SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR DETERMINING WEBSITE POPULARITY BY LOCATION

• US 20100082526A1
• Filed: 09/24/2008
• Published: 04/01/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 09/24/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Wassingbo, Tomas Karl-Axel
• Granted Patent: US 8,725,727 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/603
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9537 Spatial or temporal dependent retrieval, e.g. spatiotemporal queries
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0876 Network utilisation, e.g. volume of load or congestion level
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/021 Services related to particular areas, e.g. point of interest [POI] services, venue services or geofences
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/029 Location-based management or tracking services

Abstract

Internet websites that are popular for users in a specific location are determined and displayed to a user of an electronic device. The popularity information may be of benefit to users in the location or to users of inherently portable devices, such as a mobile telephone or a laptop computer, that travel to the location. In one embodiment, position data relating to devices used to access websites is used to establish statistics regarding the most visited websites based on location. For instance, positioning data may be added to “webpage look-up/URL requests” that are made by the devices. This data may be transmitted to a server for deriving of the statistics.

Claims

1. A method of determining popularity of Internet content by location, comprising:

collecting and storing Internet usage data from plural electronic devices across a geographic area, the Internet usage data comprising data objects, each data object generated when a user of one of the electronic devices uses a browser to visit a website and each data object including an identification of the visited website and a position of the electronic device from which a request for the visited website was made; and

for a specified location, analyzing the Internet usage data to construct a list of the most visited websites by electronic devices for which the positions in the data objects are in the specified location, and transmitting the list to an electronic device that generated the specified location.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the specified location includes a current physical position of the electronic device that generated the specified location.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the specified location is defined by a user of the electronic device that generated the specified location.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the electronic devices from which the Internet usage data is collected are portable electronic devices.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the portable electronic devices are mobile telephones.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the list is ordered by popularity rank.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the list is filtered to remove websites that have universal popularity across the geographic area.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the list is filtered by a time parameter.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the time parameter is used to identify current website usage for the specified location.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the time parameter is used to identify website popularity over a specified period of time.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising revising the list based on a redefinition of the specified location, the redefinition being one of an enlargement of a size of the specified location or a reduction of the size of the specified location.

12. A method of determining popularity of Internet content by location using an electronic device, comprising:

requesting a list of popular websites by a specified location within a geographic area from a server;

receiving a list of popular websites from the server; and

displaying a map of the location together with the received list of popular websites;

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the websites in the displayed list are active links to the corresponding websites.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein the specified location includes a current physical position of the electronic device.

15. The method of claim 12, wherein the specified location is defined by a user of the electronic device.

16. The method of claim 12, wherein the list is filtered to remove websites that have universal popularity across the geographic area.

17. The method of claim 12, wherein the list is filtered by a time parameter.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the time parameter is used to identify current website usage for the specified location.

19. The method of claim 17, wherein the time parameter is used to identify website popularity over a specified period of time.

20. The method of claim 12, further comprising revising the list based on a redefinition of the specified location, the redefinition being one of an enlargement of a size of the specified location or a reduction of the size of the specified location.