JP3849919B2 - Mail delivery apparatus and method using web access analysis, and program thereof - Google Patents

Description

[0001]
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a method for customizing distribution text for each user in a Web page mail distribution service, and in particular, stores the contents of a user accessing a homepage or the like in a database, and analyzes information in the database at the time of mail distribution. The present invention relates to a mail delivery system and method using Web access analysis that sets a priority order of information for each delivery destination user, and arranges and delivers mail according to the priority order, and a program thereof.
[0002]
[Prior art]
Due to the recent development of Internet technology, various information transmission sites have been established. Each site has subdivided contents, and in order to notify the user of the latest information, a service is provided to send mails at regular intervals (once a day) or when there is important information.
However, not all information in the mail is necessary information for all recipients. In particular, a user who is interested in only a part of the site has to pay for searching for information he / she wants from unnecessary information. This burden increases as the service of the site progresses, that is, as the amount of information transmitted increases, and sometimes the amount increases so as to overlook the information requested by the recipient. If the required effort and the information obtained are not reasonable, the user may stop the mail service, resulting in a decrease in the number of visits to the user's Web server, It will be disadvantageous.
[0003]
2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, for example, in an apparatus described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 10-320415 (hereinafter referred to as “method A”), a user who accesses a home page provided by a Web server inputs information about his / her preferences, The preference information is stored in the memory. On the other hand, the database server that stores the information to be distributed also stores the user preference information together with the delivery conditions related to the user. When delivering an e-mail, information on the delivery conditions that match the preference information is searched, and a plurality of information is stored. When retrieved, the information is integrated and arranged in one e-mail, and transmitted from the SMTP server to each user terminal.
[0004]
In the apparatus described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2000-270013 (hereinafter referred to as “method B”), an electronic mail relay apparatus equipped with a Web server is placed between the mail server and the client terminal, and personal information of the relay apparatus is placed. The acquisition unit reads the user additional information of the user corresponding to the user name and password and registers it in the personal information table. When an e-mail is sent from the mail server to the client, the relay device converts the e-mail to reflect the user's request and age registered in the personal information table, or according to the registered preferences. And send it to the requesting user.
[0005]
In the device described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-36567 (hereinafter referred to as “method C”), a Web server, an additional information registration unit, an initial information registration unit, and a personal information update unit are also provided in the relay device. The information registration unit acquires the password from the user name and the PASS command and registers it in the personal information table, and the additional information registration unit registers the contents of each item of the additional registration page acquired by the Web server in the personal information table. The update unit refers to the date of birth of the registered additional information, updates the age with the date of birth, and when an e-mail is sent, converts it into e-mail data that reflects the user's personal information needs and preferences And deliver.
[0006]
[Problems to be solved by the invention]
Thus, in the conventional technology, there is no system or method that automatically collects and registers each user's preferences on the information distribution site and automatically reflects the preferences in the distribution mail.
That is, in the above method A, when the user inputs his / her preferences by setting on the screen and the email is distributed, information matching the preference information is arranged in the email, and the user terminal Sent to. However, it is necessary to set the preferences that the user desires on the screen, and input may not be possible for an infant, an elderly person, or a person who has troublesome input settings on the screen. In such a case, it is preferable that the user's preferences are automatically investigated and registered on the server side, and the preferences can be reflected in the delivery mail.
[0007]
Also, in the above methods B and C, the user transmits his / her preference as additional information in an email to the server instead of on the screen, and the personal information acquisition unit of the relay device User additional information of the user corresponding to the password is read and registered in the personal information table, and when an e-mail is sent to the user from the server, information reflecting the user's preference is distributed. ing. However, users who do not know to write their preferences in additional information, including infants and elderly people, or troublesome users cannot be notified of their preferences.
[0008]
There are an infinite number of users on the Internet, and users range from a variety of ages and physically. Therefore, there are many users who cannot set or describe their preferences on the screen or on e-mail, and it is practically impossible for the mail distribution server to manually create e-mail text for each user. It is.
