U.S. patent application number 10/369057 was filed with the patent office on 2006-03-30 for location enhanced information delivery system.
This patent application is currently assigned to Pinpoint Incorporated. Invention is credited to Frederick Herz, David C. Parkes, Jonathan M. Smith.
Application Number | 20060069749 10/369057 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 23219499 |
Filed Date | 2006-03-30 |
United States Patent
Application |
20060069749 |
Kind Code |
A1 |
Herz; Frederick ; et
al. |
March 30, 2006 |
Location enhanced information delivery system
Abstract
The Location Enhanced Information Deliver System Architecture
(LEIA) customizes the information that is displayed to an
information recipient based on optimizing a match between
information purveyors, such as advertisers, and the information
recipients who are local to an information delivery system. The
present location enhanced information delivery system presents the
information most suited to the real current audience, as measured
by location information systems, rather than to a static predicted
audience. While the preferred embodiment discloses a
beaconing-style wireless technology, the system concept is easily
extensible both to other location-information systems, such as
license-plate scanning with cameras, and to utilizing the
location-information for private displays of information in
addition to public displays of information.
Inventors: |
Herz; Frederick;
(Warrington, PA) ; Smith; Jonathan M.; (Princeton,
NJ) ; Parkes; David C.; (Philadelphia, PA) |
Correspondence
Address: |
WOLF GREENFIELD & SACKS, PC;FEDERAL RESERVE PLAZA
600 ATLANTIC AVENUE
BOSTON
MA
02210-2211
US
|
Assignee: |
Pinpoint Incorporated
|
Family ID: |
23219499 |
Appl. No.: |
10/369057 |
Filed: |
February 17, 2003 |
Related U.S. Patent Documents
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Application
Number |
Filing Date |
Patent Number |
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09314321 |
May 19, 1999 |
6571279 |
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10369057 |
Feb 17, 2003 |
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09024278 |
Feb 17, 1998 |
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09314321 |
May 19, 1999 |
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08985731 |
Dec 5, 1997 |
6029195 |
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09024278 |
Feb 17, 1998 |
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Current U.S.
Class: |
709/219 ;
707/999.104; 707/999.107; 709/217 |
Current CPC
Class: |
G06F 16/9535 20190101;
G06F 16/9537 20190101; H04W 8/18 20130101; G06Q 30/02 20130101 |
Class at
Publication: |
709/219 ;
709/217; 707/104.1 |
International
Class: |
G06F 15/16 20060101
G06F015/16; G06F 17/30 20060101 G06F017/30; G06F 7/00 20060101
G06F007/00; G06F 17/00 20060101 G06F017/00 |
Claims
1. A system for customizing the delivery of information by an
information server to a plurality of information recipients,
wherein said information server transmits said information to
information recipients who are located within a predetermined
vicinity of said information server, comprising: means for
determining a presence of potential information recipients of said
information in said vicinity of said information server; means for
determining an identity of said potential information recipients of
said information; and means for modifying said information as a
function of said determined identity of said potential information
recipients.
2. The system for customizing the delivery of information of claim
1 wherein said means for determining a presence comprises: means
for establishing a wireless communication connection to a user
terminal device in the possession of said potential information
recipients of said information in said vicinity of said information
server.
3. The system for customizing the delivery of information of claim
2 wherein said means for determining a presence further comprises:
means for retrieving a location identifier from said user terminal
device in the possession of said potential information recipients
of said information in said vicinity of said information server,
wherein said location identifier is unique to said user terminal
device.
4. The system for customizing the delivery of information of claim
3 wherein said means for determining an identity comprises: means,
responsive to said location identifier, for associating said
location identifier with a user identifier that uniquely identifies
said user.
5. The system for customizing the delivery of information of claim
4 wherein said means for determining an identity further comprises:
means, responsive to said user identifier, for associating said
user identifier with a user profile that identifies predetermined
characteristics of said user.
6. The system for customizing the delivery of information of claim
wherein said means for modifying said information comprises: means,
responsive to said user profiles of said information recipients who
are located within a predetermined vicinity of said information
server, for identifying an appropriate set of information to be
displayed to said information recipients who are located within a
predetermined vicinity of said information server.
7. The system for customizing the delivery of information of claim
6 wherein said means for modifying said information further
comprises: means for transmitting said identified appropriate set
of information to said information recipients who are located
within a predetermined vicinity of said information server.
8. The system for customizing the delivery of information of claim
1 wherein said means for determining an identity comprises: means,
responsive to determining a presence of a potential information
recipient of said information in said vicinity of said information
server, for generating a user identifier that uniquely identifies
said potential information recipient.
9. The system for customizing the delivery of information of claim
8 wherein said means for determining an identity further comprises:
means, responsive to said user identifier, for associating said
user identifier with a user profile that identifies predetermined
characteristics of said potential information recipient.
10. The system for customizing the delivery of information of claim
1 wherein said means for modifying said information comprises:
means, responsive to said determined identity of said potential
information recipients, for identifying an appropriate set of
information to be displayed to said potential information
recipients.
11. The system for customizing the delivery of information of claim
10 wherein said means for modifying said information further
comprises: means for transmitting said identified appropriate set
of information to said potential information recipients who are
located within a predetermined vicinity of said information
server.
12. The system for customizing the delivery of information of claim
2 wherein said means for modifying said information further
comprises: means for prefetching said information to said
information server from at least one data source where said
information is stored.
13. The system for customizing the delivery of information of claim
12 wherein said means for prefetching comprises: means for
producing a prioritized plurality of information segments from each
of a plurality of data items which are available from said at least
one data source; and means for providing data to said user terminal
device, identifying a selected data item by a first of said
prioritized information segments of said selected data item.
14. A method for customizing the delivery of information by an
information server to a plurality of information recipients,
wherein said information server transmits said information to
information recipients who are located within a predetermined
vicinity of said information server, comprising the steps of:
determining a presence of potential information recipients of said
information in said vicinity of said information server;
determining an identity of said potential information recipients of
said information; and modifying said information as a function of
said determined identity of said potential information
recipients.
15. The method for customizing the delivery of information of claim
14 wherein said step of determining a presence comprises:
establishing a wireless communication connection to a user terminal
device in the possession of said potential information recipients
of said information in said vicinity of said information
server.
16. The method for customizing the delivery of information of claim
15 wherein said step of determining a presence further comprises:
retrieving a location identifier from said user terminal device in
the possession of said potential information recipients of said
information in said vicinity of said information server, wherein
said location identifier is unique to said user terminal
device.
17. The method for customizing the delivery of information of claim
16 wherein said step of determining an identity comprises:
associating, in response to said location identifier, said location
identifier with a user identifier that uniquely identifies said
user.
18. The method for customizing the delivery of information of claim
17 wherein said step of determining an identity further comprises:
associating, in response to said user identifier, said user
identifier with a user profile that identifies predetermined
characteristics of said user.
19. The method for customizing the delivery of information of claim
18 wherein said step of modifying said information comprises:
identifying, in response to said user profiles of said information
recipients who are located within a predetermined vicinity of said
information server, an appropriate set of information to be
displayed to said information recipients who are located within a
predetermined vicinity of said information server.
20. The method for customizing the delivery of information of claim
19 wherein said step of modifying said information further
comprises: transmitting said identified appropriate set of
information to said information recipients who are located within a
predetermined vicinity of said information server.
21. The method for customizing the delivery of information of claim
14 wherein said step of determining an identity comprises:
generating, in response to determining a presence of a potential
information recipient of said information in said vicinity of said
information server, a user identifier that uniquely identifies said
potential information recipient.
22. The method for customizing the delivery of information of claim
21 wherein said step of determining an identity further comprises:
associating, in response to said user identifier, said user
identifier with a user profile that identifies predetermined
characteristics of said potential information recipient.
23. The method for customizing the delivery of information of claim
14 wherein said step of modifying said information comprises:
identifying, in response to said determined identity of said
potential information recipients, an appropriate set of information
to be displayed to said potential information recipients.
24. The method for customizing the delivery of information of claim
23 wherein said step of modifying said information further
comprises: transmitting said identified appropriate set of
information to said potential information recipients who are
located within a predetermined vicinity of said information
server.
25. The method for customizing the delivery of information of claim
15 wherein said step of modifying said information further
comprises: prefetching said information to said information server
from at least one data source where said information is stored.
26. The method for customizing the delivery of information of claim
25 wherein said step of prefetching comprises: producing a
prioritized plurality of information segments from each of a
plurality of data items which are available from said at least one
data source; and providing data to said user terminal device,
identifying a selected data item by a first of said prioritized
information segments of said selected data item.
27. A system for customizing the delivery of information by an
information server to a plurality of information recipients,
wherein said information server transmits said information to
information recipients who are located within a predetermined
vicinity of said information server, comprising: means for
determining a population of information recipients in said vicinity
of said information server; means for determining an identity of
each of said information; means for determining a composite user
profile for said population of information recipients; and means
for delivering information that is a function of said composite
user profile.
28. The system for customizing the delivery of information of claim
27 wherein said means for modifying comprises: means for pricing
delivery of said information based on bids received from
information purveyors.
29. The system for customizing the delivery of information of claim
28 wherein said means for modifying further comprises: means for
providing said composite user profile to said information
purveyors.
30. A method for customizing the delivery of information by an
information server to a plurality of information recipients,
wherein said information server transmits said information to
information recipients who are located within a predetermined
vicinity of said information server, comprising the steps of:
determining a population of information recipients in said vicinity
of said information server; determining an identity of each of said
information; determining a composite user profile for said
population of information recipients; and delivering information
that is a function of said composite user profile.
31. The method for customizing the delivery of information of claim
30 wherein said step of modifying comprises: pricing delivery of
said information based on bids received from information
purveyors.
32. The method for customizing the delivery of information of claim
31 wherein said step of modifying further comprises: providing said
composite user profile to said information purveyors.
Description
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
[0001] This application is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent
application Ser. No. 09/024,278, titled "Broadcast Data
Distribution System with Asymmetric Uplink/Downlink Bandwidths" and
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/985,731, titled "System for
Customized Electronic Identification of Desirable Objects".
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
[0002] This invention relates to information delivery systems and,
in particular, to a system for customizing the information that is
displayed to a viewer based on optimizing a match between
information purveyors, such as advertisers, and the viewer in a
manner that is executed local to an information delivery
system.
Problem
[0003] It is a problem in information delivery systems to provide
an information recipient with information that is pertinent to the
recipient. This entails determining a match between information
purveyors, such as advertisers, and the information recipient such
that the information that is provided to the information recipient
is desired by the information recipient and pertinent to the needs
of the information recipient. Existing information delivery systems
are based on static predictions of likely audiences, such as
profiles of information recipients for different time periods of
television broadcasts or in-store advertisements directed to a
typical customer. These information delivery systems are static in
nature in that they do not change in response to changes in the
information receiving audience that they serve. Even in the context
of systems such as the World-Wide Web, systems use stale aggregates
to make speculative decisions. Therefore, existing information
delivery systems are limited in their effectiveness in providing
relevant information to their target audiences, since the defined
target audiences represent a simple approximation of the ever
changing actual audience.
