Singular, collective and automated creation of a media guide for online content

• US 9,672,286 B2
• Filed: 10/27/2015
• Issued: 06/06/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 01/07/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sonic IP Incorporated (Endeavor Group Holdings Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Sonic IP Incorporated (Endeavor Group Holdings Inc.)
• Inventors: Landeros, Porfirio, Gravel, Francois, Soroushian, Kourosh, Salmonsen, Daniel, Priyadarshi, Shaiwal
• Primary Examiner(s): Peng, Huawen A
• Application Number:
  US14/924,639
• Publication Number:
  US 20160048593A1
• Time in Patent Office: 588 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 15/16 Combinations of two or more digital computers each having at least an arithmetic unit, a program unit and a register, e.g. for a simultaneous processing of several programs coordinating program control therefor G06F9/52; in regulating and control system G05B
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24 Querying
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/285 Clustering or classification
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/438 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/48 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/483 using metadata automatically derived from the content
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/5866 using information manually generated, e.g. tags, keywords, comments, manually generated location and time information
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/7867 using information manually generated, e.g. tags, keywords, comments, title and artist information, manually generated time, location and usage information, user ratings
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9538 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/955 using information identifiers, e.g. uniform resource locators [URL]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9574 of access to content, e.g. by caching
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23109 by placing content in organized collections, e.g. EPG data repository details of retrieval of video data and associated meta data in video databases G06F16/739
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2387 Stream processing in response to a playback request from an end-user, e.g. for trick-play
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/278 Content descriptor database or directory service for end-user access details of content or meta data based information retrieval of video data in video databases G06F16/739
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4826 using recommendation lists, e.g. of programs or channels sorted out according to their score
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/84 Generation or processing of descriptive data, e.g. content descriptors systems specially adapted for using meta-information in broadcast systems H04H60/73

Abstract

Systems and methods are provided in which a content guide includes one or more tags associated with a single user, a group of users or a channel subscribed to by users that enables the retrieval of content for subsequent viewing and which can be supplemented by recommendations and data from other sources.

Claims

1. A content system comprising:

a first server directed to provide access to pieces of content through a network;

a second server directed to maintain a searchable database of tags that describe content stored on the first server;

a first device in communication with the first server and the second server through the network, wherein the first device is directed to;

automatically generate a message describing a piece of content accessible through the first server, wherein the message comprises a tag describing the piece of content and a URL that references a location of the piece of content;

provide the generated tag describing the piece of content with the URL that addresses the location of the piece of content to the second server;

a second device in communication with the first server and the second server through the network wherein the second device is directed to;

provide a search query to the second server;

receive search results including the tag that describes the piece of content and the URL referencing the location of the piece of content from the searchable database of tags maintained by the second server; and

retrieve and play back the piece of content from the first server using the URL referencing the location of the piece of content.

2. The content system of claim 1, wherein the second server further maintains content guides for different communities of users based on messages automatically generated by devices.

3. The content system of claim 1, wherein the first server is a content server, the second server is a tag server, the first device is a tagging device, and the second device is a playback device.

4. The content system of claim 1, wherein the tag is a text element with a starting character.

5. The content system of claim 4, wherein the tag is a hash tag and the starting character is a # character.

6. The content system of claim 1, wherein the second server stores the tag with the URL in the searchable database of tags.

7. The content system of claim 1, wherein the search query is a search for a tag in the searchable database of tags maintained by the second server.

8. The content system of claim 1, wherein the second server is further directed to maintain the searchable database of tags as part of a service offered by a social group website.

9. The content system of claim 1, wherein the second server is further directed to maintain the searchable database of tags as part of an application that aggregates messages that comprise tags that describe pieces of content and URLs that reference the locations of pieces of content.

10. The content system of claim 1, wherein the first device is further directed to generate the tag describing the piece of content based on information related to the piece of content.

11. The content system of claim 10, wherein the information related to the piece of content comprises at least one of a filename, a piece of metadata, and a content identifier.

