Title of Invention

A METHOD OF PROVIDING HYPERVIDEO APPLICATION USER INFORMATION

Abstract

The present invention facilitates tracking and reporting of user behavior in a hypervideo system. The system provides tracking and recording of media viewed by a user, where media comprises hypervideo video-enhanced pages and other media types. The system is operable to create a user-configurable report, comprising data regarding user use of the media, such as indicating the number of times each media has been viewed and indicating the number of times each path has been taken through each hypervideo application.

Full Text

The invention relates generally to a hypervideo system incorporating hot links within a video presentation, and more specifically to a hypervideo tracking and reporting system. Incorporation of Related Matters This application hereby incorporates by reference related pending U, S, patent applications 09/200,146, filed 11/25/1998,titled"Streaming Hypervideo and Dynamic Hypervideo" ; and 08/882,512, filed06/25/97, titled'-Systeir, and Method for Linking Information to andAccessing Information From a Video". BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION As personal computers and access to the Internet have become increasingly common, computers have become more widely relied upon for communication. Businesses provide product information, customer support, and ordering capability via the Internet, e-mail is widely used for personal and business communication via the Internet in place of telephone or postal mail, and discussions relating to a wide variety of specific topics are conducted in Internet-based discussion groups. As technology and access to the Internet continue to increase, it is reasonable to expect that communication via the Internet will continue to increase in popularity and the methods in which the Internet is used to communicate will continue to expand. Web pages or websites comprising a part of the World Wide Web (WWW) are perhaps the most common means of posting information for mass viewing or for providing services such as e-commerce ability to the public at large. Web pages are defined via a markup language that can be transmitted via the Internet to website users, who run web browser applications that interpret the markup language information and render web pages on the user computer systems. Markup languages such as HTML allow presentation of text, graphics, menus, tables, and other useful structures to users via the Internet connections that link web page servers and user client systems running web browser applications, One common feature incorporated into web pages is known asa"Hyperlink", which is typically text or a graphic representing other content, that when clicked on using a mouse cursor or otherwise selected loads and presents the represented other content. But, as bandwidth and computational power in computerized systems continue to increase, the types of information presented via the World Wide Web and other sources continues to advance. Now, it is not uncommon to find relatively large and complexstreaming audio or video broadcasts of content in addition to more traditional text and still image content, and such content continues to become more common. However, content such as video has typically been presented as astand^alone presentation, without incorporating links to other content. The concept of Hypervideo seeks to provide this hyperlink-type functionality to video presentations, enabling linking and retrieval of information related to obiects of images presented in a video presentation- For exaniple, user watching a football game may move a cursor over a player and click on the player's image to see statist.,. .. on that player, or may similarly select a product in a commercial or television show for more information or the product. Figure 2 is a table illustrating application executions for each application sorted by day of the week the execution occurred, consistent with an embodiment of the present invention. Figure 3 illustrates a computer screen image that represents a video-enhanced page report generated consistent with an embodiment of the present invention. Figure 4 illustrates a report indicating the media path taken through each application, consistent with an embodiment of the present invention. Figure 5 shows a path detail report screen image, consistent with an embodiment of the present invention. Figure 6 is a screen image of a hotspot report, consistent with an embodiment of the present invention. Figure 7 is a screen image of an advertising media hotspot report, consistent with an embodiment of the present invention. DETAILED DESCRIPTION In the following detailed description of sample embodiments of the invention, reference is made to the accompanying drawings which form a part hereof, and in which is shown by way of illustration specific sample embodiments in which the invention may be practiced. These embodiments are described in sufficient detail to enable those skilled in the art to practice the invention, and it is to be understood that other embodiments may beutilised and that logical, mechanical, electrical, and other changes may be made without departing from the spirit or scope of the present invention. The following detailed description is, therefore, not to be taken in a limiting sense, and the scope of the invention is defined only by the appended claims. The present invention provides in various embodiments a system facilitating tracking and reporting of user actions in a hypervideo system. The system provides tracking and recording media viewed by a user, where media