AFFINITY PROFILE SYSTEM AND METHOD
A computer-implemented method of determining household composition, the method, comprises: determining an affinity profile for a user based on a user record that represents television or other content selection and/or viewing by the user using at least one user device, wherein the user is a user account associated with a household and the method further comprises determining household composition based on the affinity profile for the user account, the affinity profile comprises at least one selected affinity category or affinity category score, and the affinity categories are selected from a stored set of affinity categories, each representing a user's affinity for a respective subject area.
1 . A computer-implemented method of determining household composition, the method, comprising:
determining an affinity profile for a user based on a user record that represents television or other content selection and/or viewing by the user using at least one user device, wherein
the user is a user account associated with a household and the method further comprises determining household composition based on the affinity profile for the user account,
the affinity profile comprises at least one selected affinity category or affinity category score, and
the affinity categories are selected from a stored set of affinity categories, each representing a user's affinity for a respective subject area.
2 . The method of claim 1 , comprising for each of a plurality of user devices, monitoring user activity including identifying content selected for viewing by the user of the user device;
obtaining metadata concerning the selected items of content, the metadata representing at least some properties of the selected items of content;
generating or updating a user record for the user, the user record comprising or representing the user activity and/or the associated content metadata;
processing the user record to generate the affinity profile for the user based on the user record.
3 . The method of claim 2 , performed in conjunction with a method of providing television content or other content to each of the plurality of users using a content distribution system, wherein each user device displays an electronic programme guide (EPG) or other user interface that is operable by a user to select one or more items of television or other content, and in response to the selections the distribution system distributes the selected items of television content or other content to the user devices for viewing by the users during content viewing sessions.
4 . The method of claim 3 , wherein the user interface is operable by a user to select one or more items of content of content types other than television content,
the obtaining of metadata, the generating or updating of the user record, and the processing of the user record to generate the affinity profile are performed using the content metadata obtained for both selected items of television content and selected items of content of the other content types, and
the other content types comprises at least one of computer games, books, music, spoken word content, other audio content, newspapers, or magazines.
5 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the determining of household composition comprise determining whether the household consists of more than one person or the number of people forming the household.
6 . The method of claim 5 , wherein determining the household composition comprises determining whether the household comprises at least one child.
7 . The method of claim 1 , wherein determining the household composition comprises determining the presence in the household of at least one person in one or more of the following categories:
toddler; pre-school child; school-age child; university or college student; pensioner; working adult; unemployed person; stay-at-home adult; pensioner; and/or one or more other specified demographic or economic categories.
8 . The method of claim 1 , wherein determining the household composition comprises determining the presence in the household of at least one person who uses or understands at least one selected language.
9 . The method of claim 1 , wherein there are a plurality of user accounts associated with the household, the method comprises determining a respective affinity profile for each of the plurality of user accounts or determining a combined affinity profile based on the plurality of user accounts, and the determining of household composition is based on the combined affinity profile or on the plurality of affinity profiles.
10 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the stored set of affinity categories comprises at least 100 affinity categories or sub-categories.
11 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the metadata concerning the selected items of content is obtained from a stored ontology that includes at least 10,000 features that can be used as meta data to represent items of content.
12 . The method of claim 8 , wherein the ontology includes enriched versions of metadata obtained for items of content.
13 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the user record comprises or represent user activity for different time windows during a day or week, and the method comprises generating different affinity profiles for the user for the different time windows.
14 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising categorizing a user into one of a plurality of segments based on the affinity profile.
15 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the affinity profile for the user comprises a set of scores, each score being for a respective one of the affinity categories.
16 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the user is a user account.
17 . The method according to claim 16 , wherein a plurality of individuals have access to the user account and/or wherein a plurality of user devices are associated with the user account, and wherein the affinity profile for the user account is based on selection of content by the plurality of individuals and/or using the plurality of user devices.
18 . The method according to claim 2 , further comprising outputting the determined affinity profiles for the plurality of users via an API or operator interface thereby making the affinity profiles available to a third party external to the content distribution system.
19 . A system comprising processing circuitry configured to:
determine an affinity profile for a user based on a user record that represents television or other content selection and/or viewing by the user using at least one user device, wherein
the user is a user account associated with a household and the processing circuitry is further configured to determine household composition based on the affinity profile for the user account,
the affinity profile comprises at least one selected affinity category or affinity category score, and
the affinity categories are selected from a stored set of affinity categories, each representing a user's affinity for a respective subject area.
20 . A non-transitory computer-readable medium that comprises computer-readable instructions that are executable to perform a method according to claim 1 .