HK1097615B - Content display monitor - Google Patents

Description

Content display monitor

This application is a divisional application of an invention patent application having an application number of 200410033713.4, a filing date of 1997, 8/29, and an invention name of "content display monitor".

Technical Field

The present invention relates to monitoring the display and viewing of content by a computer system. The invention also relates to monitoring, at a content presentation point, the presentation and viewing of content provided by a content provider point to the content presentation point over a network. The invention still further relates to the provision of updated and/or tailored content from a content provider point to a content display point such that the current content of the content provider is always displayed at the content display point.

Background

The vast majority of human activities include the dissemination of information by information providers (content providers) to information consumers (viewers). Recently, computer networks have become a very popular mechanism for enabling information dissemination. The use of computer networks for information dissemination has become necessary or has enabled new technologies to perform special roles in connection with information dissemination.

For example, all types of information providers are interested in knowing the scope and nature of the observations of the information that he disseminates. Information providers that disseminate information over computer networks also have this interest. However, since information can be accessed quickly from a remote location by any of a large number of possible observations, their identity is often not known in advance; and since display control through already disseminated information is impossible, impractical, and undesirable, employing networked computers for information dissemination makes it difficult to determine who and how the disseminated information is being viewed.

Among information providers, advertisers are particularly interested in knowing how and to what extent their advertisements are displayed and viewed, since this is a key factor in evaluating the effectiveness of their advertisements and is also the basis for advertising payment. Various mechanisms have been developed in traditional media to obtain such information for disseminated advertisements, such as television and radio broadcasts in audiovisual media, magazines and newspapers in printed media. For example, the well-known Nielsen (Nidlsen) television rating allows advertisers to determine the number of people who enjoy watching an advertisement in a particular television program. As the distribution of advertisements over computer networks has become more prevalent, the importance of developing organizations that enable advertisers to monitor the display and viewing of their advertisements being distributed over computer networks has increased.

Previous efforts to monitor the display of advertisements (or other content) that are disseminated over computer networks have not been adaptable for a variety of reasons, including, a limited range of monitoring information that is obtained; ambiguity in the monitored information; monitoring for incompleteness of the information; and sensitivity of processing monitoring information. Reviews of some techniques that have been previously used to obtain display information monitoring content (e.g., published advertisements) that is disseminated across the global network portion of a particular computer network-an ad hoc computer network-indicate that existing techniques for monitoring the display of content disseminated across computer networks are deficient.

FIGS. 1A and 1B are network diagrams illustrating previous system operations for monitoring content requests over the world Wide Web. In fig. 1A and 1B, a content presentation point 101 (which may be implemented, for example, by a server computer) is in contact with a content display point 102 (which may be implemented, for example, by a client computer) via a network communication line 103. The service computer at the content provider site 101 can store content colloquially referred to as a "web page". A client computer at the content presentation point 102 executes a software program called browsing that enables selection and display of a large number of web pages stored at different content presentation points. When a viewer of the content presentation point 102 wants to view a web page, the viewer has the client computer of the content presentation point 102 make a request to the appropriate service computer, i.e. the service computer of the content provider point 101, as shown in fig. 1A. The service computer of the content provider has a software program (http daemon in the current equipment of the world wide web) that monitors such incoming communications. Upon receipt of the request, the service computer of the content providing point 101 transmits a file representing the web page (this is an html file in the current devices of the world wide web) to the client computer of the content presentation point 102, as shown in fig. 1B. This file can itself reference and be transferred to other files of the content presentation point 102 (other files may be stored at the service computer and/or other service computers at the content provider point 101). At the client computer of the content display site 102, the browser may generate a display of the web page using the transferred file. The http daemon initiates the transfer of the appropriate files to the content presentation point 102. A record of file requests from the service computer is also made at the daemon persistence. Such a request is recorded in a file 104 of the service computer stored in the content providing point 101, which is generally called a "recording file".

The exact structure and content of the log file may vary somewhat from one serving computer to another. However, typically it includes a transaction directory, each representing a single file request. Each transaction includes a plurality of fields, each field for storing a predetermined type of information regarding the file request. One of the fields may be used to store an identification of the requested file. Other fields are used to store the IP (internet protocol) address of the client computer requesting a particular file, the browser model number of the requesting file, the timestamp of the request (i.e., the date and time the request was received by the serving computer), the number of times the requested file is delivered to the client computer, and the size of the delivered file. Other information about the file request may also be stored in the log file.

The above-described methods for monitoring the display of content distributed over the world wide web have utilized information stored in log files. For example, one such method has included simply determining the number of entries in the log file and counting each time as a "hit" to the web page, i.e., a request for the web page. The number of hits is considered to be the approximate number of times the web page is read and is therefore the exposure of the content of the web page to the information consumer.

However, this approach has several problems. For example, as described above, the requesting web page may request, in addition to the starting html file, other files that are needed to generate the web page. If these other files reside as starting html files in the same service computer, additional things are recorded in the log file. Thus, a single application for a web page causes multiple entries to be recorded in the log file. It will be appreciated that the number of times the web page is delivered to the content display site will be much less than the number of events recorded in the log file. Moreover, without further analysis, this would not allow for the correct prediction of the relationship between the number of entries in the log file and the number of times the web page has been delivered to the content display site. Such inaccuracies are important to, for example, advertisers (the cost of an advertisement is often proportional to the number of times an advertisement is delivered as measured) because the number of times its advertisement is exposed (and thus its cost) is based on the number of hits on the web page containing its advertisement.

One approach to overcome this problem has been to use. By analysing the content of the log file to determine which file of each transaction is requested, it is possible to distinguish between transactions requesting the initial html file required to generate the web page and transactions where the requested file itself is requested by another file, and so "redundant" transactions can be identified and deducted from the hit count. Although this approach may improve the accuracy of counting web page hits, some problems remain.

For example, log file analysis may have some under-counts in addition to some over-counts. This is because the files needed to generate a web page are stored ("cached") on the client computer for the content presentation point once the files have been transferred to the client computer, thereby enabling the viewer of the content presentation point to read the web page again without requiring another request from the client computer to the content provider service computer to begin retrieving the web page. Thus, the viewer can access the web page without posting entries in the log file, resulting in an under-counting of the number of web page hits.

In addition, the recording file is subjected to direct or indirect processing. For example, careless content providers may directly process the log file by retrieving and editing the log file, adding spurious things, thereby artificially increasing the number of hits on the web page, making the web page appear more popular than it really is. This problem can be solved by periodically sending the log file from the service computer at the content providing point to the natural network point at a prescribed time (e.g., 12:00 nightly); however, the log file is also processed during the period between transfers.

The log file may be processed indirectly, for example, by programming one or more computers to request a web page in succession, thereby generating a large number of hits on the web page. Although the log file contains items related to the web page corresponding to actual file requests, these requests are artificial requests, result in little display of the web page, and are certainly not in the view of the web page. In addition, since a large number of requests are legitimately from client computers servicing numerous users (e.g., America Online)^TMPrivate networks have a small number of computers for many network users to connect to the internet and the world wide web), and inspection of the contents of recorded files for an unusually high number of requests from IP addresses (i.e., client computers) is unlikely to make such a process detectable.

It is possible to use a "heavy bomb" (cookie) to identify the true origin of the content request. This method is performed by assigning a unique identifier to the computer that actually makes the request for the content, and transmitting the unique identifier while transmitting the content to the computer. Future content requests carry this identifier. This identifier is particularly useful for identification of indirect log file processing and more generally makes log file analysis more robust.

Despite this improvement, this approach does not overcome the fundamental problem of using and analyzing log files to determine information about the presentation of content provided over the world wide web. That is, the record file stores only information about the file request as highlighted in the over-counting problem related to the above-mentioned human factor and the under-counting problem related to the high-speed storage in the content display. The log file does not even indicate whether the requested file was actually transferred to the requesting client computer (although such file transfer would typically occur). The log file also does not include any information about how the file is to be used once transmitted to the requesting client computer. In particular, the log file does not provide any information as to whether the content represented by the requested file is actually displayed by the client computer at the content display point, from which less information can be drawn as to whether or not the content (if viewed, how it was viewed) was viewed by the viewer. These limitations regarding the content of the record files cannot be overcome with monitoring methods based on analysis of the record files. Moreover, the record file analysis is computationally intensive, sometimes requiring several hours to extract the required information from the record file.

