Method and Apparatus for Communicating Popularity Ratings to Users

• US 20070266401A1
• Filed: 05/10/2006
• Published: 11/15/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 05/10/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha (Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Sharp Laboratories of America Incorporated (Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd.)
• Inventors: Hallberg, Bryan
• Granted Patent: US 8,607,262 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 725/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/252 Processing of multiple end-users' preferences to derive collaborative data
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44224 Monitoring of user activity on external systems, e.g. Internet browsing
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/488 Data services, e.g. news ticker systems specially adapted for using meteorological information in broadcast systems H04H60/71
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8133 specifically related to the content, e.g. biography of the actors in a movie, detailed information about an article seen in a video program
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17318 Direct or substantially direct transmission and handling of requests

Abstract

A method of providing popularity ratings to users includes monitoring experiences of users with programs, generating popularity ratings associated with the programs in response to the monitoring, and communicating at least one of the popularity ratings as at least one of the users experiences at least one of the programs.

Claims

1. A method of providing popularity ratings to users, comprising:

monitoring experiences of a plurality of users with a plurality of programs;

generating a plurality of popularity ratings associated with the programs in response to the monitoring; and

communicating at least one of the popularity ratings as at least one of the users experiences at least one of the programs.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein monitoring comprises monitoring the users'"'"' viewing of a plurality of television programs.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein communicating comprises communicating at least one of the popularity ratings to the at least one user at least as early as a program associated with the at least one popularity rating ends.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein communicating comprises:

requesting a group of popularity ratings; and

communicating the group of popularity ratings to the at least one user.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein communicating comprises:

requesting a popularity rating associated with the at least one program; and

communicating the popularity rating to the at least one user.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein communicating comprises communicating a group of popularity ratings from a category of popularity ratings to the user, each popularity rating of the group having a popularity greater than at least one other popularity rating within the category.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein generating comprises increasing a popularity rating if a user experiences a program associated with the popularity rating for at least a predefined time.

8. The method of claim 1, comprising:

monitoring a parameter of a device used by a user to use a program; and

changing a popularity rating associated with the program in response to the monitoring.

9. The method of claim 1, comprising:

extracting identifying data from the at least one program; and

generating at least one popularity rating in response to the extracting.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein generating comprises generating a popularity rating using the popularity rating from an earlier time period.

11. The method of claim 1, comprising informing the at least one user if a popularity rating exceeds a predefined threshold.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein informing comprises communicating a group of popularity ratings to the at least one user, the group of popularity ratings including the popularity rating.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein communicating comprises communicating the popularity rating to the at least one user at a time when a predicted increase in an annoyance level of the user is a relative minimum.

14. The method of claim 1, comprising suggesting a program to the at least one user in response to a group of popularity ratings and a program the user is or was recently experiencing.

15. A system for providing popularity ratings to users, comprising

a plurality of devices to provide a plurality of programs to a plurality of users and to generate user experience data;

a server to generate a plurality of popularity ratings associated with the programs in response to the user experience data; and

a popularity rating interface to provide popularity ratings to at least one of the users from the server.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein one of the devices includes a television and the popularity interface includes on screen menus of the television.

17. The system of claim 15, wherein the server comprises:

a popularity rating database to store the popularity ratings;

a popularity rating accumulator to update the popularity rating database in response to the user experience data;

a popularity rating sorter to group the popularity ratings into a plurality of popularity rating groups; and

a popularity rating monitor to monitor the popularity ratings.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the popularity rating sorter is configured to group the popularity ratings according to at least one of user geographical location, user demographics, user interest, and user defined groups.

20. The system of claim 15, wherein the device comprises:

a program identifying unit to extract identifying information from a program, wherein the device is configured to include the identifying information in the user experience data.

19. The system of 17, wherein the server is configured to transmit popularity ratings to a device if the popularity rating monitor identifies that a popularity rating passes a threshold.

21. A device, comprising:

a program presenter to present a program to a user of the device;

a popularity rating interface to provide popularity ratings to the user, the popularity ratings indicating the popularity of a plurality of programs among a plurality of users; and

a network connection to connect the device to a popularity database to store the popularity ratings.

22. The device of claim 21, wherein the popularity rating interface further comprises an indicator to indicate a popularity rating change.

23. The device of claim 21, comprising:

a group selection interface to enable the user to configure groups of popularity ratings to be provided to the user through the popularity rating interface.

24. The device of claim 21, wherein:

the program presenter includes a display of a television; and

the popularity rating interface includes a portion of the display of the television.

25. The device of claim 21, wherein the program presenter is configured to change the program in response to an input from the user through the popularity rating interface.

26. The device of claim 21, comprising a parameter monitor configured to monitor at least one user controllable parameter of the device and to transmit monitored information to the popularity database.

27. The device of claim 21, comprising:

an identifying data extractor to extract identifying data from the program;

wherein the network interface is further configured to transmit the identifying data to the popularity rating database.

28. The device of claim 21, comprising:

a program monitor to determine a time within a presentation of a program, an expected annoyance of the user is reduced;

wherein the popularity rating interface is configured to provide a group of popularity ratings to the user when the program monitor determines that the expected annoyance is relatively reduced.

29. The device of claim 21, wherein the popularity rating interface is configured to determine if a popularity rating of a group of popularity ratings has passed a threshold, and to provide the group of popularity ratings to the user if the popularity rating passed the threshold.

30. The device of claim 21, wherein

the network interface is further configured to receive a popularity rating group update;

and

the popularity rating interface is configured to update popularity rating groups in response to the popularity rating group update.