Abstract:
A system provides client access to customized news content. The system includes a custom news source server and a news search server. The custom news source server periodically sends one or more customized search queries to a news search server. The news search server fetches news content from multiple news source servers and aggregates the news content. The news search server also periodically receives the one or more search queries from the custom news source server, searches the aggregated news content based on the one or more search queries, and periodically provides selected news content to the custom news server based on results of the searches. The custom news source server permits access to clients, from across a network, to the selected news content provided by the news search server.

Description:
RELATED APPLICATION 
     The present application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/748,661, filed Dec. 31, 2003, which relates to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/748,663, filed Dec. 31, 2003, the disclosures of which are incorporated by reference herein in their entirety. 
    
    
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     1. Field of the Invention 
     The present invention relates generally to information aggregation systems and, more particularly, to systems and methods for hosting customized news content aggregated by a news aggregation service. 
     2. Description of Related Art 
     Existing news aggregation services (e.g., Google News) search out, and aggregate, news content published on web pages throughout the Internet. In response to a search query from a user, or when a user browses a newspaper section of the news aggregation service, the news aggregation service presents a list of stories, from the aggregated news content, relevant to the query or to the newspaper section requested, with each story involving a group of articles from different publications dealing with the same topic. To keep abreast of developments in the news, users must manually access the news aggregation service, re-enter a search query and view relevant news stories. 
     Accordingly, it would be desirable to implement a news browsing service that automatically provides news content to a customer based on received customer search criteria. 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     Systems and methods, consistent with the principles of the invention, implement a news browsing service that may use search queries, received from a remote server that stores custom news documents, to automatically, and periodically, provide custom news content retrieved from a server that aggregates news content to the remote server. The custom news content may then be hosted at the remote server and accessed by various users. A customer associated with the remote server may customize the content and format of the custom news page. 
     According to one aspect consistent with the principles of the invention, a method of retrieving news content from a news aggregation server includes hosting first news content at a first news server and receiving user input selecting news content of the first news content. The method further includes sending query data, associated with the selected news content, to the news aggregation server and receiving second news content from the news aggregation server resulting from a search performed at the news aggregation server using the query data. The method also includes hosting the second news content, in conjunction with the first news content, at the first news server. 
     According to another aspect, a method of creating custom news documents includes periodically producing one or more custom search queries related to news of interest and sending the one or more search queries at periodic intervals across a network to a news search server that aggregates news from multiple news sources. The method further includes receiving news content corresponding to the one or more search queries from the news search server and inserting the news content into the custom news documents. The method also includes permitting access to clients, from across the network, to the custom news documents. 
     According to a further aspect, a method of providing news content to an external server that hosts customized news content includes fetching news content from multiple news source servers and aggregating the news content. The method further includes periodically receiving one or more search queries from the external server and searching the aggregated news content based on the one or more search queries. The method also includes periodically providing news content to the external server based, at least in part, on results of the searches. 
     According to yet another aspect, a method of retrieving news content from a news server includes permitting client access to first news content contained in one or more news documents stored at a custom document server and sending query data to the news server based, at least in part, on a portion of the first news content that is accessed by the client. The method further includes receiving second news content from the news server based, at least in part, on the query data and incorporating the second news content into the one or more news documents. The method also includes permitting client access to the second news content at the custom document server. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
       The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification, illustrate an embodiment of the invention and, together with the description, explain the invention. In the drawings, 
         FIG. 1  is a diagram of an exemplary network in which systems and methods consistent with the principles of the invention may be implemented; 
         FIG. 2  is an exemplary diagram of a client and/or server of  FIG. 1  in an implementation consistent with the principles of the invention; 
         FIGS. 3A ,  3 B and  3 C are flowcharts of exemplary processing for hosting a custom news page at a news search server according to an implementation consistent with the principles of the invention; 
         FIG. 4  is a flowchart of exemplary processing for hosting a custom news page at a custom news server according to an implementation consistent with the principles of the invention; 
         FIGS. 5A and 5B  are flowcharts of exemplary processing for custom news server related news retrieval according to an implementation consistent with the principles of the invention; 
         FIG. 6  is a diagram of an exemplary news aggregation search page according to an implementation consistent with the principles of the invention; and 
         FIG. 7  is a diagram of an exemplary custom news page according to an implementation consistent with the principles of the invention. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
     The following detailed description of the invention refers to the accompanying drawings. The same reference numbers in different drawings may identify the same or similar elements. Also, the following detailed description does not limit the invention. 
