JP2008539508A - Information association using electronic documents - Google Patents

Abstract

The system for associating information includes an association module that uses anchor information for associating using first information as second information, where the second information is not included in the first information. The system further includes a rendering module that presents the second information for use. A method of using such a system is also described.

Description

  The Internet has evolved into a communication platform that can provide various services based on information. One of the most popular of these services is the provision of electronic documents built using the hypertext markup language (HTML). These documents, often referred to as web pages, are available from computer locations or sites on a logical segment of the Internet commonly referred to as the World Wide Web, or simply the Web. Information available from these websites and servers is typically accessed using a browser running on a remote computer. For example, a user launches a browser, enters a website's uniform resource locator (URL) into the browser's address bar, and presses the enter key on the keyboard or clicks the button with the mouse. To access the website. A URL typically contains three pieces of information that facilitate access, often based on a set of rules for information exchange in computer communications, ie, a protocol designation that specifies a standard, and the name of the organization that maintains the website. The domain name and the path to the desired document in the domain. A standard browser can use these information contained in the URL to establish a connection with the web server and obtain information from the web server.

  In addition to websites and web pages, other types of services are also available. These services include email, instant messaging, chat services, audio or video services, and other information services. In general, each service available on the Internet has been isolated from other services. For example, a user can access a website using a browser, but to access audio information, which is a separate service, the user must open an audio application. The user may also have to open a third application to access the chat service and a fourth application to access the messaging service.

  Information content from each type of service exists in isolation from other services, but in general such information can be logically related in a variety of different ways. For example, information can be logically related in the sense that information available from each service can refer to information available from other services. Information from one or more available services may be topically related, may be from the same source, or may be related in some other way. Current systems cannot provide any ability to integrate information from various services in a logical and meaningful way.

  The following is a brief summary to provide a basic understanding and a rough overview. This summary is not an extensive overview. It is not intended to identify key or critical components or to delineate the scope of handling. Its sole purpose is to present some concepts in a simplified form as a prelude to the more detailed discussion that follows. In addition, the section headings used herein are for convenience only and should not be construed as limiting in any way.

  The rendering module may obtain information such as a web page from an information source using a communication network. The association module may analyze the acquired information and use the analysis results to identify or find key or important information. Such information may be used as an anchor that can be used for association with other information in addition to the original information, among other information types. Additional information may be presented to the user.

  Various types of additional information or information services may be provided to the user based on information content acquired by the user, such as, for example, the content of a web page. Content from a web log related to or referring to the web page that the user is currently browsing may be presented along with the web page that is currently being viewed. The content types that can be presented include advertisement-based content and content created by another visitor to the website, such as, for example, notes, comments, ratings and reviews. At that time, one or more hyperlinks from a web page referring to the web page being browsed may also be presented. In addition, services such as related chat room discussions and automatic connections to page-biased searches may be provided.

  The components and methods disclosed and described include one or more features described below, particularly pointed out in the claims. The following description and the annexed drawings set forth in detail certain illustrative components and methods. However, these components and methods represent only a few of the various ways in which the disclosed components and methods can be used. Specific implementations of the disclosed and described components and methods may include some, many, or all of such components and methods, and the like. The variety of specific implementations and examples presented herein will become apparent from the following detailed description when considered in conjunction with the drawings.

  As used in this patent application, terms such as “component”, “system”, “module”, etc. refer to components associated with a computer, such as hardware, software (eg, running) and / or firmware. And For example, a component can be a process running on a processor, a processor, an object, an executable, a program, and / or a computer. Both the application running on the server and the server may also be components. One or more components may be present in the process, and the components may be installed on one computer and / or distributed between two or more computers.

  The disclosed components and methods are described with reference to the drawings, wherein like reference numerals are used to refer to like elements throughout. In the following description, for purposes of explanation, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the disclosed subject matter. However, it may be clear that some of these specific details can be omitted in certain implementations and combined with others. Certain structures and devices may be shown in block diagram form in other examples for ease of depiction. Further, although the illustrated example may use terminology in a client / server architecture or may even be an example of a client / server implementation, the roles of client and server may be reversed, and disclosed and The described components and methods are not limited to client / server architectures, and may be particularly easily configured for use in other architectures, including peer-to-peer (P2P), yet disclosed and described. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that they do not depart from the spirit or scope of other components and methods. Further, even though the specific examples presented herein include or refer to specific components, the implementation of the components and methods disclosed and described herein are not necessarily limited to those specific components. It should be noted that it may be used in other situations as well.

  Although the specific examples presented may describe or depict systems or methods based on a personal computer component, the use of the components and methods disclosed and described herein is limited to that field It should also be understood that it is not done. For example, the disclosed and described components and methods may be used in a distributed or network computing environment. Additionally or alternatively, the disclosed and described components and methods may be used on a single server accessed by multiple clients. Those skilled in the art will readily recognize that the components and methods disclosed and described may be used to create other components and to perform other methods on a wide variety of computing devices.

  FIG. 1 is a system block diagram of an interactive information system 100. The interactive information system 100 includes a rendering component 110 that may obtain information from the primary information data store 120. The rendering component 110 may be a browser or other component that has the ability to obtain and present information. Specifically, the rendering component 110 may be a stand-alone application that is launched and operated by a user, or another rendering component such as an HTML rendering engine for email applications or other similar components. It may be other modules designed for use with components. The rendering component 110 may present the acquired information to the user on a display device or some other man-machine interface, such as a voice-based interface or a Braille Braille interface.

  The primary information data storage device 120 may be a database, an intranet, the World Wide Web, the Internet, file sharing or any other information source, including in particular remotely accessible information sources. The information contained in the primary information data storage device 120 may depend on the specific implementation of the primary information data storage device 120, but may generally include any information in electronic or machine readable form. . In particular, the information stored in the primary information data storage device can be web pages from the Internet or an intranet, various types of text documents, graphic video information, audio information, video information, multimedia information, and other suitable It may contain format information.

