Providing a network-based personalized newspaper with personalized content and layout

Description Submit all comments and votes

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present invention pertains generally to the use of computer networks, and pertains more particularly to improved ways to access and distribute information to specific recipients through computer networks.

BACKGROUND ART

Prior to the wide spread use of global computer networks, many individuals relied on media like newspapers and radio and television broadcasts to obtain "news" or information about rapidly changing situations and current events. Today, global computer networks such as the Internet provide an additional source of information. For some individuals, computer network sources have eclipsed the importance of the older, more traditional media because these networks are capable of supporting extremely rapid publication of large amounts of information. Each document or resource that is made accessible through the Internet, for example, is given a unique identifier or Uniform Resource Locator (URL). As a result, individuals may be given direct access to information from essentially any source throughout the world.

This has proven to be a mixed blessing. On one hand, having access to large amounts of information is better than having access to only a restricted subset of this information; more is better. On the other hand, the volume of available information has grown to such an extent that most individuals are overwhelmed by the amount of work required to find or identify information of particular interest. It is no longer feasible for individuals to find information by merely perusing global computer networks to discover what exists.

A number of techniques have been developed in an attempt to solve this problem. One class of techniques "pulls" information to an individual in response to a request. Network facilities called "search engines" assist in the task of finding information by searching for documents and other elements of information that are deemed to satisfy one or more search criteria provided by an individual, and then allowing the individual to request or "pull" selected information from its source. Facilities called "meta search engines" provide an additional level of support by invoking multiple search engines in search of requested information.

Another class of techniques "pushes" information to an individual in response to a request. Facilities known as "robots" or "agents" assist in the search for information by first identifying information that is pertinent to one or more criteria specified by an individual, and then causing that information to be sent or "pushed" to the individual.

Although these techniques have achieved some degree of success in finding information, they have not provided facilities for presenting this information in a form that has desirable features like the easily readable layout of a traditional newspaper.

DISCLOSURE OF INVENTION

It is an object of the present invention to provide a computer-network based newspaper having content that can be selected and presented in a form according to personal preferences of an individual recipient.

According to one aspect of the invention, a personalized presentation of news and information is provided to a recipient by obtaining preferences of the recipient, including an indication of one or more preferred categories and a preferred presentation layout; identifying a plurality of documents each having content deemed to satisfy one or more criteria with respect to the one or more preferred categories; generating a list of entries in which each entry corresponds to a respective document in the plurality of documents and delivering an indication of the list to the recipient; receiving from the recipient an indication of selected entries in the list of entries selected by the recipient and identifying one or more selected documents corresponding to the selected entries; obtaining content information that represent at least part of the content of each selected document; and generating a representation of articles including the content information such that a presentation of the representation conforms to the preferred presentation layout.

According to another aspect of the invention, a method for conducting business includes obtaining preferences of a recipient that include an indication of one or more preferred categories, a preferred presentation layout, and a preferred advertising category; obtaining content information having content in at least one of the preferred categories; and providing to the recipient a printable representation of a newspaper having articles with the content information and having an advertisement with content in the preferred advertising category. A printing of the representation conforms to the preferred presentation layout.

The various features of the present invention and its preferred implementations may be better understood by referring to the following discussion and the accompanying drawings in which like reference numerals refer to like elements in the several figures. The contents of the following discussion and the drawings are set forth as examples only and should not be understood to represent limitations upon the scope of the present invention.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

FIG. 1A is a block diagram of a first process that may be used to carry out various aspects of the present invention.

FIG. 1B is a schematic diagram of computer and network components that may be used to carry out various aspects of the present invention according to the first process.

FIG. 2A is a block diagram of a second process that may be used to carry out various aspects of the present invention.

FIG. 2B is a schematic diagram of computer and network components that may be used to carry out various aspects of the present invention according to the second process.

FIG. 3 is a schematic illustration of a computer network.

FIG. 4 is a schematic block diagram of a computer system.

FIGS. 5A 5I are schematic illustrations of forms that may be displayed on a computer display device to receive individual preferences of a recipient.

FIGS. 6A 6C are schematic illustrations of hypothetical relationships between categories, subcategories and keywords.

