Method and computer program product for building and displaying videos of users and forwarding communications to move users into proximity to one another

• US 9,905,266 B1
• Filed: 01/14/2017
• Issued: 02/27/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 01/15/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Zoozk, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Zoosk Incorporated
• Inventors: Yen, Anna W., Barnett, Eric R., Kringstein, Charmagne, Li, Dani Y., Chandler, Danielle, Infusino, James E.
• Primary Examiner(s): Jones, Heather
• Application Number:
  US15/406,710
• Time in Patent Office: 409 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/30 in albums, collections or shared content, e.g. social network photos or video
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/031 Electronic editing of digitised analogue information signals, e.g. audio or video signals
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: H05K 999/99 dummy group

Abstract

A system and method allows users to provide, edit and order photos or videos that other users can use to determine interest in that user. If both users indicate interest in one another, communications between such users are enabled.

Claims

1. A method of building and displaying a plurality of videos of other users to a user to allow the user to move into proximity with at least one of the other users, comprising:

for each of the plurality of other users;

receiving a plurality of visual items comprising at least one digital photo and at least one digital video;

building an overall video comprising the plurality of visual items in response to editing instructions from the other user from which the visual items were received;

filtering the plurality of other users to identify a subset, fewer than all but more than one, of the plurality of other users based on at least one criteria received from the user;

computing a score for each of the other users in the subset of the plurality of other users, each score computed as a function of a location and at least one characteristic of the user, a location and at least one characteristic of said other user, a first amount of time said other user in the subset was eligible to be scored, a second amount of time said other user in the subset has been inactive as an other user, when said other user in the subset became active in using the method as an other user after a period of inactivity, and a percentage of selections made towards said other user in the subset by some of the other users in the plurality when such some of the other users viewed the overall video of said other user in the subset;

identifying a first number of other users in the subset that is substantially less than a second number of all of the other users in the subset, the first number being identified in response to a third amount of time the user last viewed at least one overall video of another user in the plurality before a start of a current session the user is using to view overall videos of at least one of the other users in the plurality;

sequentially displaying the overall videos of at least some of the other users in the subset for each of the first number of other users in the subset having the highest scores computed, with a user interface that allows the user to indicate whether he or she is interested in any other users whose overall videos are displayed; and

facilitating communications between at least one pair comprising the user and each of at least one other user in whom the user indicated such interest and from whom an indication of interest in the user was received, to cause the user and each such other user to move into proximity with one another.

2. A computer program product comprising a nontransitory computer useable medium having computer readable program code embodied therein for building and displaying a plurality of videos of other users to a user to allow the user to move into proximity with at least one of the other users, the computer program product comprising computer readable program code devices configured to cause a computer system to:

for each of the plurality of other users;

receive a plurality of visual items comprising at least one digital photo and at least one digital video;

build an overall video comprising the plurality of visual items in response to editing instructions from the other user from which the visual items were received;

filter the plurality of other users to identify a subset, fewer than all but more than one, of the plurality of other users based on at least one criteria received from the user;

compute a score for each of the other users in the subset of the plurality of other users, each score computed as a function of a location and at least one characteristic of the user, a location and at least one characteristic of said other user, a first amount of time said other user in the subset was eligible to be scored, a second amount of time said other user in the subset has been inactive as an other user, when said other user in the subset became active in using the method as an other user after a period of inactivity, and a percentage of selections made towards said other user in the subset by some of the other users in the plurality when such some of the other users viewed the overall video of said other user in the subset;

identify a first number of other users in the subset that is substantially less than a second number of all of the other users in the subset, the first number being identified in response to a third amount of time the user last viewed at least one overall video of another user in the plurality before a start of a current session the user is using to view overall videos of at least one of the other users in the plurality;

sequentially display the overall videos of at least some of the other users in the subset for each of the first number of other users in the subset having the highest scores computed, with a user interface that allows the user to indicate whether he or she is interested in any other users whose overall videos are displayed; and

facilitate communications between at least one pair comprising the user and each of at least one other user in whom the user indicated such interest and from whom an indication of interest in the user was received, to cause the user and each such other user to move into proximity with one another.