System and method for refining media recommendations

• US 20090076881A1
• Filed: 03/29/2006
• Published: 03/19/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 03/29/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Concert Technology Corporation
• Original Assignee: Concert Technology Corporation
• Inventors: Svendsen, Hugh
• Granted Patent: US 8,285,595 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/10
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0253 During e-commerce, i.e. online transactions

Abstract

An archiving system is provided for archiving a user'"'"'s media collection and refining recommendations made to the user by an e-commerce service, such as an e-commerce website, based on the archive of the user'"'"'s media collection. In general, a central archiving system interacts with a user system to archive a user'"'"'s media collection. Thereafter, while the user is interacting with the e-commerce service, a list of recommended media for the user is generated and provided to the archiving system. The archiving system refines the list based on the archive of the user'"'"'s media collection. Optionally, the list of recommended media may be further refined based on a user profile and play history of the user. The refined list of recommended media is returned to the e-commerce service and presented to the user.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a communication interface communicatively coupling the system to a third-party server hosting an e-commerce service via a network; and

a control system associated with the communication interface and adapted to;

store information identifying a user'"'"'s media collection in an associated storage unit;

receive a list of recommended media for the user from the e-commerce service; and

refine the list of recommended media based on the information identifying the user'"'"'s media collection.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the e-commerce service comprises a recommendation engine operating to generate the list of recommended media while the user is interacting with the e-commerce service.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein the list of recommended media identifies a plurality of media files and in order to refine the list of recommended media, the control system is further adapted to:

identify at least one of the plurality of media files in the list of recommended media as a media file within the user'"'"'s media collection; and

mark the at least one of the plurality of media files in the list of recommended media as a media file owned by the user, thereby refining the list of recommended media.

4. The system of claim 1 wherein the list of recommended media identifies a recommended album and in order to refine the list of recommended media, the control system is further adapted to:

identify at least one song in the user'"'"'s media collection from the recommended album; and

refine the list of recommended media to identify the at least one song from the recommended album as a song owned by the user.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein the list of recommended media identifies a plurality of albums and in order to refine the list of recommended media, the control system is further adapted to:

identify at least one of the plurality of albums in the list of recommended media as an album within the user'"'"'s media collection; and

mark the at least one of the plurality of albums in the list of recommended media as an album owned by the user, thereby refining the list of recommended media.

6. The system of claim 1 wherein in order to refine the list of recommended media, the control system is further adapted to prioritize the list of recommended media based on the user'"'"'s media collection.

7. The system of claim 1 wherein in order to refine the list of recommended media, the control system is further adapted to:

identify a preferred genre based on the user'"'"'s media collection; and

prioritize the list of recommended media based on the preferred genre.

8. The system of claim 7 wherein in order to prioritize the list of recommended media, the control system is further adapted to:

assign a higher priority to media from the list of recommended media associated with the preferred genre; and

assign a lower priority to other media from the list of recommended media associated with genres other than the preferred genre.

9. The system of claim 1 wherein in order to refine the list of recommended media, the control system is further adapted to:

identify a preferred music artist based on the user'"'"'s media collection; and

prioritize the list of recommended media based on the preferred music artist.

10. The system of claim 9 wherein in order to prioritize the list of recommended media, the control system is further adapted to:

assign a higher priority to media from the list of recommended media associated with the preferred music artist; and

assign a lower priority to other media from the list of recommended media associated with music artists other than the preferred music artist.

11. The system of claim 1 wherein the communication interface is further adapted to communicatively couple the system to a user system associated with the user, and the control system is further adapted to:

receive a play history from the user system identifying media files played by the user and a date and time at which each of the media files was played; and

prioritize the list of recommended media based on the play history to further refine the list of recommended media.

12. The system of claim 1 wherein the control system is further adapted to:

store a user profile for the user; and

prioritize the list of recommended media based on the user profile to further refine the list of recommended media.

