click events are pertinent and which are non-pertinent; and

discarding the non-pertinent web browser click events.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising synchronizing the recording of web browser click events at the DCA by obtaining a time stamp from the DCS.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the presentation parameter forms the basis for an additional feature of the communication to be presented to the user.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the additional feature includes a size of the communication.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the additional feature includes a location of the communication.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein the additional feature includes a color of the communication.

13. The method of claim 9, wherein the additional feature includes a sound of the communication.

14. The method of claim 9, wherein the additional feature includes an appearance of the communication.

15. The method of claim 9, wherein the additional feature includes an indication of who is sending, responsible for, or associated with the communication.

16. The method of claim 9, wherein the additional feature includes a movement of the communication.

17. The method of claim 9, wherein the additional feature includes an action that can be executed by the user in the communication.

18. The method of claim 9, wherein the additional feature includes a visual effect of the communication.