Patent ID: 8806520

Claim:
A method of collecting information about usage patterns of a plurality of users and a plurality of user devices, comprising: providing a server node, the plurality of user devices registered with said server node, each of said users registered with said server node, said server node located at a premises associated with said users, said server node configured to receive live television content, recorded, and Internet content via a network, and deliver said content to said plurality of user devices, the server node having a user characterization and history associated with each user, said server node providing content to said plurality of user devices via a plurality of network connection types; determining, by the server node, for television content, when viewed by one of said users on one of said user devices, a channel watched, the program watched and a time the program was watched, and associating said channel, program and time with said user and said user device used to watch said content; determining, by the server node, for recorded content, when viewed by one of said users on one of said user devices, a name of the recorded content, a number of times the recorded content was paused, a number of length of times the recorded content was fast forwarded, and a counter of the number of times the recorded content was watched; determining, by the server node, for Internet content, when viewed by one of said users on one of said user devices, a URL of said Internet content, whether the URL was requested by said user or by a website, a classification of content of the URL, a classification of content at the URL selected by the user, a session start time and a session end time; determining, by the server node, based on the user characterization of a user if a user session is typical or atypical of the user; determining, by the server node, based on a comparison of changes in usage patterns of a plurality of users if a user session is based on a social variable; and updating, by the server node, the user history and user characterization associated with said user based on the determinations.