Conventionally, each site has made an effort to make it easy to read, such as creating a table of contents in the mail text and dividing the content. However, the server does not seem to have a function to automatically customize for each user.
[0009]
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to solve these conventional problems, automatically investigate and register information requested by the user at the information transmission site, and return to the top in the mail when delivering mail to the user. A mail delivery system and method using web access analysis, which can automatically arrange information that matches the user's preferences and can quickly find information necessary for the mail recipient, and a program thereof Is to provide.
[0010]
[Means for Solving the Problems]
In order to achieve the above object, in the mail delivery method using the web access analysis of the present invention, the processor accesses the access recording means for recording the access, and the user who requested the delivery from the access recording means has accessed. After reading the list of contents, the processor accesses the content / category recording means, reads the category ID to which each content read as a category belongs from the recording means, and the processor reads each category ID read In addition, when counting the number of contents that belonged and setting the priority on the storage means in descending order of the count, Focus on the top priority category and the second and third combination, The category relevance degree storage means indicating the relevance level of the category is accessed, the category ID having the high relevance degree is read from the storage means, and the processor accesses the distribution information / category recording means for the category ID having the high relevance degree. Distribution information is set on the recording means,
The processor arranges the distribution information on the storage means in order from the top of the mail text according to the priority order of the distribution information, and creates the mail text in the storage means at a predetermined position or the final position of the mail text. It is characterized in that distribution information of a category ID having a high degree of relevance is arranged to create and write a sentence.
In addition, the mail delivery apparatus using the web access analysis of the present invention includes a personal authentication means for performing personal authentication, an access recording means for recording information of web content accessed for each user in a database, and delivery in response to a request from the web server. Distribution information registration means for registering distribution information in which a category is defined by a request of an information registration client in a database, and counting the number of accesses for each category accessed by a user based on the access record information recorded in the access recording means When setting priorities on the storage means in descending order of the count number, Focus on the top priority category and the second and third combination, A distribution information setting unit that reads a category ID having a high degree of association from a category relevance storage unit that indicates the degree of association of the category, and sets the distribution information on the distribution information / category recording unit for the category ID having a high degree of association; In accordance with the priority order, the distribution information is arranged on the storage means in order from the top of the mail text, and when creating the mail text in the storage means, the category ID having a high degree of relevance at a predetermined position or the final position of the mail text The e-mail text creating means for arranging and distributing the distribution information and writing the e-mail text, and the e-mail delivery means for delivering the e-mail text created by the e-mail text creation means to each user terminal It is said.
[0011]
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
Embodiments of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a mail delivery system showing an embodiment of the present invention.
In FIG. 1, 101 is a user client machine that is a Web subscriber, 105 is a Web server, 108 is a processing server, and 112 is a distribution information registration client machine that registers information to be distributed in the processing server 108. Machines 101 and 112 are both used by users, the former being homepage browsing and mail recipients (customers, etc.), and the latter being information providers (businesses, their employees, etc.). Here, since the Web server 105 exists for each different company, a plurality of Web servers 105 are individually connected to the processing server 106. Web subscribers can access different Web servers at any time and refer to content on each Web server 105, for example, a home page.
[0012]
The Web subscriber requests information on the content 107 on the Internet 104 from the Web browser 102 of the user client machine 101. Upon receiving the request, the Web server 105 first performs personal authentication 106 and calls the authentication function 109 in the processing server 108 to confirm that the user is registered, and whether or not client information is registered in the recording database 111. To check. When the registration is confirmed, the content 107 is transferred to the Web browser 102 on the user client 101, and at the same time, the access recording function 110 is called to register the access record in the access recording table 203 (see FIG. 2) in the recording database 111. .
In this way, every time each user accesses the contents of all the Web servers 105 connected to the processing server 108, the contents are recorded in the recording database 111 through the access recording function 110. Preferences are registered, and preferences for each user are automatically investigated.
