Ascertaining Events in Media

• US 20180013711A1
• Filed: 09/08/2017
• Published: 01/11/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 06/25/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: IMDb.com, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: IMDb.com, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Inventors: Siegel, Hilliard Bruce, Fishkin, Kenneth P.
• Granted Patent: US 10,986,064 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/52 for supporting social networking services
• 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 21/2408 Monitoring of the upstream path of the transmission network, e.g. client requests monitoring data switching networks utilization H04L43/0876; scheduling or organising the servicing of application requests H04L67/60
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4758 for providing answers, e.g. voting
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4781 Games
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4784 receiving rewards
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4826 using recommendation lists, e.g. of programs or channels sorted out according to their score
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8547 involving timestamps for synchronizing content

Abstract

Disclosed are various embodiments relating to the identification of events that occur within a media item. In one embodiment, among others, a media item is rendered for display on client devices. A plurality of messages are received from client devices, wherein each of the messages comprises a timestamp indicating a time relative to a media item. The existence of an event in the media item is determined based at least in part on a clustering of at least a subset of the messages received.

Claims

1. A non-transitory computer-readable medium embodying a program executable in a computing device, wherein when executed the program causes the computing device to at least:

encode, over a network, for display a media item on a plurality of user devices;

receive a plurality of messages from the plurality of user devices in response to a request transmitted over the network to the plurality of user devices, wherein individual ones of the plurality of messages include a timestamp representative of a point in time in the media item; and

determine where an event occurred in the media item based at least in part on a clustering of at least one subset of the plurality of messages received from the plurality of user devices.

2. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the clustering of the at least one subset of the plurality of messages is determined based at least in part on a threshold number of the plurality of messages being received within a time period.

3. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the request comprises a plurality of requests that transmitted serially in an order based at least in part on the media item.

4. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the program further causes the computing device to determine an order in which the individual ones of the plurality of messages have been received based at least in part on the timestamp included in the plurality of messages.

5. A system, comprising:

at least one computing device; and

an application executable in the at least one computing device,

wherein when executed the application causes the at least one computing device to at least;

encode, over a network, for display a media item on a plurality of clients;

receive a plurality of messages from the plurality of clients in response to a request transmitted to the plurality of clients over the network, individual ones of the plurality of messages comprising at least one timestamp representative of a point in time in the media item; and

determine where an event occurred in the media item based at least in part on a number of the plurality of messages received and a clustering of at least one subset of the plurality of messages received.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the application further causes the at least one computing device to render a user interface that comprises a category selector component, the category selector component being used to receive a category selection.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the application further causes the at least one computing device to identify the media item from a subset of a plurality of respective media items based on the category selection.

8. The system of claim 6, wherein the application further causes the at least one computing device to select the request from a plurality of respective requests based at least in part on the category selection.

9. The system of claim 6, wherein the request comprises a plurality of requests, wherein the plurality of requests are transmitted based at least in part on a transmission order associated with the category selection.

10. The system of claim 5, wherein the media item and the request are simultaneously transmitted to the plurality of clients.

11. The system of claim 5, wherein the request is transmitted to each respective one of the plurality of clients at a separate point in time.

12. The system of claim 5, wherein encoding the media item further comprises rendering the media item and the request in a viewing window of a user interface.

13. The system of claim 5, wherein the application further causes the at least one computing device to at least award an amount of points to a respective user account associated with individual ones of at least a subset of a plurality of users.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the amount of points is determined based at least in part on the timestamp and the clustering of the at least a subset of the plurality of messages.

15. The system of claim 5, wherein the clustering of the at least one subset of the plurality of messages is determined based at least in part on a threshold number of the plurality of messages being received within a time period.

16. A method, comprising:

transmitting, by a computing device over a network, a media item and a request for the media item to be rendered for display on a plurality of clients;

receiving, by the computing device, a plurality of messages from a plurality of clients in response to the request, wherein individual ones of the plurality of messages comprise a timestamp representative of a point in time in the media item; and

determining, by the computing device, where an event occurred in the media item based at least in part on a clustering of at least one subset of the plurality of messages.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising receiving, by the computing device, a category selection from a user interface rendered on at least one of the plurality of clients.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising generating, by the computing device, a media playlist in the user interface based at least in part on the category selection.

19. The method of claim 16, wherein transmitting the request comprises transmitting serially a plurality of requests based at least in part on a category selection received from at least one of the plurality of clients.

20. The method of claim 16, wherein a different version of the media item is transmitted to individual ones of the plurality of clients over a network.