HK1251329A1 - Systems and methods for delivering task-oriented content - Google Patents

Abstract

Various embodiments of the present disclosure relate to systems and methods for delivering various types of content (such as news articles) to users. Among other things, embodiments of the present disclosure help provide users with concise articles containing the best content from a variety of sources, and present such content in a task-oriented manner that is finite and incentivizes the user to review the content.

Description

System and method for delivering task-oriented content

Cross Reference to Related Applications

The present application relates to: U.S. non-provisional patent application No.14/147,010 entitled "SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR CONTENT processing" filed on 3.1.2014, U.S. non-provisional patent application No.14/147,001 entitled "SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR queue EXTRACTION" filed on 3.1.2014, and U.S. non-provisional patent application No.14/146,986 entitled "SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR CONTENT DELIVERY" filed on 3.1.2014, the CONTENTs of which are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.

Background

Mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets have gained popularity not only as a means of communication, but also for accessing information and entertainment. Improvements in mobile communication networks provide nearly instantaneous access to a large amount of information (e.g., news articles, movie libraries, video games, electronic books, etc.). The advent of these devices has also changed the news arena by creating new media sources that compete with readers from traditional information sources such as newspapers and magazines. This includes not only content that is now available through web pages, but also content that is available on blogs and social networks. Indeed, traditional media such as newspapers have adapted to the age of mobile devices by making their content available via the internet or mobile networks.

Disclosure of Invention

Various embodiments of the present disclosure relate to systems and methods for delivering various types of content (e.g., news articles) to users. Among other things, embodiments of the present disclosure help provide users with concise articles including various source-optimal content, and present such content in a limited task-oriented manner and motivate users to view the content.

A computer-implemented method according to one embodiment of the present disclosure includes: receiving, by a computer system, a plurality of content items; generating, by a computer system, a task list comprising a plurality of tasks, wherein each task corresponds to one or more of a plurality of content items; generating, by a computer system, a content summary comprising a task list; sending the content summary to a computing device of the user for display at a predetermined time; monitoring, by a computer system, progress of a user in completing a task; and providing bonus (bonus) content to the user via the user's computing device in response to the user's progress in completing the task.

In one embodiment, each task in the task list is selectable via the user's computing device, and monitoring progress of the user in completing the task includes determining which tasks have been selected by the user via the user's computing device.

In another embodiment, bonus content is provided to the user in response to the user selecting a predetermined number of tasks in the task list.

In another embodiment, the bonus content is only provided to the user in response to the user completing a predetermined number of tasks within a predetermined period of time.

In another embodiment, monitoring the progress of the user in completing the tasks includes determining which of the content items associated with each task have been displayed to the user via the user's computing device.

In another embodiment, bonus content is provided to the user in response to a predetermined number of content items being displayed to the user via the user's computing device.

In another embodiment, the bonus content is only provided to the user in response to a predetermined number of content items being displayed for a predetermined period of time.

In another embodiment, providing the bonus content includes: storing the bonus content in a content digest in an encrypted format; and automatically decrypt and display bonus content in response to the user's progress in completing the task.

In another embodiment, each task in the task list corresponds to an article that includes one or more content items of the plurality of content items.

In another embodiment, each task is selectable via the user's computing device, and selection of a task in the task list displays an article corresponding to the selected task to the user via the user's computing device.

In another embodiment, each task is displayed in a task list in conjunction with one or more icons, where each respective icon indicates a format of one or more content items included in the article.

In another embodiment, each task is displayed in a task list in conjunction with an icon indicating the type of content item included in the article.

In another embodiment, the plurality of content items includes one or more of: text, images, video, audio, maps, uniform resource locators, graphics, slides, articles, and files.

In another embodiment, a plurality of content items are received from a plurality of content sources.

In another embodiment, a task in the task list is associated with a first content item received from a first content source and a second content item received from a second content source.

In another embodiment, the bonus content includes one or more of the following: coupons, videos, cold knowledge (trivia), games, and loyalty awards.

In another embodiment, the reward content includes a cold knowledge question regarding content items associated with tasks in the task list, and wherein the user is provided additional reward content in response to correctly answering the cold knowledge question.

In another embodiment, the content summary is sent to the user's computing device at fixed time intervals.

In another embodiment, generating the content summary includes generating a set of keywords related to the tasks in the task list for display via the user's computing device.

In another embodiment, each respective keyword in the set of keywords corresponds to a respective task in the task list.

In another embodiment, each respective keyword in the set of keywords includes a selectable link to its respective task in the task list.

The present disclosure includes various methods, apparatuses (including computer systems) that perform such methods, and computer-readable media including instructions that, when executed by a computing system, cause the computing system to perform such methods.

Other features will be apparent from the accompanying drawings and from the detailed description that follows.

Drawings

A more complete understanding of certain embodiments may be derived by referring to the detailed description and claims when considered in connection with the following illustrative figures.

1, 2A, 2B, and 2C are flow diagrams illustrating exemplary methods according to various embodiments of the present disclosure;

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of an exemplary content digest;

FIGS. 4A and 4B are exemplary illustrations of the front cover of the content summary;

FIG. 4C illustrates an exemplary remark for the content summary icon shown in FIGS. 4A, 4B, and 5;

FIG. 5 depicts an exemplary task list;

FIG. 6 depicts an exemplary detail page of an article corresponding to a task in a task list;

7A-7C illustrate aspects of an exemplary article including a plurality of content items, in accordance with various aspects of the present disclosure;

8-9 depict exemplary user interface pages that provide feedback to the user regarding the user's progress in completing a task list;

FIG. 10 depicts an exemplary user interface page associated with personalized content for a user;

FIG. 11 depicts an exemplary user interface page for providing access to a plurality of content summaries;

FIG. 12 is a block diagram of an exemplary internal architecture of a computing device according to embodiments described herein; and

FIG. 13 is a block diagram of an exemplary client computing device implementation in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 14 is a block diagram of an exemplary system according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

Detailed Description

The subject matter now will be described more fully hereinafter with reference to the accompanying drawings, which form a part hereof, and in which specific exemplary embodiments are shown by way of illustration. The subject matter may, however, be embodied in many different forms and, thus, the covered or claimed subject matter is intended to be construed as not being limited to any example embodiment set forth herein; the example embodiments are provided by way of illustration only. Likewise, a reasonably broad scope of claimed or covered subject matter is contemplated. For example, the subject matter may be embodied as, among other things, methods, devices, components, or systems. Accordingly, embodiments may take the form (other than software per se) of, for example, hardware, software, firmware, or any combination thereof. The following detailed description is, therefore, not to be taken in a limiting sense.

In the drawings, certain features may be exaggerated to show details of particular components (and any dimensions, materials, and similar details shown in the drawings are intended to be illustrative and not limiting). Therefore, specific structural and functional details disclosed herein are not to be interpreted as limiting, but merely as a representative basis for teaching one skilled in the art to variously employ the disclosed embodiments.

Reference in the specification to "one embodiment" or "an embodiment" means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic described in connection with the embodiment is included in at least one embodiment of the disclosure. The appearances of the phrase "in one embodiment" in various places in the specification are not necessarily all referring to the same embodiment, nor are separate or alternative embodiments mutually exclusive of other embodiments. In addition, various features are described which may be exhibited by some embodiments and not by others. Similarly, various requirements are described which may be requirements for some embodiments but not other embodiments.

Any combination and/or subset of the elements of the methods depicted herein can be combined with each other, selectively performed or not performed based on various conditions, repeated any desired number of times, performed in any suitable order, and/or combined with any suitable system, device, and/or process. The methods described and depicted herein may be implemented in any suitable manner, for example, by software operating on one or more computer systems. The software may include computer readable instructions stored in a tangible computer readable medium (e.g., a memory of a computer system) and executable by one or more processors to perform the methods of the various embodiments.

Task-oriented content delivery

The various embodiments described below provide task-oriented content (e.g., news stories) to users and provide incentives to users to view the content. The user may be provided with a summary of content including a list of tasks, for example, a set of articles on a popular news story to be read/viewed by the user. Each article may include one or more content items (e.g., text, audio, video, or other) selected from different sources to give the user an optimal set of content items related to a particular topic. When the user completes a task (e.g., reads an article in a task list), the user may be given a reward, such as additional content, a coupon, a game, or other content. In this manner, embodiments of the present disclosure may provide users with concise, high-quality summaries of articles, as well as incentives to read/view these articles. For example, this not only helps users know the current affairs at any time and not overwhelmed by the large amount of news available, but also helps to create active, and loyal readership for content providers, publishers, and advertisers.

