Content transferring system

IS 2 195 170 T3

DESCRIPTION

Content display monitor. Foundation of the invention

1. Field of the invention

This invention refers to the supervision of the exhibition and observation of the content by means of a computer system. The invention also refers to the supervision of the display and observation on a content display site that is facilitated by a content provider site over a network to the content display site.

two. Related Technique

Much of human activity consists of the dissemination of information by information providers (content providers) to information consumers (observers). Recently, computer networks have become a very popular mechanism for carrying out the dissemination of information. The use of computer networks for the dissemination of information necessitated or enabled new techniques to carry out the particular functions related to the dissemination of information.

For example, information providers of all types have an interest in knowing the extent and nature of the observation of the information they disseminate. Information providers who disseminate information about computer networks also have this interest. However, the use of networked computers for the dissemination of information can make it difficult to find who and how is observing the disseminated information, since any of a large number of possible observers whose identities cannot be predicted in advance can access the information. the information quickly from a remote location, and since it is not possible, practical or desirable control over the display of information once it has been disseminated.

Among information providers, advertisers have a particular interest in knowing how and to what extent their ads are viewed and observed, since such knowledge can be a key element for evaluating the effectiveness of their ads and can also be the basis for payment for advertisements. Mechanisms to obtain such information have been developed for advertisements disseminated in conventional media, for example, audiovisual media such as television and radio, and print media such as magazines and newspapers. For example, well-known Nielsen television audience estimates allow advertisers to estimate the number of people who are likely to be viewing ads during a particular television show. As advertising over computer networks is becoming more and more common, it is increasingly important to develop mechanisms to enable advertisers to monitor the display and viewing of their advertisements spread over a computer network.

Previous efforts to monitor the display of advertisements (or other content) disseminated over a computer network have been inadequate for a number of reasons, including the limited scope of the monitoring information obtained, the ambiguous nature of the monitoring information, the that the supervisory information is not complete and the susceptibility of the supervisory information regarding its manipulation. Review of some of the techniques that have previously been used to acquire supervisory information regarding the display of content (e.g., advertisements) disseminated over a particular computer network - the World Wide Web part of the computer network Internet - illustrated the shortcomings of existing techniques to monitor the display of content disseminated over a computer network.

Figures 1A and 1B are simplified diagrams of a network illustrating the operation of a prior system for monitoring requests for content on the World Wide Web. In Figures 1A and 1B, a content provider site (which may be embodied for example by a server computer) can communicate with a content display site 102 (which may be implemented for example by a client computer) over the network communications line 103. The server computer at the content provider site 101 may store content that is colloquially referred to as a "web page". The client computer at the content display site 102 runs a software program, called a browser, that makes it possible to select and display a variety of web pages stored on different content provider sites. When a viewer at the content display site 102 wishes to view a particular web page, the viewer causes the client computer at the content display site 102 to send a request to the appropriate server computer, for example, the server computer on the site. content provider site 101, as shown in Figure 1A. The server computers at the content provider sites all include a software program (in the current implementation of the World Wide Web, this is an http server) that searches for such incoming communications. Upon receiving the request, the server program on the content provider site 101 transfers a file representing the Web page (which, in the current implementation of the World Wide Web, is an html file) to the client computer on the content display site. 102, as shown in Figure 1B. This file can only refer to other files (which may be stored on the server computer at the content provider's site 101 and / or on the other server computers) that are also transferred to the content display site 102. The The browser can use the transferred files to generate a display of the Web page on the client computer at the content display site 102. The http server, in addition to initiating the transfer of the appropriate file or the appropriate files to the content display site 102, also makes a record of file requests from the servi2 computer.

ES 2 195 170 T3 dor on which the server resides. The record of such requests is stored on the server computer at the content provider site 101 in a file 104 often referred to as a "log file".

The exact structure and content of the log files may vary somewhat from server computer to server computer. However, generally, log files include a list of transactions each of which represents a single file request. Each transaction includes multiple fields, each of which is used to store a predefined type of information about the file request. One of the fields can be used to store an identification of the requested file. The additional fields can be used to store the IP (Internet Protocol) address of the client computer that requested the particular file, the type of browser that requested the file, a time stamp for the request (that is, the date and time in which the request was received by the server computer), the amount of time required to transfer the requested file to the client computer, and the size of the transferred file. Other information about file requests can also be stored in a log file.

Previous procedures to monitor the display of content distributed on the World Wide Web have used the information stored in the log file. For example, a previous procedure has consisted of simply determining the number of transactions in the log file and counting each one as a “click” on a Web page, that is, a request for a Web page. The number of keystrokes is considered approximate to the number of times the web page has been viewed and, therefore, the degree of exposure of the content of the web page to information consumers.

However, there are several problems with this application. For example, as indicated above, a request for a Web page can cause, in addition to the request for an initial html file, requests for other files that are necessary to generate the Web page. If these other files reside on the same server computer as the initial html file, additional transactions are recorded in the log file. In this way, a request from a single Web page can cause multiple transactions to be recorded in the log file. As can be seen, afterwards, the number of times a web page is transferred to a content display site can be much less than the number of transactions registered in the log file. On the other hand, without additional analysis, there is no precise way to predict the relationship between the number of transactions in the log file and the number of times a web page has been transferred to the content display site. Such inaccuracy can be very important to, for example, advertisers - whose advertising cost is often proportional to the measured exposure of the ads - since the measured exposure of your ad (and thus its cost) may be based on the number of clicks on a web page containing your ad.

A procedure has been used to solve this problem. Through the analysis of the contents of the log file to determine which file was requested in each transaction, it may be possible to differentiate transactions in which the initial html file necessary to generate a Web page is requested from the transactions in which the The requested file is one that is itself requested by another file, thus making it possible to identify and eliminate “redundant” transactions from the pulsation account. While such an approach may increase the accuracy of counting web page keystrokes, it still suffers from several problems.

For example, parsing a log file may result in some default counts of web page keystrokes, apart from any excess counts. This is due to the fact that once transferred to a client computer, in a content display site, the files necessary to generate a Web page can be stored ("stored in a cache memory") on that client computer, making it possible to do so. train an observer who is in the content exhibition site, display the web page again without causing the client computer to make another request to the content provider server computer from which the web page was initially retrieved. Therefore, the viewer can view the web page without making transactions added to the log file, resulting in the default count of the number of web page clicks.

Additionally, the log files are subject to manipulation, either directly or indirectly. For example, an unscrupulous content provider could directly manipulate the log file by retrieving and editing the log file to add bogus transactions, thereby artificially increasing the number of web page clicks and making the web page appears more popular than it really is. This problem can be ameliorated by having the log files periodically transferred at certain times (for example, every night at midnight) from the server computer at the content provider site to a neutral web site; however, the log file can still be manipulated during the time between transfers.