Another method of monitoring the display of content being distributed over the world wide web is similar to monitoring the nielsen rating system used in television viewing. In this system, monitoring software is attached to browsers executing on client computers of a selected limited number of viewers (e.g., homes) to obtain data about ad exposures on these computers. This information is then used to radiate graphics across the population.

However, this method also has some disadvantages. First, only a limited amount of data is collected, i.e., data is obtained for a very small number of information consumers. As with any ticketing method, even if the viewer selected for surveillance is carefully selected and based on the received sampling practice, there is no guarantee that the data obtained will be extrapolated to all residents. Secondly, as the scope of the global network (or other network employing the present approach) is expanding, i.e. as the number of content providers is increasing, the number of watchers monitored required to ensure correct representation of the usage of all content providers must increase, and conversely, there are few or no watchers collaborating with certain content providers to build a radiation base. It is not possible to find a suitable number of suitable observers to participate in the monitoring process, especially in situations involving staff interfering with the privacy of the selected observers. Third, there are problems with installing monitoring software on the client computer for compatibility with the browser. These devices require active participation by the viewer; because viewers often do not benefit from the operation of the monitoring software, they may be reluctant to expend efforts to implement the device. The monitoring software must be continually improved to be compatible with new browsers and new versions of old browsers. To enable monitoring of a large number of client computers, software must be tested to be compatible with a wide variety of computing environments. Also, as recently practiced, such monitoring software is also dependent on the computer platform used, with the result that the monitoring software needs to be improved for use with new computer platforms, otherwise risking distorting the demographics of the sampled users.

In addition to desired information regarding the display and viewing of content they provide, content providers often desire to provide content display points with specifically tailored content viewed at the content display points (e.g., according to various demographic characteristics of the intended viewer). For example, text content in a language understandable by the viewer is displayed. If the content is appropriate, it is desirable to tailor the content to, for example, the viewer's age, gender, and occupation.

This programming of content has previously been accomplished by modifying the http daemon on the computer at the content provider site so that a particular version of a set of content is delivered to the requesting content display site according to the IP address of the content display site. While such content creation is useful, it would be desirable to be able to create the display of content in other ways than that which is accomplished in this way.

Content providers also often prefer to provide their content with the content of other content providers. For example, it is common practice for a content provider (referred to herein as a "primary content provider") to include advertisements from other entities (referred to herein as "secondary content providers") on the world wide web as web pages for the content provider. In such a case, it would be desirable for the secondary content providers to be able to easily update and/or appropriately tailor (e.g., according to the characteristics of the requester) the content they provide to the primary content provider. This can be accomplished by having the primary content provider point contact the secondary content provider point-each time the primary content provider receives a content request containing secondary content-either retrieve the secondary content (thereby ensuring that updated, properly programmed secondary content is used) or check whether updated or programmed secondary content is available (restore content if available). (this method may also be modified so that content retrieval or inspection of updated and/or compiled content is only performed according to a predetermined schedule.) however, both the primary and secondary content providers may not be burdened with the additional computational load of processing large numbers of requests to affect this operation. On the other hand, the primary content provider may collect and store updated and compiled content from the secondary content provider at the primary content provider point. However, the burden associated with collecting and processing content from the secondary content provider may be greater than the primary content provider would like to undertake.

One way to achieve this without placing an undesirable burden on the primary or secondary content providing system is to provide a secondary content storage point that can continuously store the most up-to-date content provided by the secondary content provider, as well as different sets of content tailored for a particular situation (e.g., by a particular viewer or displayed at a particular time). Fig. 2A to 2D are diagrams showing networks in which such a system operates. In fig. 2A, a content display point 202 makes a request for content including secondary content to a primary content providing point 201 via a network communication line 203. In fig. 2B, the primary content providing point 201 transfers files stored at the primary content providing point 201, which are required to generate the primary content display. These files include files that suitably reference the secondary content stored at the secondary content storage point 204, including the most recent and/or suitably tailored secondary content, for display concurrently with the primary content. As shown in fig. 2C, this reference causes the content display point 202 to request secondary content from the secondary content store point 204. In fig. 2D, secondary content is transferred from the secondary content storage point to the content display point 202 for display at the content display point 202.

However, while this system relieves the primary content provider of the burden of handling the acquisition, access and provision of the secondary content (which becomes quite burdensome when many secondary content providers are providing content to the primary content provider), this system has a feature that makes many content providers undesirable. When a primary content request is made to a primary content provider, the secondary content storage point not only processes the secondary content, but also provides the secondary content. Also, secondary content is frequently used content, such as graphic files used to generate visual images (which frequently control advertising), which has high bandwidth requirements for transmission over a network. By controlling the transfer of secondary content to the content display point, the secondary content storage point also often controls the content of the most bandwidth sensitive portion provided by the primary content provider above, the operator of the secondary content storage point may not provide access to a system that meets the bandwidth requirements of the primary content provider, and thus the display of the combined primary and secondary content is slower than that required by the primary content provider. This approach therefore leaves the primary content provider out of control of critical aspects of its operation.

Disclosure of Invention

The present invention enables monitoring of content display by a computer system. Furthermore, the invention enables monitoring of the display of content to produce monitoring information from which conclusions regarding the observation of the displayed content can be derived by the observer. The present invention also enables monitoring, at a content presentation point, the presentation of content provided by a content providing point to the content presentation point over a network. In addition, the present invention enables the rapid provision of updated and/or tailored content from a content provider site to a content display site over a network, so that the content provider's current and appropriately tailored content is always displayed at the content display site. The various aspects of the invention relating to the transfer of content over a network are generally applicable to any type of network. However, it is contemplated that the present invention can be particularly useful for using computer networks, including personal computer networks (e.g., America Online)^TM) And public computer networks (e.g., the Internet or the Internet). In particular, the present invention can advantageously be used with computer networks or portions of computer networks, such as the global network of the Internet, by transmitting video and/or audio content from one web site to another for viewing. Furthermore, the present invention is particularly useful in monitoring the display of content obtained through the use of an interacting browser network to obtain and view the content in real time.

In one aspect of the invention, the display of content by a computer system may be monitored by monitoring the location of the display of content on a display screen of the computer system and evaluating the location of the display of content on the display screen to generate monitoring information regarding the display of content. In accordance with this aspect of the invention, monitoring of the display of content may be accomplished by monitoring the position of one or more other images on the display screen and comparing the position of the display of content to the positions of the other images to generate monitoring information regarding the display of content. In particular, this aspect of the invention enables a determination of whether (and for how long) the content display is obscured by one of the other images, and further determines whether (and for how long, respectively, the content display is fully and partially obscured. This information is useful, for example, to indicate the amount of time the content display is visible to an observer, or to assist the content provider in determining in which area of the display screen his content is likely to be unobstructed. This aspect of the invention also enables a determination of the number of times an on-screen pointer (e.g., a mouse arrow or cursor) enters an area defined by the content display. This information is useful in determining how much the viewer is paying attention to the content because the viewer often looks at the location of an on-screen pointer when viewing the display screen.

In another aspect of the invention, monitoring of content display by a computer system may be accomplished by monitoring changes in time of characteristics of the content display and evaluating the changes in time of characteristics of the content display to generate monitoring information regarding the content display. In accordance with this aspect of the invention, monitoring of the display of content to generate monitoring information may be further accomplished by monitoring a change in the temporal aspect of the characteristic of the computer system and comparing the change in the temporal aspect of the characteristic of the display of content to the change in the temporal aspect of the characteristic of the computer system. As described above, this aspect of the invention also enables a determination of whether (and for how long) the content display is fully or partially obscured by another displayed image, as well as a determination of the number of times the on-screen pointer enters the area defined by the content display.

