AD-HOC WEB CONTENT PLAYER

• US 20130151351A1
• Filed: 02/04/2013
• Published: 06/13/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 11/21/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Daniel E. Tsai
• Original Assignee: Daniel E. Tsai
• Inventors: Tsai, Daniel E.
• Granted Patent: US 9,645,700 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/14.71
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9577 Optimising the visualization of content, e.g. distillation of HTML documents
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0481 based on specific properties of the displayed interaction object or a metaphor-based environment, e.g. interaction with desktop elements like windows or icons, or assisted by a cursor's changing behaviour or appearance
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0275 Auctions

Abstract

A system for dynamically playing information using conventional feeds and ad-hoc feeds to produce “playable” content includes a device that executes a player engine, the player engine collecting, combining and sequencing items to play based on selection criteria and device context, of text, image, video content by parsing selective tags, patterns, text, identifiers and resource types of interest on resources such as web pages to produce playable content, storing the playable contents results from parsing in a queue of playable feed items, selecting items from the queue to produce an ad-hoc feed and playing the ad-hoc feed.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a processor;

a display; and

a memory executing a computer program for dynamic playback of information from conventional feeds and ad-hoc feeds, the computer program product comprises instructions to cause the processor to;

produce items of playable content from plural ad-hoc feeds;

manage a queue of queued items of playable content that includes items playable content from the ad-hoc feeds;

play the queued items of playable content by cycling through queued items in the queue according to criteria specified for play back of the content; and

render a player window on the display of the system to display the playable content in at least one player window.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein single or simultaneous, asynchronous players run on the device, each having play engines that cycle through the queued items.

5. The system of claim 1 further comprising:

a set of interaction tools to facilitate interaction with the queued items, as the queued items are played, and to perform operations on the played item.

6. The system of claim 5 wherein the interactions include at least one of to make comments, to purchase an item, to make a call, and to make a reservation.

8. The system of claim 1 wherein the player is integrated into a browser and is available at any time to load feeds during browsing.

9. The system of claim 1 wherein the player is a site-tool playing products on an e-commerce site.

10. The system of claim 1 wherein the play engine further comprises:

a promo box that provides quick links to playable content, where a link in the promo box can be clicked on and a player loaded immediately, as opposed to having to drag-and-drop content from a browser page.

11. The system of claim 10 wherein sponsored messages, links, and advertisement are shown in the promo box to generate revenue and providing additional content.

12. The system of claim 10 wherein the user controls the type of information sent to their promo box, by topic, location, time, audience, activity, and other properties.

72. The mobile device of claim 6 configured to:

parse the feeds into data and code components; and

produce from the data a representation of the items of playable content where a feed'"'"'s title becomes a popup window title, the feed'"'"'s image becomes a banner to recognize a source of the feed, and a description of the document appears under the title.

3. (canceled)

4. (canceled)

7. (canceled)

13. A method executed on a device, the method comprises:

receiving ad-hoc feeds;

producing by a processor in the device playable content from the received ad-hoc feeds;

storing the playable content in computer storage;

dynamically playing the content, by;

queuing items of the produced playable content; and

cycling through the queued items to play the content.

14. (canceled)

15. A computer implement method of generating revenue from promotions, the method comprises:

sending by one or more computers set price and time slot requirements for a promotion slot;

receiving by one or more computers at least one bid for the promotion slot, the at least one bid being an acceptance of running of a promotion in the time slot at the set price;

determining by the one or more computers an actual cost for the time slot; and

causing the promotion to run in the time slot at the determined actual cost.

16. The method of claim 15 wherein the method further comprises:

setting a time period to close acceptance of bids, which time period is sent with the set price and time slot requirements.

17. The method of claim 15 wherein the method further comprises:

determining a number of bids for the time slot received prior to close of acceptance of bids.

18. The method of claim 17 wherein determining actual cost comprises:

determining by the one or more computers the actual cost for the time slot by dividing a target revenue amount for the time slot price by a number of bids received prior to the close of acceptance of bids for the time slot.

23. The method of claim 18 wherein at least two bids were accepted corresponding to at least two promotions, the method further comprises:

causing the at least two promotions to be run in a round robin sequence.

24. The method of claim 18 wherein at least two bids were accepted corresponding to at least two promotions, the method further comprises:

causing the at least two promotions to be rendered on a user device, based on user factors related to at least one of topic, location, time, audience, and activity.

25. The method of claim 18 wherein the promotions are rendered in a player that plays items of items of playable content.

26. The method of claim 25 wherein the sequence of the promotions is related to a topic of items of playable content being played in the player.

27. The method of claim 15 wherein the promotions are at least one of sponsored messages, links, and advertisements.

28. The method of claim 18 wherein the promotions are rendered in a player that plays items of playable content.

19. A computer program product tangibly embodied on a computer readable storage device, the computer program product for playing content, the computer program product comprising instructions for causing a device to:

receive ad-hoc feeds;

produce playable content from the received ad-hoc feeds;

store the playable content in computer storage;

queue items of produced playable content;

execute a play engine that cycles through queued items to play the items; and

provide interaction tools for items based on at least one of the context of the user, device and location.

