System and method for distributing and providing recommendations related to playable content to a user based on information extracted from one or more playback devices of the user

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9256602-B2
Application number	US-52026806-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 13, 2006
Priority date	Sep 13, 2006
Publication date	Feb 9, 2016
Grant date	Feb 9, 2016

Abstract

A system and method for distributing playable content and for recommending playable content to a user where the recommendations are generated at a wide area network content server considering information extracted from one or more playback devices of the user by means of an intelligent agent resident on a processing device. The intelligent agent functions to scan the memory devices associated with the processing device and/or other devices in communication with the processing device for the purpose of determining what playable content is resident on the memory devices so scanned. Data related to the playable content uncovered during a scan is uploaded to the wide area network content server where the data is usable by a recommendation engine to make more informed recommendations for that user.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for providing recommendations related to playable content, comprising:
receiving from a user of a user account authorization of at least one processing device of a plurality of processing devices associated with the user account;
authorizing by an administrator of a wide area network server at least one mobile processing device of a plurality of mobile processing devices associated with the user account, the at least one mobile device being in communication with the at least on processing device;
receiving a selection of one or more memories for each of the at least one processing device and the at least one mobile processing device to scan for playable content;
using a scanning application on a scheduled basis to scan the selected on or more memories to locate all of the playable content that is stored within the selected on or more memories;
uploading to a wide area network server data associated with all of the playable content located on the selected one or more memories scanned by the scanning application;
using the uploaded data in a recommendation engine associated with the wide area network server to generate a playable content recommendation list, the playable content recommendation list referencing recommended playable content and including limited use licenses associated with the recommended playable content to allow sampling of the recommended playable content and based at least in part on user feedback concerning previously provided recommendations;
providing from the wide area network sever to the at least on processing device the generated playable content recommendation list on a scheduled basis;
determining an amount of available memory in the at least on mobile processing device;
automatically selecting at least a subset of the generated playable content recommendation list to sync from the at least on processing device to the at least on mobile device such that the selected at least a subset of the generated playable content recommendation list does not exceed the available memory;
wherein the data associated with the playable content located on the one or more memories scanned by the scanning application comprises times at which playable content was stored on the one or more memories.

2. The method as recited in claim 1 , further comprising downloading the selected at least a subset of a playable content recommendation list from the at least one processing device to the at least one mobile processing device during a synchronization process.

3. The method as recited in claim 1 , comprising automatically editing the generated playable content recommendation list by the recommendation engine to remove from the playable content recommendation list any playable content located on the one or more memories by the scanning application.

4. The method as recited in claim 1 , comprising downloading the scanning application from a wide area network server to the processing device.

5. The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein the data associated with playable content located on the one or more memories by the scanning application comprises meta data associated with the playable content.

6. The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein the data associated with the playable content located on the one or more memories by the scanning application comprises times at which playable content was played from the one or more memories.

7. The method as recited in claim 1 , comprising accepting user input to inhibit execution of the scanning application.

8. The method as recited in claim 1 , comprising accepting user input which functions to designate the one or more memories to be scanned by the scanning application.

9. The method as recited in claim 1 , further comprising:
providing a unique identifier associated with the at least one processing device to the wide area network server to validate the at least one processing device as being authorized to interact with a playback content distribution application of the wide area network server; and
automatically receiving a license to enable playing of the playable content located on the one or more memories if the at least one processing device is authorized to interact with the playback content distribution application.

10. The method as recited in claim 9 , further comprising:
in response to the license being expired, invalid, or missing and the at least one processing device being authorized to interact with the playback content distribution application of the wide area network server, receiving the license without any user notification or user interaction; and
in response to the license being expired, invalid, or missing and the at least one processing device not being authorized to interact with the playback content distribution application of the wide area network server, receiving a notification that the at least one processing device is not authorized.

11. The method as recited in claim 9 , further comprising:
in response to the at least one processing device being authorized to interact with the playback content distribution application, automatically receiving licenses for additional, downloaded playable content that might be resident on the at least one processing device; and
in response to the processing device being deauthorized to interact with the playback content distribution application and subsequently attempting to acquire a subscription based license, automatically removing all subscription-based licenses for downloaded content from the at least one processing device.

12. The method as recited in claim 1 , further comprising:
displaying a listing of processing devices authorized for the user account; and
providing a request to the wide area network server that the processing device be authorized for the user account to interact with a playback content distribution application of the wide area network server.

13. The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein the playable content recommendation list is further generated using at least one of information gathered via an e-commerce engine that receives selections of playable content desired to be purchased by one or more users, and user demographics obtained when the user creates the user account.

14. A system for providing recommendations related to playable content, comprising:
a wide area network server having an associated recommendation engine and a scanning Application;
a plurality of processing devices in communication with the wide area network server and associated with a user account, at least one processing device of the plurality of processing devices being authorized by a user of the user account;
a plurality of mobile processing devices in communication with the at least one processing device and the wide area network server and associated with the user account, at least one mobile processing device of the plurality of mobile processing devices being authorized by an administrator of the wide area network server;
wherein the wide area network is configured to receive a selection of one or more memories of each of the at least one processing device and the at least one mobile processing device to scan for playable content,
wherein the scanning application is configured to scan the selected one or more memories on a scheduled basis to locate all of the playable content stored within the one or more memories, and upload to the wide area network server data associated with all of the playable content located on the one or more memories scanned by the scanning application,
wherein the recommendation engine associated with the wide area network server uses the data upload

Assignees

• Stratton John G
• Money Jesse Elliott
• Lewis Roshan Lawrence
• Welch David Allen
• Cellco Partnership Dba Verizon

Inventors

• Stratton John G
• Money Jesse Elliott
• Lewis Roshan Lawrence
• Welch David Allen

Classifications

• G06F17/30029 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06Q30/02

  Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising · CPC title

• G06F17/30053

  Physics · mapped topic

• H04L65/4084

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04L12/2812

  describing content present in a home automation network, e.g. audio video content (retrieval from the Internet G06F16/95) · CPC title