WO2002037297A1

WO2002037297A1 - Method and system for selecting advertisement based on user interaction with an electronic program guide

Info

Publication number: WO2002037297A1
Application number: PCT/US2001/046067
Authority: WO
Inventors: Paul Finister; Jonathan Greenberg; Clifford Roth
Original assignee: Gist Communications, Inc.
Priority date: 2000-11-01
Filing date: 2001-10-31
Publication date: 2002-05-10
Also published as: AU2002227166A1

Abstract

A method and system are described for delivering targeted advertisements in an electronic program guide (24). The method includes the monitoring of the EPG user's actions (26) in the EPG and the determination that the user is paying particular attention (28) to a given program item in the EPG. This determination may be based on the amount of time the user lingers over a given program item or the user's selection of a program item cell. A characteristic (30) of this given program item is then used to select an advertisement (32) having a similar characteristic, which ad is then displayed to the user on the EPG screen (34). This characteristic may also be found through monitoring of other user actions in the EPG, such as performance of a search or sort or selection of a trivia question or news item.

Description

METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR SELECTING ADVERTISEMENT BASED ON USER INTERACTION WITH AN ELECTRONIC PROGRAM GUIDE

COPYRIGHT NOTICE A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent files or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever. RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is related to commonly owned application serial no. 09/035,774, titled SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR ACCEPTING AND INTEGRATING ENTERTAINMENT INFORMATION FROM ENTERTAINMENT INFORMATION PRODUCERS, filed March 6, 1998, attorney docket no. 10487/2, which application is hereby incorporated by reference into this application in its entirety.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION The invention disclosed herein relates to electronic program guides and, more particularly, to methods and systems for delivering targeted advertising in an electronic program guide. As the number of channels available on television and video delivery systems increases dramatically, interactive electronic program guides become an important tool for providing information about programming choices and schedules. Electronic program guides or EPGs are being delivered via traditional television systems such as cable and satellite as well as in digital form over the Internet and other networks for access by computers. Both forms of program guide allow users to interact with the displayed guide. Depending upon the particular system, for example, such interaction can constitute a user moving a sliding or floating cursor around a displayed guide, selecting a program item in the guide for display for additional descriptive information about the item, setting favorite programs or channels, selecting a program to view now or in the future, performing searches by keyword, category, time or channel, and selecting a program item for automatic recording.

It is believed that one important source of revenue for vendors of program guides is advertising. Thus, many program guides offer a space on the program guide screen for display of an advertisement, which may be a poster image, interactive software program, or video. The advertisement may be placed within the program guide portion of the screen display or in a separate portion of the screen. Depending upon the system, the advertisement shown at any given time is downloaded from a central station or server for display at that time. Examples of the use of advertising with program guides are shown in

International Application No. PCT/US97/23852 titled "EPG with Advertising Inserts," and U.S. Patent No. 5,940,073 titled "Method and System for Displaying Other Information in a TV Program Guide," both of which are hereby incorporated by reference into this application. The PCT application discusses the insertion of an advertisement between television program listings in an EPG screen. The aforementioned U.S. patent discusses an EPG having an area on the display for advertising programs, products and services, where the advertising information changes as the user moves the EPG cursor from cell to cell or after the passage of a predetermined number of seconds.

However, in both cases, the advertisement may or may not have any relation to the content of the guide at that time or actions being performed by the user. As a result, they fail to leverage important information that may be obtained from the user's interaction with the EPG. There is therefore a need for an improved EPG method and system that delivers more targeted and thus more valuable advertising based on user interaction with the EPG.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to provide an improved EPG with targeted advertising.

The above and other objects are achieved by a method and system for delivering an EPG, which includes the monitoring of the EPG user's actions in the EPG and the determination that the user is paying particular attention to a given program item in the EPG. A characteristic of this given program item is then used to select an advertisement having a similar characteristic, which ad is then displayed to the user on the EPG screen.

As used herein, the term electronic program guide or EPG is intended to include any mechanism for presenting television or other audiovisual program availability and related information. This may include, for example, a schedule of some or all the programs accessible over a system, with times and channels presented in grid format or otherwise, a list of video-on-demand services, etc. The program guide could be delivered over any communication system, such as a cable or satellite television system, a network such as the Internet, a wireless communication system, or other known systems.

