Program promotion feedback

• US 8,341,660 B2
• Filed: 01/30/2008
• Issued: 12/25/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 01/30/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Barnett, Sharon F
• Primary Examiner(s): SHEPARD, JUSTIN E
• Application Number:
  US12/022,989
• Publication Number:
  US 20090193460A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,791 Days
• Field of Search: 725/39
• US Class Current: 725/22
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/25891 being end-user preferences retrieval of video data in a video database based on user preferences G06F16/739; arrangements for recognizing users' preferences H04H60/46; user profiles in network data switching protocols H04L67/306; processing of user preferences or user profiles in wireless networks H04W8/18
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4325 by playing back content from the storage medium reproduction of recorded television signals H04N5/76; reproduction of recorded television signals H04N9/79
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4334 Recording operations recording of a television signal H04N5/76; arrangements for recording or accumulating broadcast information or broadcast-related information H04H60/27
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44204 Monitoring of content usage, e.g. the number of times a movie has been viewed, copied or the amount which has been watched monitoring of user activities for profile generation for accessing a video database G06F16/739; protecting generic digital content where the protection is independent of the precise nature of the content G06F21/10; arrangements for monitoring the use made of the broadcast services in broadcast systems H04H60/31
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44224 Monitoring of user activity on external systems, e.g. Internet browsing
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6582 Data stored in the client, e.g. viewing habits, hardware capabilities, credit card number arrangements where receivers interact with the broadcast H04H20/38
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/76 Television signal recording
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/765 Interface circuits between an apparatus for recording and another apparatus
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17318 Direct or substantially direct transmission and handling of requests
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 9/8205 involving the multiplexing of an additional signal and the colour video signal

Abstract

A user request to watch a program is received in response to a promotion for the program. One or both of recording the program and playback of the program is performed. Information regarding one or both of the recording and the playback is output, this information including an identifier of the promotion. Additionally, a report can be generated from this information output by multiple devices, the report describing the recording of the program and the playback of the program on the multiple device in response to the promotion.

Claims

1. One or more computer storage media having stored thereon multiple instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of a device, cause the one or more processors to:

initiate playback of a promotion corresponding to a program;

receive a user request to watch the program;

determine that the user request to watch the program is made in response to the promotion if the user request to watch the program is received while the promotion is being played back or within a threshold amount of time after the promotion is played back;

output information regarding the user request to watch the program in response to determining that the user request to watch the program is made in response to the promotion, the information including an identifier of the promotion;

perform one or both of recording the program and playback of the program; and

output additional information regarding one or both of the recording and the playback in response to one or both of the recording or the playback of the program, the additional information including the identifier of the promotion.

2. One or more computer storage media as recited in claim 1, wherein the user request is a request to record a subsequently broadcast program, wherein to perform is to record the subsequently broadcast program, and wherein to output the additional information is to output additional information regarding the recording of the subsequently broadcast program.

3. One or more computer storage media as recited in claim 2, wherein to perform is further to playback a recorded program obtained by recording the subsequently broadcast program, and wherein to output the additional information is to output additional information regarding playback of the recorded program.

4. One or more computer storage media as recited in claim 1, the user request being a request to immediately begin playback of the program.

5. One or more computer storage media as recited in claim 1, the additional information comprising additional information identifying an elapsed time between recording of the program and playback of the program.

6. One or more computer storage media as recited in claim 1, wherein to receive the user request is to receive the user request from a second device on which the promotion is played back.

7. One or more computer storage media as recited in claim 1, the instructions further causing the one or more processors to:

receive a user request to purchase an additional service in response to a promotion for the additional service; and

output further additional information regarding a selection by the user to purchase the additional service, the further additional information regarding the selection including an identifier of the promotion for the additional service.

8. One or more computer storage media as recited in claim 1, wherein to output the additional information is to output the additional information to a data warehouse that collects information regarding recording and playback of the program in response to multiple promotions played back at multiple devices.

9. A method comprising:

initiating playback of a promotion for a program;

receiving, from each of multiple devices, data regarding a user request to watch the program;

determine that the user request to watch the program is received in response to the promotion when the user request is received while the promotion is being played back or within a threshold amount of time after the promotion is played back;

receiving, from each of the multiple devices, additional data regarding one or both of recording of the program by the device and playback of the program by the device, both the data and the additional data including an identifier of the promotion for the program, and the data received in response to the user request and the additional data received in response to one or both of the recording of the program or the playback of the program;

identifying the received data and the received additional data in response to the promotion; and

generating, using the identified data and the identified additional data, a report describing the recording of the program and the playback of the program in response to the promotion.

10. A method as recited in claim 9, further comprising repeating the receiving, receiving, identifying, and generating for multiple programs.

11. A method as recited in claim 9, the generating comprising generating the report describing the recording of the program and the playback of the program including information regarding how well the promotion enticed users of the multiple devices to both record the program and playback the program.

12. A method comprising:

distributing, to different users, multiple different promotions for a program, each of the multiple different promotions including a promotion identifier; and

receiving feedback from different consumer devices used by the different users, the feedback including information regarding, for each promotion identifier, a user request to watch the program, the feedback received when it is determined by one of the different consumer devices that the user request to watch the program is received in response to the promotion based on the user request to watch the program being received while the promotion is being played back or within a threshold amount of time after the promotion is played back, the feedback further including additional information regarding, for each promotion identifier, recording of the program and playback of the program at the different consumer devices, the information received in response to the user request and the additional information received in response to one or both of the recording of the program and the playback of the program.

13. A method as recited in claim 12, the feedback comprising further additional information regarding both how well the multiple different promotions enticed the different users to record the program and how well the multiple different promotions enticed the different users to playback the program.

14. A method as recited in claim 12, the feedback including interval information regarding one or both of the recording of the program and the playback of the program.

15. A method as recited in claim 12, the feedback including event occurrence information regarding one or both of the recording of the program and the playback of the program.

16. A method as recited in claim 12, the feedback including duration information regarding one or both of the recording of the program and playback of the program.