comprises hypervideo video-enhanced pages(VEPs) and other media types. The system is operable to create a user-configurable report, indicating data relating to user access of the media such as the number of times each media has been viewed and the number of times each path has been taken through each hypervideo application, Hypervideo is a system enabling linking information to and accessing information from a video. Hypervideo contains one or more regions of interest, or hotspots, where each hotspot is linked to one or more targets. Hypervideo permits a user to interact with video, by selecting hotspots to retrieve selected information or perform other actions associated with the image the hotspot represents. The user can navigate hypervideo from any base such as HTML, an image, video, or other media types, and may similarly retrieve from within hypervideo any type of media. The media targets viewed from within hypervideo may be viewed or executed serially, simultaneously, or in any other manner. An authoring tool is used to create hotspots within video to create hypervideo applications by defining regions of interest and associating those regions with other media content. The hotspot similarly may be defined in a picture, such as a bitmap graphic image. The hotspot may then be selected by a user, such as by placing a mouse cursor over the hotspot and clicking the mouse. Upon activation, the linked media associated with the hotspot is viewed or executed. Multiple media may be linked to a hotspot in some embodiments of the invention, so that selecting or actuating a hotspot retrieves or executes one or more different linked media. Hypervideo media hotspots and media content may be initiated via user selection such as by mouse click, may be actuated via automatic activation such as an API call in a Java script program, or in any other way in various embodiments of hypervideo systems. Hypervideo in one embodiment of the invention will be provided to a user via a server providing content over a broadband network, and the users of hypervideo will view hypervideo content using hypervideo content viewer applications or hypervideo viewer plugin applications within standard web browsers. Other embodiments may include delivery of hypervideo content via machine-readable mediums such as CDs, or via any other method of delivering content to a user. The hypervideo content may also be viewed in some embodiments using standard viewers, rather than dedicated or proprietary hypervideo viewers. Hypervideo will be useful in a variety of applications, such as interactive television, games, tourism information, and home shopping. It is anticipated that due to the flexibility of the hypervideo system, a variety of other applications exist and will be developed, all of which are consistent with and within the scope of the present invention. A hypervideo application provides a tree of media that includes video-enhanced pages, where video-enhanced pages are pages of content that are displayed or otherwise presented to a user. For example, video, images, audio, or HTML pages may be video-enhanced pages, if they are pages that form a part of the sequence of content displayed by the hypervideo application. The video-enhanced page (VEP) is further defined as the hypervideo application executes as only that content that is currently being displayed in the front or current level of the application. In some embodiments of the invention, when more than one element of content or media are displayed at a time, the VEP is the content type that has the highest priority or that is displayed as a larger representation. Content types are ordered in one such embodiment so that video is the highest priority, followed sequentially by images, audio, and HTML pages. Tracking and reporting of hypervideo content is accomplished via a novel tracking and reporting system. When a user requests a hypervideo VEP or media, the request is logged and the time the VEP is viewed is recorded. The logged information may be automatically analyzed to create performance statistics, to alter the operation of the server, or to perform other functions, but is also available to a reporting tool that is operable to perform functions such as reporting and summarizing information about the hypervideo media. One example of a hypervideo application report is shown in Figure 1. The screen image of Figure 1 shows the applications listed at 101, and shows for each application displayed the number of user sessions during which the application was executed at 102. At 103, the number of unique users to have viewed each application is displayed, and the average time each user spends within each application is shown at 104. In some further embodiments of the invention, some or all of this information is presented graphically, as is shown at 105. This information is also viewable sorted by time of day, day of the week, or other criteria as is shown in Figure 2. Figure 2 shows generally a table illustrating an example embodiment of the present invention in which application executions are listed by day of the week, which may allow a hypervideo system provider to better understand demand and use of the hypervideo media content provided. Figure 3 illustrates a computer screen image that represents a video-enhanced page (VEP) report generated consistent with the present invention. Each video enhanced page listed in the table is represented both by an icon indicating the media type at301, and a name at 302. Ideally, the name will be descriptive of the content of the media to facilitate user interpretation of the report. At 303, the