A log file could be manipulated indirectly, for example, by programming one or more computers to continuously request a Web page, generating a large number of keystrokes on that Web page. While the log file would contain the transactions corresponding to the actual file requests associated with the web page, these requests would be artificial requests that almost certainly would not result in the display of the web page. Also, checking the contents of the log file for an unusually high number of requests from a particular IP address (it is 3

ES 2 195 170 T3 cir, client computer) may not make it possible for such manipulation to be detected, since a large number of requests can legitimately come from a client computer that serves many users (for example, the proprietary network America Online^TM it has a handful of computers that are used by many users of that network to connect to the Internet and the World Wide Web).

It may be possible to identify the real origin of content requests using "cookies". A cookie enables the assignment of a unique identifier to each computer from which the requests actually emanate by transferring the identifier to that computer with the content transferred to that computer. Future requests for the content carry that identifier with them. The identifier can be used, in particular, to aid in an indirect log file manipulation identification, as described above, and more generally, to enable a more robust analysis of the log files.

Despite this improvement, cookies do not solve a fundamental problem with the use and analysis of log files to find information related to the display of content provided on the World Wide Web. That is, as highlighted by the overcounting problem associated with the artifice described above and the default counting problem associated with caching content on the content display site, log files only store the content. information about file requests. A log file does not even indicate whether the requested file was actually transferred to the requesting client computer (although, typically, such a file transfer would occur). Neither log file includes any information about how the file was used once it was transferred to the requesting client computer. In particular, the log files do not provide any information regarding whether the content represented by the requested file is actually displayed by the client computer on the content display site, much less information from which conclusions can be drawn regarding if - and if so, how - the content was observed by an observer. These limitations associated with the content of a log file cannot be overcome by a supervisory approach based on log file analysis. On the other hand, the log file analysis is computationally intensive, requiring hours in some cases to extract the desired information from the log file.

Another procedure for monitoring the display of content disseminated on the World Wide Web uses an approach similar to that of the Nielsen rating system used in monitoring television display. In this procedure, the monitoring software is added to the browser implemented on the client computers of a selected number of defined observers (eg, families) to enable the acquisition of data related to the display of advertisements on those computers. This information is then used to project patterns over the general population.

However, this approach also has several disadvantages. First, only a limited amount of data is collected, that is, data is only obtained in relation to a small number of information consumers. As with any consultation procedure, there is no guarantee that the data acquired can be extrapolated to the general population, even if the observers selected for supervision are carefully chosen and in accordance with accepted sampling practices. Second, as the size of the World Wide Web (or other computer network for which this procedure is used) grows, that is, as the number of content provider sites increases, the number of content providers must increase. supervised observers necessary to ensure an accurate representation of the use of all content provider sites, as otherwise, there may be little or no observer interactions with some content provider sites on which to base projections. It may not be possible to find an adequate number of appropriate observers to participate in the monitoring process, particularly given concerns with concomitant intrusion into the privacy of selected observers. Third, the installation of the monitoring software on a client computer that is compatible with a browser presents several problems. This installation requires the active participation of the observers; Since observers typically do not benefit from the performance of the monitoring software, they may be reluctant to expend effort to carry out the installation. The monitoring software must be continuously revised to be compatible with new browsers and new versions of old browsers. To make it possible to monitor a large number of client computers, the software must be tested for compatibility with a wide variety of computing environments. And, as currently implemented, said monitoring software is also dependent on the computing platform used, making it necessary to review the monitoring software for use with new computing platforms or risk of distortion of the demographics of the users in the sample. .

Figures 2A through 2D are simplified diagrams of a network illustrating the operation of a system. In FIG. 2A, a content display site 202 makes a request on the network communication line 203 to the primary content provider site 201 for content that includes secondary content. In FIG. 2B, the primary content provider site 201 transfers the stored file or files to the primary content provider site 201 that are necessary to generate a display of the primary content. These files include the appropriate reference to a file or files stored on a secondary content storage site 204 that includes secondary content updated and / or appropriately adapted for display with the primary content. How I know

ES 2 195 170 T3 shown in Figure 2C, this reference causes the content display site 202 to request the secondary content from the secondary content storage site 204. In Figure 2D, the secondary content is transferred from the storage site of secondary content 204 to the content display site 202 for display on the content display site 202.

Summary of the invention

The invention that is defined by the independent claims, can enable the supervision of the content display by means of a computer system. On the other hand, the invention can enable the monitoring of the content display to produce monitoring information from which conclusions can be drawn regarding the observation of the content display by an observer. The invention can also enable the supervision of the display on a content display site of the content that is provided by a content provider site over a network to the content display site.

The aspects of the invention relating to the transfer of content over a network are generally applicable to any type of network. However, it is contemplated that the invention may be particularly useful with a computer network, including private computer networks (e.g. America Online^TM) and public computer networks (for example, the Internet). In particular, the invention can be used advantageously with computer networks or parts of computer networks on which audio or video content is transferred from one network site to another network site for observation, rec as the part of the World Wide Web. Additionally, the invention is particularly useful in monitoring the display of content obtained on said network using an interactive browser to acquire and view the content in real time.

In one aspect of the invention, the display of content by means of a computer system can be monitored by monitoring the position of the display of the content on a display screen of the computer system and evaluating the position of the display of the content on the computer screen. computer to produce the supervisory information related to the content display. Monitoring the display of content in accordance with this aspect of the invention can be further carried out by monitoring the position of one or more images on the display screen and comparing the position of the display of content with the position of the images. other images to produce the supervisory information. In particular, this aspect of the invention may make it possible to determine whether (and for how long) the display of the content is hidden by one of the other images, and furthermore, whether the display of the content is completely or partially hidden, (and for how long the content display is completely hidden and partially hidden, respectively). This information may be useful, for example, to indicate the amount of time the content display was visible to an observer for observation, or to help the content provider determine in which regions of an display screen it is most likely. that its content is not obstructed. This aspect of the invention may also make it possible to determine the number of times that a screen pointer (for example, a mouse arrow or a cursor) entered an area defined by the content display. This information can be useful in determining how attentive the viewer is to the content, since an viewer often looks at the position of the on-screen pointer when viewing the display screen.

In another aspect of the invention, the display of content by means of a computer system can be monitored by monitoring the change in time of a characteristic of the display of the content and evaluating the change in time of the characteristic of the content. the display of the content to produce the supervisory information related to the display of the content. Monitoring the display of content in accordance with this aspect of the invention can be further carried out by monitoring the change over time of a characteristic of the computer system and comparing the change over time of the display characteristic of the content with the change in time of the characteristics of the computer system to produce the supervisory information. This aspect of the invention can also enable, as previously discussed, the determination of whether (and for how long) the content display is totally or partially hidden by another displayed image, as well as the number of times a pointer entered on the screen. in an area defined by the content display.