Many actions may be monitored for determining to which items the user is paying attention. For example, in an EPG having a cursor or other visual indicator of which cell in the EPG is currently highlighted or selected, the time the cursor lingers over each cell is monitored to determine user interest in the program item in that cell. This lingering may also cause other events to occur, such as display of additional descriptive data. As another example, the user's selection of a cell may be used as the indicator of interest. The selection may occur through lingering for a predetermined period of time or through active selection by pressing of a button on a remote control device. Other user interaction with the EPG, such as selection of a program item for tuning or recording, may be used as well for generating advertising.

In addition, when a user performs a search or sort, the category or keyword used in the search can be used for advertisement selection. As a further alternative, a user may be presented with a series of trivia questions relating to various programs or categories of programs, and the user's selection of a given question to answer and/or providing a correct answer may be used to help identify an associated program or category or programming for the user. Different ones of these factors showing user attention may be combined with other user attention factors to more precisely determine an associated category to be used for ad selection.

In some embodiments, the characteristic associated with the program item is a programming category. In some systems, EPG data transmitted from a central station includes one or more categories, e.g., sports, comedy, drama, news, etc., associated with the programs in the data set. The advertisements, which may also be transmitted from the central station or some other source and stored locally, are also associated with categories. When user attention to a program is detected, the program's category is matched to a category for one or more ads, and one such matching ad is selected for display. Alternatively, other characteristics of the program may be used for ad matching and selection, such as the channel which carries the program, the time of the program, actors appearing in the program, etc., provided such characteristic data is transmitted from the central station to each user's station. Furthermore, in some embodiments the program item characteristic such as category is combined with previously defined user preferences, demographic profile, or detected viewing habits to select a more user-oriented advertisement.

The above and other advantages of the invention are also achieved, at least in part, by providing a TV system using a remote control device that interacts with a graphical user interface displayed on a display device such as TV receiver, a CRT screen, or a display screen built into a remote control device. The system comprises a central processing unit (CPU), and an interface control circuit that provides two-way wired or wireless communications with the remote selection device. A graphics accelerator interacts with the CPU to display graphics data representing options offered by the graphical user interface, and to support the remote selection device in providing user access to the options displayed on the TV screen.

In accordance with one aspect of the invention, the graphical user interface comprises a graphical program selection displayed on the display screen to enable a user to select programming choices and channel choices. In response to selecting a program on the graphical program display means, the programming logic issues a command to tune a radio- frequency tuner, infrared or other foreseeable wireless means of directing the set top box system to the selected program. For example, the intelligent, graphical program selector may contain graphical objects that represent various programming selections. The programming logic of the set top directs a tuner to the selected programming selection based on whether a user lingers over a program or if the user holds the remote selection device in the direction of a graphical object that represents the programming selection.

In one embodiment, the remote control has Navigation Buttons such as Program Guide, Cursor (up, down, left, right), Select, or Rapid Navigation which allow a viewer to select programming displayed in a configurable program guide. The cursor behavior is stored locally on a set top box and can be updated from a headend of a Multiple System Operator via a transfer protocol of modular logic components. A cable TV service provider that also provides voice telephony, data, Internet access can also deliver the necessary logic components. In accordance with some aspects of the invention, as a user scrolls or pages through programming listings, a cursor recognition program operating in the user's set top box or other processing device recognizes cell positioning. As the user lingers over changes which can be highlighted by color, based upon configuration setting that the user determines, the cursor recognition program recognizes this. A user can linger on a cell listing for 2 -3 seconds and the program recognizes that the user is implicitly interested in the program displayed in the cell. Alternatively, the program may be adapted to dynamically determine an average linger rate for the user and determine whether extended lingering is occurring in relation to the average linger rate.

Along side the program guide of cell rows in the table, advertising is displayed to users as they go over the cell choices in the program guide. Directed ads change based on interest directed to the program content, based on the user lingering over a cell for some period of time. Select ads are cached in the set top box memory and/or distributed from the headend. A quality control system in the box recognizes that if an ad feed has not been delivered from the headend within a determinable time period, the quality control system will display a cached ad instead for the user's attention.

