Generating alerts for live performances

• US 9,386,355 B2
• Filed: 08/19/2014
• Issued: 07/05/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 08/31/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: STATS LLC (Stats Holdings LLC)
• Original Assignee: Thuuz, Inc.
• Inventors: Packard, Warren Joseph, Barcklay, Robert John, Levin, Alan
• Primary Examiner(s): Mehmood, Jennifer
• Assistant Examiner(s): Casillashernandez, Omar
• Application Number:
  US14/463,592
• Publication Number:
  US 20140359662A1
• Time in Patent Office: 686 Days
• Field of Search: 340500-540, 715/733
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063 Operations research, analysis or management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/00 Information and communication technology [ICT] specially adapted for implementation of business processes of specific business sectors, e.g. utilities or tourism healthcare informatics G16H
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23418 involving operations for analysing video streams, e.g. detecting features or characteristics television picture signal circuitry for scene change detection H04N5/147; filtering for image enhancement G06T5/00; methods or arrangements for recognising scenes G06V20/00; arrangements characterised by components specially adapted for monitoring, identification or recognition of video in broadcast systems H04H60/59
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2358 for generating different versions, e.g. for different recipient devices
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/24 Monitoring of processes or resources, e.g. monitoring of server load, available bandwidth, upstream requests monitoring of server performance or load G06F11/34; arrangements for observation, testing or troubleshooting for broadcast or for distribution combined with broadcast H04H20/12
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/27 Server based end-user applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44218 Detecting physical presence or behaviour of the user, e.g. using sensors to detect if the user is leaving the room or changes his face expression during a TV program methods or arrangements for recognising human body or animal bodies or body parts G06V40/10; methods or arrangements for acquiring or recognising human faces, facial parts, facial sketches, facial expressions G06V40/16; methods or arrangements for recognising movements or behaviour G06V40/20; arrangements for identifying users in broadcast systems H04H60/45
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/478 Supplemental services, e.g. displaying phone caller identification, shopping application
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8126 involving additional data, e.g. news, sports, stocks, weather forecasts
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8133 specifically related to the content, e.g. biography of the actors in a movie, detailed information about an article seen in a video program
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/025 Systems for the transmission of digital non-picture data, e.g. of text during the active part of a television frame transmission of digital non-picture data during the vertical blanking interval only H04N7/088

Abstract

A live performance is monitored by analyzing an input data stream comprising real-time updates related to the live performance. Different sets of excitement levels, excitement curves, alerts and teasers are generated based on the analysis and reported to a plurality of subscribers using any of a variety of mobile communication and/or computing devices.

Claims

1. A method for generating alerts for a live performance, comprising:

monitoring a live performance to identify one or more events of interest and derive real-time measured attributes;

generating different sets of excitement levels based on the real-time measured attributes for the identified one or more events of interest in the live performance, the different sets of excitement levels relate to different subscriber categories;

for each of the different sets of excitement levels, identifying if any of the excitement levels are at or above one or more excitement thresholds;

generating different sets of alerts for the different subscriber categories with respect to the excitement levels that are at or above one or more excitement thresholds; and

reporting alerts for the identified one or more events of interest that are above one or more excitement thresholds to a plurality of subscribers.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein generating the different sets of alerts further comprises:

determining an amount of time required to trigger the different sets of alerts for the excitement levels that are at the one or more excitement thresholds; and

wherein reporting the alerts that are above the one or more excitement thresholds to the plurality of subscribers further comprises reporting the alerts to the plurality of subscribers when the amount of time required to trigger the different sets of alerts reaches a pre-determined value.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein generating the different sets of alerts further comprises instantaneously triggering the different sets of alerts based on the identified one or more events of interest in the live performance.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the identified one or more events of interest comprises identifying a nail-biter event in the live performance.

5. The method of claim 3 wherein generating the different sets of alerts further comprises instantaneously triggering the different sets of alerts when an excitement level is at or above one or more of the excitement thresholds and an amount of time remaining in the live performance is less than a threshold value.

