Claims:We Claim:
1. A system for providing a user with a customized news and research articles comprising of;
a. means for automatically generating separate target profiles for said plurality of target object news articles and advertisements that are accessible via said electronic data transmission media,;
b. means for automatically generating at least one user target profile interest summary for a user at a user terminal, each said user target profile interest summary being generated from said target object profiles associated with said news articles and advertisements accessed by said user;
c. means for calculating numerical interest values between said at least one user target profile interest summary and said target profiles; and
d. means for automatically creating a customized electronic newspaper for said user by presenting said user with a customized selection.
wherein the said system is accessible via an electronic data transmission media, where said users are connected via user terminals and data communication connections on said electronic data transmission media to a server system which provides said user with access to a plurality of target object news articles and advertisements.
2. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the said separate target profiles are automatically generated for said plurality of target object news articles and advertisements that are accessible via said electronic data transmission media.
3. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the said user target profile interest summary for a user is automatically generated from said target object profiles associated with said news articles and advertisements accessed by said user;
4. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the said numerical interest values between said at least one user target profile interest summary and said target profiles are calculated.
5. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the said each of said target profiles being generated automatically, by a computer system from the contents of an associated one of said target object news articles and advertisements.
6. A method for providing a user with a customized news and research articles comprising of;
a. generating separate target profiles for said plurality of target object news articles and advertisements that are accessible via said electronic data transmission media;
b. automatically generating user target profile interest summary for a user is from said target object profiles associated with said news articles and advertisements accessed by said user;
c. calculating numerical interest values between said at least one user target profile interest summary and said target profiles;
d. automatically generating target profiles by a computer system from the contents of an associated one of said target object news articles and advertisements.
, Description:Technical field of the Invention:
The present invention relates to a system for providing customized services based on user’s location and interest. The present invention more particularly relates to a system and method for providing customized services related to news display and research articles based on user’s location and interest.
Background of the invention:
There is a problem in the field of electronic media to enable a user to access information of relevance and interest to the user without requiring the user to expend an excessive amount of time and energy searching for the information. Electronic media, such as on-line information sources, provide a vast amount of information to users, typically in the form of “articles,” each of which comprises a publication item, or document that relates to a specific topic. The difficulty with electronic media is that the amount of information available to the user is overwhelming and the article repository systems that are connected on-line are not organized in a manner that sufficiently simplifies access to only the articles-of interest to the user. Presently, a user either fails to access relevant articles because they are not easily identified or expends a significant amount of time and energy to conduct an exhaustive search of all articles to identify those most likely to be of interest to the user. Furthermore, even if the user conducts an exhaustive search, present information searching techniques do not necessarily accurately extract only the most relevant articles, but also present articles of marginal relevance due to the functional limitations of the information searching techniques. There is also no existing system which automatically estimates the inherent quality of a n article or other target object to distinguish among a number of articles or target objects identified as of possible interest to a user.
Therefore, in the field of information retrieval, there is a long-standing need for a system which enables users to navigate through the plethora of information. With commercialization of communication networks, such as the Internet, the growth of available information has increased. Customization of the information delivery process to the user's unique tastes and interests is the ultimate solution to this problem. However, the techniques which have been proposed to date either only address the user's interests on a superficial level or provide greater depth and intelligence at the cost of unwanted demands on the user's time and energy. While many researchers have agreed that traditional methods have been lacking in this regard, no one to date has successfully addressed these problems in a holistic manner and provided a system that can fully learn and reflect the user's tastes and interests. This is particularly true in a practical commercial context, such as on-line services available on the Internet. There is a need for an information retrieval system, that is largely or entirely passive, unobtrusive, undemanding of the user, and yet both precise and comprehensive in its ability to learn and truly represent the user's tastes and interests. Present information retrieval systems require the user to specify the desired information retrieval behavior through cumbersome interfaces.
Researchers in the field of published article information retrieval have devoted considerable effort to finding efficient and accurate methods of allowing users to select articles of interest from a large set of articles. The most widely used methods of information retrieval are based on keyword matching: the userspecifies a set of keywords which the user thinks are exclusively found in the desired articles and the information retrieval computer retrieves all articles which contain those keywords. Such methods are fast, but are notoriously unreliable, as users may not think of the right keywords, or the keywords may be used in unwanted articles in an irrelevant or unexpected context. As a result, the information retrieval computers retrieve many articles which are unwanted by the user.
The logical combination of keywords and the use of wild-card search parameters help improve the accuracy of keyword searching but do not completely solve the problem of inaccurate search results. Starting in the 1960's, an alternate approach to information retrieval was developed: users were presented with an article and asked if it contained the information they wanted, or to quantify how close the information contained in the article was to what they wanted. Each article was described by a profile which comprised either a list of the words in the article or, in more advanced systems, a table of word frequencies in the article. Since a measure of similarity between articles is the distance between their profiles, the measured similarity of article profiles can be used in article retrieval. For example, a user searching for information on a subject can write a short description of the desired information. The information retrieval computer generates an article profile for the request and then retrieves articles with profiles similar to the profile generated for the request. These requests can then be refined using “relevance feedback”, where the user actively or passively rates the articles retrieved as to how close the information contained therein is to what is desired. The information retrieval computer then uses this relevance feedback information to refine the request profile and the process is repeated until the user either finds enough articles or tires of the search.
