System and method for identifying music content in a P2P real time recommendation network

• US 8,422,490 B2
• Filed: 10/26/2010
• Issued: 04/16/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 07/11/2006
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Concert Technology Corporation
• Original Assignee: Napo Enerprises, LLC (Concert Technology Corporation)
• Inventors: Erickson, Michael, Svendsen, Hugh
• Primary Examiner(s): Pezzlo, John
• Application Number:
  US12/911,778
• Publication Number:
  US 20120072852A1
• Time in Patent Office: 903 Days
• Field of Search: 370/390, 370/252, 370/386, 370/329, 709/248
• US Class Current: 370/386
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/634 Query by example, e.g. query by humming
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/637 Administration of user profiles, e.g. generation, initialization, adaptation or distribution
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/68 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/683 using metadata automatically derived from the content
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0484 for the control of specific functions or operations, e.g. selecting or manipulating an object, an image or a displayed text element, setting a parameter value or selecting a range
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/00 Data switching networks interconnection of, or transfer of information or other signals between, memories, input/output devices or central processing units G06F13/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/104 Peer-to-peer [P2P] networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/00 Network arrangements, protocols or services independent of the application payload and not provided for in the other groups of this subclass networks security protocols H04L9/40; wireless communication networks H04W
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4661 Deriving a combined profile for a plurality of end-users of the same client, e.g. for family members within a home user profiles in network data switching protocols H04L67/306
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4668 for recommending content, e.g. movies
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4788 communicating with other users, e.g. chatting arrangements for providing for computer conferences, e.g. chat rooms, to substation in data switching networks H04L12/1813; distributed application using peer-to-peer [P2P] networks H04L67/104
• 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 21/4826 using recommendation lists, e.g. of programs or channels sorted out according to their score
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8113 comprising music, e.g. song in MP3 format
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/00 Television systems details H04N3/00, H04N5/00; methods or arrangements, for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals H04N19/00; selective content distribution H04N21/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/163 by receiver means only

Abstract

A peer-to-peer (P2P) network for providing real time media recommendations is provided. The media recommendations may be song recommendations or video recommendations. Each time a media presentation is played by a peer device, the peer device provides a recommendation identifying the media presentation to other peer devices in the P2P network. A peer device having received recommendations from the other peer devices in the P2P network then programmatically, or automatically, selects a next media presentation to play from the media presentations recently played by the other peer devices and one or more locally stored media presentations. If the selected media presentation is not stored locally by the peer device, the peer device may obtain the selected media presentation from a subscription based service enabling streaming or download of the selected media presentation, an e-commerce service enabling purchase and download of the selected media presentation, or another peer device.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving, by a peer device, a plurality of media recommendations from a plurality of recommending peer devices in a peer-to-peer (P2P) network, wherein;

the plurality of media recommendations identify a plurality of media presentations such that each of the plurality of media recommendations comprises a Globally Unique Identifier (GUID) that identifies a corresponding one of the plurality of media presentations; and

each media recommendation of the plurality of media recommendations is automatically sent from a corresponding one of the plurality of recommending peer devices in response to the media presentation identified by the media recommendation being played on the corresponding one of the plurality of recommending peer devices;

automatically adding the plurality of media presentations identified by the plurality of media recommendations to a pre-existing list of media presentations, wherein;

the pre-existing list of media presentations is stored on the peer device and includes two or more media presentations;

each media presentation included in the pre-existing list of media presentations is scored; and

the plurality of media presentations are added to the pre-existing list of media presentations based on the plurality of media recommendations as the plurality of media recommendations are received from the plurality of recommending peer devices to provide an updated list of media presentations;

automatically selecting a media presentation to play on the peer device from the updated list of media presentations based on user preferences, wherein automatically selecting the media presentation to play comprises;

scoring each media presentation of the plurality of media presentations identified by the plurality of media recommendations based on the user preferences; and

automatically selecting the media presentation to play from the updated list of media presentations based on scores assigned to the media presentations in the updated list of media presentations; and

playing the selected media presentation on the peer device.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein receiving the plurality of media recommendations comprises receiving the plurality of media recommendations from the plurality of recommending peer devices via a central server.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

comparing the GUID from each of the plurality of media recommendations to GUIDs for a plurality of locally stored media presentations to determine whether each of the plurality of media presentations is stored locally by the peer device; and

obtaining ones of the plurality of media presentations that are not stored locally and have a score greater than a predetermined threshold from a remote content source.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein the plurality of media recommendations further comprise references to the plurality of media presentations at the remote content source, and obtaining the ones of the plurality of media presentations comprises obtaining the ones of the plurality of media presentations from the remote content source using the references.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein receiving the plurality of media recommendations comprises receiving the plurality of media recommendations from the plurality of recommending peer devices via a central server, wherein the central server inserts the references to the plurality of media presentations at the remote content source.

