Map-Based Linking of Geographic User and Content Profiles for Hyperlocal Content Recommendation

In this paper we describe a novel approach for map-based linking of users with content (and vice versa) based on their geographic profiles. The proposed technique facilitates hyperlocal content recommendation targeted to the user’s geographic footprint. The generation of the geographic user profiles (GUP) is based on user-logged activity analysis. The result of this analysis is a heat map of the geographic keypoints where the outdoor activities were performed. For the geographic content profiling (GCP), we use the available geotags and perform address geocoding and geographic named entity recognition to extract additional locations from the media objects. In order to link the GCP to the GUP, and to be able to recommend the hyperlocal content that fits the user’s current profile, heat map analysis is performed using geographic analyzing tools. The GEOprofiling demonstrator, which is evaluated on real activity profiles and different media types, shows the feasibility of the proposed approach.