Method, apparatus and program product for media identification and tracking associated user preferences

• US 20030036948A1
• Filed: 05/08/2002
• Published: 02/20/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 05/09/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Dotclick Corporation, Mineral Lassen LLC (Intellectual Ventures LLC)
• Original Assignee: Emission LLC (Intellectual Ventures LLC)
• Inventors: Salotti, Anthony, Fein, Gene S., Harris, Christopher, Jones, E. Oliver, Woodward, Mark L., Sherman, Steve S., Jones, Bennie
• Granted Patent: US 7,085,845 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/10
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/322 used signal is digitally coded
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34

Abstract

Collecting user preference information related to a playing media recording is accomplished by gathering descriptive information related to the playing media recording from a media player program presenting the playing media recording and determining if tags are embedded in the media recording and gathering descriptive information related to the playing media recording from the tags embedded in the playing media recording, if the tags exist. Further, determining if a table of contents exists on the media recording and gathering a table of contents for a collection containing the playing media recording by identifying the collection using a concatenation of track lengths identifier generation technique, the table of contents exists. Then assembling the descriptive information into a media recording information packet and sending the media recording information packet to a server computer, resulting in a collection of user preference information related to the playing media recording.

Claims

1. A method of collecting user preference information related to a playing media recording, comprising the steps of:

gathering descriptive information related to the playing media recording from a media player program presenting the playing media recording;

determining if tags are embedded in the media recording and gathering descriptive information related to the playing media recording from the tags embedded in the playing media recording, if the tags exist;

determining if a table of contents exists on the media recording and gathering a table of contents for a collection containing the playing media recording by identifying the collection using a concatenation of track lengths identifier generation technique, the table of contents exists;

assembling the descriptive information into an media recording information packet; and

sending the media recording information packet to a server computer, resulting in a collection of user preference information related to the playing media recording.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the descriptive information comprises:

a user identifier; and

at least one of;

a name of the playing media recording, a name of a collection containing the playing media recording, a name of an artist performing the playing media recording; and

a sequence number of the playing media recording within the collection.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the tags are MPEG Layer 3 tags.

4. A method of recording a subject user'"'"'s audio listening history, comprising the steps of:

receiving an media recording information packet from a client computer;

cross-referencing the media recording information packet with a media recording description database and returning a unique serial number for the entry in the media recording description database; and

recording a user identifier together with the unique serial number into a user preference database, such that the user preference database provides the subject user'"'"'s media listening history.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein cross-referencing comprises identifying an exact match in the media recording description database for a non-empty element in the media recording information packet.

6. The method of claim 4 wherein cross-referencing comprises identifying a match in the media recording description database using a fuzzy-logic algorithm and determining the match based upon a highest probability computed.

7. The method of claim 4 wherein cross-referencing comprises identifying an associated domain-specific element in the media recording description database for a non-empty element in the media recording information packet.

8. The method of claim 4 wherein cross-referencing comprises identifying a metaphone-associated element in the media recording description database for a non-empty element in the media recording information packet.

9. The method of claim 4 further comprising:

identifying users listed in the user preference database who listen to the same media recording, as identified by the same unique serial number, as that listened to by the subject user.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein the identified users are sent a message.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein the identified users are sent a message while they are listening to the same media recording.

12. The method of claim 4 further comprising:

inferring a user'"'"'s preferences based upon analysis of the user'"'"'s audio listening history.

13. The method of claim 4 further comprising:

directly soliciting a user'"'"'s preferences.

14. The method of claim 12 or claim 13 wherein preference is one of a specific media recording, collection, artist or genre.

15. The method of claim 4 further comprising:

identifying and introducing users with similar preferences based upon analyzing the user preference database.

16. The method of claim 4 further comprising:

creating a user community by transferring information from the user preference database into an automated collaborative filtering engine to generate a list of users having similar preferences.

17. The method of claim 16 further comprising generating a list of preferred media recordings of the user community.

18. The method of claim 9 wherein the identified users message each other based upon being identified as having a particular user preference for the media recording.