Patent ID: 12189699

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE EXEMPLARY EMBODIMENTS

The present disclosure is more particularly described in the following examples that are intended as illustrative only since numerous modifications and variations therein will be apparent to those skilled in the art. Like numbers in the drawings indicate like components throughout the views. As used in the description herein and throughout the claims that follow, unless the context clearly dictates otherwise, the meaning of “a”, “an”, and “the” includes plural reference, and the meaning of “in” includes “in” and “on”. Titles or subtitles can be used herein for the convenience of a reader, which shall have no influence on the scope of the present disclosure.

The terms used herein generally have their ordinary meanings in the art. In the case of conflict, the present document, including any definitions given herein, will prevail. The same thing can be expressed in more than one way. Alternative language and synonyms can be used for any term(s) discussed herein, and no special significance is to be placed upon whether a term is elaborated or discussed herein. A recital of one or more synonyms does not exclude the use of other synonyms. The use of examples anywhere in this specification including examples of any terms is illustrative only, and in no way limits the scope and meaning of the present disclosure or of any exemplified term. Likewise, the present disclosure is not limited to various embodiments given herein. Numbering terms such as “first”, “second” or “third” can be used to describe various components, signals or the like, which are for distinguishing one component/signal from another one only, and are not intended to, nor should be construed to impose any substantive limitations on the components, signals or the like.

The present disclosure relates to a method for providing contents within a region of interest of a user and a system that implements the method. Reference is made toFIG.1, which is a schematic diagram showing a framework of the system. The system includes a serving system12that provides a cloud content service. The cloud content service provides the contents within the region of interest of the user according to location information that is generated when the user manipulates various user devices101and103. In one of the embodiments of the present disclosure, the service provided by the serving system12can be operated in a social media. The users in the social media can share various location-based digital contents, such as videos, pictures, audios and texts.

Referring toFIG.1, the serving system12includes a database14that records multiple location-based contents141and multiple pieces of user data143. The location-based contents141are, for example, the various digital contents that are provided to the user for matching a user preference and the location information. In addition, the contents are uploaded and shared by many users. The database14also records an author of each of the contents, a number of times the content is played, a user who likes (e.g., gives a thumbs-up to) the content, a user who saves the content, a number of shares, and the time of creation of the content. Such information serves as references for calculating an evaluation score indicative of popularity of each of the contents. The user data143in the database14is about the users who are registered in the serving system12for receiving the service. The users can be members of the social media. The user data143includes various data of the user, such as identification and a user profile. In the method for providing the contents within the region of interest of the user, the user profile can be classified into a learned user preference profile and a user regional activity profile that is obtained according to a score of the region of interest of the user based on a multi-layer regional structure.

The serving system12provides the service to the various user devices101and103via a network10. The user devices101and103can obtain many links that are associated with various contents via the network10. A software procedure that is configured to dynamically display digital contents is executed in the user devices101and103, so that the links can be received, playback files can be retrieved on demand, and the digital contents can be browsed and played. The links can be graphical links shown on a specific scenario image or on an electronic map (e.g., graphical user interfaces111and113shown in the diagram). The serving system12that provides the service and a software program executed in the user device101or103can form the system that performs the method for providing the contents within the region of interest of the user.

The user device101or103can be, for example, a mobile device of the user. Particularly, said mobile device can be equipped with a touch screen that allows the user to operate by finger gestures. The user can use gestures to decide a display area to be browsed and select a point of interest on a browsing page via the application program executed in the user device101or103. After selecting the point of interest, a playback page is initiated by the application program to play the digital contents associated with the selected point of interest. In particular, when the user browses the contents of a certain region, the browsing page is initiated to provide a region-linking button that allows the user to switch to a specific region of interest in accordance with the user preference. It should be noted that the serving system12relies on the user activity data to determine one or more regions of interest of the user and provide one of the regions of interest. In a certain circumstance, no link within the region of interest can be provided to the user. However, under most circumstances, one or more links of the contents within the regions of interest of the user can be shown on the browsing page. The links of the contents shown on the browsing page can be shown as content-linking icons or a list.