  The association plug-in 130 may communicate with the rendering component 110 and the primary information data store 120 to obtain information that the rendering component 110 may present to the user. Additionally or alternatively, the interactive plug-in 130 may obtain additional information from another information source, such as the secondary information data storage device 140. The secondary information data storage device 140 may be implemented in much the same manner as the primary information data storage device 120 and may include, among other things, the same type of information. Specifically, the secondary information data storage device 140 includes writing, documents such as web pages, intranet pages, various types of text documents, graphic or audio information, search terms or search results, and access to search engines. Search related information, wikis, weblogs (blogs), RSS or other news feeds, chat content including notification-based chat content, instant message information including messages or usernames, tags, inlinks, outlinks, And any other information stored and presented in electronic or machine-readable form.

  Information included in the secondary information data storage device 140 may be created by the secondary content creation module 150. Those skilled in the art, after reading this disclosure, will vary in the implementation details of the secondary content creation module 150 depending on the specific type of information created for use in the secondary information data storage device 140. You will recognize the good. Depending on such content, secondary content creation module 150 may specifically include a text editor, a word processor, a spreadsheet program, a slideshow or presentation program, a web page editor, a graphics program. , An audio program, a weblog creation tool, a chat program, an instant messaging program, or, in particular, any other suitable component that includes a combination of some or all of the above examples .

  The association plug-in 130 can relate or associate information from the secondary information data store 140 with information originally obtained from the primary information data store 120 for display in the rendering component 110. Specifically, additional information from the secondary information data storage device 140 can be anchored to information from the primary information data storage device 120. Such anchoring or association can be achieved in a variety of ways. For example, example-domain-name. A domain name such as tdl can be used as an anchor to information from the secondary information data storage device 140. Similarly, a fully or partially abbreviated uniform resource locator (URL), including a relative URL, of a web page or other resource that is currently or previously accessed can be used as an anchor. Other anchor candidates include file locations for file sharing, or other remote locations, keywords included in content from primary information data storage device 120, or format data, but there are many others. However, it is not limited to these.

  In some cases, the information from the secondary information data storage device 140 may be a writing including some text. A write can be anchored to the web page by associating the write with the URL of the web page. You could also anchor writing to form data. For example, if the form data is a postal zip code, the writing can be displayed whenever the user enters the zip code into the form. In another example, writing can be anchored to a particular keyword. When a user views information from the primary information data store 120 that includes such keywords, the writing can be displayed to the user by the rendering component 110. The writing can be replaced with any content from the secondary information data storage device 140. In general, any content from the secondary information data storage device 140 can be anchored to any content from the primary information data storage device 120 in any suitable combination by using a suitable anchor.

  Note that additional information can be anchored or associated with the initially acquired information, but the content of the additional information need not be related to the content contained in the initially acquired information. I want to be. For example, the initially acquired information may be a web page for a computer programming language and the additional information may be a link to a search engine. In this example, the link to the search engine has nothing to do with the content of the web page. The association plug-in 130 enables or provides many other types of additional content or functionality.

  An example based on a web page is shown below. The rendering component 110 may retrieve the web page from the primary information data storage device 120. The web page may be presented to the user by the rendering component 110. The association plug-in 130 may analyze the web page to determine what content of the web page is important. Various methods may be used to analyze the web page. Among these methods, there is a technology that uses a TF-IDF (term frequency-inverse document frequency) algorithm to create a list of terms contained in a web page and create a probabilistic summary of the content of the web page. is there. The association plug-in 130 may use the content of the web page to identify other content to present to the user. This separate content includes, inter alia, content from interactive chat rooms that are built around topics related to the web page, and weblogs (blogs) articles that relate to or specifically address the web page. Or content from RSS or other news feeds, especially hyperlinks from other pages that point to the web page, access to search engines, advertisements related to the content of the web page, or other to the web page Content in the form of comments by visitors.

  The association plug-in 130 may be implemented in a variety of ways that, among other factors, may depend largely on the specific implementation of the rendering component 110. Those factors will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art upon reading this disclosure. In one exemplary implementation, the association plug-in 130 may be executable code that runs in a window or browser sidebar or similar area. The association plug-in 130 may also be a stand-alone application or other suitable executable code. The association plug-in 130 may be a writing component that gives the user the ability to post a written posting that can be associated with a particular URL.

  Written postings may have informational nature, including hyperlinks to related subjects, information about products or services similar to those featured on the web page, or other information. Write postings can also be organized in the sense that write postings can be used to organize personal writing, such as writing about research articles on a particular home page, by URL. The posting can also be applied to the social network by sending a message to the other users who visit the URL with which the posting is associated using the posting. The message is directed to others who are trying to attend an event, others who have an interest similar to that of the message creator, a part of the discussion on the topic of the web page, or any other type of message. It may be. Written postings may also have entertainment purposes, such as giving humor or being part of an online game.

  FIG. 2 is a block diagram of writing 200. Write 200 may be used by an association plug-in, such as association plug-in 130 of FIG. 1, to convey information that can be associated with certain online content. Specifically, the information conveyed may include any type of information disclosed and described with respect to FIG.

  Write 200 may include multiple fields. Anchor field 210 may contain information that can be used to anchor the content of writing 200 to an information location. The information in the anchor field 210 may include a URL, a domain name, or a root domain name, among other location identifiers. Anchor field 210 may be used to describe any suitable anchor, specifically the type of anchor previously disclosed and described with respect to FIG. Anchor field 210 may be used to associate content available to the association plug-in with an information location.

  Based on the type of anchor and other factors, the write 200 may include a variety of fields. The keyword field 220 may contain keywords that relate to the content and that can be used for indexing or search purposes. The content key field 230 may include a number of keywords or phrases that are used to find content, such as a web page, that contains or matches the information in the content key field 230. Good. Form data field 240 may contain information that can be used to retrieve information similar to the information in the form. The form data field may also include form information such as one or more form field names to match the form field to the value for that field.

  Scope field 250 may include information regarding the level at which writing such as writing 200 can be distributed. For example, the scope field 250 may indicate that the writing 200 is private and can only be viewed by its creator. Scope field 250 may also indicate that group access is allowed for members of a particular group or group of groups. These groups have various ways of defining membership, but may be defined based on certain criteria, or may include pre-selected members. Further, access disclosure may be presented by information in the scope field 250 such that anyone can view the writing 200.