6. The method of claim 1 comprising reporting the different sets of alerts to the plurality of subscribers based on an alert level related the plurality of subscribers.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein the alert level relates to the number of alerts that a subscriber wishes to receive during the live performance and when the subscriber wishes to be notified of the alerts.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein reporting the different sets of alerts comprises generating an excitement alert for a home team fan, an excitement alert for a visiting team fan and an excitement alert for a neutral team fan related to the live performance.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the measured attributes are measured performance attributes representing qualified aspects of one or more characteristics of the live performance that quantitatively impact the excitement of the live performance.

9. A method for generating alerts for a live performance, comprising:

receiving different sets of excitement levels for a live performance;

analyzing an input data stream comprising real-time updates related to the live performance and deriving performance attributes related to the input data stream;

for each of the different sets of excitement levels, identifying if any of the excitement levels are at or above one or more excitement thresholds;

determining an amount of time required to trigger the different sets of alerts for the excitement levels that are at the one or more excitement thresholds;

determining whether the excitement levels have been at the one or more thresholds for the determined amount of time required to trigger, for the excitement levels that are at the one or more excitement thresholds; and

generating and reporting alerts to a plurality of subscribers for those excitement levels based on the performance attributes and that have been determined to be at the one or more thresholds for the determined amount of time required to trigger.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

instantaneously triggering the different sets of alerts based on identifying one or more events of interest in the live performance.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein:

reporting the alerts comprises reporting a first alert for a home team fan, a second and different alert for a visiting team fan and a third and different alert for a neutral fan related to the live performance.

15. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

identifying events of interest in the live performance for the analyzing, and wherein the performance attributes are for different subscriber categories such that first set of excitement levels is generated for a first category of subscribers and a second set of excitement levels is generated for a second category of subscribers.

12. One or more processor readable storage devices having processor readable code embodied on the processor readable storage devices, the processor readable code for programming one or more processors to perform a method comprising:

monitoring a live performance;

generating different sets of excitement levels for the live performance based on the monitoring, the different sets of excitement levels relate to different subscriber categories;

for each of the different sets of excitement levels, identifying if any of the excitement levels are at or above one or more excitement thresholds;

determining an amount of time required to trigger different sets of alerts for the excitement levels that are at the one or more excitement thresholds; and

reporting the different sets of alerts to the plurality of subscribers when the amount of time required to trigger the different sets of alerts reaches a pre-determined value, the set of alerts configurable to preserve suspense of a time shifted display of the live performance.

13. The one or more processor readable storage devices of claim 12, wherein

generating the different sets of alerts further comprises:

computing the remaining time required to trigger the different sets of alerts based on the difference between the amount of time and a rate; and

triggering the different sets of alerts when the difference between the amount of time and a rate reaches the pre-determined value.

16. The one or more processor readable storage devices of claim 12, wherein the different sets of alerts are reported without indicating a score or spoilers to preserve the suspense of the live performance.

17. A device for generating alerts for a live performance, comprising:

one or more storage devices storing code;

one or more processors in communication with the one or more storage devices to execute the code, the one or more processors configured to

monitor a live performance to identify one or more events of interest and derive real-time measured attributes;

generate different sets of excitement levels based on the real-time measured attributes for the identified one or more events of interest in the live performance, the different sets of excitement levels relate to different subscriber categories;

for each of the different sets of excitement levels, identify if any of the excitement levels are at or above one or more excitement thresholds;

generate different sets of alerts for the different subscriber categories with respect to the excitement levels that are at or above one or more excitement thresholds; and

report alerts for the identified one or more events of interest that are above one or more excitement thresholds to a plurality of subscribers.

18. The device of claim 17 wherein

generating the different sets of alerts causes the one or more processors to:

determine an amount of time required to trigger the different sets of alerts for the excitement levels that are at the one or more excitement thresholds; and

reporting the alerts that are above the one or more excitement thresholds to the plurality of subscribers causes the one or more processors to;

report the alerts to the plurality of subscribers when the amount of time required to trigger the different sets of alerts reaches a pre-determined value.

19. The device of claim 17 wherein generating the different sets of alerts causes the one or more processors to instantaneously trigger the different sets of alerts based on the identified one or more events of interest in the live performance.

20. The device of claim 19, wherein the identified one or more events of interest comprises identifying a nail-biter event in the live performance.