The article may include all content items, portions of content items, content items generated based on other content items, and/or content items that have been modified or transformed in some manner. For example, an article may include text that transcribes an audio or video clip, content that includes a website link, a graphic or chart generated from one or more content items, and other content.

Turning now to the drawings, FIG. 1 is a flow diagram illustrating an exemplary method 100 of providing content to a user and motivating the user to view the provided content. The method 100 comprises: receiving a content item (102), generating a task list (104), generating a content summary including the task list (106), sending the content summary to a user (108), monitoring progress of the user in completing a task (110), and providing bonus content to the user (112).

Any desired type of content item may be received (102) from a variety of different sources. For example, a content item may include textual content, images, audio, video, animations, stock quotes, maps, uniform resource locators, graphics, slides, articles, files, and/or combinations thereof. Such content may be received from websites, databases, and other sources over a network (e.g., the internet). The content items may include some or all of the content from the source and may include portions of other content items. For example, a content item may comprise a portion of a larger image or video.

Exemplary method 100 also includes generating a task list (104), each task in the list corresponding to (e.g., referring to or including) one or more received content items. The task list may include a plurality of tasks corresponding to each of the plurality of content items. Each respective task in the list may be represented as a list (e.g., one or more lines of text) of a brief summary of one or more content items associated with the respective task. One or more tasks in the list may be selected by the user, thereby providing content items associated with the selected tasks. For example, in various embodiments, each task in the list corresponds to an article that includes one or more content items, and the task selected by the user opens the article for viewing on the user's computing device. An exemplary task list 310 including seven selectable tasks 311, 317 is shown in FIG. 3 as part of the content summary 300.

Summaries of tasks, content items, and/or articles may be generated and represented in any desired manner. For example, a method for providing a summary of an electronic document may include: splitting the electronic document into a plurality of terms, wherein each term of the plurality of terms is associated with a respective length, a respective informativeness score, and a respective consistency score; automatically selecting a subset of the plurality of terms such that an aggregate informativeness score of the subset is maximized and an aggregate length of the subset is less than or equal to a maximum length; and arranging the subset as a summary of the electronic document. Additional information regarding THE generation AND presentation of summaries may be found in application No. pct/US2012/054572 entitled "METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR AUTOMATICALLY SUMMARIZING THE content of an ELECTRONIC document", filed on 11/9/2012, THE contents of which are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.

In method 100, a summary of content including a task list is generated (106). In addition to the task list, the content summary may include any other desired content, features, executable code, and other elements. In one exemplary embodiment, the content summary includes a content summary cover, a task monitoring module, and a menu. The cover may be rendered from an image configured for download by a user. The cover page image may also include information, such as keywords associated with content items in the task list, time information for content summaries such as a publication day/date, one or more lines regarding content items associated with the task list, and/or source(s) of various content items. The content summary may also include a task completion screen that provides feedback to the user as to how well the user has completed a task on the task list. The content digest may also be configured to include a timer that indicates a time until the next content digest is scheduled for delivery to the user.

Access to content summaries previously received by a user may also be provided via various user interface features, such as a scrollable list. A limited number of content summaries immediately preceding the most recent content summary may be stored locally on the user device, and the content server or other computer system providing the content summary may be automatically contacted to retrieve older content summaries that are not in the local storage of the user's computing device.

The content summary may be configured to present the customized content in the direction of the user. For example, news from a source selected by the user, or other information customized to the user's profile and customized to the user's preferences may also be included in the content summary. In some embodiments, the content summary may be configured for delivery to a large number of users, such that the cover page and task list may include content that is common to all users, while providing personalized content for each user on the internal pages/modules of the content summary. In other embodiments, the personalized content may be presented anywhere in the content summary.

The content digest may include scripts, executable code, and other functional content. In one exemplary embodiment, the content summary includes code for monitoring the user's progress with respect to task completion. In this embodiment, the task monitoring code sends a communication to the content server that provides the content summary regarding the completion of the task, thereby allowing the content server to monitor the progress of the user in completing the task.

The generated content summary is sent to one or more users' computing devices (108). In some embodiments, different portions of the content digest may be sent at different times based on network bandwidth. For example, text in a summary of content may be pushed to a user's computing device first, and images in the summary may be sent at a later time. In various embodiments, once the content summary is completely downloaded, the user may be notified of the availability of the content summary. The user may select the time at which the new version of the content summary is displayed. Alternatively, the new content digest may be published at predetermined time intervals, for example, twice a day in the form of an morning digest and an evening digest.

The progress of the user in completing the task may be monitored (110) for various purposes, such as determining whether the user qualifies for rewarding content (as described below), identifying content that is popular or not popular with the user, and/or collecting a measure of the amount of time the user spends viewing various content items. To assist in this monitoring, the task list may include code that monitors the user's progress in completing various tasks and communicates the user's progress with a content server or other computer system that provides a summary of the content.

Various criteria may be used by embodiments of the present disclosure to determine whether an independent task has been completed and whether bonus content should be provided. In some embodiments, a list of selectable tasks may be provided in conjunction with a content summary, and the progress of the user in completing the tasks may be determined in part by determining which tasks have been selected by the user. One or more tasks in the task list may correspond to articles (which themselves include one or more content items), and selection of a task in the list may display the corresponding article to the user.

Completion of a task (e.g., selecting, reviewing, or otherwise interacting with an article) may be based on whether certain content items in the article are displayed to the user and/or how long the user spends viewing the article or a particular content item. For example, completion of an article that includes textual content may be determined based on whether the text was viewed by a user for at least a predetermined period of time. In other cases, completion of the article may be determined based on whether the user selected a content item (e.g., a hyperlink, an embedded video clip, or other selectable content item included in the article). The completion of the article may also be determined based on whether a predetermined number of content items are displayed to the user and whether the content items are displayed within a predetermined period of time.

The task list may indicate to the user which tasks the user has completed based on the user's interactions with the tasks. Referring to the exemplary screenshot in FIG. 8, a set of seven icons is arranged on the screen. In this example, the user is first presented with a set of icons numbered 1-7, which correspond to the order of the tasks in the task list. When the user completes the tasks (e.g., by accessing or viewing the articles and content items associated with each task), the number of the task is replaced by a checkmark icon. For example, in FIG. 8, the user is shown to have completed tasks 2, 3, 5, and 6, and still have tasks 1, 4, and 7 not completed.

Bonus content is provided to the user (112) in response to the user completing some or all of the tasks on the task list of the content summary. The bonus content may be sent to the user's computing device from a content server that provides a summary of the content, or from another computer system. Bonus content can include coupons, single or multiplayer games, additional audio, video or text content, cold knowledge, loyalty rewards (e.g., points available for merchandise), votes, images, slides, caricatures, sponsored content, and/or combinations thereof. In one exemplary embodiment, the bonus content includes cold knowledge questions about one or more content items associated with a task (e.g., an article read by the user) completed by the user. Additional reward content may be provided to the user in response to the user correctly answering the cold knowledge question. In some embodiments, additional bonus content (e.g., loyalty rewards) may be provided to users who continue to perform the task of content summarization.

In some embodiments, the user may be required to complete all tasks in the task list before bonus content is provided to the user. In other embodiments, the user may only be required (e.g., by selecting and/or viewing) to complete a predetermined number of tasks in the list. Completion of tasks may also be weighted such that completion of a single task (e.g., completing a long, complex article, or a very important article) may calculate more rewards to users receiving the reward content than completion of multiple other tasks (e.g., completing several short articles).

Embodiments of the present disclosure may monitor the progress of the user to determine whether the user completed a predetermined number of tasks within a predetermined period of time in order to receive bonus content. For example, in some cases, the content summary may be provided to the user at fixed time intervals, such as twice a day (e.g., once in the morning and once in the evening). In such a case, embodiments of the present disclosure may require the user to complete all tasks in the morning summary before receiving the evening summary in order to receive bonus content. This helps, among other things, encourage users to view news articles and other content in a timely manner, thus keeping users informed on a regular basis, but also benefiting advertisers and content providers by encouraging users to view content on a regular basis.

In some embodiments, the bonus content in encrypted form may be sent along with the content digest. The bonus content may then be stored locally on the user's computing device. When the user has completed enough tasks on the task list to receive the bonus content, the task monitoring module may automatically decrypt the bonus content and provide it to the user. In this way, the bonus content is immediately available to the user when the user is eligible to view the content, even if the user is not currently within range of any communication network.