In yet another aspect of the invention, when the computer system displaying the content is responsive to instructions provided by a source other than the computer system and provided by the monitoring system (e.g., instructions provided by a user of the computer system), the start and end of the display of the content can be determined such that the monitoring of the display of the content by the computer system begins at the start of the display of the content and ends at the end of the display of the content. Monitoring may occur in accordance with other aspects of the invention described herein. Monitoring can also determine the duration of content display. Since the monitoring occurs in accordance with this aspect of the invention in accordance with the display of the content to be monitored, the use of the processing capacity of the computer system is monitored only when needed, while ensuring that monitoring occurs at all times the content is displayed.

In yet another aspect of the invention, a campaign monitoring the display of content is transmitted from a content providing point to a content display point in response to transmitting content from the content providing point (e.g., together) when the content is provided by the content providing point to the content display point over a network for display at the content display point. Monitoring may occur in accordance with other aspects of the invention described herein. The monitoring information obtained at the content presentation point regarding the presentation may be transmitted to a remote location, where it is part of a network. The remote location may be, but is not necessarily, a content provider point that delivers content to the content presentation point. When the remote location is such a content providing point, the monitoring information may instead be transmitted from the content providing point to a second remote location. Furthermore, when the remote site is such a content providing point, the monitoring information may be transmitted from the content providing point to the content providing point via a communication means different from the communication means for transmitting the content from the content providing point to the content providing point, which is a useful feature, for example, when the network is the global network. This aspect of the invention provides previously unused monitoring capabilities for obtaining information about how content is displayed on a network such as the world wide web. In particular, once content is delivered from a content providing site to a content display site over the world wide web, monitoring of the delivered content has not previously been possible.

In yet another aspect of the invention, in a network operating according to a protocol that causes the monitoring of the activity of the display of content to be transmitted from a content provider point to a content display point in response to the transmission of new content to the content display point at a time when a selected portion of content is currently being displayed at the content display point, the monitored activity is caused to operate at the content display point. Monitoring may occur in accordance with other aspects of the invention described herein. The monitoring information obtained at the content presentation point regarding the presentation of the content may be transmitted to a remote location, where it is part of a network. This aspect of the invention is particularly advantageous when some of the content being monitored includes at least a graphical display. As discussed in the previous aspect of the invention, this aspect of the invention provides previously unused monitoring capabilities in obtaining information about how content is displayed when retrieved over an interactive browsing environment, such as over a network of the world Wide Web.

In yet another aspect of the invention, a content presentation of content provided by a content provider to a content presentation point over a network is monitored to generate monitoring information, and this monitoring information is then transmitted to a remote location of the computer network that is different from the content provider. In this regard, the monitoring information may be transmitted to the content providing point prior to being ultimately transmitted to the remote location, so long as the monitoring information is not stored at the content providing point, or is not accessed or processed at the content providing point, prior to transmission to the remote location. Allowing access to the monitoring information at the remote location enables interaction with the monitoring information but cannot be modified. This aspect of the invention provides a system configuration that overcomes the problem of tampering with the monitored information content that may be done by the content provider. Moreover, this aspect of the invention can be practiced to store content and monitoring instructions at a remote location and to transmit to the content display site upon request by an observer of the content display site, thus relieving the content provider of the burden of storing and processing content and monitoring instructions at the content provider site, thereby simplifying the use of the invention by the content provider.

In yet another aspect of the present invention, the content presentation point is provided with current and/or tailored content by a content providing point. The content includes both primary content (from a content provider point) and secondary content (provided by a third party). The primary and secondary content is provided by the secondary content provider site to the application manager site. When an application manager site receives new content, particularly updated and/or tailored content, from any content providing site, the content is delivered to the content providing site that uses the content. Thus, upon receiving a request for content from a content display point, updated and/or tailored content is immediately available for delivery to the content display point. This aspect of the invention relieves the primary content provider of the burden of managing and storing content while retaining control over the primary content provider's serving of this content, thereby enabling the content provider to ensure that the bandwidth requirements of the content provided by the content provider are met.

Drawings

FIGS. 1A and 1B are network diagrams illustrating previous system operations for monitoring requests for content over the world Wide Web.

Fig. 2A, 2B, 2C, and 2D illustrate network diagrams of previous system operations that can retrieve updated and/or compiled secondary content to provide over a network for the primary content.

Fig. 3A, 3B and 3C illustrate a network diagram of the operation of one embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 4A, 4B, and 4C are screen diagrams including a content display and other images, respectively illustrating an unmasked, a fully obscured, and a partially obscured content display.

FIG. 4D is a simplified diagram of a display screen containing a display of content and other images illustrating portions of the content that are only partially obscured. FIG. 4E is a simplified diagram of the display screen shown in FIG. 4D illustrating how another method of the present invention correctly determines that content is displayed as being partially obscured.

FIG. 4F is a simplified diagram of a display screen containing a content display and other images illustrating a partially obscured but unobscured display that may be determined in accordance with one method of the present invention.

Fig. 5A, 5B and 5C are schematic diagrams of an operating network illustrating another embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 6A, 6B, 6C and 6D are schematic diagrams illustrating an operational network of yet another embodiment of the present invention.

The present invention includes several aspects related to the display of content to a viewer. For example, the present invention enables monitoring of content display by a computer system. In particular, displayed content can be monitored in a manner that provides monitoring information, thereby enabling various aspects of the user's content observation to be collected. The present invention is also capable of monitoring the display at a content presentation point (employing the capabilities described above) and viewing the content provided by the content provider point to the content presentation point over the network. In addition, the present invention enables the rapid provisioning of updated and/or tailored content from a content provider site to a content display site over a network so that the content provider's current and appropriately tailored content is always displayed at the content display site.

Here, "content" generally refers to any perceived image (or data used to produce such perceived images) displayed by the device used in the present invention. "observing" refers to the viewer's perception of content. Generally, the content is a visual or auditory image produced by the device; thus, the observation of such content includes viewing or listening to the generated image (as the case may be).

Certain aspects of the present invention relate to monitoring of content retrieved from or provided over a network. "content providing point" refers to a device that is part of a network and is capable of providing content to another device that is part of the network. "content display point" refers to a portion of a device of a network that is capable of receiving and displaying content from another device that is part of the network. It is expected that the present invention will be particularly useful for employing computer networks operating in this manner. "computer network" includes any interconnected computer system. "computer system" refers to a piece of equipment or collection of equipment that depends, at least in some aspects, on the computing device (e.g., a general-purpose or special-purpose processor). As used herein in particular, a "computer system" can include any type of display device, including a conventional computer display monitor, a television, or one or more speakers.

Fig. 3A, 3B and 3C are network diagrams illustrating an aspect of the present invention. A content display point 302 (which may be implemented as a client computer) is coupled to a content providing point 301 (which may be implemented by a conventional service computer) via a network communication line 303. (generally, a network connects a plurality of content display points and a plurality of content providing points; for simplicity, a single content display point 302 and a single content providing point 301 are shown in FIGS. 3A, 3B, and 3℃ furthermore, it should be understood that each point on the network can be used as both a content display point and a content providing point.) As shown in FIG. 3A, a client computer at a content display point 302 requests content from a service computer at a content providing point via a network communication line 303. As shown in fig. 3B, the service computer at the content providing site provides the content to the client computer at the content display site through the network communication line 303. In accordance with this aspect of the invention, a set of monitoring instructions (specifically, for example, a computer program) is also transmitted to the content presentation point 302 in response to a content request to the content presentation point 301. The transmission of the monitoring instructions may occur before, concurrently with, or after the transmission of the content. As explained in detail below, the monitoring instructions cause the client computer of the content display site 302 to monitor the display of the content to generate monitoring information regarding the manner in which the content is displayed. As shown in fig. 3C, review of the surveillance information generated by the surveillance instructions from content display point 302 to content provider point 301 (the surveillance information may alternatively or additionally be transmitted to another location that is part of the network) via network communication line 302 can draw conclusions about the user's observation of content, as described in more detail below. (it should be noted that more generally, monitoring instructions in accordance with the present invention can be used to monitor the display of content at a computer system, whether the computer system is part of a network and receives content and monitoring instructions over the network.)

