Patent Publication Number: US-2010115429-A1

Title: System for selecting and playing a user-specified content within a window of a web browser and programs therefor

Description:
TECHNICAL FIELD 
     This invention relates to a system for selecting one of contents on the basis of a user profile data and displaying the selected content within a window of a web browser, and to programs therefor. 
     BACKGROUND ART 
     Generally, target-specified or customer-specified advertisements may achieve a high advertising effectiveness as compared with non-specified advertisements such as advertisements for all people. For example, an advertisement that has contents selected on the basis of the age or the gender of a user is more effective for the user. Therefore, various methods and systems have been proposed in order to provide the target-specified advertisement. An example of the foregoing technique is disclosed in EP 0 887 743 A1, which is incorporated herein by reference. 
     The recent web browsers have functions extended by means of various plug-ins therefor, such as a Flash Player®, and are enabled to express more visual contents other than contents consisting of texts and still images. Advertisements with the improved expressiveness on a web browser have a high possibility that users are interested therein. If such plug-in based advertisements are target-specified, they have more effective, as mentioned above. Therefore, there is a need, especially by the business organizations, to use the improved expressiveness based on various plug-ins to provide target-specified advertisements on a user&#39;s web browser upon the user visits their internet site by his/her web browser. 
     DISCLOSURE OF INVENTION 
     One of known techniques for providing target-specified or personalized advertisement is to use cookie data. However, common use of cookie data over different domains is normally allowed and, even if it is allowed, is not preferable in system-security aspects. In order to use cookie data appropriately, target-specified advertisements based on suitably-used plug-ins should ask a user to input his/her information for every site. Such a user-imposed system will not be accepted by the user. 
     It is an object of the present invention to provide a system for selecting a content personalized for a user and displaying the selected content within a window of a web browser on his/her computer system. 
     One of plug-ins for web browsers such as Flash® plug-in is preliminarily implemented with a technique to realize an inter-file communication on a local machine such as “Local Connection.” By using the inter-file communication such as “Local Connection”, the present invention send a user profile data stored in a local storage to a file played by a plug-in to change, to a user-specified content, a content provided by the file played by the plug-in. 
     According to one aspect of the present invention, a system comprises a processor, a local storage storing a user profile, a content selector program executable by the processor, and a selection condition sender program executable by the processor. The content selector program is a predetermined file playable by a specific plug-in on a web browser and selects one of contents in accordance with a selection condition to display the selected content within a window of the web browser. The selection condition sender program is cooperable with the content selector program played by the specific plug-in, obtains the user profile from the local storage and sends the played content selector program the selection condition on the basis of the user profile data so as to lead the played content selector program to display the selected content in accordance with the user profile. 
     An appreciation of the objectives of the present invention and a more complete understanding of its structure may be had by studying the following description of the preferred embodiment and by referring to the accompanying drawings. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         FIG. 1  is a block diagram schematically showing a typical computer system in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention; 
         FIG. 2  is a diagram schematically showing a system for selecting and displaying a content within a window of a web browser according to an embodiment of the present invention. 
         FIG. 3  is a flowchart schematically showing a communication between an swf file and a gadget for displaying a user-specified content according to an embodiment of the present invention. 
     
    
    
