Scalable dynamic content delivery and feedback system

• US 8,140,701 B2
• Filed: 03/06/2009
• Issued: 03/20/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 03/06/2009
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Rajan, Rajeev Bashyam
• Primary Examiner(s): Neurauter, George C
• Application Number:
  US12/399,494
• Publication Number:
  US 20100228874A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,110 Days
• Field of Search: 709/231
• US Class Current: 709/231
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1822 Conducting the conference, e.g. admission, detection, selection or grouping of participants, correlating users to one or more conference sessions, prioritising transmission
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/59 Providing operational support to end devices by off-loading in the network or by emulation, e.g. when they are unavailable

Abstract

In an embodiment, a computer system instantiates an intermediary software application configured to intermediate between an event controller and a content delivery network (CDN). The event controller is configured to administer a real-time event involving multiple meeting participants. The CDN is configured to distribute dynamic, real-time content to a plurality of event participants. The intermediary software application joins the event as an event participant such that the intermediary software application receives a real-time stream of media content associated with the event from the event controller. The intermediary software application also transmits the received media content stream to computer systems of the CDN, where each CDN computer system is configured to distribute the real-time media content stream to the participants communicatively connected to the CDN.

Claims

1. A method for scalable delivery of a real-time media content stream for an event involving a plurality of participants which are logically interconnected through a content delivery network (CDN) comprised of a plurality of CDN computing systems which each serve one or more participants in the event, the real-time media content stream being provided by an event controller, and the method comprising:

an act of instantiating one or more intermediary software applications which are each configured to intermediate between an event controller and a content delivery network (CDN);

an act of one or more of the intermediary software applications joining the event as an event participant, each intermediary software application joining the event receiving from the event controller, in real time, a complete media content stream of the event as it is transpiring; and

an act of the one or more intermediary software applications directly transmitting in real time the received media content stream, without caching or reassembly, to one or more computer systems of the CDN for real-time distribution to the plurality of participants;

an act of the one or more intermediary software applications receiving real-time responsive communications from one or more event participants within the CDN;

an act of the one or more intermediary software applications receiving such real-time responsive communications aggregating the responsive communications in accordance with an aggregation policy; and

an act of transmitting the aggregated responsive communications from one or more of the intermediary software applications to the event controller which then includes the aggregated responsive communications in an updated media content stream transmitted to the one or more intermediary software applications for subsequent distribution to the CDN computing systems.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the CDN computer systems are configured to run a customized software module designed to distribute the received real-time content stream to the plurality of event participants.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the customized software module running on the CDN computer systems is configured to format the received media content stream on-the-fly before distributing the media content stream to the plurality of participants.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the customized software module running on the CDN computer systems is configured to buffer the received media content stream on-the-fly before distributing the media content stream to the plurality of participants.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising an act of the intermediary software application encoding the media content stream into a single byte stream for transmission to the CDN.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the single byte stream including the media content stream is compressed before transmission to the CDN.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein by increasing the number of intermediate software applications joining as participants, the CDN is scalable to provide the media content stream to substantially any number of event participants distributed across the CDN.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the event comprises a live web conference.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more intermediary software applications forwards any user login credentials received from CDN computer systems to the event controller.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more intermediary software applications are each configured to collect portions of feedback received from users via the CDN computer systems.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising an act of the one or more intermediary software applications sending the collected feedback to the event controller for presentation to the other event participants.

12. A computer program product for implementing a method for scalable delivery of a real-time media content stream for an event involving a plurality of participants which are logically interconnected through a content delivery network (CDN) comprised of a plurality of CDN computing systems which each serve one or more participants in the event, the real-time media content stream being provided by an event controller, and the computer program product comprising computer readable memory having stored thereon computer-executable instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of the computing system, cause the computing system to perform the method, and wherein the method comprises:

an act of launching one or more intermediary software applications which are each configured to manage delivery of a media content stream for an event between an event controller and a content delivery network (CDN);

an act of one or more of the intermediary software applications joining the event as an event participant, each intermediary software application joining the event receiving from the event controller, in real time, the complete media content stream of the event as it is transpiring;

an act of the one or more intermediary software applications directly transmitting in real time the received media content stream, without caching or reassembly, to one or more computer systems of the CDN for real-time distribution to participants in the event;

an act of providing customized software code to one or more computer systems that are members of a CDN;

an act of the customized software code receiving feedback in the form of one or more kinds of responsive communications from one or more of the participants in the event;

an act of the customized software code aggregating the received feedback according to an aggregation policy accessed by the customized software code;

an act of the customized software code transmitting the aggregated feedback to at least one intermediary software application that has joined the event as a participant; and

an act of transmitting the aggregated feedback from the at least one intermediary software application to the event controller which then includes the aggregated responsive communications in an updated media content stream transmitted back out to the one or more intermediary software applications for redistribution to the CDN network'"'"'s computing systems.

13. The computer program product of claim 12, wherein the feedback comprises at least one of a question, an answer to a proposed question, a vote, a selection of one or more proposed options and a poll response.

14. The computer program product of claim 13, wherein the aggregation policy is contextual, such that different forms of feedback aggregation are used with different types of feedback.

15. The computer program product of claim 13, wherein the aggregation policy is contextual, such that different forms of feedback aggregation are used with different types of participants.

16. The computer program product of claim 12, wherein the CDN includes one or more custom CDN edge nodes in addition to the one or more CDN computer systems, and wherein the custom CDN edge nodes are configured to accelerate feedback aggregation.

17. The computer program product of claim 12, wherein two or more of the CDN computer systems have different aggregation policy rules, such that the feedback from a first group of participants is aggregated in a different manner than feedback from a second group of participants.

18. The computer program product of claim 12, wherein the aggregation policy is dynamically updatable by the event controller.

19. A computer program product for implementing a method for scalable delivery of a real-time media content stream for an event involving a plurality of participants which are logically interconnected through a content delivery network (CDN) comprised of a plurality of CDN computing systems which each serve one or more participants in the event, the real-time media content stream being provided by an event controller, and the computer program product comprising computer readable memory having stored thereon computer-executable instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of the computing system, cause the computing system to perform the method, and wherein the method comprises:

an act of instantiating one or more intermediary software applications which are each configured to intermediate between an event controller and a content delivery network (CDN);

an act of one or more of the intermediary software applications joining the event as an event participant, each intermediary software application joining the event receiving from the event controller, in real time, a complete media content stream of the event as it is transpiring;

an act of the one or more intermediary software applications directly transmitting in real time the received media content stream, without caching or reassembly, to one or more computer systems of the CDN for real-time distribution to the plurality of participants;

an act of the one or more intermediary software applications receiving real-time responsive communications back from one or more participants receiving the media content stream for the event;

an act of the one or more intermediary software applications receiving such real-time responsive communications aggregating the responsive communications in accordance with an aggregation policy; and

an act of transmitting the aggregated responsive communications from one or more of the intermediary software applications to the event controller which then includes the aggregated responsive communications in an updated media content stream transmitted back out to the one or more intermediary software applications for redistribution to the CDN network'"'"'s computing systems.