Multiple functional elements are implemented by software or in cooperation with hardware in the serving system12. One of the functional elements in the serving system12is a user management unit121. The user management unit121is used to manage the users who use the service provided by the serving system12. By the user management unit121, the user is permitted to browse and play the digital contents through identity authentication. The user management unit121also stores records of use of digital contents in the serving system12by the users, the digital contents that the users create, and activity records of the users in the social media.

The serving system12includes a database unit123that is used to manage the database14. Each content file in the database unit123is associated with a database address that can be an address of a physical file recorded in the database14for linking the contents displayed on the display area. The database unit123allows the software procedure in the user device to query the database based on the display area. Preferably, by querying the database14of the serving system12, a plurality of contents associated with the display area, a linking address of each of the contents, coordinates of each of the contents within the display area, and a score of related activity when the user accesses the content can be obtained.

The serving system12includes a computation unit125(e.g., a computation circuit of the serving system12). The serving system12can use the computation circuit to process data, such as a coordinate range of the display area, a linking address of the digital content, the digital content and a location associated with the point of interest, the display content to be refreshed, and a score of the digital content provided by the user device.

A digital content management unit127is used to process the uploaded and downloaded contents. Each content file can be stored in the database14. A database address corresponding to the content and the coordinates of the point of interest are rendered and stored in the database14along with data of the author of the digital content.

The graphical user interface111or113can show an electronic map. The linking icons of the contents are displayed at some locations in the display area according to their corresponding geographic coordinates. The linking icons of the contents can be used as representative images of the point of interest that gathers a plurality of contents. The linking icon can be a thumbnail of the content or a picture/head image of the user who creates the content.

The score of the content can be obtained according to various scoring factors. The scoring factors are provided by the serving system12, and the content is scored by the serving system12based on a number of creations from the author of the content, a number of followers of the content, a number of times the content is played, a rating, a creation time, a personal interest of the user viewing the content, or any combination thereof. In actual implementation, scoring is not limited to items listed above.

Each of the browsing users can have their own preferred list that allows the serving system12to obtain the user preference through a specific algorithm. Therefore, the serving system can rely on the preferred list to prioritize the related contents to be played and to set up the points of interest in the display area.

The framework shown inFIG.1can be operated in the social media that provides and shares various contents. However, since the service of notifying the users of contents within various regions of interest is not available in the conventional technology due to the limitation of a conventional algorithm, the conventional social media can only recommend the contents within a narrow range. As a result, most of the contents are similar. Further, the recommended contents may be too broad and unfocused, or may be uninteresting to the users if the contents to be provided by the conventional social media are not based on the user preference under a specific circumstance.

The method for providing the contents within the region of interest of the user is provided as a solution to the above problems. In the method, the user preference is learned by collecting user activity data and can be used to derive the region of interest of the user through a specific algorithm. Accordingly, the system performing the method is able to recommend the contents that match the user preference within the region of interest and/or locally popular contents.

FIG.2is a flowchart illustrating a process for forming the user preference in the method performed by the system according to one embodiment of the present disclosure.

According to one of the embodiments, in step S201, the serving system gathers browsing data of the user through a browser program executed in a user-end computer device. The browsing data forms records of the location-based contents browsed by the user. The features of the data are correlated with the geographic location. In an exemplary example, the user manipulates a mobile device that executes the browser program. When the user arrives at a location, the user reports or produces a video, an audio, a picture, or a text within the geographic range by an application program (e.g., the browser program). The video, the audio, the picture, or the text is uploaded to the serving system after the user device is connected to the serving system. The content uploaded to the serving system includes metadata that at least records geographic information and user identification data relating to the content. It should be noted that the serving system can obtain the user identification data when the user logs on the system. In step S203, the serving system analyzes the uploaded content and the collected activity records of the user for forming the location-based personalized data that is stored in the database of the serving system.

