METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR MAINTAINING CONTENT VIEW STATISTICS IN A NAMED DATA NETWORK

• US 20150248542A1
• Filed: 03/03/2014
• Published: 09/03/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 03/03/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Palo Alto Research Center, Inc. (Xerox Holdings Corp.)
• Inventors: Mahadevan, Priya, Scott, Glenn C., Meike, Roger C.
• Granted Patent: US 9,147,051 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/10 Protecting distributed programs or content, e.g. vending or licensing of copyrighted material protection in video systems or pay television H04N7/16 ; Digital rights management [DRM]

Abstract

A client device that obtains a data object for a local user, and can detect a check-in requirement in the data object that instructs the client device to share demographic information with a content broker. The client device generates a check-in message that indicates the data object, and includes identifying information for the local user or the local client device. The client device sends the check-in message to the content broker to share the identifying information. The content broker can analyze the check-in message to determine the user'"'"'s identifying information, and to determine the data object being consumed by the user. The media broker then stores or aggregates the user'"'"'s demographic information in a repository, in association with the data object. The media broker generates a response packet that grants the client device access to the data object'"'"'s contents, and returns the response packet to the client device.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

receiving, by a media broker, a check-in message from a client device consuming a data object;

analyzing the check-in message to determine at least the data object being consumed by the client device, and identifying information for the client device or a user of the client device;

determining demographic information for the client device or the user based on the identifying information from the check-in message;

accounting for the demographic information in association with the data object;

responsive to receiving the check-in message, generating a response packet that satisfies the check-in message, wherein the response packet grants the client device access to present the data object'"'"'s contents to the user; and

returning the response packet to satisfy the check-in message.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein analyzing the check-in message involves obtaining a unique identifier for the client device or the user, wherein the unique identifier includes at least one of a public key or any other secure identifier that is unique to the client device or the user of the client device;

and

wherein determining the demographic information involves querying a demographic-information repository based on the unique identifier.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein analyzing the check-in message involves obtaining, from the check-in message, one or more demographic-information attributes that characterize the client device or a user of the client device, wherein the demographic-information attributes include one or more of:

location information;

demographic information; and

a session identifier.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein accounting for the demographic information involves aggregating a respective demographic-information attribute into a corresponding aggregated-attribute value of a demographic-information repository, wherein the aggregated-attribute value aggregates demographic information from a plurality of users.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein accounting for the demographic information involves storing the determined demographic information in a demographic-information repository in association with the data object.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the response packet includes a secret sauce that includes instructions for the client device to decode the data object.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving an Interest that requests aggregated demographic information for the data object;

generating an analytics report that includes aggregated demographic information for clients that have consumed the data object;

generating a Content Object whose payload includes the analytics report; and

disseminating the Content Object over a named-data network to satisfy the Interest.

8. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions that when executed by a computer cause the computer to perform a method, the method comprising:

receiving a check-in message from a client device consuming a data object;

analyzing the check-in message to determine at least the data object being consumed by the client device, and identifying information for the client device or a user of the client device;

determining demographic information for the client device or the user based on the identifying information from the check-in message;

accounting for the demographic information in association with the data object;

responsive to receiving the check-in message, generating a response packet that satisfies the check-in message, wherein the response packet grants the client device access to present the data object'"'"'s contents to the user; and

returning the response packet to satisfy the check-in message.

9. The storage medium of claim 8, wherein analyzing the check-in message involves obtaining a unique identifier for the client device or the user, wherein the unique identifier includes at least one of a public key or any other secure identifier that is unique to the client device or the user of the client device;

and

wherein determining the demographic information involves querying a demographic-information repository based on the unique identifier.

10. The storage medium of claim 8, wherein analyzing the check-in message involves obtaining, from the check-in message, one or more demographic-information attributes that characterize the client device or a user of the client device, wherein the demographic-information attributes include one or more of:

location information;

demographic information; and

a session identifier.

11. The storage medium of claim 8, wherein accounting for the demographic information involves aggregating a respective demographic-information attribute into a corresponding aggregated-attribute value of a demographic-information repository, wherein the aggregated-attribute value aggregates demographic information from a plurality of users.

12. The storage medium of claim 8, wherein accounting for the demographic information involves storing the determined demographic information in a demographic-information repository in association with the data object.

13. The storage medium of claim 8, wherein the response packet includes a secret sauce that includes instructions for the client device to decode the data object.

14. The storage medium of claim 8, further comprising:

receiving an Interest that requests aggregated demographic information for the data object;

generating an analytics report that includes aggregated demographic information for clients that have consumed the data object;

generating a Content Object whose payload includes the analytics report; and

disseminating the Content Object over a named-data network to satisfy the Interest.

15. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

obtaining, by a client device, a data object to present to a local user;

detecting, in the data object, a check-in requirement that includes a reference to a content broker that maintains aggregated demographic information on a plurality of client devices that consume the data object;

generating a check-in message, which includes a reference to the data object, and includes identifying information for the local user or the local client device;

sending the check-in message to the content broker to share the identifying information with the content broker; and

responsive to sending the check-in message, presenting the data object'"'"'s contents to the local user.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the identifying information includes one or more of:

a unique identifier for the local client device;

a unique identifier for the local user;

demographic information for the local user;

contextual information for the local client device; and

a public key that is unique to the client device.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein the data object includes one or more of:

a web page;

a video stream;

an audio stream;

a file;

a document; and

executable code.

18. The method of claim 15, wherein sending the check-in message involves:

generating an Interest whose name includes a routable prefix for the content broker, and includes the check-in message;

disseminating the Interest across a named-data network; and

responsive to disseminating the Interest, receiving a Content Object that grants the local device access to the data object'"'"'s contents.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the Content Object includes one or more of:

a confirmation message that allows the client device to present the data object'"'"'s contents to the local user;

a decryption key for decrypting the data object'"'"'s contents; and

one or more data blocks to insert into the data object to generate a personalized data object for the local user.

20. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

receiving, by a media broker from a client device, a request for a secret sauce that corresponds to a data object being consumed by the client device, wherein the secret sauce includes instructions for the client device to decode the data object;

in response to receiving the request for the secret sauce, updating content-view statistics for the data object;

generating a response packet that includes the secret sauce; and

returning the response packet to satisfy the request.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein updating the content-view statistics involves:

determining, from the request, identifying information for the client device or a user of the client device;

determining demographic information for the client device or the user based on the identifying information; and

accounting for the demographic information in association with the data object.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein the identifying information includes at least one of a public key or any other secure identifier that is unique to the client device and/or the user;

and

wherein determining the demographic information involves querying a demographic-information repository based on the unique identifier.

23. The method of claim 21, wherein determining the identifying information involves obtaining, from the request, one or more demographic-information attributes that characterize the client device or a user of the client device, wherein the demographic-information attributes include one or more of:

location information;

demographic information; and

a session identifier.

24. The method of claim 21, wherein accounting for the demographic information involves one or more of:

aggregating a demographic-information attribute from a plurality of users; and

storing the determined demographic information in a demographic-information repository in association with the data object.

25. The method of claim 20, further comprising:

receiving a request for aggregated demographic information for the data object;

generating an analytics report that includes aggregated demographic information for clients that have consumed the data object; and

returning a response packet that includes the analytics report to satisfy the request.