OFFERING ITEMS IDENTIFIED IN A MEDIA STREAM

• US 20140109118A1
• Filed: 12/05/2013
• Published: 04/17/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 01/07/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Inventors: Kokenos, Danae M., Schermerhorn, Charles Porter, Tavis, Matthew T.
• Granted Patent: US 10,219,015 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 725/5
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2543 Billing , e.g. for subscription services payment schemes, architectures or protocols G06Q20/00; e-commerce G06Q30/00; arrangements for billing for the use of broadcast information or broadcast-related information H04H60/21
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47815 Electronic shopping payment schemes, payment architectures or payment protocols for electronic shopping systems G06Q20/12
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/812 involving advertisement data advertising per se G06Q30/02

Abstract

Disclosed are techniques to enable users to perform transactions such as purchasing items or receiving information regarding items depicted within a content stream, where the content stream may be received from a content provider and provided to an output device. Transactions may be performed by a user that may or may not be associated with a content provider or associated with an item offering service. In one example, a content stream may be analyzed to detect a depiction of an item, and a user may operate a user interface overlaid onto the displayed content stream to perform transactions such as initiating a purchase or requesting more information on the detected items.

Claims

1. (canceled)

2. A device comprising:

at least one physical processor; and

one or more memory devices to store computer instructions that when executed by the at least one processor at least;

receive, from a content provider, a content stream, the content stream including content depicting an item;

detect the item within the content stream, the content stream being provided for display on a separate output device;

determine one or more item offering services offering the item;

determine identification information for the item;

determine identification information for a user; and

transmit, to one or more of the one or more item offering services, the identification information for the item and the identification information for the user.

3. The device as recited in claim 2, wherein to detect the item within the content stream, the computer instructions, when executed by the at least one processor at least:

analyze one or more visual elements of one or more images of the content stream to identify one or more characteristics of the item, the one or more images not being part of an advertisement; and

based at least partly on the one or more characteristics of the item, correlate the item to a catalog item within a catalog of items.

4. The device as recited in claim 2, wherein to detect the item within the content stream, the computer instructions, when executed by the at least one processor at least:

analyze one or more audio elements of the content stream to identify one or more characteristics of the item, the one or more audio elements not being part of an advertisement; and

based at least partly on the one or more characteristics of the item, correlate the item to a catalog item within the catalog of items.

5. The device as recited in claim 2, wherein the one or more item offering services are distinct from the content provider.

6. The device as recited in claim 2, wherein the one or more item offering services are distinct from one another.

7. The device as recited in claim 2, wherein the user has a previous association with the device or with the content provider such that at least part of the identification information for the user is received prior to receiving the content stream.

8. The device as recited in claim 7, wherein the user is a first user, wherein the first user is one of a plurality of users and at least some of the plurality of users have no association with the content provider, and wherein the computer instructions, when executed by the at least one processor at least:

based at least partly on a second user of the some of the plurality of users having no association with the content provider, query the second user for additional information, wherein the first user is not queried for the additional information.

9. A computer-implemented method comprising:

performing by one or more processors of a client device,

receiving a content stream from a content provider, the content stream including images of one or more items;

providing the content stream for display on an output device;

detecting an item within the content stream;

modifying the content stream to include an overlay of a user interface;

providing, to the output device, the modified content stream;

determining a user identification based at least partly on input received through the user interface;

determining, based at least partly on the item, an item offering service from among a plurality of item offering services; and

transmitting, to the item offering service, the user identification and information for the item.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 9, wherein the transmitting causes the item offering service to complete a transaction through a communication channel not involving the client device.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 9, wherein the item offering service is a first item offering service, and wherein the computer-implemented method further comprises:

determining, based at least partly on the item, a second item offering service from among the plurality of item offering services; and

transmitting, to the second item offering service, the user identification and the information for the item.

12. The computer-implemented method as recited in claim 9, further comprising:

receiving audio input from the user in response to query elements of the user interface being displayed on the output device, the audio input comprising a phrase token corresponding to the user.

13. The computer-implemented method as recited in claim 12, wherein:

the phrase token is spoken by the user, and

the phrase token is used to authorize purchase of the item without user access to billing information corresponding to an account corresponding to the phrase token.

14. The computer-implemented method as recited in claim 9, further comprising:

determining, based at least partly on the detected item, one or more other items similar to the item; and

offering at least one of the one or more other items similar to the item through the user interface for purchase, the at least one of the one or more other items being more expensive than the item.

15. The computer-implemented method as recited in claim 9, further comprising:

determining, based at least partly on the detected item, one or more accessories for the item; and

offering at least one of the one or more accessories for the item through the user interface for purchase.

16. The computer-implemented method as recited in claim 9, wherein the method further comprises:

determining, without regard to what the item is, a seller that offers multiple different items; and

transmitting the user identification and the information for the item to the seller.

17. One or more computer-readable storage devices storing instructions that, when executed, cause one or more processors to perform operations comprising:

displaying a content stream from a content provider, the content stream including images that include one or more items;

receiving a request from a user initiating a purchase of an item depicted within the content stream;

in response to the request, analyzing the content stream and detecting the item depicted within the content stream;

overlaying a user interface onto a display of the content stream;

receiving, through the overlaid user interface, identification information corresponding to a user and receiving a transaction option related to the item; and

transmitting, to an offering service, the identification information corresponding to the user, the information identifying the item, and the transaction option.

18. The one or more computer-readable storage devices of claim 17, the operations further comprising:

causing the offering service to complete the transaction option related to the item in response to the transmitting the identification information corresponding to the user and transmitting the information identifying the item.

19. The one or more computer-readable storage devices of claim 17, the operations further comprising:

determining the transaction option is a request for additional information about the item

transmitting, to the offering service, a request for information on the item; and

displaying, in response to receiving the information about the item from the offering service, some or all of the additional information about the item.

20. The one or more computer-readable storage devices of claim 17, wherein the content stream is a content stream for a show, and wherein the overlaying the user interface occurs after display of the show is complete.

21. The one or more computer-readable storage devices of claim 20, wherein the user interface overlaid at the completion of the display of the show includes one or more items selected by the user during the display of the show.