Method of, and system for, webcasting with just-in-time resource provisioning, automated telephone signal acquisition and streaming, and fully-automated event archival

• US 20080046585A1
• Filed: 10/22/2007
• Published: 02/21/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 04/19/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Akamai Technologies, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Akamai Technologies, Inc.
• Inventors: Blumofe, Robert
• Granted Patent: US 7,640,303 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/231
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1818 Conference organisation arrangements, e.g. handling schedules, setting up parameters needed by nodes to attend a conference, booking network resources, notifying involved parties
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1831 Tracking arrangements for later retrieval, e.g. recording contents, participants activities or behavior, network status
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1096 Supplementary features, e.g. call forwarding or call holding systems providing special services or facilities to telephony subscribers H04M3/42
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1101 Session protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/4038 with floor control
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/612 for unicast
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/70 Media network packetisation
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2203/5009 Adding a party to an existing conference conducting a computer conference, e.g. admission detection H04L12/1822
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2203/5072 Multiple active speakers conducting a computer conference, e.g. Admission detection H04L12/1822
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/56 Arrangements for connecting several subscribers to a common circuit, i.e. affording conference facilities video conference systems H04N7/15
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/006 Networks other than PSTN/ISDN providing telephone service, e.g. Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) , including next generation networks with a packet-switched transport layer H04L65/00 takes precedence; aspects not specific to the type of network H04M3/00; special services in those networks H04M3/42
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/123 where the packet-switched network is an Internet Protocol Multimedia System-type network

Abstract

A multimedia business communications platform enables conference casting over a network. End users or so-called “audience members” participate in conference casts from anywhere on the Internet or behind an enterprise firewall using a standard Web browser running a streaming media player. The conference platform typically includes a number of subsystems: a Web reservation subsystem, a voice server subsystem, a content storage subsystem, a monitoring data subsystem, an attendee access subsystem, and an archive subsystem. Web reservation subsystem provides a mechanism that enables an entity to make an event reservation. Web reservation subsystem typically includes a database and an associated database management system. Voice server subsystem validates a user and converts an incoming telephone signal (i.e., the conference call) to an output data stream. Attendee access subsystem responds to attendee requests and returns information (e.g., a data structure such as a stream metafile) that directs an attendee'"'"'s streaming media player on how to join the conference cast. Content storage subsystem is used to manage event information and, under the control of the archive subsystem, to archive the event files. The monitoring data subsystem comprises a set of monitoring agents distributed throughout the network. Using these components, the system implements just-in-time resource provisioning, automated signal acquisition and streaming, and automated archiving upon event completion.

Claims

1. Apparatus for web casting over a computer network, comprising:

a first subsystem accessible over a computer network and including code for enabling a reservation entity to reserve a web casting event, to obtain an event identifier, an access code, and an attendee URL, and to initiate storage of an event information file associated with the web casting event, where the web casting event is a web-based audio conference event for casting speech of a speaker to one or more audience members over the computer network;

a second subsystem including code for enabling initiation of the web casting event by entering the event identifier and access code, and code for generating a data stream from an audio signal derived from speech of a speaker, wherein the speech of the speaker is receivable by the second subsystem over a telephone network; and

a third subsystem accessible over the computer network and including code responsive to a client browser associated with a listener, who is an audience member, requesting the attendee URL for returning to the client browser a data structure including a stream URL, wherein the stream URL enables a streaming media player to obtain the data stream so that the listener can hear the speaker during the web-based casting event;

a fourth subsystem accessible over the computer network and including code for generating a directory for the web casting event, and code for storing in the directory the event information file and the uploaded data stream; and

a fifth subsystem accessible over the computer network and including code for creating an archive of the web casting event and for storing the archive in the directory.

2. The apparatus as described in claim 1 wherein the second subsystem comprises a set of one or more servers, wherein each of the servers includes a telephone control engine for playing voice prompts requesting entry by the speaker of the event identifier and the access code.

3. The apparatus as described in claim 2 wherein the telephone control engine writes the data stream to a storage disk associated with the voice server during the web casting event.

4. The apparatus as described in claim 3 wherein the telephone control engine uploads the data stream from the storage disk if the audio signal is interrupted.

5. A method of web casting, comprising:

reserving a web casting event (a) by providing a reservation entity with an event identifier, access code and attendee URL;

(b) generating an event information file, and (c) creating a directory associated with the web casting event in which the event information file is stored, wherein the web casting event is an audio conference casting event;

initiating the web casting event (a) by verifying that an access code entered by a host is a given function of the event identifier entered by the host, and (b) upon verification, encoding speech data derived from speech of a speaker into a data stream;

enabling a listener, who is an audience member, to access the data stream (a) by returning to a client browser launched to the attendee URL a data structure including a stream URL at which the data stream can be obtained so that the listener can hear the speaker during the web casting event; and

generating an archive upon completion of the web casting event.

6. The method as described in claim 5 further including:

generating a copy of the data stream as the web casting event proceeds; and

automatically uploading the copy to a central store if the encoded speech data is interrupted.

7. The method as described in claim 5 wherein the step of generating the archive includes:

defining metadata for each data stream copy that defines what portion of each data stream is to be used for the archive; and

storing the data stream copies and the metadata in a directory of the central store uniquely associated with the event identifier.

8. The method as described in claim 5 further including the step of enabling access to the archive upon entry of the attendee URL.

9. The method as described in claim 5 further including:

restricting access to the archive after a given time period has elapsed as determined by information in the event information file.

10. The method as described in claim 5 wherein the data streams are streamed over a content delivery network.