The invention can be used with both public computer networks (e.g., the Internet) and personal computer networks (e.g., commercial networking services such as America Online)^TM，Prodigy^TMAnd Compu serve^TMAnd intranet). The invention is particularly convenient for use with computer networks or portions thereof over which video and/or audio content may be transferred from one web site to another for display. The invention can be conveniently used on the network with the website accessible by the browser in real time. ("browser" can be viewed as a computer program that can interpret hypertext documents and display content corresponding to those documents, and can transfer from one hypertext document to another via a hyperlink within the transferred hypertext document). The global network portion of the internet is a well known and current example of such a network with which the present invention may be employed. The following is a description for the sake of explanationCertain aspects of the invention are described as being implemented in a web-compatible manner, i.e., consistent with hypertext markup language (html) and hypertext transfer protocol (http). However, none of the aspects of the invention are limited to such an implementation.

When the present invention is used in a computer network or content display monitored by a computer system, various aspects of the present invention may be implemented as one or more computer programs executed by a computer to obtain the functionality of such an aspect. Generally, such computer programs may be implemented in any suitable computer programming language. However, when an aspect of the present invention is used in a computer network that includes many different types of computers (e.g., the Internet), the computer programming language is preferably one that can be executed by any type of computer (i.e., the computer programming language is platform independent). One such computer programming language is the Java programming language developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc. For purposes of illustration, certain aspects of the present invention are described below as embodied in the Java programming language. Again, however, none of the aspects of the invention are limited to such an implementation.

In one embodiment of the invention, the monitoring instructions are transmitted with the content to the content display point 302. In this particular embodiment, the monitoring instructions are part of a computer program that also includes content display instructions. Intuitively, such a computer program may be an applet written in the Java programming language. As understood by skilled html usage, example 1 below illustrates a set of instructions consistent with html syntax for causing execution of an applet that displays content and monitors display.

Example 1

<applet code＝”AdInsert.class”width＝230height＝33>

<param name＝”image”value＝”images/southwest.GIF”>

<param name＝”href”value＝”http://www.swa.com/”>

</applet>

When a viewer of a content presentation point makes a request for content (e.g., selecting a hyperlink) represented by the file "southwest. The request is received by an http daemon at the appropriate point of provision. At the content providing point, the instructions identify the location ("image") of an applet called "Adlnsert", which applet further comprises instructions which, when executed, perform the monitoring method according to the invention and cause the content to be displayed. (these steps are performed in this monitoring method, discussed below.) upon request received by http daemon at the content providing point, an AdInsert applet is transmitted to the requesting content presentation point and begins execution. The instructions of example 1 also establish the size (width and height) of the area within which the content is displayed on the computer display screen, and the instructions also indicate the network location ("href") with which to communicate by selecting a hyperlink within the content. Thus, intuitively, in accordance with the present invention, content from a content provider that is accessible by a browser (such as a web site that is part of the world wide web) can be delivered to and displayed at a content display site (note that the monitored content can include the entire displayed content, or only a portion of the displayed content, such as an advertisement present in a web page) by delivering an applet to the content display site and being executed by the browser to display the content and having the display aspect of the content monitored

In contrast, previously, the html syntax shown in the following example 2 was applied to the content displayed by the html syntax shown in the above example 1, and only the content was transferred to the content display point.

Example 2

<a href＝http://www.swa.com/>

<img border＝0 src＝”/images/southwest.GIF”height＝33width＝230>

</a>

Therefore, previously, it was not possible to rely on the world wide web from a content providing point to monitor delivered content once the delivery of the content to the content display point was completed. It will be appreciated that this aspect of the invention provides a powerful tool for obtaining information about how content is displayed on a computer network, such as the world wide web, that has not previously been available.

The implementation of the monitoring method described above means that the monitoring method operates in accordance with the display of the content to be monitored. Since the monitoring method does not operate when the content is not displayed, the monitoring method uses the processing capacity of the computer system at the content display point only when needed. While ensuring that the method is monitored for all times when the content is being rendered.

Furthermore, since the monitoring method can be implemented as part of the browser method according to the present invention, which also enables the content to be displayed, the previously mentioned problem of storing content at high speed at the content display point in monitoring the content display is overcome. This is because unlike the recording file used previously in which a request needs to be made to the content providing point in order to record any information, the monitoring method according to the present invention can record monitoring information of a content displayed any number of times regardless of which method the display is requested. In particular, the present invention is capable of accurately counting specific but displayed content. This is a great improvement over the above-described previous methods, which cannot count not only the number of times of content display (count request number), but also the exact number of times of request even if counted.

The instructions of the method according to the invention can be used to obtain a plurality of monitoring information. For example, the content of a conventional record file (discussed above) may be determined by the monitoring method of the present invention. However, an important method of the present invention is that information beyond that available in conventional recording files can also be obtained by the method of the present invention. Instructions for obtaining several types of such monitoring information are described below. It should be noted that the following description is only illustrative of the type of monitoring information that can be obtained; obtaining other types of monitoring information is also contemplated by the present invention.

For example, the monitoring method according to the invention is able to detect each display of content. In fact, in one embodiment of the monitoring method according to the invention, the monitoring method is certainly not more than this. The monitoring method of detecting the display of the contents may be performed by the above-described applet. Such a "monitoring instructions" of an applet may be no more than instructions that cause the applet to execute instructions to be stored or transmitted to an appropriate web address (discussed further below). A monitoring method that can determine whether content is displayed is a very useful monitoring method that provides important basic information that was previously unavailable in an interactive browsing environment for obtaining and viewing content. In particular, under-counting the number of content displays (e.g., due to content display points storing content at high speed) and over-counting (e.g., due to making spurious requests for content that do not result in content display) are avoided.

The monitoring method according to the invention also enables the duration of the content display to be determined. For example, the duration of the content display may be determined because the amount of time the computer program is executed to display the content is as indicated by predetermined start and end time stamps (e.g., determinable using methods that exist as part of the Java language) associated with program execution.

In one embodiment of the invention, a monitoring method monitors the location of content on a display screen while the content is being displayed. The location is evaluated to generate monitoring information regarding the display of the content. Such an evaluation may be accomplished, for example, by further obtaining information about the location of one or more other images on the display screen and comparing the location of the content to the location of one or more other images.

In accordance with the above-described embodiments, the monitoring method can determine whether the content on the display screen is not visible, either because the content is blocked by one or more other images or because of a "scrolling" of the display screen (hereinafter, both of these are referred to as "shadowing" of the content). Furthermore, the monitoring method can determine whether the content is partially obscured, i.e., either partially obstructed by one or more images or the display partially scrolled. Further, when periods occur during which content is partially or completely obscured, the duration of each occurrence period may be determined. Since the number of times the content is seen to be neither fully nor partially occluded, the duration of the display of the content that is not occluded can be determined. Each duration may be reported directly, and/or the total duration of the content being fully occluded, partially occluded, fully or partially occluded, and/or non-occluded may be reported separately.

Information about whether the displayed content is obscured is useful for a number of reasons, such as indicating the amount of time the displayed content is viewed by an observer. Furthermore, this information may be used by the content provider to determine in which area of the display screen his content is presumably unmasked.

The possible ways in which tools (e.g., supported programming languages, operating system features) associated with the computer network of the present invention can be employed to determine whether displayed content is obscured. One way for the Applet described above to determine whether displayed content is obscured is to periodically declare a content display (or portion thereof) failure, i.e., to require the operating system to redraw the content display as needed. If the operating system then makes a request to the applet to redraw the content display, the content display is not obscured. However, if the operating system does not make a request to the applet to redraw the content display, the content display is obscured.

In the above manner, by deactivating each discrete element (e.g., pixel) of the content display and determining whether the discrete element is occluded, the most complete information about whether the content display is occluded can be obtained. However, this expense is computationally intensive and generally does not require obtaining useful, sufficiently accurate information about whether the content display is obscured. It is therefore preferable to strategically choose only a portion of the content display to be evaluated in this manner.

For example, in one embodiment of the invention, each corner of the content display is used to fail and the redrawn image is monitored as described above. If all corners are redrawn, the content display is determined to be unmasked. If none of the corners are redrawn, then the content display is determined to be completely obscured. If at least one corner, but not all, is redrawn, then it is determined that the content display is partially obscured.

