Information output device, information output program, information output method, and information output system

Abstract

To provide an information output device, an information output program, an information output method, and an information output system that provide a technique for utilizing an information posting site to a service provider in order to improve the ability to attract customers.SOLUTION: An information output device 104 includes: an information acquisition unit 112 which acquires information posted by another user on a network; an information generation command unit 114 which generates information similar in content to the information acquired by the information acquisition unit 112; and an output unit 116 which outputs information generated in accordance with a command issued by the information generation command unit 114.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 2

Description

Technical Field

[0001] The present invention relates to an information output device, an information output program, an information output method, and an information output system.

Background Art

[0002] Conventionally, a method for managing an information posting site including an SNS (Social Network Service) and / or a review site has been known (for example, Patent Document 1).

Prior Art Documents

Patent Documents

[0003]

Patent Document 1

Summary of the Invention

Problems to be Solved by the Invention

[0004] By the way, in recent years, in the service industry such as restaurants, efforts have been made to increase the customer attraction power by using information posting sites. In particular, many service providers utilize a plurality of information posting sites to send information to various customer segments.

[0005] The present disclosure aims to provide a service provider with a technology for utilizing an information posting site that can further enhance the customer attraction power.

Means for Solving the Problems

[0006] According to one aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided an information acquisition unit that acquires information posted by other users on a network, an information generation command unit that generates information having a content similar to the information acquired by the information acquisition unit, and an output unit that outputs the information generated according to the command by the information generation command unit.

Brief Description of the Drawings

[0007]

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

Figure 4

Figure 5

Mode for Carrying Out the Invention

[0008] Hereinafter, embodiments of the present disclosure will be described. The information output device according to the embodiment is merely an example, and each configuration can be appropriately changed without departing from the gist of the present disclosure. In particular, in the following embodiments, the hardware and functional blocks for realizing the information output device will be explicitly described in detail. However, it is obvious that according to the gist of the present disclosure, which hardware realizes which function can be appropriately changed. Also, it is obvious that each functional block can be realized by the same hardware or software, or different hardware or software. In the following description, it is assumed that a control program installed in the information output device controls each hardware.

[0009] FIG. 1 shows an overview of an information output system to which the information output device is applied. The information output system 100 includes a user terminal 102, an information output device 104, an SNS server 106, and an information generation device 108. The user terminal 102, the information output device 104, the SNS server 106, and the information generation device 108 are connected via a network 110. Although details will be described later, the information output device 104 and the SNS server 106 function as so-called application servers. Therefore, when implementing the present disclosure, a web server and / or a database server, etc. are also required, but descriptions of these known technologies will be omitted for convenience of explanation.

[0010] The user terminal 102 is composed of an information processing device with a screen such as a user's personal computer or smartphone. In this embodiment, a series of information output processes are executed while accessing the information output device 104 using the browser installed on the user terminal 102. That is, in this embodiment, the user terminal 102 functions only as a user interface, and a series of information output processes are performed on the information output device 104. Note that an application capable of executing a series of information output processes may be installed on the user terminal 102, and the user terminal 102 may directly access the information output device 104, the SNS server 106, and the information generation device 108.

[0011] A user refers to a person who uses the user terminal 102. In this embodiment, a user is a person who has an SNS account and wishes to post new information to their own SNS account. For example, when the operator of a restaurant wants to post new information to the SNS account in the name of the restaurant they operate, the operator of the restaurant becomes the user.

[0012] The information output device 104 functions as an application server that executes an information output program. The information output device 104 is realized by a hardware processor such as a CPU (Central Processing Unit) executing an information output program (software). When the information output program is executed, various information is displayed on the browser of the user terminal 102 via the network 110. Details of the information output device 104 and the information output program for operating the information output device 104 will be described later.