[0013]
On the other hand, the distribution information creator calls the distribution information registration function 113 in the processing server 108 from the distribution information registration client 112 and records the information in the recording database 111 in order to register information to be distributed by mail. Although the distribution information registration client 112 directly accesses the distribution information registration function 113 of the processing server 106 in FIG. 1, it can also access the distribution information registration function 113 via the Internet 104 or other networks. It is also possible for the user to go directly to the processing server 108 and register the distribution information in the database 111 himself.
[0014]
Next, when an e-mail is distributed from the processing server 108 to each user, the mail distribution function 114 obtains a user's past access record from the recording database 111 by the mail sentence creation function 115, and the user has recorded the past. By analyzing the requested information, an information category having a high subscription frequency is acquired, and the mail information is created by arranging the distribution information registered in the recording database 111 based on the result. Here, the information of the category with the highest access frequency of the user is arranged at the head of the mail, and the information is arranged with the categories reflecting the preferences in order as priority, and the mail text is created. Then, the mail is delivered to the mailer 103 of the user client 101 via the Internet 104.
[0015]
FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a table structure of the recording database in FIG.
(1) Recording database (table structure)
As shown in FIG. 2, the recording database 201 includes tables 202 and 203 related to users, a category table 204 related to both homepages and e-mails, a content table 205 and content-category table 206 related to homepages, and e-mails. Seven tables of a distribution information table 207 and a distribution information-category table 208 are stored.
Reference numeral 202 denotes a user information table, in which user information is registered. Reference numeral 205 denotes a content table in which each piece of content information is registered. Reference numeral 203 denotes an access record table, in which a record that a user accesses content is registered. Reference numeral 207 denotes a distribution information table, in which information notified to the user by the distribution information creator is registered. Reference numeral 204 denotes a category table in which information for classifying content and distribution information is registered. 206 is a content-category table, 208 is a distribution information-category table, in which category classification information of content and distribution information is registered.
[0016]
(2) Recording database (table information)
Next, information stored in the recording database 201 will be described.
FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a category table 301, in which category names 303 for classifying content and distribution information corresponding to category IDs 302 are stored.
FIG. 4 is a diagram showing the content table 401, which stores content information (content name 403) published on the Web corresponding to the content ID 402.
FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a distribution information table 501 in which information contents for mail distribution are stored. That is, the distribution information 503 is stored corresponding to the distribution information ID 502. When the capacity of the distribution information 503 is enormous, the information itself may be stored outside the recording database 201 and information such as its address may be stored in the recording database 201 as the distribution information 503.
[0017]
6 and 7 are diagrams showing a content-category table 601 and a distribution information-category table 701, respectively, in which categories the content and distribution information are classified are set. The relationship between content, distribution information, and category is 1: n. That is, there is a case where one content (homepage content) or one piece of distribution information (email content) extends over a plurality of categories. In the category table 301 of FIG. 3, a category “natural environment, organism, politics” is stored in the category name 303 as an example of the category. In the content table 401 of FIG. 4, “environmental pollution, animals and plants, election” is stored in the content name 403 as an example of the content. Also, in the content-category table 604 of FIG. 6, the content name “environmental pollution” is classified into the category name “natural environment, organism”, and the content name “animal and plant” is classified into the category name “nature”. In the stored state, the content ID 402 for uniquely classifying the content name 403 is stored in 602, and the category ID 302 for uniquely classifying the category name 303 is stored in 603.
[0018]
Similarly, the distribution information table 501 in FIG. 5 and the category table 301 in FIG. 3 are also stored in the distribution information-category table 701 in FIG. 7, and the distribution information ID 502 for uniquely identifying the distribution information 501 is changed to 702. The category ID 302 is entered into 703, respectively. In the example of FIGS. 3, 5, and 7, the distribution information 503 “distribution content A” is the category name “natural environment, organism”, “distribution content B” is the category name “organism”, and “distribution content C”. Are classified into the category name “politics”.
FIG. 8 is a diagram showing the user information table 801 in FIG. 2 and stores information on subscribers registered as users. This user is a mail delivery target.
