Zooming interaction tracking and popularity determination

• US 9,037,975 B1
• Filed: 02/10/2012
• Issued: 05/19/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 02/10/2012
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Inventors: Taylor, Brett R., Keller, Kevin E., Hayden, Andrew
• Primary Examiner(s): Bashore, William
• Assistant Examiner(s): Chowdhury, Rayeez
• Application Number:
  US13/371,246
• Time in Patent Office: 1,194 Days
• Field of Search: 715/733
• US Class Current: 715/733
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9577 Optimising the visualization of content, e.g. distillation of HTML documents

Abstract

Various features are provided for assisting users in efficiently locating and viewing network content of interest, including but not limited to particular portions of web pages. The features are particularly useful for users of mobile computing devices having a limited display size, but may be used with any type of client device. Some features identify popular content items by collectively analyzing the interactive behaviors of a population of users, such as zooming interactions. The results of such analysis can be used in various ways to improve users'"'"' browsing experiences. For example, popular content items can be highlighted on a web page, an option to zoom in automatically on popular content items can be provided, popular content items may be rendered at relatively high resolution, and caching of content items may be based partly on a measure of their popularity.

Claims

1. A system for assessing popularity levels of network content objects, the system comprising:

a server comprising hardware configured to execute specific instructions, the server operable to;

receive interaction data from a plurality of client computing devices, wherein the interaction data received from individual client computing devices of the plurality of client computing devices reflects a zooming interaction, processed exclusively at the client computing device, to zoom a display of the client computing device on a particular portion of a plurality of portions of a content page, and wherein the zooming interaction is performed independently of any content request;

determine a popularity level of at least one portion of the plurality of portions of the content page, wherein the popularity level is based at least in part on a measure of zooming interactions, performed independently of content requests and processed exclusively at client computing devices, associated with the at least one portion relative to zooming interactions, performed independently of content requests and processed exclusively at client computing devices, associated with one or more other portions of the plurality of portions of the content page; and

store, in an electronic data store, popularity data indicating the popularity level of the at least one portion.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein interaction data comprises at least one of a representation of the particular portion of the content page on which the display was zoomed, display coordinates of the particular portion of the content page on which the display was zoomed, or a layout tag associated with the particular portion of the content page on which the display was zoomed.

3. The system of claim 1, where the server is further operable to:

determine a second content page that is related to the content page, wherein the determination based at least in part on interaction data associated with the content page and interaction data associated with the second content page; and

transmit a network address of the second content page to a client computing device in response to a request for the content page.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the server is further operable to receive navigation data from the plurality of client computing devices, wherein the navigation data indicates a previous content page from which a user navigated to the content page on which the user zoomed the display, and wherein determining the second content page related to the content page is based at least in part on the previous content page.

5. The system of claim 3, wherein the server is further operable to receive demographic data from the plurality of client computing devices, wherein demographic data indicates a characteristic of a user of a client computing device, and wherein determining the second content page related to the content page is based at least in part on the demographic data.

6. Non-transitory physical computer storage comprising instructions stored therein for implementing, in one or more processors, operations for identifying popular network content, the operations comprising:

displaying, to a user of a client computing device, a content page comprising a plurality of content items;

receiving, from the user, touch input indicating a portion of the content page on which to zoom display of the content page, the portion comprising at least one content item of the plurality of content items, wherein the touch input indicating the portion of the content page on which to zoom display is performed independently of any content request;

processing, exclusively at the client computing device, the touch input to zoom the display of the content page on the portion; and

transmitting interaction data to a network node, wherein the interaction data indicates the at least one content item on which the user zoomed the display of the content page independently of any content request.

7. The non-transitory physical computer storage of claim 6, wherein the interaction data comprises coordinates of the at least one content item on which the user zoomed the display.

8. The non-transitory physical computer storage of claim 6, wherein the interaction data comprises a representation of at least one content item on which the user zoomed the display.

9. The non-transitory physical computer storage of claim 6, wherein the interaction data comprises an identifier of at least one content item on which the user zoomed the display.

10. The non-transitory physical computer storage of claim 6, the operations further comprising transmitting navigation data to the network node, wherein the navigation data indicates a content page from which the user navigated to the content page on which the user zoomed the display.

11. The non-transitory physical computer storage of claim 6, the operations further comprising transmitting navigation data to the network node, wherein the navigation data indicates a content page to which the user navigated from the content page on which the user zoomed the display.

12. The non-transitory physical computer storage of claim 6, the operations further comprising transmitting demographic data to the network node, wherein the demographic data indicates a characteristic of the user.

13. The non-transitory physical computer storage of claim 6, the operations further comprising transmitting identification data to the network node, wherein the identification data comprises a unique identifier of the user.

14. The non-transitory physical computer storage of claim 6, the operations further comprising causing display of an input control to the user in response to the user indicating a portion of the content page on which to zoom the display, wherein user activation of the input control causes display of a related content page.

15. The non-transitory physical computer storage of claim 14, wherein the related content page is associated the content page and with a popularity rank that exceeds a threshold.

16. The non-transitory physical computer storage of claim 15, wherein a network address of the related content page is received from the network node prior to the user indicating at least one content item on which to zoom the display.

17. The non-transitory physical computer storage of claim 15, wherein a network address of the related content page is received from the network node in response to transmitting the interaction data.

18. A computer-implemented method for assessing popularity levels of network content, the computer-implemented method comprising:

as implemented by one or more server computing devices configured to execute specific instructions,

receiving, from mobile computing devices of a plurality of users, interaction data reflective of zooming actions performed by said users on a network-accessible content page, wherein the network-accessible content page comprises a plurality of content items, and wherein the zooming actions are processed exclusively at the mobile computing devices and do not cause content to be requested from a server;

calculating respective popularity levels of each of the plurality of content items, the respective popularity levels calculated based at least on the zooming actions that do not cause content to be requested from a server and that are processed exclusively at the mobile computing devices; and

storing popularity data indicating the popularity level of at least one of the content items in an electronic data store.

19. The computer-implemented method of claim 18, wherein the popularity data indicates that a first content item of the at least one of the content items is associated with the highest popularity level of the plurality of content items of the content page.

20. The computer-implemented method of claim 18, further comprising receiving eye movement data reflective of eye movements of said users when viewing the content page, wherein calculating the popularity levels is further based at least in part on the eye movement data.

21. The computer-implemented method of claim 18, wherein a popularity level of a content item is calculated relative to the popularity levels of other content items of the content page.

22. The computer-implemented method of claim 18, further comprising providing related content data to mobile computing devices, the related content data indicating a content page related to a content item having a popularity level exceeding a threshold.

23. The computer-implemented method of claim 18, further comprising receiving demographic data reflective of characteristics of said plurality of users.

24. The computer-implemented method of claim 23, wherein calculating respective popularity levels is further based at least in part on the demographic data.

25. The computer-implemented method of claim 23, further comprising determining a content page related to a content item based at least in part on the demographic data.

26. The computer-implemented method of claim 18, further comprising receiving navigation data reflective of network-accessible content pages previously accessed by said plurality of users.

27. The computer-implemented method of claim 26, wherein calculating respective popularity levels is further based at least in part on the navigation data.

28. The computer-implemented method of claim 26, further comprising determining a content page related to a content item based at least in part on the navigation data.

29. The computer-implemented method of claim 18, wherein the popularity level of at least one content item of the plurality of content items is calculated based at least in part on a measure zooming actions associated with the at least one content item relative to zooming actions associated with one or more other content items of the plurality of content items.