20. The computer program product of claim 19 further comprising instructions to

customized the queued items of playable content by at least one property of topic, location, time, audience, and activity.

21. A system for dynamically playing information, the system comprises:

a device player that executes a player engine, the player engine, configured to;

sequence items to play the items including ad-hoc feeds with sequencing based on selection criteria;

parse selective tags, patterns, text, identifiers and resource types of interest on resources such as web pages to produce playable content;

store the playable content results from parsing in a queue of playable feed items,

select items from the queue to produce an ad-hoc feed; and

render the ad-hoc feed.

22. The system of claim 21 wherein the device player customizes the playable content by at least one property of topic, location, time, audience, and activity.

29. A mobile device comprises:

a processor;

memory coupled to the processor storing a computer program product that configures the processor to;

receive information feeds, the information feeds including web pages including web folders of images, text, and video data, and ad hoc feeds, the ad hoc feeds including syndication feeds and podcast feeds;

transform the received information feeds into items of playable content, playable in a player application that runs on the mobile device, where items of playable content comprises one or more items of text and images provided from data in the feeds, with the one or more items displayed for a time period;

store in a queue in computer storage on the device, the produced items of playable content and data that includes information related to the items of playable content for playback by the device; and

launch the player application to playback the produced content in one or more player windows.

30. The device of claim 29 wherein the computer program further configures the processor to:

asynchronously playback the produced items of playable content stored in the queue in a player window of the launched player application, independently of a web browser window of a launched web browser application.

31. The device of claim 29 wherein the computer program further configures the processor to:

asynchronously playback plural ones of the produced items of playable content stored in the queue, in a corresponding plural number of player windows without the need for user interaction.

32. The device of claim 29 wherein the instructions to transform further configure the processor to:

parse received information feeds into data and code components; and

the instructions of the computer program configure the processor to;

store the data and the code components as the produced items of playable content in the queue.

33. The device of claim 29 wherein the computer program further configures the processor to:

collect the produced items of playable content into a grouped set of produced items of playable content.

34. The device of claim 29 wherein the instructions to transform comprises instructions to:

parse the received information feeds into data and code components; and

produce from the data information regarding sources of the information feeds, banners, titles, contents, links, media, and interactions provided for the received feeds.

35. The device of claim 29 wherein the computer program further configures the processor to:

select a subset from the queue for playback.

36. The device of claim 35 wherein the computer program selects the subset based on one or more user defined criteria selected from the groups consisting of topic, location, time, audience, activity.

37. The device of claim 35 wherein the computer program selects the subset based on one or more default criteria that includes at least one of number of players, number of feeds played in each player, and playback speed.

38. The device of claim 29 wherein the computer program further configures the processor to:

repeatedly play the stored items of playable content in the queue for playback in a single player window.

39. A mobile device comprises:

a processor;

memory coupled to the processor storing a computer program product that configures the processor to;

transform received information feeds into items of playable content;

store in a queue in computer storage on the device, the items of playable content and data that includes information related to the items of playable content where items of playable content comprises one or more items of text and images from data the information feeds, with the one or more items displayed for a time period;

provide a set of player controls that control playback of the items of playable content;

playback the stored items of playable content; and

in response to a user command,

provide a set of user interaction tools that enable a user to interact with the items of playable content during playback.

40. The mobile device of claim 39, wherein the player controls includes a pause control that causes the processor to pause playing of the items of playable content by the player;

and the program further configures the processor to;

provide a subset of the user interaction tools, the tools being tools that are relevant to the items of playable content paused by the player, the subset of tools providing user interaction with the paused items of playable content.

41. The mobile device of claim 40 wherein the paused items of playable content is a product for sale, and the subset of tools includes at least one tool selected from the group consisting of a comment tool, a call tool, a transaction tool, and a coupon tool.

42. The mobile device of claim 39 wherein the interactive tools are part of the items of playable content definition.

43. The mobile device of claim 39 wherein the interactive tools are built into the player.

44. The mobile device of claim 39 wherein the coupon tool provides a coupon related to the items of playable content that a user clips and saves, with data for the coupon invoked by the coupon tool is embedded within the feed that produced the particular items of playable content.

45. The mobile device of claim 39 wherein the player application detects an existence of data in the paused items of playable content and uses that data for an interactive tool with the tool based on at least one factor selected from the groups consisting of topic, location, time, audience and activity.

46. The mobile device of claim 39 wherein the tool is represented by an icon that is hyperlinked to a URL to provide the interaction tool that is dynamically associated with the items of playable content in focus based on the device and the user context at the moment to offer the user relevant interactions with the items of playable content.

47. A mobile device comprises:

a processor;

memory coupled to the processor storing a computer program product that configures the processor to;

retrieve from a queue in computer storage on the device, produced items of playable content and data that includes information related to the items of playable content, the content including content types selected from the group consisting of tagged content converted into items of playable content including images and tagged text, and feed links converted into items of playable content; and

retrieving from the queue for playback at least two different content types; and

repeatedly play the at least two, different retrieved content types.

