Collaborative media recommendation and sharing technique

• US 8,200,681 B2
• Filed: 08/22/2007
• Issued: 06/12/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 08/22/2007
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Liu, Zicheng, He, Li-wei, Chou, Philip, Meek, Christopher, Hedge, Rajesh
• Primary Examiner(s): Cottingham, John
• Assistant Examiner(s): Pham, Michael
• Application Number:
  US11/843,129
• Publication Number:
  US 20090055377A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,756 Days
• Field of Search: 707/758
• US Class Current: 707/758
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/435 Filtering based on additional data, e.g. user or group profiles
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/4387 by the use of playlists

Abstract

A media recommendation and sharing technique that employs agents on media players/devices to expand the scope of media sharing scenarios. The technique assists a user in discovering media items, such as, for example, music, recordings, play lists, pictures, video games, on nearby media players or devices (devices which are capable of receiving, storing and playing media) which are interesting to the user. The collaborative media recommendation and sharing technique contemporaneously determines a user'"'"'s media preferences based on media stored on a pair of media devices and recommends media for potential sharing based on these determined user preferences.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented process for recommending media stored on a first media device to a second media device, comprising:

establishing communications between a first recommendation agent on a first associated media device and a second recommendation agent on a second associated media device, wherein each of said first recommendation agent and said second recommendation agent are configured for recommending media items stored on the first media device or the second media device to the other recommendation agent, and wherein each recommendation agent is permanently located on its associated media device and has a recommendation engine which computes a user'"'"'s interest space by using a correlation model that contemporaneously correlates information as to the user'"'"'s media preference and stores this information in a database, both the correlation model and the database being part of the associated recommendation agent permanently located on the associated media device;

wherein each of the first recommendation agent and the second recommendation agent map their respective user'"'"'s media preferences into an interest space that defines that user'"'"'s media preferences and uses the mapped interest spaces in determining which media items to recommend;

wherein the interest spaces are determined by multi-dimensional vectors associated with all of the media items the user has preferred;

automatically determining a user'"'"'s media preferences for a user of the first media device or a user of the second media device;

one of the first recommendation agent and the second recommendation agent recommending media for sharing in the form of a candidate list that a user can verify before transferring the media to the other recommendation agent based on the determined user'"'"'s media preferences;

displaying the candidate list of recommended media for sharing to a user; and

the user, to whom the candidate list is displayed, specifically selecting particular recommended media items from the displayed candidate list for transfer to the selecting user'"'"'s media device.

2. The computer-implemented process of claim 1 further comprising:

the first and second recommendation agents negotiating over which of the recommended media items are to be transferred between the first and second media devices.

3. The computer-implemented process of claim 2 further comprising:

transferring only the particular user-selected media items of the recommended media items between the first and second media device.

4. The computer-implemented process of claim 1 wherein the first recommendation agent determines the user media preferences of the user of the second media device, and wherein the first recommendation agent proposes media items on the first device based on the user media preferences of the user of the second media device.

5. The computer-implemented process of claim 1 wherein the first recommendation agent accesses the media items on the first media device, determines the most desirable media on the first media device as the media preference of the user of the first device and recommends the most desirable media to the second recommendation agent.

6. The computer-implemented process of claim 5 wherein the most desirable media is based on a ranking based on one or more of:

recently added media items;

media items consumes most often;

media items recently released; and

media shared most frequently.

7. The computer-implemented process of claim 1 wherein one of the first and second recommendation agents recommends media for sharing to the other recommendation agent by randomly selecting media items in addition to recommending media items based on the determined media preferences.

8. The computer-implemented process of claim 1 wherein communications between the first recommendation agent and the second recommendation agent are automatically established.

9. The computer-implemented process of claim 1 wherein the user'"'"'s media preferences are contemporaneously determined based on the media items stored on the first and second media device.

10. A system for recommending and sharing media between media devices, comprising:

a first associated media device having a memory and a second associated media device having a memory;

establish communications between a first recommendation agent on the first associated media device and a second recommendation agent on the second associated media device, wherein each of said first recommendation agent and said second recommendation agent are configured for recommending media items stored in a media store on one of the first or second media devices to the other recommendation agent, and wherein each recommendation agent is permanently located on its associated media device and has a communication control module and a recommendation engine which computes a user'"'"'s interest space by using a correlation model that contemporaneously correlates information as to the user'"'"'s media preferences and stores this information in the database, both the correlation model and database being part of the associated recommendation agent permanently located on the associated media device;

wherein each of the first recommendation agent and the second recommendation agent map their respective user'"'"'s media preferences into an interest space that defines that user'"'"'s media preferences and uses the mapped interest spaces in determining which media items to recommend;

wherein the interest spaces are determined by multi-dimensional vectors associated with all of the media items the user has preferred;

automatically determine a user'"'"'s media preferences related to a user of the first media device or the second media device corresponding as a user'"'"'s media device;

recommending in the form of a list, to be approved by a user, media items for sharing by one of the first recommendation agent and the second recommendation agent to the other recommendation agent based on the determined media preferences before transferring recommended media items;

displaying the list of recommended media items to the user;

the user selecting particular ones of the recommended media items from the list for transfer to the user'"'"'s media device; and

transferring only the particular ones of the user-selected media items from the list of the recommended media items between the first media device and second media device after approval by a user.

11. The system of claim 10 wherein the user'"'"'s media preferences are determined by determining a correlation score that correlate a user'"'"'s preference for one type of media item with a preference for another type of media.

12. The system of claim 10 wherein the user'"'"'s media preferences are determined by using metadata of the media items stored on the first and second media devices and the user'"'"'s media item access information.

13. The system of claim 10 wherein communications between the first recommendation agent on the first media device and the second recommendation agent on the second recommendation device are conducted on a limited range wireless network.

14. The system of claim 13 wherein the limited range wireless network uses a WiFi or Bluetooth protocol.

15. A computer-implemented process for recommending and sharing media between media devices, comprising:

a first recommendation agent on a first media device querying nearby media devices over a limited range wireless network to determine what media items the nearby media devices have available for sharing, wherein the first recommendation agent is permanently located on the first media device and has a recommendation engine which computes a user'"'"'s interest space by using a correlation model that contemporaneously correlates information as to the user'"'"'s media preferences and stores this information in a database, both correlation model and database being part of the first recommendation agent permanently located on the first media device;

wherein each of the first recommendation agent and the second recommendation agent map their respective user'"'"'s media preferences into an interest space that defines that user'"'"'s media preferences and uses the mapped interest spaces in determining which media items to recommend;

wherein the interest spaces are determined by multi-dimensional vectors associated with all of the media items the user has preferred;

an agent of each of the nearby media devices responding to the querying of the first recommendation agent on the first media device with a list of media items available for sharing;

the first recommendation agent on the first media device combining the lists and ranking the media items in the combined list;

the first recommendation agent on the first media device recommending some or all of the ranked media items in the combined list to a user;

displaying the ranked combined list of media items to the user;

the user explicitly selecting particular media items in the displayed ranked combined list that the user wants to receive;

the user requesting the selected media items from the displayed combined list from the nearby media devices before transferring the user-selected media items;

the first recommendation agent of the first media device communicating with the nearby media devices to request transfer of the user-selected media items that the user wants to receive from the nearby media devices; and

agents of the nearby media devices sending only the user-selected requested media items they hold to the first media device.

16. The computer-implemented process of claim 15 further comprising an agent of a nearby media device scanning the first device and recommending to the agent of the nearby media device media to transfer from the first device.

17. The computer-implemented process of claim 15 wherein the media items on the nearby media devices can be marked as not available for sharing.