FIG. 7 is a schematic illustration of a form that may be used to present a list of suggested articles and to receive recipient selections from that list.

FIG. 8 is a block diagram of a process that may be used to generate a representation of document content according to a selected layout.

FIGS. 9A 9F are schematic illustrations of hypothetical layouts for a newspaper.

MODES FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION

A. Overview

FIG. 1A is a block diagram of method 30 that may be used to carry out various aspects of a first process that provides a computer-network based newspaper having content that can be selected and presented in a form according to personal preferences of an individual recipient. According to this method, step 31 obtains profile information from the individual that defines that individual's personal preferences. In one implementation, the profile includes indications of desired topics for news articles, a selected layout for presentation, and a schedule for providing the newspaper. In this implementation, step 32 and subsequent steps are performed at times specified by the recipient's chosen schedule. Step 32 searches for documents having content that matches the indications of desired topics, and step 33 obtains the content of the documents identified by the search. Step 34 generates a representation of the content of these documents in a format or layout specified in the recipient's profile. Optionally, method 30 includes step 35 that delivers the representation to a destination specified by the recipient. For example, step 35 may send the generated representation by electronic mail (e-mail) to an address included in the profile.

FIG. 1B is a schematic diagram of computer and network components that may be used to carry out various aspects of the present invention according to method 30. In the example shown, information received from recipient 41 is used to construct one or more records of recipient preferences in profile database 42. Search 43 identifies documents in content database 44 having content that matches indications of desired topics in the recipient preferences. A representation of the content of those documents identified by the search is generated by format 47 in a form that conforms to a layout selected from layout database 46 by select 45 according to recipient preferences. In a preferred implementation, deliver 48 sends the formatted representation to recipient 41. In an alternative implementation, the representation is stored for delivery to recipient 41 in response to an explicit request.

FIG. 2A is a block diagram of method 50 that may be used to carry out various aspects of a second process that provides a computer-network based newspaper having content that can be selected and presented in a form according to personal preferences of an individual recipient. According to this method, step 51 obtains profile information from the individual as described above. Step 52 searches for documents having content that matches the indications of desired topics and step 53 builds a list of these documents, which is provided to the recipient in any of several ways discussed below. Step 54 receives from the recipient an indication of which documents represented in the list are selected and step 55 obtains the content of these selected documents. Step 56 generates a representation of the content of these selected documents in a format or layout specified in the recipient's profile. Step 57 delivers the representation to a destination specified by the recipient.

FIG. 2B is a schematic diagram of computer and network components that may be used to carry out various aspects of the present invention according to method 50. In the example shown, information received from recipient 41 is used to construct one or more records of recipient preferences in profile database 42. Search 63 identifies one or more documents in content database 44 having content that matches indications of desired topics in the recipient preferences. List 69 builds a list of these documents and provides this list to the recipient in any of several ways such as sending the list itself or sending a URL link to a document that contains the list. Subsequently, list 69 receives from recipient 41 an indication of which documents in the list are selected and provides this indication to search 63. A representation of the content of the selected documents is generated by format 47 in a form that conforms to a layout selected from layout database 46 by select 45 according to recipient preferences. Preferably, deliver 48 sends the formatted representation to recipient 41. Alternatively, the representation is stored for delivery to recipient 41 in response to an explicit request.

Each of the steps for methods 30 and 50 are discussed below in more detail.

FIG. 3 provides a schematic illustration of a computer network in which various aspects of the present invention may be carried out. In the example shown, news server 5 performs the services described above and illustrated in FIGS. 1A, 1B, 2A and 2B. News server 5 obtains documents by subscription through network 1 from content provider 4 and stores these documents in content database 44. Alternatively or in addition, news server 5 may search for and obtain the content of individual documents from databases or other repositories that are maintained by content provider 4 or others. News server 5 formats the content of these documents to provide to each recipient computer system 7 9 a representation of a customized newspaper having content that may be presented according to recipient preferences. Optionally, news server 5 may send the representation to each recipient according to individual scheduling preferences.

In a preferred implementation, network 1 is a gl