[0013] The SNS server 106 is an operation server of an SNS site (i.e., an application server). The SNS site should be understood in a broad sense and refers to a site where various contributors can post information regardless of whether it is a membership-based site, a non-membership site, an anonymous site, a named site, or a real-name site. Also, the site includes not only the web site displayed by a browser but also the original data of the app screen displayed by an application program. The SNS server 106 is a general server that manages information for operating the SNS site.

[0014] The information generation device 108 is a device or system that utilizes AI (Artificial Intelligence). The information generation device 108 uses a language model trained on information sites including countless SNS sites and outputs an answer to the input request. As the information generation device 108, for example, a device or system in which a tool using a machine learning model such as a well-known large language model (LLM: Large Language Models) like Chat GPT is implemented can be utilized. In the embodiment of the present disclosure, the machine learning model adopted is one trained to output text generated by a computer based on the text information posted on the SNS server 106. Note that the machine learning model is not limited to a large language model and may be any model capable of automatic generation by AI and is not particularly limited thereto.

[0015] The network 110 includes, for example, the Internet, WAN (Wide Area Network), LAN (Local Area Network), provider terminals, wireless communication networks, wireless base stations, dedicated lines, etc. Note that not all combinations of the devices shown in FIG. 1 need to be communicable with each other, and the network 110 may include a partially local network.

[0016] FIG. 2 shows a block diagram of the information output device. The information output device 104 includes an information acquisition unit 112, an information generation instruction unit 114, an output unit 116, a posting unit 118, an SNS information addition unit 120, and a control unit 122. Some or all of the information acquisition unit 112, the information generation instruction unit 114, the output unit 116, the posting unit 118, and the SNS information addition unit 120 may be realized by hardware (including a circuit unit; circuitry) such as an LSI (Large Scale Integration), an ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit), an FPGA (Field-Programmable Gate Array), or a GPU (Graphics Processing Unit), or may be realized by cooperation between software and hardware. In the present embodiment, it is assumed that the information acquisition unit 112, the information generation instruction unit 114, the output unit 116, the posting unit 118, and the SNS information addition unit 120 operate when the control unit 122 supplies commands to each unit based on an information output program.

[0017] The information acquisition unit 112 acquires information posted on the network. More specifically, the information acquisition unit 112 acquires various information posted on the SNS server 106. In order for the information acquisition unit 112 to acquire the information posted on the SNS server 106, known API (Application Programming Interface) technology can be used. Since the API is installed on various existing SNS servers, detailed description is omitted. The information acquired by the information acquisition unit 112 includes information posted by various users on the network 110. The information posted on the network 110 includes SNS information posted on the SNS server 106. Note that there may be multiple SNS servers on the system 100. In this case, the information acquisition unit 112 may acquire information from multiple SNS servers. The information acquisition unit 112 may acquire information only from the SNSs posted by other users, or may extract the information posted by other users from all the acquired SNSs. Further, the information acquisition unit 112 may extract only the information posted by the persons related to the user. The persons related to the user refer to those who may compete with the user's SNS. As the persons who may compete with the user's SNS, those who post SNSs within a specified area in advance, or those who are engaged in the same type of business as the user's SNS are assumed.

[0018] Whether a person posts on SNS within a pre-specified area can be determined based on whether they conduct business in an administrative division that is the same as or close to the address registered by the user, or whether they conduct business within a predetermined distance from the address registered by the user. Adjacent administrative divisions can be easily identified by referring to map data existing on the network. Also, one may search for those who post on SNS within the pre-specified area using the address obtained by excluding the lower-level administrative divisions from the address registered by the user. As an example, when the address registered by the user is "No. 1, 1-chome, Shibuya, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo", it is assumed that the search is conducted using the address obtained by excluding "No. 1", "1-chome", "Shibuya", etc., which indicate the lower-level administrative divisions. The same type of business refers to similar business types, business types with overlapping customers, or business types obtained by generalizing specific business types. Also, those who post using similar hashtags or similar terms (especially nouns) at the time of SNS posting may be regarded as conducting the same type of business. The above determination can be made based on information registered in existing map applications such as Google (registered trademark) Map. When registering a store such as a restaurant in a map application, registration of the business type of the store may be required. Therefore, the information acquisition unit 112 can confirm those who may compete with the user's SNS by using the information regarding the business type and the information regarding the address registered in the map application. That is to say, it can also be said that the information acquisition unit 112 functions as a search unit that searches for the SNS of those who may compete with the user.

