Method and apparatus for continuously and opportunistically driving an optimal broadcast schedule based on most recent client demand feedback from a distributed set of broadcast clients
First Claim
1. A method for generating an opportunistic broadcast schedule, comprising:
- broadcasting meta-data to a plurality of client systems, the meta-data including descriptions of a plurality of pieces of content that are in consideration for upcoming broadcasts;
receiving individual sets of client demand feedback data from at least a portion of said plurality of client systems, each individual set of client demand feedback data comprising data indicating a client interest level in at least a portion of the plurality of pieces of content;
determining a piece of content from among said plurality of pieces of content that is most opportunistic for a next broadcast by aggregating the individual sets of client demand feedback data; and
scheduling the piece of content that is determined to be most opportunistic to broadcast for a next broadcast.
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Abstract
A broadcast method and system for continuously and opportunistically driving an optimal broadcast schedule based on most recent client demand feedback from a distributed set of broadcast clients. The broadcast system includes an operation center that broadcasts meta-data to a plurality of client systems. The meta-data describes a plurality of pieces of content that are in consideration for upcoming broadcasts by the server. Each client receives the broadcasted meta-data from and sends back a set of client demand feedback data to the operations center, wherein the user feedback data reflects a client'"'"'s interest level in at least a portion of the pieces of content. The feedback data, which typically may include ratings and/or relative rankings, may be user-generated, automatically-generated, or a combination of the two. The system then determines a most opportunistic piece of content to be broadcast based on an aggregation of the client demand feedback data.
165 Citations
56 Claims
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1. A method for generating an opportunistic broadcast schedule, comprising:
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broadcasting meta-data to a plurality of client systems, the meta-data including descriptions of a plurality of pieces of content that are in consideration for upcoming broadcasts;
receiving individual sets of client demand feedback data from at least a portion of said plurality of client systems, each individual set of client demand feedback data comprising data indicating a client interest level in at least a portion of the plurality of pieces of content;
determining a piece of content from among said plurality of pieces of content that is most opportunistic for a next broadcast by aggregating the individual sets of client demand feedback data; and
scheduling the piece of content that is determined to be most opportunistic to broadcast for a next broadcast. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42)
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26. An apparatus, comprising:
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a processor having circuitry to execute instructions;
a communications interface coupled to the processor to receive data from the one or more client systems;
a storage device coupled to the processor, having sequences of instructions stored therein, which when executed by the processor cause the apparatus to receive individual sets of client demand feedback data from a plurality of client systems, each individual set of client demand feedback data generated in response to meta-data that is broadcast to the plurality of client systems, the meta-data including descriptions of a plurality of pieces of content that are in consideration for upcoming broadcasts, each individual set of client demand feedback data indicating a client interest level in at least a portion of the plurality of pieces of content;
determine a piece of content from among said plurality of pieces of content that is most opportunistic for a next broadcast by aggregating the individual sets of client demand feedback data; and
schedule the piece of content that is determined to be most opportunistic to broadcast for a next broadcast.
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35. A machine-readable medium having a plurality of machine-executable instructions stored thereon, which when executed by a machine cause the machine to:
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receive individual sets of client demand feedback data from a plurality of client systems, the individual sets of client demand feedback data generated in response to meta-data that is broadcast to the plurality of client systems, the meta-data including descriptions of a plurality of pieces of content that are in consideration for upcoming broadcasts, each individual set of client demand feedback data indicating a client interest level in at least a portion of the plurality of pieces of content;
determine a piece of content from among said plurality of pieces of content that is most opportunistic for a next broadcast by aggregating the individual sets of client demand feedback data; and
schedule the piece of content that is determined to be most opportunistic to broadcast for a next broadcast.
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43. The machine-readable medium of 41, wherein a current set of metadata corresponding to a set of pieces of content considered for an upcoming broadcast is broadcast as a continuous stream that is repeated and includes a respective content descriptor for each piece of content included in the set of pieces of content, and wherein at least a portion of the individual sets of client demand feedback data includes a ranked list expressing a relative interest in all of the pieces of content in the set of pieces of content.
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44. A system, comprising:
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a broadcast server;
a database server, linked in communication with the broadcast server; and
a plurality of client systems linked in communication with the broadcast server via a first communications link and linked in communication with the database server via a second communication link;
wherein the broadcast server is programmed to broadcast meta-data to said plurality of client systems via the first communications link, the meta-data including descriptions of a plurality of pieces of content that are considered for upcoming broadcasts;
wherein each of said plurality of client systems is programmed to generate an individual set of client demand feedback data indicating a client interest level in at least a portion of the plurality of pieces of content based, in part, on the descriptions of such provided by the meta-data;
wherein at least a portion of the plurality of client systems send individual sets of client demand feedback data to the database server via the second communications link;
wherein the database server is programmed to determine a piece of content from among said plurality of pieces of content that is most opportunistic for a next broadcast by aggregating the individual sets of client demand feedback data;
wherein at least one of the broadcast server and database server is programmed to schedule the piece of content that is determined to be most opportunistic to broadcast for a next broadcast; and
wherein the broadcast system is further programmed to broadcast the piece of content that is determined to be most opportunistic when bandwidth becomes available on the first communications link. - View Dependent Claims (45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56)
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Specification