In yet another aspect of the invention, in a computer system in which content is displayed in response to an instruction that is provided from a source external to the computer system and the system for supervision (for example, an instruction given by a user of a computer system), The beginning and end of a content display can be found so that the monitoring of the content display by the computer system can begin at the beginning of the content display and end at the end of the content display. Monitoring may occur in accordance with other aspects of the invention described herein. The supervision can also determine the duration of the content display. Since the occurrence of the supervision according to this aspect of the invention is coincident with the display of the content to be supervised, the supervision employs the processing capacity of the computer system only when necessary, while simultaneously ensuring that the supervision occurs. Supervision every time the content is viewed.

In another aspect more than the invention, in the case in which the content is provided by a content provider site over a network to a content exhibition site for exhi5

ES 2 195 170 T3 bition on the content display site, a mechanism to monitor the display of content may be transferred from the content provider site to the content display site in response to (for example, in conjunction with), the transfer of content from the content provider site. Supervision may occur in accordance with other aspects of the invention described in this document. The monitoring information obtained regarding the display of content on the content display site may be transferred to a remote site that is part of the network. The remote site may, but need not be, the content provider site from which the content was transferred to the content display site. In the case where the remote site is said content provider site, the monitoring information can then, in turn, be transferred from the content provider site to a second remote site. In addition, in the event that the remote site is said content provider site, the monitoring information can be transferred from the content display site to the content provider site through a means of communication that is different from the communication medium. used to transfer content from the content provider site to the content display site, a feature that may be useful, for example, when the network is the World Wide Web. This aspect of the invention provides a hitherto unavailable monitoring capability to obtain information about how content is viewed on a network such as the World Wide Web. In particular, it has not previously been possible to monitor content transferred from a content provider site on the World Wide Web once it has been transferred to a content display site.

In a further aspect of the invention, in a network that operates according to a protocol that enables the transfer of new content to a content display site in response to the selection of a part of the content that is currently being viewed. on the content display site, A mechanism for monitoring the display of content can be transferred from a content provider site to a content display site so that the monitoring mechanism works on the content provider site. Supervision can occur in accordance with other aspects of the invention described in this document. The monitoring information obtained regarding the display of content on the content display site may be transferred to a remote site that is part of the network. This aspect of the invention is particularly advantageous when at least some of the content being monitored comprises a graphic display. As previously discussed with respect to the immediately preceding aspect of the invention, this aspect of the invention provides a monitoring capability not available heretofore to obtain information about how the content is displayed when it is retrieved over a network in an interactive browser environment. , just as it happens in the World Wide Web.

In yet another aspect of the invention, the display of the content that is provided by a content provider site over a network to the content display site is monitored to produce the monitoring information, then the monitoring information is transferred to a remote site. of the computer network that is different from the content provider site. According to this aspect, the monitoring information can be transferred first to the content provider site before eventual transfer to the remote site, while the monitoring information cannot be stored on the content provider site, or cannot be accessed. to it or manipulate it on the content provider site before transferring to the remote site. Access to supervision information can be allowed at the remote site to enable interaction with, but not modification of, supervision information. This aspect of the invention provides a system configuration that can overcome the problem of possible interference with the essence of the monitoring information by the content provider. Furthermore, this aspect of the invention can be implemented so that the content and supervision instructions are stored on the remote site and transferred to the content display site when requested by an observer at the content display site. thus freeing the content provider from storing and managing the content and monitoring instructions on the content provider site and thereby simplifying the use of the invention for the content provider. Brief description of the drawings

Figures 1A and 1B are simplified diagrams of a network illustrating the operation of a previous system to monitor requests for content on the World Wide Web.

Figures 2A, 2B, 2C and 2D are simplified diagrams of a network illustrating the operation of a previous system to enable the retrieval of updated and / or adapted secondary content for use in primary content provided over the network.

Figures 3A, 3B and 3C are simplified diagrams of a network illustrating the operation of an embodiment of the invention.

Figures 4A, 4B, and 4C are simplified views of a display screen including a display of content and other images, illustrating an unobstructed, completely hidden, and partially hidden display of content, respectively.

Figure 4D is a simplified view of a display screen including a display of content and other images, illustrating a display of content that is only partially hidden, but was determined to be completely hidden in accordance with a method of the invention. Figure 4E is a simplified view of the display screen shown in Figure 4D, illustrating how another method of the invention can correctly determine the display of content to be partially hidden.

Figure 4F is a simplified view of a

ES 2 195 170 T3 display screen including a display of content and other images, illustrating an display that is partially hidden, but can be decided to be unhidden according to a method of the invention.

Figures 5A, 5B and 5C are simplified diagrams of a network illustrating the operation of another embodiment of the invention.

Detailed description of the invention

The invention includes various aspects related to the display of content to an observer. For example, the invention may enable the monitoring of the display of content by means of a computer system. In particular, the invention can enable the monitoring of the displayed content in a way that provides the monitoring information from which the observation aspects of the user content can be collected. The invention can also enable the monitoring of the display and using the aforementioned capability the observation on a content display site of the content that is provided by a content provider site over a network to the content display site.

In this document, "content" generally refers to any sensory images (or data used to produce those sensory images) displayed by means of a device with which the invention is used. "Observation" refers to the perception of the content by an observer. Typically, the content will be visual or aural images produced by the device; the observation of such content consists in this way in seeing or listening, as appropriate, the images produced.

Certain aspects of the invention relate to the monitoring of content obtained from, or the provision of content on, a network. "Content provider site" refers to a device that is part of the network and that can provide content to another device that is part of the network. "Content display site" refers to a device that is part of the network and that can receive and display content from another device that is part of the network. It was contemplated that the invention may be particularly useful with a computer network operating in this way. "Computer network" includes any collection of interconnected computer systems. "Computer system" refers to a device or collection of devices that depends on a computing device (eg, a general or special purpose processor) for at least some aspects of its operation. In particular, as used herein, a "computer system " can include any type of display device, including a conventional computer display monitor, a television, or one or more audio speakers.

Figures 3A, 3B and 3C are simplified diagrams of a network illustrating the operation of one aspect of the invention. A content display site 302 (which may be a conventional client computer) was linked through a line (or lines) of network communications 303 with a content provider site 301 (which may be a conventional server computer).

