Subscription control panel

• US 20070088832A1
• Filed: 02/02/2006
• Published: 04/19/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 09/30/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Yahoo! Inc. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Wascovich, Dan, Fukuda, Matt, Ott, Edward, Hayashi, Nathanael, Tsang, Audrey
• Granted Patent: US 7,412,534 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/227
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/00 Administration; Management

Abstract

Systems and methods are provided for centrally managing subscriptions to feeds accessible at different locations on a network. A subscription server is provided that a user can log in to from any of the user'"'"'s rendering devices and use to manage subscriptions to feeds, including subscribing to feeds, listening to episodes of feeds, downloading episodes to a rendering device, and rating and reviewing episodes. The user'"'"'s history of actions with respect to feeds is tracked and stored on the subscription server. The user can then access this history via user interfaces generated by the subscription server to determine what actions the user has performed in the past.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving, at a server computer, a subscription request from a user via a first rendering device, the subscription request being a request to receive notifications of episodes added to the feed in the future, the feed accessible at a remote computing device;

storing, in a subscription data store accessible to the server computer, subscription data associated with the user, the subscription data identifying the feed accessible at the remote computing device as a feed subscribed to by the user; and

transmitting, to the first rendering device, at least some subscription data for display to the user identifying the feed and indicating that the user is subscribed to the feed.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

transmitting, from the server, a user interface for display to the user by a rendering device, the user interface having one or more render controls, each render control associated with an episode accessible at a remote computing device, wherein each render control, when selected by the user, causes the rendering device to render the associated episode and further causes render data to be transmitted to the server; and

storing, in the subscription data store accessible to the server computer, render data received by the server.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

wherein the subscription request is a request to subscribe the first rendering device to the feed and transmitting further comprises;

transmitting, to the first rendering device from the server, information usable by the first rendering device to subscribe to the feed accessible at the remote computing device;

4. The method of claim 3 wherein transmitting further comprises:

transmitting information causing the first rendering device to subscribe to the feed.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein the information causing the first rendering device to subscribe to the feed is a .pcast file.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

receiving, at the server computer, a management request from the user via a second rendering device, the management request being a request to unsubscribe the user from the feed accessible at a remote computing device;

associating with the subscription data for the feed in the subscription data store an indicator that the feed is no longer subscribed to; and

transmitting, to the second rendering device from the server, information for display to the user indicating that the user is no longer subscribed to the feed.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

transmitting, to the first rendering device from the server, a command to unsubscribe the first rendering device to the feed.

8. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

receiving, from the user via a third rendering device, a subscription display request;

transmitting, to the third rendering device from the server, at least some subscription data for display to the user identifying the feed and indicating that the user is subscribed to the feed; and

further transmitting, to the third rendering device from the server, feed information for display to the user, the feed information including one or more notifications that new episodes have been added to one or more subscribed feeds since feed information was last transmitted to any rendering device for display to the user.

9. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

receiving, from the user via a third rendering device, a subscription display request;

transmitting, to the third rendering device from the server, at least some subscription data for display to the user identifying the feed and indicating that the user is subscribed to the feed; and

further transmitting, to the third rendering device from the server, feed information for display to the user, the feed information including one or more notifications that one or more episodes have not been rendered by the user via a selection of a render control.

10. A graphical user interface generated by a server for display to a user via a rendering device, the graphical user interface comprising:

a first list of feeds, the first list identifying one or more feeds accessible at remote computing devices that the user has subscribed to via a previous request to the server;

a render control associated with at least one feed identified in the first list, a user selection of the render control causing an episode of the feed, the episode located on a remote computing device, to be rendered on the rendering device and render data to be saved on the server indicating that the user has rendered the episode; and

associated with at least of the feeds in the first list, a notification indicating that an episode has been added to the feed since a previous generation of the graphical user interface by the server for display to the user.

11. The graphical user interface of claim 10, further comprising:

a dropdown control associated with at least one feed identified in the first list, a user selection of the dropdown control causing a second list of one or more episodes of the associated feed to be displayed by the graphical user interface to the user via the rendering device.

12. The graphical user interface of claim 10, further comprising:

an unsubscribe control associated with at least one feed identified in the first list, a user selection of the unsubscribe control causing subscription information associated with the user in a subscription data store remote from the rendering device to be updated to indicate that the user is no longer subscribed to the feed associated with the selected unsubscribe control.

13. The graphical user interface of claim 10, further comprising:

an add control associated with at least one feed identified in the first list, a user selection of the add control causing feed information associated with the feed to be transmitted from the server to the rendering device, the feed information allowing the rendering device to directly subscribe to the feed at the remote computing device.

14. The graphical user interface of claim 11, further comprising:

a download control associated with at least one episode identified in the second list, a user selection of the download control causing the associated episode to be transmitted from the remote computing device to the rendering device.

15. The graphical user interface of claim 10, wherein user selection of the render control further causes a media player interface to be generated by the server and displayed to the user via the rendering device, the media player interface controlling the rendering of the episode from the remote computing device to the user.

16. The graphical user interface of claim 11, further comprising:

a remove episode control associated with at least one episode identified in the second list, a user selection of the remove control causing the episode to be removed from display to the user by the graphical user interface in all subsequent generations of the graphical user interface.

17. A system for subscribing to feeds comprising:

a subscription engine, on a server adapted to communicate with rendering devices over a network, the subscription engine adapted to receive feed subscription requests from a user via a first rendering device in communication with the server;

a subscription data store in communication with the server, the subscription data store containing subscription information associated with the user, wherein the subscription information identifies one or more feeds that the user is currently subscribed to, the feeds accessible at remote computing devices; and

wherein each subscription request is a request to monitor the feed for the addition of new episodes, the new episodes accessible at one or more remote computing devices.

18. The system of claim 17 wherein the subscription data store includes subscription information identifying a list of currently subscribed feeds based on feed subscription requests received by the server from the user, a history of episodes rendered by the user as a result of render requests received by the server from the user, and display information containing user-generated directions received by the server to selectively display subscription information.

19. The system of claim 17 wherein the subscription engine is further adapted to generate, based on the subscription information and the one or more feeds accessible at remote computers, an interface for display on the rendering device to the user, wherein the interface identifies at least one feed the user is currently subscribed to and includes at least one render control that allows a user to cause an episode of the at least one feed to be rendered on the rendering device and wherein user selection of the at least one render control causes render data to be stored in the subscription data store as subscription information associated with the user.

20. The system of claim 17 wherein the interface for display on the rendering device to the user further comprises an unsubscribe control associated with the at least one feed, a user selection of the unsubscribe control causing subscription information associated with the user in the subscription data store to be updated to indicate that the user is no longer subscribed to the at least one feed associated with the selected unsubscribe control.

21. The system of claim 17 wherein the subscription engine is further adapted to generate and transmit information to a browser on the rendering device, the information interpretable by the browser of the rendering device to retrieve an episode from a remote computing device and render the episode to the user.

22. The system of claim 19 wherein the interface for display on the rendering device is a web page generated by the subscription engine and transmitted to a browser on the rendering device for interpretation and display.