DETERMINING USER-TO-USER SIMLARITIES IN AN ONLINE MEDIA ENVIRONMENT

• US 20100083318A1
• Filed: 09/30/2008
• Published: 04/01/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 09/30/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Weare, Christopher, Gibson, Chad, Zahn, Jessica
• Granted Patent: US 8,640,163 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 725/46
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/437 Administration of user profiles, e.g. generation, initialisation, adaptation, distribution
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/105 of operating discs
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/252 Processing of multiple end-users' preferences to derive collaborative data
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4667 Processing of monitored end-user data, e.g. trend analysis based on the log file of viewer selections
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6582 Data stored in the client, e.g. viewing habits, hardware capabilities, credit card number arrangements where receivers interact with the broadcast H04H20/38

Abstract

The determination of similarities between users in an online entertainment environment is disclosed. For example, one disclosed embodiment comprises a method of operating an entertainment server, wherein the method includes receiving user information that comprises user demographic information and user media selection information from each user of a plurality of users. For a current user, a plurality of similarity values are determined that each quantifies a similarity of the current user to another user based upon similarities between the user information of the current user and the user information of the other user. Then, the method comprises determining a list of other users to present to the current user based upon the similarity values determined, and sending the list of other users to the current user.

Claims

1. A method of operating an entertainment server, comprising:

receiving user information comprising user demographic information and user media selection information from each user of a plurality of users;

for a current user, determining a plurality of similarity values that each quantifies a similarity of the current user to another user based upon similarities between the user information of the current user and the user information of the other user;

determining a list of zero or more other users to present to the current user based upon the similarity values determined; and

sending the list of zero or more other users to the current user.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining a similarity value for each user-user pair of the plurality of users.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein determining a list comprises ordering the list based upon similarity values of the other users.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein determining a list further comprises weighting the similarity value of each user in the list based upon a calculated reputation of each user in the list.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising adjusting the calculated reputation of each user on the list based upon actions performed by the user.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving from the current user a request for information regarding a user on the list, and sending the information regarding the user on the list to the current user.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising modifying a weighting applied to one or more items of user information in a similarity value determination based upon the request for information received from the current user.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein determining a plurality of similarity values comprises applying a weighting factor to one or more items of information used as inputs in a similarity value determination.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein applying a weighting factor comprises weighting a media item selection used as an input in the similarity value calculation in a manner inversely proportional to a popularity of the media item.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein determining a plurality of similarity values comprises determining the plurality of similarity values via a cosine similarity calculation.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein each similarity value is determined according to the relationship:

12. The method of claim 1, wherein determining a plurality of similarity values comprises determining the plurality of similarity values via a map-reduce calculation.

13. A method of interacting with an entertainment server, comprising:

receiving an input of current user demographic information from a current user;

receiving an input of current user media selection information from the current user;

sending the current user demographic information and the current user media selection information to the entertainment server;

receiving a list of similar other users from the entertainment server;

displaying the list of similar other users on a user interface;

receiving a selection of a selected other user from the list of similar users;

sending the selection of the selected other user from the list of similar users to the entertainment server;

receiving information about the selected other user from the entertainment server; and

displaying the information about the selected other user on the user interface.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising receiving from the current user an input requesting transmission of a media item selection from the information about the selected other user, sending a request for the media item selection to the entertainment server, and receiving the media item selection from the entertainment server.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein the current user demographic information comprises one or more of age, gender and location.

16. The method of claim 13, wherein the current user media selection information comprises one or more of media selections made by the user, media item preferences, fan club memberships, mailing list memberships, social group memberships, and user self-descriptions.

17. An entertainment server, comprising:

a logic subsystem; and

memory comprising instructions executable by the logic subsystem to perform a method comprising;

receiving user information from each user of a plurality of users;

for each user-user pair of the plurality of users, determining a similarity value that quantifies a similarity of the user-user pair based upon similarities between the user information of each user of the user-user pair;

receiving a request from a current user to connect to the entertainment server;

connecting the current user to the entertainment server;

determining a list of zero or more other users to present to the current user based upon the similarity values of user-user pairs that include the current user; and

sending the current user the list of zero or more other users

18. The entertainment server of claim 17, wherein the instructions are executable to determine a list by weighting each user in the list based upon a calculated reputation of each user in the list.

19. The entertainment server of claim 18, wherein the instructions are further executable to adjust the calculated reputation of each user on the list based upon actions of each user on the list.

20. The entertainment server of claim 17, wherein the instructions are executable to determine a similarity value for each use-user pair by:

applying weighting factors to the types of user information used as an inputs in a similarity value determination;

collecting information on each type of user information used in the similarity value calculation;

determining a usefulness of each type of user information used in the similarity value calculation;

and adjusting the weighting factor of each type of user information used in the similarity calculation based upon the usefulness.