JP2002183018A - Contents distribution system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a contents distribution system which is convenient to a user by setting adequate provision start timing for new contents. SOLUTION: The contents distribution system 2 stores information regarding the date and time of a distribution request for contents from the side of a browser terminal 3 as a log. The system 2 analyzes the log to find the date and time when access converges by days of the week and time slot, and supports adjustments of the provision timing of the new contents according to the analysis result.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

[0001] The present invention relates to a content distribution system such as a Web server.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, with the development of the Internet environment, the technology of distributing various information contents in response to requests from users has been advanced. In distributing such content, there is a system that records the contents of a request from a user (such as which content was referred to) as a log and checks the popularity of the content.

[0003]

However, in the above-mentioned conventional content distribution system, since the recorded contents of the log are analyzed only in units of the number of accesses, it is possible to investigate the popularity of the contents and the total number of references. It only supports effective content distribution from the aspect of its content, and logs are not used effectively.
Alternatively, a plurality of important contents may be accumulated while the user is not watching, and the user may overlook.

[0004] On the other hand, if the update timing of new content is bad and the update appears to be delayed, even if content that is rich in content is distributed, from the user's point of view, the content that has not been updated will be repeated many times. It would be less convenient to get it.

The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and has as its object to provide a content distribution system capable of appropriately adjusting the start timing of providing new content.

[0006]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention for solving the above-mentioned problems of the prior art is a content distribution system for distributing content in response to a request from a user via a telecommunication network. Means for managing new content candidates to be provided to the user, log storage means for storing information on the user's content request time as a log, and a pattern of the date and time when requests are concentrated by referring to the stored log. Executing a predetermined process for starting provision of the new content candidate, a predetermined time before the date and time when the request is concentrated, in accordance with the recognized date and time pattern. It is characterized by. In this way, based on the information of the user's content request date and time, the provision start of the new content is supported by a predetermined time before the date and time when the requests are concentrated, so that the provision start timing can be made appropriate. .

Further, the means for recognizing the pattern of the date and time at which the requests are concentrated accumulates the request times included in the log for each day of the week, calculates the number of requests for each day of the week, and responds to the number of requests. In addition, it is preferable to have day-by-day analysis means for recognizing the date and time pattern.

Further, the means for recognizing the pattern of the date and time at which the requests are concentrated accumulates the request times contained in the log for each time period of the day, calculates the number of requests for each time period, and It is also preferable to have a time zone analysis means for recognizing the date and time pattern according to the number of times. Here, the classification of the time zone for calculating the number of requests is performed, for example, in the case of an in-house content distribution system, in consideration of a standard working time zone, the hourly time zone, the working time, etc. Outside the band, a coarser unit of three hours or the like may be used. That is, for a time zone in which requests are considered to be concentrated, a time zone for accumulating the number of requests may be set so as to perform more detailed analysis.

Further, the present invention for solving the problem of the above-mentioned conventional example is a content distribution support device, which acquires information on the date and time when the request was received from a system for distributing the content in response to the request. Means for recognizing a pattern of a date and time at which requests are concentrated based on the acquired date and time information, and a predetermined method for starting provision of new content in the system according to the recognized date and time pattern. And means for executing processing.

[0010] Further, the present invention for solving the problems of the above-mentioned conventional example is a content distribution method for distributing content in response to a request from a user via a telecommunication network. Managing a new content candidate to be, a step of accumulating information about the user's content request time as a log, and referring to the accumulated log, recognizing a pattern of date and time when requests are concentrated, Performing a predetermined process for starting provision of the new content candidate, a predetermined time before the date and time when the request is concentrated, according to the recognized date and time pattern. .

[0011]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. As shown in FIG. 1, the content distribution system according to the embodiment of the present invention basically includes a content registration terminal 1, a content distribution system 2, and a browser terminal 3, and these components form a telecommunication network with each other. Are arranged so as to be able to communicate with each other. Further, the content distribution system 2 includes a Web server 21 and a storage 22. The browser terminal 3 includes a mobile terminal such as a mobile phone and a PDA, in addition to a personal computer (PC).

The content registration terminal 1 is a general personal computer, and uploads created content to the content distribution system 2. Further, at the time of registering the content, the content registration terminal 1 transmits the content title, data on the creator, comments, information on content attributes including urgency, importance, and degree of closeness, and accompanying information on the presence or absence of image data. The content is uploaded to the content distribution system 2 in association with the content. The process of associating the accompanying information with the content will be described later in detail. In this case, the uploaded new content candidate is left as it is (URL (uniform resource locator) as its reference information.
s) cannot be easily accessed from the browser terminal 3 side, and after being registered in a new content list described later, it can be accessed using reference information from a homepage or the like including the list. I do.