Fig. 4A, 4B and 4C are diagrammatic views of a display screen including a content display 401 and other images 402, 403 and 404, illustrating the case of an unmasked, fully obscured and partially obscured content display, respectively. In fig. 4A, none of the corners 401a, 401b, 401c, or 401d is obscured by one of the other images 402, 403, and 404. Thus, after disabling corners 401a, 401b, 401c, and 401d, each redraw, the content display 401 is determined (and in this case correctly determined) to be unshaded. In fig. 4B, each of the corners 401a, 401B, 401c, and 401d is covered by an image 402. Thus, after disabling, none of corners 401a, 401b, 401C, and 401d are redrawn and the content display is determined (again correctly determined) to be fully occluded, in FIG. 4C, corners 401C and 401d are occluded by image 402, but corners 401a and 401b are not occluded. Thus, only corners 401a, 401b redraw after disabling corners 401a, 401b, 401c, and 401d, the content display 401a is (once again correctly) determined to be partially obscured.

The above method is not correct in all cases. Fig. 4D is a diagrammatic view of a display screen 400 including a content display 401 and other images 402, 403 and 404. A case will be described where the partially occluded content display 401, which is determined to be fully occluded according to the method of the present invention described above. In fig. 4D, image 402 obscures corners 401c and 401D, image 403 obscures corner 401a, and image 404 obscures corner 401 b. Thus none of the 4 corners 401a, 401b, 401c, and 401d redraws after the failure and the content display is determined to be a full occlusion; however; as can be seen from the figure, this is not the case.

This problem can be alleviated by evaluating other discrete pixels in addition to the respective corners. For example, in addition to pixels at corners, discrete pixels at the top and bottom edges and/or the middle of the left and right edges of the content display are evaluated. FIG. 4E is a diagram of the display screen 400 shown in FIG. 4D illustrating how another method of the present invention correctly determines that the content display 401 is partially obscured. In fig. 4E, the upper edge center 401E and lower edge center 401f of the content display are also evaluated. The lower edge center 401f is covered by the image 402, while the upper edge center 401e is uncovered. Thus, after deactivating corners 401a, 401b, 401c, and 401d and centers 401e, 401f, upper edge center 401e redraws so that content display 401 is (correctly) determined to be partially occluded.

FIG. 4F is a diagram of display screen 400 including content display 401 and other images 402, 403, and 404 illustrating a situation where a partially obscured content display 401 may be determined to be non-obscured according to one method of the invention. In fig. 4F, none of the corners 401a, 401b, 401c, and 401d, or the midpoints 401e and 40F are obscured by the images 402, and 404. Thus, after disabling corners 401a, 401b, 401c, and 401d and midpoints 401e and 401f, each is redrawn so that content display 401 is determined to be unshaded. However, as seen in FIG. 4F, this is not the case because image 403 is located in the middle of content display 401.

4D-4F, while the evaluation of additional discrete pixels of the content display does not eliminate the possibility of incorrectly determining whether the content display is occluded, it does reduce the likelihood of such occurrences. In general, any number and arrangement of discrete pixels of a content display may be evaluated to reduce the likelihood of incorrectly determining whether the content display is obscured, so long as the cost of the associated computation is not unacceptably high. Moreover, the above-described method for determining whether a content display is obscured is the only method in which such a determination may be made.

As part of determining whether the content display is obscured, a time stamp is recorded each time there is a change in the "obscured state" of the content display. From these time stamps, the duration of each time period during which the content is shown unmasked, partially obscured, and fully obscured can be determined. From the duration of each time period, the total duration of the content display with no occlusion, partial occlusion, and full occlusion may be determined.

It is also possible that the amount of viewable content display is not determined by appropriately configuring discrete pixels of the content display to be evaluated when the content display is partially obscured. When the content display portion is obscured, it is also possible to give a quality description of the obscured (or visible) content display portion, e.g. upper right and lower left.

When the monitoring method is operating on a computer system having an event-driven operating environment, the monitoring method may monitor events communicated by the operating system to determine information about the display of content. When the monitoring method is implemented by an applet that also displays the content, such monitoring can naturally occur because only events related to the display of the content are transmitted to the monitoring method. For example, applets may use a pre-existing Java method (e.g., the method known as Handle Event in the current version of Java) to monitor events delivered by the operating system. Such event monitoring may be used, for example, to determine the number of times an on-screen pointer (e.g., a mouse arrow or cursor) enters an area defined by the content display. (the defined region may be associated with the content display in any manner, and may be, for example, the region in which the content is displayed, or a region somewhat larger or smaller than the content display.) the operating system of a computer system displaying the content display typically monitors the position of the pointer on the screen and can identify in which region of the screen the pointer is located. An applet configured to display content as described above can therefore identify whether a pointer is located within a content display by monitoring for an event indicating that the pointer has entered an area defined by the content display. This monitoring method of the present invention can use this information provided by the operating system to count the number of times the on-screen pointer enters the area defined by the content display. The monitoring method may also determine when the on-screen pointer leaves the defined area after each entry by monitoring another event indicating that the pointer has exited the defined area by the content display. The time stamp associated with the entry into and exit from the defined area may be used to calculate the duration of time that the pointer stays within the defined area each time it enters the defined area, and the total duration of time that the pointer stays within the defined area. The monitoring method, in turn, can determine when the on-screen pointer has moved into a defined area by monitoring events indicative of such pointer movement. The above information about the position and movement of the on-screen pointer in connection with the display of content is useful in determining how the viewing is focused on the content, because the viewer often looks at the position of the on-screen pointer when viewing the display screen.

In another embodiment of the invention, a monitoring method monitors temporal changes in characteristics of a content display. Temporal changes in this characteristic are evaluated to produce monitoring information. Such an evaluation may be accomplished by further monitoring temporal changes in characteristics of the computer system used to display the content and comparing the temporal changes in characteristics of the content display with the temporal changes in characteristics of the computer system. Either of the two examples given above (occlusion of the content display and pointer entry definition) is an example of the monitoring method according to this embodiment of the invention.

A variety of other information may also be obtained according to the display method of the present invention. For example, the monitoring method may obtain a time stamp (date and time) indicating when the content display started. When the monitoring method is executed by a Java written applet, the time stamp can be retrieved using methods that exist as part of the Java language.

Identification information about the computer on which the content is displayed may also be obtained. An Internet Protocol (IP) address from which the content request was made and an identification of the machine to which the content was sent can be obtained. (if the latter is a client computer of the system and the former is a service computer of the system, then there may not be a one-to-one correspondence between the two.) furthermore, both the IP address and the machine name may be obtained using pre-existing Java methods.

The monitoring method according to the present invention can also determine whether a computer user at a content display point selects (e.g., clicks a mouse or presses a key of an appropriate keyboard) a hyperlink within the content display area to end the display of the current content display. Similar to the monitoring of pointer locations described above, applets that execute the monitoring method of the present invention may include a standard Java method (e.g., a Handle Event) that receives events delivered by the operating system. One of the events is the selection of a hyperlink. The monitoring method may be quite noticeable when reporting such events.

As indicated previously, the above examples of monitoring information are merely illustrative of the types of monitoring information that can be obtained by the monitoring method of the present invention. In general, the monitoring method of the present invention can utilize any method available in a computing environment, such as an operating system method, or a partial software structure method, or a method written in a computer programming language that can be used in a computing environment. Any existing Java method may be used to obtain information about the state of the computer on which the content display is to be monitored, for example, when the monitoring method is executed by a Java-written applet, or by using a method that changes the state of the computer on which the content is displayed (e.g., the display state) and monitors the computer's response (e.g., the method of monitoring whether the content display is obscured as discussed above), or by retrieving information about the state of the computer (e.g., the method of monitoring the entry of a pointer into the content display area as discussed above). In particular, the monitoring of events described above is useful in identifying information about the display of content.