  The write 200 may also include a type field 260. The information in the type field 260 can be used to define various types of writes. There are various types, but may include, for example, a simple text box, a photo, a discussion thread, or a user-defined type. Different types of writing may be displayed to the user in different ways so that it is readily apparent that the presented writing is of a particular type. Note that the presence of these fields gives the user the ability to sort writing based on personal preferences. Further, writing such as writing 200 may be static in the sense that its content may be fixed or it may be dynamic. A dynamic write may, for example, request updated information from the server each time the dynamic write is activated.

  In another exemplary implementation, the user may specify a content provider, such as a writing 200, that wants to obtain the content. The user may also specify an area where such content can be displayed. One possible way to specify such an area is by providing a graphical tool that the user can place in the sidebar of the browser window. The user may also select various options, among other things, close the writing, let the writing automatically refresh the content, let the writing prepare a labeled sub-bar that can categorize the information, and write May be associated with one or more anchors, set a disposal date, restrict writing distribution, or create writing anonymously.

  The perceived utility of writing may follow the network effect that the value of the writing system increases with the number of users. Various techniques may be used to provide some initial value when starting a writing system. For example, writing may be shared between URLs. Writing may also provide automatic annotations, especially for websites, blogs, newsgroups and discussion forums. Dynamic writing and other content boxes may easily provide content. A scenario site describing the usage of writing may be created. In addition, an application programming interface (API) for writing may be provided to inspire developers to create their own writing. A search function for writing also increases its usefulness. An award may be awarded to the user of writing to inspire further use. Popular websites may also be used to facilitate writing installation and further use by users. At least some of these popular websites may be officially signed as writing promoters. Also, content provided only through the use of writing may be provided so that writing components need to be installed to access the content.

  The success or failure of writing can also depend on the filter function and the ranking function. Writing ordering can be accomplished according to various social networks or spider web trust network concepts. Writes anchored to a particular URL may be ranked higher (or lower) than writes that are only anchored to a domain name. The ranking function also, among other factors, writes such as the scope of writing, author of writing, due date of writing, user preference profile, filter function, link analysis, scores or whether the user has closed the writing Feedback, and write ranking threshold, etc. may be used based at least in part on one or more factors.

  Privacy considerations in the use of writing may be addressed in a variety of ways. For example, the component may request multiple writes from various URLs to obscure the identification of the actually desired write. This technique may be used in conjunction with a prefetch scheme. Instead of a request in plain text, a one-way hash of a URL for writing may be created and sent to the server. Additionally or alternatively, an intermediate server may be used to make it difficult to identify the user who requested a particular write.

  In addition to writing, the interactive component may be a web chat component that allows dynamic chat sessions between users. Such chat sessions may also be anchored to URLs or domain names, but others. A chat session may also be anchored to one or more sites in preparation for a more diverse discussion. Such a chat session is also a notification base that allows a user to be notified when another user arrives at a designated site and wants to participate in a chat session with another user. Also good. Other web-related applications may be implemented, a list creation component that provides a list of web pages linked to the web page being browsed, a page summary component that summarizes the contents of the web page being viewed, And, but not limited to, search components that link to search engines that search for terms that often appear on web pages.

  FIG. 3 is a system block diagram of the association information system 300. The association information system 300 includes a rendering component 310 and an association plug-in component 320. As in the previous example, the association plug-in component 320 may be a standalone application, may be a pluggable part of another application, or may be other executable code. Good. The rendering component 310 may access information content from the network 330. Network 330 may be the Internet, the World Wide Web, an intranet, or other suitable network to an information source.

  The association plug-in 320 may access and analyze information content retrieved by the rendering component 310 from the network 330. To analyze the information content, the association plug-in 320 may use any suitable way, including one of the ways discussed with respect to the other figures. The association plug-in 320 may then connect to the chat server 340 in order to establish a session in a chat room that is organized around topics related to information content.

  For example, during operation, the rendering component 310 may obtain a web page from the World Wide Web. The association plug-in 320 may then analyze the content of the web page to determine the theme of the web page. The association plug-in 320 may then connect to the chat server 340 to find chat rooms related to the theme of the web page. Thereafter, the user may participate in the discussion in the chat room while continuing to browse the web page.

  FIG. 4 is a system block diagram of the association information system 400. The association information system 400 includes a rendering component 410 and an association component 420. Rendering component 410 may be a web browser or other suitable component capable of obtaining and displaying information. The rendering component 410 may access information available on the network 430 and may communicate that information to the association component 420.

  The association component 420 may analyze the information received from the rendering component 410 and may use that information to obtain additional information from the weblog (blog) data store 440. The weblog (blog) data store 440 may include information about weblog (blog) articles and cross references from the weblog (blog) articles to the website. A cross-reference may be created for a weblog (blog) article that deals with a topic that is the same as or similar to the topic of the website. Cross-references may also be created for weblog (blog) articles that specifically refer to websites. Other cross references may be created.

  In use, the rendering component 410 accesses information from the network 430 and displays the information for presentation to the user. The association component 420 analyzes the displayed information to identify subjects related to the general topic or other content of the information. The association component 420 accesses the weblog (blog) data store 440 to find weblog (blog) articles that are cross-referenced with the information obtained by the rendering component 410. The association component 420 may then present those weblog (blog) articles to the user while the user is still viewing the information.

  Instead of or in addition to a weblog (blog) article, information about a product or service related to the theme of the web page may be presented. Such information may be in the form of user reviews or advertisements from the product or service provider itself. Such advertisements may be activated using keywords from information that has already been ordered by the rendering component 410. Thus, advertisements can target users who are most likely to respond to such advertisements. Additionally or alternatively, the user may subscribe to content updates, where various events, such as content additions, serve as triggers for automatically generating content update operations.

  Some possible implementations include supplemental components that can provide contextual intelligent search applications. This search application accesses the content of the web page that the user is browsing and uses the algorithms such as TF-IDF (term frequency-inverse document frequency) algorithm to determine the importance of various terms on the web page. May be calculated. When a user issues a query through a search application, the user may obtain an answer to the query that favorably biased results having content similar to the content being viewed.

  FIG. 5 is a system block diagram of the association information system 500. The association information system 500 includes a rendering module 510 and an association module 520. The rendering module 510 may obtain and present information from the world wide web 530. The association module 520 may access and analyze the information retrieved by the rendering module 510 in any of the ways described above. Association module 520 may then use the results of such analysis to access search server 540. The search server 540 may answer search queries and provide results that are biased towards the concepts present in information from the World Wide Web.