The content distribution system 2 receives and stores content information, authenticates a user, and distributes the stored content in response to a request from the authenticated user. That is, the content distribution system 2
The content information is received by a protocol such as ftp (file transfer protocol) and stored in the storage 22. Further, the content distribution system 2 uses a Web page (login page) for a process of authenticating a user.
Is transmitted to the browser terminal 3. In addition, the authentication of the user is performed in accordance with the operation of the browser terminal 3 for the login page. A characteristic of the present embodiment is that when the content distribution system 2 authenticates a user, a screen as shown in FIG. 2 is presented to acquire information on a browsing environment on the user side. The process of acquiring the browsing environment information will be described later in detail.

Further, the Web of the content distribution system 2
When distributing the content, the server 21 records information on the date and time of the distribution in the storage 22 as a log. This log is provided for a predetermined process related to updating the content. This log accumulation and analysis processing will also be described later in detail.

Further, the contents distribution system 2
Describes the information of the list of the titles of the content acquired from the content registration terminal 1 as “New content list (What's N
ew) ”from the content registration terminal 1 and accumulates and provides them. Here, the title is associated with reference information to the substance of the content, and the content is displayed by clicking the title on a browser. What is characteristic in the present embodiment is that, when providing this content list, the list is edited using information on the browsing environment of the user. This editing process will also be described later in detail. Further, a process for supporting the creation of the content list may be performed, and this process will be described later in detail.

The browser terminal 3 is an ordinary personal computer, and has a browser program installed as a Web client. The browser terminal 3 requests the content distribution system 2 for a Web page in accordance with the instruction of the user, and
Receive the page distribution and display it on a display.

[Acquisition of Browsing Environment] Here, a process in which the content distribution system 2 acquires information on the browsing environment of the user will be described. The content distribution system 2 uses the samples (A1 to An) shown in FIG.
And a plurality of display examples (B1 to Bn corresponding to A1 and C1 to Cn corresponding to A2, etc.) representing the appearance of each sample. On this screen, the user selects the display mode closest to the user side, and based on the selection, the displayable font, the number of characters that can be displayed per line, the number of displayable lines, the character code, and the availability of displaying image data in a predetermined format. And other browsing environment information.

That is, in FIG. 2, when the display mode B1 is selected for the sample A1, it is detected that each font is correctly displayed and character characters (symbols such as circled numbers) can be correctly displayed. Is done. Also,
When the display mode B2 is selected, it is detected that fonts for at least “comic” and character characters are not installed.

Similarly, the display mode C for the sample A2
When 1 is selected, it can be detected that the number of characters that can be displayed per line exceeds 27 characters, and the display mode C2
Is selected, it can be detected that the number of characters that can be displayed per line is about eight characters. Examples of these display modes can be expressed as screen images as image data, for example. An example of the display mode of the number of characters that can be displayed per line is, for example, HTML (Hyper Text M).
(arkup Language).

By providing image data in a predetermined format as a sample and providing a question such as "Can you see the picture above?", It is possible to detect whether the image data can be displayed. Similarly, the reproduction environment of multimedia information such as an animation image and a sound can be detected by providing a question. This applies to programs provided by Java applets, Java scripts, and the like.

The content distribution system 2 may store the information on the browsing environment for each user detected in this way in association with the authentication information of the user to be authenticated. In this case, at the time of user authentication, it is checked whether or not the information of the browsing environment associated with the authentication information of the user already exists, and when it exists, the content distribution process is performed using the information of the browsing environment. It is also preferable to perform the above-described browsing environment acquisition processing only when it does not exist. In this case as well, when there is an explicit instruction from the user, a browsing environment acquisition process is executed.

Here, the above-described browsing environment acquisition processing is performed at the time of user authentication. However, when the user performs user registration himself, the above-described browsing environment acquisition processing is performed at the time of user registration. The processing may be executed to accumulate information on the browsing environment on the user side in association with the information to be registered.

[Log Accumulation and Analysis] The process of accumulating and analyzing the access log by the content distribution system 2 will be described. Upon receiving an access (delivery request) to the content from the browser terminal 3, the content distribution system 2 accumulates the access date and time as a log in the storage 22.

Further, the content distribution system 2 checks a date and time pattern at which access is concentrated on the basis of the log stored in the storage 22. That is, the content distribution system 2 counts the number of accesses by time zone and day of the week, and provides the counting result to the content registration terminal 1. Specifically, the result of this offer (date and time pattern)
As shown in FIG. In addition, as shown in FIG. 3, it is also preferable to display a predetermined symbol (X) in order from the highest access count.

In this example, it is analyzed that there is the most access at around 10:00 am and around 18:00 pm by time zone, and that there are many accesses on Monday and Tuesday by day of the week. It is also preferable that the tally is analyzed for each department of the accessing user in the case of an in-house network such as an intranet. This is because it is expected that the date and time of day and the day of the week with the most access will differ depending on the work system (time rules) of each department.