(Typically, the network links multiple content display sites to multiple content provider sites; Figures 3A, 3B and 3C show a single content display site 302 and a single content provider site 301 for simplicity. Additionally, it is understood that each website can function as both a content display site and a content provider site). As shown in Figure 3A, the client computer at the content display site 302 requests content from the server computer located at the content provider site 301 over the network communications line 303. As shown in Figure 3B , the server computer at the content provider site 301 provides content to the client computer at the content display site 302 over the network communications line 303. According to this aspect of the invention, in response to the request for content from the content provider site 301, a set of monitoring instructions (which may be carried out, for example in a computer program) are also transferred to the site of content display 302. Transfer of supervision instructions may occur before, with or after content transfer. As explained in more detail later, the monitoring instructions cause the client computer at the content display site 302 to monitor the display of the content to produce monitoring information regarding the way the content is displayed. . As shown in Figure 3C, the monitoring information is transferred from the content display site 302 to the content provider site 301 on the network communication line 303. (The monitoring information could, alternatively or alternatively additional, be transferred to another site that was part of the network). The review of the supervision information produced by the supervision instructions can make possible conclusions regarding the user's observation of the content to be deduced, as explained in more detail later. (It should be noted that, more generally, the monitoring instructions according to the invention can be used to monitor the display of content on a computer system whether or not the computer system is part of a network and receives content and instructions for monitoring. on the network).

The invention can be used both with public computer networks (for example, the Internet) and private computer networks (for example, commercial online services such as America Online^TM, Prodigy^TM and CompuServe^TM, as well as intranets). In particular, the invention can be used advantageously with computer networks or parts of computer networks over which video and / or audio content is transferred from one network site to another network site for display. Furthermore, the invention can be used to advantage with a network in which the network sites can be accessed in real time with a browser. ("Browser" can refer to a computer program that can interpret hypertext files and display the content

ES 2 195 170 T3 corresponding to those files, as well as enabling the transfer of a hypertext file to another through a hyperlink within the hypertext file from which it is being transferred). The World Wide Web portion of the Internet is a current well-known example of such a network with which the invention can be used. Some aspects of the invention are described below, for illustrative purposes, implemented in a way that is compatible with the World Wide Web, that is, according to the hypertext markup language (html) and the hypertext transfer protocol. (http). However, none of the aspects of the invention are limited to said implementation.

When the invention is used with a computer network or to monitor the display of content by means of a computer system, aspects of the invention can be implemented as one or more computer programs that can be executed by means of a computer to get the functionality of that look. Generally, such computer programs can be implemented using any appropriate computer programming language. However, when using one aspect of the invention with a computer network that includes computers of many different types (such as the Internet), the computer programming language is preferably one that can be executed by any type of computer. (that is, the computer programming language is platform independent). The Java programming language developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc. from Mountain View, California, is one such computer programming language. Later on, some aspects of the invention are described, for illustrative purposes, implemented in the Java programming language. Again, however, none of the aspects of the invention are limited to such implementation.

In one embodiment of the invention, the monitoring instructions are transferred to the content display site 302 along with the content. In a particular embodiment, the monitoring instructions are part of a computer program that also includes instructions for viewing the content. Illustratively, said computer program can be a subprogram written in the Java programming language. As those skilled in the use of html will appreciate, Example 1 below illustrates a set of instructions in accordance with html syntax that can be used to produce an applet that displays content and monitors display.

Example 1 <applet code = "AdInsert.class" width = 230 height = 33>

<param name = "image" value = "images / southwest.gif">

&lt;param name = "href" value = "http:

//www.swa.com / ”>

</applet>

The instructions shown in example 1 are executed by means of a conventional browser implemented on a computer at a content display site when an observer at the content display site makes a request for (for example, selects a hyperlink) the content. represented by the file "southwest.gif". The request is received by an http server at the appropriate content provider site. The instructions identify the location ("image") on the content provider site of a subprogram (a small application program) called "AdInsert" that includes additional instructions, which when executed, perform a monitoring procedure according to the invention. , as well as how they make the content display. (The steps that can be implemented in this monitoring procedure are covered later). Upon receiving the request from the http server at the content provider site, the AdInsert applet is transferred to the requesting content display site and execution begins. The instructions in Example 1 also establish the size of the area (width and height) in which the content was displayed on the computer screen, as well as indicating a network site (“href”) to which a connection can be made by selecting a hyperlink within the content. Thus, illustratively, according to the invention, content from a content provider site that can be accessed through a browser (such as a website that is part of the World Wide Web) may be transferred to and displayed on a content display site by transferring from an applet to the content display site that can be run by the browser both to display the content and to display aspects of the content display. (Note that the content that is being monitored may comprise all the content that is being viewed, or only a part of the content that is being viewed, for example, an ad that is present on a web page).

In contrast, previously, only content has been transferred to content display sites, using html syntax as shown in Example 2 below for content being displayed by html syntax shown in Example 1 above.

Example 2 <a href = “http://www.swa.com/">

<img border = 0 scr = “/ images / sothwest. gif ”height = 33 width = 230>

</a>

Thus, previously, it has not been possible to monitor content transferred from a content provider site on the World Wide Web once the content has been transferred to the content display site. As can be seen, then, this aspect of the invention provides a powerful tool, which was not previously available, to obtain information about

EN 2 how content is viewed over a computer network such as the World Wide Web.

The implementation of a monitoring procedure as described immediately above means that the operation of the monitoring procedure is coincident with the display of the content to be monitored. Since the monitoring procedure does not work when content is not being displayed, the monitoring procedure uses the processing power of the computer system at the content display site only when necessary. At the same time, the operation of the supervision procedure is ensured every time the content is viewed.

Furthermore, since the monitoring procedure can be implemented as part of a larger procedure according to the invention that also causes the content to be displayed, the problems previously outlined with the monitoring of the display of the content that is stored in it are overcome. Cache on the content display site. This is because, unlike the previous use of log files that require a request to be made to a content provider site in order for any information to be logged - a monitoring procedure according to the invention can record the information. of supervision at any time the content is viewed, regardless of the way in which the display is requested. In particular, the invention can make it possible to accurately count the number of times a set of content is displayed. This is a huge improvement over previous procedures as described above, which not only do not count the number of times content is viewed (count requests), but cannot even count the number of requests accurately.

Instructions implementing a monitoring procedure according to the invention can be used to obtain a wide variety of monitoring information. For example, the contents of conventional log files (discussed above) can be ascertained by means of a monitoring procedure of the invention. An important aspect of the invention, however, is that the monitoring information, beyond being available in a conventional log file, can also be obtained by means of a monitoring procedure according to the invention. Instructions for obtaining various types of such supervisory information are described later. However, it should be understood that the following descriptions are merely illustrative of the types of supervisory information that may be obtained; obtaining other types of supervisory information is also contemplated by the invention.