     Systems and methods consistent with the principles of the invention implement a news browsing service that uses customer provided search queries to automatically, and periodically, provide news content from news aggregated at a news aggregation server to one or more custom news documents hosted by the customer at a custom news server. The customer may customize the content and format of the one or more custom news documents and permit access to the custom news document to networked clients. 
     A “document,” as the term is used herein, is to be broadly interpreted to include any machine-readable and machine-storable work product. A document may include an e-mail, a web site, a file, a combination of files, one or more files with embedded links to other files, a news group posting, a blog, a web advertisement, etc. In the context of the Internet, a common document is a web page. Web pages often include textual information and may include embedded information (such as meta information, images, hyperlinks, etc.) and/or embedded instructions (such as Javascript, etc.). 
     Exemplary Network Configuration 
       FIG. 1  is an exemplary diagram of a network  100  in which systems and methods consistent with the principles of the invention may be implemented. Network  100  may include multiple clients  110  connected to multiple servers  120 - 140  via a network  150 . Network  150  may include a local area network (LAN), a wide area network (WAN), a telephone network, such as the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), an intranet, the Internet, a memory device, another type of network, or a combination of networks. Two clients  110  and three servers  120 - 140  have been illustrated as connected to network  150  for simplicity. In practice, there may be more or fewer clients and servers. Also, in some instances, a client may perform the functions of a server and a server may perform the functions of a client. 
     Clients  110  may include client entities. An entity may be defined as a device, such as a wireless telephone, a personal computer, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a laptop, or another type of computation or communication device, a thread or process running on one of these devices, and/or an object executable by one of these devices. Servers  120 - 140  may include server entities that gather, process, search, and/or maintain documents in a manner consistent with the principles of the invention. Clients  110  and servers  120 - 140  may connect to network  150  via wired, wireless, and/or optical connections. 
     In an implementation consistent with the principles of the invention, news search server  120  may include a search engine  125  usable by customers at custom news server(s)  140  and users at clients  110 . News search server  120  may implement a news aggregation service by crawling a corpus of news documents (e.g., web pages) hosted on news source server(s)  130  and store information associated with these news documents in a repository of crawled documents. Server(s)  130  may store or maintain news documents that may be crawled by server  120 . Such news documents may include recently published news stories, or older (i.e., not recent), archived news stories. Custom news server(s)  140  may offer a news browsing service that hosts news documents that include customized news content received from news search server  120 . Custom news server(s)  140  may additionally host news documents that include news content prepared by an entity operating custom news server(s)  140 . The news content hosted at custom news server(s)  140  may be customized in accordance with custom search queries provided to news search server  120 . In some implementations, news search server  120  may host news content documents that include news content customized in accordance with custom search queries provided to news search server  120  from custom news server(s)  140 . An entity operating custom news server(s)  140  may, thus, act as a “customer” of the news aggregation service implemented on news search server  120 . Users associated with clients  110  may access, via network  150 , custom news content stored at custom news server(s)  140 . 
     While servers  120 - 140  are shown as separate entities, it may be possible for one or more of servers  120 - 140  to perform one or more of the functions of another one or more of servers  120 - 140 . For example, it may be possible that two or more of servers  120 - 140  are implemented as a single server. It may also be possible for a single one of servers  120 - 140  to be implemented as two or more separate (and possibly distributed) devices. 
     Exemplary Client/Server Architecture 
       FIG. 2  is an exemplary diagram of a client or server entity (hereinafter called “client/server entity”), which may correspond to one or more of clients  110  and servers  120 - 140 , according to an implementation consistent with the principles of the invention. The client/server entity may include a bus  210 , a processor  220 , a main memory  230 , a read only memory (ROM)  240 , a storage device  250 , one or more input devices  260 , one or more output devices  270 , and a communication interface  280 . Bus  210  may include one or more conductors that permit communication among the components of the client/server entity. 
     Processor  220  may include one or more types of conventional processors or microprocessors that interpret and execute instructions. Main memory  230  may include a random access memory (RAM) or another type of dynamic storage device that stores information and instructions for execution by processor  220 . ROM  240  may include a conventional ROM device or another type of static storage device that stores static information and instructions for use by processor  220 . Storage device  250  may include a magnetic and/or optical recording medium and its corresponding drive. 