The monitoring method according to the invention can also be used to determine information about the audio presentation. For example, if the monitored content includes audio content that can only be displayed by selecting an appropriate user interface mechanism (e.g., a graphical button), the monitoring method according to the present invention can determine whether this "event" is sent to the window represented by the content, indicating that the audio display has at least begun. The duration of the audio presentation may also be determined using the above-described method of determining the duration of the monitored content presentation, together with knowledge of when the audio presentation began (using the time stamp described above). It is also possible to determine the volume of the displayed audio content by appropriately monitoring the method used to operate the audio display device. These examples are merely illustrative. It will be appreciated that other information about the audio presentation may be determined using any other method available in a computer environment.

The monitoring method according to the invention can also be used to obtain information clearly (i.e. by asking questions about the viewers who are able to answer) about the demographics of the viewers of the monitored content. This may be achieved by including such instructions for presenting questions, the content of the questions, and instructions for storing the retrieved demographic information in a computer program for performing the monitoring method. Alternatively, such instructions and the content of the questions may be stored in a separate file that is called and executed by the computer program implementing the monitoring method, or the instructions to ask the questions and store the answers may be included in the computer program implementing the monitoring method, and the content of the questions may be in a separate file that is accessed by the computer program. These latter two possibilities are particularly convenient as they allow multiple sets of demographic questions to be asked of the observer by the monitoring method, thus enabling demographic questions to be tailored to the content displayed or to be characteristic of the observer who has the possibility to view the content.

As described above, in accordance with the present invention, monitoring information about the display of content can be obtained, followed by review and analysis, enabling conclusions to be drawn as to how the content is displayed, and perhaps inferences to be drawn as to how the content is viewed. In addition, the monitoring information can be used to affect the display of a set of content. One way in which this can occur is to modify a set of content or the manner in which it is displayed based on review and analysis of monitoring information derived from previous displays of the set of content (e.g., monitoring information regarding whether content is obscured, how often content is displayed at different times of the day or week, which can be used to determine the optimal location or optimal number of times, respectively, on the display screen to display the content).

Another way in which the monitoring information may be used to affect the display of a set of content is to use certain display information that was just obtained or obtained during the display to cause the set of content to be displayed in a particular manner. For example, as discussed above, it may be determined when the IP address from which the request for a set of content was sent first received the request. It is possible to combine the characteristics of the viewer with the IP address from which the content request has been received (since demographic information has been previously obtained as described above when a set of content has been previously delivered to the IP address). Depending on the known characteristics associated with the IP address, the appropriate one of the multiple versions of the requested set of content may be transmitted for display, e.g., text displayed audibly or visually in a particular language may be displayed provided that the IP address is known to correspond to a content display point used by a viewer speaking that language. As another example, as described above, a duration for which a set of content has been displayed may be determined and the portion of the set of content being displayed changed as a result of this duration, e.g., the display of a set of content may begin with a particular video display and change to another video display after a specified duration has elapsed. As yet another example, portions of a set of content may be displayed based on performance characteristics of a network over which the content is delivered. For example, the amount of time required to transfer data from a content provider point to a content display point may be monitored (e.g., by way of information derived from recorded files regarding the size of files transferred and the amount of time required to transfer those files, as discussed above). The display of the content may then be controlled such that if the data transfer rate is above a predetermined value, a moving video image is displayed, whereas if the data transfer rate is below a predetermined value, a still video image is displayed, the predetermined value being chosen such that the data rate is below an unduly fast value to produce a moving video image of acceptable quality. The above examples are for illustrative purposes only, and the present invention contemplates other ways of monitoring information to affect the display of a set of content.

As described above, the monitoring method according to the present invention can acquire monitoring information on the display of content. Of particular concern is the underlying question of whether the content is displayed at all. As described above, the monitoring method according to the present invention is able to make this determination. However, some viewers have developed techniques for suppressing the display of certain content (e.g., advertisements). In accordance with the monitoring method of the present invention, the likelihood of displaying particular content is increased by adjusting certain other operations of the computer system that display the content based on the display of the particular content. For example, the content to be monitored may be proposed as part of other content. Such displays are common on the world wide web, where, for example, advertising content is often included as part of other content. The monitoring method according to the invention may adjust the display of other content depending on the display of the content to be monitored, e.g. not all content on a web page is visible unless advertisements included on the web page are visible. Moreover, the display of other content can be adjusted for a prescribed period of time according to the display of the content to be monitored, which is particularly valuable when the content to be monitored does not automatically appear as part of the other content; however, in turn, only in response to selection of an appropriate user interface mechanism (e.g., graphical button) is the portion of the content to be monitored that is other content displayed.

Detection of content suppression may be achieved in any suitable manner, as described above in connection with the forced display of specified content. For example, it is possible to explore the suppression technique being used. Alternatively, the display of content may be ordered so that the content that must be displayed ("desired content") is displayed first; if the monitoring method detects that the content display point is displaying other content instead of displaying the desired content first, then the suppression of the desired content has been detected; the display of other contents is prevented and information indicating this fact can be displayed when necessary.

As described above, after the monitoring information is acquired by the monitoring method of the present invention, the monitoring information is transmitted from the content display point 302 to the remote place. The remote location may be the content providing point 301 or another location of the network part. When the monitoring method according to the present invention is implemented by a Java applet, the remote site provides the content providing site 301 because such applets can currently only communicate information to their web site for delivery therefrom. However, in the future, this limitation will not exist; in that case, the remote place is not necessarily a content providing point even when the monitoring method of the present invention is implemented using a Java applet at that time.

Generally, the monitoring information can be transmitted to the remote site at any time. It may be desirable, for example, to transmit the monitoring information to a remote location immediately after it is acquired so that the supervisory information is accessed as early as possible. On the other hand, it may be desirable to store the monitoring information at a content display point and then transmit the monitoring information at a time when communication over the network communication line 303 is fastest and/or least expensive (e.g., nighttime).

The monitoring information may be sent to a communication port other than the one from which the content and monitoring instructions are issued to the content display point 302. In that case, such a communication port receiving the monitoring information is monitored by means of a dedicated daemon on the service computer of the content providing point. The daemon may be implemented as a conventional computer service daemon on a designated communications port for monitoring data received by a service computer. Sending the monitoring information to the specially designated port may be in a format that allows the monitoring information to be sent in any desired format according to any required protocol. For example, the monitoring information may be encrypted, as described below.

When the invention is implemented with the world wide web, it is also possible to transmit the monitoring data by using a communication channel monitored by http, i.e. by sending a request to http daemon. Such transmission may be desirable for several reasons. For example, the delivery of monitoring data to http daemon eliminates the need for dedicated software to generate the monitoring data received and provide it to the operator at the remote site to which the monitoring data is delivered (the operator has, for example, a web page operator, or an application management point operator). Furthermore, sending a request to transmit monitoring data over http daemon may be the only way to transmit monitoring data to a remote site. This is the case, for example, when one or more client computers are served by a "proxy server" that communicates communications between the client computers and other web sites. The proxy server disallows use to transmit monitoring data through a specially designated channel communication; but allows communication with http daemon.

The transmission of the monitoring data by making a request for http daemon can be implemented in a number of ways. For example, an http request may be submitted in some manner for a file having a "name" representing the monitoring data. Despite the parasitic nature of the file request, the request is recorded in an http log file from which the "name" can be retrieved to enable extraction of the monitoring information. Or the original request of the CGI is transmitted by using the originally requested parameters of the CGI. The parameter specification input is originally specified to represent the monitoring data in some manner. A computer program resident on a computer system at the remote location may then implement a method of extracting input values from the CGI script, and extracting monitoring data from the input values. Other methods of using CGI scripts or http requests to transfer monitoring data to http daemon are possible.

For security purposes, it is desirable to encrypt the monitoring data prior to transmission from the content presentation point to the remote location. Any suitable encryption method may be used. The monitoring data may be encrypted, for example, using a public key method known as the RSA algorithm. Typically, the monitoring data (or other data transmitted over the network in accordance with the present invention) may be encrypted before any data is transmitted over the network (other examples of such data transmission will be described below as the systems and portions illustrated in fig. 5A, 5B, and 5C and fig. 6A, 6B, 6C, and 6D).