Fig. 3 is a block diagram of an exemplary content summary 300 in accordance with various aspects of the present disclosure. In this example, the content summary 300 includes a cover page 302 and a task list 310 that includes a plurality of selectable tasks 311 and 317. Each selectable task 311, 317 corresponds to a respective one of the articles included in the content summary 300. In one exemplary embodiment, each of the tasks 311, 317 is represented in the task list with a brief summary, and when a task is selected, the corresponding article associated with the selected task is displayed. Content summary 300 may also include a task monitoring module 320 configured to monitor the progress of a user completing a task in task list 310. The task monitoring module 320 includes a user interface 322 that indicates the user's progress in completing the tasks 311-317.

As described above, as the user completes each task (e.g., by selecting the task, viewing articles and/or content items associated therein, etc.), the icon associated with the task may be altered in appearance to convey that the user has completed the task. The number pairs of icons included on the user interface 322 correspond to the number of tasks or the number of content items included in the task list 310. In one embodiment, upon completion of the last task, the task monitoring module 320 is configured to perform an animation indicating that all tasks are completed and that the bonus content is ready for access by the user. The mission monitoring module 320 may be configured to contact a bonus content provider (e.g., a server that provides a summary of the content) to provide bonus content to the user.

The content items corresponding to tasks 311-. However, in some exemplary embodiments, the content summary 300 may include an additional personalization module 330, the personalization module 330 including content items that are personalized to a particular user. The user may utilize the personalization module 330 to provide selections regarding the type of content they wish to receive. Further, a user's habits or preferences may be implicitly determined and news items or other content provided accordingly.

Menu 340 may also be included in content summary 330. In an exemplary embodiment, the menu 340 includes a timing module 342 and an archiving module 344. Timing module 342 keeps counting down until the next content digest is available for receipt by the user, while archiving module 344 is configured to provide access to content digests previously received by the user. Content summary 300 may be configured to expire within a predetermined period of time such that content summary 300 is no longer stored on the user's device after this time.

As described above, different summaries may be published at predetermined time periods, and different summaries may include different covers indicating various aspects associated with the content summaries. Cover page 302 may indicate the content in the summary and/or the time of its publication. For example, two summaries (morning summary and evening summary) may be published within a day, and the cover 302 included in each summary may indicate whether the summary is a morning summary or an evening summary.

Fig. 4A is an illustration showing an exemplary front cover of the content digest 300. In this example, section 402 indicates that cover 400 belongs to a wednesday morning summary. In addition to text 404, an icon 406 is included that indicates the time of publication. Image 408 displays the schema in FIG. 4A, and may also include other information and graphics.

Section 410 provides information indicating the content included in cover 400. Title 412 summarizes the first article (also referred to herein as a story) or other collection of content items included in the content summary associated with cover 400. Indications of content source(s) 420 (e.g., author(s) and content publisher (s)) are depicted under title 412. Where the article includes content items from different sources, each content source may be listed. Alternatively, the source providing the largest number of content items, or the most important content items, may be listed in the title. In the example depicted in fig. 4A, two sources are listed, and an indication is given that there are another fifteen sources for the content item in the story.

An icon 414 below the content source 420 indicates the format in which the content item is found in the article. For example, icon 416 indicates that the story associated with title 412 includes at least one content item that includes text, while icon 418 indicates that the story includes at least one content item corresponding to two other formats. FIG. 4C provides an exemplary illustration of the format types that may be associated with the icon 414. The done icon 422 indicates whether the user has finished viewing the article (as described above). In FIG. 4A, the done icon is a check number indicating that the user has finished viewing.

Fig. 4B is another illustration of an exemplary cover 450 for a summary of content. In this example, the cover 450 includes some elements similar to the cover 400 shown in fig. 4A, and for the sake of brevity, the description of such elements is not repeated. Note, however, that icon 422 relative to title 412 is not checked in fig. 4B but it is checked in fig. 4A, and the number is shown instead, among other things. This indicates that the task associated with viewing the article described by the title 412 has not been completed by the user.

In the exemplary cover page shown in FIG. 4B, a list of keywords 460 is displayed as an overlay on the image 462. In one exemplary embodiment, the keywords in list 462 are generated in conjunction with the generation (106) of the content summary and are related to tasks included in the task list of the corresponding task summary. One or more keywords may be generated to correspond to a respective one of the tasks (e.g., an article to be read) in the task list. In this example, the cover 450 thus indicates the substance and/or topic of the task included in the corresponding content summary. In embodiments, the keywords in list 462 may include selectable links to corresponding stories in the content summary, such that one keyword selected by the user results in the display of the corresponding story.

The task list 310 (and associated articles or other content) can be presented in a variety of different manners. FIG. 5 is an exemplary page 500 displaying a portion of the task list 310. In this example, three tasks (311, 312, and 313) are currently displayed on the page, where further scrolling or sideslipping by the user may display the remaining four tasks included in the task list 310.

In FIG. 5, the representation of each task 311, 312, and 313 in task list 310 includes selectable icons 512, 514, and 516. Selectable icons 512, 514, and 516 indicate the format of content items included in the articles associated with the tasks. Selection of one of the icons 552 in the group 512 displays the corresponding content item as an overlay on the now displayed task list 310. In the event that multiple content items of the same format appear in an article, selection of an icon may bring up a menu from which the user selects the particular content item that the user wishes to access. In an alternative embodiment, the icons 512, 514, 516 are not selectable, but are a simple description of the format of the content items included in the article/story or other item associated with the task.

In the example shown in fig. 5, each task 311, 312, and 313 in the task list 310 also includes a brief description or summary of the article associated with the tasks 522, 524, and 526 and task completion icons 532, 534, and 536. As shown, task 311 is indicated as completed and icon 532 is displayed as a pair number, however, icons 534 and 536, corresponding to tasks 312 and 313, respectively, display the respective numbers of the tasks, indicating that the tasks have not been completed by the receiving user.

FIG. 6 is an example of a detail page 600 of articles associated with tasks in a task list, according to one embodiment. In this example, a content item including an image 602 and a content item including text 604 are selected from the article and shown in the detail page 600. In this example, only a portion of the content items are displayed on the detail page, and further scrolling of the detail page 600 by the user may reveal additional details about the content items 620 and 604, as well as other content included in the story. The tag 606 included in the detail page indicates that the content item belongs to the entertainment news category.

Fig. 7A-7C illustrate aspects of an exemplary article 700 including a plurality of content items, in accordance with various aspects of the present disclosure. In this example, the article 700 includes a summary page 710 and detailed pages (720 and 730) configured as long scrollable web pages that include different content items from one or more sources. As shown in fig. 7A-7C, scrollable pages are shown in three sections for illustrative purposes, and scrollable pages of articles displayed by embodiments of the present disclosure may be of any length and may include any number of content items from any number of different sources.

The summary page 710 is generated from different content items (potentially received from different content sources) in the article 700. In the example shown in fig. 7A, the summary page 710 is composed of content items including an image 702, text 704, and a reference 706. In addition, the summary page 710 includes a link 708 to access the complete article.

FIG. 7B shows a portion 720 of the detail page that is displayed to the user the first time the user selects link 708. Detail section 720 includes a content item that includes a set of images 722, a video 724, text from a web page, a map 728 showing locations mentioned in the event detailed in story 700.

Fig. 7C shows a third portion 730 of the detail page associated with the article 700. The third section 730 includes a share price map 732, two entries from a micro blogging service 734, 738, and news stories 736 from various sources. In embodiments, multiple sections of content may be provided as a scroll bar that may be slid horizontally by a user to view the content.

Fig. 8 and 9 depict exemplary user interface pages that provide feedback to the user regarding the user's progress in completing a task list. In fig. 8, a completion icon (similar to completion icon 422 in fig. 4A and 4B) corresponding to each task from the task list is arranged around text 802 indicating the number of tasks that the user has completed. In this example, the user has completed four tasks out of seven tasks in the task list. Thus, four of the icons show a pair number to indicate that the tasks are completed, while the icons for tasks 1, 4, and 7 still show their respective numbers to indicate that the tasks have not been completed.

The exemplary page shown in fig. 8 additionally includes a bonus content portion 804, which bonus content portion 804 indicates that the user can access bonus content once the user has completed all seven tasks (i.e., by reading all seven stories associated with the seven tasks). A feedback button 806 is also provided to enable the user to give feedback to the publisher of the content summary.