A characteristic of the present embodiment is that the update timing of the content list information is adjusted according to the analysis. In other words, by updating the content list information immediately before the time zone where there is a lot of access, it is possible to contribute to an access incentive.
The adjustment of the update timing may be performed by, for example, notifying the content registration terminal 1 of an e-mail or a message indicating that the update should be performed at or immediately before the update timing, or a new update target to be updated in advance. Obtain the information of the content list, and at the relevant update timing,
The provision of the acquired new content list may be started instead of the current new content list.

Here, the content distribution system 2
Analyzes the pattern of the date and time of access concentration based on the log accumulated by itself, but this analysis may be performed by a separate device. That is, such a device is connected via a telecommunication network, a log is transmitted from the content distribution system 2 side, an analysis based on the log is performed, and a notification of an update timing is received based on the result of the analysis. To Here, the analysis based on the log is the same as the above-described one performed in the content distribution system 2, and thus the detailed description thereof is omitted.

[Editing of Content List Information] Furthermore, the content distribution system 2 according to the present embodiment acquires content from the content registration terminal 1 and information of the content list, and stores the information in the storage 22. ,
When distributing the information of the content list, the content distribution system 2 refers to the information on the browsing environment of the distribution destination user and edits the content. That is, in the present embodiment, the information in this list is provided, for example, as a table of an HTML document as shown in FIG. 4, and its width (L) is changed according to the information on the browsing environment. still,
In the figure, the frame line of the table is shown by a broken line so that the width of the table can be easily understood, but this frame line is not actually necessary. Specifically, 1 obtained as browsing environment information
Set the table width to be less than the number of displayable characters per line. For example, if the number of displayable characters per line obtained as browsing environment information is "40",
The width of this table is set to “40” or less. Such processing can be realized by a known CGI (Common Gateway Interface) or SSI (Server Side Include).

Further, the content distribution system 2
Refers to the information of the browsing environment, determines whether the user can browse the image data, and when the browsing is not possible, refers to the information on the presence / absence of the image data for each content and deletes the content including the image data. Provided omitted from the list. In this case, it is preferable to provide information indicating that the content including the image data has been omitted.

[Content List Creation Support Processing] Here, the processing of the content distribution system 2 for supporting creation of new content list information will be described. The content distribution system 2 refers to the accompanying information associated with each content, so that the content having similarity in the degree of importance and the degree of closeness is not continuously changed to the new content. The content registration terminal 1 is provided with information indicating which type of content is different from the content. For example, when very important information with low affinity and extremely “hard” is described in the new content list as the new content last time, “soft” information with low importance and high affinity, Information that is low in importance but low in importance and high in importance but high in affinity is presented to the content registrant as information of a different type from the previous time. This presentation method is, for example, when there are multiple new content candidates,
In the list of the candidates, different types of information from the last time may be displayed in different colors or emphasized by being included in the first part of the list.

The user (content registrant) of the content registration terminal 1 selects information to be described in a new content list based on the display. Here, by providing the urgent level to the content registration terminal 1 together, it is possible to prevent information with a high degree of urgency from leaking from the content list.

[Attached Information] Here, a process of associating the accompanying information with the content will be described. The associating of the accompanying information is performed when the content is stored in the content distribution system 2 or thereafter, a Web page for describing the accompanying information of the content is transmitted from the content registration terminal 1 to the content distribution system 2, and the content distribution is performed. This is performed by calling the interface (FIG. 5) for the content registrant included in the system 2 from the content registration terminal 1. In this interface, a field (P) for specifying the content to which the associated information is associated, a title input field (Q), an information input field (R) for a registrant such as a creator and a creation department, A comment input field (S) and a part (T) for setting information of content attributes including urgency, importance, and degree of closeness are included.

Using this interface, the user (content registrant) of the content registration terminal 1 inputs the URL of the content stored in advance in the content specification field (P), and inputs the title (Q), registrant information (R), A comment (S) and a content attribute (T) are input or set, and a registration button (X) is clicked to associate the accompanying information with the content. This interface can be realized using a Web interface by a CGI program or the like that operates on the content distribution system 2.

[Operation] According to the content distribution system of the present embodiment, the content registrant side
In providing many topics as content,
A web page as content describing each topic is uploaded to the content distribution system 2, and a web page representing a new content list is replaced at a predetermined timing. The content viewer operates the browser terminal 3 to operate the user authentication Web of the content distribution system 2.
Access the page. Here, the content distribution system 2 checks whether or not information regarding the browsing environment of the browser terminal 3 has been stored in advance, and if not, starts processing for acquiring information on the browsing environment. Presenting a sample and an example of its display mode,
The user selects the display mode closest to the screen currently being viewed by the user from among the display mode examples.

