Abstract:
The invention provides a method of creating contextual titles for web pages or documents. The method includes the extracting of phrases from a web page or document. The phrases are evaluated for use as contextual titles for the web page or document. The contextual title is utilized to access the web page or document by users.

Description:
BACKGROUND  
       [0001]     Web pages on the World Wide Web are becoming more complex to accommodate rapidly growing information needs. For example, many web browsers contain a variety of information such as headline news, sports scores, market information, shopping information, and entertainment news. In addition, users during the course of typical web browsing may open multiple web browser screens to view multiple different web pages.  
         [0002]     The use of a tab web browser enables a user to more efficiently display multiple web pages. A tab web browser allows a user to switch between multiple web pages in a single window. Additionally, a tab web browser may also allow for faster web page viewing as users may not have to wait for web pages to open as the tab browser may already have the web pages available for viewing as one of the displayed tabs.  
         [0003]     For example,  FIG. 2  illustrates a tab web browser  200  which assists users in viewing several web pages at the same time. The tab web browser of  FIG. 2  illustrates various web pages such as “Webmail Direct”  202 , “CNN.com”  204 , and “DallasNews.com”  206 .  
         [0004]     As a user opens additional web pages, the tabs displaying information related to each web page become smaller to allow additional accessed web pages to be displayed in the display area  208 .  
         [0005]     Tab web browsers, however, may only display a limited amount of information on the tab  210  for each web page. As a user opens multiple web pages using a tab browser, the tabs  210  for each web page become smaller and only a limited amount of information may be displayed on tab  210 . The title for each tab  210  is important as the title information describes the represented web page to the user and allows a user to decide if they are interested in viewing the content of the web page.  
         [0006]     Thus, it would be advancement in the art to provide a method in which the tabs of a tab web browser contain useful information concerning the content of the underling web page. Furthermore, the method should be transparent to a user and be useable on numerous types of documents with a minimal amount of effort.  
       SUMMARY  
       [0007]     The invention includes creation of contextual titles for web pages or other types of documents. The contextual titles provide meaningful titles for users based upon semantic content of the source document. The created contextual titles contain a limited amount of words to summarize contents of web pages or documents. The contextual titles may be utilized on tabs of a tab browser to provide concise and useful information to users. 
     
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
       [0008]     A more complete understanding of the present invention and the advantages thereof may be acquired by referring to the following description in consideration of the accompanying drawings, in which like reference numbers indicate like features, and wherein:  
         [0009]      FIG. 1  illustrates an example of a suitable computing system environment on which the invention may be implemented.  
         [0010]      FIG. 2  illustrates a tab web browser displaying various web pages.  
         [0011]      FIG. 3  illustrates a tab web browser displaying various web pages and a custom user&#39;s home page in accordance with an aspect of the invention.  
         [0012]      FIG. 4  illustrates a method of creating a contextual title in accordance with an aspect of the invention.  
         [0013]      FIGS. 5 and 6  illustrate an exemplary contextual title creation from a web page or document in accordance with a first aspect of the invention.  
         [0014]      FIG. 7  illustrates another form of contextual title creation from a web page or document in accordance with another aspect of the invention.  
         [0015]      FIG. 8  illustrates a further form of contextual title creation in accordance with an aspect of the invention.  
         [0016]      FIG. 9  illustrates an additional form of contextual title creation in accordance with a further aspect of the invention. 
     
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION  
       [0017]      FIG. 1  illustrates an example of a suitable computing system environment  100  on which the invention may be implemented. Computing system environment  100  is only one example of a suitable computing environment and is not intended to suggest any limitation as to the scope of use or functionality of the invention. Neither should the computing environment  100  be interpreted as having any dependency or requirement relating to any one or combination of components illustrated in the exemplary operating environment  100 .  
         [0018]     With reference to  FIG. 1 , an exemplary system for implementing the invention includes a general purpose computing device in the form of a computer  110 . Components of computer  110  may include, but are not limited to, a processing unit  120 , a system memory  130 , and a system bus  121  that couples various system components including the system memory to the processing unit  120 . The system bus  121  may be any of several types of bus structures including a memory bus or memory controller, a peripheral bus, and a local bus using any of a variety of bus architectures. By way of example, and not limitation, such architectures include Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) bus, Micro Channel Architecture (MCA) bus, Enhanced ISA (EISA) bus, Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) local bus, and Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus also known as Mezzanine bus.  
