Contextualizing and capturing individual user interactions in shared iTV environments

Resumo

Resumo

Advances in Interactive TV (iTV) technology have enabled users to actively interact with the TV instead of just passively watching it. Associating the individual user interactions with contextual data (e.g., date, time, current channel, and people around) may reveal important information about user interests regarding the iTV content. However, capturing individual data is a difficult task since it lacks a proper mechanism to identify viewers while using the iTV. In a typical TV environment, a viewer has only a conventional remote control (RC) device being shared by other viewers, which makes it difficult to distinguish the events performed by each user. This paper presents a novel approach that facilitates the capture of contextualized and individualized data while users interact with the iTV content by using mobile devices as second screen interfaces. In contrast with conventional RCs, mobile devices are personal and typically present advanced computing and communication capabilities that makes it possible to distinguish each viewer and allows the capture of individual and contextualized interactions. The data generated in those interactions may be interpreted by specific algorithms becoming useful information for TV service providers (TSPs) enhancing TV-based services, e.g., advertising and personalization. An experimental prototype was developed as a proof of concept for the mechanism proposed in this paper. The prototype consists of an application that allows to capture and contextualize interactions of three iTV related events: channel change, sound volume change, and content evaluation.

palavras-chave

Palavras-chave

interactive televisionsecond screenmobile devicesviewer identificationcontextual informationuser personalizationtelevision advertisingcontent evaluationchannel change

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