Then, information on the browsing environment on the user side is obtained based on the result of this selection. In this way, when the information on the browsing environment is obtained, or when there is information on the browsing environment stored in advance, a Web page including a new content list is provided as a screen after user authentication. Here, the display of the new content list is in an edited state based on the information on the browsing environment on the user side.

When the user clicks on the title displayed in the new content list, the content Web page is distributed to the browser terminal 3 in accordance with the reference information (URL) associated with the title. The content distribution system 2 uses the W
Editing may also be performed on the eb page based on the browsing environment on the user side. Specifically, the content distribution system 2 edits the Web page by changing the number of characters per line or adjusting the number of display lines.

When replacing contents, a Web page for creating a new content list stored in the content distribution system 2 is referred to, and the contents of each content registered in the current new content list are referred to. Content that has been uploaded based on the attribute but has not been registered in the new content list yet has a different content attribute is highlighted and provided to the content registration terminal 1. The registrant of the content creates a new content list with reference to the Web page.

The new content list thus created is replaced with the current new content list at a predetermined timing with reference to the analysis result of the access log of the viewer stored in the content distribution system 2.

Thus, the viewer can recognize that the content is newly registered on the day of the week and the date and time when he / she wants to view the content, and also distribute the content whose weight and affinity are different from the previous time. Is performed, so that the viewer does not get bored. In addition, for content distributors, it is possible to realize content distribution that does not detract from viewers who have changed the order of provision according to the content of registered content, and update at the timing when content is frequently referred to Is supported,
Content that is attractive to the user can be easily organized. Furthermore, since the content is edited and adjusted at the time of provision according to the browsing environment of the user, there is no need to create content for each browsing environment, and the convenience can be further improved.

[0040]

According to the present invention, new content candidates to be newly provided are managed, information relating to the user's content request time is accumulated as a log, and requests are concentrated by referring to this log. Recognize date and time patterns,
According to the recognized date and time pattern, the content distribution system executes a predetermined process for starting provision of a new content candidate a predetermined time before the date and time when the request is concentrated. Based on this information, the start of the provision of the new content is supported a predetermined time before the date and time when the requests are concentrated, and the provision start timing can be made appropriate.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration block diagram including a content distribution system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

[Fig. 2] W for acquiring browsing environment information on the user side.
FIG. 9 is an explanatory diagram illustrating an example of an web page.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram illustrating a display example of an analysis result of an access log.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram illustrating a display example of a new content list.

FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram illustrating an example of a Web page for registering accompanying information.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 content registration terminal, 2 content distribution system, 3 browser terminal, 21 Web server, 22 storage.

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. A content distribution system for distributing content in response to a request from a user via a telecommunications network, comprising: means for managing a new content candidate to be newly provided; A log storage unit that stores information about the content request time as a log, and a unit that refers to the stored log and recognizes a pattern of a date and time at which requests are concentrated, according to the recognized date and time pattern, A content distribution system, wherein a predetermined process for starting provision of the new content candidate is executed a predetermined time before a date and time when the requests are concentrated. 2. The content distribution system according to claim 1, wherein the means for recognizing the pattern of the date and time at which the requests concentrate is: accumulating the request times included in the log for each day of the week, and for each day of the week. A content distribution system comprising a day-of-week analysis means for calculating the number of times of request and recognizing the date and time pattern according to the number of times of request. 3. The content distribution system according to claim 1, wherein the means for recognizing the pattern of the date and time at which the requests concentrate is: accumulating the request times included in the log for each time zone of the day. A content distribution system comprising: a time zone analysis means for calculating the number of requests for each time zone and recognizing the date and time pattern according to the number of requests. 4. A means for acquiring information on the date and time at which the request was received from a system for distributing the content in response to the request, and recognizing a pattern of a date and time at which requests are concentrated based on the information on the acquired date and time. And a means for executing a predetermined process for starting provision of new content in the system according to the recognized date and time pattern. 5. A content distribution method for distributing content in response to a request from a user via a telecommunications network, comprising: managing a new content candidate to be newly provided; A step of accumulating information regarding the content request time as a log; a step of referring to the accumulated log to recognize a date and time pattern in which requests are concentrated; and a step of concentrating the request according to the recognized date and time pattern. Performing a predetermined process for starting to provide the new content candidate before a predetermined time before the date and time of the content distribution. 6. A content distribution program for distributing content in response to a request from a user via a telecommunications network, using a database for storing new content candidates to be newly provided. A module that accumulates information relating to the request time of the content as a log, a module that refers to the accumulated log, and recognizes a pattern of a date and time at which requests are concentrated, and a request according to the recognized date and time pattern. And a module for executing a predetermined process for publishing the new content candidate a predetermined time before the date and time of concentration of the content distribution program.