Identifying media content in queries

• US 8,713,002 B1
• Filed: 04/19/2011
• Issued: 04/29/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 04/30/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Sahami, Mehran, Gossweiler, Richard C. III, Patel, Manish G., Blackburn, John, Brown, David A., Gupta, Neha, Taylor, Thomas H.
• Primary Examiner(s): REYES, MARIELA D
• Application Number:
  US13/090,139
• Time in Patent Office: 1,106 Days
• Field of Search: 707/722, 707/723, 707/728
• US Class Current: 707/723
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/43 Querying
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/438 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/487 using geographical or spatial information, e.g. location
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/489 using time information
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/738 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/78 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/787 using geographical or spatial information, e.g. location
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4782 Web browsing , e.g. WebTV
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4828 for searching program descriptors retrieval of video data G06F16/739

Abstract

A computer-implemented method includes receiving a query at a central information provider, identifying media-related terms in the query that indicate the query relates to one or more media-related objects, and providing media-specific results in response to the query associated with one or more programs or program staff.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

receiving a first query at a central information provider from a first client device over a network, identifying whether the first query includes one or more media-related terms, and in response to determining that the first query does not include one or more media-related terms, providing search results responsive to the first query in a format that includes a list of one or more uniform resource locator links;

receiving a second query over the network;

identifying one or more media-related terms in the second query that indicate the second query relates to one or more media-related objects;

identifying one or more time-based terms in the second query;

responding to the identification of the one or more media-related terms by;

translating the time-based terms from a general time description to a time range; and

providing media-specific results in response to the second query, wherein the format of the media-specific results provided in response to the second query is different than the format of the search results provided in response to the first query, and the media-specific results comprise;

(a) a list of one or more program episodes that are responsive to the second query and that occur during the time range, the one or more program episodes in the list being grouped according to a program title and one or more broadcast date and time;

(b) a schedule grid that displays a plurality of programs on a plurality of different channels for a time period including at least the time range, and wherein the plurality of programs include one or more of the program episodes responsive to the second query,

wherein the schedule grid is defined by a time axis and a channel axis and includes one or more indicators near particular ones of the plurality of programs that are provided in both the list and the schedule grid, the one or more indicators being used to signify that the particular ones of the plurality of programs match search criteria used to generate the list, and wherein the list and the schedule grid are to be displayed simultaneously next to each other.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying media-related terms in the query comprises comparing words or word sets from the query to one or more whitelists or blacklists of media-related terms.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying media-related terms in the query comprises submitting words or word sets from the query to a machine learning system that has been trained using information known to be media related.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein identifying media-related terms in the query comprises determining a distance between one or more terms in the query and one or more terms in the machine learning system.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the list includes a plurality of groupings of the program episodes, and wherein the program episodes are grouped by programs of the program episodes.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising obtaining information for the media-specific search results from a third-party structured database of media content, and from a non-media-directed database.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein obtaining the information from the non-media-directed database includes modifying the query by adding a term descriptive of media and querying the non-media-directed database with the modified query to limit the information from the non-media-directed database to media-related results.

21. The method of claim 1, wherein providing media-specific results in response to the query further comprises presenting one or more programs or episodes for a particular channel in a column having a time division closest to an actual time that the one or more programs or episodes are presented in a virtual channel.

22. The method of claim 1, wherein the format of the media-specific results further comprises including one or more of a program title, a program time of airing, or a viewing channel within the media-specific results.

23. The method of claim 1, wherein providing media-specific results in response to the query does not include providing a Uniform Resource Locator as part of the search results.

24. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining that the received query is not media-specific and affixing a media-specific prefix to the received query.

8. A computer system comprising:

a processor;

a storage device coupled to the processor and storing instructions, that when executed by the processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising;

receiving a first query at a central information provider from a first client device over a network, identifying whether the first query includes one or more media-related terms, and in response to determining that the first query does not include one or more media-related terms, providing search results responsive to the first query in a format that includes a list of one or more uniform resource locator links;

receiving a second query over the network;

identifying one or more media-related terms in the second query that indicate the second query relates to one or more media-related objects;

identifying one or more time-based terms in the second query;

responding to the identification of the one or more media-related terms by;

translating the time-based terms from a general time description to a time range; and

receiving from a search engine media-specific results that are responsive to the second query;

formatting the received media-specific results for display, wherein the format of the media-specific results provided in response to the second query is different than the format of the search results provided in response to the first query, and the media-specific results comprise;