number of views of each media (including VEP) listed in the report is shown, and the number of user sessions during which each media was viewed is listed at 304. At 305, the report table indicates the number of unique users to have viewed each media, and the average time that users view each listed media is shown at 306. Media other than VEP media are included in the embodiment of the invention shown in Figure 3 for a variety of reasons, including representation of media viewed while not in the front or current position as is required in some embodiments for media to be considered a VEP, The user may configure the report tool in some embodiments of the invention to report data for only selected types of media, to display statistics for only certain dates, or to otherwise select the type of data presented in a report. For example, a user may wish to view data starting at the first day of the current month for VEP media only, and may create a custom report including only such data. In a further embodiment of the invention, the number of times each media has been viewed as shown at 303 of Figure 3 does not include returning to a media in a single session where the media path brings a user back to a media In this manner, double-viewing of media that causes a user to view other content and then return does not skew the statistics presented in the report. The report may also be limited in some embodiments to showing statistics for only a selected number of top or bottom-ranked applications. For example, a report may for limited to the most frequently viewed 2 0 applications to a server. This flexibility allows the user to further customize reports and derive additional information from the reporting tool- session, including VEPs and other media. The number of user sessions per application path is shown at 401, and the number of unique users following each application path is shown at 402, At 403, the percentage of total application executions that took each path is listed, indicating which paths through the application are most common. The average amount of total time spent taking each path is listed at 405. The report shown in Figure 4 is in some embodiments user-configurable to include or present data in a way the user desires. For example, a minimum path length may be defined by the user, so that paths taken through an application not meeting or exceeding the minimum number of media or VEPs viewed will not be displayed in the report. Also, paths that are not entirely identical may be grouped together for reporting purposes if the have selected path segments in common. In such an embodiment, a user may choose to group all paths that have the first five elements in common, or may choose to group paths that have some other selected segment in common, so that they will be aggregated and single path statistics will be displayed for each group. As is shown at 405, the path taken through an application may be represented by icons representing each media or VEP in the path. In alternate embodiments, media names, icons, or other methods may be employed to uniquely identify each path within the report. Icons may be used in some embodiments of the invention to visually represent additional data, such as what triggered a hotspot activation, different media types, or other data, A path report is provided in some embodiments of the invention, as is shown at Figures. The path report shown in Figure 5 shows only VEPs, but the invention in alternate embodiments also includes other media. The report shows at 501 a list of media contained in a currently-displayed VEP, and the hotspots on each media. Data regarding previous VEPs which hotspots in an application. In other embodiments of the invention, a hotspot report may comprise statistics for hotspots meeting certain use or date criteria, or other criteria selected by a user. The report shows statistics reflecting the use of each hotspot, including each hotspot name at 601, type at 602, and location at 603. The number of sessions or application executions in which each hotspot is viewed is shown at 604, and the number of movements to each hotspot via use of a mouse (whether the hotspot was actuated or not) is shown at 605. The number of times each hotspot is clicked on is shown at 606, and the percentage of viewers that clicked each hotspot is shown at 607. The percentage of viewers entering the hotspot-linked media via mouse is shown at 608, and the percentage of users entering the hotspot-linked media by clicking the mouse is shown at 609. Also, the average time each hotspot is viewed by a user is shown at 610. Overlay data is shown at 611, indicating the overlay for each listed hotspot. Overlays are used to mark hotspots in the media presentations, and may comprise an image that appears on or near a hotspot, a cursor that changes when passed over a hotspot, or no marking at all. Other overlays are possible, such as altering the contrast or brightness of a hotspot or marking the hotspot in other ways, and are within the scope of overlays for purposes of this application. Figure 1 illustrates a special version of a hotspot media report comprising data only on media that is advertising media. The advertising image name and size are shown at 701, and the click-through URL the hotspot link links to is shown at 702. The number of times each advertising image was retrieved within a user session is shown at 703/ with the number of times each image was retrieved by a unique user shown in parenthesis. The number of sessions in which the hotspot was clicked is shown at 704, and the number of unique user clicks is shown in parenthesis. At 