Collective Ranking of Digital Content

• US 20080189272A1
• Filed: 02/01/2008
• Published: 08/07/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 02/03/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Karunamurthy, Vijay, Powers, Michael, Wajda, Ches
• Granted Patent: US 7,840,563 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/5
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/735 Filtering based on additional data, e.g. user or group profiles
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/78 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: G06F 16/9536 Search customisation based on social or collaborative filtering

Abstract

Methods and systems for collaboratively ranking a set of digital content items are disclosed. The invention utilizes users of a website who wish to participate in ranking a set of digital content items. In one embodiment, the method to determine a new collaborative ranking of a set of digital content items comprises receiving a plurality of ranking votes for each digital content item in the set, tallying the received user ranking votes for each digital content item in the set, calculate a ranking score by applying an algorithm comprising the number of user ranking votes to each digital content item and updating the ranking for each digital content item in the set.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method for determining a new collaborative ranking for a set of digital content items in a digital content hosting website, the method comprising:

storing the set of digital content items, each digital content item having a ranking in the set;

displaying the set of digital content items to a plurality of users;

receiving a plurality of ranking votes for the digital content items in the set from the plurality of users, the ranking votes ordering the digital content items with respect to each other;

determining a new ranking score for each digital content item based at least on a previous ranking score; and

updating the ranking for each digital content item in the set based on the new ranking score.

2. The computer implemented method of claim 1 wherein ranking votes are votes for a digital content item and a corresponding ranking position.

3. The computer implemented method of claim 1 further comprising:

for each of the received ranking votes associated with a user,

determining if the user associated with each of the received ranking votes is a valid user; and

determining if the received ranking votes associated with the user are valid.

4. The computer implemented method of claim 3, wherein determining if the received ranking votes are valid comprises determining that each of the plurality of ranking votes were submitted within the proper voting period for each user.

5. The computer implemented method of claim 3, wherein determining if the user associated with each of the received ranking votes is a valid user comprises determining if the user registered account information with the digital content hosting website.

6. The computer implemented method of claim 1 further comprising tallying the received ranking votes, wherein tallying the received ranking votes comprises determining for each digital content item the number of ranking votes that were received for a particular ranking position.

7. The computer implemented of claim 1, wherein the new ranking score is further based on the number of digital content items in the set and the number of ranking votes a digital content item received for each possible ranking position in the set.

8. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein determining a new ranking score for each digital content item occurs based at least on a time interval.

9. The computer implemented method of claim 1 further comprising displaying content of each of the digital content items.

10. The computer implemented method of claim 1 further comprising displaying a confirmation page indicating ranking positions of each digital content item according to a new ranking.

11. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein the receiving a plurality of ranking votes for the digital content items in the set from at least one of the plurality of users comprises receiving from at least one of the plurality of users a ranking vote indicated by the user by dragging a row corresponding to one of the digital content items.

12. A user interface for a digital content hosting web site for displaying a set of digital content items to be collaboratively ranked, the user interface comprising:

a plurality of digital content rows, each digital content row comprising;

a ranking cell displaying a relative ranking position of the digital content item associated with the row;

a region adapted to display a digital content item;

a title cell including information about the digital content item, the information comprising the digital content item'"'"'s title, a producer or a number of views the digital content item has received;

a first button adapted to increase a ranking position of the digital content item;

a second button adapted to decrease the ranking position of the digital content item; and

an element adapted to display the numerical change of ranking positions for the digital content.

13. The user interface of claim 12, wherein the ranking cell further displays the previous ranking position of the digital content item.

14. The user interface of claim 12, wherein the ranking cell further displays the previous ranking position submitted by a user viewing the user interface.

15. The user interface of claim 12, wherein the region adapted to display the digital content item is further adapted to display a larger inline display of the row.

16. A digital content hosting website for determining a collaborative ranking of a set of digital content items, the digital content hosting website comprising:

a digital content database for storing digital content;

a user database for storing registered users of the digital content hosting website;

a scoring module adapted to determine a ranking score for each digital content item in a set of digital content items based at least on a previous ranking score; and

an authentication module adapted to determine valid registered users and valid ranking votes.

17. A computer program product for determining a new collaborative ranking for a set of digital content items in a digital content hosting website, comprising a computer-readable medium containing computer program code for controlling a processor to perform a method comprising:

storing the set of digital content items, each digital content item having a ranking in the set;

displaying the set of digital content items to a plurality of users;

receiving a plurality of ranking votes for the digital content items in the set from a plurality of users, the ranking votes ordering the digital content items with respect to each other;

determining a new ranking score for each digital content item based at least on a previous ranking score; and

updating the ranking for each digital content item in the set based on the new ranking score.

18. The computer program product of claim 17 wherein ranking votes are votes for a digital content item and a corresponding ranking position.

19. The computer program product of claim 17, the method further comprising:

for each of the received ranking votes associated with a user,

determining if the user associated with each of the received ranking votes is a valid user; and

determining if the received ranking votes associated with the user are valid.

20. The computer program product of claim 19, wherein determining if the received ranking votes are valid comprises determining that each of the plurality of ranking votes were submitted within the proper voting period for each user.

21. The computer program product of claim 19, wherein determining if the user associated with each of the received ranking votes is a valid user comprises determining if the user registered account information with the digital content hosting website.

22. The computer program product of claim 17, the method further comprising tallying the received ranking votes, wherein tallying the received ranking votes comprises determining for each digital content item the number of ranking votes that were received for a particular ranking position.

23. The computer program product of claim 17, wherein the new ranking score is further based on the number of digital content items in the set and the number of ranking votes a digital content item received for each possible ranking position in the set.

24. The computer program product of claim 17, wherein determining a new ranking score for each digital content item occurs based at least on a time interval.

25. The computer program product of claim 17, the method further comprising displaying a confirmation page indicating ranking positions of each digital content item according to a new ranking.

26. A computer program product for producing a user interface for a digital content hosting web site for displaying a set of digital content items to be collaboratively ranked, the user interface comprising:

a plurality of digital content rows, each digital content row comprising;

a ranking cell displaying a relative ranking position of the digital content item associated with the row;

a region adapted to display a digital content item;

a title cell including information about the digital content item, the information comprising the digital content item'"'"'s title, a producer or a number of views the digital content item has received;

a first button adapted to increase a ranking position of the digital content item;

a second button adapted to decrease the ranking position of the digital content item; and

an element adapted to display the numerical change of ranking positions for the digital content.