Next, in step S205, the serving system can rely on the geographic information of various activity data to establish the location-based personalized data of the users. A machine-learning algorithm can be incorporated to learn data features from the geographic data and weights with respect to the data features. In step S207, a location-based personalized preference model that is used to define the user preference is formed for each of the users. The data features may also be combined to form a location-based user preference (which, in practice, can be a user preference profile). Thus, the software procedure running in the serving system can rely on the user preference profile to obtain one or more location-based personalized contents according to the user preference. It should be noted that different weights will be calculated and applied to the data features learned through the machine-learning algorithm according to levels of relevance of the data features. The data feature with higher relevance can be assigned with a higher weight, and the data feature with lower relevance can be assigned with a lower weight. Therefore, the user preference can be accurately described.

In one embodiment of the present disclosure, the activity data collected by the serving system through the user-end computer device includes the activities in various social media, search records, the followed contents, the browsed contents (and their hashtags), and time information of the activities. For example, browsing records collected by the serving system can be cookies, copies, and history records kept in a web browser. The activities in the social media are, for example, acts of check-ins, search records, likes, shares, follows, and replies. Such information may include records of geographic locations. The records may cover the data of the related geographies and the location-based media contents. Further, when determining a level of the user preference, the serving system can take the time spent on browsing the content and its cycle, a frequency and a length of time spent on browsing relevant contents, whether or not the user shares the content with other users, and whether or not the content is created by the user into consideration. The serving system relies on these data to establish the location-based personalized preference model and the database. Accordingly, the serving system can perform a sorting of preference whilst providing the location-based personalized content to the user.

According to one of the embodiments, the serving system provides the contents to be browsed on an electronic map through the application program executed in the user-end computer device when the user browses the contents on the electronic map. Each of the contents is associated with a specific geographic location. While the user browses the contents, the serving system simultaneously obtains the browsing records of the user (such as videos, audios, pictures, and/or texts). Records generated include the user identification data, the geographic location or a geographic range (latitude and longitude), browsing contents, and activities (such as likes, bookmarks, shares, etc.). The records may also include tags and times assigned to the contents. The records can be references learned by a learning algorithm for formation of the user preference.

In one further embodiment of the present disclosure, the application program provided by the serving system serves as a user interface provided for the user to browse the contents. The application program can be a web browser provided for the user to browse various contents. The browsed content and the browsing records of the user may be marked with the geographic information, and are also used by the learning algorithm to learn a location-based preference of the user.

The user reference that is learned from the various activity data and the browsing records of the user becomes one of the references for the serving system to provide the contents to the user. According to one embodiment of the method for providing the contents within the region of interest of the user, the contents include the regions of interest of the user that are obtained by the system based on the activity data of the user. If there are contents shared by other users within the region of interest of the user, the system allows the user to effectively browse the contents that are within the regions of the interest and match the user preference (and/or the popular contents) after a learning process through an algorithm. The serving system achieves improvement of a user experience when the contents provided by the system match the regions of interest of the user, the user preference, high popularity, high recency and high freshness.

FIG.3is a schematic diagram showing an exemplary example of learning the regions of interest of the user in the method for providing the contents within the region of interest of the user. In order to accurately calculate the regions of interest of the user and not overly limit a range of the regions of interest, the algorithm adopted in the method incorporates a multi-layer regional scoring framework having multiple layers (e.g., N layers, in which N is an integer), and an upper region is configured to be divided into multiple lower regions. For example, a global region can be divided into multiple small regions layer by layer, and the system can collect records of activities of every user in each of the small regions.

In an exemplary example, the global region indicates a worldwide area or a region having a large range. For example, the global region can be the Americas, Europe, Asia, or any country. Reference is made toFIG.3, which is a schematic diagram showing a global map30that is divided into five top layers (i.e., first-layer regions A, B, C, D and E).