Solution
[0004] The above described problems are solved and a technical
advance achieved by the Location Enhanced Information Delivery
System (LEIA) which customizes the information that is displayed to
an information recipient based on optimizing a match between
information purveyors, such as advertisers, and the information
recipients who are local to an information delivery system. The
present location enhanced information delivery system presents the
information most suited to the real current audience, as measured
by location information systems, rather than to a static predicted
audience. While the preferred embodiment discloses a
beaconing-style wireless technology, the system concept is easily
extensible both to other location-information systems, such as
license-plate scanning with cameras, and to utilizing the
location-information for private displays of information in
addition to public displays of information.
[0005] The location enhanced information delivery system can be
supported with conventional or advanced networking infrastructures.
One example of an advanced networking infrastructure appropriate
for the location enhanced information delivery system is the
asymmetric bandwidth channel network disclosed in co-pending U.S.
patent application Ser. No. 09/024,278, titled "Broadcast Data
Distribution System With Asymmetric Uplink/Downlink Bandwidths"
that provides a reduced memory architecture for network-attached
elements. The location enhanced information delivery system can
also utilize the information similarity measurement technologies
disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,754,939, titled "System for Generation
of User Profiles for a System for Customized Electronic
Identification of Desirable Objects" as a means of enhancing
pre-fetching of information likely to be needed, with a consequent
reduction in network bandwidth required to support the location
enhanced information delivery system. The location enhanced
information delivery system can protect users identities using a
pseudonymity proxy server disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,754,938
titled "Pseudonymous Server for System for Customized Electronic
Identification of Desirable Objects". An additional advantage for
public information-delivery capability of the location enhanced
information delivery system is in its environment-friendliness, as
the location enhanced information delivery system can determine
when zero information recipients are local and turn off the
display, resulting in a significant energy savings during idle
periods.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING
[0006] FIG. 1 illustrates in block diagram form the location
enhanced information delivery system;
[0007] FIG. 2 illustrates the network bandwidth dynamics typical of
the location enhanced information delivery system; and
[0008] FIG. 3 illustrates in flow diagram form the information flow
in the present location enhanced information delivery system.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
Definitions
[0009] Relevant definitions of terms for the purpose of this
description include: (a) an object available for access by the
user, which may be either physical or electronic in nature, is
termed "target object," (b) a digitally represented profile
indicating that target object's attributes, is termed "target
profile," (c) the information recipient who is looking for the
target object, is termed "user," (d) a profile holding that user's
attributes, is termed "user profile," (e) a summary of digital
profiles of target objects that a user likes and/or dislikes, is
termed the "target profile interest summary" of that user, (f) a
collection of target objects with similar profiles, is termed a
"cluster," (g) an aggregate profile formed by averaging the
attributes of all target objects in a cluster, is termed a "cluster
profile."
Wireless Communication
[0010] The advent of mobile wireless communication, in the form of
pagers, cellular phones, and the like, has made on-demand
location-independent communication possible. Many of these wireless
technologies provide the ability to locate the call originating or
receiving wireless subscriber station, via the unique terminal
identifiers used for authentication and billing. Some of these
wireless systems incorporate precise location determining
apparatus, such as Global Positioning Systems. Except for a few
examples, such as the Active Badge technology developed by the
Olivetti Research Lab in Cambridge, UK, very little use has been
made of the information that relates to the location of the
wireless subscriber station, other than for locating the
message/call destination as part of the wireless communication
service. The Active Badge is very low power and intended for
enclosed environments of small geographic scope, such as in a set
of offices or on a campus site. The Active Badge technology has
been used for tasks such as automatically opening door locks and
automatic location of Active Badge wearers. The present location
enhanced information delivery system provides a novel means of
integrating subscriber location information into the design of
advanced communication services.
Cellular Telephony
[0011] Cellular telephone systems are one example of wireless
communication systems. The cellular telephone system divides the
service area into "cells," in which the assigned radio spectrum is
channeled in some fashion using digital or analog technology. Each
cell is provided with a base station to which mobile subscriber
stations connect to make a wireless communication connection. The
handoff of a communication connection that exists between a mobile
subscriber station and a base station to another base station
entails executing the steps of: establishing a wireless
communication connection from the mobile subscriber station to the
base station in the cell into which the mobile subscriber station
is about to enter, transitioning the existing wireless
communication connection to the new wireless communication
connection, and then releasing the old wireless communication
connection. The mobile subscriber stations are interconnected with
the traditional telephony infrastructure, and thus ubiquitous
cellular service can be achieved by the provision of sufficient
base stations. The mobile subscriber stations periodically emit an
identifying token, so that the base station knows they are present
in the service area of the base station. This same beaconing
behavior can be exploited to construct the location enhanced
information delivery system, because while it is low-cost and
requires low bandwidth, it can be integrated with sophisticated
delivery systems to provide customizable information to the mobile
subscriber station.
[0012] Classic cellular telephony[x,y] is based on the use of a set
of radio frequencies chosen from a set (a "band" of spectrum), two
of which are required per connection (one to send, the other to
receive). These frequencies are required during a call, but
otherwise not used, so that many cellular telephones can be present
in a "cell" but only the active telephones consume frequencies.
"Cells" are regions where selected sets of radio frequencies are in
use. Adjacent cells do not use the same frequencies for calls to
prevent interference. Cells are often arranged as hexagons since
hexagons "tile" the plane.
[0013] Calls are set up and handed-across cell boundaries using a
signaling channel. The signaling channel uses a common protocol
which all cell phones understand, Signaling System 7 (SS7). The
handset periodically broadcasts a unique identifier (which in the
telephone system, maps directly to a telephone number) which is
"burned in" to a chip in the telephone. This number is used by the
base station for the cell to identify the phone for billing
purposes, and to find its "home location". When a cellular
telephone enters a base station's cell, the base station uses the
ID to find its home Mobile Telephone Switching Office (MTSO), from
which calls appear to be traveling to and from as they are made (an
interesting consequence is that a New Jersey cellular telephone
operating in California will route a call to the East Coast and
back, even for a location a block away). The channel between the
local Mobile Telephone Switching Office and the home Mobile
Telephone Switching Office is carried over the traditional
telephone network (e.g., landlines). When moving between cells, the
telephone and two base stations use a handoff protocol so that the
connection is maintained; it essentially involves setting up
frequencies in the destination cell to switch to. Handoff is
triggered when the telephone detects two "beacons" of approximately
equal strength; each base station emits a beacon (like a radio
"lighthouse") so that it can be detected.
[0014] The location enhanced information delivery system 100 uses
similar mechanisms for location tracking--in fact, one attractive
implementation technology for tracking in the location enhanced
information delivery system 100 is the telephone number emitted by
the cellular handset. Where the cellular network uses the local
Mobile Telephone Switching Office as a dumb proxy to the home
Mobile Telephone Switching Office via telephone circuits, the
location enhanced information delivery system 100 use of a profile
fetched from one or more locations, coupled with information from a
multiplicity of sources, provides a much richer source of
information than a call acceptance decision. The use of this
information at the location(s) where the location enhanced
information delivery system 100 location ID is detected is much
richer, because the use of the information is location-customized,
e.g., to a billboard, kiosk, proximity to a vendor, etc. The
cellular handset provides the same service everywhere (in fact,
that is one of its appeals), which is a telephone circuit.
[0015] The integration of the location enhanced information
delivery system 100 with the telephony infrastructure provides a
junction point for information analysis systems. The beacon
capability of the mobile subscriber stations can be used to
identify a user, and using this subscriber identification
information, to locate and fetch a user profile for the identified
subscriber. Simplistic user profiles have been used as part of
Personal Communication Service systems, primarily to reduce traffic
loads on the network, to reduce the radio bandwidth used, and the
traffic load on the SS7 signaling network.
Use of Profile Databases
[0016] The present location enhanced information delivery system
represents an advance both in the use of location-tracking as part
of an information-delivery architecture, and in the use of advanced
user profiles which can be coupled with location information and
information delivery systems to optimize subscriber customized
information delivery to identified subscribers. The user profile
can be used as part of an information customization architecture.
The user profile idea is completely general since the user profile
can contain information gathered completely automatically, and the
user profile can be used for a variety of tasks. Particular
examples include: [0017] 1. Billboards--The present location
enhanced information delivery system can use the user profiles in
the automatic selection of information for display on an electronic
"billboard" that is located in or on a store, or along a roadway,
or along a walkway. If the user profiles contain information about
users' buying habits, then the billboard operator can run a voting
algorithm on the collected user profiles to determine the
characteristics of the present user audience to select a revised
set of advertisements to be transmitted to the display. Detailed
user location tracking data can be used by a server to preposition
advertising on a multitude of billboards based upon user direction
of movement and rate of movement calculations. This electronic
billboard system represents a novel connection between user
location data and the pre-fetching of user information to display
user-specific information in the right place at the right time. A
key novel feature of the electronic billboard system idea is that
when there is an insufficient number of customers in the target
audience, the display can be turned off so that the environmental
impact of this electronic billboard system is reduced. [0018] 2.
Unauthorized User Detection--The present location enhanced
information delivery system can use correlating information as part
of an automatically determined user profile to detect the presence
of unauthorized users. This correlating information can be used to
compare the user profile against a suspicion threshold to turn on
other detectors, such as video cameras. Note that for automobiles
only, a completely passive beacon system can be implemented by the
automatic detection of license plate numbers on vehicles that are
present within the range of operation of this system. [0019] 3.
Dynamic Marketing of Advertising Capacity--The present location
enhanced information delivery system can be managed using
advertiser-provided criteria, or location enhanced information
delivery system owner provided criteria., such as economic
algorithms. For example, given a set of users U(l), l=1, . . . ,n,
a desirability estimate D(l) for each user U(l) can be estimated,
based on such factors as user age group, user income level,
geographic closeness of the user U(l) to an advertiser's retail
outlet, and the like. For any given interval of time, an
advertisement can be selected using the advertiser's price
function, P(x), for some x which is a value of the desirability
estimates D(l)s. Thus, each advertiser "bids" for the current user
profile by specifying the price function P(l); and the price
function P(l) is applied to the local users U(l) by computing
max(l=. . . n) P(D(l)). The use of a bidding algorithm for use of
the information display based on customer presence dynamics allows
a completely dynamic real-time optimization of information delivery
based on revenue. Pre-Loaded and Pre-Fetched Data
[0020] The present location enhanced information delivery system is
intended to have associated data storage. This data storage can be
used as an effective means of reducing network latencies,
increasing the likelihood that user information is appropriate, and
reducing network bandwidth. The essential observation is that for
each user U(l), l=1, . . . ,n, a stored user profile can contain
historical information about what the user's interests actually
are, rather than purely statistical demographic data. This data
might take the form of a list of items purchased, computed from
point-of-sale data, a list of web pages examined, from on-line WWW
traces, and the like. Similarity metrics can then be used to
determine appropriate information to display with greater precision
than available from purely demographics-based data. Perhaps most
interestingly, the location information can be coupled with
geographic information (such as that derived from Global
Positioning System receivers) that is accessible to servers, and
rates and direction of user motion can be calculated. Thus, an
advertisement can be scheduled so that it is visible to a customer
during the passage of a particular customer or set of customers
past a predefined location. The user movement direction information
can be used to ensure that the information selected for display is
not based upon the presence of customers who are approaching the
display from its back side and therefore cannot view the displayed
information.