Accordingly, one advantage of the present invention is in providing a selection means within a graphical user interface (GUI) on a TV screen that recognizes user preferences and behavior, delivering better targeted advertising while granting access to programming and services offered by TV program providers. Another advantage of the present invention is in providing a GUI that interacts with a remote control device to enable a user to have access to any customizable option displayed on the screen and has predetermined cursor behavior sensitive to a user's needs.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS The invention is illustrated in the figures of the accompanying drawings which are meant to be exemplary and not limiting, in which like references are intended to refer to like or corresponding parts, and in which: Fig. 1 is a block diagram showing exemplary configurations of systems that support the present invention;

Fig. 2 is a flow chart showing a process of delivering targeted ads based on user interaction in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention;

Figs. 3 and 4 are flow charts showing exemplary processes for detecting user attention to program items in an electronic program guide in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention; Fig. 5 shows an exemplary EPG screen display used in one embodiment of the present invention;

Fig. 6 is a flow diagram showing a process for implementing an EPG using one system configuration in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention; and Fig.7 is a flow diagram showing various cursor behavior options for use with the methods and system of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

Embodiments of the present invention are now described with reference to the drawings in the figures. Referring to Fig. 1, many different system configurations are used to support the delivery of an electronic program guide or EPG. In most cases, EPG data is transmitted from a central station 10 to multiple user devices or systems 12, which store and process the EPG data for use by users. The EPG data typically contains a listing of programs, channels and times in schedule form, and further includes other data such as categories associated with each program or channel, rating data relating to each program, and additional, descriptive data regarding the program, such as the subject matter of the program, actors, length, etc. The central station 10 may be the head end of a cable, satellite or microwave transmission system, and users have set top boxes connected to their television receivers for receiving the television service and EPG data from the head end.

In other embodiments, the central station 10 may be a server such as a web server, which delivers EPG data and in some cases television or video services over a network 14 such as the Internet. The users can receive and process this data through client systems 12 which could include personal computers that may be connected to television receivers or have PC TV cards, or by set top boxes capable of receiving data over the Internet. In addition, users receive advertising data including images, video or audio files containing an ad and associated data such as category and descriptive data. Users may receive this ad data from the same source as the EPG data, the central station 10, or may retrieve the ad data from another source such as an ad web server 16. For example, a set top box 12 which receives EPG data with the television service may be programmed to retrieve the ad data over the Internet 14 from a web server 16. As another example, a set of network tools may be provided, as described in aforementioned patent application serial no.

09/035,774, incorporated herein by reference, which allow network programmers to generate, control and update ads to be served to users. Many other alternative configurations are possible as will be recognized by those skilled in the art. The ad data may be retrieved when desired or may be retrieved in advance and stored in the user's device for display on the receiver or monitor displaying the EPG data.

In accordance with the invention, the set top boxes and computers that receive the EPG data contain a cursor recognition and ad selection program. This program may be downloaded from the central server or ad server, and is executed in the user's device to perform a method for delivering targeted ads. Referring to Fig. 2, the program receives EPG data, step 20, as well as the advertisement data, step 22, and stores both. The EPG data is displayed, step 24. As the user interacts with the EPG data, the program monitors this interaction, step 26. If the program detects based on the user interaction that a user is paying attention to a particular program item in the EPG, step 28, it determines the desired characteristic of the item, such as its category, keyword, or channel, step 30. The program then selects one of the advertisements for display that matches this characteristic, step 32. The selected advertisement is then downloaded as necessary from the ad server and displayed with the EPG, step 34, and the program continues to monitor user interaction to determine whether the user's focus has changed, step 26.

HTML, Javascript, Java, and other programming languages can be used to build this cell recognition program. A user can purchase a set top box and the cell recognition program can be embedded therein as software or hardware, or delivered to the set top box in a carrier wave or other electronics communications means. The intelligent user interface and system is thus able to deliver customized content including ads without depending upon a particular cable set top box architecture.

Figs. 3 and 4 contain exemplary process for detecting user attention to a program item. In Fig. 3, a simple such process involves monitoring the time a cursor or other visual selection indicator lingers over a cell in the EPG with a program item, step 40. If the linger time exceeds a predefined time, step 42, such as 2 seconds, the item in the cell with the cursor is returned to the ad selection-routine, step 44. If the cursor moves, the program restarts the time monitoring process, step 46.

In Fig. 4, the program monitors the linger time over items in the EPG, step 50. In this case, the program continually monitors linger time, even if a cell has been selected, so that it can maintain an average linger time for the user. If the monitored linger time over a given cell exceeds an average linger time, step 52, as stored and updated by the program, the program item in the cell is returned for ad selection, step 54. If cursor movement is detected, step 56, the program uses the linger time over the prior program item to update the average linger time by first eliminating the linger time if it exceeds some predefined maximum, step 58, which is set as some time which indicates that a user has stopped paying attention to the television service such as has left the room. If the linger time is not excluded on this basis, the program updates the average linger time using the measured linger time, step 60, and continues its monitoring of the linger time over cells. The linger time over all cells, even when it does not exceed the average, is used to update the average linger time.

