Patent Application
20230208977
The present invention generally relates to greetings. More particularly, the present invention relates to a process for personalizing an electronic greeting, in the form of a song, with a personalized voice message.
In the past, the most common way of sending messages to others for special occasions was by sending a greeting card. One could buy greeting cards relating to birthdays, Christmas, New Years, anniversaries and the like. Such greeting cards included a preprinted message on or in the card to convey thoughts and sentiments. Some greeting cards were designed so as to play music or a portion of a song when the card is opened. The greeting cards were mailed or delivered in person to the intended recipient.
More recently, with the advent of the internet, there are websites which offer digital greeting cards. These greeting cards mimic the older paper cards and typically include a preprinted message. Instead of mailing or delivering the card in person, the user can select the card and email the card or a link to the loved one or other recipient.
There is a continuing need to personalize such greetings which can be done conveniently over the internet so as to include a personalized audible message from the giver to the recipient with either an electronic greeting card or a song. The present invention fulfills these needs, and provides other related advantages.
The present invention resides in a process for personalizing an electronic greeting. An electronically accessible website is provided. The website has a library of electronic greetings comprising musical songs. These songs are categorized, such as by title and topic. A personalized audio message placement window of a predetermined length is determined in each electronic greeting song.
A user remotely electronically connects with the website via a computer network. The website and electronic greeting songs may be accessible through a cloud-based serverless network. The user searches for a song, such as by selecting a category or by keyword. The user selects a greeting from the library of electronic greetings. A predefined portion of a song is played when selected by the end user.
At least one personalized audio message is then created or selected. The end user may select a prerecorded voice message. Preferably, however, the end user is prompted to record at least one voice message. The at least one personalized audio message is associated with the electronic greeting. This may include placing the recorded personalized audio message within the predetermined placement window in the song. The personalized voice message may comprise first and second recorded voice messages having a predefined time limit. The first recorded voice message is inserted in first predetermined window of the song and the second recorded voice message is inserted into a second predetermined window of the song.
The volume of the song is adjusted from a higher level to a lower level, such as a background level, during the recorded personal audio message. The volume of the song is automatically readjusted to the higher level after the personalized audio message. A portion of the combined electronic greeting song and one or more personalized voice messages is played to the user for approval.
Electronic delivery information is provided. This may be an email address or cellphone number for at least one recipient. The end user may be charged according to the number of recipients the electronic greeting and personalized message is to be electronically transmitted to. Then, the electronic greeting, with the at least one personalized audio message, is transmitted to the at least one recipient. A royalty to a rights holder may be automatically paid for the electronic greeting that is transmitted to the recipient.
Other features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following more detailed description, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, which illustrate, by way of example, the principles of the invention.
The accompanying drawings illustrate the invention. In such drawings:
As shown in the accompanying drawings, for purposes of illustration, the present invention is directed to a system and process for personalizing an electronic greeting, such as a musical song and/or an electronic greeting card, so as to associate a personalized audio message with the electronic greeting and transmit it to one or more desired recipients. The present invention replaces the increasingly obsolete printed greeting cards, which have become expensive to purchase and mail. The present invention also enables a greater degree of personalization than is currently available with electronic greeting cards, and is particularly suited for creating and sending a personalized electronic greeting in the form of a song having a personalized audio message associated with the song.
With reference now to
In a particularly preferred embodiment, the present invention utilizes a serverless architecture instead of a traditional architecture. The serverless architecture is a cloud computing model in which the cloud providers manage the allocation and provisioning of servers in a dynamic manner. In contrast to the traditional server architecture, in serverless computing, organizations need not purchase servers or rent cloud space. Instead, computer servers are involved but developers are not concerned with them. In serverless computing, the user only pays for services which it uses in the entire infrastructures maintained by the service provider. This is a cheaper option, particularly with up front expenses. It also enables the user to scale fast on demand. Scaling up or down is a main feature of serverless computing. Developers can do limitless coding while server providers can take care of increasing or decreasing demand of capacity required. Developers can also easily write independent methods to invoke calls to back end and function as a service coding is quick and free of any hassles. Code deployment and bug fixing time is reduced substantially. Testing and fixing on piecemeal basis is available instead of major overhaul to developers. Vendor charges to the user are based on the number of functions executed, which are done time slots are allocated to run a function. The infrastructure may be maintained by a provider, such as Amazon Web Service, Lambda, Azure.