For example, a monitoring procedure according to the invention can detect each time content is displayed. In fact, in one embodiment of a supervisory procedure according to the invention, the supervisory procedure does no more than this. A

170 T3 16 monitoring procedure that detects the content display can be implemented by means of a subprogram as described above. The "supervision instructions" of said applet may not be part of an instruction that causes an indication that the applet has been executed in order to be stored or transferred to an appropriate web site (discussed later in greater depth). A monitoring procedure that can discover whether content was viewed or not can be a very useful monitoring procedure that provides important basic information that was not previously available in the interactive browsing environment to acquire and view content. In particular, the default count (due, for example, to content caching on the content display site) and the excess count (due, for example, to the submission of artificial requests for the content that does not result in the content display) of the number of times the content is viewed.

A monitoring procedure according to the invention can also determine the duration of the content display. For example, the duration of the content display can be determined as the amount of time it took for the computer program to run to display the content, as indicated by timestamps - ascertainable, for example, using a procedure that exists as part of the Java language - associated with a predefined beginning and end of program execution.

In one embodiment of the invention, a monitoring procedure monitors the positioning of content on a display screen while the content is being displayed. The position is evaluated to produce the supervisory information regarding the content display. Said evaluation can be carried out, for example, by means of additional obtaining related to the position of one or more images on the display screen, and comparing the position of the content with the position of one or more images.

For example, according to the above embodiment, the monitoring procedure may determine if the content is not visible on the display screen, either because the content is hidden by one or more images, or because the content has been moved out of the way. the display screen (from now on, these two situations will be referenced together by saying that the content is "hidden"). In addition, the monitoring procedure can determine if the content is partially hidden, that is, partially hidden by one or my images, or partially displaced off the display screen. In addition, the duration of each period during which the content is completely or partially hidden can be determined when those periods occur. The length of time for unobstructed views of the content can be determined as the times when the view of the content is not fully or partially hidden. You can report each of the durations directly and / or you can inform9

ES 2 195 170 T3 is the total duration in which the content is totally hidden, partially completely hidden or partially hidden and / or unobstructed, respectively.

Information regarding whether the displayed content is hidden or not may be useful for a number of reasons. For example, such information indicates the number of times the displayed content was visible to the viewer for observation. Additionally, this information can be used by the content provider to determine in which regions of the display screen its content is most likely to be unobstructed.

Whether the displayed content is hidden can be determined in whatever way possible using the tools (eg, supported programming language, operating system features) associated with the computer network with which the invention is being used. One way to determine if the displayed content was hidden using the applet described above is to periodically declare that the display of the content (or a part of it) is invalid, that is, the operating system is asked to redraw the display of the content, if necessary. If the operating system then requests the applet to redraw the content display, then the content display was not hidden. However, if the operating system does not request the applet to redraw the display of the content, then the display of the content is hidden.

The most complete information regarding whether the content display is hidden can be obtained by invalidating each discrete element of the content display (eg, a pixel) and determining whether the discrete element was hidden, in the manner described above. However, such an approach is expensive from a computational point of view and is generally not necessary to obtain useful and sufficiently precise information regarding whether the content display was hidden. Preferably, then, only a part of the content display, strategically selected, was evaluated in this way.

For example, in one embodiment of the invention, each corner of the content display is invalidated and monitored for redrawing as described above. If all corners are redrawn, then the display of the content is determined so that it is not obstructed. If none of the corners are redrawn, then the content display is set to be completely hidden. If at least one, but not all of the corners is redrawn, then the display is determined to be partially hidden.

Figures 4A, 4B, and 4C are simplified views of a display screen 400 including a content display 401 and other images 402, 403, and 404, illustrating an unobstructed, fully hidden, and partially hidden content display, respectively. In Figure 4A, none of the corners 401a, 401b, 401c, or 401d are covered by any of the other images 402, 403, and 404. Thus, after corners 401a, 401b, 401c, and 401d are invalidated, each is redrawn, and it is determined (correctly in this case) that the display of 401 content is unobstructed. In Figure 4B, each of the corners 401a, 401b, 401c, and 401d is covered by image 402. Thus, none of the corners 401a, 401b, 401c and 401d are redrawn after being invalidated, and it is determined that the display of 401 content (once again, correctly) was completely hidden. In Figure 4C, corners 401c and 401d are covered by image 402, but corners 401a and 401b are not. In this way, only the corners 401a and 401b are redrawn after the invalidation of the corners 401a, 401b, 401c and 401d, and it is determined that the display of the content (once again, correctly) is partially hidden.

The above approximation may not be accurate in all cases. Figure 4D is a simplified view of display screen 400 including content display 401 and other images 402, 403, and 404, illustrating a partially hidden content display 401 that was determined to be fully hidden in accordance with the procedure of the invention described above. In Figure 4D, image 402 covers corners 401c and 401c, image 403 covers corner 401a, and image 404 covers corner 401b. Thus, since none of the four corners 401a, 401b, 401c and 401d is redrawn after being invalidated, it is determined that the display of the 401 content was completely hidden; however, as can be seen in Figure 4D, this is not the case.

This problem can be alleviated by evaluating other discrete elements of the content display in addition to the corners. For example, discrete elements in the center of the top and bottom edges, and / or the left and right edges of the content display could be evaluated in addition to the corner pixels. Figure 4E is a simplified view of display screen 400 as shown in Figure 4D, illustrating how another method of the invention can correctly determine the display of content 401 to be partially hidden. In Figure 4E, the center of the upper edge 401e and the center of the lower edge 401f of the content display 401 were also evaluated. The center of the lower edge 401f is covered by the image 402, while the center of the upper edge 401e is not. In this way, after the invalidation of corners 401a, 401b, 401c and 401d, and centers 401e and 401f, the center of the upper edge 401e is redrawn, and it is determined (correctly) that the display of the 401 content was partially hidden. .

Figure 4F is a simplified view of display screen 400, including display of content 401 and other images 402, 403, and 404, illustrating a partially hidden content display 401 that can be determined to be unobstructed in accordance with a procedure. of the invention. In Figure 4F, none of the corners 401a, 401b, 401c, and 401d, or the centers 401e and 401f are covered by the images.

IS 2 195 170 T3

402, 403 and 404. Thus, after the invalidation of the corners 401a, 401b, 401c and 401d, and the centers 401e and 401f, each of them is redrawn, and it is determined that the display of the 401 content was not obstructed. However, as can be seen in Figure 4F, this is not the case, since image 403 was positioned in the center of the content display 401.