FIG. 9 is a diagram showing an access record table 901. Each time there is an access request for content, the user ID 802 of the accessing user is stored in 902, and the content ID 402 of the access destination content is stored in 903, respectively. . In the data storage example of FIG. 8, the user name 803 “AAA” accesses the contents “environmental pollution, animals and plants” and the user name 803 “BBB” accesses the contents “environmental pollution, elections” respectively.
As shown in FIG. 9, an area can be added to the access record table 901 to provide “date” 904 and “remarks” 905. Thus, up to “information accessed one year ago” or “information accessed three months ago” can be reflected in the distributed mail information according to the request of the user or distributor.
[0019]
(3) Recording access information
Next, the access record storing process will be described with reference to FIGS.
FIG. 10 is a flowchart of authentication processing when a request for access to content is made to the Web server. FIG. 10A shows processing on the Web server side, and FIG. 10B shows processing on the processing server side.
In FIG. 10A, when there is an access request to the content from the user, authentication is performed only at the first access. That is, it is determined whether or not the user who has requested access has not been authenticated (step 1001). Only when the user has not been authenticated (Y), the authentication function of the processing server is called and the user ID is returned. Whether or not (step 1002). On the other hand, when authentication is being performed (N), the process is terminated and access is permitted without calling the processing server side.
[0020]
In FIG. 10B, when there is an authentication request from the Web server side, it is determined whether or not there is user information (authenticated information) in the user record table of the record database (step 1005). If it is confirmed whether it is registered and user information is found (Y), the user ID is returned to the Web server (step 1006). Then, the process ends. If it is not yet registered in the user information table and there is no user information (N), notification of undiscovered is made and the process is terminated.
Returning to the process of FIG. 10A (step 1002), if a user ID is returned (Y), access to the content is permitted under authentication (step 1003). On the other hand, when an undiscovered notification is received (N), access to the requested content is permitted without authentication (step 1004). Whether access is permitted or prohibited without authentication is determined by the policy on the processing server side and is not directly related to the present invention.
[0021]
FIG. 11 is a flowchart of the access recording process performed when accessing the content.
In the case of authentication in the process of FIG. 10, when accessing the content, a user access record is stored according to the flow of FIG. That is, when access is made to content, it is first determined whether authentication is present or not (step 1101). If yes (Y), the access recording function in the processing server is called (step 1102), and the access record is recorded as an access record. Register in the table 901. Then, the contents are returned to the user, that is, the home page is opened and shown to the user (step 1103).
[0022]
(4) Registration of distribution information
Next, the distribution information registration process will be described with reference to FIG.
FIG. 12 is a processing flowchart of the distribution information registration function 113.
When there is a registration request from the distribution information registration client side, first, the distribution information is registered in the distribution information table 501 (step 1201), and the category classification of the registered information is registered in the distribution information-category table 701 (step). 1202). This completes registration of the distribution information in the distribution information table 207 and distribution information-category table 208 by a certain distribution information registration client in the recording database 201 of FIG.
[0023]
(5) Mail text creation processing by user
Next, user-specific mail text creation processing will be described with reference to FIG.
FIG. 13 is an operation flowchart of the mail text creation function according to the present invention.
Steps 1301 to 1303 are automatic survey processing for each user's preference, and steps 1304 and 1305 are processing for automatically sorting mail text information.
When there is an analysis request for sending mail, the access record of the mail destination user is first retrieved from the access record table 901 (step 1301), and the category ID of the accessed content is obtained from the content-category table 601 (step 1302). Next, all category IDs of all contents accessed by the same user are acquired (step 1302), and information is preferentially notified to the user in descending order of the total number of category IDs (step 1303). That is, for each category ID of content acquired from the content-category table 601, the number for every category ID is counted, and the priority is determined in order from the highest count value.
[0024]
Next, the priority of distribution information is set from the distribution information-category table 701 according to the order determined in step 1303 (step 1304). That is, for the category to which the distribution information belongs, the priority is set in order from the one that includes many items with high priority (distribution information).