705/ the click-through percentage shows the percentage of user sessions that result in a click-through, along with the percentage of click-throughs by unique user in parenthesis• The average time spent viewing the advertising image is shown at 706, and the hotspot name is shown at 707. The media name of the media that contains the ad is shown at 708, which is typically video. Finally, the URL of the advertisement on the ad server is shown at 709. In alternate embodiments of the invention, advertising pages may be displayed along with other media in a media report, and may be individually selected for display by user-configuration of the media report. Although specific embodiments have been illustrated and described herein, it will be appreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art that any arrangement which is calculated to achieve the same purpose may be substituted for the specific embodiments shown. This application is intended to cover any adaptations or variations of the invention. It is intended that this invention be limited only by the claims, and the full scope of equivalents thereof. WE CLAIM: 1. A method of providing hypervideo application user information, comprising: tracking and recording media viewed by a user; where media comprises hypervideo applications; and creating a user-configurable report, the report reflecting data regarding user access of the media, characterized in that the media comprises hypervideo applications enabling linking of information related to objects presented in a video, and tracking a series of links creating a path through the application for creating the report. 2. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the user-configurable report comprises a report having data after a user-defined start date. 3. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the user-configurable report comprises a report having data before a user-defined end date. 4. The method as claimed in claim 1, the report data comprising the number of times each media has been viewed, 5. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein media comprises at least one of video, image, HTML or audio. 6. The method as claimed in claim 5, wherein the user configures which of the media types are to be included in the report. 7. The method as claimed in claim 5, wherein each type of media is identified in the report via representation with a unique icon. 8. The method as claimed in claim 4, wherein the number of times each media has been viewed does not include returning to a media in a path in the same session. 9. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the number of media for which data is displayed in the report is selected by the user. 10. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the report comprises the number of user sessions during which the media was viewed. 11. The method as claimed in claiml, wherein the report comprises the number of unique users to view a media. 12. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the report comprises the average time users spent viewing each media. 13. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the report sorts media by the number of times each media has been viewed. 14. The method as claimed in claim 4, wherein the number of times each media has been viewed comprises both the total number of times a looping video has been viewed having views that result from looping, and the number of times the looping video has been viewed not as a result of looping. 15. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the report comprises an indication of whether the views of a particular media were user-initiated or automatic. 16. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the report comprises an indication of whether video media is looping media, 17. The method as claimed in claim 1, the report reflecting the number of times each path has been taken through each hypervideo application. 18. The method as claimed in claim 17, wherein indicating the number of times each path has been taken through each hypervideo application comprises displaying data for a user-selected number of paths. 19. The method as claimed in claim 17, wherein indicating the number of times each path has been taken through each hypervideo application comprises indicating data for only those paths exceeding a user-defined minimum path length. 20. The method as claimed in claim 17, wherein indicating the number of times each path has been taken through each hypervideo application comprises grouping paths together based on a user-defined number of same first pages in each path. 21. The method as claimed in claim 17, the report reflecting information on the sequence of media or video-enhanced pages in each path taken. 22. The method as clamned in claim 21, wherein the information regarding a media or video-enhanced page comprises the media or video-enhanced page name. 23• The method as claimed in claim21, wherein the information regarding a media or video-enhanced page comprises information regarding how viewing the media or video-enhanced page was initiated. 24. The method as claimed in claim 21, wherein the information regarding a media or video-enhanced page comprises the time spent on that media or video-enhanced page. 25. The method as claimed in claim 17, the report reflecting the number of user sessions in which each path was taken. 26. The method as claimed in claim 17, the report reflecting the number of unique users that have viewed each path taken. 27. The method as claimed in claim 17, the report reflecting the percentage of total number of user sessions that user sessions in which each path was taken. 