         [0019]     Computer  110  typically includes a variety of computer readable media. Computer readable media can be any available media that can be accessed by computer  110  and includes both volatile and nonvolatile media, removable and non-removable media. By way of example, and not limitation, computer readable media may comprise computer storage media and communication media. Computer storage media include volatile and nonvolatile, removable and non-removable media implemented in any method or technology for storage of information such as computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules or other data. Computer storage media includes, but is not limited to, RAM, ROM, EPROM, flash memory or other memory technology, CD-ROM, digital versatile disks (DVD) or other optical disk storage, magnetic cassettes, magnetic tape, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices, or any other medium which can be used to store the desired information and which can accessed by computer  110 . Communication media typically embodies computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules or other data in a modulated data signal such as a carrier wave or other transport mechanism and includes any information delivery media. The term “modulated data signal” means a signal that has one or more of its characteristics set or changed in such a manner as to encode information in the signal. By way of example, and not limitation, communication media includes wired media such as a wired network or direct-wired connection, and wireless media such as acoustic, RF, infrared and other wireless media. Combinations of any of the above should also be included within the scope of computer readable media.  
         [0020]     The system memory  130  includes computer storage media in the form of volatile and/or nonvolatile memory such as read only memory (ROM)  131  and random access memory (RAM)  132 . A basic input/output system  133  (BIOS), containing the basic routines that help to transfer information between elements within computer  110 , such as during start-up, is typically stored in ROM  131 . RAM  132  typically contains data and/or program modules that are immediately accessible to and/or presently being operated on by processing unit  120 . By way of example, and not limitation,  FIG. 1  illustrates operating system  134 , application programs  135 , other program modules  136 , and program data  137 .  
         [0021]     The computer  110  may also include other removable/non-removable, volatile/nonvolatile computer storage media. By way of example only,  FIG. 1  illustrates a hard disk drive  140  that reads from or writes to non-removable, nonvolatile magnetic media, a magnetic disk drive  151  that reads from or writes to a removable, nonvolatile magnetic disk  152 , and an optical disk drive  155  that reads from or writes to a removable, nonvolatile optical disk  156  such as a CD ROM or other optical media. Other removable/non-removable, volatile/nonvolatile computer storage media that can be used in the exemplary operating environment include, but are not limited to, magnetic tape cassettes, flash memory cards, digital versatile disks, digital video tape, solid state RAM, solid state ROM, and the like. The hard disk drive  141  is typically connected to the system bus  121  through a non-removable memory interface such as interface  140 , and magnetic disk drive  151  and optical disk drive  155  are typically connected to the system bus  121  by a removable memory interface, such as interface  150 .  
         [0022]     The drives and their associated computer storage media discussed above and illustrated in  FIG. 1 , provide storage of computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules and other data for the computer  110 . In  FIG. 1 , for example, hard disk drive  141  is illustrated as storing operating system  144 , application programs  145 , other program modules  146 , and program data  147 . Note that these components can either be the same as or different from operating system  134 , application programs  135 , other program modules  136 , and program data  137 . Operating system  144 , application programs  145 , other program modules  146 , and program data  147  are given different numbers here to illustrate that, at a minimum, they are different copies. A user may enter commands and information into the computer  110  through input devices such as a keyboard  162  and wireless pointing device  161 , commonly referred to as a mouse, trackball or touch pad. Other input devices (not shown) may include a microphone, joystick, game pad, satellite dish, scanner, or the like. These and other input devices are often connected to the processing unit  120  through a user input interface  160  that is coupled to the system bus, but may be connected by other interface and bus structures, such as a parallel port, game port or a universal serial bus (USB). A monitor  191  or other type of display device is also connected to the system bus  121  via an interface, such as a video interface  190 . In addition to the monitor, computers may also include other peripheral output devices such as speakers  197  and printer  196 , which may be connected through an output peripheral interface  190 .  
         [0023]     The computer  110  may operate in a networked environment using logical connections to one or more remote computers, such as a remote computer  180 . The remote computer  180  may be a personal computer, a server, a router, a network PC, a peer device or other common network node, and typically includes many or all of the elements described above relative to the computer  110 , although only a memory storage device  181  has been illustrated in  FIG. 1 . The logical connections depicted in  FIG. 1  include a local area network (LAN)  171  and a wide area network (WAN)  173 , but may also include other networks. Such networking environments are commonplace in offices, enterprise-wide computer networks, intranets and the Internet.  
