Facilitating annotation creation and notification via electronic mail

• US 6,917,965 B2
• Filed: 09/15/1999
• Issued: 07/12/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 09/15/1998
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Gupta, Anoop, Bargeron, David M
• Primary Examiner(s): Harvey, Jack B.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Prieto, Beatriz
• Application Number:
  US09/396,701
• Publication Number:
  US 20010042098A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,127 Days
• Field of Search: 709/204, 709/206, 709/207, 709/217, 709/218, 709/201, 709/202, 709/203, 709/109, 345/707, 345/968, 345/716, 345/752, 707/1, 707/500, 707/512, 379/93.24, 379/89.2, 379/908, 379/100.08
• US Class Current: 709/206
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/4387 by the use of playlists
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/48 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/748 Hypervideo linking data to content, e.g. by linking an URL to a video object in the context of video distribution systems H04N21/858
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/7867 using information manually generated, e.g. tags, keywords, comments, title and artist information, manually generated time, location and usage information, user ratings
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/169 Annotation, e.g. comment data or footnotes
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/956 Hierarchical
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99931 Database or file accessing

Abstract

A network system includes a client computer that can present multimedia content to a user and an annotation server that can transmit, to the client computer, annotations for the multimedia content. Users can be presented with annotations generated by other users and can create their own annotations that can be viewed by others. Users can be notified of new annotations by an electronic mail (email) message, can create new annotations by email messages, and can easily access a temporal segment of multimedia content corresponding to a new annotation based on information in email messages.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a client computer to playback multimedia content and annotations corresponding to different temporal portions of the multimedia content; and

an annotation server, coupled to the client computer, to,

maintain an annotation database having a plurality of annotations corresponding to the multimedia content,

provide the plurality of annotations to the client computer for playback,

send electronic mail messages including annotations to recipients identified by the client computer,

analyze electronic mail messages that are received not in reply to a previous electronic mail message that included annotation data, to locate data in the electronic mail messages,

generate new annotations that include the located data but no new annotation data, and

add the new annotations to the annotation database.

2. A system as recited in claim 1, further comprising a media server to manage streaming the multimedia content to the client computer, wherein streaming the multimedia content comprises the multimedia content being communicated to the client computer on an as-needed basis rather than being pre-delivered in its entirety prior to beginning playback of the multimedia content.

3. A system as recited in claim 1, further comprising a network coupling the client computer to the annotation server.

4. A system as recited in claim 1, wherein the client computer is further to:

present an electronic mail message including a multimedia content identifier to a user,

receive a user selection of the multimedia content identifier,

access a media server to obtain the multimedia content, and

playback the multimedia content to the user.

5. A system as recited in claim 4, wherein the client computer is further to transmit, to the media server, an identifier of a temporal segment of the multimedia content that is after the beginning of the multimedia content, and wherein the media server is to stream to the client computer the multimedia content beginning with the identified temporal segment.

11. A system as recited in claim 1, wherein each generated new annotation includes:

an author field including data identifying an author of the new annotation,

a creation time field including data identifying the time at which the new annotation is generated,

a title field including data identifying a title of the new annotation,

a content field including the located data, and

a media content identifier field including data identifying the multimedia content to which the new annotation corresponds.

6. A method comprising:

receiving data for a new annotation corresponding to a temporal range of media content;

generating an electronic mail message including,

the content of the new annotation,

an identifier of the media content, and

an installation option that identifies an installation program that can be used to install one or more modules allowing the content and corresponding media content to be rendered; and

forwarding the electronic mail message to a recipient identified by the data.

7. A method as recited in claim 6, wherein the generating further comprises including, in the electronic mail message, an identifier of the new annotation.

8. A method as recited in claim 6, wherein the generating further comprises including, in the electronic mail message, an identifier of the temporal range of media content.

9. One or more computer-readable memories containing a computer program that is executable by a processor to perform the method recited in claim 6.

10. A method as recited in claim 6, wherein the installation option comprises a user-selectable link that identifies the installation program.

12. A method comprising:

receiving an electronic mail notification of a new annotation corresponding to media content, the new annotation corresponding to one of a plurality of temporal segments of the media content that is after the beginning of the media content;

presenting the electronic mail notification to a user;

receiving a user selection of an identifier, within the electronic mail notification, of the media content; and

accessing, in response to the user selection, a media server to stream, for rendering to the user, the media content beginning with the one of the plurality of temporal segments that corresponds to the new annotation.

13. A method as recited in claim 12, wherein the presenting comprises displaying annotation content for the new annotation to the user.

14. A method as recited in claim 12, wherein the presenting comprises:

displaying annotation content for the new annotation to the user; and

displaying a plurality of identifiers to the user, the plurality of identifiers including;

a content identifier that identifies the media content;

a range identifier that identifies a temporal range of the segment corresponding to the new annotation;

an annotation identifier that identifies the new annotation; and

an annotation set identifier that identifies one or more of a plurality of annotation sets, corresponding to categories for annotations, that the new annotation is part of.