     Input device(s)  260  may include one or more conventional mechanisms that permit an operator to input information to the client/server entity, such as a keyboard, a mouse, a pen, voice recognition and/or biometric mechanisms, etc. Output device(s)  270  may include one or more conventional mechanisms that output information to the operator, including a display, a printer, a speaker, etc. Communication interface  280  may include any transceiver-like mechanism that enables the client/server entity to communicate with other devices and/or systems. For example, communication interface  280  may include mechanisms for communicating with another device or system via a network, such as network  150 . 
     As will be described in detail below, the client/server entity, consistent with the principles of the invention, perform certain searching-related operations. The client/server entity may perform these operations in response to processor  220  executing software instructions contained in a computer-readable medium, such as memory  230 . A computer-readable medium may be defined as one or more physical or logical memory devices and/or carrier waves. 
     The software instructions may be read into memory  230  from another computer-readable medium, such as data storage device  250 , or from another device via communication interface  280 . The software instructions contained in memory  230  may cause processor  220  to perform processes that will be described later. Alternatively, hardwired circuitry may be used in place of or in combination with software instructions to implement processes consistent with the principles of the invention. Thus, implementations consistent with the principles of the invention are not limited to any specific combination of hardware circuitry and software. 
     Exemplary Processing for Hosting Custom News Page at News Search Server 
       FIGS. 3A ,  3 B and  3 C are flowcharts of exemplary processing for hosting a customer&#39;s customized news content at news search server  120  according to an implementation consistent with the principles of the invention. In this implementation, news search server  120  may locally store and maintain news content for an external entity, associated with custom news server  140 , according to search queries provided by the external entity. 
     Processing may begin with news search server  120  accessing external news content (e.g., from server  130 ), fetching the news content and aggregating the fetched news content in a local memory (act  305 )( FIG. 3A ). For example, server  120  may use a news crawler (e.g., web robot) that may access news content documents hosted by news source server(s)  130 . News source server(s)  130  may host, for example, news content from the Washington Post, the New York Times, or other news content sites. The fetched news content may then be indexed and grouped, using conventional indexing and grouping techniques (act  310 ). 
     Server  120  may receive one or more search queries from a custom news server  140  (e.g., the “customer”) (act  315 ). A number of forms of search queries may be supported by server  120 , including the following search query forms: (a) one or more keywords (e.g., ‘bush,’ bush iraq,’ etc.); (b) topical categories (e.g., ‘topic=sports,’ ‘topic=sport—basketball’; (c) geographical categories (e.g., ‘geo=usa,’ ‘geo=north america,’ ‘geo=china’); and/or (d) combinations of the above (e.g., ‘tennis topic=sports’, geo=europe’). For example, a personal “wireless” news section can be seeded with two queries: ‘wireless topic=science’ and ‘cell phone topic=technology.’ An operator of custom news server  140  may compensate an operator of news search server  120  for hosting news content at news search server  120  according to the one or more received search queries. In one implementation, the operator of news search server  120  may be compensated by hosting, and monetizing, advertisements received from the operator of custom news server  140 . 
     Server  120  may determine whether a user, associated with a client  110 , has selected the customer&#39;s news page hosted at server  120  (act  320 ). For example, as shown in  FIG. 6 , a user may “click” on the “Custom News” button  605  of a news search page  600  of a news aggregation service associated with server  120 . If the user has selected the customer&#39;s news page, server  120  may then execute one or more queries associated with one or more news sections of the customer&#39;s custom news page (act  325 )( FIG. 3B ). Server  120  may execute the one or more search queries to search through news content previously aggregated in local memory. Server  120  may then provide a custom news page to the user (act  330 ) by sending one or more documents to the user containing the customer&#39;s custom news page. The one or more documents may additionally include content authored by an operator (e.g., a “blog”) of custom news server  140  and previously provided to news search server  120 . The customer&#39;s custom news page may be formatted similar to a human-compiled newspaper, with a title, short introduction, related story titles, data, photo, etc. By way of example,  FIG. 7  illustrates a personal news page  700  that includes two news sections  705  and  710 , “California News” and “World News,” respectively. The customer&#39;s custom news page may additionally be used to produce a similarly configured print newspaper in a viewable or hard copy format. For example, a postscript or pdf file may be produced that is portable for viewing and ready to print for offline reading. In one implementation, the layout of the print newspaper may be separately specified from the custom news page hosted on server  120 . 
