Prioritized placement of content elements for iTV applications

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9967611-B2
Application number	US-201615286919-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 6, 2016
Priority date	Sep 19, 2002
Publication date	May 8, 2018
Grant date	May 8, 2018

Abstract

Preferred placement of programming content is provided by a system and method to organize or sequence the display of a set of programmable content elements of an iTV application to a viewer, using business rules that describe the preferred placement conditions or criteria. Such criteria include brand, content owner, application location, current channel, current channel family, current channel category, time of day, content category, current program, current program genre, current iTV application, current content type, and/or subscriber and set-top box profile and behavior data. In one implementation, the present invention allows for managing the ‘shelf space’ within and for iTV applications.

First claim

We claim:

1. A method comprising:
accessing, by a computing device, content placement rules that (a) define conditions for placement of content elements at defined locations along multiple dimensions within a content listing user interface and (b) prioritize placement of one of the content elements at one of the defined locations relative to placement of other content elements at other ones of the defined locations;
placing, at one or more of the defined locations, one or more of the content elements based on a reference to a definition of a programming campaign that comprises a key for uniquely identifying the programming campaign, a listing of candidate content elements, and at least one rule for selecting the one or more of the content elements from the candidate content elements; and
generating, for display, the content listing user interface, wherein the content listing user interface comprises the one or more of the content elements placed at the one or more of the defined locations.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the content placement rules comprise rules adapted to control placement of tiles within tiled user interfaces, rules adapted to permit groupings of the tiles within the tiled user interfaces, and rules adapted to permit transitions between the groupings of the tiles within the tiled user interfaces.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein placing the one or more of the content elements is conditioned on parameters within the content placement rules that comprise one or more of: current application, application type, location, current channel, current network family, current channel category, current program, current program genre, current program attributes, or current content type.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein placing the one or more of the content elements is conditioned on one or more of: demographics, service tier, geography, or viewer behavior.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the content placement rules prioritize the placement of each of the content elements according to pay-for-placement criteria.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the content placement rules prioritize the placement of each of the content elements according to one or more of: brand, content owner, application, location, current channel, current channel family, current channel category, time of day, content category, current program, current program genre, current application, current content type, or viewer behavior data.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the defined locations comprise tiles reserved for advertisements.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the conditions for placement of the content elements within the user interface comprise time shifting so as to present different elements within the defined locations based on a time of day.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the one or more of the content elements placed at the defined locations comprise one or more linear content elements and one or more on-demand content elements.

10. A method comprising:
accessing, by a computing device, content placement rules that (a) define conditions for placement of content elements at defined user-selectable locations along multiple dimensions within a user interface and (b) prioritize placement of one of the content elements at one of the defined user-selectable locations relative to placement of other content elements at other ones of the defined user-selectable locations;
placing, at one or more of the defined user-selectable locations, one or more of the content elements based on a reference to a definition of a programming campaign that includes a key for uniquely identifying the programming campaign, a listing of candidate content elements, and at least one rule for selecting the one or more of the content elements from the candidate content elements; and
causing display of the user interface, wherein the user interface comprises the one or more of the content elements placed at the one or more of the defined user-selectable locations.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein the content placement rules comprise rules adapted to control placement of tiles within tiled user interfaces, rules adapted to permit groupings of the tiles within the tiled user interfaces, and rules adapted to permit transitions between the groupings of the tiles within the tiled user interfaces.

12. The method of claim 10 , wherein placing the one or more of the content elements is conditioned on parameters within the content placement rules that comprise one or more of: current application, application type, location, current channel, current network family, current channel category, current program, current program genre, current program attributes, or current content type.

13. The method of claim 10 , wherein placing the one or more of the content elements is conditioned on one or more of: demographics, service tier, geography, or viewer behavior.

14. The method of claim 10 , wherein the content placement rules prioritize the placement of each of the content elements according to pay-for-placement criteria.

15. The method of claim 10 , wherein the content placement rules prioritize the placement of each of the content elements according to one or more of: brand, content owner, application, location, current channel, current channel family, current channel category, time of day, content category, current program, current program genre, current application, current content type, or viewer behavior data.

16. The method of claim 10 , wherein the defined user-selectable locations comprise tiles reserved for advertisements.

17. The method of claim 10 , wherein the conditions for placement of the content elements within the user interface comprise time shifting so as to present different elements within the defined user-selectable locations based on a time of day.

18. The method of claim 10 , wherein the one or more of the content elements placed at the defined user-selectable locations comprise one or more linear content elements and one or more on-demand content elements.

19. A method comprising:
accessing, by a computing device, content placement rules that (a) define conditions for placement of content elements at defined locations along multiple dimensions within a user interface configured to provide user-selection opportunities of placed content elements and (b) prioritize placement of one of the content elements at one of the defined locations relative to placement of other content elements at other ones of the defined locations;
placing, at one or more of the defined locations, one or more of the content elements based on a key for identifying a programming campaign, a listing of candidate content elements, and at least one rule for selecting the one or more of the content elements from the candidate content elements; and
causing display of the user interface, wherein the user interface comprises the one or more of the content elements placed at the one or more of the defined locations.

20. The method of claim 19 , wherein the defined locations comprise tiles reserved for advertisements.

Assignees

• Comcast Cable Communications Man Llc

Inventors

• Andrade David De
• Carney John
• Moreau Samuel
• Singer Tyson
• Ganapavarapu Srikanth

Classifications

• H04N21/8543

  using a description language, e.g. Multimedia and Hypermedia information coding Expert Group [MHEG], eXtensible Markup Language [XML] {(information retrieval of semistructured data, the underlying structure being taken into account, e.g. mark-up language structure data G06F16/80)} · CPC title

• H04N21/812

  involving advertisement data (advertising per se G06Q30/02) · CPC title

• H04N21/4316 Primary

  for displaying supplemental content in a region of the screen, e.g. an advertisement in a separate window · CPC title

• H04N21/25866

  Management of end-user data (customer care in data networks H04L41/5077) · CPC title

• H04N21/26241

  involving the time of distribution, e.g. the best time of the day for inserting an advertisement or airing a children programme · CPC title