Once transmitted to the remote site, the monitoring information may be stored in any suitable database (e.g., as is well-known in the art of building and managing databases). By means of a suitable user interface, e.g. a graphical user interface

(GUI), the monitoring information can be displayed for viewing in any desired format, such as a graph, bar graph, percentage graph. The monitoring information stored in the database may also be further analyzed, if desired. For example, the total time that a content display may be viewed for utilization may be divided into percentages of time that the content is unmasked, partially obscured, and fully obscured. Or may identify a percentage of viewers who select a particular hyperlink while viewing a set of content for the content.

Monitoring information is not only of interest to content providers that provide content for display, but also of interest to third parties. For example, if a content provider provides a content that contains advertisements, the advertiser may be interested in monitoring information about the display of the content. Third parties and content providers may have conflicting interests in monitoring the content of the information. For example, if the content of the third party content provider, including the third party content, is being paid to the content provider and the payment is based on the exposure of the third party content to the viewer, then the content provider is interested in monitoring information indicating a large exposure to the content, while the third party is interested in indicating a small exposure to the content, (of course, both parties are also motivated by other benefits, such as the third party simply having to monitor the information to reflect the exact exposure of the content so that the information can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of providing their content by the content provider.) if the monitoring information is transmitted from the content display point to the content providing point and unrestricted access to the monitoring information is allowed at the content providing point, then there is a lack of a safe method to prevent tampering with the content provider with the monitoring information content. This problem is particularly acute when the monitoring method according to the invention is embodied in a way, such as by a Java applet, that requires monitoring information to be passed back to the content provision point, as discussed above.

Fig. 5A, 5B and 5C are network diagrams illustrating the operation of another embodiment of the present invention. This embodiment of the invention provides a system configuration that overcomes the problem of content providers possibly tampering with the content of the monitoring information. As in the system illustrated in fig. 3A, 3B and 3C, the content presentation point 302 is in communication with the content providing point 301 through a network. The network also includes an application management point 501. As described above, the content display point 302 and the content providing point 301 are in contact with each other through the network communication 303 to enable transmission of content and monitoring instructions from the content providing point 301 to the content display point 302. On the other hand, in response to receiving a request from the content providing point 301 according to a request from the content display point 302, the content and the monitoring instruction are transmitted from the application management point 501 to the content display point 302, and this latter implementation is illustrated in fig. 5A, 5B, and 5C. In this implementation, the content providing point 301 does not require either a computer program to implement the monitoring method or a program to receive monitoring data at the content providing point 301 device, thereby simplifying the use of the present invention by content providers. Rather, the content provider need only have a settlement account (as described below) at the application management point 501.

In this embodiment of the invention, the monitoring information obtained at the content presentation point 302 is transmitted to the application management point 501 either directly from the content presentation point 302 or indirectly via the content provision point 301. If the latter, the monitoring information is received by the content providing point 301 and transmitted to the application management point 501 in a manner that prevents access to the display information at the content providing point 301. For example, the monitoring information is encrypted at the content presentation point 302 before it is transmitted to the content providing point 301, and a decryption method is available only at the application management point 501. Alternatively, the monitoring information is transmitted to the application management point 501 immediately after the content providing point 301 receives the monitoring information. The access to the monitoring information is managed by the (neutral) application administrator as soon as the application management point 501 has been received, so that no party interested in the fuze can modify the monitoring information, thereby ensuring the integrity of the monitoring information.

In a typical implementation, multiple sets of content will be provided by multiple content providing points and each set of information will be displayed by multiple content display points. A set of monitoring information is recorded for each display of each of the plurality of sets of content and transmitted to an application management point for storage in a database, which is computer implemented at the application management point. Each set of monitoring information has to be identified so as to correspond to the set of contents from which it is obtained, and therefore the monitoring information is suitably stored in a database so that it can be retrieved later on for the set of contents, which can be done by writing suitable parameter indicators contained in the computer program htmp for executing the monitoring method when the monitoring method according to the invention is executed with the world wide web. Example 3 below illustrates how example 1 discussed above can be modified to generate such an index ("Account" parameter).

Example 3

<param name＝”Account”value＝”9004560093”>

</applet>

A database resident on the computer of the application management point may also be used to store accounting information about the content providing point providing the content.

In the embodiment of the invention illustrated in fig. 5, a user interface (e.g., GUI) may be provided on the content provider computer to enable the content provider's owner (or agent) to access monitoring information stored at the application management point regarding the display of content provided by the content provider. An interface may also be configured to enable the content provider to establish a new account on the application management computer to commission the conference for using the monitoring system of the present invention and requesting specific analysis and display of the obtained monitoring information. Other functions may also be provided in such an interface, if desired.

It is also possible that there are multiple application management points. Typically, the monitoring information for the content is specified to be stored in a specific one of the application management points at a time. Such specification may be included as a parameter index in a computer program used to execute the monitoring information as described above.

As described above, the content provided by the content provider may be organized according to any specified criteria. In addition, the content provider may update the content periodically. Also, third parties may require that their content be provided with the content of the content provider. These third parties may also have multiple sets of specifically tailored content that is also updated periodically. Managing such sets of content by the content provider at the content provider point can become undesirably complex and place an undue burden on the available bandwidth over which the content provider transmits data to and from the content provider point.

Fig. 6A, 6B, 6C and 6D are network diagrams illustrating the operation of another embodiment of the present invention. This embodiment of the present invention provides a system configuration that enables updated and/or compiled secondary content provided by a secondary content provider to be delivered to a primary content display site for use with primary content provided by a primary content provider without the problems described above with existing such systems, as discussed in detail below. This embodiment of the present invention also enables all of the functions of the system described above in fig. 5A, 5B and 5C. In the embodiment of the present invention shown in fig. 6A, 6B, 6C, and 6D, the content display point 302, the primary content providing point 602, and the application management point 501 are connected to each other via a network and can communicate with each other as described above. The network also includes a secondary content provision point 601. As shown in fig. 6A, in this embodiment of the invention, secondary content may be transferred from the secondary content provider point 601 to the application management point 501 and stored there. As shown in fig. 6B, whenever secondary content is provided to the application management point 501, the application manager both stores the content in the application management point 501 and transfers the content to the content providing points 602 of all the content providing points, the points 602 providing the secondary content together with the primary content. When the primary content providing point 602 receives a request from the content display point 302 for primary content containing such secondary content (fig. 6C), the primary content providing point 602 can provide the primary content and the secondary content to the content display point 302 immediately (i.e., without retrieving or requesting the provision of the content from another website to the content providing point), as shown in fig. 6D.

It will be appreciated that when many levels of secondary content and/or primary content, and/or many versions, are being provided from a primary content provision point, the management of the primary and secondary content becomes quite burdensome. This burden is exacerbated by the management of continuous updates to these sets of content data. By storing the secondary content (and primary content if needed) at the application management point 501, the system of fig. 6A, 6B, 6C, and 6D relieves the primary content provider of the burden of managing such content. However, since the application manager causes the content to be stored at the content providing point 602, the content can be provided from the content providing point 602 instead of from the application management point 501 to the content display point 302, thereby giving bandwidth management control to the primary content provider, and therefore the primary content provider can guarantee a system of bandwidth requirements that properly accesses the content provided by the primary content providing point 601 to be in a proper position. This is an important consideration for the primary content provider, as content requestors from the primary content provider will be responsible for performance characteristics (e.g., speed) related to content delivery by the primary content provider. In this way, the system of FIGS. 6A, 6B, 6C and 6D relieves the primary content provider of the need to manage content storage while retaining control over content provider content provision.

In this embodiment of the invention, a user interface (e.g., GUI) may be provided at both the primary content provision point 602 and the application management point 501. The primary content provider user interface can provide the same functionality described above with respect to fig. 5. In addition, the primary content provider user interface enables a content provider to select available secondary content that the primary content of the content provider may contain. This selection can also contain a description of the search term according to which the primary content provider is willing to include the secondary content. The selection of secondary content does not automatically cause the secondary content to be included in the content of the primary content provider, but rather makes such included requests (e.g., via a secondary content providing user interface, as described below) to the secondary content provider. Secondary content may be included with the primary content upon acceptance by the secondary content provider. The secondary content provider user interface enables the secondary content provider to select a primary content provision point for containing the content of the secondary content provider. Also, such selection is made together with the description of such contained search term; the selection causes a request to be made (e.g., via a secondary content providing user interface) for inclusion to the primary content provider. The secondary content user interface can also provide functionality similar to that described above with respect to fig. 5. Other functionality can also be provided in the primary content provider and secondary user provider user interfaces as needed, as will be readily understood by those skilled in the art. The embodiment of the invention shown in fig. 6 facilitates interaction between the primary content provider point 602 and the secondary content provider point 601 to enable the secondary content provider point 602 to conveniently and flexibly provide content to the primary content provider in a manner that enables both the primary and secondary content providers to exercise control over the content.