Numerous patents address information retrieval methods, but none develop records of a user's interest based on passive monitoring of which articles the user accesses. None of the systems described in these patents present computer architectures to allow fast retrieval of articles distributed across many computers. None of the systems described in these patents address issues of using such article retrieval and matching methods for purposes of commerce or of matching users with common interests or developing records of users' interests. U.S. Pat. No. 5,321,833 issued to Chang et al. teaches a method in which users choose terms to use in an information retrieval query, and specify the relative weightings of the different terms. The Chang system then calculates multiple levels of weighting criteria. U.S. Pat. No. 5,301,109 issued to Landauer et al teaches a method for retrieving articles in a multiplicity of languages by constructing “latent vectors” (SVD or PCA vectors) which represent correlations between the different words. U.S. Pat. No. 5,331,554 issued to Graham et al. discloses a method for retrieving segments of a manual by comparing a query with nodes in a decision tree.
So there is a need for a system and method for providing customized services for displaying news and research articles based on user’s location and interest.
Objects of the invention:
An object of the present invention is to provide a system and method for providing customized services related to news display and research articles based on user’s location and interest.
Another object of the present invention is to evaluate the target profiles against the users target profile interest summaries to generate a user-customized rank ordered listing of target objects
Other objects and benefits of the present invention will be more apparent from the following description, which is not intended to bind the scope of the present invention.
Summary of the invention:
Accordingly, the present invention relates to system and method for customized electronic identification of desirable objects, such as news articles, in an electronic media environment, and to a system that automatically constructs both a “target profile” for each target object in the electronic media based, for example, on the frequency with which each word appears in an article relative to its overall frequency of use in all articles, as well as a “target profile interest summary” for each user, which target profile interest summary describes the user's interest level in various types of target objects. The system then evaluates the target profiles against the users' target profile interest summaries to generate a user-customized rank ordered listing of target objects most likely to be of interest to each user so that the user can select from among these potentially relevant target objects, which were automatically selected by this system that are profiled on the electronic media. Users' target profile interest summaries can be used to efficiently organize the distribution of information in a large scale system consisting of many users interconnected by means of a communication network. Additionally, a proxy server is provided to ensure the privacy of a user's target profile interest summary, by giving the user control over the ability of third parties to access this summary and to identify or contact the user.
Detailed description of the invention:
Detailed description of the invention:
The present invention is a system and a method for customizing the news display and research articles based on location and interest of the user. The system for electronic identification of desirable objects of the present invention automatically constructs both a target profile for each target object in the electronic media based, for example, on the frequency with which each word appears in an article relative to its overall frequency of use in all articles, as well as a “target profile interest summary” for each user, which target profile interest summary describes the user's interest level in various types of target objects. The system then evaluates the target profiles against the users' target profile interest summaries to generate a user-customized rank ordered listing of target objects most likely to be of interest to each user so that the user can select from among these potentially relevant target objects, which were automatically selected by this system from the plethora of target objects available on the electronic media.
Because people have multiple interests, a target profile interest, summary for a single user must represent multiple areas of interest, for example, by consisting of a set of individual search profiles, each of which identifies one of the user's areas of interest. Each user is presented with those target objects whose profiles most closely match the user's interests as described by the user's target profile interest summary. Users' target profile interest summaries are automatically updated on a continuing basis to reflect each user's changing interests. In addition, target objects can be grouped into clusters based on their similarity to each other, for example, based on similarity of their topics in the case where the target objects are published articles; and menus automatically generated for each cluster of target objects to allow users to navigate throughout the clusters and manually locate target objects of interest. For reasons of confidentiality and privacy, a particular user may not wish to make public all of the interests recorded in the user's target profile interest summary, particularly when these interests are determined by the user's purchasing patterns. The user may desire that all or part of the target profile interest summary be kept confidential, such as information relating to the user's political, religious, financial or purchasing behavior; indeed, confidentiality with respect to purchasing behavior is the user's legal right in many states. It is therefore necessary that data in a user's target profile interest summary be protected from unwanted disclosure except with the user's agreement. At the same time, the user's target profile interest summaries must be accessible to the relevant servers that perform the matching of target objects to the users, if the benefit of this matching is desired by both providers and consumers of the target objects. The disclosed system provides a solution to the privacy problem by using a proxy server which acts as an intermediary between the information provider and the user. The proxy server dissociates the user's true identity from the pseudonym by the use of cryptographic techniques. The proxy server also permits users to control access to their target profile interest summaries and/or user profiles, including provision of this information to marketers and advertisers if they so desire, possibly in exchange for cash or other considerations. Marketers may purchase these profiles in order to target advertisements to particular users, or they may purchase partial user profiles, which do not include enough information to identify the individual users in question, in order to carry out standard kinds of demographic analysis and market research on the resulting database of partial user profiles.