Then, each of the first-layer regions A, B, C, D and E is divided into multiple second-layer regions. For example, the first-layer region E is divided into nine lower regions that are exemplarily second-layer regions EA, EB, EC, ED, EE, EF, EG, EH and EI. Afterwards, each of the second-layer regions EA, EB, EC, ED, EE, EF, EG, EH and EI is further divided into nine lower regions. In an exemplary example, the second-layer region EG is divided into nine smaller third-layer regions EG1, EG2, EG3, EG4, EG5, EG6, EG7, EG8and EG9. In a similar fashion, the third-layer region EG7can be divided into multiple fourth-layer regions EG71, EG72, EG73, EG74, EG75, EG76, EG77, EG78and EG79.

It should be noted that the upper region can be divided into multiple lower regions in an even manner or based on a practical requirement. The quantity of the multi-layer regions is not necessarily limited to a specific number, but the number of the layers can be decided according to a practical requirement. For example, when the system is required to determine the region of interest of the user more accurately, more layers of regions can be used. On the contrary, if the system does not need exact regions of interest of the user or only requires larger regions of interest, fewer layers of regions can be used.

According to one further embodiment of the method for providing the contents within the region of interest of the user, the above multi-layer regional structure can be incorporated for providing the regions of interest of the user. In the method, the activity score of the user in each of the above regions can be calculated and used to establish a user regional activity profile. The system can rely on the user regional activity profile to provide the regions of interest of the user and the contents therein.FIG.4is a flowchart illustrating a process of computing a user activity score in the method for providing the contents within the region of interest of the user according to one embodiment of the present disclosure.

The global map30shown inFIG.3is firstly provided. The multi-layer regional structure is applied to the global region, and the first-layer regions, the second-layer regions, the third-layer regions and the fourth-layer regions are provided (step S401). In an exemplary example, the global map30having N-layer regions is provided. N inFIG.3is 4, but can be any integer. Thus, the global map can be divided into multiple sub-regions layer by layer. The global map is firstly divided into multiple first-layer regions, each of the first-layer regions is divided into multiple second-layer regions, and so on. The division ends until the global map is divided into the N-layer regions.

When the user uses the service provided by the serving system through the application program, the system receives location information of different locations generated as the user manipulates the user device, and the system continuously collects the location-based activity data of the user (step S403). When the user performs a valid activity at a different location, the system records the location information of the location, the N-layer region of the location, and the multi-layer regions associated with the first-layer region. The system then assigns scores to the multiple layers of regions associated with the location, and calculates an activity score of the user in each of the multi-layer regions (step S405). The scores assigned to the multiple layers of regions associated with different locations of the user are accumulated, so as to establish the user regional activity profile (step S407). In this way, the system can obtain one or more regions of interest of the user.

It should be noted that, if the serving system determines that the multi-layer regions that the user is interested in are adjacent regions through the algorithm, these adjacent regions can be merged according to requirements displayed on the user device in one embodiment. The merged regions can be shown to the user at one time via the user interface, instead of having similar regions of interest provided to the user in multiple times.

In particular, in order to effectively calculate the regions of interest of the user, the system may limit valid activities of the user at certain locations to ignore casual browsing behaviors. The valid activities are the behaviors of the user in the social media that will be taken into consideration in a score calculation. The behaviors classified as the valid activities can be a behavior of clicking to view a location-based content, adding a like to the location-based content, sharing the location-based content, actively searching a location through the application program, and clicking on a link of a location whilst viewing the location-based content. However, in practice, the valid activities are not limited to the above-mentioned behaviors.

