Methods and systems for mass customization of digital television broadcasts in dase environments

摘要

Methods and systems for the mass customization of Digital Television broadcasts through the broadcasting of commercials in the form of software applications. Ad-applications are injected into various sub-streams of the transport stream and received in a dormant state by the client-side set-top box. When a commercial is to be shown, a broadcaster broadcasts a generic time-stamped trigger to a dispatching application that performs a keyword matching algorithm to decide which ad-application among those received at the receiver is to be executed. The dispatching application uses the results of the latter comparison to decide which specific dormant ad-application to route to; it then converts the generic trigger into a chosen-ad trigger that is routed to the chosen ad-application. Upon receipt of the chosen-ad trigger, the chosen ad-application executes, thereby displaying an ad customized to the individual viewer's interests.