[0019] As another aspect, the information acquisition unit 112 may utilize AI to acquire information posted on the network. In this case, the information acquisition unit 112 may send a request to utilize an external source (for example, the information generation device 108) to acquire the SNS of competing stores in the vicinity, and receive a reply thereto to acquire the SNS of those who may compete.

[0020] The information generation instruction unit 114 generates information with content similar to the information acquired by the information acquisition unit 112. Specifically, the information generation instruction unit 114 generates a predetermined instruction and generates the instruction (so-called "prompt"). That is, it can be said that the information generation instruction unit 114 functions as a prompt generation unit. The instruction (prompt) preferably includes, as context, an instruction to generate information with similar content. The content of the context is not limited to this, and can be any instruction to generate information based on information posted by other users ultimately. The instruction can include the content of the information acquired by the information acquisition unit, or information indicating the location of the information (URL: Uniform Resource Locator, etc.). The instruction may include additional information such as a limit on the number of characters of the information to be generated and an instruction on the style (including an instruction by attaching an example sentence). The instruction on the style may be an instruction to refer to information posted by the user in the past. By using information created by the user himself / herself in the past as an example sentence, it is possible to prevent the form (tone, writing method, usage method of special characters, format, etc.) of the sentence posted by the user from changing every time an article is posted. Also, by using information on popular articles as example sentences, it is possible to generate articles with a sentence form similar to that of popular articles, and it can be expected that the degree of attention will increase. The information generation instruction unit 114 transmits the generated instruction to the information generation device 108. The information generated by the information generation device 108 in response to this instruction is transmitted to the information output device 104.

[0021] When a plurality of SNSs are acquired by the information acquisition unit 112, the information generation instruction unit 114 may extract the SNS with a high (large) evaluation count and generate an instruction to generate information with content similar to the content of the extracted SNS. The evaluation count of the SNS refers to at least one of the engagement rate indicating the ratio of users who responded to the SNS post, the number of positive evaluations, and the number of comments. Also, SNS information may be referred to as the evaluation count. In this case, the information generation instruction unit 114 extracts the SNS that includes more SNS information with a high (large) usage frequency (large number of usage times). The SNS information referred to here is information indicating keywords (specific nouns, etc.) indicating the content posted on the SNS such as hashtags and metatags.

[0022] When the information generation device 108 is a system using an image generation AI or a voice generation AI, the instruction generated by the information generation command unit 114 may include an instruction to generate related image information or voice information. When the information generation device 108 is a system using only a text generation AI, an information generation device other than the information generation device 108 that uses an image generation AI or the like may be used in combination to generate image information or voice information.

[0023] As another aspect, the information generation command unit 114 may cause the information generation device 108 to acquire information posted on the network. That is, the information generation device 108 substitutes for the function of the information acquisition unit 112. In this case, it is not necessary to provide the information output device 104 with the information acquisition unit 112. Also in this case, the information generation device 108 may be provided with the function as the search unit described above.

[0024] The output unit 116 outputs the information generated in response to the command by the information generation command unit 114 to the user. Specifically, the output unit 116 transmits the information generated by the information generation device 108 to the user terminal 102. The information transmitted from the output unit 116 is displayed on the browser of the user terminal 102. At this time, the information transmitted from the output unit 116 is preferably in a form editable by the user terminal 102. As a result, the user can edit the content of the information using the user terminal 102.

[0025] The posting unit 118 posts the information generated by the information generation device 108 or the information edited using the user terminal 102 to the SNS server 106 in response to an instruction from the user.