  For example, the rendering module 510 may obtain a web page for the user. The association module 520 may then analyze the content of the web page to determine keywords or important concepts. The user may then perform a search for additional information. The association module 520 may use keywords or conceptual descriptions obtained from web pages to increase the search query entered by the user. The search server 540 will use the augmented search to obtain information that is relevant to the purpose. The search results may be advantageously biased to a web page that includes similar or similar concepts to the web page that the rendering module 510 originally acquired.

  FIG. 6 is a system block diagram of the association information system 600. Association information system 600 includes a rendering component 610 that may access web pages from network 630. The association component 620 may access the web page from the rendering component 610 and analyze its contents. Such analysis may follow any of the procedures described above. The association component 620 may then use the analysis results to contact the context server 640 to obtain additional content.

  The context server 640 may access a visitor content data server 650 that may include content such as user comments, ratings, rankings, or other content related to the web page obtained by the rendering component 610. The context server 640 then sends such content to the association component 620 for presentation to the user. In this way, users may access information from other users to the web page and obtain opinions from those users regarding the web page.

  Various types of information about web pages created by other users or web page viewers may be created. This content may include writing and chat sessions as previously disclosed or described with respect to other figures. Such content may also include return links, contextual or context-aware search functions, weblog (blog) postings, and scoring functions, etc. Note that any of these types of content may be anchored to a location, such as a URL or domain name, as previously disclosed or described. Such anchoring may allow content to be associated with a website by a host other than the host of the website with which the content is associated or anchored.

  One type of content that a website user may create is a tag. A tag may be an annotation that the user creates and may relate to a website or some other information that the creating user is interested in. For example, the user may create a tag that includes a short descriptive phrase about the website. Additionally or alternatively, a site rating may be given, for example, a star rating or consent with a simple thumb display, a disagreement score. The score may apply to the website itself or to the products or services offered on that website, etc. Links to related or similar websites may also be provided, including advertising links. Other types of content may also be added. In addition, tags may be graded according to various attributes and may be used to grade web pages with which they are associated.

  FIG. 7 is a system block diagram of the auxiliary content providing system 700. Auxiliary content provision system 700 specifically supports various types of auxiliary content components, including components of the type previously disclosed or described with respect to the figures, such as writing, chat components and tags, etc. May be used to Specifically, a wide variety of third party content may be provided to assist content from a website. Those skilled in the art will recognize from reading this disclosure that the components disclosed or described with respect to FIG. 7 are not necessarily required in any implementation. For example, a component related to privacy or advertising may be optional.

  The auxiliary content providing system 700 includes a client user interface 710. Client user interface 710 may be a browser or other type of user interface capable of obtaining information and presenting that information to the user. Specifically, the client user interface 710 may be a pluggable sidebar that may be displayed to the user along with primary content that can be presented by another component, such as a browser in one implementation. The pluggability of the client user interface 710 allows the developer to add support for various types of content that may be associated with the primary content in any manner disclosed or described with respect to another figure. May be.

  The client user interface 710 may communicate with a third party content provider 715. Third party content providers 715 can search, including, for example, writing, documents such as web pages, intranet pages, various types of text documents, graphics or audio information, search terms or search results, and access to search engines. Information, wikis, weblogs (blogs), RSS or other news feeds, chat content including notification-based chat content, instant message information including messages or usernames, tags, inlinks, outlinks, and electronic Any other information that can be stored or presented in a manual or machine-readable form, or another type of information to the user by using suitable communication means that can be supported by the client user interface 710, etc. It may provide the content. Separate advertisement interface 720 may provide a platform for advertisers to create or provide advertisements to be presented to users. The advertisement interface 720 may be a web browser window or some other suitable interface. The specifications of the advertising interface depend heavily on the level of desire for access provided to the advertiser as well as the details of the individual implementations.

  Client user interface 710 may send requests for various types of information through privacy protection service 725. These requests may be requests for content associated with or anchored to content provided by a third party content provider 715. Privacy protection service 725 may operate to protect the identity of the user who issued the request for information or other privacy related information. This protection may be achieved by obscuring the actual user request by including the request in a group of “dummy” requests. Other techniques, particularly other encryption functions or various anonymization functions for encrypting a hash or information request, may additionally or alternatively be used.

  The privacy protection service 725 may send an information request to the information providing system 730 and receive information therefrom. Information providing system 730 may include various components that can facilitate the creation and access to auxiliary information. This ancillary information may be created manually by the user, automatically by a bot such as a script or web crawler, or configured in other ways to create content for the user. May be.

  The information providing system 730 includes an information acquisition device (fetcher) 735. The information acquisition device 735 may receive a request from the client user interface 710 for information including a URL, a domain name, or other suitable identifier. Information acquisition device 735 may use requests from client user interface 710 to acquire information from other components. Specifically, the information acquisition device 735 may acquire a requested user preference set from a set of user preferences 740. The information acquisition device 735 may use any acquired user preferences to tailor the information to be provided to the client user interface 710 to the requesting user's personal wishes.

  The information acquisition device 735 may acquire content from the content / data storage device 745. The content data storage device 745 may be a database, web server, or some other suitable data storage device. The content that may be included in the content / data storage device 745 may include content created by the user from the user / content / writer device 750. The user / content / writer device 750 may provide a means by which a user can add content created thereby to the content / data storage device 745. This means may be a web form or other web service, etc. Content data store 745 may also include content from non-user content module 755. Non-user content module 755 may include such things as scripts, web crawlers, tags, and the like.

  The information acquisition device 735 may also acquire advertisement information from the advertisement data storage device 760. Advertising data store 760 may include advertising content from advertising purchasing module 765 including graphic, audio, and video content. Advertisers using the advertisement user interface 720 may purchase or otherwise acquire the ability to place advertisements in the information providing system 730 by using the advertisement purchase module 765. The advertisement purchase module 765 may access the user model 770 to allow the advertiser to select one or more user models that will be used to target the advertisement to the user.

  The ranking and filtering module 775 may receive content from the information acquisition device 735 and modify the content according to user preferences 740 and user feedback 780. User feedback 780 may be created by a user of the client user interface 710 and may be used to customize the content before providing the content to the client user interface 710. The modified content may be provided to the client user interface 710 by the ranking and filtering module 775.

