Singular, collective, and automated creation of a media guide for online content

• US 10,437,896 B2
• Filed: 04/18/2017
• Issued: 10/08/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 01/07/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sonic IP Incorporated (Endeavor Group Holdings Inc.)
• Original Assignee: DivX, LLC (f/k/a DivX CF Holdings LLC) (FIG LLC (d/b/a Fortress Investment Group LLC))
• Inventors: Soroushian, Kourosh, Salmonsen, Daniel, Landeros, Porfirio, Priyadarshi, Shaiwal, Gravel, Francois
• Primary Examiner(s): Peng, Huawen A
• Application Number:
  US15/490,718
• Publication Number:
  US 20170223389A1
• Time in Patent Office: 903 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 15/16 Combinations of two or more digital computers each having at least an arithmetic unit, a program unit and a register, e.g. for a simultaneous processing of several programs coordinating program control therefor G06F9/52; in regulating and control system G05B
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24 Querying
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/285 Clustering or classification
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/438 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/48 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/483 using metadata automatically derived from the content
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/5866 using information manually generated, e.g. tags, keywords, comments, manually generated location and time information
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/7867 using information manually generated, e.g. tags, keywords, comments, title and artist information, manually generated time, location and usage information, user ratings
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9538 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/955 using information identifiers, e.g. uniform resource locators [URL]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9574 of access to content, e.g. by caching
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23109 by placing content in organized collections, e.g. EPG data repository details of retrieval of video data and associated meta data in video databases G06F16/739
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2387 Stream processing in response to a playback request from an end-user, e.g. for trick-play
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/278 Content descriptor database or directory service for end-user access details of content or meta data based information retrieval of video data in video databases G06F16/739
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4826 using recommendation lists, e.g. of programs or channels sorted out according to their score
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/84 Generation or processing of descriptive data, e.g. content descriptors systems specially adapted for using meta-information in broadcast systems H04H60/73

Abstract

Systems and methods are provided in which a content guide includes one or more tags associated with a single user, a group of users or a channel subscribed to by users that enables the retrieval of content for subsequent viewing and which can be supplemented by recommendations and data from other sources.

Claims

1. A media content guide system comprising:

a media content server configured to provide access to media content based on a tag;

a tag server that maintains;

a searchable database of tags that reference media content stored on the media content server, wherein the tag server receives tags from a plurality of tagging devices in network communication with the tag server and the content server, where each tagging device in the plurality of tagging devices is associated with a particular set of user metrics describing a user of the tagging device, and

a plurality of media content guides where each media content guide is associated with a given set of user metrics, where the tag server updates media content guides in the plurality of media content guides based on the received tags and the particular set of user metrics associated with the tagging device that generated the received tags;

the plurality of tagging devices, where the tagging devices are directed to;

generate at least one tag for at least one piece of media content accessed by each tagging device in the plurality of tagging devices, and

provide the at least one generated tag to the tag server;

a playback device in network communication with the tag server and the media content server, where the playback device is associated with a certain set of user metrics describing a user of the playback device, and where the playback device is directed to;

receive at least one recommended media content guide from the plurality of content guides from the tag server, where the at least one recommended media content guide is selected based on the certain set of user metrics describing the user of the playback device and the given set of user metrics associated with the at least one recommended content guide, and

access media content referenced by a tag in the received media content guide from the media content server;

wherein at least one metric in each particular set of user metrics associated with each tagging device in the plurality of tagging devices, each given set of user metrics associated with each media content guide, and the certain set of user metrics associated with the playback device is a piece of demographic information.

2. The media content guide system of claim 1, wherein the tag server further maintains different media content guides for different communities of users.

3. The media content guide system of claim 1, wherein the generated tag is provided by the tagging device to the tag server as a recommendation for the content referenced by the tag.

4. The media content guide system of claim 1, wherein the playback device further displays the received media content guide.

5. The media content guide system of claim 4, wherein the at least one tag is displayed in the displayed media content guide.

6. The media content guide system of claim 1, wherein the playback device is further directed to share the received media content guide with other devices.

7. The media content guide system of claim 1, wherein the playback device is further directed to recommend particular selections from the received media content guide.

8. The media content guide system of claim 1, wherein the tag server further adjusts the at least one media content guide based on a set of preferences for a community of users.

9. The media content guide system of claim 1, wherein the tag server further filters the at least one media content guide based on a set of predetermined metrics selected by at least one user.

10. The media content guide system of claim 1, wherein at least one metric in each particular set of user metrics associated with each tagging device in the plurality of tagging devices, each given set of user metrics associated with each media content guide, and the certain set of user metrics associated with the playback device is selected from the group consisting of preferred genre, preferred production year, preferred subject, personal user guide content, and collective user guide content.

11. The media content guide system of claim 1, wherein each tag includes an identifier of a piece of media content and a location identifier of the piece of media content.

12. The media content guide system of claim 1, wherein the media content server is configured to obtain pre-cached portions of the media content.

13. The media content guide system of claim 1, wherein the media content guide further comprises a set of thumbnails reflecting a portion of the associated media content associated with each tag in the plurality of tags.

14. The media content guide system of claim 13, wherein at least one thumbnail in the set of thumbnails is an animated thumbnail.

15. A method of recommending and accessing media content distributed throughout a network using a media content guide, the method comprising:

generating a plurality of tags for a plurality of pieces of media content using a plurality of tagging devices, where each tag in the plurality of tags references a piece of media content stored on a media content server;

receiving the plurality of tags from the plurality of tagging devices by a tag server, where each tagging device in the plurality of tagging devices is associated with a particular set of user metrics;

maintaining, using the tag server;

a searchable database of tags that reference content stored on the media content server, wherein the tag server receives tags from devices, and

a plurality of media content guides, where each media content guide in the plurality of media content guides is associated with a given set of user metrics, and comprises a plurality of tags;

updating media content guides in the plurality of media content guides based on at least the received tags and the particular set of user metrics associated with the tagging device that generated the received tags;

receiving at least one recommended media content guide at a playback device, where the playback device is associated with a certain set of user metrics, where the at least one recommended media content guide is selected based on the certain set of user metrics describing user of the playback device and the given set of user metrics associated with the at least one recommended content guide; and

accessing media content referenced by a tag in the plurality of tags of the received media content guide using the playback device, wherein the media content is accessed from the content server;

wherein at least one metric in each particular set of user metrics associated with each tagging device in the plurality of tagging devices, each given set of user metrics associated with each media content guide, and the certain set of user metrics associated with the playback device is a piece of demographic information.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein each tag includes an identifier of a piece of media content and a location information for the piece of media content.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the identifier is a unique database identifier and the location information is associated to a uniform resource identifier.

18. The method of claim 16, wherein the identifier and the location information is substantially smaller in size than the media content.