[0026] The SNS information adding unit 120 adds SNS information to the information generated by the information generating device 108. The SNS information adding unit 120 refers to the tags attached to the information acquired by the information acquisition unit 112, and attaches the same tags as the referred tags to the information generated by the information generating device 108. When attaching tags, the SNS information adding unit 120 may extract the tags attached to the information acquired by the information acquisition unit 112, and attach only the tags that have been used a certain number of times or more (popular tags) on the SNS server 106. The tags attached by the SNS information adding unit 120 are preferably output in a format editable by the user.

[0027] The control unit 122 operates each of the information acquisition unit 112, the information generation command unit 114, the output unit 116, the posting unit 118, and the SNS information adding unit 120 according to the information output program installed in the information output device 104.

[0028] Next, a series of operations of the information output system 100 will be described. FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing a series of operations of the information output system. In the following example, it is assumed that A, who is a user, operates a café X in area A. It is assumed that A regularly posts information on the SNS for the purpose of promoting the café X. In this example, the information output system 100 can also be said to be an SNS automatic generation system.

[0029] When posting new information on the SNS, A operates the browser of the user terminal 102. As a result, in step S1, the user terminal 102 accesses the information output device 104 via the network 110.

[0030] In step S2, the information output device 104 causes the user terminal 102 to display an input screen for SNS information. An example of the input screen is shown in FIG. 4. On the input screen, a post display box 202, a post instruction button 204, and a post automatic generation instruction button 206 are displayed. The post display box 202 is an input box in which the user types the content to be posted on the SNS site. When the post instruction button 204 is clicked with text entered in the post display box 202, the content entered in the post display box 202 is transmitted to the SNS server 106. The post automatic generation instruction button 206 is an instruction unit for causing the information output program to generate post content.

[0031] When the post automatic generation instruction button 206 is clicked, in the processing after step S3, the information output device 104 starts generating the post content.

[0032] In step S3, the information acquisition unit 112 accesses the SNS server 106 to acquire information posted by other users on the SNS server 106. When extracting only those who may compete with A, in step S3, the information acquisition unit extracts the SNSs of those who may compete with A from among a plurality of SNSs. Specifically, the information acquisition unit 112 extracts the SNSs of restaurants operating within a predetermined distance (for example, within a radius of 500 m) from Café X, or the SNSs of restaurants operating in Area A where Café X is located and in administrative divisions adjacent to Area A.

[0033] In step S4, the information generation command unit 114 sends a command to the information generation device 108 to generate information with content similar to the information acquired by the information acquisition unit 112. When there are a plurality of SNSs extracted in step S3, the information generation command unit 114 may extract the SNS with the largest number of evaluations among the plurality of SNSs and cause the information generation device 108 to generate an SNS article with content similar to the extracted information.

[0034] In step S5, the information generation device 108 generates an SNS article based on the command transmitted from the information generation command unit 114. Naturally, the content of the generated SNS article changes moment by moment depending on the proficiency of the machine learning model of the information generation device 108. Therefore, from a certain perspective, there is a possibility that the SNS article generated by the information generation device 108 does not actually resemble the SNS article it referred to. However, whether the generated SNS article resembles the source SNS article or not is not a matter of concern in this concept. That is, what is important in the present disclosure is whether the command transmitted from the information generation command unit 114 includes a command to "generate a similar SNS article". Next, in step S6, the information generation device 108 transmits the generated SNS article to the information output device 104.

[0035] In step S7, the SNS information adding unit 120 adds tags to the SNS article received from the information generation device 108. At this time, the tags added to the SNS article are popular tags among the tags added to the referred SNS article.

[0036] In step S8, the output unit 116 causes the user terminal 102 to display the content of the SNS article to which the tag has been added. An example of the screen displayed on the user terminal is shown in FIG. 5. Each area shown in FIG. 5 is the same as the area shown in FIG. 4.