The website may be cloud-based and accessible through the serverless network, as described above. This may be in the form of “thin client” architecture. For example, jukeboxrocks.com (JBR) may be utilized and requires nothing to be installed locally. Such a website would be in the cloud and would not require any aspects of the location installation to run the application. As the JBR application does not require local device installation, all processing runs on the SAAS (Software as a Service) architecture. Preferably, the present invention currently would utilize AWS Lambda, which is a serverless, event-driven computer service that lets one run code for virtually any type of application or back end service without provisioning or managing servers.
End user electronic devices 102 interface or communicate with the provider's website and server or computer 100 through a communications network 104, such as the internet or the like. The end user's electronic device 102 may comprise a desktop, laptop or the like which has a wired connection to the network 104. Alternatively, the end user's electronic device 102′ may comprise a smartphone, tablet, or other computerized electronic device, which is wirelessly connected to the network 104, and thus able to access and interface with the provider's website.
With continuing reference to
With reference now to
With reference now to
With reference now to
The electronic greetings are modified, as necessary. For example, the electronic greeting songs may be modified so that they are of a predetermined length or range of lengths, such as having a maximum length. It is believed that listeners will become disinterested in electronic greeting songs which are longer than two or three minutes in length. Thus, electronic greeting songs that are longer than this are modified (404) so as to fall within this shorter length.
The electronic greeting songs are also analyzed and a determination made where the best one or two locations within the electronic greeting song to place the audio message (406). The one or more personalized voice messages which will be associated with the song are of a limited time frame. For example, a message of no more than twelve seconds may be provided to the end user. In some cases, more than one personalized voice message, such as two voice messages, may be associated with the electronic greeting song. In such a case, first and second best placement windows are predetermined for each song. Such placement may be at the beginning of the song, the middle of the song, or even the end of the song. However, the “best portions” of the song should not be affected. For example, for a “Happy Birthday” song, such a predetermined window would not be placed, preferably, during the singing of “happy birthday”, but instead in a different window of the song. In this manner, the message or best portions of the electronic greeting song will be preserved for listening.
In accordance with the present invention, the greetings are categorized (408). For example, such greetings could be characterized under the categories or topics of love, gratitude or being thankful, getting well or sympathy, congratulations, or apologies or being sorry. The categories could also include aspects of one's life to celebrate, such as birthdays, anniversaries, weddings and engagements, graduations, or pregnancies or births of babies or the like. Such electronic greetings could also be categorized according to holidays, such as Christmas, New Years, Easter, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, and Halloween. Such greetings could also be characterized according to gender, so as to be directed to “him” or “her”, “husband”, “wife”, etc. Categories for songs could be similarly categorized as noted above, or also be categorized by musical genre, artist, time period of the song and the like. The electronic greeting songs may also be categorized and searchable by key word, title, and the like.
With continuing reference to
The service provider may provide prerecorded messages which can be selected by the end user or means for recording personalized messages (412). For example, short audio messages may be prerecorded, listened to, and selectable by the end user to include in the electronic greeting. Such prerecorded messages may be by actors, athletes, or other well-known and famous people or even the artist of the song.
More typically, however, the end user is the one who records the at least one personalized audio message to be associated with the electronic greeting. This may be by means of the end user selecting a record button on a website and recording a short audio message to be associated with the electronic greeting. The audio recording is captured via the website and stored for later processing. Alternatively, an audio file containing the end user's audio message may be uploaded to the service provider via the website or other means. As yet another alternative, as mentioned above, the end user, such as one not having a microphone associated with his or her electronic device, may call a telephone number and leave one or more audio voice messages to be included in the electronic greeting.
With reference now to
The end user then searches for a greeting, such as by category or keyword (502). The website or interface may display various categories for the end user to select, such as birthdays, sentimental/love, Christmas greeting, New Year's greeting, get well message, etc. Categories of songs may also be displayed, such as by genre (classical, rock, rap, etc.), time period, artist, etc. In this manner, the end user may be easily able to narrow a potential set of electronic greeting cards or musical songs to be selected from by choosing one or more of these categories and/or subcategories. Additionally, or alternatively, the end user may be able to conduct a keyword search, such as when the end user knows a title of a desired song, a desired artist or band, or knows certain words of a song and which the end user inputs to search the library and database of the electronic greeting instead of by category.
The end user then selects a greeting (504), after which a greeting card representing the selection is displayed or a portion of the selected song may be played for the end user (506), such as a five-second identifying portion of the song. In this manner, the end user can see the electronic greeting card before making a final selection or hear a small portion of the song to confirm that the song is what the end user wishes to select and use for the personalized electronic greeting.