FIG. 9 illustrates an exemplary page provided to a user upon completion of all tasks in a task list. Page 900 includes instructions 902 to click on the screen to receive bonus content, and a link 904 to access additional stories.

FIG. 10 is an exemplary user interface page 1000 associated with personalization of a user's content. The page 1000 may be displayed in conjunction with the operations of the personalization module 330 and the personalization user interface 332 described above with reference to FIG. 3. In various embodiments, the content delivered to the user may be customized based on settings entered by the user and/or based on implicit preferences of the user (e.g., determined from categories that the user tends to access or avoid). In fig. 10, a plurality of content items 1002, 1004, and 1006 are included in a page 1000 corresponding to a world news story. Any other category of content may be delivered to the user as part of the personalized content delivery.

Among other things, FIG. 11 depicts an exemplary user interface page 1100 for providing access to a plurality of content summaries. Page 1100 may be used in conjunction with embodiments that publish a summary of content at a fixed time interval (e.g., twice a day). The page 1100 includes a timer 1102 that gives a countdown to the next content digest to be published, and an animation ring 1104 associated with the timer 1102. Timer 1102 indicates that a new digest will be available after nine hours. This is also indicated via a ring around clock 1102, where a portion 1104 of the ring is blackened or filled in a counter-clockwise direction over time. The portion 1106 of the circle that remains bright indicates the time until which the next content summary can be received by the user. Alternatively, the darker portion 1104 may be used to indicate the time remaining until the next content summary publication. In this example, the content digest is published twice daily, once in the morning and once in the evening, and an icon 1108 on page 1100 currently indicates that the next digest to be published is the morning digest. Similar icons associated with the evening summary may be incorporated into the countdown display of the evening summary.

Archive module 344 provides access to the content digest published prior to the content digest associated with menu 340. The archive module 344 includes a plurality of summary icons, where icons 1112, 1114 provide access to respective previous summaries of content. The plurality of summary icons may scroll in both directions of arrow 1120 to access a desired previous summary of content. Sliding the previous summary icon to the right provides the user with access to the content summary published in the past, and sliding the arrow to the left provides the user with access to the content summary published closer to the current content summary. For example, selection of one previous summary icon 1111 provides the user access to the morning summary of day 11, 16, while selection of another previous summary icon 1112 provides the user access to the evening summary of day 11, 16. Highlighted icon 1114 indicates that the morning summary of the 11 month 17 day weekdays is the expected next summary and clock 1102 shows the countdown to the summary indicated by highlighted icon 1114. Icon 1116 indicates a summary of content that has not yet been published.

Content processing

Embodiments of the present disclosure may be used to collect, arrange, sort, and perform other processes for various types of content. In some embodiments, content items, such as text, images, videos, and other content, are received from a variety of different sources and processed to generate an article that includes the selected content item. While there may be hundreds or thousands of separate articles or stories on a particular topic, embodiments of the present disclosure help provide a user with a single concise article that includes high quality content items selected from a potentially large number of different sources.

Fig. 2A is an exemplary flow diagram of a process for generating articles according to various aspects of the present disclosure. The process 200 includes: receiving content items related to a topic (202), analyzing the content items (204), ranking the content items (206), selecting a subset of the content items (208), generating an article comprising the selected subset of the content items (210), and sending the article (212).

As described above with reference to fig. 1, any number and type of content items may be received (202) from any number of different sources. Embodiments of the present disclosure may also perform any desired analysis of content items (204) for any desired purpose. In one exemplary embodiment, at least one received content item (e.g., a text article) is analyzed to identify a reference, a named entity that is the source of the reference, and identifying information for the named entity. Details of analyzing the reference identifications and the extracted content items are described in more detail below.

There may be hundreds or thousands of individual content items that are relevant to a given topic. Embodiments of the present disclosure may rank received content items (206) to help identify optimal content items included in articles that are relevant to a particular topic, thus helping to provide users with high quality content items that may be used on a topic without having to manually search from a large number of articles from different sources.

The content items may be arranged (206) in any desired manner, e.g. based on one or more of the following: a popularity rating of the respective content item, an age of the respective content item, a size of the respective content item, an author associated with the respective content item, a publisher associated with the respective content item, and a quality rating of the respective content item. For example, the popularity rating of a content item may be determined based on the number of times a user has performed: view the content item, give the content item a good rating, and/or forward the content item (or link) to another user. The age of the respective content item may be measured in any desired manner, e.g., based on a timestamp in an article that includes the content item. The size of the content item may likewise be measured in any suitable manner, for example, based on the file size of the item (i.e., in bytes), and the number of words or characters in the text article, and/or the length of time it takes to view a video clip or listen to an audio clip. Authors, publishers, and other information related to the source of the content item may be obtained from articles that include the content item, the content item itself, a website that provides the content item, or other sources.

A subset of content items may be selected (208) based at least in part on the respective ranking of each content item, and the subset of content items may then be used to generate (210) an article. For example, referring again to fig. 7A, a first content item in a first format (e.g., image 702) and a second content item in a second format (e.g., text 704) can each be selected from the other images and text based on the image 702 (the highest ranked image of the other content items in the image format) and the text 704 (the highest ranked image of the other content items in the text format). Further, the ordering and positioning of content items in an article may be based on the ranking of the respective items. For example, in fig. 7A and 7B, the image 702 may have a higher ranking than any of the images of the group of images 722 in fig. 7B, thus resulting in the image 702 being in front of the image 722 in the article 700.

Likewise, the ranking of content items of different formats may affect their ranking and positioning in an article. For example, the image 702 may be ranked higher than the text 704, thus causing the image 702 to be located ahead of the text 704 in the article 700. However, the ordering and positioning of content items need not be strictly based on ranking. Other factors such as size, relevance, and editing preferences may cover any permutation. For example, even if the image 702 is ranked lower than the text 704, an editing decision to begin the article 700 with an image may still result in the image 702 being located in front of the text 704. Further, content items having the same rank may be arranged in any order according to any desired criteria. The article can be sent (212) to the user in a variety of different manners, such as by sending a file including the article to the user's computing device over a network, posting the article on a website for retrieval by the user, and/or displaying the article to the user through a user interface of a computer system.

Reference extraction

In the exemplary process depicted in fig. 2A, the analysis (204) of the content item may include analyzing the content item including text to identify: a reference, a named entity that is the source of the reference (e.g., a person or an organization such as a company), and identifying information for the named entity (e.g., a title of the person giving the reference). The citation, the named entity, the identity of the named entity may then be included in the generated article (210). The content item from which the reference is identified may be one of a selected subset of content items in the article, or the reference may be included in an article separate from the content item from which the reference is identified.

Just as content such as images, video, audio, text, and other types of content may be arranged, references may also be arranged to determine the optimal references to include in an article. Different named entities, or references to the same named entity, can be arranged and compared to each other. Likewise, multiple references to the same content item (e.g., a single article), or to different content items, may be arranged and compared. The information about the named entities may be the same or different, depending on whether the independent named entities are the same or not. For example, where the first reference is given by "John Smith" and the second reference is given by "Jane Doe," both of the named entities (Smith and Jane) may still be identified as members of the same organization (e.g., working for the same company).

The references may be arranged in any desired manner and according to any desired criteria. In some embodiments, two references from the same content item may be arranged based on their respective positions in the content item. For example, a first reference that precedes a second reference in an article may be ranked higher than the second reference. The references may also be ranked based on their number of occurrences in other content items. For example, two references are identified from a single content item, a first reference appears more times in other received content items than a second reference, and the first reference may be ranked higher than the second reference.

The references may also be ranked based on their length. For example, longer references may be ranked higher than shorter references, or vice versa. When the first reference is longer than the predetermined number of words and also shorter than the length of the second reference, the first reference may be ranked higher than the second reference. Other combinations may also be employed by embodiments of the present disclosure. In this way, embodiments of the disclosure may give higher rankings to references with sufficient detail to be meaningful to the reader, yet still concise.

The references may be arranged based on their content, e.g., the type of word and/or language used. In one exemplary embodiment, the citation may be ranked based on an analysis of keywords in the citation and the relevance of those keywords to the subject matter of the generated article. The references may be ranked higher or lower based on whether they use difficult (or simple) languages, whether they use words in languages that may (or may not) be understood by the user or reader of the received article, and other criteria.