[0037] As shown in FIG. 5, the content of the SNS article generated by the information generation device 108 is displayed in the post display box 202. The content of the post display box 202 is displayed in a form that can be edited by operating the user terminal 102. Thereby, the user can appropriately change the content of the SNS article. As shown in the same figure, the content of the tag is also displayed in an editable form.

[0038] If the SNS article displayed in the submission display box 202 does not match the user's taste, the user can operate the user terminal 102 to click the submission automatic generation instruction button 206 again. When the submission automatic generation instruction button 206 is clicked, the information output system 100 repeats the processes of steps S3 to S8. Thereby, an SNS article that matches the user's taste can be automatically generated.

[0039] If the user determines that they want to post the SNS article displayed in the submission display box 202 on the SNS and the user clicks the submission instruction button 204, in step S9, the submission unit 118 transmits the information of the SNS article to the SNS server 106. Thereby, the generated SNS article is posted and made viewable by third parties.

[0040] As described above, according to the embodiment, an SNS article can be generated with a simple operation. Since the generated SNS article is generated taking into account the content that was popular at the time of article generation, it can be expected that the attention level of the generated SNS article will also increase.

[0041] The present disclosure is not limited to the above-described embodiment, and each configuration of the embodiment can be appropriately changed.

[0042] The following modification examples are assumed.

[0043] Image information such as a photo may be stored in an appropriate place such as the user terminal 102, and SNS information may be given to the image information in advance. In this case, when the information generation device 108 generates the content of the SNS article to be displayed in the submission display box 202, the image information with relevant tags may be read out and displayed together with the SNS article.

Explanation of Reference Numerals

[0044] 100 Information output system; 104 Information output device: 108 Information generation device: 112 Information acquisition unit: 114 Information generation command unit: 116 Output unit.

Claims

1. an information acquisition unit that acquires information posted on the network by other users; an information generation command unit that generates information having contents similar to the information acquired by the information acquisition unit; an output unit that outputs the information generated in response to the command from the information generation command unit, Information output device.

2. The information output device according to claim 1 , wherein the information generation command unit generates information having a content similar to information having a certain number of evaluations or more among the information acquired by the information acquisition unit.

3. The information output device according to claim 2 , wherein the number of ratings includes at least one of an engagement rate, a number of good ratings, and a number of comments of the information posted on a network by other users.

4. The information posted on the network by other users is information posted on a social networking site, The information output device according to claim 2 , wherein the number of evaluations includes a number of times that SNS information of the information posted on a network by other users has been used.

5. The information output device according to claim 4 , further comprising an attachment unit that attaches SNS information that has been used a certain number of times or more to the information generated in response to a command from the information generation command unit.

6. The information output device according to claim 1 , wherein the output unit outputs the information generated in response to the command from the information generation command unit in an editable format.

7. The information output device according to claim 1 , wherein the information generation command unit causes a machine learning model trained to output information including computer-generated text based on text information to generate information.

8. The information output device according to claim 1 , wherein the information generation command unit causes a machine learning model trained to output information including at least one of a computer-generated image, a computer-generated video, or a computer-generated sound to generate information.

9. The information output device according to claim 1 , wherein the other users are users who are present in a pre-specified area.

10. The information output device according to claim 1 , wherein the other user is a user who competes with the user of the information output device.

11. A program for operating an information output device, The information output device includes: Obtain information posted on the network by other users; Generate information similar to the acquired information; an information output program that outputs information generated in response to a command from the information generation command unit;

12. An information output method executed by an information output device having a processor, comprising: obtaining information posted on the network by other users; generating information having content similar to the acquired information; and outputting the information generated in response to a command from the information generation command unit.

13. an information acquisition unit that acquires information posted on the network by other users; an information generation command unit that generates information having contents similar to the information acquired by the information acquisition unit; an information generating unit that generates information in response to a command from the information generation command unit; and an output unit that outputs the information generated by the information generation unit.

14. an information generation command unit that acquires information posted on the network by other users and generates information having contents similar to the acquired information; an output unit that outputs information generated in response to a command from the information generation command unit.

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