[0021] It is anticipated that user location, direction of movement,
and speed of movement can be estimated with sufficient precision to
identify individual automobiles which are traveling on a busy
highway (at approximately 40-60 foot intervals) so as to target at
least one automobile with a customized message which only the
targeted automobile(s) is able to see. This is achievable vis a vie
the below described techniques for dynamically pre-fetching
messages in anticipation of the predicted location of the
automobile using the speed vector as calculated through
triangulation of its location from two server beacons as the
specification herein describes. The display device used to deliver
this precise level of targeted methods, is achievable by virtue of
an electronic sign board users multi-faced rotating panels
(typically rotating on a vertically oriented axis) in which a
separate message may be projected by each respective face of the
panel in which the face containing the respective customized and
message is continuously directed towards the desired target
customer in accordance with the customer's movement vector, thus
more than one vehicle may be simultaneously targeted with different
messages.
User Profiles
[0022] A user profile is data that is associated with a particular
user. Example data include: user name, user address, number of
family members, pet ownership, income ranges, magazine
subscriptions, television viewing habits, selected purchasing
habits, and the like. For privacy, some of this information might
be stored in a statistical aggregate, such as those used to
characterize residential areas. These statistical aggregates or
detailed data are collected in a user profile which is associated
with a user identifier. The user identifier is used as an index
(means of selection) to the database of user profiles. User
profiles can be maintained by a commercial service for the benefit
of advertisers (the way credit card companies utilize customer
spending habits to target advertisers) or by the users themselves,
as needed. A more detailed description of the user profiles and
their generation is disclosed in the above-noted U.S. Pat. No.
5,754,939.
System Overview
[0023] The operation of the location enhanced information delivery
system as described herein makes use of the fact that each user has
a "beacon", which generally serves as a user identification
instrumentality. The beacons emit identifiers which can be used to
associate users with the detected devices. The beacon can be
correlated with location, such as by use of a wireless subscriber
station or other systems with known technology. The beacon can be
used to access a variety of information in a user-dependent
"profile," such as age, income, credit card spending habits, and
the like. This user profile can be used as part of an information
delivery architecture, in particular it can be used as part of
statistical algorithms to customize information display to those
users presently located near the display technology.
[0024] In FIG. 1, user terminal devices U1-U3 are operational in
the service area of location enhanced information delivery system
100, and the location identification devices contained in the user
terminal devices U1-U3 have been detected by a sensor system 101
contained in the location enhanced information delivery system 100.
The sensor system 101, in response to detection of the location
identification devices contained in the user terminal devices
U1-U3, emits Location Identifiers (LIDs) which are passed to a
processor 104 which uses the received location identifiers to
access database system 102 which maps one or more location
identifiers to one or more user identifiers. The user identifiers
are emitted to the display subsystem 103, which includes a display
processor 105 that executes a display selection algorithm 106 to
determine what is displayed on the display device 107. The display
selection algorithm 106 may have associated with it an advertiser
profile that is used for pricing. While the various elements of
display subsystem 103 are illustrated as a single element, the
various components may be located remote from the display device
107. In response to the operation of the display selection
algorithm 106, the information from the display device 107 can then
made available to users U1-U3 or to other users. The display device
107 can in fact be a component of the user terminal device U1-U3,
such as the display on a hand-held computer, pager, cellular
telephone and the like. The operation of this display subsystem 103
and the associated sensor system 101 is described below. It is
envisioned that the location enhanced information delivery system
100 can be an element in a larger information dissemination
network, such as that described in the above-noted U.S. Pat. No.
5,754,938 titled "Pseudonymous Server for System for Customized
Electronic Identification of Desirable Objects". In this case, the
location enhanced information delivery system 100 is a node in that
network and retrieves user profile and target profile information
as described therein.
[0025] FIG. 3 illustrates in flow diagram form the typical
operation of the location enhanced information delivery system 100.
In particular, the process begins at step 301 when the location
enhanced information delivery system 100 is initialized. At step
302, one or more of the sensors located in sensor subsystem 101
sense the presence of a user terminal device U2 that is not listed
as being present in the predetermined region located around the
location enhanced information delivery system 100. The detection is
effected by the retrieval of the location identification from the
location device in the user terminal device U2. At step 303, the
sensor subsystem 101 transmits the determined location identifier
to the database processor 108, which at step 304 accesses the
database memory 104 to map the received location identification
information with a user identifier. The database processor 108 may
obtain this information from a remotely located database or from
another node in a distributed network. In either case, at step 305,
the database processor 108 uses the user identifier to retrieve
user profile data that is associated with the user identifier from
database memory 104. Again, the database processor 108 may obtain
the user profile data from a remotely located database or from
another node in a distributed network. The user profile data is
then transmitted by database processor 108 to the display subsystem
103 at step 306, with the option that the user profile data is
pseudonymized to thereby ensure the privacy of the user. At step
307, the processor 105 located in the display subsystem 103
executes some predetermined algorithm(s) to utilize the user
profile data in selecting a display that is most appropriate for
this user and/or the collection of users served by display device
107. The results of this processing are used on a periodic basis to
update, at step 308, the information presented on the display
device 107. Processing returns to step 302 when a new user terminal
device enters the space served by the location enhanced information
delivery system 100.
Location Identification and Sensing
[0026] The architecture of the location enhanced information
delivery system 100 presumes that the users' terminal devices U1-U3
provide signals that can be sensed and that the location enhanced
information delivery system 100 is able to provide a per-device
identifier called a "location identifier". A user terminal device
U1, such as a wireless subscriber station, is detected by a user
terminal device specific sensor in sensor subsystem 101, which
provides a location identifier LID as an output.
[0027] Each user with a user identifier has one or more location
identifiers LID, which are unique identifiers associated with a
specific user terminal device U1 and which can be used to determine
a location of the user terminal device U1. Examples of user
terminal devices U1 include:--a cellular telephone--a PCS
telephone--anti-theft devices for automobiles--visually
recognizable unique identifiers such as license plates--Global
Positioning System (GPS) receiver--Personal Calendar Agent. Each
location identifier might be associated with a single user
identifier or a small set of user identifiers, as in the case of a
user terminal device U1 that is shared among family members. The
point of the location identifier is to provide a means of sensing
the presence of a user terminal device U1 in a geographic vicinity
of the location enhanced information delivery system 100. The
presence of the user terminal device U1 in a geographic vicinity
can then be used to infer the presence of a user, for which the
user identifier is the means of characterizing the user, to the
location enhanced information delivery system 100 by indexing a
user profile associated with the user.
[0028] Thus, for each user identifier, there may be multiple
location identifiers, and for each location identifier, there may
be multiple user identifiers, but in either of these cases, the
multiplicity is likely to be extremely small, and perhaps most
importantly, the demographic information, of most use to
advertisers, is likely to be equivalent across each of multiple
user identifiers that are identified by the location enhanced
information delivery system 100.
User Identification Retrieval
[0029] The user identifiers are used as unique identifiers by the
location enhanced information delivery system 100 to obtain
information about the user (the "user profile") from one or more
information providers, a set which might include commercial
enterprises or even the users themselves, as described in the
above-noted U.S. Pat. No. 5,754,938. The essential characteristic
of the user identifier for the method disclosed here is that it can
be used to customize information delivery. Note that the network
architecture provides an excellent way for sensor information to be
forwarded to a display-controlling server 103, which can then
broadcast or multicast information to information display units
107.
Privacy of User Profiles
[0030] While the target profile interest summary presents many
advantages to both target object providers and users, there are
important privacy issues for both users and providers that must be
resolved in order for such a system to gain wide acceptance. It is
almost a certainty that users desire that some if not all of the
user-specific information in their user profiles and target profile
interest summaries remain confidential, to be disclosed only under
certain circumstances related to certain types of transactions and
according to their personal wishes for differing levels of
confidentiality regarding their purchases and expressed interests.
At the same time, complete and total privacy may not always be
desired by all parties to a transaction.
[0031] For example, a buyer may desire to be targeted for certain
mailings that describe products that are related to his or her
interests, and a seller may desire to target users who are
predicted to be interested in the goods and services that the
seller provides. Indeed, the usefulness of the technology described
herein is contingent upon the ability of the system to collect and
compare data about many users and many target objects. A compromise
between total user anonymity and total disclosure of the user's
search profiles or target profile interest summary is a
"pseudonym". A pseudonym is an artifact that allows a service
provider to communicate with users and maintain records of their
preferences, while at the same time remaining ignorant of the
users' true identities, so that users can keep their purchases or
preferences private.
[0032] Note that the integrity of user profiles and target profile
interest summaries is important: if a seller relies on target
profile interest summary information to deliver promotional offers
or other material to a particular class of users, at some cost to
the seller, but not to other users, the target profile interest
summary information must be accurate and unhampered with in any
way. The user may likewise wish to ensure that other parties not
tamper with the user's target profile interest summary, since such
modification could degrade the system's ability to match the user
with appropriate information while protecting the user from
inappropriate information.
[0033] The approach used in the location enhanced information
delivery system provides an improvement over the prior art in
privacy-protected pseudonymity for network users that provide a
name translator station to act as an intermediary between a service
provider and the user. In prior art the information transmitted
between the end user U and the service provider is doubly
encrypted, and the fact that a relationship exists between user U
and the service provider is known to the name translator could be
used to compromise user U, for example if the service provider
specializes in the provision of content that is not deemed
acceptable by user U's peers. This method also omits a method for
the convenient updating of pseudonymous user profile information,
such as is provided in LEIA, and does not provide for assurance of
unique and credentialed registration of pseudonyms from a
credentialing agent, or for access control to the user based on
profile information and conditional access. Neither does prior art
describe any provision for authenticating a user's right to access
particular target objects, such as target objects that are intended
to be available only upon payment of a subscription fee, or target
objects that are intended to be unavailable to younger users.
[0034] The location enhanced information delivery system 100 can
protect user identities using a pseudonymous proxy server,
disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,754,938 titled "Pseudonymous Server
for System for Customized Electronic Identification of Desirable
Objects". A user can register with a pseudonym validation
identifying authority, and receive as many pseudonyms as he/she
requires, in order to use a different pseudonym with different
groups of vendors. The above referenced patent uses the technique
of blind signatures to allow the pseudonym authority to
authenticate pseudonyms without receiving disclosure of the
pseudonym itself. The user is the only entity in the system with
information on his/her portfolio of pseudonyms.
[0035] The above referenced patent also teaches a method that can
provide guarantees to vendors and information providers that users
are legitimately entitled to services, and to authenticate that a
user has a "once-in-a-lifetime" pseudonym with a particular vendor.