The references may be arranged based on information that may be used to name the entity providing the reference. For example, there is little or no information about the named entity that is the source of the first reference, but there is sufficient information about the named entity that is the source of the second reference, which may be ranked higher than the first reference. In another example, there may be at least a predetermined number of references to information about the named entity that is the source of the reference that are still ranked the same as there are rich references to information about the named entity that provided the reference.

Information about named entities that are reference sources may be identified in a variety of different ways. In some embodiments, information about a named entity may be determined by performing a reference resolution to identify the named entity as well as the information about the entity. For example, if the content item comprises a sentence: "he says, [ hard to say ] the rising price will be beneficial to the consumer," the first part of the sentence (other than "he says") can be identified as a reference, and the human pronoun "he" can be determined (by referring to the resolution analysis) to refer to the named entity "John Smith" mentioned elsewhere in the article. Similarly, the reference analysis may determine information about John Smith, e.g., that he is the speaker of "ABC corporation. "

In some exemplary embodiments, all available information about named entities in a content item is identified and provided in an article that includes a corresponding reference from the entity. In an alternative embodiment, only a subset of the total available information about the named entity is provided in the article. Information about the named entity can also be retrieved from a source other than the content item that includes the reference.

Fig. 2B illustrates an exemplary process for identifying a reference in accordance with various embodiments of the present disclosure. In this example, process 225 includes: receiving a plurality of content items comprising text (227), analyzing at least one content item to identify a reference, a named entity that is the source of the reference, and identifying information about the named entity (229), ranking the reference (231), and providing the reference to a user (233).

The content items may be received (227) and arranged (231) in any desired manner, including as described above with respect to fig. 1 and 2A. The reference (and the named entity from which the reference originated and information about the named entity) can be provided 231 to any user, system, and/or device in any desired manner, such as by sending the reference over a network or by displaying the reference to the user via a user interface of a computer system (e.g., via a display screen and/or printout). The reference may be stored in the memory of the computer system and may be transmitted by itself or may be part of a file or generated article (e.g., an article generated by the process described above in connection with FIG. 2A).

Analysis (229) of the content items may be used to identify chains of information related to the named entity. Such analysis may be limited to the content items identified from which the reference is made, or may include analysis of other content items and sources. For example, continuing the example above, "John Smith" is the named entity responsible for the reference about the consumer. The first set of information that identifies John Smith as the "speaker" is a description of John Smith and, therefore, the named entity that is the source of the reference. Additional analysis may determine a second set of information that identifies the name of the organization (ABC corporation, John Smith has as the speaker) and is therefore a description of the first set of information.

Further analysis may determine a third set of information identifying corporation ABC as a "subsidiary of corporation XYZ". This third set of information (ABC corporation is a subsidiary of XYZ corporation) describes the association between ABC corporation and XYZ corporation, and is therefore a description of the second set of information. The information chain may continue as desired until a predetermined number of sets of information have been identified, until no further information is available referencing the content item retrieved therefrom, or based on any other criteria. For example, a fourth set of information identifying that XYZ corporation is incorporated into the state of california is a description of the third set of information.

Content delivery

Many internet users receive content (e.g., articles) on battery-powered mobile devices. Hardware requirements (e.g., high speed microprocessors and high resolution display screens) often burden the battery life of such devices. In addition, many forms of content can be quite large, and traditional methods of downloading such content can further drain the battery capacity of the mobile device. The content delivery methods of the present disclosure may help reduce battery consumption while still providing content to the user in a timely manner.

Fig. 2C is an example method for content transmission in accordance with various aspects of the present disclosure. The exemplary method in fig. 2C includes: the method includes generating an article (252), generating a content digest (254) that includes the article, compressing the content digest (256), sending a notification to one or more client devices to indicate that the content digest is available (258), receiving a first request for data from the content digest (260), sending a first portion of the content digest at a first time (262), receiving a second request for data from the content digest (264), and sending a second portion of the content digest at a second time (262).

The generation of the articles (252) and the generation of the summaries of the content (254) comprising these articles may be performed in any desired manner, for example, as described above with reference to fig. 1 and 3-11. To reduce bandwidth requirements, the content digest (or a portion thereof) may be compressed (256). For example, where the content digest includes one or more articles, each of which in turn includes one or more content items, content items that would result in substantial space savings for compression (e.g., text) may be compressed, content items that have been compressed (e.g., certain video formats) and content items for which compression would not be effective (or are equally effective) may be left uncompressed.

A notification may be sent 258 to any number of user computing devices to indicate that the content summary is available for download. In the exemplary method 250 depicted in fig. 2C, multiple requests (260, 264) are received requesting to download different portions of a summary. The portions (262, 268) are sent in response to the request.

The sending of the content summary portion (262, 268) may be performed without sending a notification to the user that the computing device received the content summary. For example, portions of the content summary may be downloaded to the user's computing device over a period of time, and the user is notified of the availability of the content summary only after all portions of the content summary are received and stored in the memory of the user's device. The sending (260, 262) of the content summary portion may also be performed independently of any request for a summary of the content from the user or the user's device (i.e., the content summary portion is pushed to the user's device).

FIG. 2D depicts an exemplary method that may be utilized in conjunction with embodiments of the present invention, particularly the downloading of a content summary by a user's computing device. In this example, the method 270 includes: analyzing the user computing device's network connection (272), requesting content from the content summary (274), receiving the requested content (276), and removing stored content (278).

A connection between a computer system providing the content summary (e.g., a content server) and another computing device receiving the content summary (e.g., a user's computing device) may be analyzed (272) to determine a quality of the connection. In some embodiments, the amount and/or type of content requested from the content digest may be predicted based on the quality of the connection, whereby the sending of the content digest is performed only in response to the quality of the connection meeting or exceeding a predetermined threshold. For example, determining the quality of the connection may include determining a level of packet loss, wherein the sending of the content digest is only performed when a predetermined percentage of packets are successfully received by the target device.

In some embodiments, the type of content of the summary and the order in which it is downloaded may depend on the quality of the connection. For example, if the user computing device is determined to have a relatively slow connection (e.g., the quality level of the connection is below a predetermined threshold), the primary image from the content summary is requested (274) and downloaded (276) first, and the thumbnail of the gallery image is requested and downloaded thereafter. If the user computing device is determined to have a relatively quick connection (e.g., the quality level of the connection meets or exceeds a predetermined threshold), all images (thumbnail and full-size images) are requested (274) and downloaded (276), and additional content items (e.g., video, text, graphics, etc.) are thereafter requested and downloaded.

By requesting portions of content based on the current connection capabilities of the user's device, embodiments of the present disclosure can store a summary of the entire content in the memory of the user's device without significantly impacting the user's other activities on the user's device (e.g., browsing a website). Further, in embodiments where the content summary is published to the user at fixed time intervals (e.g., twice per day), portions of the content summary may be incrementally delivered to the user's device and stored in memory, and then retrieved and displayed at the appropriate time.

In one exemplary embodiment, the request for the first portion of the content digest may be deferred until a quality level of a connection between the content server (or other computer system providing the content digest) and the user's computing device meets or exceeds a predetermined threshold. Once the quality of the connection is acceptable and the first portion is sent, the second (and subsequent) portions of the content digest may be requested.

The content may be removed (278) at any desired time, for example, before sending a request for a new content digest. For example, once the user completes the summary, the previously stored summary of the content may be deleted from the memory of the user's computing device. Alternatively, the old content digest may be deleted from the user's computing device in response to the stored digest and/or the amount of memory used on the client's device to store the digest reaching or exceeding a predetermined threshold. Content may be removed based on the amount of time it has been stored on the device. For example, where multiple content summaries are stored on the device, the oldest content summary may be removed first. Content may also be removed based on the way the user has interacted with the content. For example, content that the user has not accessed or viewed may remain on the device, while content that the user has viewed may be removed.

Referring again to fig. 11, embodiments of the present disclosure may operate in conjunction with a countdown timer 1102 that indicates when the content summary will be ready for viewing by the user. In such embodiments, the content digest may be downloaded to the memory of the user's device prior to the expiration of the countdown, and the user is not notified until the countdown timer expires. Upon expiration of the countdown, the user may be notified of the latest content digest via a pop-up window, message, beep, and/or other notification. In one exemplary embodiment, the expiration of the countdown timer may be coupled with the content alert, whereby the expiration of the timer and/or the alert causes the articles in the content summary to be audibly provided to the user (e.g., via text-to-speech recognition software). In this manner, embodiments of the present disclosure may read news articles and other content to the user when he/she wakes up, drives home, or otherwise.

