Using viewership profiles for targeted promotion deployment

Abstract

A system for generating viewership profiles to facilitate distributing promotions based on the profiles to one or more network devices, such as set top boxes. The system includes a promotion agent associated with each network device which collects viewing activity data of the network device. For example, the viewing activity data may include a channel the network device was tuned to, a time when the network device was tuned to the channel, and a time the network device was tuned away from the channel. The collected viewing activity data is then transmitted, for example, every twenty-four hours, to a life-cycle manager server, which also periodically receives a program schedule. The program schedule typically specifies the channel on which a particular program was displayed, as well as the time the program was shown. The life-cycle manager server correlates the viewing activity data with the program schedule to generate the viewership profile of the network device. The life cycle manager server determines the viewing behavior for four, eight, and twelve week periods, for example, or for a time period specified by a user.

Description

RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This application is a Continuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 09 / 873,786, filed Jun. 4, 2001, which claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60 / 253,488, filed on Nov. 28, 2000.[0002]The entire teachings of the above applications are incorporated herein by reference.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0003]At the present time, most data network devices located in the residences include some type of personal computer. Typically, these personal computers are used to connect to Internet Service Providers over dial-up connections to execute application programs such as email clients and Web browsers that utilize the global Internet to access text and graphic content. Increasingly, the demand is for multimedia content, including audio and video, to be delivered over such networks. However, the backbone architecture of purely data networks, especially those designed for use with the telephone network, were not originally designed to handle such high data r...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The patent describes a system for generating viewership profiles for set top boxes to allow for targeted promotion and content distribution. The system collects viewing activity data from each set top box and sends it to a server, which correlates it with program schedules to create a viewership profile for each box. This helps network operators to cost-effectively support advanced features of the set top box and provide a richer interactive environment for consumers. The technical effect of the patent is to enable network operators to generate new revenues and provide a more targeted advertising and content distribution service to consumers.

Problems solved by technology

However, the backbone architecture of purely data networks, especially those designed for use with the telephone network, were not originally designed to handle such high data rates.

Today, for example, cable television (CATV) network set-top boxes typically have limited data communication capabilities.

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