         [0024]     When used in a LAN networking environment, the computer  110  is connected to the LAN  171  through a network interface or adapter  170 . When used in a WAN networking environment, the computer  110  typically includes a modem  172  or other means for establishing communications over the WAN  173 , such as the Internet. The modem  172 , which may be internal or external, may be connected to the system bus  121  via the user input interface  160 , or other appropriate mechanism. In a networked environment, program modules depicted relative to the computer  110 , or portions thereof, may be stored in the remote memory storage device. By way of example, and not limitation,  FIG. 1  illustrates remote application programs  185  as residing on memory device  181 . It will be appreciated that the network connections shown are exemplary and other means of establishing a communications link between the computers may be used. A peripheral interface  195  may interface to a video input device such as a scanner (not shown) or a digital camera  194 , where output peripheral interface may support a standardized interface, including a universal serial bus (USB) interface.  
         [0025]     The invention is operational with numerous other general purpose or special purpose computing system environments or configurations. Examples of well known computing systems, environments, and/or configurations that may be suitable for use with the invention include, but are not limited to, personal computers, server computers, hand-held or laptop devices, multiprocessor systems, microprocessor-based systems, set top boxes, programmable consumer electronics, network PCs, minicomputers, mainframe computers, distributed computing environments that include any of the above systems or devices, and the like.  
         [0026]     The invention may be described in the general context of computer-executable instructions, such as program modules, being executed by a computer. Generally, program modules include routines, programs, objects, components, data structures, etc. that performs particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types. The invention may also be practiced in distributed computing environments where tasks are performed by remote processing devices that are linked through a communications network. In a distributed computing environment, program modules may be located in both local and remote computer storage media including memory storage devices.  
         [0027]      FIG. 3  illustrates a tab browser displaying various web pages and a user&#39;s custom web page in accordance with an aspect of the invention. In  FIG. 3 , a tab web browser  300  is utilized to display the various web pages and content. The tab browser  300  may display various web pages such as “Yahoo.com”  304 , “ESPNstar.com”  306 , “phoenixtv.com”  308 , “cnn.com”  310 , “The New York Times.com”  312 , and “sina.com”  314 . Those skilled in the art will realize that numerous other web pages may be displayed on tab browser  300  and those shown in  FIG. 3  are meant to be exemplary. The web pages may be composed using hypertext mark-up language and/or an extensible markup language such as XML. Those skilled in the art will realize that other additional computer languages may be utilized in the creation of web pages.  
         [0028]     As the number of opened web pages increases, the tabs representing each web page become smaller in order to view as many tabs as possible within the display area. Each instance of an additional web page being added to the tab browser may make it more difficult for a user to remember what content is being displayed on the various web pages. For example, tab  316  may display a web page representing a user&#39;s home page such as web page  318 . The tab representing the user&#39;s home page may be named “Microsoft IE”  320 . The title of the “Microsoft IE”  320  web page contains two words; however, titles of numerous other web pages contain numerous words which are not suitable for display on a tab of a tab browser due to limited display space. In addition, many titles used for tabs on a tab browser do not utilize titles having contextual content representing the web page. The use of a title having contextual content may assist a user in quickly determining the content of the web page without having to view or read the contents of the web page.  
         [0029]      FIG. 4  shows an illustrative method for creating a contextual title for a web page or document. Referring to  FIG. 4 , a user identifies information such as a web page to be displayed by the user. The web page may be accessed by a tab web browser through the URL of the web page. For example, a user interested in headline news may be interested in viewing headline news as reported by CNN. The user may decide to access CNN&#39;s website through the user&#39;s tab web browser. In step  402 , preprocessing of the selected web page may be completed prior to key phrase extraction. For example, preprocessing may include filtering of stop words or the conversion of capital letters to lowercase letters. The preprocessing may include removing the HTML tags in order to obtain pure text content. In addition, preprocessing may include tokenizing the pure text into separate words and removing stop words such as “a,” “the,” “to.” Finally, prepossessing may also include stemming to normalize words with same meaning (e.g. trimming the -s, -ing, -ed).  
         [0030]     Next, in step  404  key phrase extraction from the web page or document may be initiated. The key phrase extraction may be executed on page content, URL, and/or title of the web page or document. Key phrase extraction may be based on frequency of a cited word or phrase being utilized in the web page or document.  
