Automatic delivery of personalized content to a portable media player with feedback

• US 20070220552A1
• Filed: 03/15/2006
• Published: 09/20/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 03/15/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: ROVI Product Corporation (Xperi Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Farouki, Karim, Roup, Oliver, McNulty, Mark, Juster, Josh, Giambalvo, Daniel
• Granted Patent: US 7,653,761 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 725/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4334 Recording operations recording of a television signal H04N5/76; arrangements for recording or accumulating broadcast information or broadcast-related information H04H60/27
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4335 Housekeeping operations, e.g. prioritizing content for deletion because of storage space restrictions storage management, e.g. defragmentation G06F3/0604; unloading stored programs G06F9/445; storage management in file systems G06F16/10; buffering arrangements in a network node or in an end terminal in packet networks H04L49/90
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44204 Monitoring of content usage, e.g. the number of times a movie has been viewed, copied or the amount which has been watched monitoring of user activities for profile generation for accessing a video database G06F16/739; protecting generic digital content where the protection is independent of the precise nature of the content G06F21/10; arrangements for monitoring the use made of the broadcast services in broadcast systems H04H60/31
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4532 involving end-user characteristics, e.g. viewer profile, preferences monitoring of user activities for profile generation for accessing a video database G06F16/739; user profiles in network data switching protocols H04L67/306; processing of user preferences or user profiles in wireless networks H04W8/18
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47202 for requesting content on demand, e.g. video on demand
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4755 for defining user preferences, e.g. favourite actors or genre retrieval personalisation and generation of user profiles for the retrieval of video data G06F16/739; user profiles in network data switching protocols H04L67/306
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4825 using a list of items to be played back in a given order, e.g. playlists
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6582 Data stored in the client, e.g. viewing habits, hardware capabilities, credit card number arrangements where receivers interact with the broadcast H04H20/38
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/812 involving advertisement data advertising per se G06Q30/02

Abstract

Automatic download of personalized media content to a portable media device based on user preferences is disclosed. A media service can evaluate content on a user'"'"'s media device as well as user action related thereto to infer the user'"'"'s preferences, and can automatically aggregate and download content that is relevant to the user'"'"'s tastes. The user can subscribe to, for example, playlists generated by the media service, another user'"'"'s playlist(s), a simulated radio station, etc., and can receive content updates thereto at predefined intervals and/or upon release of the updates. In this manner, the user can periodically receive media content that is personalized to the user without requiring the user to explicitly request the content or synchronize to a PC.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented system that facilitates automatically delivering personalized content to a media player, comprising:

a music service that receives usage data from a subscribing media device and automatically downloads personalized content to the media device; and

a media device that receives the personalized content and stores the personalized content to a media library for playback by a user.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the music service downloads the personalized content to the media device upon the occurrence of a triggering event.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the triggering event comprises a predetermined time of day.

4. The system of claim 2, wherein the triggering event comprises a recommendation of content by at least one of the music service, another subscriber approved by the user, a content editor approved by the user, and an automated process.

5. The system of claim 2, wherein the triggering event is an update of a playlist to which the user has subscribed and the personalized content comprises the updated media.

6. The system of claim 2, wherein the triggering event is a new release of media content preferred by the user and the personalized content comprises the newly-released media.

7. The system of claim 2, wherein the triggering event is a newly-released playlist created by a party to which the user has subscribed.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the usage data comprises information related to at least one of a number of times a user plays a media file in a predefined time period, and a number of times a user skips a media file in a predefined time period.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the usage data comprises a listing of all media files stored in the media library.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the usage data comprises ratings of each file in on the media library.

11. A computer-implemented method of automatically downloading personalized media content to a user device, comprising:

evaluating usage data related to user action on a plurality of media files in the user device;

queuing at least one new media file for download based in part upon the usage data;

automatically downloading the at least one new media file to the user device upon a triggering event; and

updating the usage data periodically.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the triggering event comprises at least one of a predetermined time, an update to a playlist to which the user has subscribed, and a release of a new playlist that has been generated by a party to which the user has subscribed.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein the triggering event comprises at least one of a recommendation by a media service providing the automatic download of the at least one new media file and a recommendation by a party that has been approved by the user.

14. The method of claim 11, further comprising assigning scores to media files in the user device based on one or more factors.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the one or more factors comprise at least one of an amount of time the media file has been stored on the user device, a number of times the media file has been reviewed by the user, a number of times the media file has been skipped by the user, and a user rating of the media file.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising assigning a higher score to a media file that was explicitly requested by the user than to a media file that was automatically downloaded to the user device.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising determining whether the user device has sufficient available memory to store the at least one new media file.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising deleting a number of media files having the lowest overall scores from the user device to liberate sufficient memory space for the at least one new media file.

19. The method of claim 18, further comprising requiring user approval prior to deleting the number of media files having the lowest overall scores.

20. A computer-executable system, comprising:

computer-implemented means for evaluating usage data related to user actions performed on media files stored in a media device;

computer-implemented means for personalizing media content for the user based on the usage data;

computer-implemented means for recognizing a pre-defined trigger event upon which the personalized media is to be downloaded;

computer-implemented means for downloading the personalized media content to the media device; and

computer-implemented means for updating the usage data periodically to reflect recent user actions.