Methods and systems for providing a customizable guide for navigating a corpus of content

• US 8,914,729 B2
• Filed: 10/30/2006
• Issued: 12/16/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 10/30/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Slack Technologies, Inc. (Salesforce.com, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Yahoo! Inc. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Dubinko, Micah, Magnani, Joseph, Novak, Jasmine, Kumar, Ravi, Raghavan, Prabhakar, Tomkins, Andrew
• Primary Examiner(s): Hur, Ece
• Application Number:
  US11/590,045
• Publication Number:
  US 20080104521A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,969 Days
• Field of Search: 715/738, 715/744, 715/861, 715/811, 715/745, 715/789, 709/219, 709/203, 709/217
• US Class Current: 715/738
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/00 Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/957 Browsing optimisation, e.g. caching or content distillation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0484 for the control of specific functions or operations, e.g. selecting or manipulating an object, an image or a displayed text element, setting a parameter value or selecting a range
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/612 for unicast

Abstract

Methods and systems are described for navigating a corpus of content items stored in one or more information repositories within a distributed communications system. The content items may include video feeds, audio feeds, television broadcasts, website, a web log or the like. Using any browser application, the user views content items presented in an interactive scroll display. Modules are included for filtering, sorting and sampling content to ensure delivery of relevant high-quality content to the user. A feedback mechanism is also included for refining relevance filtering, sorting and sampling processes.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

electronically accessing tagged content from a corpus of content;

electronically applying, via a processing device, one or more culling parameters, at least one of the one or more culling parameter being not specified by one or more users, to the corpus of content to identify relevant content tags for the one or more users;

receiving one or more sorting criteria specified for the one or more users associated with the one or more users;

electronically sorting, via the processing device, the relevant content tags according to the one or more sorting criteria;

sampling the sorted content tags to extract text and thumbnail hyperlinks from the sorted content tags in an order according to the sorting at a sampling rate;

refining, via a feedback module executed by the processing device, the culling parameters, sorting criteria, and sampling, the refining of the culling parameters comprising tracking a culling parameter statistic selected from a group of culling parameter statistics consisting of browsing habits for a given user, tracking and integrating changes for a single user or group of users, navigation history, and frequency metrics comprising metrics related to displaying larger fonts and cycling more frequently;

presenting the sampled content tags in a flying video mode at the sampling rate in a customizable guide to an end-user.

2. The method of claim 1, comprising:

applying one or more sampling schemes to the sorted content tags, wherein the presenting is executed to sample and present the sorted content tags in accordance with the one or more sampling schemes.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the applying one or more sampling schemes comprises popularity, burstiness of data transmission, interestingness, or a combination thereof.

4. The method of claim 1, comprising:

enabling a user to adjust one or more of the culling parameters or the one or more sorting criteria.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the accessing comprises accessing at least one of software, video, graphics, text, or audio.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the applying one or more culling parameters comprises identifying a relevant content based on copyright law considerations, geographical areas to distribute content, television programming, local laws and customs, user interface compatibility, purchaser demand for a type of content, user profiles, or a combination thereof.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the sorting comprises sorting the relevant content tags according to creation date, modification date, length, content rating, user rating, genre, number of downloads, or a combination thereof.

21. The method of claim 1, wherein in the flying video mode, the sampled content tags are displayed in the customizable guide in the form of at least one text hyperlink and at least one thumbnail hyperlink that automatically move across the guide in a flying motion at the sampling rate in the order according to the sorting for a duration of the customizable guide in the flying video mode when navigation control is activated in the flying video mode of the customizable guide,

wherein the method further comprises:

receiving a selection of a given moving content tag from the end-user during the flying video mode of the customizable guide; and

providing the content associated with the selected tag to the end-user.

8. A system for providing a customizable guide for navigating a corpus of content, comprising:

a content server communicatively coupled to one or more client devices via the communications system, the content server comprising;

a culling module configured to apply one or more culling parameters to the corpus of content to identify relevant content tags for one or more users, at least one of the one or more culling parameter being not specified by the one or more users;

a sorter configured to implement one or more sorting criteria to sort the relevant content tags, wherein the sorter receives input from one or more users associated with the one or more users, said input specifying one or more sorting criteria;

a sampling module configured to sample the sorted content tags to extract text and thumbnail hyperlinks from the sorted content tags in an order according to the sorting at a sampling rate;

a feedback module configured to refine the culling parameters, sorting criteria, and sampling, the refining of the culling parameters comprising tracking a culling parameter statistic selected from a group of culling parameter statistics consisting of browsing habits for a given user, tracking and integrating changes for a single user or group of users, navigation history, and frequency metrics comprising metrics related to displaying larger fonts and cycling more frequently; and

a presenting module configured to present the sampled content tags in a flying video mode at the sampling rate in a customizable guide to an end-user.

