SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PLAYLIST GENERATION BASED ON SIMILARITY DATA

• US 20100076982A1
• Filed: 09/30/2008
• Published: 03/25/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 09/08/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc., Micron Technology, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Wagner, Richard Frederick, Werner, Jeremy, Gates, Patrick, Flowers, Josh, Wadycki, Andrew
• Granted Patent: US 9,496,003 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/749
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/433 using audio data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/4387 by the use of playlists
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/634 Query by example, e.g. query by humming
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/637 Administration of user profiles, e.g. generation, initialization, adaptation or distribution
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/639 using playlists
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/68 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/683 using metadata automatically derived from the content
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/105 of operating discs

Abstract

Methods and arrangements for facilitating media playlist generation for a program participant based at least in part on media library inventory information provided by a number of program participants. The system or program in which the individuals are participating is an on-line media store. Those individuals that decide to be program participants are interested in organizing, maintaining and playing their music, based at least in part, on data derived from a population of other participants in the program that have similar or the same music in their libraries. To be a program participant, the individual music holder must send, and the on-line music store receive, data representative of that program participant'"'"'s media inventory. This data typically contains identification data of the individual media items presently contained in that participant'"'"'s media library regardless of the individual media item'"'"'s source. The system or program determines an incidence of co-occurrence of pairs of individual media items in different program participants'"'"' media libraries. Based on this determination, a similarity rating is assigned between the pairs of individual media items based on the determined incidence of co-occurrence in the different program participants'"'"' media libraries.

Claims

1. A method for facilitating media playlist generation for a program participant based at least in part on media library inventory information provided by a plurality of program participants, said method comprising:

receiving, from a plurality of program participants, data representative of the respective program participant'"'"'s media inventory and which comprises identification data of individual media items presently contained in that participant'"'"'s media library regardless of the individual media item'"'"'s source;

determining an incidence of co-occurrence of pairs of individual media items in different program participants'"'"' media libraries; and

assigning a similarity rating between the pairs of individual media items based on the determined incidence of co-occurrence in the different program participants'"'"' media libraries.

2. The method as recited in claim 1, further comprising:

compiling similarity ratings between co-occurring pairs of at least a majority of the individual media items contained in the media libraries of the plurality of program participants.

3. The method as recited in claim 2, further comprising:

compiling, for an individual program participant, similarity rating data for at least a majority of the individual media items contained in that program participant'"'"'s media library.

4. The method as recited in claim 3, further comprising:

limiting the compilation of similarity rating data for the individual program participant to similarity rating data between the individual media items contained in that program participant'"'"'s media library.

5. The method as recited in claim 4, further comprising:

transmitting the limited compilation of similarity rating data for the individual program participant to that program participant.

6. The method as recited in claim 4, further comprising:

generating a media playlist for the individual program participant comprising individual media items contained in that program participant'"'"'s media library and having a similarity rating relative to a seed media item selected from the participant'"'"'s media library.

7. The method as recited in claim 6, further comprising:

transmitting the generated playlist to the program participant.

8. The method as recited in claim 4, further comprising:

generating a media playlist for the individual program participant composed exclusively of individual media items contained in that participant'"'"'s media library and having a similarity rating relative to a seed media item selected from the participant'"'"'s media library.

9. The method as recited in claim 8, further comprising:

transmitting the generated playlist to the program participant.

10. The method as recited in claim 1, further comprising:

receiving from the plurality of program participants data representative of descriptive characteristics of at least a majority of the individual media items contained in the participants'"'"' media libraries.

11. The method as recited in claim 1, further comprising:

assigning to each individual media item contained in the participants'"'"' media libraries a program-sourced identifier based on analysis of respective identification data and thereby permitting direct correlation between substantially identical media items contained in the media libraries of different participants.

12. The method as recited in claim 1, further comprising:

associating data obtained from a third party data source and representative of supplemental descriptive item characteristics with at least a portion of the individual media items.

13. The method as recited in claim 1, further comprising:

receiving, from a program participant, update data representative of that program participant'"'"'s present media inventory, including identification data of additional media items added to the participant'"'"'s media library since an immediately-previous data upload by the participant.

14. The method as recited in claim 13, wherein the program participant'"'"'s update data indicates the absence of media items removed from the participant'"'"'s media library since the immediately-previous data uploaded by the participant.

15. The method as recited in claim 14, further comprising:

recompiling similarity ratings in consideration of said update data.

16. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein said individual media items are movies presently contained in participants'"'"' video media libraries.

17. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein said individual media items are audio tracks presently contained in participants'"'"' audio media libraries.

18. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein said individual media items are music tracks presently contained in participants'"'"' music media libraries.