As described above, monitoring information and content can be embodied at a content display point through applet execution. In the systems of fig. 5A, 5B and 5C or in the systems of fig. 6A, 6B, 6C and 6D, the use of such an applet can be advantageously compatible with the execution of those systems in which the applet is transmitted from an application management point to a content display point. This is because the applet must send the monitoring information back to the web address from which the applet was transmitted, and therefore the monitoring information is directly transmitted to the neutral application management point. Also, when the display instruction and the content are transmitted from the application management point to the content display point, as described above, it is also possible to easily perform the preparation of the content to be supplied to the content display point using the display information.

Various embodiments of the present invention have been described. The description is intended to be illustrative, and not restrictive. It will therefore be apparent to those skilled in the art that certain changes may be made in the invention described above without departing from the scope of the claims set out below. For example, although the present invention has been described above with respect to monitoring the display of content simulcast over the world wide web. The present invention can also be used to monitor the display of content simulcast over a computer network in general. Furthermore, while an implementation of the present invention has been described in which aspects of the Java programming language are employed, it should be understood that the present invention is not limited to such an implementation; other programming languages with other features and characteristics may also be used (e.g., the language need not be a Java-like object-oriented language).

Claims (32)

1. A system for monitoring the display of content by a computer system, comprising:

monitoring means for monitoring at least one of the following objects:

a) a location of a content display on a computer display screen; and

b) the location of one or more other images on the display screen;

evaluation means for evaluating at least one of the following objects to generate monitoring information on the display of the content:

a) a location of a content display on the display screen; and

b) the location of one or more other images on the display screen; and

means for transmitting the monitoring information from the computer to a remote location over a network, the remote location not transmitting content to the computer.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the evaluating means further comprises means for comparing the content display location and the one or more other image locations to generate monitoring information.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the comparing means further comprises means for determining whether the content display is obscured by the one or more other images.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein said comparing means further comprises:

means for determining a duration of each of the one or more other images that the content display is obscured from; and

means for determining a duration of each time the content display is not obscured by the one or more other images.

5. The system of claim 3, wherein said comparing means further comprises:

means for determining a total duration of time that the content display is obscured by the one or more other images; and

means for determining a total duration of time that the content display is not obscured by the one or more other images.

6. The system of claim 3, wherein said means for determining further comprises means for determining whether said content display is entirely obscured or partially obscured by said one or more other images.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein said comparing means further comprises:

means for determining a duration of each of the times that the content display is entirely obscured by the one or more other images;

means for determining a duration of each of the times that the content display is partially obscured by the one or more other images; and

means for determining a duration of each time the content display is not obscured by the one or more other images.

8. The system of claim 6, wherein said comparing means further comprises:

means for determining a total duration of time that the content display is totally obscured by the one or more other images;

means for determining a total duration of time that the content display is partially obscured by the one or more other images; and

means for determining a total duration of time that the content display is not obscured by the one or more other images.

9. The system of claim 2,

one of the other images is a pointer; and

the comparing means further comprises means for determining the number of times the pointer has entered an area defined by the display of content.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein at least some of the monitored content comprises a graphical display.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the system further comprises:

means for monitoring changes in said content display characteristics over time; and

means for evaluating changes in said content display characteristics over time to generate monitoring information regarding the display of content.

12. The system of claim 11, further comprising means for monitoring changes in the computer system characteristics over time, wherein the means for evaluating further comprises means for comparing changes in the content display characteristics over time with changes in the computer system characteristics over time to generate monitoring information.

13. The system of claim 1, wherein the system comprises:

means for determining a start of display of the content;

means for determining an end of content display; and

apparatus for monitoring the display of content, wherein: there are means for monitoring a start operation when it is determined that display of the content is started and means for monitoring a stop operation when it is determined that display of the content is ended.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the content is displayed in response to an instruction provided by a user of the computer system.

15. The system of claim 13, wherein the means for monitoring the display of content further comprises:

means for monitoring changes in content display characteristics over time; and

means for evaluating changes in characteristics of the display of the content over time to generate monitoring information regarding the display of the content.

16. The system of claim 13 wherein said monitoring means further comprises means for determining a duration of content display.

17. A system for monitoring and displaying at a content presentation point content provided by a content providing point to the content presentation point via a network, comprising:

monitoring means for monitoring at least one of the following objects:

a) a location of a content display on a computer display screen; and

b) the location of one or more other images on the display screen;

evaluation means for evaluating at least one of the following objects to generate monitoring information on the display of the content:

a) a location of a content display on the display screen; and

b) the location of one or more other images on the display screen;

means for transmitting a monitoring instruction from the content providing point to the content display point in response to transmitting the content from the content providing point, and

means for transmitting monitoring information from the content display point to a remote location, the remote location not transmitting content from the content provision point to the content display point and the remote location being different from the content provision point.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the monitoring instructions are transmitted with the content to a content display point.

19. The system of claim 17, wherein the monitoring instructions are transmitted to the content display point from a location that is not the content providing point.

20. The system of claim 17, wherein said remote location is part of a network.

21. A system for monitoring and displaying at a content presentation point content provided by a content providing point to the content presentation point via a network, comprising:

monitoring means for monitoring at least one of the following objects:

a) a location of a content display on a computer display screen; and

b) the location of one or more other images on the display screen;

evaluation means for evaluating at least one of the following objects to generate monitoring information on the display of the content:

a) a location of a content display on the display screen; and

b) the location of one or more other images on the display screen;

means for transmitting a monitoring instruction from the content providing point to the content display point in response to transmitting the content from the content providing point, and

means for transmitting monitoring information to a remote location, the remote location being part of a network, wherein the remote location is the content providing point from which content is transmitted to the content display point and the monitoring information is encoded to prevent access to the monitoring information by the content display point.

22. The system of claim 21, further comprising means for transmitting said monitoring information from a content providing point to a second remote location.

23. A system as in claim 22, wherein said second remote location is adapted to receive and store monitoring information from a plurality of content providing points.

24. The system of claim 21, wherein the monitoring information is transmitted from the content presentation point to the content presentation point via a communication device different from a communication device used to transmit the content from the content presentation point to the content presentation point.

25. The system of claim 22, wherein said second remote location is not said content provider.

26. The system of claim 17, wherein new content is transferred to the content display point in response to selection of a portion of content currently being displayed at the content display point.

27. The system of claim 17, wherein the monitoring information includes information from which an observer can draw conclusions regarding the viewing of the content.

28. The system of claim 17, wherein said monitoring means further comprises:

means for monitoring changes in said content display characteristics over time;

means for evaluating changes in said content display characteristics over time to generate monitoring information regarding the display of content.

29. The system of claim 18 wherein said means for transmitting includes means for transmitting said monitoring instructions from said content provider to said content display point such that said monitoring instructions operate at said content display point.

30. The system of claim 29, wherein at least some of the content being monitored comprises a graphical display.

31. The system of claim 29, wherein said monitoring means further comprises:

means for monitoring changes in said content display characteristics over time; and

means for evaluating changes in the content display characteristics over time to generate monitoring information regarding the content display.

32. A method for a computer system to monitor the display of content, comprising:

monitoring at least one of the following objects:

a) a location of a content display on a computer display screen; and

b) the location of one or more other images on the display screen;

evaluating at least one of the following objects to produce monitoring information regarding the display of content:

a) a location of a content display on the display screen; and

b) the location of one or more other images on the display screen; and

monitoring information is transmitted from a computer to a remote location over a network, the remote location not transmitting content to the computer.