13. The system of claim 1 wherein the control system is further adapted to:

store user preferences for the user; and

prioritize the list of recommended media based on the user preferences to further refine the list of recommended media.

14. The system of claim 1 wherein the control system is further adapted to:

receive a plurality of lists of recommended media for the user including the list of recommended media from the e-commerce service; and

limit a number of the plurality of lists refined based on the user'"'"'s media collection.

15. The system of claim 1 wherein the control system is further adapted to:

receive a plurality of lists of recommended media for the user including the list of recommended media from the e-commerce service; and

limit a number of the plurality of lists refined based on the user'"'"'s media collection within a predetermined amount of time.

16. The system of claim 1 wherein the list of recommended media identifies a plurality of media files, and the control system is further adapted to limit a number of the plurality of media files in the list of recommended media to a predetermined number of media files.

17. The system of claim 1 wherein the list of recommended media identifies a plurality of albums, and the control system is further adapted to limit a number of the plurality of albums in the list of recommended media to a predetermined number of albums.

18. The system of claim 1 wherein the information identifying the user'"'"'s media collection is an archive of the user'"'"'s media collection.

19. The system of claim 18 wherein the communication interface is further adapted to communicatively couple the system to a user system associated with the user, and the control system is further adapted to:

receive information regarding media content and an encoding algorithm for each of a plurality of media files in the user'"'"'s media collection;

identify the media content and the encoding algorithm for each of the plurality of media files based on the information regarding the media content and the encoding algorithm for each of the plurality of media files; and

generate an archive record operating as an archive of the user'"'"'s media collection, the archive record comprising information identifying the media content and information identifying the encoding algorithm for each of the plurality of media files rather than the plurality of media files.

20. The system of claim 19 wherein the user purchases media from the e-commerce service and the control system is further adapted to:

receive a notification identifying the media purchased from the e-commerce service; and

update the archive of the user'"'"'s media collection to include the media purchased from the e-commerce service.

21. The system of claim 20 wherein the media purchased from the e-commerce service is known to the system, and the control system is further adapted to:

provide the media purchased from the e-commerce service to the user system.

22. The system of claim 21 wherein in order to provide the media to the user system, the control system is further adapted to:

generate the media based on a corresponding reference media file and a desired encoding algorithm; and

provide the media generated based on the corresponding reference media file and the desired encoding algorithm to a user system associated with the user.

23. The system of claim 1 wherein the control system is further adapted to:

store information identifying a media collection of each of a plurality of users including the information identifying the user'"'"'s media collection;

receive advertisements and criteria for identifying a target group of the plurality of users for each of the advertisements from an advertiser via the network;

identify the target group of the plurality of users for each of the advertisements based on the criteria for each of the advertisements and the information identifying the media collection of each of the plurality of users; and

provide the advertisements to the target groups of the plurality of users.

24. The system of claim 1 wherein the control system is further adapted to:

store information identifying a media collection of each of a plurality of users including the information identifying the user'"'"'s media collection;

receive criteria for identifying a target group of the plurality of users for each of a plurality of advertisements from an advertiser via the network;

identify the target group of the plurality of users for each of the plurality of advertisements based on the criteria and the information identifying the media collection of each of the plurality of users; and

provide contact information to the advertiser for each user in the target group of the plurality of users for each of the plurality of advertisements;

wherein the advertiser provides the plurality of advertisements to the target groups of the plurality of users based on the contact information.

27. The system of claim 1 wherein the control system is further adapted to return the refined list of recommended media to the e-commerce service for delivery to the user.

25. A method for operating a central system comprising:

storing, at the central system, information identifying a user'"'"'s media collection;

receiving, at the central system, a list of recommended media for the user from an e-commerce service; and

refining the list of recommended media, at the central system, based on the information identifying the user'"'"'s media collection.

26. The method of claim 25 further comprising returning the refined list of recommended media to the e-commerce service for delivery to the user.