Fig. 5 shows a screen display 70 of one embodiment of an EPG in accordance with the invention. As shown, the EPG displays the program choices available at a given time or times in a number of cells 72. A cursor is movable around the grid to select a given cell. The cursor may be a highlight indicator, such as shown at 74, a floating cursor, a changing cell color, a movable indicator within the cell as shown at 76, or other conventional visual indicators. The EPG screen also contains space 78 for display of one or more ads, two such spaces being shown in Fig. 5, a description box 80 for displaying the additional descriptive data associated with a selected program, and a space for display of video 82 such as a trailer or actual video from a selected channel. As explained above, as the user moves the cursor around the grid, the program monitors linger time and changes the ad displayed to reflect a user's interest. For example, linger time detected over a program choice "Barney" would result in selection of an ad for diapers or candy. Linger time detected over a program choice "Monday Night Football," would return an ad for beer. Alternatively, an ad may be returned which was sponsored or purchased by the channel or network for the program, such as ABC television network in the case of "Monday Night Football."

Further in accordance with the invention, the cell and program item detected through linger time measurement may be one factor in selecting an ad. Other factors may be combined with this, such as the user's profile, demographic data, etc. One example of another factor which may be used, either alone or in combination with linger time detection, to identify a category of programming of interest to a given user is the use of trivia quizzes or news items. A user is offered several trivia questions or news items, each associated with a different programming category, and the user's selection of one of the questions or items and/or submission of a correct response to a trivia question is used to associate the corresponding programming category with the user. For example, the ad selection system can offer and respond to the following three TV trivia questions:

1 -Complete Spock's Vulcan greeting: "Live long and..."

2-What was Kramer's first name on Seinfeld? 3 -Who is the star of "Felicity"?

If a user answers question 1 correctly, which is based on the "Star Trek" TV show, then he/she would be presumed to like science fiction, and the relevant ad system would deliver an ad for a science fiction program. If a user answers question 2 correctly, then he/she would be presumed to like comedy, and the relevant ad system would deliver an ad for a comedy program. If a user answers question 3 correctly, then he/she could be presumed to be a teenager, and the relevant ad system would deliver an ad for a coming-of-age film.

Similarly, the system could also control ad delivery based on the selection of news and gossip headlines. When presented with a series of headlines, the user only gets to read the story by selecting a headline. For example, the following three news items may be offered for selection:

1 -"Friends" Co-Stars In Bitter Rivalry

2-Larry King Tells All

3 -Monday Night Football Gets Facelift

The corresponding programming categories would be comedy for item (1), political thriller for item (2), and sports for item (3).

The ad selected as a result of user-category association may not be stored on the set top box or computer, but may be downloaded from a remote location as explained above. In this case, the user's device would send a request for an ad matching certain characteristics to the remote station, which would transmit the targeted ad as desired. Fig. 6 shows one embodiment of a process of implementing the EPG and targeted ad delivery system with a user computer or set top box running a web browser. A remote control sends signals 90 to the user computer to call up and interact with the web browser 92. The browser requests EPG information from a set top box or EPG server and serves as the user interface for the EPG, through which the user interacts with the EPG, 96. Requested information is obtained from an EPG system database through an EPG system interface 98 and transmitted via the relevant wired or wireless telecommunication link from the EPG system database for display on the user's device 100. The user's computerized device monitors the cursor cell in accordance with customizable browsing preferences, 102, as described above.

Fig. 7 shows various cursor behavior functionality which may be provided in the UI of an EPG and which may be available for monitoring by the program. As shown in fig. 7, a remote control 90 sends signals to a set top box which displays the attributes of the cursor being used, 104. A program in the set top box recognizes movement of the cursor, 106, which is used to determine linger as described above.

The set top box contains numerous subroutines for providing different cursor movement, 108. For example, the cursor routines include a routine for movement of the cursor in four directions around the EPG grid. A rapid navigation cursor routine allows a viewer to rapidly scroll through cells representing programming selections. A record routine stores user selected programming to a hard disc or activates a VCR control function to store selected programming. Fast Forward/Rewind allows the cursor to rapidly navigate in 12-hour increments thorough program listings. A "Starting Next" routine allows a user to click through a sequence of program listings to automatically select for display only those PPV movies which start at the next half-hour increment in a block.. An "Insta-Tune" routine allows for the instant tuning into weather, news, sports, financial listings and is a feature which offers one-button tuning of specific cable channels. Other cursor routines 108 are shown in Fig. 7. The user may have the ability to change the settings of these cursor routines, 110, in which case such setting changes are stored in the set top box, 112.