The pseudonym authority can ensure that only a single pseudonym is
authenticated for each vendor-user pair, still without knowing the
identifier of the pseudonym. The pseudonym authority can check
credentials, as signed by credential granting agencies. The
uniqueness of pseudonyms is important for the purposes of this
application, since the transaction information gathered for a given
individual must represent a complete and consistent picture of a
single user's activities with respect to a given service provider
or coalition of service providers; otherwise, a user's target
profile interest summary or user profile would not be able to
represent the user's interests to other parties as completely and
accurately as possible.
[0036] The location enhanced information delivery system 100 allows
a given user to use either a single pseudonym in all transactions
where the user wishes to remain pseudonymous, or else different
pseudonyms for different types of transactions. In the latter case,
each service provider might transact with the user under a
different pseudonym for the user; more generally, a coalition of
service providers who all match users with a particular genre of
target objects might agree to transact with the user using a common
pseudonym, so that the target profile interest summary associated
with that pseudonym would be complete with respect to said genre of
target objects. The service provider must have a means of
protection from users who violate previously agreed upon terms of
service. For example, if a user that uses a given pseudonym engages
in activities that violate the terms of service, then the service
provider should be able to take action against the user. This type
of situation might occur when a user employs a service provider for
illegal activities or defaults in payments to the service provider.
Likewise, the user may require for his or her own protection that
the terms of service include consumer protection remedies, and
might, for example, require that any dispute between the service
provider and the consumer be referred to an adjudicating agency
where the issue may be resolved through arbitration, with the user
being represented through his or her pseudonym during the hearing
to maintain anonymity throughout the representation.
[0037] The beacons that are associated with each user terminal
device emit unique location identifiers, that have the potential to
allow the privacy of a user's pseudonymity portfolio to be
compromised. The location enhanced information delivery system may
be extended to support the full privacy functionality of
user-managed pseudonyms in a number of ways, including (but not
limited to): (a) (at the client level) providing each user terminal
with a configurable location identifier that can emit a unique
identifier string for each pseudonym; (b) (at the server level)
managing the pseudonym policy of a user at the processor 104, to
ensure that a location identifier is mapped not to a user
identifier, but the appropriate user pseudonym identifier.
Public Versus Private Displays
[0038] Displays can be public or private. Private displays are not
intended to be viewed by all of the users U1-U3 in FIG. 1; rather,
they are intended to be viewed by other users, say A1-An, who might
be advertisers formulating an advertising strategy. Displays might
not be intended for local users U1-U3 but rather remotely located
users, V1-Vn, who might want to know the current traffic conditions
3 miles ahead or before leaving their driveway. Law enforcement may
want to know the sources and destinations of traffic so as to
regulate traffic onto or off of thoroughfares. The architecture of
the location enhanced information delivery system 100 is completely
general in that the display need not be devoted to the uses of the
set of local location identifiers, but many of the commercial
applications are display oriented.
Information Displays
[0039] The location enhanced information delivery system 100 is
assumed to contain one or more sensors, one or more processors, and
information storage. Sets of sensors might be associated with the
display subsystem 103 or a sensor subsystem 101, but a single
sensor may be sufficient in some applications. While user profiles
and advertiser profiles might be stored locally in memory 104
associated with database 102, it is more typical for them to be
remotely accessed through a "distributed access" architecture by
which the user profiles are retrieved from an information provider
using one or more means of communication, such as data
communication network 110. The cost of processors, memory and
communications technology have been falling exponentially but
display technology costs have not fallen as rapidly, thus the
important focus is the declining relative incremental cost of
adding processing capability to an information delivery system.
While the relative incremental costs of adding processing to the
information delivery point approaches zero, the benefits of this
addition in terms of value-added are enormous. In particular, the
value of the display device for purposes such as advertising are
greatly enhanced, particularly when the information delivery device
is coupled to associated data, such as user profiles (obtainable
via database access) and user locality information (obtainable from
the sensor system).
Pricing Information Delivery
[0040] Since different user profiles exist for each of the users
U1-Un who are in the vicinity of a display device 107 at any one
time, and these user profiles vary in ways which attract different
levels of interest from advertisers, the current user profile can
be offered to advertisers at a time varying price. This general
idea is used today, for example by magazines which advertise their
reader demographics and circulation. While print media can expand
(to print more pages) and keep a constant price, electronic
information delivery may be limited by considerations of a finite
amount of display time and a finite amount of display screen.
Television systems regulate the demand for advertising by means of
price, attempting to find a price which clears the demand and
exactly fills the allocated advertising time. Thus, more desirable
time slots are more expensive. The location enhanced information
delivery system 100 can use a bidding algorithm. For each
advertiser A(l) an associated "pricing function" P(i,x) is used
which, given a demographic profile x, returns a price the
advertiser is willing to pay for use of the location enhanced
information delivery system 100 to display its advertising. Issued
patent "Pseudonymous Server for System for Customized Electronic
Identification of Desirable Objects" provides the preferred
architectural embodiment suggested for LEIA in which vendors access
user profiles and deliver targeted advertising subject to
pre-stated conditions and terms set forth typically in advance by
the user. The present bidding method would accordingly enhance the
value a user and/or electronic display owner receives in exchange
for advertising privileges.
[0041] The pricing functions P( ) may account for both user type
and user count, so that the presence of a large pool of hockey fans
at a particular location may not be of interest to one advertiser
unless they are also luxury Scotch consumers, while a second
advertiser (e.g., a sporting goods store) may be interested in the
presence of the hockey fans at a predetermined location purely on
user count. For each advertiser A(1)-A(n), its price function
P(i,x) is applied to information derived from the user profiles for
each of the detected users U(j) at a particular location, such as
annual income, geographic locality to a retail outlet of the
advertiser's, etc. The advertiser can use any information
available, such as time of day (to determine if the advertiser has
an outlet open), to determine the bid. The bid is computed and used
to control the information delivery device, which rationally
selects the highest bidder for any given time period, or can use
any other selection algorithm it wishes to employ to control the
display; maximizing revenue is expected to be a common choice.
Ecological Information Delivery
[0042] We have presumed that the information delivery mechanisms
are electronic or electrically powered. One feature of the
architecture is the ability to detect the absence of any location
identifiers in the geographic vicinity of the display 107. This
allows the display device 107 to be dimmed or turned off.
Interestingly, no user identifier need be retrieved for this
algorithm to work; thus the power-saving algorithm depends only on
the presence or absence of detected location identifiers. A simple
practical implementation of this idea could use a device similar to
a motion sensor to turn a display on or off. Displays the size of
billboards consume considerable power in their active operation,
and even lit billboards could benefit from location identifier
sensing. At the display, the algorithm is: if (number of detected
location identifiers <1) display_state=OFF; else
display_state=ON; An interesting modification of the algorithm can
be made by combining the pricing scheme described in above with the
"eco-friendly" idea; if no one is willing to bid the cost of
running the display, the display is turned off. Note that this
results in exactly the same behavior as the previous algorithm in
the face of no detected location identifiers. [0043] x=demographics
of current detected location identifiers; [0044] maximum_bid=0;
maximum_AID=0; [0045] for (Advertiser I in A(1) . . . A(n)) [0046]
if(P(i,x))>maximum_bid{maximum_bid=P(i,x);maximum_AID=I;} [0047]
if(cost(DISPLAY)>maximum_bid)displaystate=OFF; else
{display_state=ON;display_owner=maximum_AID;}. Exemplary
Applications
[0048] A) Travel/activities information. This information
represents data that is relevant to selected travelers (those
actually passing an information display) as they enter a new region
or as they physically pass points of (tourist) interest or
available activities which are customized to the particular
interests of these selected travelers. Present information display
systems broadcast information using billboards or an information
service on a broadcast radio channel to ALL potential customers
without discriminating among the varied interests of these
customers.
[0049] B) Local News--This information represents data that is
important and/or real-time occurring events (formal and even news
group related) which are of custom interest to the traveler.
[0050] C) Products, services, people of interest plus associated
"qualitative" me measures thereof--This information represents data
that enables vendors using on-line advertising to also sell
off-line as another criterion for estimating their metric of
similarity for cross advertising./joint promotions.
[0051] D) Retailer's Point-of-Sale System Applications--General
retailers today have access to several different channels of
information detailing the interaction of shoppers, purchase items,
prices and coupons. As previously described, the collaborative
filtering system described herein is quite capable of analyzing
data gathered through on-line or Web-based retailing channels.
However, these same techniques can be applied to more traditional
("off-line") venues of retailing, such as the physical
point-of-sale of purchase items. Given that a variety of items can
be purchased at the point-of-sale, and that magnetic "shopper
loyalty" cards enable vendors to track customers' purchases, the
collaborative filtering system can be adapted to a variety of
point-of-sale applications. Although it is envisioned mainly as an
in-store electronic kiosk, such a system has complex implications
and can be used by a vendor as the foundation for a comprehensive
retailing strategy, managing everything from the collection of
sales data to the designing of promotions. For example, vendors
today use the notion of a discount coupon to encourage purchases.
These are bulk-mailed to customers or included in newspapers to the
general public. Some supermarkets offer point-of-sale discounts to
customers who use preferred customer cards at the cash register.
While it might prove unsettling at first, the present location
enhanced information delivery system 100 allows completely dynamic
pricing, for example frequent customer discounts combined with
reductions for overstock, etc. These dynamics allow better
management of store resources, happier customers, and greater price
control.
[0052] E. Aggregate User Profile Advertising--In certain
situations, where it is impossible to limit the displayed message
to a given user, it may be appropriate to combine the profiles of
multiple users that view the display, averaging the scores of those
common attributes which have scalar values. Examples include:
automobiles in which the identity and profile of a user can be
inferred only probabilistically--either because a vehicle has
multiple users or because multiple automobiles and/or users are in
view of a non-rotating panel electronic message board; and the many
users that can view an electronic message board that is attached to
an aerial blimp or trailing an aircraft.
[0053] F. User to User Introductions--In the co-pending patent
application System for Automatic Creation of Virtual Communities
for System for Customized Electronic Identification of Desirable
Objects there is a method which describes how users may be
automatically introduced to one another through the identification
of common attributes within their user profiles or via browsing or
querying a directory of topical interest categories. Accordingly,
in the same specification the use of the pseudonym proxy server can
also be used to mediate, not only advertiser access to user
profiles, but also such access by other users based upon certain
guidelines which dictate the terms and conditions by which an
individual grants another individual access privileges to gain
access to his/her user profile and further possibly introduce
him/herself to the user based upon features and/or credentials
constituting the user profiles of the requester. These guidelines
constitute part of the requestor's "privacy policy". The location
enhanced information delivery system 100 can improve the user-user
automatic matching techniques as taught in the aforementioned
patent by notifying users of other users that are located in or
near the same vicinity and match the desired profile conditions, as
consistent with the privacy policies of users, e.g. for purposes of
notification, request for electronic introduction and/or delivery
of dynamic (actual or pre-formulated) messages the transmission or
receipt thereof which may also be subject to conditions as set
forth by the other user. Among these messages may be included
requests for physical introduction through automatic or manual
notification of both parties by one or both parties.
