Social playback queues

• US 9,874,997 B2
• Filed: 08/08/2014
• Issued: 01/23/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 08/08/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sonos, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Sonos, Inc.
• Inventors: Clayton, Eric, Valente, Danny
• Primary Examiner(s): Tsang, Fan
• Assistant Examiner(s): SIEGEL, DAVID F
• Application Number:
  US14/455,651
• Publication Number:
  US 20160041809A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,264 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 15/02 electric
• 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 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04842 Selection of displayed objects or displayed text elements G06F3/0482 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/165 Management of the audio stream, e.g. setting of volume, audio stream path
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2812 describing content present in a home automation network, e.g. audio video content retrieval from the Internet G06F16/95
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2012/2849 Audio/video appliances
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/52 for supporting social networking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/60 Network streaming of media packets
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/612 for unicast
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2408 Monitoring of the upstream path of the transmission network, e.g. client requests monitoring data switching networks utilization H04L43/0876; scheduling or organising the servicing of application requests H04L67/60
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/26258 for generating a list of items to be played back in a given order, e.g. playlist, or scheduling item distribution according to such list retrieval of multimedia data based on playlists G06F16/40
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4788 communicating with other users, e.g. chatting arrangements for providing for computer conferences, e.g. chat rooms, to substation in data switching networks H04L12/1813; distributed application using peer-to-peer [P2P] networks H04L67/104

Abstract

An example method involves monitoring, by a computing device, a communications feed for an indication of media and detecting, in the communications feed, the indication of the media. The method may further involve identifying at least one media item corresponding to the indication of the media and causing a playback queue of a media playback system to include one or more of the identified at least one media item.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

accessing, via a first computing device, an existing communications feed at a predetermined interval of time, wherein the communications feed is maintained by a second computing device such that communications directed to the communications feed are stored in memory at the second computing device, and wherein accessing the communications feed comprises accessing the stored communications;

associating, via the first computing device, the communications feed with a playback queue of a media playback system such that the communications directed to the communications feed may cause the first computing device to update the playback queue;

detecting, via the first computing device, in the communications feed, at least one communication having a predetermined syntax, wherein detecting the predetermined syntax comprises detecting a predetermined first set of one or more characters input by a user in the at least one of the communications directed to the communications feed;

parsing, via the first computing device, the predetermined syntax into (i) an indication of media, and (ii) an indication of a command;

detecting a predetermined second set of one or more characters input by the user in the at least one of the communications directed to the communications feed,

wherein parsing, via the first computing device, the predetermined syntax further comprises matching the second set of one or more characters to corresponding predetermined potential commands to determine the parsed indication of the command;

identifying, via the first computing device, at least one media item corresponding to the parsed indication of the media; and

causing, via the first computing device, the playback queue of the media playback system to include one or more of the identified at least one media item in response to the parsed indication of the command.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the media playback system comprises at least one playback device, and wherein the playback queue is associated with the at least one of the playback device in the media playback system.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

after associating the communications feed with the playback queue of the media playback system, terminating the association of the communications feed with the playback queue of the media playback system after a predetermined period of time.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the indication of the media is a first indication of the media, the method further comprising:

after identifying at least one media item corresponding to the first indication of the media, sending, via the first computing device, a second indication of the media to the second computing device, wherein the second indication comprises an indication of the identified at least one media item.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein sending the second indication comprises sending the second indication to a third computing device corresponding to at least one of i) the communications feed, ii) a source of the first indication of the media and iii) an owner of the media playback system.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein identifying at least one media item corresponding to the parsed indication of the media comprises searching at least one media content source and identifying two or more potential media items corresponding to the parsed indication of the media, wherein sending the second indication of the media comprises sending a list of the identified two or more potential media items, and wherein the indication of the command to cause the playback queue to include one or more of the identified at least one media item further indicates a selection of at least one of the potential media items as the at least one media item.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein accessing the communications feed comprises accessing the communications feed from a predetermined set of sources, and wherein detecting the predetermined syntax comprises detecting the predetermined syntax in a communication from one of the sources in the predetermined set of sources.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising

monitoring, via the first computing device, the communications feed for an indication of media corresponding to a media item that is currently in the playback queue;

detecting, via the first computing device, the indication of the media corresponding to the media item that is currently in the playback queue; and

based on the indication of the media corresponding to the media item that is currently in the playback queue, updating, via the first computing device, the playback queue.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the indication of the media is a first indication, wherein the indication of the media corresponding to a media item that is currently in the playback queue is a second indication, and wherein detecting the second indication comprises detecting a second communication in the communications feed that refers to a first communication in the communications feed that comprises the first indication.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

before identifying at least one media item corresponding to the indication of the media, determining, via the first computing device, a set of available media content sources.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein associating the communications feed with the playback queue of the media playback system further comprises causing the playback queue to be created.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein parsing, via the first computing device, the predetermined syntax further comprises determining that one or more words adjacent the detected set of one or more characters correspond to the indication of media.

11. A method comprising:

generating, via a first computing device, data that indicates a playback queue of a media playback system, wherein the data that indicates the playback queue comprises;

an indication of a playback order of one or more media items of the playback queue; and

an indication of a communications feed comprising indications of media in the playback queue, wherein the communications feed is maintained by a second computing device such that communications directed to the communications feed are stored in memory at the second computing device;

causing, via the first computing device, storage of first indication data comprising the data that indicates the playback queue;

associating, via the first computing device, the communications feed with the playback queue such that communications directed to the communications feed may cause the first computing device to update the playback queue;

detecting, via the first computing device, in the communications feed, a communication having a predetermined syntax, wherein detecting the predetermined syntax comprises detecting a predetermined first set of one or more characters input by a user in the at least one of the communications directed to the communications feed;

parsing the predetermined syntax into an indication of a command to update the data that indicates the playback queue of the media playback system;

detecting a predetermined second set of one or more characters input by the user in the at least one of the communications directed to the communications feed,

wherein parsing, via the first computing device, the predetermined syntax further comprises matching the second set of one or more characters to corresponding predetermined potential commands to determine the parsed indication of the command;

based on the parsed indication of the command, generating, via the first computing device, updated data that indicates the playback queue of the media playback system; and

based on the parsed indication of the command, causing, via the first computing device, storage of second indication data comprising the updated data that indicates the playback queue.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein causing storage of the first indication data comprises transmitting the first indication data to a third computing device for storage on the third computing device.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein the updated data that indicates the playback queue comprises an updated indication of the playback order of the one or more media items of the playback queue.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein the data that indicates the playback queue further comprises an indication, for each respective media item in the playback queue, of a history of the respective media item'"'"'s indications in the communications feed.

17. A first computing device comprising:

a processor; and

memory having stored thereon instructions executable by the processor to cause the first computing device to perform functions comprising;

accessing an existing communications feed at a predetermined interval of time, wherein the communications feed is maintained by a second computing device such that communications directed to the communications feed are stored in memory at the second computing device, and wherein accessing the communications feed comprises accessing the stored communications;

associating the communications feed with a playback queue of a media playback system such that the communications directed to the communications feed may cause the first computing device to update the playback queue;

detecting, in the communications feed, at least one communication having a predetermined syntax, wherein detecting the predetermined syntax comprises detecting a predetermined first set of one or more characters input by a user in the at least one of the communications directed to the communications feed;

parsing the predetermined syntax into (i) an indication of media, and (ii) an indication of a command;

detecting a predetermined second set of one or more characters input by the user in the at least one of the communications directed to the communications feed,

wherein parsing the predetermined syntax further comprises matching the second set of one or more characters to corresponding predetermined potential commands to determine the parsed indication of the command;

identifying at least one media item corresponding to the parsed indication of the media; and

causing the playback queue of the media playback system to include one or more of the identified at least one media item in response to the parsed indication of the command.