(a) a list of one or more program episodes that are responsive to the second query and that occur during the time range, the one or more program episodes in the list being grouped according to a program title and one or more broadcast date and time; and

(b) a schedule grid that displays a plurality of programs on a plurality of different channels for a time period including at least the time range, and wherein the plurality of programs include one or more of the program episodes responsive to the second query, wherein the schedule grid is defined by a time axis and a channel axis and includes one or more indicators near particular ones of the plurality of programs that are provided in both the list and the schedule grid, the one or more indicators being used to signify that the particular ones of the plurality of programs match search criteria used to generate the list, and wherein the list and the schedule grid are to be displayed simultaneously next to each other; and

generating code for the display of the formatted results.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein identifying media-related terms in the query comprises comparing words or word sets from the query to one or more whitelists or blacklists of media-related terms.

10. The system of claim 8, wherein identifying media-related terms in the query comprises submitting words or word sets from the query to a machine learning system that has been trained using information known to be media related.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein identifying media-related terms in the query comprises determining a distance between one or more terms in the query and one or more terms in the machine learning system.

12. The system of claim 8, wherein the list includes a plurality of groupings of the program episodes, and wherein the program episodes are grouped by programs of the program episodes.

13. The system of claim 8, further comprising obtaining information for the media-specific search results from a third-party structured database of media content, and from a non-media-directed database.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein obtaining the information from the non-media-directed database includes modifying the query by adding a term descriptive of media and submitting the modified query to the search engine to query the non-media-directed database with the modified query to limit the information from the non-media-directed database to media-related results.

15. A computer-readable storage device encoded with a computer program product, the computer program product including instructions that, when executed, perform operations comprising:

receiving a first query at a central information provider from a first client device over a network, identifying whether the first query includes one or more media-related terms, and in response to determining that the first query does not include one or more media-related terms, providing search results responsive to the first query in a format that includes a list of one or more uniform resource locator links;

receiving a second query over the network;

identifying one or more media-related terms in the second query that indicate the second query relates to one or more media-related objects;

identifying one or more time-based terms in the second query;

responding to the identification of the one or more media-related terms by;

translating the time-based terms from a general time description to a time range; and

receiving from a search engine media-specific results that are responsive to the second query;

formatting the received media-specific results for display, wherein the format of the media-specific results provided in response to the second query is different than the format of the search results provided in response to the first query, and the media-specific results comprise;

(a) a list of one or more program episodes that are responsive to the second query and that occur during the time range, the one or more program episodes in the list being grouped according to a program title and one or more broadcast date and time; and

(b) a schedule grid that displays a plurality of programs on a plurality of different channels for a time period including at least the time range, and wherein the plurality of programs include one or more of the program episodes responsive to the second query, wherein the schedule grid is defined by a time axis and a channel axis and includes one or more indicators near particular ones of the plurality of programs that are provided in both the list and the schedule grid, the one or more indicators being used to signify that the particular ones of the plurality of programs match search criteria used to generate the list, and wherein the list and the schedule grid are to be displayed simultaneously next to each other; and

generating code for the display of the formatted results.

16. The computer-readable storage device of claim 15, wherein identifying media-related terms in the query comprises comparing words or word sets from the query to one or more whitelists or blacklists of media-related terms.

17. The computer-readable storage device of claim 15, wherein identifying media-related terms in the query comprises submitting words or word sets from the query to a machine learning system that has been trained using information known to be media related.

18. The computer-readable storage device of claim 17, wherein identifying media-related terms in the query comprises determining a distance between one or more terms in the query and one or more terms in the machine learning system.

19. The computer-readable storage device of claim 15, wherein the list includes a plurality of groupings of the program episodes, and wherein the program episodes are grouped by programs of the program episodes.

20. The computer-readable storage device of claim 15, the operations further comprising:

obtaining information for the media-specific search results from a third-party structured database of media content, and from a non-media-directed database, and

wherein obtaining the information from the non-media-directed database includes modifying the query by adding a term descriptive of media and submitting the modified query to the search engine to query the non-media-directed database with the modified query to limit the information from the non-media-directed database to media-related results.