System and method for selecting a music channel

• US 20040034536A1
• Filed: 08/14/2002
• Published: 02/19/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 08/14/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.), Sony Music Entertainment Incorporated (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.), Sony Music Entertainment Incorporated (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Hughes, David A.
• Granted Patent: US 7,277,877 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/278
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 20/82 using signals not modulated onto a carrier
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/46 for recognising users' preferences
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1101 Session protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/613 for the control of the source by the destination control signals issued by the client directed to the server or network components specially adapted for selective content distribution H04N21/637
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/764 at the destination reformatting of additional data in video clients H04N21/4355
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99931 Database or file accessing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99939 Privileged access

Abstract

A system and method including an agent for selecting a song among simultaneously streaming songs based on user information is presented.

Claims

1. A method of selecting content comprising:

providing user profile information representing information about a user that is not specific to the content;

providing a schedule of content, the schedule identifying a collection of content which is simultaneously available for access;

providing content-specific information, the content-specific information being associated with the content in the schedule;

assigning a value to each member in the collection based on the content-specific information and the user profile information;

selecting one of the members of the collection of content by comparing the values;

accessing the selected content; and

playing the selected content.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the content includes audio information.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the audio information comprises songs.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein the content-specific information includes the artist of the song.

5. The method of claim 3 wherein the content-specific information includes the genre of the song.

6. The method of claim 3 wherein the content specific information includes information regarding whether the user has previously terminated the playing of a particular song.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the user profile information comprises demographic information relating to the user.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein the user profile information comprises information relating to the user'"'"'s age.

9. The method of claim 7 wherein the user profile information comprises information relating to the user'"'"'s geographic region.

10. The method of claim 7 wherein the user profile information comprises information relating to the user'"'"'s gender.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein the content is accessed via a connection over a network.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein the network is the Internet.

13. The method of claim 11 wherein the schedule is obtained over the network.

14. The method of claim 13 wherein the schedule is obtained by accessing text over the network.

15. The method of claim 14 wherein the text is available for transmission when the content associated with the text is available for access.

16. The method of claim 15 wherein the text includes the title of the content.

17. The method of claim 1 wherein the collection of simultaneously-available content comprises data streamed over a network.

18. The method of claim 17 wherein at least two members of the collection are streamed from servers associated with different URL domains.

19. The method of claim 17 wherein each member of the collection is transmitted via a different channel.

20. The method of claim 19 wherein the content-specific information is obtained over the network.

21. A method of automatically selecting songs comprising:

providing user-profile information related to a user and not specific to songs;

providing song-specific information related to songs and not specific to a user;

providing user-preference information related to the user and related to songs;

determining which songs are currently available for access;

selecting a song based on such information; and

accessing the selected song.

22. The method of claim 21 wherein the song-specific is provided over a network.

23. The method of claim 22 wherein the song-specific information includes at least one of the following:

a song'"'"'s title, artist or genre.

24. The method of claim 23 wherein the song-specific information includes the song'"'"'s title, artist and genre.

25. The method of claim 23 wherein the user-preference information includes the user'"'"'s preferences regarding at least one of the following:

a song'"'"'s title, artist or genre.

26. The method of claim 23 wherein the step of selecting includes assigning a value to a song based on a comparison of the user-profile and user-preference information with the song-specific information.

27. The method of claim 21 wherein the user-profile information includes at least one of the following items of information:

the user'"'"'s gender, age or geographic region.

28. The method of claim 27 wherein user-profile information includes the user'"'"'s gender, age and geographic region.

29. The method of claim 27 wherein the step of selecting includes assigning a value to those songs which are currently available for access, the value representing the likelihood of a user being interested in the song based on both the user-profile information and the user-preference information.

30. A system for selecting content comprising:

a processor capable of accessing and executing instructions,

instructions including;

obtaining user profile information representing information about a user that is not specific to the content;

obtaining a schedule of content, the schedule identifying a collection of content which is simultaneously available for access;

obtaining content-specific information, the content-specific information being associated with the content in the schedule;

assigning a value to each member in the collection based on the content-specific information and the user profile information;

selecting one of the members of the collection of content by comparing the values; and

accessing the selected content.

31. The system of claim 30 wherein the processor and instructions are stored on a computer connected to a network.

32. The system of claim 31 further comprising a music player, the music player being structured to play the content accessed by the computer.

33. A method of switching from a first channel to a second channel, the first and second channel providing digitally-encoded music for access, the method comprising:

accessing music from the first channel, determining a value representative of the likelihood of the user being interested in the music from the second channel, the determination being based on information related to the music on the second music channel and information related to a user but not specific to the music on the second music channel,

accessing music from the second channel dependant upon the result of the value.

34. The method of claim 33 wherein the step of determining the value depends on a comparison of the user'"'"'s demographic information with the information related to the music on the second channel.

35. The method of claim 33 wherein the music from the second channel is not accessed until a song accessed from the first channel ends.