Method and Apparatus for Passively Monitoring Online Video Viewing and Viewer Behavior

摘要

Various user behaviors are passively monitored and recorded when a user/viewer interacts with a network video player, e.g. a web video player, while watching an online video clip. For one embodiment, a data collection agent (DCA) is loaded to the player and/or to a web page that displays the video clip. The DCA passively collects detailed viewing and behavior information without requiring any specific input or actions on the part of the user. Indications of user preferences are inferred by user actions leading up to viewing the video, while viewing the video, and just after and still related to viewing the video. The DCA periodically sends this information to a central server where it is stored in a central database and where it is used to determine preference similarities among different users. Recorded user preference information may also be used to rate a video itself.

主权项

1. A computer implemented method for generating a viewer preference score for a viewer relative to a video clip without requiring a viewer to assign a score, comprising the steps of:
receiving by a video analytics server (VAS) parameters respective of the viewer's actions relative to the video clip from a data collection agent (DCA) that is loaded on a player or a web page that displays the video clip, wherein the DCA collects the parameters respective of the viewer's actions relating to the video clip without requesting the viewer for a specific input for rating the video clip; determining by the VAS, based on the parameters respective of the viewer's actions, a viewer preference score relative to the video clip; recording by the VAS the viewer preference score in a database of viewer preference scores respective of the viewer, wherein the viewer preference score is associated with the viewer in the database; displaying by a GUI data related to the viewer preference score; maintaining by an analyzer included in the VAS a history file of video identifiers (IDs) that identify videos that have been viewed in the past during a predefined period of time by each IP address; detecting by the analyzer that a video corresponding to one of the video IDs has been viewed a number of times from a same IP address that is above a threshold value within the predefined period of time; determining by the analyzer that fraud attempts are being performed by browser refreshes or scripting intended to inflate a view count artificially when the analyzer detects that the video has been viewed the number of times from the same IP address that is above the threshold value within the predefined period of time; and discarding by the analyzer data regarding subsequent views of the video that has been viewed the number of times from the same IP address that is above the threshold value within the predefined period of time.