[0054] In an extension of the above-referenced patent, user-user
matching criteria may be extended to include user profiles based
upon a user's demonstrated knowledge or proficiency within a
particular topic or domain. Users may be identified as possessing
interest (a standard interest-based user profile) in a particular
topic as identified through their user profile, or dynamically by
having recently submitted a question on the subject to an on-line
community of other users. If the knowledge profile of an individual
and interest profile of two or more users match, the users may be
introduced to one another automatically. LEIA could greatly enhance
the ability of complimentary users to be introduced physically and
perhaps in some cases, on a dynamic basis.
[0055] As suggested in the above patent relating to the Automatic
Location of Virtual Communities and elaborated further by U.S. Pat.
No. 5,884,270 (Walker et al) users may be introduced to each other
based upon privacy policies which control the release of personal
data and the reachability of users by other users based upon these
policy criteria particularly on a one-to-one basis. U.S. Pat. No.
5,862,223 by the same inventor elaborates upon the particular
application of consulting tasks (which typically involve matching
of a client with an appropriate expert). LEIA can provide
additional advantages to such a system both in being able to
identify accesses (experts or clients) which are local to the
requestor and on mediating implementation of rules which govern the
terms and conditions of the introduction, communication (including
business terms) between the parties where information as to
location proximity of one or both parties is leveraged in order to
determine the potential feasibility and associated degree of
convenience of a physical meeting.
[0056] There are numerous additional applications in which
knowledge of location proximity between prospective parties which
otherwise meet certain specified criteria for purposes of
introduction, task or query, assignment or other applications in
which matching similar or appropriately complementary individuals
occurs are certainly too numerous to describe. Some are described
in pending patent application "System for Customized Electronic
Identification of Desirable Objects". A few, however, are
additionally herein mentioned:
[0057] Dating Services (and Social Introductions)
[0058] Automatic creation of virtual work groups the users for
which match qualification criteria for a specified task or project
(e.g. across the Internet or an extranet).
[0059] Professional Introductions, Meetings and Conventions--User
profiles are specified by the requestor as qualifying criteria
which are desirable for purposes of introduction. All willing
participants' professional profiles are submitted to the
service.
[0060] Matching users according to spoken real-time
conversations--Deploying the use of voice recognition and text
analysis algorithms as is described in the above patent, e.g. in
conjunction with the use of cellular telephony or external acoustic
sensors).
[0061] Virtual tags and out-bound messages--The following extends
the use of user privacy policies regarding third party reachability
and access to users and user specific information through use of
the proxy server within the context of LEIA as described in issued
patent "Pseudonymous server for System for Customized Electronic
Identification of Desirable Objects". In this application, spoken,
written, graphical or profile information associated with a user
may be disclosed to other users within local proximity of the user.
Specifically, a "virtual tag" could be viewed as a static message
which is persistent and untamperable information (typically this
information consists of meta-data) which is associated with that
particular user. In one application it may be used within the
user's visible proximity to identify them in conjunction with
certain user profile information or user credentials (or any other
type of message) which is desirable for the user to release to a
third party, whereby access privileges by that third party to all
or a portion of the profile are typically conditional upon the
recipient's user profile (to the extent it is disclosed to the
sender) as may be the nature/selection of any disclosed message as
presented to that particular third party within the virtual.
Conversely, the recipient's filtering rules may be used to permit
delivery of or filtering of certain portions (or all) information
in the virtual tags as well as outbound messages generated
dynamically by the sender.
[0062] The primary criteria for matching users may include similar
user profiles reflecting common interest venues to that of the user
or (alternatively) complimentary attributes within the user
profiles in which there is complementarity in knowledge or skill
sets by which tasks and/or knowledge sharing is the primary
objective (where the desired attributes are typically identified by
a requester). LEIA can thus notify target users within physical
proximity to one another which match the criteria for introduction.
Queries or task requirements in the form of requests may also be
submitted in addition to (or in place of) the requestor's user
profile. The present matching process identifying appropriate
target users may of course be performed on a dynamic real-time
basis (in accordance with submission of specific requests or
queries) within the context of the present dynamic location
enhanced matching scheme. As above suggested, access control
criteria dictating profile access and reachability of the user (via
physical or virtual introduction or receipt of a message) may be
controlled accordingly based upon the profile of the requester (as
is disclosed) and/or the nature of his/her request (or other
message). Similarly, such access controls may be used to enable (or
restrict) the ability of an explicitly identified user (UID) to be
automatically identified upon his/her entering the same physical
proximity of the requester. As is suggested in the above referenced
patent, a further means by which users may access user profiles
includes (subject to accessee approval), assigning of user profiles
(which are typically pseudonymized) according to appropriate
cluster (or attribute) criteria (including location criteria) and
the construction of conveniently navigable hierarchical menus.
Virtual tags may also be ascribed by users to physical objects (or
potentially even other users) where an XML representation is
constructed with a (future) location tag which can be automatically
indexed by future users at that location. Such information could
relate to a variety of rating criteria (which could be averaged
across users) and/or annotations (potentially even hazards). It may
be associated with rules dictating the user's disclosure policy
with respect to which user(s) or user type may gain access to which
information (e.g. who can access the identity or profile
information associated with the tag). It could even be allocated to
only the same user (e.g. as reminders, notes or certified
documentation). H. Web Interface to User Location and Profiling
Data for Advertising purposes--In co-pending patent application
entitled "Secure Data Interchange" (SDI), a web interface is
provided for advertisers to search a widely distributed data base
of user profiles, according to specified usage and privacy
constraints. The search can be performed on any number of
attributes, for example sites visited, categories or topics of
sites visited, banner advertisement clickthroughs, purchase
inquiries and purchases, demographics, etc. Secure Data Interchange
is designed to allow the integration of information about users
across different vendors, but only to the extent permitted by a
user. Data mining techniques and human data analysts can then be
used to identify appropriate cross-vendor, cross-advertiser and
cross-product synergies, with the goal of enriching the data models
and personalization power of individual vendors and
advertisers.
[0063] One key application of Secure Data Interchange is in
targeting advertising to an appropriate audience. The location
enhanced information delivery system 100 augments the data that is
available to an advertiser with location information and allows
location specific advertisements. For example, local advertisers
may desire targeting of users with relevant profiles that are also
located in close proximity to the location of the service, for
example while users travel with portable user terminal devices or
pass a local electronic display, as well as identify users whose
devices are connected to a land network. The above mentioned patent
teaches a method in which advertisers can query a database of
profile information for certain desired user attributes. If a
vendor meets certain user pre-defined access criteria via features
and credentials, user profile data may be accessed in accordance
with the user's privacy policy. Data mining tools can be used to
enable advertisers to identify relevant features. Advertisers may
enter rules that specify how users are to be targeted, based on
desired criteria such as those pseudonyms that possess certain
attributes.
[0064] In the present environment of LEIA, vendors and advertisers
are likely to request: (1) access to certain user profile data
relating to user location information (in addition to other profile
information); (2) If such access is granted, the right to target
the user with information, such as advertisements. Additionally,
information about the vendor OR his/her products or services may
also be relevant information to the user. The user can use this
information (within SDI) to control profile access and delivery of
targeted advertising (or other information). For example, the
advertiser may be willing to provide products or services of a
particular type, quality and price if the user is willing to reveal
(or prove) certain specified attributes. Subject to the user's
privacy policy, vendors may be notified when a user requests
information about a vendor, and initiate negotiation.
[0065] Once targeted advertising is delivered to the appropriate
users aggregate statistics regarding the user's behavior and
responses are collected and delivered back to the advertiser via a
central SDI database. Secure Data Interchange also allows an
advertiser to receive information on the specific behavior
associated with the delivery of an ad to an anonymous or
pseudonymous user. This data can include the click stream relating
to the ad, the actual similarity of the pseudonym's profile to the
ad profile, or more extensive data for example that pertaining to
the clickstream patterns on the vendor's site, or across other
sites as correlated according to the particular types of attributes
of the sites, or user attributes.
[0066] The addition of location information to a system of Secure
Data Interchange introduces new opportunities. In particular, the
location enhanced information delivery system 100 allows
information to be pushed to users as they move around in an
environment, even when users are not connected to the Internet
through a dedicated client. The location enhanced information
delivery system 100 allows a stationary electronic display device
located in the environment to be activated according to profile
information that is associated with the pseudonym that is revealed
by the location identifier of a user. In this way the location
enhanced information delivery system 100 significantly expands the
reach of the advertising and information filtering/presentation
applications of the Secure Data Interchange.
[0067] Location information also introduces new concerns about the
privacy of individuals. One way in which Secure Data Interchange
protects the privacy of users is through the randomization and
subsequent aggregation of profile information. Even though a
pseudonym is not explicitly identified with a user it is possible
that a user can be associated through revelation of other
identifying information, such as specific transaction information
(e.g. credit card). Secure Data Interchange randomizes scalar
information through the addition of additive noise, and labels
through substitution from an approximate equivalence class (or
cluster). An advertiser can still make use of randomized profile
information in the aggregate, and Secure Data Interchange
aggregates data that is then disclosed to vendors. This technique
of randomization can be usefully extended to location information.
It is necessary to ensure that the continuity of location
information cannot be used to compromise the privacy guarantees
that are provided by Secure Data Interchange.
[0068] For example, if it is observed that pseudonym P1 disappears
from location X, as another pseudonym P2 appears in a location very
close to X, then it is possible to reason about the likelihood that
pseudonym P1 and P2 are pseudonyms for the same user. The accuracy
of such an inference depends on a number of factors, that include:
(1) the number of pseudonyms that are disappearing and appearing in
the vicinity of X; and (2) the accuracy with which location can be
identified; (3) the spatial density of pseudonyms. The location
enhanced information delivery system 100 modifies the information
that is augmented to pseudonyms to prevent such attacks. Solution
techniques include, but are not limited to, (1) randomizing the
location information to a degree that is sufficient to prevent this
type of user tracking, while still allowing accurate location-based
information delivery; and (2) randomizing the temporal information
about when pseudonyms appear and disappear--for example allowing
"ghost" pseudonyms to continue for random intervals, and delaying
the appearance of identifiers for new pseudonyms. A location
enhanced information delivery system 100-enhanced Secure Data
Interchange system can also allow a user to block the revelation of
location information for any pseudonyms, as part of the privacy and
pseudonym-management policies.
[0069] In another variation, user location data is known but the
time attribute is randomized concealing the user's whereabouts at
any given time. In this variation the user can also limit
revelation of their user profile information to whether or not the
ad is "similar" to the user profile, so that advertisers can only
determine the number of location identified pseudonyms within a
given threshold distance of metric similarity of the advertiser's
ad, without receiving any specific information about a user.