In the preferred embodiment of the invention, the system for customized electronic identification of desirable objects uses a fundamental methodology for accurately and efficiently matching users and target objects by automatically calculating, using and updating profile information that describes both the users' interests and the target objects' characteristics. The target objects may be published articles, purchasable items, or even other people, and their properties are stored, and/or represented and/or denoted on the electronic media as (digital) data. Examples of target objects can include, but are not limited to: a newspaper story of potential interest, a movie to watch, an item to buy, e-mail to receive, or another person to correspond with. In all these cases, the information delivery process in the preferred embodiment is based on determining the similarity between a profile for the target object and the profiles of target objects for which the user (or a similar user) has provided positive feedback in the past. The individual data that describe a target object and constitute the target object's profile are herein termed “attributes” of the target object. Attributes may include, but are not limited to, the following: (1) long pieces of text ( a newspaper story, a movie review, a product description or an advertisement), (2) short pieces of text (name of a movie's director, name of town from which an advertisement was placed, name of the language in which an article was written), (3) numeric measurements (price of a product, rating given to a movie, reading level of a book), (4) associations with other types of objects (list of actors in a movie, list of persons who have read a document). Any of these attributes, but especially the numeric ones, may correlate with the quality of the target object, such as measures of its popularity (how often it is accessed) or of user satisfaction (number of complaints received).
The preferred embodiment of the system for customized electronic identification of desirable objects operates in an electronic media environment for accessing these target objects, which may be news, electronic mail, other published documents, or product descriptions. The system in its broadest construction comprises three conceptual modules, which may be separate entities distributed across many implementing systems, or combined into a lesser subset of physical entities. The specific embodiment of this system disclosed herein illustrates the use of a first module which automatically constructs a “target profile” for each target object in the electronic media based on various descriptive attributes of the target object. A second module uses interest feedback from users to construct a “target profile interest summary” for each user, for example in the form of a “search profile set” consisting of a plurality of search profiles, each of which corresponds to a single topic of high interest for the user. The system further includes a profile processing module which estimates each user's interest in various target objects by reference to the users' target profile interest summaries, for example by comparing the target profiles of these target objects against the search profiles in users' search profile sets, and generates for each user a customized rank-ordered listing of target objects most likely to be of interest to that user. Each user's target profile interest summary is automatically updated on a continuing basis to, reflect the user's changing interests.
The ability to measure the similarity of profiles describing target objects and a user's interests can be applied in two basic ways: filtering and browsing. Filtering is useful when large numbers of target objects are described in the electronic media s pace. These target objects can for example be articles that are received or potentially received by a user, who only has time to read a small fraction of them.
For example, a customized financial news column may be presented to the, user in the form of articles which are of interest to the user. In this case, however, an accordingly those stocks which are most interesting to the user may be presented as well.
In one embodiment, a system for providing a user with a customized news and research articles comprising of;
means for automatically generating separate target profiles for said plurality of target object news articles and advertisements that are accessible via said electronic data transmission media,;
means for automatically generating at least one user target profile interest summary for a user at a user terminal, each said user target profile interest summary being generated from said target object profiles associated with said news articles and advertisements accessed by said user;
means for calculating numerical interest values between said at least one user target profile interest summary and said target profiles; and
means for automatically creating a customized electronic newspaper for said user by presenting said user with a customized selection.
Wherein the said system is accessible via an electronic data transmission media, where said users are connected via user terminals and data communication connections on said electronic data transmission media to a server system which provides said user with access to a plurality of target object news articles and advertisements.
In the system, separate target profiles are automatically generated for said plurality of target object news articles and advertisements that are accessible via said electronic data transmission media. In the system, the user target profile interest summary for a user is automatically generated from target object profiles associated with news articles and advertisements accessed by user. In the system, the numerical interest values between said at least one user target profile interest summary and target profiles are calculated. In the system, each of target profiles being generated automatically, by a computer system from the contents of an associated one of target object news articles and advertisements.
In another embodiment, a method for providing a user with a customized news and research articles comprising of; generating separate target profiles for plurality of target object news articles and advertisements that are accessible via electronic data transmission media; automatically generating user target profile interest summary for a user is from target object profiles associated with news articles and advertisements accessed by user;
calculating numerical interest values between at least one user target profile interest summary and target profiles; automatically generating target profiles by a computer system from the contents of an associated target object news articles and advertisements.
A filtering system is a device that can search through many target objects and estimate a given user's interest in each target object, so as to identify those that are of greatest interest to the user. The filtering system uses relevance feed back to refine its knowledge of the user s interests: whenever the filtering system identifies a target object as potentially interesting to a user, the user (if an on-line user) provides feedback as to whether or not that target object really is of interest. Such feedback is stored long-term in summarized form, as part of a database of user feedback information, and may be provided either actively or passively. In active feedback, the user explicitly indicates his or her interest, for instance, on a scale of -2 (active distaste) through 0 (no special interest) to 10 (great interest). In passive feedback, the system infers the user's interest from the user's behavior. For example, if target objects are textual documents, the system might monitor which documents the user chooses to read, or not to read, and how much time the user spends reading them.