The invention contemplates that musical songs are many times the memories of our lives. Selecting a song may be used to bring up a memory, special moment, or anything personal which the end user wishes to convey to a recipient. Alternatively, the song may evoke an emotion, convey a sentiment or message or the like.
After selecting the desired greeting, the end user is then given the option to either select a prerecorded personalized audio message or create at least one personalized audio message by the end user (508). In a particularly preferred embodiment, at least one personalized voice message is recorded having a defined time limit. For example, the end user may be given a period and time limit, such as up to twelve seconds, to record an audio message. The end user may hit the “record” button, and be shown a clock or timer showing the amount of time remaining for the end user to record that audio message. The present invention contemplates that more than one personalized audio message may be created by the end user. In such a case, the end user may divide up his or her allotted time for recording messages between two messages, or be provided a time limit for each of the messages.
The one or more audio messages are then associated with the greeting (510). The at least one personalized voice message is associated with the electronic greeting song, such as corresponding with at least one predetermined window. The personalized voice message may comprise first and second recorded voice messages by the end user, each having a predefined time limit. The first recorded voice message is inserted into a first predefined window and the second recorded voice message is inserted into a second predefined window. As each song is different, the provider may designate one or more distinct points where it would be best to insert the one or more personalized messages. Typically, when recording two personalized voice messages, the first personalized voice message will be associated with the first predetermined window of the song and the second personalized voice message will be associate with the second predetermined window. Typically, at least one of the predetermined windows is during the playing of the song.
By way of example, an end user knows his wife has a favorite sentimental song when he was in the army in 1952-1953. The song is “I'll be Home for Christmas” by Bing Crosby. As described above, the end user may search for this song under various categories, such as sentimental, Christmas, time period, or keyword such as title, name of artist, etc. It will be appreciated that some songs can overlap categories and thus be categorized in multiple categories. When the end user finds the desired song, a small portion, such as five to ten seconds, of the song is played for the end user to confirm that this is the song he or she desires to use.
The end user is then prompted to make one or more short audio recordings. For example, the first may be labeled number one for 5-12 seconds and the second labeled number two for 5-12 seconds, or whatever predefined time period the provider defines. When the end user selects the first record button, he may say “Hi Dee, this is your beloved Hal and this song should take you back to 1952, which was a favorite of yours”. For the second record prompting, the end user will once again record his or her voice, Such as “This song kept me warm in frozen barracks every night just thinking of you. Love you, Hal”.
In a particularly preferred embodiment, when the recorded personalized audio message is associated with the selected electronic greeting song, the volume of the song is automatically adjusted from a higher level to a lower level, such as a background level, during the personalized audio message. The volume of the song is automatically readjusted to the higher level after the personalized audio message. Such automatic or automated adjustment or modulation of the volume of the electronic greeting song during the voice audio message (512) enables the recipient to clearly hear the end user's personalized voice message while the song is still being played at a lower level, but the song returns to its original higher level once the audio message is completed. While the sound volume or level of the song could be brought to zero or even the song stopped during the personalized voice message, it is believed that it is more professional and desirable to have the personalized voice message played over a lower level volume of the song during a non-critical portion or portions of the electronic greeting song. However, playing the personalized voice message at or near the volume level of the electronic greeting song could make it difficult for the recipient to clearly hear the end user's personalized voice message. Thus, the present invention utilizes technology to adjust or modulate the volume level of the electronic greeting song to a lower predetermined level while the personalized voice message is played. While this could be done for the entirety of the time predefined limit for the personalized voice message, more preferably, however, the present invention detects the playing of the personalized voice message and automatically lowers the volume level of the electronic greeting song to a lower predetermined level and then also detects when the personalized voice message ends and automatically readjusts the volume of the electronic greeting song to the higher level.
If, for example, the predefined time slot for recording a personalized voice message was twelve seconds, but the end user only utilized eight seconds of the time slot to record his or her personalized voice message, there would be an additional four seconds of either silence or the song being played at a lower level. Thus, the present invention automatically detects the beginning and end of the personalized voice message to adjust the volume of the electronic greeting song lower and then return it again to the higher level, so this does not occur. This is done automatically. Technology, such as modified FFmpeg technology or the like, could be utilized to blend the end user personalized audio message with the chosen song. The volume automatically adjusts while playing back at the same time, in other words the end user's message is louder with the song in the background at a predetermined lower level, and then the song is louder when the message is finished. As such, the present invention utilizes voice activated ducking, which temporarily lowers or automatically “ducks” the volume level of a specified audio signal anytime a second specified audio signal is present.