Exemplary System

The methods described above in fig. 1 and 2A-2C, as well as other functions of embodiments of the present disclosure, may be implemented using one or more computer systems. FIG. 12 is a block diagram of the internal architecture of an exemplary computing device 1200 that may be utilized in conjunction with embodiments of the present disclosure. In this example, computer system 1200 includes one or more processing units (also referred to herein as CPUs) 1212 connected to at least one computer bus 1202. Also connected to computer bus 1202 are a persistent storage medium/media 1206, a network interface 1214, a memory 1204 (e.g., Random Access Memory (RAM), run-time transient memory, Read Only Memory (ROM), etc.), a media disk drive interface 1208, an interface 1220 that reads and/or writes drives for media including removable media (e.g., floppy disks, CD-ROMs, DVDs, etc.), media, a display interface 1210 that is an interface to a display or other display device, a keyboard interface 1216 that is an interface to a keyboard, a pointing device interface 1218 that is an interface to a mouse or other pointing device, and various other interfaces 1222 that are not separately shown (e.g., parallel and serial port interfaces, Universal Serial Bus (USB) interfaces, etc.).

The memory 1204 is connected to the computer bus 1202 for providing information stored in the memory 1204 to the CPU 1212 during execution of a software program (e.g., an operating system, an application program, a device driver, and a software module comprising instruction code or logic, and/or computer-executable process steps, integrated functions described herein (e.g., one or more process flows described herein)). CPU 1212 first loads computer-executable process steps or logic from storage (e.g., memory 1204, storage medium/media 1206, removable media drives, and/or other storage devices). The CPU 1212 may then execute the stored processing steps and thereby execute the loaded computer-executable processing steps. Stored data (e.g., data stored by a storage device) is accessible to the CPU 1212 during execution of the computer-executable process steps.

The persistent storage medium/media 1206 is computer-readable storage medium(s) that may be used to store software and data (e.g., an operating system and one or more application programs). The persistent storage medium/media 1206 may also be used to store device drivers (e.g., one or more of a digital camera driver, a display driver, a printer driver, a scanner driver, or other device drivers), web pages, content files, metadata, playlists, and other files. The persistent storage medium/media 1206 may also include program modules/program logic and data files for implementing one or more embodiments of the present disclosure in accordance with embodiments described herein.

FIG. 13 is a block diagram illustrating a client device implementation of a computing device according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. Client device 1300 may include a computing device capable of sending or receiving signals (e.g., via a wired or wireless network) and capable of running application software or "app" 1310. For example, the client device may comprise a desktop computer or a portable device, such as a cellular telephone, a smartphone, a display pager, a Radio Frequency (RF) device, an Infrared (IR) device, a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), a handheld computer, a tablet computer, a laptop computer, a set top box, a wearable device, an integrated apparatus combining various features (e.g., those of the aforementioned apparatus), and so forth.

Client devices may vary in capabilities or features. Client device or user device may include standard components, such as CPU 1302, power supply 1328, memory 1318, ROM 1320, BIOS 1322, network interface(s) 1330, audio interface 1332, display 1334, keypad 1336, luminaire 1338, I/O interface 1340, interconnected via circuitry 1326. The claimed subject matter is intended to cover a wide range of potential variations. For example, the handset keypad 1336 may include a numeric keypad or a limited function display 1334, such as a monochrome Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) for displaying text. Conversely, however, as another example, a network-enabled (web-enabled) client device 1300 may include: one or more physical or virtual keyboards 1336, mass storage devices, one or more accelerometers, one or more gyroscopes, Global Positioning System (GPS)1324 or other location identification type capability, tactile interfaces 1342, or a highly functional display (e.g., a touch sensitive color 2D or 3D display).

Client device 1300 may include or may execute various operating systems 1306, including a personal computer operating system (e.g., Windows, iOS, or Linux) or a Mobile operating system (e.g., iOS, Android, Window Mobile), among others. Client device 1300 may include or may execute various possible applications 1310, such as a client software application 1314 that enables communication with other devices, such as transmitting one or more messages via email, Short Message Service (SMS), or Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), including via a network (e.g., a social network, including, for example, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr, or Google +) to provide just a few possible examples. Client device 1300 may also include or execute applications to communicate content, e.g., textual content, multimedia content, and the like. The client device 1300 may also include or execute applications to perform various possible tasks, such as browsing 1312, searching, playing various forms of content, including locally stored or streaming content (e.g., video, or games (e.g., fantasy sports league)). The above is provided to illustrate that the claimed subject matter is intended to include a wide range of possible features or capabilities.

FIG. 14 is a block diagram of a system that can be used in conjunction with various embodiments. Although FIG. 14 illustrates various components of a computer system, it is not intended to represent any particular architecture or manner of interconnecting the components. Other systems having fewer or more components may also be used.

In FIG. 14, system 1400 includes a computer system 1410, the computer system 1410 including a processor 1412, a memory 1414, and a user interface 1416. Computer system 1410 may include any number of different processors, memory components, and user interface components, and may interact with any other desired systems and apparatuses in conjunction with embodiments of the present disclosure.

The functions of computer system 1410, including (in whole or in part) the steps of the methods described above, may be implemented by processor 1412 executing computer-readable instructions stored in memory 1414 of system 1410. The memory 1414 may store any computer-readable instructions and data, including software applications, applets, and embedded operating code. Portions of the functionality of the methods described herein may also be performed via software operating on one or more user computing devices 1420.

The functionality of the system 1410 or other systems and devices operating in conjunction with embodiments of the present disclosure may also be implemented by various hardware components that store machine-readable instructions, such as Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), and/or Complex Programmable Logic Devices (CPLDs). Systems according to aspects of certain embodiments may operate in conjunction with any desired combination of software and/or hardware components. The processor 1412 retrieves and executes instructions stored in the memory 1414 to control the operation of the system 1410. Any type of processor, such as an integrated circuit microprocessor, microcontroller, and/or Digital Signal Processor (DSP), may be used in conjunction with embodiments of the present disclosure. The processor 1414, operating in conjunction with embodiments of the present disclosure, may include any combination of different memory storage devices, such as a hard disk, Random Access Memory (RAM), Read Only Memory (ROM), flash memory, or any other type of volatile and/or non-volatile memory. The data may be stored in the memory 1414 in any desired manner, such as a relational database.

The system 1410 includes a user interface 1416, which user interface 1416 can include any number of input devices (not shown) to receive commands, data, and other suitable input. User interface 1416 may also include any number of output devices (not shown) to provide data, notifications, and other information to the user. Typical I/O devices may include a mouse, keyboard, modem, network interface, printer, scanner, camera, and other devices.

The system 1410 may communicate with one or more user computing devices 1420 and other systems and devices in any desired manner, including via the network 1430. The system 1410 and/or the user computing device 1420 may be, include, or operate in conjunction with: a laptop computer, a desktop computer, a mobile user communication device, a mobile phone, a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), a tablet computer, an electronic book or book reader, a digital camera, a video game console, and/or any other suitable computing device.

The network 1430 may include any electronic communication system or method. Inter-component communication operating in conjunction with embodiments of the present disclosure may be performed using any suitable communication method, e.g., telephone network, extranet, intranet, internet, point of interaction device (point of sale device, individual point of interaction device)A personal digital assistant (e.g.,Palm) Cellular phones, kiosk (kiosk), etc.), online communications, satellite communications, offline communications, wireless communications, transponder communications, Local Area Networks (LANs), Wide Area Networks (WANs), Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), network or linking devices, keyboards, mice, and/or any suitable form of communication or data entry. The systems and devices of the present disclosure may utilize the TCP/IP communication protocol as well as IPX, Appletalk, IP-6, NetBIOS, OSI, any tunneling protocol (e.g., IPsec, SSH), or any number of existing or future protocols.

Systems, devices, and inter-component communications operating in conjunction with embodiments of the present disclosure may be performed using any suitable communication method, e.g., telephone networks, extranets, intranets, the internet, points of interaction (point of sale devices, personal digital assistants (e.g.,Palm) Cellular telephone, kiosk, etc.), online communications, satellite communications, offline communications, wireless communications, transponder communications, Local Area Network (LAN), Wide Area Network (WAN), Virtual Private Network (VPN), network or linking device, keyboard, mouse, and/or any suitable form of communications or data entry. The systems and devices of the present disclosure may utilize the TCP/IP communication protocol as well as IPX, Appletalk, IP-6, NetBIOS, OSI, any tunneling protocol (e.g., IPsec, SSH), or any number of existing or future protocols.