     Server  120  may determine whether the customer desires to customize its custom news page (act  335 ). If not, processing may continue at act  345 . If the customer does desire to customize its custom news page, then server  120  may receive input from the customer to customize the customer&#39;s custom news page (act  345 )( FIG. 3C ). An interactive program (known as a Wizard) may execute at server  120 , or at customer news server  140 , to walk the customer through the process of adding news sections, placing them appropriately, and customizing their look and feel. 
     Customers can customize their custom news page in many ways, including the following: (a) adding a new section seeded with new queries; (b) changing the appearance or location of a news section or the queries associated with a news section; (c) moving news sections around (e.g., from top left of news page to bottom right, from 2 columns to 1 column layout, etc.); (d) deleting a news section; (e) changing display properties for news within a news section (e.g., deciding how many stories the news section should have, how many related titles within a story, whether images should be shown, etc.); and (f) changing ranking properties within a news section. When changing ranking properties within a news section, the customer may decide how freshness of the news content should be valued, such as, for example, sorting news content by time, by importance, or by some combination, or by providing hints for ranking certain types of stories above other stories. Additionally, the customer may indicate that a certain kind of news source (e.g., New York Times, sources in USA, etc.) may be preferred or not preferred. Also, the customer may provide general keywords that are of interest to the user (e.g., San Francisco) and stories with these keywords should be boosted. Further, the customer can list journalists they like or do not like or genres they like or do not like (e.g., opinion/commentary vs. breaking news vs. briefs vs. full coverage). Those skilled in the art can devise user interfaces that allow such preferences to be expressed either in the context of one particular news section, or all sections together. 
     Server  120  may access external news content (e.g., from server  130 ), fetch updated news content and aggregate the updated news content in local memory (act  345 ). For example, server  120  may use a news crawler (e.g., web robot) that may access updated news content documents hosted by news source server(s)  130 . The fetched updated news content may be indexed and grouped, using conventional indexing and grouping techniques (act  350 ). Server  120  may then, periodically, execute a query(ies) associated with one or more news sections of the customer&#39;s custom news page (act  355 ). Processing may then return to act  320  ( FIG. 3A ) to determine if a user has again selected the customer&#39;s custom news page to view updated, customized news content. 
     Exemplary Processing for Hosting Custom News Page at Custom News Server 
       FIG. 4  is a flowchart of exemplary processing for receiving customized news content from news search server  120  and hosting the news content at custom news server  140  according to an implementation consistent with the principles of the invention. In this implementation, custom news server  140  may locally store news content received from news search server  120  based on search queries provided by custom news server  140  to news search server  120 . 
     Processing may begin with custom news server  140  producing one or more search queries associated with one or more news sections (act  405 )( FIG. 4 ). The produced search queries may be related to news content that an operator of customer news server  140  desires to host on custom news server  140 . Custom news server  140  may then send the one or more queries to news search server  120  via, for example, network  150  (act  410 ). News search server  120 , upon receipt of the one or more queries, may execute conventional search algorithms using the one or more queries to retrieve relevant news content from aggregated news content stored in local memory. News search server  120  may send the relevant news content to custom news server  140  via network  150 . 
     Custom news server  140  may then receive relevant news content resulting from an executed search of the one or more queries performed at news search server  120  (act  415 ). Custom news server  140  may populate locally stored news sections with the news content received from news search server  120  (act  420 ). The customer associated with custom news server  140  may, thus, create its own “on-line” newspaper by combining external news which may come from a set of dynamic queries executed at news search server  120  with news content created locally at custom news server  140 . Such locally created news content may include, for example, an editorial section that may be maintained using “blogging” technology. 
     The exemplary processing of  FIG. 4  may be repeated periodically such that news content may be retrieved from news search server  120  using dynamic search queries to periodically update news content hosted on custom news server  140 . 