  The content data storage device 745 may also create a notification 785 that may be sent to the client user interface 710. The user of the client user interface 710 may subscribe for a notification that can be used to trigger an information request to the client user interface 710. The content data storage device 745 may generate an event when the included information is modified. This event may trigger the occurrence of notification 785. Notification 785 may be sent to client user interface 710 that may use the notification to trigger an event requesting information providing system 730 for new or updated content.

  Various components of the information providing system 730 may use components based on artificial intelligence to add functionality to the system. For example, the ranking and filtering module 775 may use a classifier to rank the content to be provided to the client user interface 710. Also, for example, the advertisement purchase module 765 may use a component based on artificial intelligence to match the user model 770 with the users in the desired target demographic group.

  Although the disclosed and described components, such as matching or inference tasks, etc. have been discussed above, various artificial intelligence based mechanisms may be used to accomplish a variety of tasks. For example, demographic matching or content ranking according to user feedback or preferences may be accomplished by a neural network, expert system, rule-based processing component, or support vector machine.

The classifier is a function that maps an input attribute vector, X = (x ₁ , x ₂ , x ₃ , x ₄ ,... X _n ), to a confidence that the input belongs to a class. That is, f (X) = confidence (class). Such classification is based on probabilistic and / or statistical analysis (eg, factors in the usefulness and cost of the analysis) to predict or infer the behavior that the user wants to be performed automatically. Decomposition) may be used. For example, in the case of a content providing system, an attribute of a reference set of information such as user preference used in comparison may be used to determine whether an attribute of a certain content is considered to match a user preference.

  A support vector machine (SVM) is an example of a classifier that can be used. The SVM operates to find a hyperplane in the possible input space, which hyperplane attempts to isolate the activation criteria from non-activation events. Intuitively, this provides correct classification to test data that does not match training data but is close to it. Other directed and undirected model classification techniques may use, for example, naive Bayes, Bayesian networks, decision trees, and probabilistic classification models that give various patterns of independence. The taxonomy used herein also includes statistical regression that is used to build the priority model.

  As will be readily understood from the subject specification, the components disclosed or described herein are not only explicitly trained (eg, with comprehensive training data) but also (eg, by observing user behavior) An implicitly trained classifier may be used (with incidental information). For example, the SVM consists of a learning or training phase in a classifier builder and feature selection module. Thus, the classifier may be used to automatically perform a number of functions, including but not limited to matching and ranking functions.

  In operation, the auxiliary content providing system 700 may function as follows. A user may operate the client user interface 710 to obtain a web page. The web page may be provided via a network connection such as a LAN, WAN, intranet, or the Internet, or the like. The client user interface 710 may provide an anchoring mechanism, such as any of the anchoring mechanisms disclosed or described herein, to identify additional content obtained from the third party content provider 715. May be used. Based on the anchor, the client user interface 710 may request additional content from the information providing system 730. The additional content may be writing, chat room connections, tags, advertisements, or any combination thereof, etc.

  The client user interface sends the request to privacy protection service 725. The request may be triggered by notification 785. The privacy protection service 725 removes all information that can identify an individual from the request, anonymizes the request, and forwards the request to the information acquisition device 735. Additionally or alternatively, privacy protection service 625 may include the request in a group of dummy requests to hide the actual request from anyone who may be monitoring the request.

  Information acquisition device 735 obtains user preferences (which can also be anonymized) from user preferences 740, content from content data storage device 745, and advertisements from advertisement data storage device 760. Use those preferences. The fetcher sends the content and advertisements to a ranking and filter module 775 that ranks and filters the content and advertisements according to user preferences 740, user model 770, and user feedback 780. The ranking and filter module 775 sends the content and advertisements to a privacy protection service 725 that relays the contents and advertisements to the client user interface 710.

  A user may use the client user interface 710 through the privacy protection service 725 to create user content by accessing the user content writing device 750. The user / content / writing device 750 installs the user-created content in the content / data storage device 745. Additionally or alternatively, non-user content 755 may be placed in content data storage 745 and included in content that is ultimately transmitted to client user interface 710.

  The user may also access the user feedback module 780 to provide explicit feedback on content provided to the client user interface 710. The feedback may include a quality measure, such as suitability, along with a further request for the information type provided or a request to block some content. User feedback may be used in ranking and filtering tasks and may be specifically used to help train any artificial intelligence-based component of the ranking and filtering module 775.

  The advertiser may use the advertisement user interface 720 to access the advertisement purchase module 765. Those advertisers may purchase the advertising space and may access the user model 770 to define the target recipient of the advertisement. The advertiser may also use the advertiser user interface 720 and the advertisement purchase module 765 to upload or otherwise provide a specific advertisement to provide to the user. These advertisements are stored in the advertisement data storage device 760.

  FIG. 8 is a diagram of an exemplary user interface 800. User interface 800 may provide a logical element array within which information may be presented to a user. Specifically, the user interface 800 allows the user to acquire not only content from information providers such as websites but also secondary or user-created content that may be anchored to content from information providers. A platform that may be used may be provided. Such secondary or user-created content may be presented along with content from the information provider.

  User interface 800 may include a primary information pane 810. In this example, primary information pane 810 may be used to depict or display a web page that the user has reached. Note that this example is based on a web browsing platform, but may be modified to accept the diversity previously disclosed or described with respect to other figures. In particular, standard web page elements such as text, graphics, multimedia content, and embed code may be provided in the primary information pane 810. The web page provided in the primary information pane 810 can be in various ways, such as entering a URL into the navigation bar, performing a search using a search engine, or hyperlink from another web page. May be reached by clicking.

  A secondary information pane or sidebar 820 may be displayed near the primary information pane 810. Although referred to as a sidebar, the secondary information pane or sidebar 820 may be included in a single window that also includes the primary information pane 810 as shown, or presented in a separate window. Additionally or alternatively, the secondary information pane or sidebar 820 may be located anywhere on the left or right side as well as the top or bottom of the window. Such positioning may be in accordance with user selectable preferences to the user interface 800.

  The secondary information pane or sidebar 820 can display a variety of elements such as writing, chat boxes, and advertisements, such as writing, chat boxes, and advertisements disclosed and described herein with respect to other figures. An area may be provided. Write 830 has a ticket for sale from a user to an event held at the same geographical location as the building described in the web page presented in primary information pane 810. A message indicating that this is included. Other messages are included in writes 840, 850, 860.