12. The content system of claim 1, wherein each tag includes an identifier of a piece of content.

13. The content system of claim 1, wherein the first server is configured to obtain pre-cached portions of the pieces of content.

14. The content system of claim 1, wherein the second device is further directed to automatically generate a second message describing the piece of content that includes the tag and the URL based upon the message automatically generated by the first device.

15. The content system of claim 1, wherein URL that references a location of the piece of content is a shortened URL.

16. The content system of claim 1, wherein the tag describing the piece of content is automatically generated from information related to media from a web page.

17. The content system of claim 1, wherein the automatically generated message identifies a user of the first device.

18. The content system of claim 1, wherein the automatically generated message identifies a service on which the piece of content can be accessed.

19. The content system of claim 1, wherein the first device and the second device are respectively a tagging device and a playback device within a plurality of tagging devices and playback devices.

20. The content system of claim 1, wherein the first device is further directed to upload the message to the second server.

21. The content system of claim 1, wherein the provided message comprises a content recommendation from a user of the first device.

22. The content guide system of claim 21 further comprising a remote server directed to:

scan personal preferences associated with the first device;

scan existing and newly added pieces of content on the first server; and

automatically generate recommendation for a user of the first device on a periodic basis.

23. The content system of claim 1, wherein:

the first server is further directed to provide access to pieces of content comprising at least one of an audio file, a video file, an image, and a multimedia file, and

the first server is further directed to provide access to the pieces of content along with metadata via at least one of download, and direct consumption via a web-browser.

24. The content system of claim 1, wherein:

the second server is further directed to maintaining a content guide for the second device, the content guide comprising tags describing pieces of content; and

the second device is further directed to retrieve the content guide during search of the searchable database of tags.

25. The content system of claim 24, wherein the second server is further directed to add the tag provided by the first device to the content guide maintained for the second device.

26. The content system of claim 1, wherein the first server is further directed to pre-cache pieces of content to a particular device.

27. The content system of claim 1, wherein the second server is further directed to direct a server to pre-cache pieces of content based on tags received from devices.

28. A method of accessing pieces of content distributed throughout a network, the method comprising:

accessing a piece of content using a first device, wherein the piece of content is accessed from a first server;

automatically generating a message describing the piece of content accessible through the first server, wherein the message comprises a tag describing the piece of content and a URL that references a location of the piece of content;

providing the generated tag describing the piece of content with the URL that addresses the location of the piece of content to a second server using the first device, wherein the second server maintains a searchable database of tags that describe content stored on the first server

providing a search query to the second server using a second device in communication with the first server and the second server through the network;

receiving, using the second device, search results including the tag that describes the piece of content and the URL referencing the location of the piece of content from the searchable database of tags maintained by the second server; and

retrieving and playing back the piece of content from the first server using the URL referencing the location of the piece of content and using the second device.

29. The method of claim 28, wherein the tag is a hash tag and has a starting character that is a # character.

30. The method of claim 28, wherein the search query is a search for a tag in the searchable database of tags maintained by the second server.

31. A content system comprising:

a content server directed to provide access to pieces of content through a network,

a hash tag server directed to maintain a searchable database of hash tags that reference pieces of content stored on the content server;

a tagging device in communication with the content server and the hash tag server through the network, wherein the tagging device is directed to;

automatically generate a message describing a piece of content accessible through the content server, wherein the message comprises a hash tag describing the piece of content and a URL that references a location of the piece of content;

provide the hash tag describing the piece of content with the URL that addresses the location of the piece of content to the hash tag server;

a playback device in communication with the content server and the hash tag server through the network, wherein the playback device is directed to;

provide a search query to the hash tag server;

receive search results including the hash tag that describes the piece of content and the URL referencing the location of the piece of content from the searchable database of hash tags maintained by the hash tag server; and

retrieve and play back the piece of content from the content server using the URL referencing the location of the piece of content.