As illustrated in Figures 4D through 4F, while evaluating additional discrete elements of a content display does not eliminate the possibility of an imprecise determination as to whether the content display is hidden, it does not reduce the probability of such an occurrence. Generally, any number and configuration of discrete elements of a content display can be evaluated to reduce the possibility of an incorrect determination as to whether the content display is hidden, while the associated computational costs do not become unacceptably high. In addition, the procedure described above for determining whether a content display was hidden is only one way in which such a determination can be made.

As part of the determination of whether the content display was hidden, a time stamp is recorded each time there is a change in the "hidden state" of the content display. From these time frames, it is possible to determine the duration of each period of time in which the display of the content is unobstructed, partially hidden and completely hidden. From the duration of each period, the total durations of time that the content display is unobstructed, partially hidden, and completely hidden can also be determined. It may also be possible, through the appropriate configuration of the discrete elements of the content display that are evaluated, to determine (albeit approximately topically), when the content display is partially hidden, the amount of the content display. content that is visible. It may be possible, also, when the content display was partially hidden, to give a qualitative description of the part of the content display that is hidden (or visible), for example, upper right corner, lower left corner.

When the monitoring procedure works on a computer system that has an event-controlled operating environment, the monitoring procedure can monitor events as they are transmitted by the operating system to find information regarding the display of content. When the supervision procedure is implemented as a subprogram that also displays the content, this supervision can occur naturally, since only the events that have to do with the content display are transmitted to the supervision procedure. For example, the applet can use a pre-existing Java procedure (for example, the procedure called HandleEvent in a current version of Java) to monitor events as they are transmitted by the operating system. Such event monitoring can be used to, for example, determine the number of times that a screen pointer (for example, a mouse arrow or a cursor) entered an area defined by the content display. (The defined area can be related to the content display in one way and may be, for example, the area in which the content is displayed, or an area somewhat smaller or larger than the content display area) . The operating system of the computer system that displays the content display topically monitors the position of the pointer on the screen and can identify where the pointer is on the display screen. In this way, an applet configured to display content, as described above, can discern whether the pointer was located within the content display by monitoring an event that indicates that the pointer entered the area defined by the content. content display. The monitoring procedure of the invention can use this information provided by the operating system to count the number of times the screen pointer enters the area defined by the content display. The monitoring procedure can also determine when the screen pointer leaves the area defined after each entry, by monitoring another event that indicates that the pointer left the area defined by the content display. The time setpoints associated with entering and exiting the defined area can be used to calculate the length of time the pointer was in the defined area for each entry within the defined area, as well as the total duration of time that the pointer was within the defined area. The monitoring procedure can also determine when the screen pointer was moving within the defined area, once more by monitoring an event that indicates said pointer movement. The information described above regarding the position of the screen pointer and movement relative to the content display can be helpful in determining how attentive the viewer is to the content, since an observer frequently looks at the position of the screen pointer when viewing. the display screen.

In another embodiment of the invention, the monitoring procedure monitors the change over time of a characteristic of the content display. The change over time of this characteristic was evaluated to produce the supervisory information. The evaluation can be carried out, for example, by means of additional monitoring of the change in time of a characteristic of the computer system used to display the content, and the comparison of the change in time of the characteristic of the content display. with the change in time of the characteristic of the computer system. Either of the two examples given immediately above (hiding the content display and entering a pointer within a defined area) are also examples of a monitoring procedure in accordance with this embodiment of the procedure.

ES 2 195 170 T3 invention.

A monitoring procedure according to the invention can obtain a variety of other information, as well. For example, the monitoring procedure can obtain a time stamp (date and time of day) that indicates when the content display began. When the monitoring procedure is implemented by means of a Java applet, the time stamp can be obtained using a procedure that exists as part of the Java language.

You can also obtain the identification information related to the computer on which the content is viewed. You can obtain the Internet protocol (IP) address from which the content was requested, as well as an identification of the machine to which the content was transferred. (There may not be a one-to-one correspondence between these two if, for example, the latter is a client computer of a system for which the former is a server computer.) Again, both the IP address and the hostname can be obtained using a pre-existing Java procedure.

A monitoring procedure according to the invention can also determine whether the user of the computer at the content display site selected (for example, clicked the mouse button or clicked by means of an appropriate keyboard key) a hyperlink within the content showroom area to end the current content showcase show. Similar to the pointer position monitoring described above, an applet implementing an invention monitoring procedure can include a standard Java procedure (for example, HadleEvent) that accepts events transmitted by the operating system. One of the events is the selection of a hyperlink. When such an event is reported, the monitoring procedure may thus notice it.

As previously indicated, the above-described examples of supervisory information are merely illustrative of the types of supervisory information that can be obtained by means of a supervisory procedure in accordance with the invention. Generally, a monitoring procedure according to the invention can make use of any procedure available in the computing environment, for example, an operating system procedure, or a procedure that is part of a software framework, or that can be written to. a computer programming language that can be used in the computing environment. For example, when the monitoring procedure is implemented by an applet written in Java, any existing procedure in Java can be used to obtain information regarding the display of the content to be monitored, or by using the procedure to change the state of the computer (for example, the state of the exhibition) on which the content is being displayed and monitoring the response of the computer (for example, the procedure for monitoring whether the content display is hidden, discussed above) or by retrieving information about the state of the computer (for example, the procedure for monitoring pointer entry into the content display, discussed above ). In particular, event monitoring as discussed above can be helpful in discerning information about content display.

A monitoring procedure according to the invention can also be used to find information about an audio display. For example, if the content being monitored includes audio content that can only be displayed by selecting an appropriate user interface mechanism (for example, a graphical button knob), a monitoring procedure in accordance with the invention can determine whether that "event" is transmitted to the window represented by the content, indicating that the audio display began at the end. Using a procedure like the one described above to determine the duration of a content display, along with knowing when the audio display began (using a time reference as described above), the duration can also be determined. of the audio exhibition. It may be possible to determine the volume at which audio content is displayed by roughly monitoring the procedures used to operate the audio display devices. These examples are merely illustrative. As can be appreciated, using any other procedure available in the computing environment, other information related to an audio display can be determined.

A monitoring procedure according to the invention can also be used to explicitly (ie, by presenting questions to viewers who can respond) to acquire the demographic information relative to viewers of the content being monitored. This could be implemented, for example, by including instructions for asking such questions, the content of the questions, and instructions for storing the demographic information obtained in a computer program used to implement the monitoring procedure. Or, such instructions and the content of the questions could be stored in a separate file that is called and executed by the computer program that implements the monitoring procedure. Or, the instructions for presenting the questions and storing the answers could be included as part of the computer program to implement the monitoring procedure, and the content of the questions could be contained in a separate file that the computer program could access. These last two possibilities can be particularly advantageous, as they allow multiple sets of demographic questions to be presented to viewers through the monitoring procedure, thus making it possible to tailor demographic questions to the content being displayed or the characteristics of the viewer likely to see. the content.