Reference is made to the example shown inFIG.3and the process of calculating the user activity score shown inFIG.4. When the system determines that the user performs one of the above-mentioned valid activities in the fourth-layer region EG72, in the user profile, the score assigned to the fourth-layer region EG72is increased by 1, and the score assigned to each of its upper regions is also increased by 1 (i.e., adding 1 to the score assigned to the third-layer region EG7, adding 1 to the score assigned to the second-layer region EG, and adding 1 to the score assigned to the first-layer region E). Afterwards, within a valid time (e.g., two weeks) set by the system, if the user performs another one of the valid activities that can be assigned with the score in the fourth-layer region, the scores in other related layers can be increased by 1 in a layer-by-layer manner. Thus, based on the score accumulated in each of the regions, the system allocates weights to score calculation in each of the regions according to the user preference learned by the system. The system can obtain the regions of interest of the user within the valid time, and accordingly determines one or more regions of interest of the user, so as to provide location-based contents that match the user preference. Further, the scores assigned to the regions at different layers can be accumulated and sorted. In this way, the system can provide the location-based and personalized contents according to an order of the regions of interest of the user.

According to the user preference profile obtained inFIG.2and the user regional activity profile obtained inFIG.4, the system can not only provide the location-based contents that match the user preference, but also provides the content within the regions of interest of the user. Reference is further made toFIG.5, which is a flowchart illustrating the method for providing the contents within the region of interest of the user according to one embodiment of the present disclosure. In the meantime, reference can be made toFIG.6AtoFIG.6D, which are schematic diagrams showing exemplary examples of links of the regions of interest of the user on an electronic map according to one embodiment of the present disclosure.

In the beginning of the process, a user interface is initiated by an application program executed in a user device. In certain embodiments, the user interface initiated by the application program can use an electronic map as a background. Multiple content-linking icons associated with multiple locations are marked on the electronic map. The linking icon can be an icon of an author who creates the linked content or a content thumbnail (the content can be a video or an image). Content links can also be shown as a list. In one aspect, texts are used to represent the links of the contents (e.g., URL). The user can click on such a text link to play the linked content (e.g., playing the video or the image).

In the flowchart of the present embodiment, the user device installs and executes the application program corresponding to the service for providing the contents in the serving system. The application program can be an application proprietary to a social media that provides the digital contents to be shared by users. The serving system receives location information generated by the user device through the application program (step S501). For example, the location information can be a location detected by a positioning circuit of the user device or a location generated by the application program when the user manipulates the application program to browse a specific geographic region. The serving system then queries a database according to the location information (step S503). The serving system can provide the location-based contents and the content-linking information in an initial image according to a range correlated with the location information (step S505). In particular, the serving system can acquire the user preference profile according to user identification (e.g., a user ID) transmitted by the application program manipulated by the user. The serving system relies on the user preference profile to retrieve one or more contents that correlates with one of the regions of interest of the user and matches the user preference.

With respect to the initial image, reference can be made toFIG.6A. The user manipulates an application programming interface60to initiate a first user interface601for browsing contents within a specific region. If the contents are initially provided through the application program within the specific region, the initial user interface shows the personalized and location-based contents corresponding to a current location of the user. If the contents are provided by the serving system after the user manipulates the user device for a period of time, the contents are based on the location and the region of interest of the user.

In the example shown inFIG.6A, the first user interface601uses an electronic map as a background, and several content-linking icons611,612,613,614and615are marked at different locations of the electronic map. In the present example, the circular content-linking icon (611,612,613,614or615) can be an image of an author of the content or a thumbnail extracted from the content. Each of the content-linking icons611,612,613,614and615is linked to a playable location-based content, such as a video, a picture, an audio or a text. It should be noted that there is a link with an arrow inside a circle positioned at a lower right corner of the first user interface601. This circular icon serves as a region-linking button600provided in the application programming interface60. The region-linking button600is provided for the user to click and jump to an interface that is linked to a next region of interest of the user.

After that, the serving system receives an instruction, and the instruction is generated by clicking on one of the links within the region of interest of the user on the user interface that is initiated by the application program executed in the user device. For example, the user can click on the region-linking button600shown inFIG.6A, and the instruction is generated (step S507). The instruction includes location information that concerns a region of interest of the user obtained from the user regional activity profile retrieved from the database according to a user identification. A second user interface602ofFIG.6Bis then provided. The serving system can retrieve a user preference profile from the database according to the user identification, and provide contents and linking data based on the user preference and the region of interest in the user preference profile (step S509). The content links are displayed within the region of interest of the user via the user interface of the user device (step S511).