     While the invention is susceptible to various modifications and alternative forms, specific embodiments thereof are shown by way of example in the drawings and will herein be described in detail. It should be understood, however, that the drawings and detailed description thereto are not intended to limit the invention to the particular form disclosed, but on the contrary, the intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the present invention as defined by the appended claims. 
     BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION 
     With reference to  FIG. 1 , a user terminal  10  comprises a CPU  11 , a main memory  12 , a secondary storage  13 , an output section  14 , and a transmitter/receiver  16  which are connected to each other via a bus. The user terminal  10  also comprises a display section  15  connected to the output section  14 . The main memory  12  comprises, for example, a dynamic access random memory (DRAM). The secondary storage  13  comprises, for example, a hard disk drive (HDD). The display section  15  comprises a display unit such as a liquid crystal display (LCD) unit or the like. 
     Programs according to an embodiment of the present invention are stored in the secondary storage  13 . The programs are loaded on the main memory  12  and are executed by the CPU  11 . The main memory  12  also stores, but temporarily, data generated during the operation of the CPU  11  or data to be used by the CPU  11 . 
     The transmitter/receiver  16  establishes a connection between the user terminal  10  and the Internet  17  under the control of the CPU  11 . As a result of the prescribed process, an image and so on is displayed on the display section  15  via the output section  14 . 
     The programs according to the present embodiment are read and executed by the CPU  11 . As the result, the following operations will carried out. 
     With reference to  FIG. 2 , a web browser  20  is displayed on the display section  15 . The web browser  20  reads an html file which includes an URL of an swf file. Then the web browser  20  downloads the swf file according to the statements included in the html file and displays the same on the web browser  20 . 
     An swf file is a file playable by a Flash Player®. When an swf file is played by the Flash Player®, the played swf file is displayed within a plug-in display area  21  of the web browser  20 . 
     Note here that an swf file is a kind of a program which contains one or more contents to be displayed and control commands for controlling how to display the contents. Contents may include still images, movies or sound files, and the behavior of the contents may be controlled by control commands included in the swf file that contains the contents. For example, contents to be played are changed in accordance with branch instructions. 
     When being played by the Flash Player®, an swf file  23  according to the present embodiment serves as a content selector program for selecting one of contents to be displayed on the basis of a selection condition. 
     A gadget  24  is an application which is operative on a particular gadget platform  25  and is cooperable with the swf file  23  via the Local Connection. Available gadget platform  25  is for example “GIZMO” provided by the ants Inc., for more information about “GIZMO”, visit their web site: http://www.anthill.jp/en/ 
     The gadget  24  of this embodiment serves as a selection condition sender program for sending the selection condition to the swf file  23  so as to lead the swf file  23  select the content based on the selection condition. The selection condition is based on a user profile data which is preliminarily stored in a local storage  26 , i.e. the secondary storage  13 . The gadget  24  of the present embodiment is visually-transparent because there is no need to be visible from the user. However, the gadget may be visible. 
     The user profile data  26  includes, for example, the user&#39;s birth date or the user&#39;s gender. In this embodiment, the user profile data  26  is inputted by the user at the time of installing the gadget platform  25  and is stored in the local storage  26 . As may be understood from the following description, the user profile data  26  may be updated at the appropriate timing. 
     With reference to  FIG. 3 , the gadget  24  on the gadget platform  25  cooperates with the swf file  23  played by the Flash Player®. 
     When the swf file  23  is played by the Flash Player®, an initial content is displayed within the plug-in display area  21  of the web browser  20  (S 100 ). Then the swf file  23  searches for a partner for the Local Connection (S 101 ). Unless the Local Connection is established, the swf file  23  keeps displaying the initial content. 
     The gadget  24  reads the birth date of the user from the user profile data  26  (S 200 ) and searches for a partner for the Local Connection (S 201 ), too. 
     The Local Connection is established when the swf file  23  and the gadget  24  recognize each other as connection partners. After the Local Connection is established, the swf file  23  sets a timer (S 102 ) and await the reception of the selection condition. The gadget  24  sends the swf file  23  the birth date data of the user as the selection condition (S 202 ). 
     When receiving the birth date from the gadget  24  (S 105 ), the swf file  23  judges the age of the user and displays the content that is specified for the user (S 106 -S 111 ). 
     For example, if the birth date of the user profile date  26  is Oct. 16, 1982, the gadget  24  sends the swf file  23  the user profile data  26  indicating “Oct. 16, 1982” as the selection condition. Upon receiving the selection condition, the swf file  23  judges whether the user is twentysomething, i.e. whether the user is older than nineteen but younger than thirty (S  106 ) and, if it is judged as “true”, then displays the content appropriate for the twentysomething user (S 107 ) and turns in a waiting state (S 112 ). When the received selection condition indicates that the user is thirtysomething (S 108 ), the swf file  23  displays the content appropriate for the thirtysomething user (S 109 ) and turns in the waiting state (S 112 ). Similarly, when the received selection condition indicates that the user is fortysomething (S 110 ), the swf file  23  displays the content appropriate for the fortysomething user (S 111 ) and turns in the waiting state (S 112 ). In case where the received selection condition does not match any of the generations as mentioned above, the swf file  23  does not change the content from the initial content. 
     When the timer which was set at the step S 102  becomes time-out (S 103 ), the swf file  23  checks whether the gadget  24  is closed or not (S 104 ). When the gadget  24  is not closed, the swf file  23  again sets the timer (S 102 ) and keeps periodically checking the status of the gadget  24 . When the gadget  24  is closed, the swf file  23  returns to the step S 100  so that the swf file  23  displays the initial content (S 100 ) and searches for new partner for the Local Connection (S 101 ). In this embodiment, the checking the status of the gadget  24  has priority over the selection of the contents (S 106 -S 112 ). For example, when the gadget  24  is closed after the content for the twentysomething user is displayed (S 107 ), the swf file  24  changes the content for the twentysomething user to the initial content (S 100 ). 
     The gadget  24  may be configured so that the gadget  24  closes the Local Connection when the user profile data  26  is updated while the swf file  23  displays the content selected in accordance with the selection condition. The configured gadget enables the swf file  23  to always provide the content matched with the updated profile. In detail, since the configured gadget closes the Local Connection upon the update of the user profile data, the result of the judgment always be “false” at the step S 104 , and the displayed content is then changed to the initial content (S 100 ). After the completion of the update of the user profile data, the gadget  24  reads the updated user profile data  26  (S 200 ). After the Local Connection is re-established, the gadget  24  sends the swf file  23  new selection condition in accordance with the updated user profile data  26  (S 202 ). The swf file  23  displays the content appropriate for the received new selection condition. 
     As apparent from  FIG. 3 , no existence of the executed gadget  24  results in that the user-specified content is not displayed. In other words, only the initial content will be displayed. 
     Although the swf file  23  includes a plurality of contents and selects the appropriate one of the contents based on the user profile data in the above-described embodiment, the present invention is not limited thereto. The swf file  23  may have no contents. In that case, the web browser  20  download the appropriate content in accordance with the judgment result of the swf file  23  based on the user profile data  26 . 
     The present application is based on Japanese patent applications of JP2007-000808 filed before the Japan Patent Office on Jan. 5, 2007, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference. 
     While there has been described what is believed to be the preferred embodiment of the invention, those skilled in the art will recognize that other and further modifications may be made thereto without departing from the spirit of the invention, and it is intended to claim all such embodiments that fall within the true scope of the invention.