SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR REPRESENTING CONTENT, USER PRESENCE AND INTERACTION WITHIN VIRTUAL WORLD ADVERTISING ENVIRONMENTS

• US 20090063983A1
• Filed: 08/27/2007
• Published: 03/05/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 08/27/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Qurio Holdings Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Qurio Holdings Incorporated
• Inventors: Evans, Gregory, Amidon, Christopher, Walsh, Richard, Issa, Alfredo
• Granted Patent: US 9,111,285 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/733
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 3/006 based on simulated virtual individual or collective life forms, e.g. social simulations or particle swarm optimisation [PSO]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising

Abstract

A control system renders a shared virtual environment to one or more users and obtains metadata associated with content accessed by the users. Representations based on the gathered metadata are provided to a viewing user, and may include visual elements serving as host, content and/or presence representations. Applicable representations are identified from a plurality of defined possible content representations based on the metadata associated with and obtained for a hosting user. The representations may be descriptive of a variety of parameters, including but not limited to the type, timing, nature or other parameters associated with content currently being accessed by a hosting user, content available from the hosting user, a future schedule for content access, time remaining for the hosting user to remain within a shared virtual environment, the hosting user'"'"'s social network status relative to the viewing user. Presence representations may be displayed to provide information on a hosting user'"'"'s presence availability within a shared virtual environment elative to one or more determined time slots.

Claims

1. A control system comprising at least one computing device adapted to:

render a shared virtual environment to a viewing user, wherein the shared virtual environment is also accessible by at least one hosting user;

determine at least one time slot associated with a given hosting user, wherein the given hosting user is capable of being present within the shared virtual environment during the at least one time slot; and

identify a presence representation that is indicative of the given hosting user'"'"'s presence availability within the shared virtual environment relative to the at least one determined time slot; and

effect presentation to a viewing user of the presence representation in association with a host representation representing the given hosting user.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one time slot determined by said computing device comprises an advertisement presentation opportunity.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the presence representation provides an indication of estimated remaining time within the at least one time slot.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the presence representation provides an indication of estimated time remaining until the given hosting user enters the shared virtual environment.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the presence representation comprises a visual element selected from a plurality of visual elements, wherein the plurality of visual elements comprises at least one visual element indicating user absence from the shared virtual environment and a plurality of visual elements indicating user presence within the shared virtual environment for different estimated periods of time.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein said at least one computing device is further adapted to execute at least one virtual advertisement in the shared virtual environment.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein said at least one computing device is further adapted to send an invitation to one or more hosting users requesting the presence of the one or more hosting users in the shared virtual environment at a predetermined time slot.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein said at least one computing device is further adapted to select the virtual environment rendered to the viewing user, and wherein said selecting comprises choosing a virtual environment with one or more virtual parameters that are matched to at least one parameter associated with the viewing user.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the one or more virtual environment parameters that are matched to at least one parameter associated with the viewing user comprise one or more of user identifiers, user demographics, user interests, viewer identifiers, viewer demographics, viewer interests, current time of day, current month or day, current season of the year, genre of current media content, rating of current media content, and user location.

10. A control system comprising at least one computing device adapted to:

render a shared virtual environment to a viewing user, wherein the shared virtual environment is also accessible by a hosting user;

obtain metadata associated with content access by the hosting user;

identify at least one applicable content representation from a plurality of defined content representations based on the metadata, wherein the at least one applicable content representation is based on the metadata and is descriptive of aspects associated with access of content by the hosting user; and

effect presentation to the viewing user of the at least one applicable content representation in association with a host representation representing the hosting user.

11. The control system of claim 10, wherein said at least one computing device is further configured to:

determine an advertisement presentation opportunity; and

execute at least one advertisement in the shared virtual environment.

12. The control system of claim 11, wherein the at least one advertisement comprises a virtual advertisement

13. The control system of claim 10, wherein said obtaining metadata comprises sending a summary entry of metadata to a transport provider.

14. The control system of claim 13, wherein said sending a summary entry of metadata to a transport provider is effected on a periodic basis.

15. The control system of claim 10, wherein said obtaining metadata comprises:

sending a query, the query comprising an ontology of interest, a predicate, and a scoring algorithm, the predicate describing a membership qualification for a node in the ontology of interest; and

receiving a response comprising a score, the score representing an evaluation of the predicate to metadata associated with the target system;

wherein the score represents how well the metadata matches the ontology of interest.

16. The control system of claim 15, wherein the scoring algorithm applies a weighting factor to a relationship between nodes in the ontology.

17. The control system of claim 10, wherein effecting presentation of the at least one applicable content representation comprises:

filtering one or more of the host representation and the applicable content representations based on user preferences of the viewing user to provide filtered content representations; and

effecting presentation of at least one of the filtered representations to the viewing user.

18. The control system of claim 10, wherein the host representation is an avatar representing the hosting user in the virtual environment, and effecting presentation of the at least one of the applicable content representations comprises effecting presentation of the at least one of the applicable content representations in association with the avatar within a view of the virtual environment presented to the viewing user.

19. The control system of claim 18, wherein the at least one applicable content representation is a visual element presented alongside the avatar within the view of the virtual environment presented to the viewing user.

20. The control system of claim 10, wherein the metadata associated with content access comprises metadata related to one or more of content viewing actions, past content selection, current content selection, future scheduled content selection, content preferences, advertising preferences, and advertisement viewing actions.

21. The control system of claim 10, wherein one or more of the host representation and the at least one applicable content representation is further descriptive of content available from a hosting user.

22. The control system of claim 10, wherein one or more of the host representation and the at least one applicable content representation is descriptive of the current content being accessed by a hosting user.

23. The control system of claim 10, wherein one or more of the content representation host and the at least one applicable content representation is descriptive of a future schedule for accessing content associated with a hosting user.

24. The control system of claim 10, wherein said at least one computing device is further adapted to receive a content transfer initiation event from the client device of the viewing user for initiating transfer of at least a portion of the content currently accessed by the hosting user;

and

in response to the content transfer initiation event, effecting transfer of the at least a portion of the content currently accessed by the hosting user to the client device of the viewing user.

25. The control system of claim 10, wherein said at least one computing device is further adapted to receive a content transfer initiation event from the client device of the viewing user for initiating transfer of at least a portion of content available from the hosting user;

and

in response to the content transfer initiation event, effecting transfer of the at least a portion of the content available from the hosting user to the client device of the viewing user.

26. The control system of claim 10, wherein one or more of the host representation and the at least one applicable content representation is descriptive of time remaining for the hosting user to be present within the shared virtual environment.

27. The control system of claim 10, wherein one or more of the host representation and the at least one applicable content representation comprises a buffered display of at least a portion of the content currently accessed by the hosting user.

28. The control system of claim 10, wherein one or more of the host representation and the at least one applicable content representation is descriptive of the hosting user'"'"'s social network status relative to the viewing user.

29. The system of claim 10, wherein said control system comprises a server coupled over a network to a client device associated with the viewing user and a client device associated with the hosting user.

30. The system of claim 10, wherein said control system comprises one or more client devices associated with one or more of the viewing and hosting users and other networked users adapted to operate in a distributed configuration.

31. The system of claim 10, wherein said at least one computing device is further adapted to coordinate rendering of the shared virtual environment on a plurality of playback devices by:

receiving from the plurality of playback devices schedule information identifying content played by the plurality of playback devices; and

coordinating advertisement presentation opportunities in the content played by the plurality of playback devices, wherein the shared virtual environment is accessible by the plurality of playback devices for access rendering during the coordinated advertisement presentation opportunities.