MANAGING CONTENT DOWNLOADS TO RETAIN USER ATTENTION

• US 20080010118A1
• Filed: 06/14/2006
• Published: 01/10/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 06/14/2006
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Neumann, Sean Jeffrey, Raffety, Brian Duane, Hydrie, Aamer, Fong, Jeffrey C., Oliveira, Eduardo P., Howell, Gareth Alan
• Application Number:
  US11/424,207
• Publication Number:
  US 20080010118A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/14
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0241 Advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4335 Housekeeping operations, e.g. prioritizing content for deletion because of storage space restrictions storage management, e.g. defragmentation G06F3/0604; unloading stored programs G06F9/445; storage management in file systems G06F16/10; buffering arrangements in a network node or in an end terminal in packet networks H04L49/90
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4532 involving end-user characteristics, e.g. viewer profile, preferences monitoring of user activities for profile generation for accessing a video database G06F16/739; user profiles in network data switching protocols H04L67/306; processing of user preferences or user profiles in wireless networks H04W8/18
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/458 Scheduling content for creating a personalised stream, e.g. by combining a locally stored advertisement with an incoming stream; Updating operations, e.g. for OS modules ; time-related management operations arrangements for replacing or switching information during the broadcast or during the distribution H04H20/10
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/466 Learning process for intelligent management, e.g. learning user preferences for recommending movies services using the results of monitoring in broadcast systems H04H60/61
• 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 21/6581 Reference data, e.g. a movie identifier for ordering a movie or a product identifier in a home shopping application
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/812 involving advertisement data advertising per se G06Q30/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/163 by receiver means only
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17318 Direct or substantially direct transmission and handling of requests

Abstract

Selecting a content item for rendering at the completion of a content item currently being rendered. The content item is selected by the user or automatically selected. The selected content item is downloaded to a computing device associated with the user such that the selected content item is available for rendering from the computing device upon completion of the content item currently being rendered.

Claims

1. A method of managing media content downloaded from a media content download service, said method comprising:

rendering, via a computing device, a first content item, said first content item being part of a sequence of content items;

identifying, during said rendering, a second content item, said second content item being next relative to the first content item in the sequence of content items;

downloading, during said rendering, the identified second content item to the computing device; and

rendering, via the computing device, the downloaded second content item upon completion of the rendering of the first content item.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the first content item comprises an episode in a series.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a request from a user to subscribe to the first content item; and

downloading the first content item to the computing device in response to the request.

21. The method of claim 1, wherein downloading the identified second content item includes completely downloading the identified second content item prior to completion of the rendering of the first content item.

22. The method of claim 1, wherein one or more computer-readable media have computer-executable instructions for performing the method recited in claim 1.

5. The method of 4, wherein maintaining the predefined quantity comprises deleting one of the downloaded content items prior to downloading another of the content items.

8. (canceled)

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

identifying, during said rendering of the first content item, a plurality of content items associated with the first content item;

downloading, during said rendering of the first content item, the identified plurality of content items to the computing device; and

displaying, to a user, metadata associated with each of the downloaded plurality of content items for selection by the user of one of the downloaded plurality of content items, and wherein the one of the downloaded plurality of content items selected by the user comprises the second content item.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein downloading the identified plurality of content items comprises downloading a predefined quantity of the identified plurality of content items.

4. The method of claim 2, further comprising maintaining a predefined quantity of the downloaded plurality of content items.

9. (canceled)

10. The system of claim 8, wherein the first content item is associated with a first series and wherein the second content item is associated with a second series.

11. The system of claim 8, wherein the user content preferences comprise a subscription to a series of content, said series comprising a plurality of episodes, wherein the user content preferences comprise user viewing habits, and wherein the user content preferences identify a plurality of series.

14. The system of claim 8, further comprising means for retaining the viewing attention of the user at the completion of the rendering of the first content item based on pre-downloading of the second content item.

8-1. A system for managing media content downloaded from a media content download service, said system comprising:

a memory area for storing a plurality of content items downloaded from the media content download service, said memory area further storing user content preferences; and

a processor configured to execute computer-executable instructions for;

rendering, to the user, a first content item from the plurality of content items stored in the memory area;

identifying, during said rendering, a second content item based on the user content preferences stored in the memory area;

downloading, during said rendering, the identified second content item for storage in the memory area; and

rendering the downloaded second content item from the memory area to the user upon completion of the rendering of the first content item.

9-2. The system of claim 8, wherein the processor is further configured to execute computer-executable instructions for determining the user content preferences based on input from the user.

12. (canceled)

13. (canceled)

15. One or more computer-readable media having computer-executable components for managing media content downloaded to a computing device from a media content download service, said components comprising:

a playback engine for rendering, to a user, a first content item from a plurality of content items stored on the computing device;

a throttle component, said throttle component;

identifying, during said rendering of the first content item by the playback engine, a second content item, said second content item being associated with the first content item;

determining a quantity of the plurality of content items stored on the computing device; and

deleting one of the plurality of content items stored on the computing device if the determined quantity of the plurality of content items exceeds a threshold quantity; and

a download manager for downloading, during said rendering of the first content item by the playback engine, the identified second content item to the computing device from the media content download service, wherein the playback engine renders the downloaded second content item upon completion of the rendering of the first content item.

16. The computer-readable media of claim 15, wherein the throttle component identifies the second content item based on user content preferences.

17. The computer-readable media of claim 16, wherein the user content preferences comprise a subscription to content.

18. The computer-readable media of claim 15, wherein the plurality of content items are organized in a sequence, and wherein the second content item follows the first content item in the sequence.

19. The computer-readable media of claim 15, wherein the throttle component deletes the one of the content items if the determined quantity of the plurality of content items is greater than two.

20. The computer-readable media of claim 15, wherein the playback engine identifies a plurality of content items, and further comprising a user interface component for displaying metadata associated with the identified plurality of content items to the user for selection of one of the plurality of content items for rendering by the playback engine.