[0070] Given that these protections are in place, an example
request by an advertiser (or other information provider) in the
context of the location enhanced information delivery system 100
could be, display (either to personal user terminal devices or
stationary electronic display devices) an advertisement (or other
type of information message X) to the 100 users that are most
likely to be interested in advertisement X (e.g. through profile
analysis). For example, a sports supplier can request a targeted
advertisement for tennis shoes, to users with pseudonym profiles
that suggest an interest in sports and in particular the genre of
racket sports, are under the age of 40, and within 10 miles of the
vendor's physical location. The location-enhanced information
delivery system 100 and Secure Data Interchange will present the
advert to suitable prospects that choose to reveal location
information, and are in a close proximity to the vendor. Secure
Data Interchange can provide optional aggregate statistics about
the number of users that match the criteria, and the quality of
match--without revealing any information about the individual users
that are targeted.
[0071] Thus, within the framework of the above example, the proxy
server may activate a rule which is requested on behalf of the
vendor to target the users within a 10 mile radius which most
closely match the interest criteria for tennis shoes as stated
without actually revealing any associated location information to
the vendor (even in aggregate form). In this variation, it should
be noted that the vendor does not necessarily have to know the
number of users which match his/her target advertising criteria.
Even if purchases are being made, location data can be withheld
entirely from the vendor.
[0072] There are other variations of user location data release
that do not present much of a threat to user privacy. For example,
the vendor may be advised of certain data about the responses of
users to the advertising, such as the number of users which clicked
through the ad, purchased the tennis shoes and perhaps some ratio
of the above compared to the number of users which match the
particular targeting criteria by location.
[0073] Another technique for protecting user-privacy allows an
advertiser (or vendor) to submit rules for targeting certain users
with certain ads on the basis of user profile attributes (including
click stream patterns) to a network-vendor level Secure Data
Interchange proxy server or client-level Secure Data Interchange
proxy. The Secure Data Interchange proxy can autonomously activate
personalization rules for a vendor, given pseudonym profiles,
while: (a) enforcing a user's privacy and information-release
policies; (b) preventing the release of profile information to
vendors. The vendor may receive indirect information about the
profiles of users through randomized aggregate statistics. Within
the framework of the location enhanced information delivery system
100, the preferred implementation of this technique maintains the
location information of a pseudonym as close to the user device
terminal as possible, either on the client itself or at the proxy
server.
[0074] The location enhanced information delivery system 100 also
provides additional feedback to improve the model's overall
performance by taking into consideration time, location, as well as
the metrics relating to general user interests and preferences. A
human analyst might also perform further analysis, for example
combining the user's profile and the target object of an item
browsed or purchased and/or physically visited, in light of
location--time patterns. These inferences may provide further
contextual information about a target object profile, user profile,
or the nature of the present activities of the user in a temporal
context.
[0075] According to the issued divisional applications of patent
application "System for Customized Electronic Identification of
Desirable Objects", user profiles may be in part generated/updated
in accordance with the target object profiles the users visit
(which may include features of other user profiles because they are
transcribed to the target object profile of the target object as a
result of the other user interacting with that target object and
target object profiles may be generated/updated in accordance with
the user which may contain attributes of other target objects using
the same rationale. In this way The Location Enhanced Information
Architecture 100 may accordingly extend the context in which a user
is known to interact with a target object in that physical target
object which the user visits or observes (e.g. is possibly observed
via LEIA to stop, approach or spend time reading) may contain (or
assume) profile information in accordance with the physical
interaction engaged by the user (e.g., some attributes may include
the name of a target object, its category, textual information
which is associated with it in a physical context, e.g. from HTML
pages associated with it or other text as is known to be displayed
on an advertising message board (or other informational
display).
[0076] To ensure the utmost security of the user profile data, the
Secure Data Interchange specification additionally suggests
utilizing and deploying the operation of the pseudonym proxy server
at the client level which, in addition to anonymizing or
pseudonymizing the user's profile, prevents a third party proxy
server operator from operating or potentially gaining any access to
such sensitive data as name, profile and/or location correlations.
Thus, this privacy enhancement may, for certain implementations of
the location enhanced information delivery system 100 where such
client-level proxy is feasible, add enhanced security to the user's
personal data.
[0077] H. Use of Metatags to Maintain and Update Target Object
Profiles in a LEIA-enhanced System--In co-pending patent
application titled "Secure Data Interchange" we describe a system
for the automatic profiling of the web pages of on-line vendors,
and of users that participate in transactions on-line, and browse
the Internet. The profiling is performed within a secure and
privacy-protected framework. The system of Secure Data Interchange
collects and distributes information consistent with user- and
vendor-defined policies. Information can be explicit data,
including transactional 10 information that is collected by parties
that are involved in a transaction --such as the product purchased,
and demographic information (e.g. gender, zip code, occupation).
Information can also be implicit data, that includes click stream
data that logs the information that a user requests and views, and
the time-sequence of hyperlinks that a user follows as he/she
browses across multiple web sites.
[0078] The LEIA system extends the type of profiling information
available within the Secure Data Interchange, allowing new data
about the physical location of users and the physical location of
vendors that are associated with web sites to be associated with
the other types of profiling information. This information is
useful when the product or service that is offered by a vendor is
location-dependent, for example to a vendor with a web server that
provides topical information on restaurants and hotels in the
proximity of a user that is browsing from his car. A vendor or user
can provide location information explicitly, and in addition the
physical location of on-line vendors can be inferred from server IP
addresses and the location statistics of users that access the
vendor's site. The methods disclosed in the current patent provide
information on the physical location of users.
[0079] In our preferred architecture the profiles that are
generated for the target objects on a web page are embedded
directly within the web page, and stored at source on a vendor's
origin server. A vendor can provide detailed information about its
physical location, that LEIA can use to identify and inform
relevant users. Alternatively pages can be automatically tagged
with predicted location information as provided by LEIA, using the
tag-update functionality of SDI (described below).
[0080] The profile and location information is embedded within a
web page as metadata, that is data about data--machine readable
information that informs an intelligent agent (such as an
SDI-enabled browser) about the data that is included in a web
document. The extensible Markup Language (XML) proposal of the
Worldwide Web Consortium working group on SGML provides an ideal
standard for representing such information. XML allows meta-content
to be included with documents, machine-readable information that
enables documents to be processed by client software. Augmenting
web documents with structured information in SDI enables clients to
perform user personalization--pushing computation to clients, and
allowing greater control over user-profiles because profiles do not
need to be released from clients.
[0081] XML provides the ability to embed data within web pages,
that in turn allows client-side processing of information. By
embedding profile and location information directly within a web
document we can alleviate the bandwidth and computational
bottlenecks that can occur at a centralized profile server if
profiles are fetched on-the-fly when web pages are downloaded by
clients. The origin server (supported by the vendor) requests
periodic profile updates from the central SDI server. This
duplication of information enables the profile and the page
contents to be provided directly from a vendor's server.
[0082] There are some potential drawbacks of this approach: (1) the
profile information associated with a web page and target objects
can be out-of-date; (2) the profile information is available to all
clients and proxy servers, not just those that are SDI-enabled; (3)
the profile information can be altered. We suggest technical
solutions to each of these problems in the co-pending patent
application, Secure Data Interchange. We limit the performance
degradation caused by out-of-date profile information that is
stored within web pages of on-line vendors by associating
"out-of-date" time stamps with the profiles that are provided by
the central SDI server. Vendors request new profile updates when
the current profile information is out-of-date, and more frequently
if required (although we allow for a per-update charge).
[0083] The privacy of information in transit between servers and
clients can be assured through standard end-to-end cryptographic
solutions that establish a secure session prior to any data
exchange, such as Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) that uses X.509
certificates and is supported by current browser technology. In
addition, we prevent unauthorized access of embedded profile
information through the encryption of the metadata that is
represented within the XML structure of a web page. Profile
information can be encrypted using a hierarchy of keys, so that
different levels of access to the information may be provided
according to the access levels of users and vendors. All users that
request web pages from SDI-enabled vendors, whether or not the user
is a member of SDI receive the same profile information. We provide
encrypted profiles to vendors in the `Profile Update` messages from
SDI to vendor servers, so that: (a) unauthorized agents cannot
tamper with the profiles; (b) the profiles cannot be read by
unauthorized agents.
[0084] SDI supplies a private key to trusted SDI client software,
that enables only SDI-enabled clients to access profile
information, and only access that information to the extent
permitted by privacy policies of users and vendors. Different
levels of encryption enforce multiple levels of access.
Periodically the key pairs are changed to prevent extended attempts
at cryptographic attacks. SDI uploads the key that provides the
correct level of access for a user to a user's client, once terms
of access and profile management have been agreed. A client can
only access embedded information once enabled with a relevant key.
Finally, profile information is signed with a digital certificate,
to prevent third parties from tampering with profiles for
commercial gain.
[0085] In one variation of SDI the profile of a user is maintained
on the user's client, and partitioned into separate profiles for
each pseudonym that a user chooses to maintain. Personalization of
products and services (product types, prices, etc.) is performed at
the client, through the execution of trusted code that is embedded
as a Java applet or as JavaScript within the web document of a
vendor. In this way a vendor never receives access to the profile
of a user, but is nevertheless able to personalize its response to
users, even when a user first visits a site (on the basis of the
profile for a user from his/her previous online transactions).
Profiles for the target objects of a vendor that enable appropriate
objects (representing particular products, or news stories for
example) to be presented to a user are embedded as XML data within
the vendor's web document. The profile information in LEIA-enhanced
SDI can include location information about products and services
that are provided by a vendor.
[0086] The location information about a user, as generated through
LEIA, is maintained at the client machine of the user, and compared
to location data that is embedded as metadata within a vendor's web
document. Location based matching can be performed at the client,
for example looking for matches between users that have similar
characteristics and physical location, or users that match the
profile of a web site and are in close physical proximity to the
service provided.
[0087] An XML document has an associated schema definition to
enable an XML-enabled browser to validate the structure of XML data
automatically. A Schema in XML is called a Document Type Definition
(DTD), and defines the names of tags, their structure, and their
content model. XML allows the DTD for an XML file to be identified
through a Universal Resource Indicator [URI] in the header of the
file (see below). XML also allows URIs for mobile code resources to
be referenced, in order to enable a client to process embedded XML
data. An XML document must be well formed, and in order to be well
formed the tags must form a tree structure. In addition, the DTD
allows the structure of an XML document (an instance) to be
validated against a particular schema. Senders and receivers must
only send valid SDI files. Each SDI message is a valid XML
document.
[0088] We provide an example XML instance and part of a Document
Type Definition for use within the systems of LEIA and SDI. Profile
information, as generated automatically through collaborative
filtering techniques (for example, see issued U.S. Pat. No.
