METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR IDENTIFYING USERS FROM RATING PATTERNS

1 . A method of indentifying users of content, comprising the steps of:

identifying contextual information of a group of users;

gathering user access data of the users on the basis of the contextual information of the group of users;

analyzing temporal information of the user access data; and

identifying particular users in the group of users on the basis of the analyzed temporal information and the contextual information.

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the contextual information is information concerning a social structure to which the users belong.

3 . The method of claim 2 , wherein the social structure comprises a household.

4 . The method of claim 3 , wherein the temporal information further comprises a time stamp.

5 . The method of claim 3 , further comprising the step of analyzing user ratings of the content.

6 . A method of identifying users of content, comprising the steps of:

observing temporal patterns of viewing of a group of users over a time frame;

quantifying the observations of the temporal pattern to obtain an empirical probability distribution of rating events associated with the users over different sub-time frames within the time frame; and

predicting each user's content use behavior based on the quantified temporal observations to obtain a predicted use profile for the users.

7 . A method of identifying users of content, comprising the steps of:

classifying a set of user ratings of content by approximating a matrix of ratings by a low rank matrix;

minimizing regularized empirical loss of the matrix of ratings;

iteratively updating the matrix of ratings and updating the matrix after empirical losses are minimized; and

identifying users based the iteratively updated matrix.

8 . The method of claim 7 , further comprising the step of by applying temporal information to the matrix of ratings.

9 . The method of claim 8 , wherein the temporal information comprises a time stamp.

10 . The method of claim 9 , further comprising the step of attributing a rating to a user for which a predicted rating is closest to an actual rating.

11 . A method of identifying users of content, comprising the steps of:

identifying contextual information of a group of users;

gathering user access data of the users on the basis of the contextual information of the group of users;

analyzing temporal information of the user access data, wherein the contextual information comprises time-stamp information and information related to when a user rating of the content is entered; and

identifying particular users in the group of users on the basis of the analyzed temporal information and the contextual information.

12 . The method of claim 11 , wherein the contextual information is information concerning a social structure to which the users belong.

13 . The method of claim 12 , wherein the social structure comprises a household.

14 . The method of claim 13 , further comprising the step of analyzing user ratings of the content.

15 . Apparatus for identifying users of content, comprising:

a processor for identifying contextual information of a group of users, gathering user access data of the users on the basis of the contextual information of the group of users, analyzing temporal information of the user access data, and identifying particular users in the group of users on the basis of the analyzed temporal information and the contextual information.

16 . The apparatus of claim 15 , wherein the contextual information is information concerning a social structure to which the users belong.

17 . The apparatus of claim 16 , wherein the social structure comprises a household.

18 . The apparatus of claim 16 , wherein the temporal information further comprises a time stamp.

19 . The apparatus of claim 18 , further comprising the step of analyzing user ratings of the content.