     Exemplary Processing for Custom News Server Related News Retrieval 
       FIGS. 5A and 5B  are flowcharts of exemplary processing for retrieving news, related to news content locally stored at the custom news server  140 , from news search server  120  according to an implementation consistent with the principles of the invention. In the implementation described with respect to  FIGS. 5A and 5B , a customer associated with custom news server  140  may link all or some of its locally created news content with related news stored at news search server  120 . When a user selects a link on a custom news page of custom news server  140 , a search may be executed at news search server  120  to retrieve relevant, related news content that can be provided to the user. 
     Processing may begin with custom news server  140  optionally embedding search queries in selected locations of news content documents stored at custom news server  140  (act  505 ). For example, HTML Iframes may be used at custom news server  140  to load one or more dynamic news queries. Custom news server  140  may then determine if a user, associated with a client  110 , has selected news content stored at custom news server  140  (act  510 ). If so, custom news server  140  may send query data to the client  110  associated with the user (act  515 ). The query data may include embedded search queries that may, in turn, be provided by client  110  to new search server  120 . In some implementations, the embedded search queries may be in the form of an “applet” or an “iframe.” News search server  120  may execute a conventional search technique using the search queries received from client  110  to retrieve relevant news content from aggregated news content stored in local memory. News search server  120  may then return the retrieved news content to client  110 . 
     In an alternative implementation, if the user has selected news content stored at custom news server  140 , custom news server  140  may send query data to news search server  120  (act  520 ). The query data may include search queries that were embedded within the news content selected by the user. The query data may also include the Uniform Resource Locator (URL), or some of the text, of the news document hosted at custom news server  140 . Subsequent to receiving the query data, news search server  120  may execute a conventional search technique using the query data to retrieve relevant news content from aggregated news content stored in local memory and return the retrieved news content to custom news server  140 . 
     In one implementation, based on the URL received from custom news server  140 , news search server  120  may fetch the news document corresponding to the URL hosted at custom news server  140  and an appropriate query, based on keywords of the news document, can be generated that can be executed by search engine  125  to find related news content. In another implementation, a suitable query can be devised, based on text given to news search server  120 , which can be executed by search engine  125  to retrieve related news content. In a further implementation, search engine  125  can provide a ranked list of other news content accessed by users who accessed the URL sent from custom news server  140 . In yet another implementation, given a URL from custom news server  140 , search engine  125  may locate a group of related news content to which the given URL belongs. For example, based on a previous grouping of all news searched on the “web,” news search engine  125  may already have created groups of related news content. Based on this previous grouping, search engine  125  may determine the group of related news content with which the given URL has been grouped. The remaining news content in this group may then be returned to custom news server  140 . 
     Custom news server  140  may then receive relevant news content resulting from the executed search performed at news search server  120  using the query data (act  525 ). Custom news server  140  may populate news sections of locally stored news documents with relevant news content received from news search server  120  (act  530 )( FIG. 5B ). 
     CONCLUSION 
     Systems and methods consistent with the principles of the invention may use received customer search criteria to automatically, and periodically, provide custom news content to a remote custom news server. The custom news content may, at the custom news server, be integrated with local news content and provided to clients who desire to access the news content via the custom news server. 
     The foregoing description of preferred embodiments of the present invention provides illustration and description, but is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the invention to the precise form disclosed. Modifications and variations are possible in light of the above teachings or may be acquired from practice of the invention. For example, while series of acts have been described with regard to  FIGS. 3A ,  3 B,  3 C,  4 ,  5 A and  5 B, the order of the acts may be modified in other implementations consistent with the principles of the invention. Also, non-dependent acts may be performed in parallel. 
     As one skilled in the art will appreciate, the processing exemplified by  FIGS. 3A ,  3 B,  3 C,  4 ,  5 A and  5 B can be implemented in software and stored on a computer-readable memory, such as main memory  230 , ROM  240  or storage device  250  of server  120  or server  140 , as appropriate. Alternatively, the processing exemplified by  FIGS. 3A ,  3 B,  3 C,  4 ,  5 A and  5 B can be implemented in hardwired circuitry, such as combinational logic, within server  120  or server  140 , as appropriate. It will also be apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art that aspects of the invention, as described above, may be implemented in many different forms of software, firmware, and hardware in the implementations illustrated in the figures. The actual software code or specialized control hardware used to implement aspects consistent with the principles of the invention is not limiting of the present invention. Thus, the operation and behavior of the aspects of the invention were described without reference to the specific software code—it being understood that one of ordinary skill in the art would be able to design software and control hardware to implement the aspects based on the description herein.