5,754,939) can be represented as a list of attribute-value pairs
within an XML document. An attribute is defined by a numeric code,
and the value defines the weight of the attribute. Location
information can be explicitly represented, in addition to
demographic information about a user. For example: TABLE-US-00001
<?XML version = "1.0"?> <?xml:namespace ns =
"http://www.w3.org/OPS/OPS" prefix = "OPS" ?> <?xml:namespace
ns = "http://www.sdi.com" prefix = "SDI" ?> <!doc>
<SDI:ProfileData> <SDI:Location> <SDI:Geocode>
12321561 </SDI:GeoCode> <SDI:DigiMap>
http://www.digimap/?12321561 </SDI:DigiMap> <OPS:Zip>
19103 <SDI:/Zip> <SDI:/Location>
<OPS:Demographic> <OPS:Gender> F </OPS:Gender>
<OPS:Age> 26 </OPS:Age> <OPS:Income> 50000-75000
</OPS:Income> ./OPS:Demographic> <SDI:ID>
<SDI:Pseudonym> P12543 </SDI:Pseudonym>
<SDI:PublicKey> 12453246129421 </SDI:PublicKey>
</SDI:ID> <SDI:Profile> <SDI:Profile-item> (1242,
0.546) </SDI:Profile-item> <SDI:Profile-item> (56,
0.045) </SDI:Profile-item> </SDI:Profile>
</SDI:ProfileData>
[0089] The Document Type Definitions for this document are
specified in the header, and include URIs to a DTD of the Open
Profiling Proposal of the W3C, and also a DTD of the Secure Data
Interchange. The OPS DTD is used to bootstrap the SDI DTD,
providing tags for common profile information, such as `Gender`,
`Age`, `Income`, etc. The section of the SDI Document Type
Definition that is used in the above XML fragment is presented
below. It makes reference to tags defined in the OPS DTD, and the
RDF (Resource Description Framework), a W3C proposal to standardize
the structure of DTDs for XML documents. XML Name spaces [NS]
provide a method for unambiguously identifying the semantics and
conventions governing the particular use of property-types by
uniquely identifying the governing authority of the vocabulary, for
example OPS and SDI in the example above. The URI for a schema can
contain a human and machine-readable description of an XML schema.
TABLE-US-00002 <!ELEMENT SDI:ProfileData (SDI:Location?,
OPS:Demographic?, SDI:ID?, SDI:Profile?) > <!ELEMENT
SDI:Location (SDI:Geocode?, SDI:DigiMap, OPS:Zip?, OPS:Address?)
> <!ELEMENT SDI:ID (OPS:Name?, SDI:publicKey?,
SDI:Pseudonym?) > <!ELEMENT profile
RDF:list<SDI:Profile-item> > <!ELEMENT SDI:Geocode
#PCDATA > <!ELEMENT SDI:Digimap #URI > <!ELEMENT
SDI:Pubickey #PCDATA > <!ELEMENT SDI:Pseudonym #PCDATA >
<!ELEMENT SDI:Profile-item (SDI:Attribute-ID,
SDI:Attribute-value) > <!ELEMENT SDI:Attribute-ID #PCDATA
> <!ELEMENT SDI:Attribte-value #PCDATA >
The tag `#PCDATA` is used here to represent numeric or textual
information, `#URI` declares that an instance of element
`SDI:Digimap` must be a valid URI pointer. Device Description
[0090] An in-store version of the location enhanced information
delivery system 100 takes advantage of the fact that retailers are
already amassing data through "shopper loyalty" cards. In this
variation targeted ads consist of primarily product solicitations
with associated prices and promotions, the preferred user profile
processing algorithm is a particular version of a collaborative
filter, as taught in co-pending patent application entitled,
"System for Customized Prices and Promotions". The methods
suggested by the use of a "collaborative filter" elsewhere in the
current specification are more typically used to target non-offers,
i.e. for "general purpose" recommendations for advertising. As
such, applying the methods taught in its parent case, "System for
Customized Electronic Identification of Desirable Objects" would
accordingly be appropriate in most other applications of LEIA.
[0091] The shopper loyalty system resides in a central computer and
is linked electronically to check-out counters and
shopper-accessible kiosks. The shopper loyalty system is used by
retailers to extract and model patterns of customer behavior,
allowing for the design of optimal sales promotions. When a shopper
returns to one of the linked stores and passes the customer loyalty
card through a kiosk's reader, coupons and promotions tailored to
the shopper's personal preferences and to the vendor's overall
marketing strategy are printed for use in that day's shopping trip.
In reality, the database that forms the foundation for such a
shopper loyalty system derives its input from many different
sources. As previously mentioned, there is a wealth of information
to be derived from on-line retailing; since the interaction is
purely electronic, it is a trivial matter to record each customer's
on-line purchase individually. Magnetic "shopper loyalty" cards
extend this highly-detailed data acquisition capability to more
traditional point-of-purchase venues. Simply stated, a customer's
shopper loyalty card is swiped at the same time as a set of
purchases are being made. This information is transmitted to the
store's central database, which records the shopper's identity, the
date, the time, and the items purchased. Over the course of several
visits, a very detailed shopper profile is constructed. In addition
to storing information about the number and types of items
purchased at different dates and times, the database notes the
customer's price sensitivities and coupon usage. Extremely detailed
information about the purchase items is also noted. Information
about a product's color, size, shape, packaging, and
advertising--anything that might impact its direct appeal to
customers--is recorded. A final piece of information stored for
each purchase item might be the history and relative effect of the
coupons that have already been generated for it. In time, the
vendor develops a highly detailed database that connects shoppers
to purchase items, prices and coupons. This database is located on
the same central computer as the collaborative filter, which is
capable of analyzing the information and creating accurate models
of customer behavior. This data analysis can take several different
forms, depending on the filter chosen.
[0092] One useful type of collaborative filter for use in the
location enhanced information delivery system 100 is implemented by
hybrid cluster analysis. Such an approach is useful for situations
in which customers' purchases fall into distinct categories, as is
seen, for example, in grocery stores. Shoppers' grocery purchases
usually fall into such general categories as dairy, meat, bread,
snacks, and so forth. Hybrid cluster analysis would first identify
such groupings, then allow for a detailed analysis of interactions
within and across categories. Another important dimension of
shoppers' behavior is time. Time series techniques can augment the
capabilities of the collaborative filter, spotting patterns in
cyclical or impulse purchases. This is accomplished by performing
frequency analysis on the main categories of a shopper's purchases;
more irregular temporal patterns can be picked up using standard
pattern recognition techniques. Cyclical buying patterns arise, for
example, in the case of customers with school-age children: they
buy school supplies at the beginning of each academic year. Another
example would be a pet owner who buys a case of dog food once a
month. Time series analysis would detect these cyclical patterns,
allowing the filter to model and anticipate such purchases. The
location enhanced information delivery system 100 can also detect
single purchases that are never repeated. This might reflect a
customer's dissatisfaction with a certain product, or form part of
a pattern of impulse buying. Finally, the date or time might
correlate with a general purchase pattern. Neural networks can be
trained to distinguish and characterize different types of
shoppers. The neural network's architecture treats customer and
purchase item identification numbers as inputs, the buying choices
as outputs. A small three-neuron layer sits just above the customer
identification inputs; as the neural network is trained with
examples from the purchase database, the three-neuron layer
succinctly represents the class of purchaser to which an individual
shopper belongs. Economic techniques are folded into the
collaborative filter to enable it to perform price point
determination. That is, information about different sales, for
different customers, at different prices, can be used to model
customers' demand curves, allowing the vendor to anticipate
shoppers' reactions to price changes. This aids in the design of
profit-maximizing coupons, which would entice the greatest number
of customers to make purchases at a minimum level of discount. The
output stage of the point-of-purchase collaborative filtering
system can take several different forms, although the goal of each
is the same: present the shopper with coupons and promotions
specifically tailored to their preferences (as indicated by their
purchase histories) and which best support the vendor's marketing
strategy. Two obvious ways of communicating promotions are by
direct mail and through the retailer's Web site. A more interesting
method is via the in-store electronic kiosk. The electronic kiosk
consists of a screen, magnetic card reader, processing unit, and
printer, mounted in a standalone cabinet. One or more such kiosks
are present in many or all of a retailer's stores. They are linked
electronically to the vendor's central database and collaborative
filtering system, which need not be physically near the
point-of-purchase. When a customer enters the store, they run their
magnetic shopper loyalty card through the card reader mounted in
the kiosk, which transmits the customer's identification code to
the central computer. The central system, in turn, determines which
coupons and promotions are most appropriate for that shopper, and
transmits the information back to the kiosk. Finally, the kiosk
prints out the coupons for the customer, who can use them for that
day's shopping trip.
Strategic Uses for the System
[0093] To a large degree, the way in which the collaborative filter
supports the electronic kiosk depends on the retailer's financial
goals and marketing strategies. Suppose the vendor wants to
maximize the profits over a shopper's single visit--this implies
the filter's purpose is primarily to recommend coupons and
promotions that generate immediate results. There are several ways
of doing this. Firstly, the collaborative filter could simply
recommend coupons for items that the shopper has bought in the
past. Cyclical purchases could also be taken into account and the
system can promote specials when the beginning of the next cycle is
near. Items that are strongly related to those already purchased by
a customer should be of interest. If the customer shown a tendency
towards premium brands in the past, when the price was right it
might make sense to issue a coupon for a premium brand in a
category the customer always buys. If the customer is new, rapid
profiling (perhaps on demographic data) indicates what coupons
should first be issued. In each case, the collaborative filter's
ability to determine optimal price points ensures the coupons have
the maximum desired effect.
[0094] In the longer-term, the electronic kiosk's valuable
informational contributions to the shopping experience can be used
as a tool to cement customer loyalty, both to specific retailers
and to specific brands. Such contributions might include the
printing of recipes tuned to shoppers' personal tastes along with
coupons for the needed ingredients. Depending on the timing, the
kiosk could automatically generate shopping lists to remind
customers of cyclically-bought items due for another purchase. Such
services encourage repeat visits by shoppers, which not only
increase profits for the retailer, but allow it to refine its
customer profiles even further. Such information allows the
collaborative filter to determine the size of a household, the
general healthfulness of the shopper, and preferred modes of buying
(on-line versus off-line).
[0095] The point-of-purchase collaborative filtering system can
also be used to automate experiments in marketing. That is, by
allowing the central computer to offer different types of
promotions across similar types of customers, the system can
determine price-point sensitivities, loyalties to categories and
brands, and reactions to different kinds of promotions. The results
of such experiments would be statistically sound, if based on a
large enough sample set, and could be fed immediately back into the
kiosk system, so that the new information on shopper behavior could
be put immediately into commercial use.
[0096] The location enhanced information delivery system 100 is of
particular value in automatic experimentation in that it is often
difficult, if not impossible, for a retailer to determine, of the
items that tend to be bought together, or more particularly are
bought by similar repeat customers to the store, which of these
items actually motivates the customer to come to the store in the
first place. By determining this, a retailer can better target
advertisements to certain customers, optimize pricing, promotional
discounts, construct joint promotions. The location enhanced
information delivery system 100 can present an advertisement on an
electronic highway billboard which could be used to present various
high motivational product ads to determine which of them, if any,
is a catalyst in effecting a buyer's decision to enter a store,
become a long-term loyal customer or even facilitate a customer's
change of loyalty to a different store.