While certain embodiments may be implemented in a fully functional computer as well as a computer system, the various embodiments can be distributed as a computing product in a variety of forms, and can be applied regardless of the particular type of machine or computer-readable medium used to actually effect the distribution.

A machine-readable medium may be used to store software and data which when executed by a data processing system causes the system to perform various methods. Executable software and data may be stored in various locations including, for example, ROM, volatile RAM, non-volatile memory, and/or cache. Portions of the software and/or data may be stored in any of these storage devices. Further, the data and instructions may be obtained from a central server or a peer-to-peer network. Different portions of the data and instructions may be obtained from different central servers and/or peer-to-peer networks at different times and in different communication sessions or the same communication session. Alternatively, portions of data and instructions may be dynamically obtained in time as execution requires. Thus, it is not required that the data and instructions be entirely on the machine-readable medium at a particular instance in time.

Examples of computer-readable media include, but are not limited to: particularly recordable and non-recordable type media (e.g., volatile and non-volatile memory devices), Read Only Memory (ROM), Random Access Memory (RAM), flash memory devices, floppy and other removable disks, magnetic disk storage media, optical storage media (e.g., compact disk read only memory (CD ROM), Digital Versatile Disks (DVD), etc.). A computer-readable medium may store instructions.

In various embodiments, hard-wired circuitry may be used in combination with software instructions to implement techniques. Thus, the techniques are not limited to any specific combination of hardware circuitry and software nor to any particular source for the instructions executed by the data processing system.

Although some of the figures show operations in a particular order, operations that are not order dependent may be reordered and other operations may be combined or split. Although some reordering or other groupings are explicitly mentioned, other reordering or groupings will be apparent to those skilled in the art and therefore an alternate detailed list is not presented. Further, it should be recognized that the stages could be implemented in hardware, firmware, software, or any combination thereof.

For the sake of brevity, conventional data networking, application development, and other functional aspects of the systems (and components of the independent operating systems) are not described in detail herein. Furthermore, the connecting lines shown in the various figures contained herein are intended to represent example functional relationships and/or physical couplings between the various elements. It should be noted that many alternative or additional functional relationships or physical connections may be present in a practical system.

The various system components discussed herein may include one or more of the following: a host server or other computing system including a processor for processing digital data; a memory coupled to the processor for storing digital data; an input digitizer coupled to the processor for inputting digital data; an application program stored in the memory and accessible to the processor for directing the processor to process the digital data; a display device coupled to the processor and the memory for displaying information obtained from the digital data processed by the processor; and a plurality of databases. Various databases used herein may include: shipping data, packet data, and/or any data useful in the operation of the system.

Various functions may be performed via a web browser and/or an application interface utilizing a web browser. Such browser applications may include internet browsing software installed in a computing unit or system to perform various functions. These computing units or systems may take the form of computers or groups of computers, and may use any type of computing device or system, including laptop computers, notebooks, tablets, handheld computers, personal digital assistants, set-top boxes, workstations, computer servers, mainframe computers, minicomputers, PC servers, groups of network computers, personal computers and tablet computers (e.g., iPad, iMAC, and MacBook), self-service terminals, point-of-sale (POS) devices and/or terminals, televisions, or any other device capable of receiving data over a network. Various embodiments may utilize the microsoft IE explorer, the firefox explorer, the google Chrome explorer, the apple Safari explorer, the Opera explorer, or any other various software packages available for browsing the internet.

Various embodiments may operate in conjunction with any suitable operating system (e.g., Windows NT, 95/98/2000/CE/Mobile, Windows 7/8, OS2, UNIX, Linux, Solaris, MacOS, PalmOS, etc.) and various conventional supporting software and drivers normally associated with a computer. Various embodiments may include any suitable personal computer, network computer, workstation, personal digital assistant, cellular telephone, smartphone, minicomputer, mainframe, and the like. Embodiments may implement security protocols such as the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol, the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol, and the Secure Shell (SSH) protocol. Embodiments may implement any desired application layer protocol, including hypertext transfer protocol (http), secure hypertext transfer protocol (https), file transfer protocol (ftp), and secure file transfer protocol (sftp).

The various system components may be separately, separately or collectively suitably coupled to the network via data links, e.g., a connection to an Internet Service Provider (ISP) through a local loop typically used in conjunction with standard modem communication, cable modem, satellite network, ISDN, Digital Subscriber Line (DSL), or various wireless communication methods. It is noted that embodiments of the present disclosure may operate in conjunction with any suitable type of network, for example, an Interactive Television (ITV) network.

The system may be partially or fully implemented using cloud computing. "cloud" or "cloud computing" includes a model of convenient, command-response (on-command) network access that enables a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be quickly provisioned and released with minimal administrative effort or service provider interaction. Cloud computing may include location independent computing whereby a shared server provides resources, software, and data to computers and other command-responsive devices.

Various embodiments may be used in connection with web services, utility computing, pervasive and personalized computing, security and identification solutions, automated computing, cloud computing, commodity computing, mobile and wireless solutions, open source, biological, grid computing, and/or grid computing.

Any of the databases discussed herein may include related, hierarchical, graphical, or object-oriented structures and/or any other database configuration. Further, the database may be organized in any suitable manner, e.g., as a data table or a lookup table. Each record may be a single file, a series of files, a linked series of data fields, or any other data structure. The association of certain data may be accomplished by any desired data association technique, such as those known or practiced in the art. For example, the association may be done manually or automatically.

Any database, system, device, server, or other system component may be located at a single location or at multiple locations, wherein each database or system includes any of a variety of suitable security features, such as firewalls, access codes, encryption, decryption, compression, decompression, and/or the like.

Encryption may be performed by any technique currently available or becoming available in the art-e.g., Twofish, RSA, El Gamal, Schorr signatures, DSA, PGP, PKI, and symmetric and asymmetric cryptography systems.

Embodiments may connect to the internet or an intranet using standard dial-up, cable, DSL, or any other internet protocol known in the art. The transaction may pass through a firewall to prevent unauthorized access by users of other networks.

The computers discussed herein may provide a suitable website or other internet-based graphical user interface accessible by the user. For example, Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS), Microsoft Transaction Server (MTS), and Microsoft SQL Server, may be used in conjunction with Microsoft operating system, Microsoft NT web server software, Microsoft SQL Server database system, and Microsoft Business Server. In addition, components such as Access or Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, Sybase, Informix MySQL, Interbase, etc. may be used to provide a dynamic data object (ADO) compliant database management system. In another example, an Apache web server may be used in conjunction with a Linux operating system, a MySQL database, and Peri, PHP, and/or Python programming languages.

Any of the communications, inputs, stores, databases, or displays discussed herein may be facilitated by a website having web pages. The term "web page" as used herein is not meant to limit the types of files and applications that may be used to interact with a user. For example, in addition to standard HTML files, a typical website may include various forms, Java applets, JavaScript, dynamic Server pages (ASP), common gateway interface scripts (CGI), extensible markup language (XML), dynamic HTML, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), AJAX (asynchronous JavaScript and XML), assistant applications, plug-ins, and the like. The server may include a web service that receives a request from a web server, the request including a URL and an IP address. The web server retrieves the appropriate web page and sends the data or application of the web page to the IP address. web services are applications that are capable of interacting with other applications through a communication means, such as the internet.

Various embodiments may employ any desired number of methods to display data in a browser-based file. For example, the data may be represented as standard text or in a fixed list, scrollable list, drop-down list, editable text field, fixed text field, pop-up window, or the like. Likewise, embodiments may employ any desired number of methods to modify data in a web page, for example, using a keyboard, menu item selection, check box, selection box, or the like to release text entry.