According to an example shown inFIG.6B, the second user interface602using an electronic map as a background is provided. There are many content-linking icons621,622,623,624and625marked on the electronic map. The second user interface602can be provided when the user clicks on the region-linking button600on the first user interface601. In the meantime, after querying the database, the location-based contents in accordance with the region of interest of the user are obtained. The location-based contents can also be consistent with the user preference. Similarly, the second user interface602provides the region-linking button600that allows the user to acquire more contents within another region of interest.FIG.6Cshows a third user interface603that displays multiple content-linking icons631,632,633,634and635associated with the contents that are within the region of interest of the user and consistent with the user preference. The region-linking button600is still provided for the user to browse a next location-based content within the region of interest of the user.

Thus, the user can go on using the links of the regions of interest via the user interface to obtain more contents that match the regions of interest of the user. The location-based contents that match the user preference are provided according to an order of the regions of interest of the user. Further, when the system provides the contents within the region of interest of the user, the contents can be sorted according to a specific condition (e.g., popularity), and the serving system can rely on this sorting result to provide the contents to the user in a selective manner. Furthermore, some further conditions can also be incorporated for filtering out the contents to be provided to the user. The conditions include being new/recent, popular, unseen, or any combination thereof, so that the user is able to view the contents that match the user preference and/or popularity in every region of interest.

However, when the serving system can no longer provide any content within the region of interest of the user (since only a certain limited amount of contents within the region of interest are provided in the serving system or only a certain amount of the regions of interest can be learned by the serving system according to the activity data of the user), the user can still obtain the various contents provided by the serving system until reaching an upper limit of a number of pages provided by the system. Lastly, the application program will return to the initial page, and the contents that are not viewed by the user can be provided on the initial page. For example, the system initially provides relatively new location-based contents uploaded by other users or newly-uploaded location-based contents that are not viewed by the user (i.e., the location-based contents that meet one or any combination of the above-mentioned new/recent, popular, and unseen conditions.

Conventionally, when the user manipulates the application programming interface60to browse a specific region by way of swiping, a swiping gesture, a zooming-in gesture or a zooming-out gesture needs to be performed multiple times. This does not allow the user to smoothly browse different regions. In contrast, the method provided by the present disclosure allows the user to quickly and easily browse the regions of interest. The user can not only quickly view the regions of interest via the region-linking button600, but can also view the region without any link of content when the map is viewed by way of swiping. In certain embodiments, the application programming interface60further initiates a prompting message (which can be a changed image, a text reminder, a vibration, a sound or the like) for prompting the user to jump to another region of interest via a specific link with respect to a region of interest of the user. For example, inFIG.6D, the application programming interface60adopts a blinking region-linking button600′ to prompt the user to click on the link for jumping to a next region of interest of the user. According to the present embodiment of the present disclosure, if the serving system determines that the region includes no link of content on the user interface through the application program, the serving system will activate the region-linking button600′ to blink, change colors or other prompting message through the application program, so as to remind the user to click on the button600′ for jumping to another region of interest of the user.

Based on the above-described method and system for providing the contents within the region of interest of the user, in addition to providing the contents within the region of interest of the user through the application program executed in the user device, a discussion topic that is initiated by a user relating to the region of interest can also be provided. That is, the system allows the user to initiate the location-based discussion topic when the user is browsing the contents within a specific region, and the discussion topic is provided for interaction with other users who are also browsing the contents within the same region or with people who are geographically related to this region.FIG.7AtoFIG.7Dschematically show the user interface in one embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG.7AtoFIG.7Dare schematic diagrams showing a discussion topic being initiated in the method for providing the contents within the region of interest of the user according to one embodiment of the present disclosure. The application program executed in the user device initiates a user interface, and the user interface can be a graphical user interface that uses an electronic map as a background. However, the user interface is not limited thereto. For example, a list can be used to display various location-based discussion topics.