6. The method of claim 3 further comprising obtaining previews of other ones of the plurality of media presentations that are not stored locally and have a score less than the predetermined threshold but greater than a second predetermined threshold from the remote content source.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein the plurality of media recommendations further comprise references to previews of the plurality of media presentations at the remote content source, and obtaining the previews of the other ones of the plurality of media presentations comprises obtaining the previews of the other ones of the plurality of media presentations from the remote content source using the references.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein receiving the plurality of media recommendations comprises receiving the plurality of media recommendations from the plurality of recommending peer devices via a central server, wherein the central server inserts the references to the previews of the plurality of media presentations at the remote content source.

9. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

comparing the GUID from each of the plurality of media recommendations to GUIDs for a plurality of locally stored media presentations to identify ones of the plurality of media presentations that are not stored locally; and

obtaining at least one media presentation of the ones of the plurality of media presentations from a remote content source.

10. The method of claim 9 further comprising:

obtaining the GUIDs for the plurality of locally stored media presentations; and

storing the GUIDs for the plurality of locally stored media presentations.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein storing the GUIDs comprises storing the GUIDs in a registry, the registry including a registry entry for each one of the plurality of locally stored media presentations, the registry entry comprising the GUID for the one of the plurality of locally stored media presentations and a reference to the one of the plurality of locally stored media presentations.

12. The method of claim 10 wherein obtaining the GUIDs comprises:

providing identification parameters for the plurality of locally stored media presentations to a remote identification function, wherein the remote identification function identifies each of the plurality of locally stored media presentations based on the identification parameters; and

receiving the GUIDs for the plurality of locally stored media presentations from the remote identification function.

13. The method of claim 10 wherein obtaining the GUIDs comprises:

importing ones of the plurality of locally stored media presentations from an external source;

providing information identifying the ones of the plurality of locally stored media presentations to a remote service; and

receiving the GUIDs for the ones of the plurality of locally stored media presentations from the remote service.

14. The method of claim 10 wherein obtaining the GUIDs comprises downloading ones of the plurality of locally stored media presentations and the GUIDs for the ones of the plurality of locally stored media presentations from a remote content source.

15. The method of claim 1 further comprising filtering the plurality of media recommendations to provide filtered media recommendations, wherein automatically selecting the media presentation comprises automatically selecting the media presentation to play from a group of media presentations including the media presentations identified by the filtered media recommendations.

16. The method of claim 15 wherein filtering the plurality of media recommendations comprises filtering the plurality of media recommendations to remove media recommendations for media presentations that are not stored locally.

17. The method of claim 15 wherein filtering the plurality of media recommendations comprises filtering the plurality of media recommendations to remove media recommendations for media presentations that are not stored locally and are not accessible from a remote content source.

18. The method of claim 1 wherein receiving the plurality of media recommendations comprises receiving the plurality of media recommendations from the plurality of recommending peer devices via a central server, wherein the central server filters the plurality of media recommendations prior to sending the plurality of media recommendations to the peer device.

19. A method of operation of a peer device comprising:

providing a list of scored media presentations comprising a first plurality of scored media presentations;

receiving, at the peer device, a media recommendation from each of a plurality of recommending peer devices to provide a plurality of media recommendations, wherein;

each of the plurality of media recommendations comprises a Globally Unique Identifier (GUID) that identifies a corresponding one of a plurality of media presentations, and each media recommendation of the plurality of media recommendations is automatically sent from a corresponding one of the plurality of recommending peer devices in response to playback of the media presentation identified by the media recommendation on the corresponding one of the plurality of recommending peer devices;

scoring each of the plurality of media presentations corresponding to the plurality of media recommendations to provide a second plurality of scored media presentations;

automatically updating the list of scored media presentations to include the second plurality of scored media presentations, thereby providing an updated list of scored media presentations;

automatically selecting a media presentation from the updated list of scored media presentations to play on the peer device, wherein the automatically selected media presentation is selected based on the media presentation having a most preferred score among media presentations in the updated list of scored media presentations; and

automatically playing the selected media presentation on the peer device.

20. The method of claim 19 further comprising:

comparing the GUID from each of the plurality of media recommendations to GUIDs for a plurality of locally stored media presentations to determine whether each of the plurality of media presentations is stored locally by the peer device; and

obtaining ones of the plurality of media presentations that are not stored locally and have a score greater than a predetermined threshold from a remote content source.