Patent ID: 7797710

Claim:
A content recommendation apparatus, comprising: a preference analysis unit operable to, with respect to each respective piece of content of a plurality of pieces of content already viewed by a user, (i) analyze a preference of the user, and (ii) generate a piece of viewing motivation information that is a combination of attribute entities of the respective piece of content; a motivation analysis unit operable to, with respect to each respective generated piece of viewing motivation information of the generated pieces of viewing motivation information, (i) determine a primary viewing motivation portion of the respective generated piece of viewing motivation information that shows a portion of the respective generated piece of viewing motivation information that particularly motivated the user to view the respective piece of content, and (ii) divide the respective generated piece of viewing motivation information into the primary viewing motivation portion and a secondary viewing motivation portion; a hierarchical structuring unit operable to cause a common primary viewing motivation portion of the primary viewing motivation portions of the generated pieces of viewing motivation information to be shared, and arrange the secondary viewing motivation portion below the common primary viewing motivation portion, so as to put the common primary viewing motivation portion and the secondary viewing motivation portion into a hierarchical structure; a selection unit operable to select one or more pieces of content having a combination of the primary viewing motivation portion and the secondary viewing motivation portion as attribute entities; and a presentation unit operable to present, to the user, content information of the selected one or more pieces of content in correspondence with the primary viewing motivation portion and the secondary viewing motivation portion that have been put into the hierarchical structure, wherein each respective generated piece of viewing motivation information is a combination of attribute entities that, from among combinations of attribute entities of the respective piece of content, appears with a frequency equal to or higher than a predetermined threshold value in the content information of the plurality of pieces of already-viewed content.