48. The mobile device of claim 47, wherein the processor is configured to launch a single player with which the at least two different content types are played.

49. The mobile device of claim 47, wherein the processor is configured to launch a single player and with a web page having plural feeds, the processor is further configured to detect all feeds on the web page;

transform the detected feeds into items of playable content;

store the transformed feeds as items of playable content in the queue; and

play the feeds detected on the web page in the single player.

50. The mobile device of claim 49 wherein the processor is configured to:

parsed the web page for content to detect a directory of feeds, particular tagged contents, images, and text.

51. The mobile device of claim 50, wherein tagged content is converted into items of playable content using specific tags and patterns of tags and values on pages of tagged content to identify the content on the pages to convert into items of playable content.

52. A mobile device comprises:

a display;

a processor;

memory coupled to the processor storing a computer program product that configures the processor to;

retrieve from a queue in computer storage on the device produced items of playable content and data that includes information related to the items of playable content, where items of playable content comprises one or more items of text and images provided from data in the feeds, with the one or more items displayed for a time period; and

render the retrieved content on a display device with the rendition having a title, with the window title including information from the feed title, a banner that corresponds to the feed image, and a description of a document in the feed, wherein the processor is configured to;

sequence the items of playable content in the window for a predetermined number of seconds.

53. The mobile device of claim 52, wherein the processor is configured to:

repeatedly sequence the items of playable content in the window for a predetermined number of seconds

54. The mobile device of claim 52, wherein the processor is configured to:

provide a new and changing set of items of playable content on display based on set refresh value.

55. The mobile device of claim 52, wherein the processor is configured to:

launch a web browser; and

at least one player is launch playing items of playable content derived from at least one feed provided from the launch of the web browser.

56. The mobile device of claim 52, wherein the processor is configured to:

launch an application program; and

plural players are launched each playing items of playable content with each player independently displaying content in timed sequences.

57. The mobile device of claim 56, wherein the plural players play the items of playable content independent of the browser, allowing the user to continue with conventional browsing, while also showing playing feed contents in a small, concise visual manner.

58. The mobile device of claim 52, wherein a single player is launched and renders a combine view of all items of playable content.

59. The mobile device of claim 52, wherein the content is played in a player that operates independently of a web browser and the content is played in parallel as a user browses various web sites.

60. A web server comprises:

a processor;

memory in communication with the processor, the memory storing a computer program product that configures the processor to produce webpages, the webpages including links, with at least one of the links linked to code that generates a player, with the player comprising instructions to;

access content on a website associated with the web server;

render content in a window on the player.

61. The web server of claim 60 wherein the site player allows websites to promote feed-based information directly to the user without the need for feed reader software.

62. The web server of claim 60 wherein the site player is interactive permitting a user to select the feed and obtain the playable feed items.

63. The web server of claim 60 wherein browsing a website is asynchronous branching and browsing of many pieces of information.

64. The web server of claim 63 wherein users receive site content in the players after the user has browsed away from a page or site.

65. The web server of claim 63 wherein the web server adds links to the website to start feed players embedded within a web page as popups.

66. A mobile device comprises:

a processor;

memory coupled to the processor storing a computer program product that configures the processor to;

launch a web browser application to a web page having an integrated extension application in the web browser,

launch a player application by selecting links that represent syndicated feeds on the web pages by receiving data representing a user dragging and dropping one of the links from the feeds onto the integrated extension causing the player application to load and process the dragged and dropped linked contents.

67. The mobile device of claim 66, wherein the integrated extension is represented as an icon on a toolbar.

68. The mobile device of claim 66, wherein the integrated extension is represented on a menu within the web browser.

69. The mobile device of claim 66, wherein the integrated extension is available during browsing to load and play feeds as the feeds are found.

70. The mobile device of claim 66, wherein the player application is provided as a small pop-up window.

71. The mobile device of claim 66, wherein the web pages include links to feeds represented by icons on the pages and which are transformed into content that can be played by the player application.

73. A mobile device comprises:

a processor;

memory coupled to the processor storing a computer program product that configures the processor to;

launch a player application to playback in windows of the launched player application, produced items of playable content stored in the device, where items of playable content comprises one or more items of text and images, with the one or more items displayed for a time period;

generate a player control pad that is associated with windows of the launched player, the player control pad control pad renders a menu of control-settings and a history of feeds played in the player.

74. The device of claim 73 wherein the menu includes a control that is used to drag-and-drop content into the player.

75. The device of claim 73 wherein the processor is further configured to select a feed off the menu to play the feed.

76. The device of claim 73 wherein the feed is represented by either the title of feed or the web URL of the feed.

77. The device of claim 73 wherein the menu includes a munch control that parses a browsed page to produce a playable feed.

78. The device of claim 73 wherein the menu includes a bunch control that collects feeds from a browsed page to into a items of playable contents set of feed.