  Add Write component 870 provides input controls that allow the user to create and add a text box and a write that may be anchored in the primary information pane 810 to the domain name of the website currently being viewed. Chat box 880 provides an interface for a user to participate in a chat session related to the general topic of the website being viewed at that time. Advertising area 890 provides a space where targeted advertisements can be delivered to users.

  With reference to FIGS. 9-12, flowcharts in accordance with various methods or procedures are presented. For the purpose of simplifying the description, one or more of the methods shown herein are displayed and described as a sequence of actions, eg, in flowchart form, but any methods and procedures shown and described are also Any component that may be used in any method or procedure is not necessarily limited by the order of operation, and thus occurs in a different order and / or concurrently with other operations than those shown and described herein. Understand and recognize that there may be behavior. For example, those skilled in the art will understand and appreciate that a method could alternatively be presented as a series of interrelated states or events, such as in a state diagram. Further, the displayed actions may not be necessary to implement a method or procedure.

  FIG. 9 is a flow diagram illustrating the general process flow of a method 900 that may be used with the components disclosed or described herein with respect to other figures. The method 900 may be used to obtain additional content related to content that the user is interested in. Specifically, the additional content can be obtained by analyzing the content of the web page being browsed at that time and finding additional content related to the content of the web page.

  Processing of method 900 begins at start block 910 and proceeds to process block 920. At process block 920, a web page is retrieved from a location on the network. The network may be a local area network (LAN), a wide area network (WAN), an intranet, the Internet, or the like. The content of the retrieved web page is analyzed at process block 930. A variety of analysis algorithms may be used to find important or related terms in a web page. Among those algorithms is the TF-IDF algorithm previously described with respect to other figures.

  At process block 940, additional content related to the content of the retrieved web page is identified and obtained. This content may be obtained from a location other than the network location that provides the web page being viewed or analyzed. The content may be related in a variety of ways, including, but not limited to, the topic is related or anchored to the URL of the web page. Specifically, the acquired content may be created by the user at that time, or may be created by another user and can be viewed from the public or a group. At processing block 950, the acquired additional content is presented to the user. The presentation may be in a specific area of the man machine interface, such as a graphical user interface. Processing of method 900 ends at end block 960.

  FIG. 10 is a flow diagram illustrating a general process flow 1000 that may be used with the components disclosed or described herein with respect to other figures. The method 1000 may be used to obtain interactive services related to content that the user is interested in. Specifically, the interactive service can be obtained by analyzing the content of the web page being browsed at that time and finding an interactive service related to the content of the web page being browsed at that time.

  Processing of method 1000 begins at start block 1010 and proceeds to process block 1020. At processing block 1020, a web page is obtained from a location on the network. This network can be a LAN, WAN, intranet, or the Internet, or the like. At processing block 1030, the content of the web page is analyzed. As with other examples, the TF-IDF algorithm may be used to analyze web pages. Other algorithms may also be used.

  An interactive service related to the content of the web page, in this example a chat session, is identified at process block 1040. The identification may be based on a keyword search for a topic in the chat room. At processing block 1050, a connection to at least one chat session is made and the content of the chat room is presented to the user. Processing of method 1000 ends at end block 760.

  FIG. 11 is a flow diagram illustrating a general process flow 1100 that may be used with the components disclosed or described herein with respect to other figures. The method 1100 may be used to obtain additional content related to content that the user is interested in. Specifically, the additional content can be obtained by analyzing the content of the web page being browsed at that time and finding the additional content that may refer to the content of the web page being browsed at that time.

  Processing of method 1100 begins at start block 1110. Processing then continues to processing block 1120 where a web page is retrieved. Web pages may be ordered from some web server, which may be local or remote. A remote web server may be accessed by using a network such as a LAN, WAN, intranet, or the Internet, among others. At processing block 1130, the content of the retrieved web page is analyzed. The analysis of the content of the web page may be based on various algorithms, specifically including the TF-IDF algorithm. Other suitable algorithms may be substituted for the TF-IDF algorithm.

  Content from the weblog related to the content of the retrieved web page is identified and obtained at processing block 1140. Weblog content may be related in a variety of ways. For example, a web log may specifically discuss content on an analyzed web page. It may also provide a hyperlink to a web page from which the weblog article was analyzed. Also, the weblog article may just discuss the same or similar topic as the analyzed web page. Such weblog articles are presented to the user at process block 1150. Processing of method 1100 ends at end block 1160.

  FIG. 12 is a flow diagram illustrating the general process flow of a method 1200 that may be used with the components disclosed or described herein with respect to other figures. The method 1200 may be used to obtain additional content related to content that the user is interested in. Specifically, the additional content analyzes the content of the web page currently being viewed and produces a biased result set that favors results that include content similar to the content of the analyzed web page. You may acquire by performing the search for.

  Processing of method 1200 begins at start block 1210. At processing block 1220, a web page is retrieved from an information server such as a web server. The information server may be local or remote. If the information server is remote, the web page may be obtained via a network such as a LAN, WAN, intranet, or the Internet, among others.

  The acquired web page is analyzed at processing block 1230. Important terms or concepts from the web page are identified at process block 1240. Analysis and specific tasks may be performed using various algorithms, including the TF-IDF algorithm discussed with respect to other figures. Processing of the method 1200 continues at process block 1250 where a search query is received from the user.

  At processing block 1260, the search query received from the user is optionally augmented by adding important terms and concepts identified from the analyzed web page to the query. A search using the increased query is performed at process block 1270. The increase in queries in this manner may be used to bias search results in favor of results that contain content similar to the content of the analyzed web page. The search may also optionally be refined in various ways, such as limiting the query to pages that link to the current domain or the currently viewed page. Other changes are also possible. Search results may be obtained at process block 1280 and presented to the user through some interface. At processing block 1285, the obtained results are optionally recorded. The process of method 1200 ends at end block 1290.