The exemplary systems and methods illustrated herein may be described in terms of functional block components, screenshots, alternative selections, and various processing steps. It should be appreciated that these functional blocks may be realized by any number of hardware and/or software components configured to perform the specified functions. For example, the system may employ various integrated circuit components, e.g., memory elements, processing elements, logic elements, look-up tables, or the like, which may carry out a variety of functions under the control of one or more microprocessors or other control devices. Similarly, the software elements of the system may be implemented using any programming or scripting language (e.g., C, C + +, C #, Java, JavaScript, VBScript, Macromedia Cold Fusion, COBOL, Microsoft dynamic Server pages, assembly, PERL, PHP, AWK, Python, Visual Basic, SQL Stored Procedures, PL/SQL, any UNIX shell script, and extensible markup language (XML) with various algorithms implemented by any combination of data structures, objects, processes, routines, or other programming elements). Further, it should be noted that the system may employ any number of conventional techniques for data transmission, signaling, data processing, network control, and the like. Still further, the system may be used to detect or prevent security issues through client scripting languages (e.g., JavaScript, VBScript, etc.).

The systems and methods of the present disclosure may be embodied as an existing system, an accessory product, a processing device executing upgraded software, a stand-alone system, a distributed system, a method, a data processing system, a data processing apparatus, and/or a specialization of computer program products. Thus, any portion of a system or module may take the form of a processing device executing code, an internet-based embodiment, an entirely hardware embodiment, or an embodiment combining aspects of the internet, software, and hardware. Further, the system may take the form of a computer program product on a computer-readable medium having computer-readable program code means embodied in the medium. Any suitable computer readable storage medium may be utilized including hard disks, CD-ROMs, optical storage devices, magnetic storage devices, and the like.

Systems and methods are described herein with reference to screen shots, block and flow diagrams of methods, apparatuses (e.g., systems), and computer program products according to various embodiments. It will be understood that each block of the block diagrams and flowchart illustrations, and combinations of blocks in the block diagrams and flowchart illustrations, respectively, can be implemented by computer program instructions.

These computer program instructions may be loaded onto a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, or other programmable data processing apparatus to produce a machine, such that the instructions which execute on the computer or other programmable data processing apparatus create a means for implementing the functions specified in the flowchart block or blocks. These computer program instructions may also be stored in a computer-readable memory that can direct a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to function in a particular manner, such that the instructions stored in the computer-readable memory produce an article of manufacture including instruction means which implement the function specified in the flowchart block or blocks. The computer program instructions may also be loaded onto a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to cause a series of operational steps to be performed on the computer or other programmable apparatus to produce a computer implemented process such that the instructions which execute on the computer or other programmable apparatus provide steps for implementing the functions specified in the flowchart block or blocks.

Accordingly, functional blocks of the block diagrams and flowchart illustrations support combinations of means for performing the specified functions, combinations of steps for performing the specified functions and program instruction means for performing the specified functions. It will also be understood that each block of the block diagrams and flowchart illustrations, and combinations of blocks in the block diagrams and flowchart illustrations, can be implemented by special purpose hardware-based computer systems that perform the specified functions or steps, or combinations of special purpose hardware and computer instructions, as appropriate. Further, the process flow and the descriptions described therein may refer to user windows, web pages, web sites, web page forms, prompts, and the like. Practitioners will recognize that the illustrated steps described herein may be included in any number of configurations, including the use of windows, web pages, web page forms, pop-up windows, prompts, and the like. It will also be appreciated that the various steps shown and described may be combined into a single web page and/or window, but have been expanded for simplicity. In other cases, the steps shown and described as a single process step may be separated into multiple web pages and/or windows, but have been combined for simplicity.

The term "non-transitory" will be understood to remove only the propagated transitory signal itself from the scope of the claims and not to relinquish all standard computer-readable media that are not just the propagated transitory signal itself. In other words, the meaning of the term "non-transitory computer readable medium" should be construed to exclude these types of transitory computer readable media found only In Re Nuijten, beyond the scope of 35u.s.c. § 101 patentable subject matter.

Benefits, other advantages, and solutions to problems have been described herein with regard to specific embodiments. However, the benefits, advantages, solutions to problems, and other elements that may cause any benefit, advantage, or solution to occur or become more pronounced are not to be construed as a critical, required, or essential feature or element of the disclosure.

Although the present disclosure includes methods, it is contemplated that the present disclosure may be embodied as computer program instructions on a tangible computer readable carrier (e.g., magnetic or optical memory or magnetic or optical disk). All structural, chemical, and functional equivalents to the elements of the above-described exemplary embodiments that are known to those of ordinary skill in the art are expressly incorporated herein by reference and are intended to be encompassed by the present claims. Moreover, it is not necessary for a device or method to address each and every problem sought to be solved by the present disclosure, for it to be encompassed by the present claims. Furthermore, no element, component, or method step in the present disclosure is intended to be dedicated to the public regardless of whether the element, component, or method step is explicitly recited in the claims. No claim element herein is to be construed as under the clause of 35u.s.c.112, paragraph six, unless the element is explicitly recited using the phrase "means for …". As used herein, the terms "comprises," "comprising," or any other variation thereof, are intended to cover a non-exclusive inclusion, such that a process, method, article, or apparatus that comprises a list of elements does not include only those elements but may include other elements not expressly listed or inherent to such process, method, article, or apparatus.

Variations and modifications may be made to the disclosed embodiments without departing from the scope of the disclosure. These and other changes or modifications are intended to be included within the scope of the present disclosure, as expressed in the following claims.

Claims (23)

1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

receiving, by a computer system, a plurality of content items;

generating, by the computer system, a task list comprising a plurality of tasks, wherein each task corresponds to one or more of the plurality of content items;

generating, by the computer system, a content summary comprising the task list;

sending the content summary to a computing device of a user for display at a predetermined time;

monitoring, by the computer system, progress of the user in completing the task; and

providing, via the user's computing device, bonus content to the user in response to the user's progress in completing the task.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein each of the tasks in the task list is selectable via the user's computing device, and wherein monitoring the progress of the user in completing the tasks comprises determining which of the tasks have been selected by the user via the user's computing device.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the bonus content is provided to the user in response to the user selecting a predetermined number of the tasks in the task list.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the bonus content is only provided to the user in response to the user completing the predetermined number of tasks within a predetermined period of time.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein monitoring the progress of the user in completing the tasks comprises determining which of the content items associated with each task have been displayed to the user via the user's computing device.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the bonus content is provided to the user in response to a predetermined number of content items being displayed to the user via the user's computing device.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the bonus content is only provided to the user in response to the predetermined number of content items being displayed for a predetermined period of time.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein providing the bonus content comprises:

storing the bonus content in the content digest in an encrypted format; and

automatically decrypting and displaying the bonus content in response to the user's progress in completing the task.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein each task in the task list corresponds to an article that includes one or more content items of the plurality of content items.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein each task is selectable via the user's computing device, and wherein selection of a task in the task list displays the article corresponding to the selected task to the user via the user's computing device.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein each task is displayed in the task list in conjunction with one or more icons, wherein each respective icon indicates a format of one or more content items included in the article.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein each task is displayed in the task list in conjunction with an icon indicating a type of content item included in the article.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of content items comprise one or more of: text, images, video, audio, maps, uniform resource locators, graphics, slides, articles, and files.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of content items are received from a plurality of content sources.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein a task in the task list is associated with a first content item received from a first content source and a second content item received from a second content source.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the bonus content includes one or more of: coupons, videos, cold knowledge, games, and loyalty awards.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the reward content comprises a cold knowledge question regarding content items associated with tasks in the task list, and wherein the user is provided additional reward content in response to correctly answering the cold knowledge question.

18. The method of claim 1, wherein the content summary is sent to the user's computing device at regular intervals.

19. The method of claim 1, wherein generating the content summary comprises generating a set of keywords related to tasks in the task list for display via a computing device of the user.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein each respective keyword in the set of keywords corresponds to a respective task in the task list.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein each respective keyword in the set of keywords comprises a selectable link to its respective task in the task list.

22. A tangible, non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed, cause a computer system to:

receiving a plurality of content items;

generating a task list comprising a plurality of tasks, wherein each task corresponds to one or more of the plurality of content items;

generating a content summary comprising the task list;

sending the content summary to a computing device of a user for display at a predetermined time;

monitoring progress of the user in completing the task; and

providing, via the user's computing device, bonus content to the user in response to the user's progress in completing the task.

23. A system, comprising:

a processor; and

a memory in communication with the processor and storing instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the system to:

receiving a plurality of content items;

generating a task list comprising a plurality of tasks, wherein each task corresponds to one or more of the plurality of content items;

generating a content summary comprising the task list;

sending the content summary to a computing device of a user for display at a predetermined time;

monitoring progress of the user in completing the task; and

providing, via the user's computing device, bonus content to the user in response to the user's progress in completing the task.