Next, the distribution information is arranged from the top of the mail text in descending order of the priority of the distribution information to create the mail text (step 1305). At this time, according to a request from the user in advance, when only one distribution information with the highest priority is distributed, when only a specified number of distribution information is transmitted, or when distribution information is deleted for a category with a small number of counts, etc. Can also be performed.
[0025]
A case where the priority order of the distribution information of the user name “AAA” (user ID = 1) in FIG. 8 is targeted will be described based on the data examples in FIGS.
In FIG. 13, first, the content ID accessed by the user ID 802 = 1 in the past is acquired from the access record table 901 (step 1301). The user “AAA” has accessed the content IDs 901 = 1 and 2 in the past. Next, the content category ID 603 is acquired from the content-category table 601 (step 1302). As a result, category ID = 1, 2, 2 is acquired. Next, the acquired category IDs are counted, and priorities are set in descending order of the total number (step 1303). Here, the order of category ID = 2,1,3.
[0026]
Based on this information, the priority of distribution information is determined from the distribution information-category table 701 (step 1304). The category IDs of the distribution information ID = 1, 2 are 1, 2, and 2, respectively, and both belong to the category ID = 2 with the highest priority, but the distribution information ID = 1 has the second highest priority. This category has a high priority because it belongs to category ID = 1. Therefore, the priority of distribution information is in the order of distribution information ID = 1, 2, 3. Finally, the mail text is created according to the priority order of the distribution information (step 1305). Therefore, the mail text distribution information 503 of the user name “AAA” is arranged in the order of “distribution content A”, “distribution content B”, and “distribution content C”.
[0027]
(6) Application examples
FIG. 14 is a block diagram of a mail delivery method using Web access analysis showing an application example of the present invention, where FIG. 14A is a table structure diagram of a recording database, and FIG. 14B is stored in the recording database. It is a figure which shows the information of a category relevance table.
In the embodiments described so far, the degree of association between categories has not been considered. However, for example, if it is determined from the access record information of a certain user that the “stock” category has the highest priority, information on the “economic” and “political” categories that are closely related to “stock” are also displayed at the same time. It is desirable to incorporate it as an email text. In addition, for categories such as “fishing” and “travel”, it is desirable to simultaneously deliver information on categories such as “weather” or “weather”.
[0028]
For this purpose, a category relevance table 209 is registered in the recording database 201 as shown in FIG. This category relevance table 209 shows the relevance of categories as shown in FIG. For example, for category ID = 1, it can be seen that the degree of association of category ID = 3 is A (high). The relevance of category ID = 1 to category ID = 1 is B (not so high). Also, for the integration of a plurality of categories, for the combination of category ID = 1, 2, category ID = 5 is A (high), and for the combination of category ID = 1, 2, 3, It can be seen that category ID = 7 is A (high).
In the flow of FIG. 13, in step 1303, priorities are set in descending order of the count number. At that time, attention is paid to the highest priority category and the second and third combinations, and the relatedness from the category relevance table 209. Get a high category ID. Next, in step 1304, distribution information is set from the distribution information-category table for the category ID having a high degree of relevance. In step 1305, the distribution information of the category ID having a high degree of relevance is set at the specific position or the final position of the mail sentence. To create a sentence.
In this way, distribution information reflected in the user's preferences is sent, and at the same time, information on a category having a high degree of association is incorporated and distributed.
[0029]
(7) Program and its recording medium
After converting each step of the flow shown in FIG. 13 into a program, if the program is stored in a recording medium such as a CD-ROM, the recording medium is stored in a computer for creating mail text or an arbitrary computer of a processing server. The present invention can be easily realized by installing and installing a program from a recording medium or downloading it to another computer via a network.
[0030]
【The invention's effect】
As described above, according to the present invention, a recipient of a mail sent from an information transmission site can quickly find information necessary for the recipient. For this purpose, the user does not need to set his / her preferences on the screen or by e-mail or the like, and can automatically receive distribution information that matches each user's preferences.