28. The method as claimed in claim 17, the report reflecting the total time spent taking each path. 29. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein creating a user-configurable report comprises indicating for each video-enhanced page in a hypervideo application information regarding the previous video-enhanced pages users viewed before the current video-enhanced page and from which users proceeded to the current video-enhanced page, and indicating information regarding the next video-enhanced pages to which users proceeded from the current video-enhanced page. 30. The method as claimed in claim 29, wherein the information regarding the previous video-enhanced pages comprises data regarding the identity of the previous video-enhanced pages viewed before and linked to the current video-enhanced page, 31. The method as claimed in claim 29, wherein the information regarding the previous video-enhanced pages comprises information regarding how viewing the current video-enhanced page was initiated. 32. The method as claimed in claim 2 9, wherein the information regarding the previous video-enhanced pages comprises the average time users spent viewing the previous video-enhanced pages before proceeding to the current video-enhanced page. 33. The method as claimed in claim 29, wherein thie information regarding the previous video-enhanced pages comprises the number of user sessions for each previous video-enhanced page from which users have proceeded to the current video-enhanced page. 34. The method as claimed in claim 29, wherein the information regarding the previous video-enhanced pages comprises the percentage of total times when viewing the previous video-enhanced pages that users proceeded to the current video-enhanced page- 35. The method as claimed in claim 29, wherein the information regarding the next video-enhanced pages comprises information about each hotspot on the current video-enhanced page and the next video-enhanced pages to which the hotspots are linked. 36. The method as claimed in claim 35, wherein the information regarding the next video-enhanced pages comprises the media to which each hotspot is linked. 37- The method as claimed in claim 35, wherein the information regarding the next video-enhanced pages comprises the average time a user spends viewing the current video-enhanced page before progressing to each of the next video-enhanced pages. 38. The method as claimed in claim 35, wherein the information regarding the next video-enhanced pages comprises the number of user sessions in which a person proceeds from the current video-enhanced page to each of the next video-enhanced pages. 39* The method as claimed in claim 35, wherein the information regarding the next video-enhanced pages comprises the percentage of total views of the current video-enhanced page that result in a user proceeding to each of the next video-enhanced pages. 40. The method as claimed in claim 1, the user-configurable report comprising a hot spot report, 41. The method as claimed in claim 4 0, the hotspot report comprising the number of sessions in which a user has selected each hotspot. 42. The method as claimed in claim 4 0, the hotspot report comprising the number of times each hotspot has been viewed by a user, 43. The method as claimed in claim 4 0, the I'lotspot report comprising the average view time that users spent viewing the content linked to each hotspot. 44. The method as claimed in claim 4 0, the hotspot report comprising the name and type of each hotspot. 45. The method as claimed in claim 40, the hotspot report comprising the number of times each hotspot has been actuated or clicked by a user. 46. The method as claimed in claim 40, the hotspot report comprising the percentage of users that actuated or clicked each hotspot, 47. The method as claimed in claim 4 0, the hotspot report comprising identification of the overlay used to represent the hotspot. 48. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the user- configurable report, reflects data regarding user viewing of advertising media via hotspots. 49. The method as claimed in claim 48, wherein the report comprises the advertising media overlay image name. 50. The method as claimed in claim 48, wherein the report comprises a click-through URL (Uniform Resource Locator) linked to each advertising media hotspot. 51. The method as claimed in claim 48, wherein the report comprises the number of times each advertising media was retrieved within a user session, 52. The method as claimed in claim 48, wherein the report comprises the number of times each advertising media was retrieved by a unique user, 53. The method as claimed in claim 48, wherein the report comprises the percentage of times that a user who viewed the advertising hotspot has selected the hotspot. 54. The method as claimed in claim 48, wherein the report comprises the average amount of time that users view each advertising media hotspot.

Documents:

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in-pct-2002-764-che-abstract.pdf

in-pct-2002-764-che-assignement.pdf

in-pct-2002-764-che-claims filed.pdf

in-pct-2002-764-che-claims granted.pdf

in-pct-2002-764-che-correspondnece-others.pdf

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in-pct-2002-764-che-description(complete)filed.pdf

in-pct-2002-764-che-description(complete)granted.pdf

in-pct-2002-764-che-drawings.pdf

in-pct-2002-764-che-form 1.pdf

in-pct-2002-764-che-form 26.pdf

in-pct-2002-764-che-form 3.pdf

in-pct-2002-764-che-form 5.pdf

in-pct-2002-764-che-other document.pdf

in-pct-2002-764-che-pct.pdf