H-AP-1

H-AP-2

H-AP-3

Next-generation IPTV System

Blog Navigation System that Visualizes Blogosphere as Topography

The CaTaC Communications Platform

Technologies for advancing and supporting the sharing of content, including broadcasts, advertisements, music and games, over networks.

Against the background of the richness of High-definition video content, which is typical of terrestrial digital broadcasting and BS

digital broadcasting, we have been pursuing research and development aimed at creating new markets and services through

cooperation between communication and broadcasting in combination with high-speed, high-quality networks such as the NGN*1.

The NGN trial that was conducted from 2006 to the end of 2007 was an opportunity to use this system in the High-definition video

distribution service trial. The system supports the IPTV*2 terminals that are being standardized, and the H.264 video codec is used

for highly efficient High-definition video distribution by multi-channel IP broadcasting (multicasting) and VOD*3 (unicasting).

Retransmission of terrestrial digital broadcasting over IP was also provided. In addition, we verified a variety of services that use the

bidirectionality of communication and metadata, including the viewing of missed programs by VOD or automatic insertion of video

content according to viewer preferences. Since the end of 2007, an NTT Group company has also developed commercial services

that use this system.

In future work, we will continue with development of the basic technology for implementing new services through the seamless

cooperation of IPTV and mobile communication as well as technology for cooperation with digital signage or life support services

applying the same distribution platform horizontally.

*1 NGN: Next Generation Network*2 IPTV: Internet Protocol Television*3 VOD: Video On Demand

NTT Cyber Solutions Laboratories

Next-generation IPTV system overview

Next-generation IPTV System

copyright©2008NTTH-AP-1

Video distribution Retransmission of digital terrestrial television over IP Metadata

Contents ProviderFacilities

Videoarchive

Video assetmanagement

Metadatageneration

Content metadata

Right management information

Distribution control information

Content

Terrestrial digital broadcasting

Contentmetadatamanagement

Contentright

protection

Contentdistributioncontrol

IPretransmission

control

Next-generation IPTV SystemDistribution Platform

IP retransmission of terrestrial digital broadcasting

Multi channel IP broadcasting (multicast)

VOD (unicast)

Conditions for program use

User distributes

Personal EPG

Content Flow

Metadata Flow

IPTV or STB*

NGN

* STB: Set Top Box

Although keyword-based searches are a popular way of finding information from a huge amount of information indexed in a search

engine, users sometimes find it hard to specify the appropriate keywords. Tag clouds, in which a set of keywords or categories to be

selected are displayed by the system, have become popular since they enable users to input keywords by just clicking on them. It is,

however, hard to identify the desired tag if the number of tags is very large, e.g., several hundred, because of the alphabetical-order

layout in which relations between tags are not presented.

To resolve this issue, NTT Laboratories developed a new interface for displaying tag clouds. It enables users to grasp relations

between tags intuitively by using a topographic image as a background. BLOGRANGER TG, hereafter TG, is a new blog navigation

system that provides this interface. TG calculates similarities between tags by analyzing term occurrences in 9 millions tagged blog

entries collected from 15 millions entries within the last five weeks. TG generates a topographic image in which similar tags do not

overlap with each other. It also enables users to find tags by locating tags with a central concept as the peak of the mountain in the

topic area. Moreover, TG automatically assigns tags to untagged blog entries. TG thus allows users to find a wide range of related

blog entries just by clicking tags in the topography. “goo labs” is evaluating the feasibility and usability of TG, and its trial will run from

December 2007 to November 2008.

We will improve TG by incorporating the results of the trial and commercialize it for portal businesses and content navigation

interfaces for enterprise uses.

BLOGRANGER is a registered trademark of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation.

NTT Cyber Solutions Laboratories, NTT Communication Science Laboratories

Tag clouds visualized by BLOGRANGER TG

Blog Navigation System that Visualizes Blogosphere as Topography

copyright©2008NTTH-AP-2

Blog Visualization Text mining

Font size : Popularity

(Many)

(Few)

FoodsFoodsFoods

Distance : Similarity

(Near)

(Far)

Foods_CookingFoods ___ WineFoods_____TV

FoodsRestaurantSushi

Height : Generality

(High)

(Low)

Wide map Local mapGardening

Photo

Illustration

Novels

Cartoon

InvestmentMotorbike, CarGambling

Sports

PC

FashionShopping

GourmetRecipe

Family

Game

School

Music

Chinese

Actor

With the increasing popularity of blogs, social networking services (SNSs) and other consumer-generated media (CGM), the

amount of information on the Internet continues to expand. There is much information that cannot be found by search engines that

use keywords, and given that needs vary from user to user, technology for efficient extraction of beneficial information is required.

The CaTaC* communications platform is intended to improve the efficiency of metadata-based information search and aggregation

and make the information on the Internet more effective by providing a mechanism with which the user can easily append metadata

of their own to blog entries and other user-generated content.

The CaTaC platform can be used to construct diverse enterprise and consumer oriented applications, such as the blog-based

survey and campaign service Blogoubo, which we tested in collaboration with the Koubo-Guide sha CORP. from March to April of

2007. Blogoubo handles responses to campaign questionnaires as metadata, thus gaining a word-of-mouth publicity effect for

questionnaire survey and campaign information via blog entries. Other than Blogoubo, we have also confirmed the utility of CaTaC

through the development of the BizLogue, blog-based information sharing system for use within offices and university organizations.

CaTaC is currently in the commercialization phase, and development centering on enterprise software applications and business

solutions has begun. For the Blogoubo, too, commercial services began in February 2008 as new CGM marketing services that offer

advantages to both consumers and corporate campaign sponsors.

* CaTaC: Categorization and Tabulation for micro Contents

Blogoubo is applying for a trademark registration of NTT IT Corporation.

NTT Network Service Systems Laboratories

Overview of blog-based survey and campaign service “Blogoubo”

The CaTaC Communications Platform

copyright©2008NTTH-AP-3

CGM Blog Metadata

CaTaC platform

Metadata definition tablename=Q1; type=textname=Q2; type=int; input=radioname=Q3; type=int[ ]; input=checkbox

CaTaC writing form

ABC campaign application form

Q 1Q 2Q 3

～～ …… ＋＋＋A B C D

CaTaC output (XML or HTML)

Blogoubo code for ABC campaign

<ahref=“http://www.blogoubo.com/entry?ds3afas4wfat4r”>

Writing form generation function Data format conversion function

Campaign application form

Blogoubo code issuance

Published blog entry embedded with Blogoubo code

Click a banner ad to jumpto a Campaign ApplicationPage.

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