[0097] It is conceivable that a user's indication of interest to an
advertisement could then prompt more detailed information about the
advertisement, which could be temporarily pre-fetched from the
display subsystem 103 at the moment that the automobile or user
passes by, or pre-fetched via a communication link over a wireless
network. This information could include in addition to directories,
data which could be tied into the navigational user interface of
the automobile. For example, items which are also available at the
store which are explicitly and/or implicitly determined to be of
personal relevance such as those which match the customer's own
personal electronic shopping list as well as associated digital
coupons could provide the basis for automatic user notification and
prefetching.
[0098] The efficiency of automatic determination of customized
prices and promotions in optimizing retailer profits could
conceivably be enhanced by the location enhanced information
delivery system architecture by adding the additional metrics of
the user's physical distance or more particularly, anticipated
closest proximity to the vendor when traveling through that area.
For example, the expected profit from a new customer might be
maximized from an price function that offers a lower price to users
that are further away from the retailer, to compensate for the
additional cost of visiting the store. Accordingly, further
benefits can be realized if the offer is further discounted, for
example because of high quality demographics or a local zip code.
Also, the vendor's pricing algorithm must allow the user to utilize
a location-enhanced product finder (in originally finding the
product or identifying similar products from other vendors), in
addition to a "bargain-finder agent". The bargain-finder agent
might be used to negotiate for the user with the vendor agent, that
may request, for example from the proxy server, validation of
competitive offers claimed by the user.
[0099] Proximity information, price (or value) sensitivity and/or
rewards for customer loyalty i.e. identification of customers for
providing appropriate privileges can also be used to enable a
vendor to recognize a customer with a LEIA-enabled device, or
alternatively some biometric user identifier, as s/he passes near a
vendor's store. In this case a human, electronic display and/or
even automatic door or door lock can identify the presence of the
user, and also specific information about the user's profile (or
credentials) to enable personalized treatment.
[0100] Whether items within the local vicinity of a user are
determined to be relevant implicitly, or from explicit user
selected criteria, it is possible that the location data of a
vendor can also be automatically determined from the web site of a
vendor (as a potential alternative to being ascribed by the
vendor). The data can be identified and parsed using (possibly a
combination of) Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques, or
rule based template techniques. This technique could allow location
information to be used when a user is searching or browsing the
web, in order to filter products and web pages according to the
physical proximity of the user to their associated vendors. The
system could also be used to identify similar items that are close
to the user, where similar items are identified through profiling
-- using textual analysis, pattern recognition and hand-crafted
rules as taught in the issued patent.
[0101] As described earlier, under `H. Use of Metatags to Maintain
and Update Target Object Profiles in a LEIA-enhanced System`, in
the `Exemplary Applications` section, metadata can also be
explicitly associated with the web pages of vendors to help an
automatic filtering/search system such as Secure Data Interchange
to identify relevant products and information. Metadata may be
ascribed by vendors to their products in order to provide a more
informative and robust infrastructure for content, that location
enhanced information delivery system 100 can utilize to identify
and inform relevant users.
[0102] One simple example demonstrates the power and range of
possible applications of utilizing metadata within the present
context of LEIA. A vendor could leverage location-enhanced
information to include additional information about delivery
policies. As purchasable items (including in this example,
restaurant menus) are browsed, queried, or pushed to the user,
other similar items from other vendors which are physically local
to the user could be identified and presented to the user, either
upon user request or automatically. Tags on the selections
containing the associated vendor's delivery policy can be used to
automatically determine and present the items that meet certain
distance/delivery criteria.
[0103] Location-based metadata can also be used to activate rules
that filter information on behalf of the user. For example, the
user may be automatically notified of products (or other items of
interest) which may be identified to be of personal relevance at
such time that a user approaches such items geographically.
Physical proximity can also be used as an additional selection
criteria for personalization (as a client filter or on the vendor's
server) in conjunction with other modes of personalized user access
to (and pre-fetching of) information as is performed during
querying (searching) or browsing modes (including personalized menu
or "portal" navigation) as disclosed in detail in the issued
divisional cases of patent application entitled "System for
Customized Electronic Identification of Desirable Objects". In this
regard, users who are en route (or may be planning a visit in the
future) to a given physical location may enter that location as a
selection criteria provided on the user interface and obtain the
same location-enhanced access to Web information (as above
suggested) as if the user were detected to be physically at that
location by LEIA.
[0104] Once relevant products are identified, a user en route to a
destination near a vendor's store can pre-order their groceries or
other merchandise directly so that the user could simply pick up
their pre-packaged grocery order at the time of arrival at the
store. For example, an advertisement for a product on an electronic
billboard could easily be pre-ordered from the user's automobile or
device. Other variations on this architecture include users
accessing an ATM, pay phone, kiosk or point of sale terminal within
the same or different store that the user is presently visiting.
For example, pre-order placements, from other vendor stores could
be accompanied with an advertisement which is part of a cross
sell.
In-Store Applications
[0105] Utilizing the location enhanced information delivery system
100, smart shopping carts equipped with bar code sensors can be
used to collect data on customer purchases and present location as
the customer shops. Customer detection location for such systems
utilize infrared detectors mounted on the ceiling of the store
which enables triangulation of the shopper's present location.
Historic and real time profile updates to the UID can be used to
update an electronic shopping list, for example in addition to
general product location information "ideal shopping route" can be
recommended from each item to the next closest one on the
electronic shopping list. Another smart cart application is
offering more detailed descriptive information plus
contraindications and warnings to the user about each product being
considered for purchase. If an electronic price tag is not
available and if the smart cart is used for the purpose of self
check out, customized prices and promotions of items displayed on
the cart or electronic (LCD based) price tags could display
customized prices via an electromagnetic field activation
technology which conveys customized pricing information to the
electronic price tag in real time. This technique may be further
used to enable the smart cart to extract location data about the
user directly from product identification data from the product's
associated electronic price tag (in lieu of IR triangulation
techniques of coordinates). Another useful application of this
location specific data is in-store electronic displays. Even in the
absence of location detectors, as products are scanned into the
cart, electronic displays located throughout the store can display
to the customer customized promotional messages relevant to items
within the present store aisle via wireless connections between the
devices through dynamically updating the user profile associated
with the user identity as well as the long term purchase history.
Such displays may also, or instead, utilize customer data which is
read from the customer loyalty card through remote electromagnetic
field activation technology. Another alternative approach to smart
carts is the use of hand held PDAs. These devices can be used for
each of the above applications for smart carts.
Implementation of a Client/Server Architecture
[0106] The location enhanced information delivery system 100 is
comprised of clients, which are end-user terminal devices U1-U3
with extremely limited data storage capacity and servers, which
contain client, product, and multimedia information for the
information display device 107 and in addition descriptive
information (directory information, schedules, indices) for the
multimedia information. Clients are assumed to be under customer
physical control and the following description is for the example
where the display device 107 comprises an element within the user
terminal device U1-U3. The transmission of the display information
to the user terminal device represents a data communication issue
relating to the limited available bandwidth. Considerable data can
be stored in memory at the uplink point in the system. The idea
here is that the server site contains all of the information which
the small-memory user terminal devices U1-U3 might need. Without a
hierarchical system architecture, the selectivity of the similarity
algorithms do not offer any statistical gain. The method to attack
this problem is to allocate a portion of a data communication
channel to the user terminal device. This channel is used as a
"memory" by the client/server algorithm. For example, a system
using 1 Mbps of bandwidth can provide about 2300 cells per second.
The use of the similarity algorithm selects which memory cells to
send in the next time interval. If the response time must be better
than 1 second, the scheduling interval can be a smaller value, such
as 1/30 second. The bandwidth utilization is then scheduled based
on the need for memory cells at the client.
Latency and Bandwidth Effects of Prefetching/Precaching
[0107] Even in the environmentally friendly implementation of the
location enhanced information delivery system information display
architecture, the use of local storage may have beneficial effects.
In particular, if similarity measurement technologies are applied,
the location enhanced information delivery system 100 can achieve
reductions in latency, improved likelihood of effective
advertising, and reduced bandwidth utilization. The location
enhanced information delivery system 100 employs the idea of
prefetching, which has also been referred to in the technical
literature as pre-caching, cache-preloading, or anticipation. The
basic idea is that if good predictions of future data requirements
are available, and there is excess data-fetching capability
available, the data should be fetched aggressively in anticipation
of future needs. If successful, this technique has two major
benefits applicable to present and future networks. First, it can
reduce response-time, a major performance advantage in interactive
systems. Second, it can reduce congestion and other problems
associated with network overload. FIG. 2 illustrates a possible
time series of bandwidths required by an application or set of
applications. To understand how the responsiveness of the system is
improved, it can be seen that the unused bandwidth can be used to
transmit information likely to be used in the future. For example,
if a list is being traversed 1,2,3,4, . . . it is likely that if
object N has been requested, that object N+1 will be the next
request. If N+1 is prefetched from the remote system, it is
available when the request is made with additional delays. All of
the "unused bandwidth" illustrated in FIG. 2 can potentially be
used to pre-fetch. Congestion is due to inadequate resources. The
simplest example is insufficient transmission capacity for the
offered load, leading to "traffic jams." Packet-switched networks
such as the Internet suffer from similar problems. In FIG. 2, it
appears that capacity is being reached or exceeded near TIME=43 or
so. If demands are made during this period, traffic is likely to be
delayed or even lost. If we prefetch successfully during more
lightly-loaded periods (such as TIME=0 . . . 42), we reduce the
probability of data being requested in the future, essentially
trading the guarantee of a fully loaded network today for the
promise of no congestion in the future. By fetching data in
anticipation of future needs, the location enhanced information
delivery system 100 reduces at least probabilistically those future
needs. The prefetching technology is based on unused slots being
filled with pre-sent information based on the understanding of user
interest using the similarity measures and used for
prioritization.
[0108] The location enhanced information delivery system 100 may be
usefully applied within the context of user terminal devices such
as personal digital assistants, as a method of reducing response
time as observed by users. The location enhanced information
delivery system 100 provides a technological means by which the
prefetched data can be intermixed with on-demand data to provide
overall improvements in response time to a large population users,
with reduced memory requirements. Second, the location enhanced
information delivery system 100, which views the downlink as a
fixed capacity resource, provides a general scheduling method
embodying techniques such as user preferences to prefetch when
slots or bandwidth are underutilized, to pre-emptively reduce
future demand for bandwidth.
Summary
[0109] The present location enhanced information delivery system
presents the information most suited to the real audience, as
measured by location information systems, rather than to a static
predicted audience. The invention can be effectively coupled with
previous inventions in distributed data storage to prefetch
required data, based both on stored customer characteristics and
dynamic characteristics such as (i) presence at a particular
location; (ii) motion in a particular direction; (iii) rate of
motion in a particular direction and (iv) characteristics of an
information display, such as its location and directionality. The
invention can use an auction-like bidding algorithm to select data
for display, providing maximum revenue opportunity for the display
owner, and an ecologically-attractive display shutdown for
electronic displays when no acceptable bid is available. While the
preferred embodiment discloses a beaconing-style wireless
technology, the system concept is easily extensible both to other
location-information systems, such as license-plate scanning with
cameras, and to utilizing the location-information for private
displays of information in addition to public displays of
information.
* * * * *
References