This is done by means of audio processing technology. This may be done, for example, by using a multi-track audio program or editor. A compression tool automatically turns the audio down by a certain amount, but only when the volume gets loud enough on another track to trigger it. The compressor may be on one track and the personalized voice message on another track. Detection of the voice will trigger the compressor when its volume goes over a certain predetermined level or threshold. A compressor on the music track, such as the second track, listens to the first track for its instructions on when and how much to turn down the much when the voice volume is detected on the first track. The voice volume is maintained at a given higher level. The song volume is automatically “ducked” or adjusted lower, such as by the compressor, to a predetermined level, such as a predetermined decibel level lower, for example twenty decibels lower than its previous level. Thus, the song volume level should preferably still be present but be heard as lower background music while the personalized voice message is clearly heard by the recipient. As soon as the personalized voice message ends, this is detected as the voice volume goes to zero, which then causes the compressor to readjust and elevate the volume level of the song back to its original higher level so that it can be clearly heard by the recipient.
The compressor settings can be adjusted as desired. For example, a ratio setting of between 4:1 and 6:1 may be used initially and the threshold slider down to about twenty decibels or another predetermined and predefined limit. The volume of the song must be ducked or lowered sufficiently so as to clearly hear the personalized voice message while it is played. The different individual outputs (music and voiceover message) are combined to play back at the same time, and are programmed for when the end user is talking it should be a predetermined amount higher, such as two-thirds higher, than the music in the background from the electronic greeting song. As the voiceover ends, the sound may gradually taper upwardly and more into its original higher level such that only the song output is being played. As mentioned above, this preferably occurs at a position of the song which is non-critical or non-important to the message of the song, perceived best portion or portions of the song, etc. Such specific points in the song will have been predetermined, as mentioned above. Thus, the one or more personalized voice messages do not interfere with the most important parts of the song. However, at least one of the personalized voice messages is blended, as described above, within the song so as to have a professional and appealing nature. If more than one personalized voice message is created, one of the messages may be played before the song or after the song, or both messages may be played during the song.
The end user may be able to listen to his or her recordings, and rerecord them as desired. The recordings and the song may also be played for the end user for approval (514). The end user may then be prompted whether to accept or to rerecord the audio messages. If it is unacceptable, the end user may record it again. If the recording is accepted, the process with respect to creating the personalized greeting is complete.
The end user then provides recipient electronic delivery information (516). This may be the electronic delivery information, which may comprise an email address or cellphone number, of at least one recipient. The end user may send the personalized electronic greeting to one recipient or more than one recipient. For example, an end user may send a very sentimental and personalized greeting to his or her spouse, boyfriend or girlfriend, etc. where it is only sent to that one recipient. In other occasions, the end user may wish to send the personalized greeting to multiple recipients, such as when wishing various coworkers, family members or the like a Merry Christmas.
The end user is then charged a fee (518). The fee may be based upon the song or greeting card selected, the number of recipients that the personalized greeting is to be transmitted to, the number or length of the personalized audio messages used by the end user, etc. For example, the end user may be charged $4.95 for creating and delivering a single personalized electronic greeting. However, for the cost of $9.95 the end user may be able to send the personalized electronic greeting up to a predefined number of recipients, such as five recipients. For a higher charge, the number of recipients may be increased.
After approval and payment, the personalized greeting is then electronically transmitted and delivered to the one or more recipients (520). This may be in the form of an email or text message or the like and which contains the entirety of the personalized greeting. In other cases, a link may be provided to the recipient to access the personalized greeting, such as through the provider's website.
The rights holder, such as the individual, group of individuals or company owning the copyright or other intellectual property rights in the greeting, is then paid (522). The identity and related information of the rights holder may be linked to each song and/or electronic greeting card such that a predefined royalty amount is automatically paid to the rights holder once that song or greeting card is used and transmitted to the one or more recipients. The royalties may be mechanical royalties which have been established by the United States government or royalties agreed to by the artist, publisher or the like. In other cases, there may not be a need to pay a royalty.
Although several embodiments have been described in detail for purposes of illustration, various modifications may be made without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention. Accordingly, the invention is not to be limited, except as by the appended claims.
This is a continuation-in-part of U.S. application Ser. No. 17/205,402, filed Mar. 18, 2021, which application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/991,923, filed on Mar. 19, 2020.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 62991923 | Mar 2020 | US |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Parent | 17205402 | Mar 2021 | US |
| Child | 18115491 | US |