[Brief description of the drawings]
FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a mail delivery system using Web access analysis according to an embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 2 is a table structure diagram of a recording database in FIG.
3 is a diagram showing storage information of a category table in FIG. 2. FIG.
4 is a diagram showing storage information of a content table in FIG. 2. FIG.
5 is a diagram showing storage information in a distribution information table in FIG.
6 is a diagram showing storage information of a content-category table in FIG. 2. FIG.
7 is a diagram showing storage information in the distribution information-category table in FIG. 2. FIG.
8 is a diagram showing stored information in a user information table in FIG.
9 is a diagram showing storage information in the access record table in FIG.
FIG. 10 is a flowchart of a personal authentication function in the present invention.
FIG. 11 is a flowchart of an access recording function in the present invention.
FIG. 12 is a flowchart of a distribution information registration function in the present invention.
FIG. 13 is a flowchart of a mail text creation function showing an embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 14 is an explanatory diagram of a mail delivery method using Web access analysis showing an application example of the present invention.
[Explanation of symbols]
DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 101 ... User client, 102 ... Web browser, 103 ... Mailer, 104 ... Internet, 105 ... Web server, 106 ... Personal authentication,
107 ... content 108 ... processing server 109 ... authentication function
110 ... access recording function, 111 ... recording database,
112 ... Distribution information registration client, 113 ... Distribution information registration function,
114 ... mail delivery function, 115 ... mail text creation function,
201 ... recording database, 202 ... user information table,
203 ... access record table, 204 ... category table,
205 ... content table, 206 ... content-category table,
207 ... distribution information table, 208 ... distribution information-category table,
301 ... category table, 401 ... content table,
501 ... Distribution information table, 601 ... Content-category table,
701: Distribution information-category table, 801 ... User information table,
901 ... Access record table, 209 ... Category relevance table,
211, 212 ... category ID, 213 ... relevance.

Claims (3)

In an e-mail delivery service method using web access analysis,
The processor accesses an access recording means for recording access, reads a list of contents accessed by the user who requested distribution from the access recording means,
Next, the processor accesses the content category recording means, reads the category ID to which each content read as a category from the recording means belongs,
For each category ID read, the processor counts the number of contents belonging to the category ID, and sets the highest priority category and the second and third categories when setting the priority on the storage unit in descending order of the count number. Paying attention to the second combination , access the category relevance storage means indicating the relevance of the category, read the category ID having a high relevance from the storage means,
The processor accesses the distribution information / category recording means for the category ID having a high degree of association, sets the distribution information on the recording means,
The processor arranges the distribution information on the storage means in order from the top of the mail text according to the priority order of the distribution information, and creates the mail text in the storage means at a predetermined position or the final position of the mail text. A mail delivery method using Web access analysis, characterized in that distribution information of a category ID having a high degree of association is arranged to create and write a sentence. Personal authentication means for performing personal authentication in response to a request from a Web server, access recording means for recording information of Web content accessed for each user in a database, and distribution information in which a category or the like is defined by a request from a distribution information registration client The distribution information registration means to be registered in the system, when the number of accesses for each category accessed by the user is counted based on the access record information recorded in the access record means, and the priority order is set on the storage means in descending order of the count number In addition, paying attention to the highest priority category and the combination of the second and the third, the category relevance storage means indicating the relevance level of the category is read from the category relevance storage means, and the category ID having the high relevance degree is read. Distribution information setting means for setting distribution information on distribution information / category recording means, distribution According to the priority order of the information, the distribution information is arranged on the storage means in order from the head of the mail text, and when the mail text is created by the storage means, the degree of relevance is high at a predetermined position or the final position of the mail text. Arranged distribution information of category IDs to create and write a text, and to write a mail text, and a mail delivery means for delivering the mail text created by the mail text creation means to each user terminal A mail delivery apparatus using Web access analysis characterized by the above.   A program for web access analysis and mail delivery for causing a computer to execute the procedure of the mail delivery method using web access analysis according to claim 1.

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