  To provide additional background for implementation, FIGS. 13 and 14 and the following discussion provide a brief and general description of a suitable computing environment in which the disclosed and described components and methods may be implemented. Let's try. While various specific implementations have been described above in the general relationship with computer-executable instructions for computer programs running on local and / or remote computers, those skilled in the art can Recognize that other implementations in combination with other program modules are also possible. Generally, program modules include routines, programs, components, data structures, etc. that perform particular tasks and / or implement particular abstract data types.

  Further, those skilled in the art will recognize that the components and methods described above are not limited to personal computers, handheld computer devices, microprocessor-based and / or programmable consumer electronics, and the like, as well as single processor or multiprocessor computer systems. It will be appreciated that other computer configurations may be implemented, including minicomputers and mainframe computers. Note that each of them may communicate with one or more associated devices during operation. Certain illustrated features of the disclosed and described components and methods may also be practiced in distributed computing environments where there are also tasks performed by remote processing devices that are linked through a communications network or other data connection. However, some, if not all, of these features may be implemented on a stand-alone computer. In a distributed computing environment, program modules may be located in local and / or remote storage devices.

  FIG. 13 is a schematic block diagram of an example computer environment 1300 with which the present invention may interact. System 1300 includes one or more client (s) 1310. The client (s) 1310 may be hardware and / or software (eg, threads, processes, computer devices). System 1300 also includes one or more server (s) 1320. Server (s) 1320 may be hardware and / or software (eg, threads, processes, computer devices). Server group 1320 may contain threads or processes, for example, to perform transformations using the present invention.

  One possible means of communication between the client 1310 and the server 1320 may be in the form of a data packet configured to be transmitted between two or more computer processes. System 1300 includes a communication framework 1340 that can be used to facilitate communication between client (s) 1310 and server (s) 1320. Client (s) 1310 operates in connection with one or more client data storage (s) 1350 that may be used to store local information for client (s) 1310. Similarly, server (s) 1320 operates in conjunction with one or more server data storage (s) 1330 that may be used to store local information for server (s) 1340. .

  With reference to FIG. 14, an exemplary environment 1400 for implementing various aspects of the invention includes a computer 1412. Computer 1412 includes a processing unit 1414, system memory 1416, and system bus 1418. The system bus 1418 connects system components to the processing unit 1414, including but not limited to the system memory 1416. The processing unit 1414 may be any of various possible processors. Dual microprocessors and other multiprocessor architectures may also be used as the processing unit 1414.

  The system bus 1418 includes a memory bus or memory controller, a peripheral bus or an external bus, and / or an ISA (Industrial Standard Architecture), an MSA (Micro-Channel Architecture), an EISA (Intelligent Intelligent). ), VLB (VESA Local Bus), PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect), card bus, USB (Universal Serial Bus), AGP (Advanced Graphics Port), PCMCIA (Personal Coal ational Association), Firewire (IEEE1394), and a SCSI (Small Computer Systems Interface), but not limited to, be a local bus using any of a variety of possible bus architectures.

  System memory 1416 includes volatile memory 1420 and non-volatile memory 1422. A basic input / output system (BIOS) including basic routines for transferring information between elements in the computer 1412 at startup or the like is stored in the non-volatile memory 1422. Illustratively, but not limited to, non-volatile memory 1422 may be read only memory (ROM), programmable ROM (PROM), electrically programmable ROM (EPROM), electrically erasable. Possible ROM (EEPROM) or flash memory may be included. Volatile memory 1420 may include random access memory (RAM), which acts as external cache memory. Illustrative examples include, but are not limited to, RAM: static RAM (SRAM), dynamic RAM (DRAM), synchronous DRAM (SDRAM), double data rate SDRAM (DDR SDRAM), It is available in many forms, such as sync link DRAM (SLDRAM) and direct Rambus DRAM (DRRAM).

  The computer 1412 also includes removable / non-removable, volatile / nonvolatile computer storage media. For example, FIG. 14 shows a disk storage device 1424. The disk storage device 1424 includes devices such as a magnetic disk drive, floppy disk drive, tape drive, Jaz drive, Zip drive, LS-100 drive, flash memory card, or memory stick. It is not limited to. Further, the disk storage device 1424 is a separate storage medium, or a compact disk ROM device (CD-ROM), a CD recordable drive device (SD-R drive), a CD rewritable drive device (CD-RW drive). ), Or an optical disk such as a digital versatile disk ROM (DVD-ROM), but may be included in combination with other storage media. A removable or fixed interface such as interface 1426 is typically used to facilitate connection of disk storage device 1424 to system bus 1418.

  It should be appreciated that FIG. 14 illustrates software that operates as an intermediary between a user and basic computer resources described in a suitable operating environment 1400. Such software includes an operating system 1428. Operating system 1428 may be stored on disk storage 1424 but operates to control and allocate resources of computer system 1412. System application 1430 leverages resource management by operating system 1428 through program modules 1432 and program data 1434 stored in system memory 1416 or disk storage 1424. It should be appreciated that the present invention may be implemented using various operating systems or combinations of operating systems.

  A user enters commands or information into computer 1412 through input device (s) 1436. The input device group 1436 includes a pointing device such as a mouse, a trackball, a stylus, a touch pad, a keyboard, a microphone, a joystick, a game pad, a satellite dish, a scanner, a TV tuner card, a digital camera, and a digital video camera. , Web cameras, etc., but not limited to. These and other input devices are connected to processing unit 1414 through system bus 1418 via interface port (s) 1438. The interface port (s) 1438 includes, for example, a serial port, a parallel port, a game port, and a universal serial port (USB). Output device (s) 1440 uses some of the same type of ports as input device (s) 1436. Thus, for example, a USB port may be used to provide input to computer 1412 and may be used to output output information from computer 1412 to output device 1440. The output adapter 1442 is presented to indicate that there is an output device group 1440 such as a monitor, a speaker, and a printer that requires a special adapter among the output device group 1440. Output adapter 1442 includes, but is not limited to, video and sound cards that provide a means of connection between output device 1440 and system bus 1418. Note that there are other devices and / or systems of devices that provide both input and output capabilities, such as remote computer (s) 1444.

