Method and apparatus for providing enhanced electronic program guide with personalized selection of broadcast content using affinities data and user preferences
First Claim
1. A method of generating an enhanced electronic program guide (EPG) to a broadcast comprising programs playing concurrently on a plurality of received channels for display on a user device to facilitate perusal, navigation, and selection of programs for playback, the method comprising:
- transmitting EPG data to the user device indicating programs playing on the channels for a selected period of time;
transmitting Affinities data to the user device, the Affinities data indicating at least one of relationships between the programs that represent cross-affinities of the programs and relationships between the channels that represent cross-affinities of the channels, and comprising a plurality of topics and identifications for each of the programs of at least one of the topics that corresponds to that program, and Topics Affinities data that indicates relationships between the topics that represent cross-affinities of the topics, the Topics Affinities data comprising a matrix of weighted values comprising a list of the topics on an x-axis of the matrix and a list of the topics on a y-axis of the matrix to create a plurality of (x,y) coordinates being assigned a value selected from a range of values to indicate how much users, who generally like the topic identified as the x coordinate, will generally like the topic identified by the y coordinate;
generating User Behavior data corresponding to a user indicating user preferences for selection and playback of programs from among the channels of the broadcast; and
determining a subset of the programs playing on the channels that would be of interest to the user based on the Affinities data in combination with the User Behavior data.
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Abstract
An apparatus and method are provided to inform a user of a broadcast stream, which has multiple, concurrently received channels of program content, about recommendations of a subset of the content currently playing across the available channels or to be played within a selected future time period. The subset of content is selected based on user preferences and system data (e.g., program topic and channel affinities among the broadcast content and channels) to recommend a more diverse subset of content than would be discovered if only user preferences were employed to make the selection of recommended content.
26 Citations
11 Claims
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1. A method of generating an enhanced electronic program guide (EPG) to a broadcast comprising programs playing concurrently on a plurality of received channels for display on a user device to facilitate perusal, navigation, and selection of programs for playback, the method comprising:
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transmitting EPG data to the user device indicating programs playing on the channels for a selected period of time; transmitting Affinities data to the user device, the Affinities data indicating at least one of relationships between the programs that represent cross-affinities of the programs and relationships between the channels that represent cross-affinities of the channels, and comprising a plurality of topics and identifications for each of the programs of at least one of the topics that corresponds to that program, and Topics Affinities data that indicates relationships between the topics that represent cross-affinities of the topics, the Topics Affinities data comprising a matrix of weighted values comprising a list of the topics on an x-axis of the matrix and a list of the topics on a y-axis of the matrix to create a plurality of (x,y) coordinates being assigned a value selected from a range of values to indicate how much users, who generally like the topic identified as the x coordinate, will generally like the topic identified by the y coordinate; generating User Behavior data corresponding to a user indicating user preferences for selection and playback of programs from among the channels of the broadcast; and determining a subset of the programs playing on the channels that would be of interest to the user based on the Affinities data in combination with the User Behavior data. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
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8. A method of generating an enhanced electronic program guide (EPG) to a broadcast comprising programs playing concurrently on a plurality of received channels for display on a user device to facilitate perusal, navigation, and selection of programs for playback, the method comprising:
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transmitting EPG data to the user device indicating programs playing on the channels for a selected period of time; transmitting Affinities data to the user device, the Affinities data indicating at least one of relationships between the programs that represent cross-affinities of the programs and relationships between the channels that represent cross-affinities of the channels; generating User Behavior data corresponding to a user indicating user preferences for selection and playback of programs from among the channels of the broadcast; and determining a subset of the programs playing on the channels that would be of interest to the user based on the Affinities data in combination with the User Behavior data; wherein the Affinities data comprises a matrix of weighted values comprising a list of the channels on an x-axis of the matrix and a list of the channels on a y-axis of the matrix to create a plurality of (x,y) coordinates that are assigned a value selected from a range of values to indicate how much users, who generally like the channel identified as the x coordinate, will generally like the channel identified by the y coordinate.
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9. A method of generating an enhanced electronic program guide (EPG) to a broadcast comprising programs playing concurrently on a plurality of received channels for display on a user device to facilitate perusal, navigation, and selection of programs for playback, the method comprising:
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transmitting EPG data to the user device indicating programs playing on the channels for a selected period of time; transmitting Affinities data to the user device, the Affinities data indicating at least one of relationships between the programs and relationships between the channels; generating User Behavior data corresponding to a user indicating user preferences for selection and playback of programs from among the channels of the broadcast; and determining a subset of the programs playing on the channels that would be of interest to the user based on the Affinities data in combination with the User Behavior data; wherein the determining a subset comprises determining Personal Affinities comprising selecting a subset of the programs as recommendations; assigning a weighting value to a topic or topics corresponding to the recommended programs; increasing the weighting value of any of the topics that have been elected by the user via the user device; increasing the weighting value of any of the topics that correspond to programs played back and profiled according to the User Behaviors; and generating a Personal Affinity List comprising topics having a selected weighting value that are different from the profiled topics and the elected topics. - View Dependent Claims (10, 11)
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Specification