15. A method as recited in claim 14, wherein the content identifier comprises a uniform resource locator (URL).

16. A method as recited in claim 12, wherein the receiving a user selection comprises receiving a user selection of a uniform resource locator (URL) of the media content.

17. A method as recited in claim 12, wherein the receiving a user input comprises receiving a user selection of an identifier of the annotation.

18. One or more computer-readable media having stored thereon a computer program that, when executed by one or more processors, calises the one or more processors to perform functions including:

receiving an electronic mail notification of a new annotation corresponding to media content, wherein the electronic mail notification includes a user-selectable identifier of the media content;

displaying the electronic mail notification;

receiving a user selection of the identifier; and

automatically accessing, in response to the user selection of the identifier of the media content, a media server indicated by the identifier to begin, at a point in the media content after the beginning of the media content and corresponding to the new annotation, streaming the media content for presentation to the user.

19. One or more computer-readable media as recited in claim 18, wherein the user-selectable identifier comprises a uniform resource locator (URL) that identifies a server and a location at the server where the media content is located.

20. A system comprising:

an interface module to receive data regarding a new annotation corresponding to media content;

a module to generate an electronic mail message regarding the new

annotation, the electronic mail message including,

the new annotation content,

a user-selectable link to the media content, wherein the link includes

an identifier of the media content to which the new annotation corresponds, and an identifier of a temporal range of the media content that the new annotation content is associated with, wherein the temporal range corresponds to a location of the media content that is after the beginning of the media content and at which rendering of the media content should begin in response to selection of the link in the electronic mail message.

21. A system as recited in claim 20, wherein the electronic mail message further includes a unique identifier of the new annotation.

22. A system as recited in claim 20, wherein the electronic mail message further includes an identifier of one or more of a plurality of annotation sets, corresponding to categories for annotations, that the new annotation is associated with.

23. A system as recited in claim 20, wherein the system comprises an annotation server computer.

24. A system as recited in claim 20, wherein the system comprises a client computer and wherein the interface module comprises a user interface.

25. A method comprising:

receiving an electronic mail notification of an annotation corresponding to media content;

replying to the electronic mail notification to generate a new annotation corresponding to the media content;

including, in the reply, an identifier of one or more annotation sets of a plurality of annotation sets that the new annotation is associated with, wherein the annotation sets correspond to categories for annotations; and

displaying a default recipient, corresponding to the identified one or more annotation sets, that is to receive an electronic mail notification of the new annotation.

26. A method as recited in claim 25, wherein the replying includes:

obtaining, from the electronic mail notification, an identifier of the annotation; and

including the identifier of the annotation in the reply.

27. A method comprising:

receiving an electronic mail thread including a plurality of electronic mail messages;

creating, after the plurality of electronic mail messages have been included in the electronic mail thread, a plurality of annotations from the plurality of electronic mail messages in the electronic mail thread; and

adding the plurality of annotations to an annotation database.

28. A method as recited in claim 27, wherein:

the creating comprises generating, for each of the plurality of electronic mail messages, an annotation; and

the adding comprises adding each of the generated annotations to the annotation database.

29. A method as recited in claim 27, further comprising locating, in the electronic mail thread, an identifier of media content that the annotation corresponds to.

30. One or more computer-readable media having stored thereon a computer program that, when executed by one or more processors, causes the one or more processors to perform functions including:

receiving an electronic mail message that is not in reply to a previous electronic mail message;

locating data in the received electronic mail message;

generating a new annotation from the located data in the electronic mail message, wherein the new annotation includes the located data but no new annotation data; and

adding the new annotation to an annotation store.

31. One or more computer-readable media as recited in claim 30, wherein the computer program further causes the one or more processors to perform functions including:

creating a new annotation based on the extracted annotation content and the annotation identification information; and

adding the new annotation to an annotation database.

32. One or more computer-readable media as recited in claim 30, wherein the located data comprises:

an identifier of media content to which the annotation content corresponds and of a temporal segment, corresponding to the annotation content, of the media content; and

an identifier of an annotation set that a new annotation including the extracted annotation content is to be part of, wherein the annotation set is one of a plurality of annotation sets corresponding to categories for annotations.

33. A method comprising:

receiving an electronic mail message including data corresponding to media content that is not included in the electronic mail message;

locating the data in the electronic mail message;

generating, after locating the data, a new annotation corresponding to the media content, wherein the new annotation includes,

an author field including data identifying a sender of the electronic mail message as an author of the new annotation,

a creation time field including data identifying the time at which the new annotation is generated,

a title field including data identifying a title of the new annotation,

a content field including the located data but no new annotation data, and

a media content identifier field including data identifying the media content to which the new annotation corresponds.