IS 2 195 170 T3

As described above, according to the invention, the supervisory information regarding the content display can be obtained, subsequently it is reviewed and analyzed to make it possible to draw conclusions about the content that was displayed and, possibly, to enable making possible deductions about how the content was viewed. In addition, supervisory information can be used to affect the display of a set of content. One way this can occur is for a content set, or the way a content set is displayed, to be modified based on the review and analysis of the supervisory information obtained from the views. contents of the content set (for example, the monitoring information regarding whether the content is hidden or not, or the frequency of display of the content at different times during the day or week, which can be used to determine the best location on the display screen or the best moments, respectively, to view the content).

Another way that monitoring information can be used to affect the display of a content set is to use certain monitoring information obtained just before or during the display to make the content set display in a particular way. For example, as discussed above, the IP address from which a request for a set of content emanated can be found when the request is first received. It may be possible to associate characteristics of an observer or observers with an IP address from which a content request was received (because, for example, demographic information was previously obtained as described above when a content set was transferred previously to that IP address). Based on the known characteristics associated with the IP address, an appropriate version can be transferred between multiple versions of the requested content set for display, for example, it is known that the IP address corresponds to a content display site that is used by observers who speak a particular language, then the text displayed aurally or visually can be displayed in that language. As another example, the length of time that a content set has been displayed can be determined, as discussed above, and the part of the content set that is being viewed can change based on that duration, for example, the A display of a content set can start with a particular video display and switch to another video display after a specified length of time has elapsed. As yet another example, the part of a content set that is being displayed can be varied based on the operating characteristics of the network over which the content is transferred. For example, the amount of time required to transfer data from the content provider site to the content display site can be monitored (for example, by obtaining information from the log file regarding the size of the transferred files and the quantity time needed to transfer those files, as discussed above). The content display can then be controlled such that a moving video is displayed if the data transfer rate is above a predetermined magnitude and a still image video if the data transfer rate is below the predetermined magnitude. , the predetermined magnitude being chosen such that data rates below that magnitude are insufficiently fast to produce moving video of acceptable quality. The above examples are merely illustrative; The invention contemplates other ways of using supervisory information to affect the display of a set of content.

As described above, a monitoring method according to the invention can obtain monitoring information regarding the display of content. Of particular interest is the basic question of whether the content was viewed in its entirety. As described above, a monitoring procedure according to the invention can make this determination. Some observers, however, have developed techniques for suppressing the display of particular content (eg, advertisements). A monitoring procedure according to the invention may also increase the probability that particular content will be displayed by conditioning certain other operations of the computer system that displays the content on the display of that particular content. For example, the content to be monitored can be presented as part of other content. Such presentation is common, for example, on the World Wide Web, where, for example, advertising content is frequently included as part of other content. A monitoring procedure according to the invention may condition the display of other content on the display of the content to be monitored, for example, all the content of a web page cannot be viewed unless an advertisement included in the web page is viewed. Web page. On the other hand, the presentation of the other content may be conditional on the display of the content to be monitored during a specified period of time. This can be particularly valuable when the content to be monitored does not automatically appear as part of the other content, but rather is only displayed in response to the selection of an appropriate user interface mechanism (for example, a controller. graphic button) that is part of the other content.

According to the above-described forced presentation of specific content, the detection of suppression of content can be carried out in a suitable way. For example, it may be possible to detect the suppression technique being used. Or, the content display can be reordered so that the content to be viewed ("requested content") is the first to be viewed; If the monitoring procedure detects that the exhibition site of the

ES 2 195 170 T3 content is viewing the other content without first displaying the requested content, then the requested content has been deleted. Upon detecting the suppression of the requested content, the display of the other content is prevented and, if desired, a message is displayed indicating this fact.

As indicated above, after obtaining the monitoring information by means of the monitoring procedure according to the invention, the monitoring information is transferred from the content display site 302 to a remote site. The remote site can be content provider site 301 or another site that is part of the network. When a monitoring procedure according to the invention is implemented by means of a Java applet, the remote site is the content provider site 301, since, at that time, these applets can only communicate information to the website from the that were transferred. However, in the future, such restrictions may not exist; in that case, the remote site need not necessarily be the content provider site 301 even when using a Java applet to implement a monitoring procedure according to the invention.

Generally, the monitoring information can be transferred to the remote site at any time. It may be desirable, for example, to have the supervision information transferred to the remote site immediately after obtaining the supervision information, so that the supervision information is accessible as quickly as possible. It may be desirable, alternatively, to store the monitoring information on the content display site, then transfer the monitoring information later at the time when communication over the 303 network communication line is faster and / or less expensive. , for example, at night.

Supervision information can be communicated to a communication port that is different from the port from which the content and supervision instructions were transmitted to the content display site 302. In that case, a special server that supervises said communication port For the reception of the supervisory information, it is installed on the server computer at the content provider site. The server can be implemented as a server to monitor data received by a server computer on a designated communication port. Communication of the supervision information to a specially designated port can be useful to enable the supervision data to be sent in any desired format according to any desired protocol. For example, the monitoring data can be encrypted, as described below.

When the invention is implemented with the World Wide Web, it is also possible to transmit the monitoring data over the network using the communication channel supervised by the http server, that is, by transmitting a request to the http server. Such transmission may be desirable for a number of reasons. For example, transmitting the monitoring data to the http server eliminates the need to create and supply the remote site operators to whom the monitoring data is transferred (for example, a web page operator or, as described more ahead, an application manager site operator), special software to receive the monitoring data. Additionally, transmitting monitoring data by transmitting a request to the http server may be the only way to transfer monitoring data to the remote site. This may be true, for example, when one or more client computers are being served by a "proxy server" that mediates communication between the client computers and other sites on the network. The proxy server may not allow communication over a specially designated channel to transmit monitoring data, but it may allow communication to the http server.

The transmission of monitoring data by making a request to the http server can be carried out in several ways. For example, you can submit an http request for a file that has a "name" indicating the monitoring data in the same way. Despite the spurious nature of the file request, the request is logged in the http log file, from which the “name” can be retrieved to enable the extraction of the supervision data. Or, a request for the execution of a CGI applet can be transmitted, with the request parameter of the CGI applet specifying the input to the applet being specified to indicate the monitoring data in some way. A computer program resident in the computer system at the remote site can then implement a procedure that extracts the value of the input from the CGI applet, and the monitoring data can be extracted from the value of the input. Other ways of using CGI applets or http requests to transmit monitoring data to an http server are possible.

