BROADCAST OF CONTENT DATA TO GEOGRAPHIC AREAS BY DEVICES

• US 20170034654A1
• Filed: 07/31/2015
• Published: 02/02/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 07/31/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: OBERBECK, John Woodbridge, TAWA, Roger Jr.
• Granted Patent: US 9,730,016 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/18 for broadcast or conference , e.g. multicast
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1845 broadcast or multicast in a specific location, e.g. geocast protocols for adapting network applications to user terminal location H04L67/52; services specially adapted for wireless communication networks making use of the location of users or terminals H04W4/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/52 for supporting social networking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• 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 21/25841 involving the geographical location of the client retrieval from the Internet by querying based on geographical locations G06F16/9537; arrangements for identifying locations of receiving stations in broadcast systems H04H60/51; location of the user terminal in data switching networks H04L67/52; services making use of the location of users or terminals in wireless networks H04W4/02; locating users or terminals in wireless networks H04W64/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44213 Monitoring of end-user related data arrangements for monitoring the users' behaviour or opinions in broadcast systems H04H60/33
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6405 Multicasting data broadcast and multicast in packet switching networks H04L12/18
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/021 Services related to particular areas, e.g. point of interest [POI] services, venue services or geofences
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/029 Location-based management or tracking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/06 Selective distribution of broadcast services, e.g. multimedia broadcast multicast service [MBMS]; Services to user groups; One-way selective calling services

Abstract

Implementations generally relate to broadcast of content data to geographic areas by devices. In some implementations, a computer-implemented method to broadcast data includes obtaining an indication at a first device to broadcast a content post, determining a broadcast area based on a stored broadcast history for one or more previous content posts related to the content post, and broadcasting the content post. The broadcast is configured such that the content post is to be received by one or more receiving devices located in the broadcast area.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method to broadcast data, the method comprising:

obtaining an indication at a first device to broadcast a content post;

determining a broadcast area for the content post based on a stored broadcast history for one or more previous content posts related to the content post, wherein determining the broadcast area includes determining at least one of a geographical size and a geographical shape of the broadcast area; and

broadcasting the content post, wherein the broadcast is configured such that the content post is to be received by one or more receiving devices located in the broadcast area.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the stored broadcast history indicates one or more geographical locations where the one or more previous content posts related to the content post were previously received and broadcast by one or more previous receiving mobile devices.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the content post is a user content post initiated by a user and including content data provided by a user, and wherein the stored broadcast history is a stored user broadcast history, wherein the one or more previous content posts are related to the content post based on the user previously causing one or more broadcasts of the one or more previous content posts.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the stored user broadcast history relates to the one or more previous content posts that were broadcast from one or more locations within a threshold distance of a geographical location of the first device.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein the stored user broadcast history indicates a size of a geographical area over which the one or more previous content posts were re-broadcast by one or more previous receiving devices, and wherein determining the broadcast area includes modifying the geographical size of the broadcast area based on the size of the geographical area over which the one or more previous content posts were re-broadcast.

6. The method of claim 3, wherein determining the broadcast area includes:

determining the broadcast area based on one or more previous broadcast areas of the one or more previous content posts sent from one or more previous geographical locations; and

modifying the broadcast area from a first amount of geographical area to a second amount of geographical area based on a distance of a geographical location of the device to at least one of the one or more previous geographical locations.

7. The method of claim 2, wherein the stored broadcast history is a stored data broadcast history related to content data of the content post, wherein the one or more previous content posts include at least a portion of content data similar to content data of the content post.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the broadcast area defines a geographic area in which devices are eligible to receive the content post, and wherein determining the broadcast area includes:

determining a resulting broadcast area based on a plurality of broadcast areas associated with the one or more previous content posts; and

determining the broadcast area based on the resulting broadcast area.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein the content data includes one or more topics and the stored data broadcast history includes a stored topic broadcast history, and wherein determining the initial broadcast area includes:

referencing one or more stored region topics previously broadcast in a region by a plurality of devices, wherein the region includes a geographical location of the first device;

determining that the one or more topics in the content post are similar to one or more corresponding region topics of the one or more stored region topics; and

using one or more individual broadcast histories associated with the corresponding region topics to determine the initial broadcast area.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein determining the broadcast area includes using a rank of the one or more region topics to scale the broadcast area, wherein the one or more region topics are ranked based at least in part on a number of times that the one or more region topics have been broadcast by a plurality of users.

11. The method of claim 2, wherein the broadcast history is stored as one or more directed graphs of geographical locations indicating one or more directions of broadcast flow of associated previous content posts across one or more previous receiving devices at the geographical locations.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the stored broadcast history includes:

a broadcast history of the user that indicates one or more geographic locations where one or more previous user posts sent by the user were broadcast by a first set of devices that received the one or more previous user posts; and

a broadcast history of one or more topics associated with the content post, wherein the broadcast history of the one or more topics indicates one or more geographic locations where one or more previous topic posts associated with least one of the one or more topics were broadcast by a second set of devices that received the one or more previous topic posts,

wherein the broadcast area is based on the broadcast history of the user and the broadcast history of the one or more topics.

13. A system to broadcast data, the system comprising:

a storage device; and

at least one processor operative to access the storage device and configured to;

receive a content post in a received broadcast sent by a sending device and store the content post in the storage device;

obtain an indication to broadcast the content post;

determine a re-broadcast area based on a stored broadcast history associated with a user of the system, wherein determining the re-broadcast area includes determining at least one of a geographical size and a geographical shape of the re-broadcast area; and

broadcast the content post, wherein the broadcast is configured such that the content post is to be received by one or more receiving devices located in the re-broadcast area.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the at least one processor is configured to determine the re-broadcast area based on the stored broadcast history for one or more previous content posts sent by a user of the system.

15. The system of claim 13, wherein the at least one processor is configured to receive the content post in one of:

the received broadcast that originated from the sending device; and

the received broadcast that is a re-broadcast by the sending device based on a previous broadcast received by the sending device.

16. The system of claim 14, further comprising a display device, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to cause a display of the content post by the display device,

wherein the stored broadcast history indicates one or more geographic locations where the one or more previous content posts sent by the user were broadcast by one or more previous receiving devices receiving the one or more previous content posts.

17. The system of claim 13, wherein the content post is associated with a current broadcast history including one or more geographical locations at which the content post was previously broadcast by one or more previous receiving devices, and wherein the at least one processor is further configured to:

store a current geographical location of the system in the current broadcast history of the content post.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the at least one processor is configured to store the current broadcast history of the content post as a directed graph of geographical locations at which the content post was broadcast, and add the current geographical location as a node to the directed graph.

19. The system of claim 13, wherein the at least one processor is configured to modify the re-broadcast area from a first geographical area to a second geographical area based at least in part on a number of content posts initiated in a geographic region of the device by one or more initiating devices.

20. A non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon software instructions to implement broadcast of content data and, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform operations including:

receiving a command at a device from a user to broadcast a content post stored by the device;

determining an initial broadcast area based on;

a) a stored broadcast history of the user relating to broadcast areas of previous content posts sent by the user; and

b) a stored broadcast history related to content data included in the content post; and

broadcasting the content post, wherein the broadcasting is configured such that the content post is to be received by one or more devices in the initial broadcast area.