Systems and methods for promotional media item selection and promotional program unit generation

• US 20070078836A1
• Filed: 10/02/2006
• Published: 04/05/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 09/30/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Colwood Technology LLC (FlashPoint Technology, Inc.)
• Inventors: Hangartner, Rick
• Granted Patent: US 7,877,387 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/435 Filtering based on additional data, e.g. user or group profiles
• 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 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0247 Calculate past, present or future revenues

Abstract

Disclosed are embodiments of systems and methods for selection of promotional media items and/or generation of promotional or advertising units. In one embodiment, a set of promotional media items may be dynamically identified responsive to an input set of media items. In another embodiment, a promotional program unit is generated in response to receipt of user taste data for a user or group of users. The promotional program unit is an integral unit made up of one or more media items and one or more promotional media items.

Claims

1. A method for generating a promotional program unit, the method comprising:

receiving user taste data for a user;

generating a list of promotional media data items responsive to the user taste data;

generating a list of media data items responsive to the user taste data;

selecting at least one of the promotional media data items in the list of promotional media data items;

selecting at least one of the media data items in the list of media data items; and

combining the at least one promotional media data item and the at least one media data item into a promotional program unit.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the user taste data comprises a list of media items selected by the user.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the user taste data comprises a list of keywords provided by the user.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising applying at least one constraint to narrow the list of media data items.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the at least one constraint comprises limiting the number of media data items associated with a particular artist.

6. The method of claim 4, further comprising applying at least one constraint to narrow the list of promotional media data items.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein at least one of the constraints comprises limiting the licensing costs associated with the media data items.

8. The method of claim 4, wherein the at least one constraint is configured to ensure that the media data items and the promotional media data items selected for the promotional program unit are selected such that advertising revenues associated with the promotional media data items are at least equal to licensing costs associated with the media data items.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the media data items comprise playable media files.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the promotional media data items comprise commercial advertisements.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the media data items comprise metadata that identifies a playable media file.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the promotional program unit comprises a single multimedia file.

13. A method for generating a promotional program unit, the method comprising:

receiving user taste data for a user;

receiving promotional metadata from an advertiser;

associating at least one promotional media data item with at least one media data item responsive to the user taste data and the promotional metadata; and

combining the at least one promotional media data item and the at least one media data item into a promotional program unit comprising a single multimedia file.

14. A method for identifying a set of promotional media data items for use in connection with one or more media data items, the method comprising:

receiving as input a set of media data items;

comparing the media data items in the input set to a set of promotional media data items; and

selecting a subset of promotional media data items based upon the media data item comparison.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the comparing step comprises using a metric relating the media data items in the input set to a set of promotional media data items.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the comparing step comprises using a metric matrix having a numerical similarity value associating each media data item in the input set with each promotional media data item in the set.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein the metric associates a promotional media data item with media data items that are embedded within the promotional media data item, and wherein the metric further associates the promotional media data item with other media data items that share at least one characteristic of the embedded media data items.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the characteristic comprises an artist associated with at least one of the embedded media data items.

19. The method of claim 15, further comprising receiving an indication of an audience preference from an advertiser, wherein the metric associates a promotional media data item with media data items that are identified as being preferred by the audience preference selected by the advertiser.

20. The method of claim 15, wherein at least one of the promotional media data items in the set of promotional media data items has at least one keyword with which the at least one promotional media data item is associated, and wherein the metric associates the at least one promotional media data item with a media data item having a matching associated keyword.

21. The method of claim 14, further comprising selecting a second subset of promotional media data items from the subset of promotional media data items.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein the step of selecting a second subset comprises:

receiving one or more user characteristics regarding a user from which the input set of media data items were received; and

filtering the subset of promotional media data items by using the one or more user characteristics to select the second subset.

23. The method of claim 22, wherein the one or more user characteristics comprises at least one of a user age, a user gender, and a user location.

24. The method of claim 14, wherein the comparing step comprises generating an implicit similarity value between a first media data item and a promotional media data item by using a similarity value between the first media data item and a second media data item having an explicit similarity value with the promotional media data item.

25. The method of claim 14, wherein the comparing step comprises:

receiving a target set of media data items, wherein the target set comprises at least one media data item explicitly specified to be associated with at least one target promotional media data item; and

generating a recommended set of media data items by feeding the target set of media data items into a media recommender.

26. The method of claim 14, wherein the media data items comprise playable media files.

27. The method of claim 14, wherein the promotional media data items comprise commercial advertisements.

28. The method of claim 14, wherein the media data items comprise metadata that identifies a playable media file.

29. A method for identifying a set of promotional media data items for use in connection with one or more media data items, the method comprising:

receiving an input set of media data items from a user;

receiving an indication of an audience preference from an advertiser;

comparing the media data items in the input set to a set of promotional media data items in a knowledge base by use of a metric relating the media data items in the input set to the set of promotional media data items;

generating a set of candidate promotional media data items, wherein the candidate promotional media data items are selected from the set of promotional media data items, and wherein the metric is used to select the set of candidate promotional media data items;

generating a subset of promotional media data items, wherein the subset of promotional media data items are selected from the set of candidate promotional media data items, and wherein the audience preference is used to select the subset of promotional media data items.