For security, it may be desirable to encrypt the monitoring data before it is transferred from the content display site 302 to a remote site. Any suitable encryption procedure can be used. For example, a public key encryption procedure, such as the well-known RSA algorithm, can be used to encrypt the monitoring data. In general, monitoring data (or other data transferred over a network according to the invention) can be encrypted prior to any transmission of data over a network (other examples of such data transmissions are described later as part of the systems illustrated in Figures 5A, 5B and 5C).

Once communicated to the remote site, the monitoring information can be stored in any appropriate database, as those skilled in the art of building and managing databases know. The monitoring information can be presented for observation through a suitable user interface, such as a graphical user interface (GUI), in any desired format, for example, graphics,

ES 2 195 170 T3 bar charts, pie charts. The monitoring information stored in the database can also be subjected to further analysis if desired. For example, the total time that a content display is available for viewing can be broken down into percentages of time that the content display was unobstructed, partially hidden, and completely hidden. Or, you can identify the percentage of viewers to a content set who select a particular hyperlink while viewing the content.

The monitoring information may be of interest not only to the content provider that provides the content for display, but to third parties as well. For example, if the content provided by the content provider includes an advertisement, the advertiser may be interested in the monitoring information regarding the display of the content. The third party and the content provider may have conflicting interests in the substance of the monitoring information. For example, if the third party is paying the content provider to include the third party's content with the content provider's content, and the payment is based on the amount of exposure of the third party's content to viewers, the content provider has an interest in the monitoring information showing a large amount of content exposure, while the third party has an interest in monitoring information showing a small amount of exposure. (Both parties, of course, may be simultaneously motivated by other interests, too: for example, the third party may simply want the supervisory information to accurately reflect the amount of content exposure, so that they can use the information in the assessment of the effects of providing your content through the content provider). If the monitoring information is transferred from the content display site to the content provider site, and unrestricted access to the monitoring information allowed on the content provider site is allowed, there may not be a foolproof way to prevent it from the content provider meddles with the essence of the supervisory information. This problem is particularly acute when a monitoring procedure according to the invention is performed in a way (for example, by a Java applet), as discussed above, that requires the monitoring information to be transferred back to the site. content provider.

Figures 5A, 5B and 5C are simplified diagrams of a network illustrating the operation of another embodiment of the invention. This embodiment of the invention provides a system configuration that can overcome the problem of possible interference with the essence of the monitoring information by the content provider. As in the system illustrated in Figures 3A, 3B, and 3C, a content display site 302 is linked over a network to a content provider site 301. The network also includes an application manager site 501. The content display site 302 and the content provider site 301 may communicate with each other over the network communication line 303, as described above, to enable content transfer and monitoring instructions from within. content provider site 301 to content display site 302. Alternatively, content and monitoring instructions may be transferred to content display site 302 from application manager site 501 in response to a request received from content provider site 301 upon receipt of the request from display site. content 302. This latest implementation is illustrated in Figures 5A, 5B and 5C. In such implementation, the content provider site 301 does not need to have either a computer program to implement the monitoring procedure or a program to receive the monitoring data installed on the content provider site 301, thus simplifying the use of the invention for the content provider. More than this, the content provider only needs to have one account open (as discussed later) on the 501 application manager site.

In this embodiment of the invention, the monitoring information obtained on the content display site 302 is transferred to the application manager site 501, or directly from the content display site 302 or indirectly through the content provider site 301 . If the latter, then the monitoring information may be received by the content provider site 301 and transferred to the application manager site 501 in a way that prevents access to the monitoring information on the content provider site 301. For example, the monitoring information could be encrypted at the content display site 302 prior to transfer to the content provider site 301, with the decryption procedure available only at the application management site 501. Or, the information from supervisióon could be immediately transferred to the management site of the application 501 after being received on the content provider site 301. Once received at the 501 application management site, access to the supervision information can be managed by the application manager (neutral) so that the supervision information cannot be modified by any of the parties that have a interest in the information, thus ensuring the integrity of the supervisory information.

In a topical implementation, multiple content sets will be provided from multiple content provider sites, and each content set will be displayed by multiple content display sites. A set of monitoring information will be recorded for each display of each of the multiple content sets and will be transferred to the application management site for storage in a database that is implemented on a computer at the application management site. Each set of supervisory information must be identified as corresponding to the set of content15

ES 2 195 170 T3 nest for which the supervision information was obtained, so that the supervision information can be properly stored in a database to enable the subsequent retrieval of the supervision information for that content set. When a monitoring procedure according to the invention is implemented for use with the World Wide Web, this can be carried out by means of the appropriate specification of a parameter included in a computer program written in html using to implement a monitoring procedure. , as discussed above. Example 3 below illustrates how Example 1 discussed above can be modified to make such a specification (the "Count" parameter). Example 3 <applet code = “//AppMgr.com/AdInsert. class ”width = 230 height = 33>

<param name = "image" value = "images / southwest.gif">

&lt;param name = "href" value = "http:

//www.swa.com / ”>

<param name = "Account" value = "9004560093">

</applet>

The database residing on the computer at the application management site can also be used, for example, to store account information about the content provider site from which the content display is provided.

In the embodiment of the invention illustrated in Figure 5, a user interface (eg, a GUI) may be provided on the content provider site computer to enable the owner (or representative) of the content provider site to access the monitoring information stored on the application manager site regarding the content views provided by the content provider site. This interface can also be configured to enable the content provider to create a new account on the application management computer, authorize payments for the use of the invention's supervision system, and request a particular analysis or presentation of the supervision information. obtained. Other functions can also be provided in that interface, as desired.

It is also possible that there are multiple application manager sites. Topically, the monitoring information for each content display will be designated for storage on a particular site of the application manager sites. Said designation can be included as a parameter specification in a computer program used to implement the monitoring information as discussed above.

As described above, the monitoring instructions and content can be performed by an applet running on the content display site. In the system of Figures 5A, 5B and 5C, the use of such a subprogram can advantageously fit with an implementation of those systems in which the subprogram is transferred to the content display site from the application manager site. This is because a subprogram must return the supervision information to the web site from which the subprogram was transferred: in this way, the supervision information is transferred directly to the neutral site that manages the application.

Various embodiments of the invention have been described. Descriptions are intended to be illustrative, not limiting. Thus, it will be obvious to one skilled in the art that certain modifications can be made to the invention as described above without departing from the scope of the claims set forth below. For example, although the invention has been described above as being particularly applicable to monitoring the display of content disseminated on the World Wide Web, the invention can generally be used to monitor the display of content disseminated over any computer network. Additionally, although an implementation of the invention using aspects of the Java programming language has been described, it will be understood that the invention is not limited to said implementation; Other programming languages ​​that have other features and characteristics could be used (for example, the language does not need to be an object-oriented language like Java is).