         [0031]     Furthermore, in step  406  the extracted key phrases may be utilized to create a contextual title. The contextual title may be displayed on the tabs of the tab web browser for the represented web page or document.  FIGS. 5-9  illustrate various embodiments of the invention to determine a contextual title for a web page or document. The order of the presented embodiments in  FIGS. 5-9  represent an order to determine which embodiments to use in case different results are obtained by various aspects of the invention. In one aspect of the invention, operations may be executed follows: 1) Extract important key phrases from title and page content; 2) Extract important key phrases from title combine with URL; 3) Extract important key phrases from URL combine with page content; 4) Extract important key phrase from page content; 5) Extract important key phrase from URL independently; and 6) Extract important key phrases from title. Each of the above listed six steps is optional. The more anterior operation may have a higher priority.  
         [0032]      FIGS. 5 and 6  illustrate exemplary contextual title creation from a web page or document in accordance with an aspect of the invention. In  FIG. 5 , a user&#39;s web page  500  is displayed on a tab web browser  505 . The title of the web page  500  may contain the user&#39;s name. For instance, the title of web page  500  may be “Zheng Chen&#39;s Home Page”  510 .  
         [0033]     In an aspect of the invention, key phrases are extracted from web page content and a web page title. Based on frequency, it may be determined that the words “Zheng Chen” are the most frequent words appearing in the page content or body of the web page  500 . In addition, the words “Zheng Chen” may also appear in the title of web page  500 . Based on the words being frequently used in the content and title of web page  500 , the words “Zheng Chen” may be selected as the contextual title for web page  500 .  FIG. 6  shows the contextual title of “Zheng Chen”  605  being displayed on a tab of the tab web browser.  
         [0034]      FIG. 7  illustrates another aspect of contextual title creation from a web page or document. In  FIG. 7 , a web page  700  is displayed on a tab web browser  705 . The web page  700  may comprise information on an education institution such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The title of the web page may be mit.edu  710  as shown on tab  715  in  FIG. 7 . In an aspect of the invention, key phrases are extracted from web page content and combined with the title of the web page.  
         [0035]     For example, based on frequency, it may be determined that the words “MIT” may be the most frequent words appearing in the page content or body of web page  700 . In addition, the words “MIT” may also appear in the title of the web page  700 . Based on the words being frequently used in the content and title of the web page  700 , the words “MIT” may be selected as the contextual title for web page  700 .  
         [0036]      FIG. 8  illustrates a further form of contextual title creation in accordance with an aspect of the invention. In  FIG. 8 , a web page  800  is displayed on a tab web browser  805 . The web page may comprise information from a user&#39;s personal home page. The web page  800  may not have a syntax title and instead use a default title such as “Microsoft.com”  810 . In an aspect of the invention, key phrases are extracted from web page content and combined with the URL of the web page.  
         [0037]     For example, based on frequency, it may be determined that the words “Jian Wang” may be the most frequent phrase appearing in the page content or body of web page  800 . In addition, the phrase “Jian Wang” may also appear in the URL of the web page  800 .  
         [0038]     Based on the phrase being frequently used in the content of web page  800  and in the URL of the web page  800 , the phrase “Jian Wang” may be determined as the contextual title of web page  800 . The contextual title “Jian Wang” may be displayed on a tab  815  of tab web browser  805 .  
         [0039]      FIG. 9  illustrates an additional form of contextual title creation in accordance with a further aspect of the invention. In  FIG. 9 , a web page  900  is displayed on a tab web browser  905 . The web page  900  may comprise information such as publications and abstracts of various articles or journals. The URL of web page  900  may not have a descriptive syntax title for use as a contractual title. In addition, web page  900  may have a URL which also does not contain and words or phrases which could represent the semantic content of web page  900 . However, based on the frequency of words or phrases used in the page content, a contextual title of “Data Clustering”  910  may be used to represent the semantic content of web page  900 .  
         [0040]     In a further aspect of the invention, a single word or words comprising a URL may be best suited for describing content of a web page or document. Under this embodiment, the contextual title may be based on the word or phrase contained in the URL.  
         [0041]     In another aspect of the invention, the most frequent words or words in a title may be used to describe the semantic content of a web page. This embodiment may be used as a default to determine a contextual title of a web page or document when the other above described embodiments do not produce a contextual title.  
         [0042]     While the invention has been described with respect to specific examples including presently preferred modes of carrying out the invention, those skilled in the art will appreciate that there are numerous variations and permutations of the above described systems and techniques that fall within the spirit and scope of the invention as set forth in the appended claims.