System and method to manage participant input for an interactive show

• US 7,194,511 B2
• Filed: 12/21/2000
• Issued: 03/20/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 08/10/2000
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Vulcan Ventures Inc. (Vulcan, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Digeo Incorporated (CommScope Holding Company, Inc.)
• Inventors: Stettner, Armando Paul
• Primary Examiner(s): Chang; Jungwon
• Application Number:
  US09/747,168
• Publication Number:
  US 20020023130A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,280 Days
• Field of Search: 725/134, 725/24, 725/87, 725/13, 463/42, 463/40, 709/205, 709/206, 379/93.13, 379/93.12, 379/93.25, 379/202.01
• US Class Current: 709/205
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23106 involving caching operations prefetching while addressing of a memory level in which the access to the desired data or data block requires associative addressing means within memory systems or architectures G06F12/0862; caching at an intermediate stage in a data network H04L67/568
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/426 Internal components of the client ; Characteristics thereof H04N5/44 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4331 Caching operations, e.g. of an advertisement for later insertion during playback
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4622 Retrieving content or additional data from different sources, e.g. from a broadcast channel and the Internet web site content organization and management for information retrieval from the Internet G06F16/958; transmission by internet of broadcast information H04H60/82; stock exchange data over packet-switching network H04L12/1804; push services including data channel over packet-switching network H04L12/1859
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47 End-user applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4758 for providing answers, e.g. voting
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/478 Supplemental services, e.g. displaying phone caller identification, shopping application
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4782 Web browsing , e.g. WebTV
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4786 e-mailing message switching systems, e.g. electronic mail systems H04L51/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/488 Data services, e.g. news ticker systems specially adapted for using meteorological information in broadcast systems H04H60/71
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4882 for displaying messages, e.g. warnings, reminders arrangements for providing short real-time information to substation in data switching networks H04L12/1895
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/812 involving advertisement data advertising per se G06Q30/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/84 Generation or processing of descriptive data, e.g. content descriptors systems specially adapted for using meta-information in broadcast systems H04H60/73
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/76 Television signal recording
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/165 Centralised control of user terminal subsequent to an upstream request signal H04N7/17345; Registering at central by two-way working H04N7/17309
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17318 Direct or substantially direct transmission and handling of requests
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17327 with deferred transmission or handling of upstream communications
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17345 Control of the passage of the selected programme

Abstract

Participant input for an interactive show, such as input submitted by the show'"'"'s viewers or listeners, is managed. The received participant input is stored in a server. Software or other techniques/tools processes the participant input stored in the server to sort, identify, classify, or select submissions that may be appropriate to address during the interactive show or during other times. While the participant input is being processed, the participant who sent the submission need not be kept on hold or otherwise have to keep the line of communication open, and instead, the participant can terminate the communication with the interactive show. An alert can be subsequently sent to the participant if or when the participant'"'"'s submission is to be addressed in the interactive show.

Claims

1. A method for screening participant comments or questions for content in an interactive discussion show, comprising:

for each participant desiring to provide a comment or question to be discussed in the show;

receiving the participant question or comment and subsequently disconnecting a communication link with the participant before the question or comment is discussed to allow the communication link to be reused by other participants;

storing the participant comment or question in a storage location;

automatically processing the stored participant comment or question to determine a relationship of the participant comment or question to the show;

based on the determined relationship, alerting the participant if the participant comment or question is selected for discussion in the show; and

reconnecting the communication link with the participant to allow the participant to interactively discuss the participant comment or question in the show.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising prior to receiving the participant comment or question for the show, notifying the participant of an availability of the show to receive the participant comment or question.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the show comprises a television show or a radio show.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising identifying an alert preference of the participant.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein alerting the participant who submitted the participant comment or question includes alerting the participant who subject matter related to another participant'"'"'s comment or question is to be addressed in the show.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein automatically processing the stored participant comment or question to determine the relationship of the participant comment or question to the show includes:

using a speech recognition technique to convert an audio format of the participant comment or question into a text format; and

performing a keyword search on the text format to classify the participant comment or question relative to the show.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein a human operator selects the participant comment or question for the show.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the participant comment or question is receivable via a communication medium different from a communication medium usable to alert the participant.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein alerting the participant is capable of being done via one of a telephone call, voicemail, facsimile, email, instant message, screen alert, or page.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein the participant comment or question is capable of being received via one of a telephone call, voicemail, facsimile, email, instant message, transmission from a web page, page, video transmission, avatar transmission, cable modem transmission, interactive video casting transmission, or wireless transmission.

11. An article of manufacture, comprising:

a machine-readable medium having stored thereon instructions to

collect participant comment or question submitted for a show, wherein a communication link with a participant who submitted the participant comment or question is disconnected subsequent to submission of the participant comment or question before the comment or question is discussed to allow the communication link to be reused by other participants;

process the stored participant comment or question to determine relevance of the participant comment or question to the show;

based on a determination of relevance, alert the participant who submitted the participant comment or question if the participant comment or question is selected for discussion in the show; and

reconnecting the communication link with the participant to allow the participant to interactively discuss the participant comment or question in the show.

12. The article of manufacture of claim 11 wherein the machine-readable medium further includes instructions stored thereon to identify an alert preference of the participant.

13. The article of manufacture of claim 11 wherein the instructions to process the stored participant comment or question to determine the relationship of the participant comment or question to the show includes instructions to:

apply speech recognition to convert an audio format of the participant comment or question into a text format; and

perform a keyword search on the text format to classify the participant comment or question relative to the show.

14. The article of manufacture of claim 11 wherein the instructions to collect the participant comment or question submitted for the show includes instructions to correlate the participant comment or question according to predefined criteria.

15. A system for screening participant comment or question for content in an interactive discussion show, comprising:

a server coupleable to a plurality of terminals to receive participant comment or question for a show from each of a plurality of participants desiring to provide comment or question, wherein a communication link with each participant who submitted the participant comment or question is disconnected subsequent to reception of the participant comment or question and before discussion thereof to allow the communication link to be reused by other participants;

a storage unit to store each the participant comment or question received by the server, the participant comment or question stored in the storage unit capable of being automatically processed to determine a relationship of the participant comment or question to the show; and

an alert generator to generate and transmit an alert to a particular participant terminal if, based on the determined relationship, the participant comment or question received from that participant terminal is selected for discussion in the show;

wherein the server is further to reconnect the communication link to the participant whose comment or question was selected to allow the participant to interactively discuss the selected participant comment or question in the show.

16. The system of claim 15, further comprising an interactive video casting network coupleable to provide the show to the participant terminal and to provide the participant comment or question from the participant terminal to the server.

17. The system of claim 15, further comprising another storage unit having speech recognition software to convert an audio format of the participant comment or question into a text format, and having keyword search software to search the text format for a keyword to classify the participant comment or question relative to the show.

18. The system of claim 15, further comprising a monitor coupled to the storage unit to control processing of the participant comment or question stored in the storage unit and to control operation of the server.

19. The system of claim 15 wherein the server is capable to store the received participant comment or question information into the storage unit according to predefined criteria.

20. A method for content screening of participant comment or question in an interactive discussion show, comprising:

establishing communication with a participant to receive a participant comment or question using a first communication medium;

disconnecting communication with the participant after receiving the participant comment or question and before discussion thereof to allow communication to be established with other participants;

storing the participant comment or question in a storage location;

in response to the participant comment or question being selected for discussion in the show, alerting the participant who submitted the participant comment or question using a second communication medium, the second communication medium being different from the first communication medium; and

reestablishing communication with, the participant to allow the participant to interactively discuss the participant comment or question in the show.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein second communication medium used to deliver the alert comprises an e-mail message.