Media toolbar and aggregated/distributed media ecosystem

• US 8,375,131 B2
• Filed: 12/21/2007
• Issued: 02/12/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 12/21/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Pinterest, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Yahoo! Inc. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Kozlov, Matthew, Rogers, Ian C.
• Primary Examiner(s): Etienne, Ario
• Assistant Examiner(s): Lai, Michael C
• Application Number:
  US11/962,747
• Publication Number:
  US 20090164641A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,880 Days
• Field of Search: 709227-229, 715/738, 726/5, 705/346, 707/710, 725/9
• US Class Current: 709/227
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/025 for remote control or remote monitoring of applications

Abstract

A method and network architecture through which user-specific media profile data can be made available to third parties. A browser is optionally enhanced to facilitate playback and control of one or more media players, thereby allowing the user to play content via the browser. As the user plays content in the browser or any of the media players, information is collected about the content and stored in a database. By monitoring all media-related interactions made by the user within the browser, the collected content information can encompass information from a wide range of sources. User-specific profile data is then determined based on the collected data and such user-specific profile data is made available to third parties. The user-specific profile data can be used, for example, for social networking purposes, and may also be used to drive advertisements or other content to the user.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

collecting media consumption information from a plurality of media players installed on a computing device;

monitoring, by a network browsing application installed on the computing device and in communication with the plurality of media players, media consumed by a user via at least one of the plurality of media players and via the user interacting with the network browsing application, wherein said monitoring is used to create a marker in a most-recently accessed media list to identify most recently accessed media content based on the media consumed by the user and a media player from the plurality of media players used to consume said media;

aggregating, via the computing device, the collected media consumption information from the plurality of media players and the monitored media consumption information, said aggregating of the monitored media consumption information based at least in part on the most-recently accessed media content identified by the marker;

transmitting, over a network, the aggregated media consumption information to a server;

receiving, at the computing device, from the server, media recommendations based on the aggregated media consumption information; and

visibly displaying on a display of the computing device the media recommendations to the user.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

presenting a user interface element in the network browsing application, the user interface element to allow the user to control a plurality of media player applications installed on the computer, thereby controlling playback of media consumed via the network browsing application; and

altering a display region of the network browsing application such that the user interface element is presented therein.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

displaying the media recommendations to the user via the network browsing application.

4. The method of claim 1, the aggregated information comprising ratings information.

5. The method of claim 1, the aggregated information comprising a comment about the media.

6. The method of claim 1, the aggregated information comprising a history of the media played.

7. The method of claim 1, the aggregated information comprising a request to add the media to a list of media associated with the user.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

monitoring browser interpretable documents viewed by the user to determine when such documents comprise a playlist; and

,

allowing the user to store the playlist as part of the aggregated information.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the media consumption information is collected, and the monitoring of the media consumed via the network browsing application occurs, only after the user has consented to such collection.

10. The method of claim 1, the media recommendations comprising a link to the media.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving from the server an advertisement, or a pointer thereto, to be displayed to the user;

and, displaying the advertisement to the user.

12. A system, comprising:

a plurality of processors;

a module, implemented by at least one of said plurality of processors, to receive from a network browsing application information about media consumed on the computing device on which the network browsing application is running, the media consumption information comprising monitored media consumption information from the network browsing application in communication with a plurality of media player applications at least in part in response to user interaction with the network browsing application, and collected media consumption information from the plurality of media player applications, the received media consumption information comprising a marker in a most-recently accessed media list to identify most recently accessed media content based on the media consumed by a user and a media player application from the plurality of media player applications used to consume said media;

a module, implemented at least in part by at least one of said plurality of processors, to store the received media consumption information in a database;

a module, implemented at least in part by one or more of said plurality of processors, to aggregate the collected media consumption information from the plurality of media player applications and the monitored media consumption information, the module to aggregate the monitored media consumption information based at least in part on the most-recently accessed media content identified by the marker;

a module, implemented at least in part by at least one of said plurality of processors, to receive from the user a user identifier;

a module, implemented at least in part by at least one of said plurality of processors, to associate the received media consumption information with the received user identifier and to store the association in the database;

a module, implemented by at least one of said plurality of processors, to determine media profile information for the user associated with the user identifier based on the media consumption information stored in the database; and

a module, implemented by at least one of said plurality of processors, to identify at least one media item likely to be of interest to the user based on the aggregated media consumption information and to transmit the identified at least one media, or a pointer thereto, to the network browsing application for display to the user.

13. The system of claim 12, the media information comprising a history of media consumed on the computing device.

14. The system of claim 12, further comprising a module for receiving at least one playlist from the network browsing application and storing the at least one play list in the database and for transmitting at least a portion of the at least one playlist to the network browsing application in response to a user request therefore.

15. The system of claim 12, the media consumption information comprising information from metadata associated with the media.

16. The system of claim 12, the media consumption information comprising information obtained by disambiguating a uniform resource locator associated with the media.

17. The system of claim 12, the media consumption information comprising information obtained by disambiguating at least a portion of a browser interpretable document comprising media or a pointer to the media.

18. The system of claim 12, further comprising:

a module for identifying an advertisement likely to be of interest to the user, the identification based, at least in part, on the media profile information associated with the user, and for transmitting the advertisement, or a pointer thereto, to the network browsing application.

19. An article, comprising:

a non-transitory computer readable storage medium having computer-readable instructions tangibly stored thereon, the computer-readable instructions executable by a processor of a computer to;

collect information about media consumed by a user via a plurality of media player applications installed on a computer;

monitor by a network browsing application installed on the computer and in communication with the plurality of media player applications, information about media consumed by the user via one or more of the plurality of media player applications and via the user interacting with the network browsing application, wherein said monitoring is used to create a marker in a most-recently accessed media list to identify most recently accessed media content based on the media consumed by the user and a media player application from the plurality of media player applications used to consume said media;

aggregate the collected media consumption information from the plurality of media player applications and the monitored media consumption information, the monitored media consumption information to be aggregated based at least in part on the most recently accessed media content identified by the marker;

initiate transmission of the aggregated media consumption information to a server;

initiate receipt of one or more media recommendations based on the aggregated media consumption information from the server; and

initiate display of the media recommendations to the user.

20. The article of claim 19, wherein the non-transitory computer readable storage medium has stored thereon further instructions executable by the processor of the computer to:

display the media recommendations to the user via the network browsing application; and

present a user interface element in the network browsing application, the user interface element allowing a user to control the plurality of media player applications installed on the computer, thereby controlling playback of the media consumed via the network browsing application.