  Computer 1412 may operate in a network environment using a logical connection to one or more remote computers, such as remote computer (s) 1444. The remote computer (s) 1444 may be a personal computer, server, router, network personal computer, workstation, microprocessor-based application, peer device, or other regular network node, and so on. It typically includes many or all of the elements mentioned in connection with content 1412. For simplicity, only memory storage device 1446 is depicted along with remote computer (s) 1444. Remote computer (s) 1444 is logically connected to computer 1412 through network interface 1448 and physically through communication connection 1450. The network interface 1448 includes wired and / or wireless communication networks such as a local area network (LAN) and a wide area network (WAN). LAN technologies include Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI), Copper Distributed Data Interface (CDDI), Ethernet, Token Ring, and so on. WAN technologies include, but are not limited to, point-to-point links, circuit switched networks such as ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) and its derivatives, packet switched networks, and DSL (Digital Subscriber Line). is not.

  Communication connection (s) 1450 refers to the hardware / software used to connect network interface 1448 to bus 1418. For clarity of illustration, communication connection 1450 is shown inside computer 1412, but may be external to computer 1412. The hardware / software required to connect to the network interface 1248 is for typical purposes only, but includes regular telephone grade modems, cable and DSL modems, ISDN adapters, and Ethernet. Includes internal and external technologies such as cards, etc.

  What has been described above includes examples of the present invention. While it is not possible to describe all possible combinations of components or methods for the purpose of describing the present invention, those skilled in the art will recognize that many further combinations and substitutions of the present invention are possible. May be. Accordingly, the present invention is intended to embrace all such alterations, modifications and variations that fall within the spirit and scope of the appended claims.

  In particular, and for the various functions performed by the components, apparatus, circuits, systems, etc. described above, the terms used to describe such components (including references to “means”) are Any component (e.g., functionally equivalent) that performs the function specified for the described component is intended to correspond unless explicitly stated otherwise. The structures disclosed as performing the functions in the exemplary features of the invention shown herein are not necessarily structurally equivalent. In this regard, it will also be appreciated that the present invention includes not only computer-readable media containing computer-executable instructions for performing the operations and / or events of the various methods of the invention, but also systems.

  In addition, although individual features of the present invention may only have been disclosed for one of many implementations, such features may be optionally combined with one or more other features of other implementations. Combinations may be made as desired and advantageous for a given or specific application. Also, as long as the terms “includes” and “including”, and variants thereof, are used in the specification or claims, these terms are inclusive of the term “comprising”. It is intended to be specific.

It is a system block diagram of an association information system. It is a block diagram of writing. It is a system block diagram of an association information system. It is a system block diagram of an association information system. It is a system block diagram of an association information system. It is a system block diagram of an association information system. It is a system block diagram of an auxiliary content providing system. FIG. 2 is a diagram of an exemplary user interface. 2 is a flow diagram representing a general process flow of a method that can be used in accordance with the components disclosed and described herein. 2 is a flow diagram representing a general process flow of a method that can be used in accordance with the components disclosed and described herein. FIG. 5 is a general process flow flow diagram of a method that can be used in accordance with the components disclosed and described herein. 2 is a flow diagram representing a general process flow of a method that can be used in accordance with the components disclosed and described herein. 1 is a diagram illustrating a typical network environment. FIG. FIG. 2 illustrates a typical computer environment.

Claims (20)

A system for associating information, the system comprising:
First information and second information, wherein the second information is different from the first information, an association module that uses anchor information to associate the second information, and the second information is used. Rendering module to present for,
A system comprising:   The system of claim 1, wherein the first information is one of a web page, a text document, a blog article, a wiki, a video file, an audio file, and a multimedia file.   3. The system according to claim 2, wherein the anchor information is one of a domain name, a uniform resource locator, a keyword, format data, and a file location.   The second information includes writing, web page, intranet page, text document, video file, audio file, search term, search result, interface to search engine, wiki, blog, RSS feed, news feed, chat The system of claim 3, wherein the system is one of an interface to a session, an interface to a notification-based chat session, an instant message, a tag, a grade, an inlink, an outlink, and an advertisement.   The system according to claim 4, further comprising a creation module that creates the second information.   The authoring module is a text editor, graphic application, audio application, multimedia application, blog creation application, syndication application, web publishing application, chat application, instant messaging application, tagging application and scoring The system of claim 5, wherein the system is one of applications.   The system of claim 6, further comprising a privacy module for protecting personal information of a user of the association module.   The system of claim 7, wherein the rendering module is pluggable. A computer-implemented method for associating information, the method comprising:
Using anchor information from the first information to obtain second information; and presenting the second information to the user along with the first information;
A method comprising the steps of:   10. The method of claim 9, wherein the use of anchor information includes one of use of a domain name, use of a uniform resource locator, use of keywords, use of data, and use of a file location. .   The use of anchor information to obtain second information includes writing, web pages, intranet pages, text documents, video files, audio files, search terms, search results, interfaces to search engines, wikis, blogs, RSS Includes acquisition of at least one of feeds, news feeds, interfaces to chat sessions, interfaces to notification-based chat sessions, instant messages, tags, grades, inlinks, outlinks, and advertisements The method of claim 10.   The method of claim 11, further comprising creating the second information.   The steps of creating the second information include using a text editor, using a graphics application, using an audio application, using a multimedia application, using a blogging application, using a syndication application, web 13. The method of claim 12, comprising at least one of using a published application, using a chat application, using an instant messaging application, using a tagging application, and using a scoring application.   The method of claim 13, further comprising protecting the user's personal information. A system for associating information, the system comprising:
Means for using anchor information from the first information for acquisition of second information; and means for presenting the second information to the user along with the first information;
A system comprising:   The means for using anchor information is one of means for using a domain name, means for using a uniform resource locator, means for using a keyword, means for using format data, and means for using a file location. The system according to claim 15, comprising:   The means for using anchor information to obtain second information includes writing, web page, intranet page, text document, video file, audio file, search term, search result, interface to search engine, wiki, For obtaining at least one of blogs, RSS feeds, news feeds, interfaces to chat sessions, interfaces to notification-based chat sessions, instant messages, tags, grades, inlinks, outlinks, and advertisements The system of claim 16 including means.   The system of claim 17, further comprising means for creating the second information.   The means for creating the second information includes a text editor, a graphics application, an audio application, a multimedia application, a blog creation application, a syndication application, a web publishing application, a chat application, an instant messaging The system of claim 18, including at least one of an application, a tagging application, and a scoring application.   The system of claim 19, further comprising means for protecting personal information of the user.

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