9. The system of claim 8, comprising:

a sampling module that applies one or more sampling schemes to the sorted content tags, wherein the sampling module presents the sorted content tags in accordance with the one or more sampling schemes.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein sampling schemes comprise popularity, burstiness of data transmission, interestingness;

or a combination thereof.

11. The system of claim 8, comprising:

a feedback module that receives user input.

12. The system of claim 8, wherein the corpus of content includes at least one of software, video, graphics, text, or audio.

13. The system of claim 8, wherein the culling parameters comprise copyright law considerations, geographical areas to distribute content, television programming, local laws and customs, user interface compatibility, purchaser demand for type of content, user profiles, or a combination thereof.

14. The system of claim 8, wherein the sorting criteria comprise creation date, modification date, length, content rating, user rating, genre, number of downloads, or a combination thereof.

22. The system of claim 8, wherein in the flying video mode, the sampled content tags are displayed in the customizable guide in the form of at least one text hyperlink and at least one thumbnail hyperlink that automatically move across the guide in a flying motion at the sampling rate in the order according to the sorting for a duration of the customizable guide in the flying video mode when navigation control is activated in the flying video mode of the customizable guide,

wherein the system further comprises:

the content server configured to receive a selection of a given moving content tag from the end-user during the flying video mode of the customizable guide, and provide content associated with the selected content tag to the end-user.

15. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium having computer readable program code embedded in said medium for causing a computer to provide a customizable guide for navigating a corpus of content within a distributed communications system, the computer readable program code comprising:

computer readable program code that causes the computer to apply one or more culling parameters to the corpus of content to identify relevant content tags for one or more users, at least one of the one or more culling parameter being not specified by the one or more users;

computer readable program code that causes the computer to receive one or more sorting criteria from one or more users associated with the one or more users;

computer readable program code that causes the computer to implement the one or more sorting criteria to sort the relevant content tags;

computer readable program code that causes the computer to sample the sorted content tags to extract text and thumbnail hyperlinks from the sorted content tags in an order according to the sorting at a sampling rate;

computer readable program code that causes the computer to refine the culling parameters, sorting criteria, and sampling, the refining of the culling parameters comprising tracking a culling parameter statistic selected from a group of culling parameter statistics consisting of browsing habits for a given user, tracking and integrating changes for a single user or group of users, navigation history, and frequency metrics comprising metrics related to displaying larger fonts and cycling more frequently;

computer readable program code that causes the computer to present the sampled content tags in a flying video mode at the sampling rate in a customizable guide to an end-user.

16. The computer readable storage medium according to claim 15, comprising:

computer readable program code that causes the computer to apply one or more sampling schemes to the sorted content tags to sample and present the sorted content tags in accordance with the one or more sampling schemes.

17. The computer readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein sampling schemes comprise popularity, burstiness of data transmission, interestingness;

or a combination thereof.

18. The computer readable storage medium of claim 15, comprising:

computer readable program code that causes the computer to receive user input for adjusting at least one of the culling parameters or the sorting criteria.

19. The computer readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the culling parameters comprise copyright law considerations, geographical areas to distribute content, television programming, local laws and customs, user interface compatibility, purchaser demand for type of content, user profiles, or a combination thereof.

20. The computer readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the sorting categories comprise creation date, modification date, length, content rating, user rating, genre, number of downloads, or a combination thereof.

23. The computer readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein in the flying video mode, the sampled content tags are displayed in the customizable guide in the form of at least one text hyperlink and at least one thumbnail hyperlink that automatically move across the guide in a flying motion at the sampling rate in the order according to the sorting for a duration of the customizable guide in the flying video mode when navigation control is activated in the flying video mode of the customizable guide,

wherein the computer program product further comprises:

computer readable program code that causes the computer to receive a selection of a given moving content tag from the end-user during the flying video mode of the customizable guide; and

computer readable program code that causes the computer to provide content associated with the selected content tag to the end-user.