METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PROVIDING A CUSTOMIZED SELECTION OF AUDIO CONTENT OVER THE INTERNET

• US 20100217800A1
• Filed: 05/07/2010
• Published: 08/26/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 06/22/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.), Sony Electronics Inc. (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.), Sony Electronics Inc. (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Abram, Philip M., Gudorf, Gregory D., Tobin, Christopher M., Siegel, Brian M., Raymond, Brian, Iso, Kazuaki, Beckwitt, Marc
• Granted Patent: US 8,589,476 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/203
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24578 using ranking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/955 using information identifiers, e.g. uniform resource locators [URL]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04842 Selection of displayed objects or displayed text elements G06F3/0482 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0241 Advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0251 Targeted advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0255 based on user history
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0269 based on user profile or attribute
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0277 Online advertisement
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/812 involving advertisement data advertising per se G06Q30/02

Abstract

A method an apparatus is provided for providing selected media files, which are chosen from among a plurality of media files, to a user over a packet-switched network such as the Internet. The method begins by receiving over the packet-switched network a request from the user to receive media content. Next, a user profile associated with the user is retrieved from a database. The user profile reflects user preferences in media content to be received over the packet-switched network. The plurality of media files are ranked based at least in part on the user profile. At least one highly ranked media file is selected from among the ranked plurality of media files. At least one of the highly ranked media files is forwarded to the user over the packet-switched network.

Claims

1. A method for providing to a user over a packet-switched network a customized set of media files selected from among a plurality of media files, said method comprising the steps of:

receiving over the packet-switched network a request from the user to establish communication;

selecting a customized set of media files from among the plurality of media files based at least in part on user preferences obtained from a user profile; and

forwarding the customized set of media files to the user over the packet-switched network.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising monitoring media files selected by the user to develop the user profile.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the user profile is developed at least in part on a user-defined area of interest.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein the media files are music files and the user-defined area of interest is a musical category.

5. The method of claim 3 further comprising presenting the user with pre-defined areas of interest from which the user-defined area of interest is selected.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising ranking the customized set of media files based at least in part on the user-preferences and forwarding the customized set of media files to the user in ranked order.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein the ranking is performed at least in part in accordance with a social filtering technique.

8. The method of claim 7 further comprising adjusting the ranking based at least in part on data in a declared profile database specifying self-defined user preferences.

9. The method of claim 7 wherein the media files are musical files and the data in the declared profile database specifies that the ranking performed in accordance with the social filtering technique is only adjusted for predefined musical categories.

10. The method of claim 1 further comprising monitoring on-line user-activity associated with a service that forwards the media files to develop at least in part the user profile.

11. The method of claim 1 further comprising maintaining a history of on-line user-activity associated with on-line sites not associated with the service that forwards the media files, wherein the history is used to develop at least in part the user profile.

12. The method of claim 1 wherein selecting the customized set of media files includes predicting which media files are of interest to the user.

13. The method of claim 1 wherein the request received over the packet-switched network from the user includes a request to contact a server in regard to a service or product being offered for purchase and the set of media files are selected based at least in part on the service or product being offered for purchase.

14. A method for registering a user with an on-line service that delivers customized music files to the user which are selected from among a plurality of music files, said method comprising the steps of:

delivering to a user over a network a registration form for registering with the service, said registration form including fields configured to receive self-defined user preferences specifying areas of musical interest;

receiving over the network a completed registration form from the user in which the fields have been completed by the user to identify the user preferences;

recording data provided by the user in the completed registration form and delivering the recorded data to a user interface device employed by the user for storage therein so that it may be subsequently delivered to the service over the network.

15. The method of claim 14 wherein the recorded data is located in a cookie stored in the user interface device.

16. The method of claim 14 further comprising creating a database associated with the user for storing a behavior profile based on online activity of the user.

17. The method of claim 14 further comprising selecting a customized set of musical files from among a plurality of musical files based at least in part on the user preferences.

18. The method of claim 16 further comprising selecting a customized subset of musical files from among a plurality of musical files based at least in part on the user preferences and the behavior profile.

19. The method of claim 18 wherein the step of selecting the customized subset of musical files includes the step of forming an association between keywords found in the behavior profile and predefined categories of media content.

20. The method of claim 14 further comprising selecting a customized subset of musical files from among a plurality of musical files based at least in part on the user preferences filtered in accordance with a social filtering technique.

21. A system for providing selected media files to users over a packet-switched network, said apparatus comprising:

a database that includes a user profile associated with each respective one of the users and reflecting user preferences in media content to be received over the packet-switched network;

a processor for selecting a customized subset of media files for each of the users based at least in part on user preferences obtained from each respective user profile; and

a server in communication with the packet-switched network for forwarding one or more files in the customized subset of media files to the user over the packet-switched network.

22. The system of claim 21 wherein the media content is musical content and the media files are musical files.

23. The system of claim 22 wherein said user profile includes a declared user profile specifying self-defined user preferences.

24. The system of claim 22 wherein said user profile includes a behavior profile of the user based on online activity of the user.

25. The system of claim 24 wherein said behavior profile includes information identifying items displayed by the user during at least one online session.

26. The system of claim 24 wherein said processor selects the customized subset of musical files by ranking a plurality of musical files in accordance with a keyword search of the behavior profile for preselected terms.

27. The system of claim 22 wherein said processor selects the customized subset of musical files by ranking a plurality of musical files in accordance with a social filtering technique.

28. The system of claim 24 wherein said behavior profile is updated based on online user activity subsequent to forwarding said at least one musical file to the user.

29. The system of claim 22 wherein said packet-switched network is the Internet.

30. The system of claim 23 wherein said self-defined user preferences include predefined musical categories.

31. The system of claim 22 further comprising an advertisement database storing a plurality of advertisements, wherein said processor is configured to select and forward to the user at least one advertisement based at least in part on the user profile.

32. The system of claim 24 wherein said online activity on which the behavior profile is based includes an identification of web pages visited by the user and files selected by the user.

33. The system of claim 24 wherein said behavior profile is obtained at least in part from a cookie received from an interface device associated with the user.