METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR OPTIMIZING DELIVERY OF MOBILE CONTENT USING DIFFERENTIAL METADATA UPDATES

• US 20090119375A1
• Filed: 11/05/2007
• Published: 05/07/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 11/05/2007
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Blackberry Limited
• Original Assignee: Blackberry Limited
• Inventors: SHENFIELD, Michael
• Application Number:
  US11/935,082
• Publication Number:
  US 20090119375A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/206
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/04 specially adapted for terminals or networks with limited capabilities; specially adapted for terminal portability
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/55 Push-based network services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/56 Provisioning of proxy services store-and-forward switching systems in data switching networks H04L12/54
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/568 Storing data temporarily at an intermediate stage, e.g. caching

Abstract

A method of and system of optimizing content delivery within a content delivery channel at a processing element in a dynamic content delivery architecture, the content delivery channel having a plurality of logical or physical content types or a plurality of sub-channels, the method: receiving an envelope at the processing element, the envelope containing one or both of content and metadata; checking any received metadata to determine whether the received metadata comprises metadata for a subset of the plurality of logical or physical content types or plurality of sub-channels for the content delivery channel at the processing element; if the received metadata contains or refers to metadata for a subset of the plurality of logical or physical content types or plurality of sub-channels for the content delivery channel at the processing element, extracting the metadata; and applying the extracted metadata to any received content belonging to the subset of the plurality of logical or physical content types or a plurality of sub-channels for the content delivery channel at the processing element.

Claims

1. A method of optimizing content delivery within a content delivery channel at a processing element in a dynamic content delivery architecture, the content delivery channel having a plurality of logical or physical content types or a plurality of sub-channels, the method comprising:

receiving an envelope at the processing element, the envelope containing one or both of content and metadata;

checking any received metadata to determine whether the received metadata comprises metadata for a subset of the plurality of logical or physical content types or plurality of sub-channels for the content delivery channel at said processing element;

if said received metadata contains or refers to metadata for a subset of the plurality of logical or physical content types or plurality of sub-channels for the content delivery channel at said processing element,

extracting said metadata; and

applying said extracted metadata to any received content belonging to said subset of the plurality of logical or physical content types or a plurality of sub-channels for the content delivery channel at said processing element.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

caching said metadata at said processing element, overwriting previously cached value of metadata for said subset of content types or sub-channels.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the method further comprises:

if said checking finds the envelope does not contain metadata or reference to associated metadata for a subset of the plurality of logical or physical content types or plurality of sub-channels for the content delivery channel at said processing element,

retrieving metadata for each subset of received content associated with the plurality of logical or physical content types or plurality of sub-channels for the content delivery channel at said processing element from the cache on the processing element; and

applying said retrieved metadata to received content.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein said checking further checks whether the envelope comprises or refers to incremental metadata for said processing element, and if yes the method further comprises:

retrieving metadata for the content provider and content type from the cache;

modifying metadata retrieved from the cache with the received incremental metadata forming updated metadata; and

performing said applying step with said updated metadata; and

storing updated metadata replacing previously cached metadata

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the processing element is a delivery server, a delivery client or a client application.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the envelope contains or refers to metadata for one or more processing elements of said content delivery architecture.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the envelope contains or refers to no metadata.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the content type is determined based on a multipurpose Internet mail extensions (MIME) type of the content.

9. A processing element in a dynamic content delivery architecture supporting delivery channels, the channels supporting a plurality of logical or physical content types or sub-channels associated therewith, said processing element comprising:

a communication subsystem, said communication subsystem adapted to receive a content package from a content provider or a previous processing element in said dynamic content delivery architecture and further adapted to pass a modified content package to a subsequent processing element in said dynamic content delivery architecture;

a metadata extractor adapted to extract metadata directed to the processing element from the content package; and

a processor adapted to apply metadata based on content type or sub-channel to the content package once metadata for the processing element has been extracted.

10. The processing element of claim 9, further comprising

a cache adapted to store metadata extracted by the metadata extractor based on a content type;

wherein said content metadata extractor is further adapted to retrieve metadata from said cache based on the content type if no metadata for the processing element exists in the content package.

11. The processing element of claim 10, wherein said metadata extractor is further adapted to extract incremental metadata directed to the processing element.

12. The processing element of claim 11, wherein the metadata extractor is adapted to combine the extracted incremental metadata with metadata retrieved from the cache.

13. The processing element of claim 9, wherein the processing element is a delivery server, a delivery client or a client application.

14. The processing element of claim 9, wherein the content package contains or refers to metadata for one or more processing elements of said dynamic content delivery architecture.

15. The processing element of claim 9, wherein the content package contains or refers to no metadata.

16. The processing element of claim 9, wherein the content type is determined based on a multipurpose Internet mail extensions (MIME) type of the content.

17. A method of updating channel metadata for a channel having a plurality of logical or physical content types or sub-channels at a processing element in a dynamic content delivery architecture, the method comprising:

receiving a channel metadata at the processing element;

checking the channel metadata to determine whether the channel metadata comprises channel metadata for a subset of the plurality of logical or physical channel types or sub-channels at said processing element; and

if said channel metadata contains channel metadata for said processing element, extracting and utilizing a the metadata based on the subset of the plurality of logical or physical content types or sub-channels.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising:

caching the metadata for the subset of the plurality of logical or physical channel types or sub-channels at said processing element