Group Profile EPG Recommendation System

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Solution Overview

Problem

Existing Electronic Program Guides (EPGs) fail to effectively assist groups, such as families, in selecting programming that is tolerable to all members, as they rely on individual user preferences rather than collective interests.

Innovation Solution

A program navigation method that determines a group profile based on the programming preferences of each member, generates recommendations accordingly, and adapts the EPG to display only compatible content, allowing for weighting of preferences and prioritization of group members and content attributes.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Adaptability or versatility

If individual user preferences are used to generate program recommendations, then personalization is improved, but group compatibility deteriorates

Engineering Contradiction:

ImprovepersonalizationVSAvoidgroup compatibility

Core Design Contradiction:

Adaptability or versatilityVSReliability

Solution Approach 1:

The patent combines multiple individual user profiles into a single group profile by aggregating preferences from all group members. The system merges individual viewing histories and preference data to create a composite group profile that represents collective tastes, thereby achieving both personalization through profile-specific recommendations and group compatibility through unified recommendation generation.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #5Merging (Combining)

Solution Approach 2:

The system creates a multi-functional profile system that can operate at both individual and group levels. The same recommendation engine serves both personalized user needs and group consensus needs by switching between individual profiles and group profiles, making the system universally applicable to different viewing scenarios.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #6Universality (Multi-functionality)

2Adaptability or versatility

If EPG displays all available programs, then program selection completeness is improved, but user decision time increases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveprogram selection completenessVSAvoiduser decision time

Core Design Contradiction:

Adaptability or versatilityVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The system extracts and highlights only the most relevant programs from the complete EPG based on the group profile. By taking out top-ranked recommendations that match group preferences and presenting them prominently, the system maintains access to all programs while reducing decision time through selective emphasis on compatible content.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #2Taking out (Extraction)

Solution Approach 2:

The system performs preliminary filtering and ranking of programs based on group preferences before presentation. By pre-processing the program list to identify and prioritize compatible content, the system prepares the optimal selection in advance, allowing users to quickly find suitable programs without manually scanning the entire EPG.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

Data Source

PatentUS8943537B2Method and system for presenting personalized television program recommendation to viewers

Publication Date: 2015.01.27 COX COMMUNICATIONS INC

AI summary

A novel electronic program guide (EPG) based method and system provides viewer/user groups with an improved program recommendation feature for predicting programs that are likely to be of interest.