19. A media playlist generation device comprising:

a processor in signal communication with a storage media device;

said storage media device containing data related to media library inventory information provided by a plurality of program participants;

said processor configured to execute at least a similarity data generation program that receives representative data from the storage media device, wherein said representative data is from a plurality of program participants'"'"' respective inventories and comprises identification data of individual media items presently contained in the respective participants'"'"' media libraries regardless of the individual media item'"'"'s source; and

said processor further configured to determine an incidence of co-occurrence of pairs of individual media items in different program participants'"'"' media libraries and to assign a similarity rating between the pairs of individual media items based on the determined incidence of co-occurrence in the different program participants'"'"' media libraries.

20. The device as recited in claim 19, wherein the storage media device further contains data corresponding to the similarity ratings between at least a portion of the pairs of individual media items.

21. The device as recited in claim 20, further comprising a communication interface for sending similarity ratings for at least a portion of the individual media items contained in that program participant'"'"'s media library.

22. The device as recited in claim 19, further comprising a communication interface for receiving, from a program participant, update data representative of that program participant'"'"'s present media inventory.

23. A computer-readable medium having a computer-readable program code for deriving similarity relationships between media items for a program participant based at least in part on media library inventory information provided by a plurality of program participants, the computer program code causing a media playlist generation device to:

receive, from a plurality of program participants, data representative of the respective program participant'"'"'s media inventory and which comprises identification data of individual media items presently contained in that participant'"'"'s media library regardless of the individual media items'"'"' source;

determine an incidence of co-occurrence of pairs of individual media items in a population of program participants'"'"' media libraries; and

assign a similarity rating between the pairs of individual media items based on the determined incidence of co-occurrence in the different program participants'"'"' media libraries.

24. The computer-readable medium recited in claim 23, further comprising computer-readable program code for compiling similarity ratings between co-occurring pairs of at least a majority of the individual media items contained in the media libraries of the plurality of program participants.

25. The computer-readable medium recited in claim 24, further comprising computer-readable program code for compiling, for an individual program participant, similarity rating data for at least a majority of the individual media items contained in that program participant'"'"'s media library.

26. The computer-readable medium recited in claim 25, further comprising computer-readable program code for limiting the compilation of similarity rating data for the individual program participant to similarity rating data between the individual media items contained in that program participant'"'"'s media library.

27. The computer-readable medium recited in claim 25, further comprising computer-readable program code for transmitting the similarity rating data for the individual program participant to that program participant.

28. The computer-readable medium recited in claim 26, further comprising computer-readable program code for generating a media playlist for the individual program participant comprising individual media items contained in that program participant'"'"'s media library and having a similarity rating relative to a seed media item selected from the participant'"'"'s media library.

29. The computer-readable medium recited in claim 28, further comprising computer-readable program code for transmitting the generated playlist to the program participant.

30. The computer-readable medium recited in claim 26, further comprising computer-readable program code for generating a media playlist for the individual program participant composed exclusively of individual media items contained in that participant'"'"'s media library and having a similarity rating relative to a seed media item selected from the participant'"'"'s media library.

31. The computer-readable medium recited in claim 23, further comprising computer-readable program code for receiving, from a program participant, update data representative of that program participant'"'"'s present media inventory, including identification data of additional media items added to the participant'"'"'s media library since an immediately-previous data upload by the participant.

32. A method for generating a playlist for a program participant based at least in part on media library inventory information from a plurality of program participants, said method comprising:

storing data representative of a media inventory associated with individual participants within a first data structure for storing data associated with the plurality of program participants, wherein said data comprises identification data of individual media items presently contained in that participant'"'"'s media library regardless of the individual media item'"'"'s source;

determining an incidence of co-occurrence of individual media items among the plurality of program participants'"'"' inventory;

assigning a similarity rating between the individual media items based upon the incidence of co-occurrence in the plurality of program participant'"'"'s inventory;

associating individual media items having a similarity rating of greater than a predetermined limit in a second data structure; and

transmitting data representative of associated relationships between individual media items to individual program participants.

33. A method for facilitating media playlist generation for a program participant, said method comprising:

transmitting, from a program host'"'"'s on-line data processing center to a program participant, media item similarity ratings for respective pairs of individual media items presently contained in an inventory of a media library of the program participant and wherein each media item similarity rating is representative of a frequency at which the respective pair of individual media items has occurred in media libraries of others.

34. The method as recited in claim 33, further comprising:

receiving, by the program host'"'"'s on-line data processing center from the program participant, data representative of the media inventory in the media library of the program participant and which comprises identification data of individual media items presently contained in the inventory of the media library.

35. The method as recited in claim 34, further comprising:

receiving, by the program host'"'"'s on-line data processing center from a plurality of program participants, data representative of the respective program participant'"'"'s media inventory and which comprises identification data of individual media items presently contained in that participant'"'"'s media library;

determining an incidence of co-occurrence of pairs of individual media items in different program participants'"'"' media libraries; and

assigning a similarity rating between the pairs of individual media items based on the determined incidence of co-occurrence in the different program participants'"'"' media libraries.