In accordance with the invention as described herein, the cursor monitoring and recognition program monitors one or more of these various cursor routines and, based on parameters specific to that routine, determines whether the user is lingering over a specific program item and thus showing interest or attention to the item.

While the invention has been described and illustrated in connection with preferred embodiments, many variations and modifications as will be evident to those skilled in this art may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention, and the invention is thus not to be limited to the precise details of methodology or construction set forth above as such variations and modification are intended to be included within the scope of the invention.

Claims

WHAT IS CLAIMED IS:

1. A method for delivering advertisements in an electronic program guide, the electronic program guide being displayed on a display screen, the method comprising: monitoring a user's navigation among a plurality of program items displayed in the electronic program guide; determining based on the user's navigation whether the user is paying attention to a given program item within the electronic program guide; correlating the given program item with a given advertisement; and displaying the given advertisement on the screen with the electronic program guide.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the user navigates the electronic program guide by movement of a cursor, and wherein monitoring the user's navigation comprises measuring a time in which the cursor lingers in association with each program item in the electronic program guide.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein determining whether the user is paying attention to a given program item comprises determining whether the linger time of the cursor in association with the given program item exceeds a first amount of time.

4. The method of claim 3, comprising computing the first amount of time as an average of a plurality of times in which the cursor lingers in association with a plurality of program items.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein the cursor comprises a slideable program item highlight, and wherein measuring the cursor linger time comprises measuring the time in which the highlight is positioned on the given program item.

6. The method of claim 2, wherein the cursor comprises an indicator visible within program item cells, and wherein measuring the cursor linger time comprises measuring the time in which the indicator is positioned within the cell for the given program item.

7. The method of claim 2, wherein the cursor comprises a floating cursor, and wherein measuring the cursor linger time comprises measuring the time in which the floating cursor is floating over the given program item.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein correlating the given program item with a given advertisement comprises retrieving a category associated with the given program item and matching the category with a category associated with the given advertisement.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein correlating the given program item with a given advertisement comprises matching a program service offering the program item with a given advertisement selected by the program service.

10. The method of claim 1, comprising receiving a plurality of advertisements and selecting the correlated given advertisement for display from among the received advertisements.

11. The method of claim 1 , comprising retrieving the correlated advertisement from a remotely located computer system.

12. A computer readable medium storing program code which, when executed on a computerized device, causes the device to perform a method for delivering advertisements in an electronic program guide, the electronic program guide being displayed on a display screen, the method comprising: monitoring a user's navigation among a plurality of program items displayed in the electronic program guide; determining based on the user's navigation whether the user is paying attention to a given program item within the electronic program guide; correlating the given program item with a given advertisement; and displaying the given advertisement on the screen with the electronic program guide.

13. An electronic program guide system comprising: a receiver for receiving program guide data from a remotely located source and processing the program guide data for display on a display device; user interaction monitor software residing on the receiver for monitoring a user's navigation among a plurality of program items displayed in the program guide and determining based on the user's navigation whether the user is paying attention to a given program item within the electronic program guide; and advertisement selection software in communication with the user monitor software for correlating the given program item with a given advertisement and retrieving the advertisement for display on the display device.

14. A method for selecting an advertisement for display in a television environment, the method comprising: displaying to a viewer a plurality of selectable content items, each content item being associated with a television programming category but not merely being a name of the associated category; monitoring the viewer's interaction with the content items; selecting a programming category based upon the viewer's interaction with the content items; and selecting an advertisement for display which corresponds to the selected programming category.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein displaying the content items comprises displaying an electronic program guide containing a plurality of scheduled television programs.

16. The method of claim 14, wherein displaying the content items comprises displaying a plurality of questions relating to television programs.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein monitoring the viewer's interaction comprises receiving the viewer's response to one of the displayed questions and determining whether the user responded correctly to the given question, and wherein selecting the programming category comprises selecting the programming category associated with the given question to which the viewer responded correctly.

18. The method of claim 14, wherein displaying the content items comprises displaying a plurality of news item headlines.