When the user manipulates the application program executed in the user device, the application program connects with the serving system and initiates a user interface70as shown inFIG.7A. The user interface70is a graphical user interface that incorporates an electronic map as a background. When the application program connects with the serving system, the location information generated by the user device is transmitted to the serving system. The location information can be generated by a positioning circuit of the user device, or can be generated when the user manipulates the application program to browse a specific geographic range. In one embodiment of the present disclosure, the serving system can obtain the user identification and display information of the user device through the application program. The serving system can accordingly provide personalized and location-based contents that match the display capability of the user device.

In the meantime, the serving system relies on the location information to query the database and make a comparison with a display range initiated by the application program of the user device for obtaining one or more location-based digital contents, location-based topics or a prompting message used to prompt the user to initiate a location-based topic within the display range. These location-based contents are transmitted to the user device, and one or more content-linking icons corresponding to one or more contents are marked on the user interface initiated by the application program. The linking icon can be a thumbnail extracted from the digital content or a picture of an author of the digital content. For example, inFIG.7A, multiple location-based content linking icons711,712,713,714and715are marked on the user interface. A computer-implemented region-linking button700is also displayed on a specific position within the display area. A picture, a text or an animation reminder on a specific position can be used to prompt the user to initiate a location-based topic. A prompting message710of “initiating a discussion topic” is displayed on the display area in the present embodiment.

When the user clicks on the prompting message710, the application program opens a discussion topic page72shown inFIG.7B, and fields such as “selecting a location”721and “initiating a discussion topic”723are provided to the user for inputting geographic information and the discussion topic. The location-based discussion topic can therefore be initiated.FIG.7Cis a schematic diagram showing the discussion topic being initiated (i.e., a topic-linking icon730) on the user interface.

It should be noted that the discussion topic page includes a field for inputting the geographic information and a field for inputting the discussion topic. For example, the field for inputting the geographic information can have the location information of the prompting message automatically filled in or allow the user to input the geographic information where the discussion topic is located. The content of the topic can be a question, an opinion or any message that the user submits. In the serving system, a specific algorithm is used to analyze the content of the topic and classify the topic, and the result thereof can be used for matching the user preference.

Afterwards, when the user browses a geographic range that includes the location-based topics through the application program, the serving system pushes one or more location-based topic-linking icons within the geographic range to the application program executed in the user device. Similarly, the topic-linking icon730is shown on a corresponding location of the electronic map, and can be provided for the user to click on for entering the discussion topic page.

According one of the embodiments of the present disclosure, when the location-based topic is established, the user interface embodies a location-based topic list page74that displays one or more location-based topics741in a list form (as shown inFIG.7D). The links with respect to the location-based topics can be represented by icons or texts that are provided for the user to click on and enter a linking discussion topic page.

In conclusion, the conventional social media does not learn the region of interest of the user, so that the contents recommended to the users will be associated with an overly broad region and do not match the regions of interest of the user. In the method and the system provided by the present disclosure, apart from allowing the user to browse the contents that match the user preference through a regular content provider, the contents that match the user preference and the regions of interest of the user can also be learned and provided by the system through a learning process. One of the approaches in the method is to guide the user to browse the contents that match their regions of interest through an electronic map. The contents provided by the system are deduced based on conditions that include the regions of interest of the user, the user preference, and popularity and recency of the contents. The contents are provided to the user after a sorting process, so as to achieve the purpose of improving the user experience.

The foregoing description of the exemplary embodiments of the disclosure has been presented only for the purposes of illustration and description and is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the disclosure to the precise forms disclosed. Many modifications and variations are possible in light of the above teaching.

The embodiments were chosen and described in order to explain the principles of the disclosure and their practical application so as to enable others skilled in the art to utilize the disclosure and various embodiments and with various modifications as are suited to the particular use contemplated. Alternative embodiments will become apparent to those skilled in the art to which the present disclosure pertains without departing from its spirit and scope.