Patent Application
20070162546
© 2005-2006 Musicstrands, Inc. A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material that is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever 37 CFR § 1.71(d).
This invention relates generally to search and navigation systems for managing and locating digital media items, for example articles, songs or movie clips, using user-supplied tags, and in particular to search and navigation and organization of tags shared among a community of media users.
On the internet and with other communication networks, “tagging” is quickly replacing the traditional search and bookmark methods as the preferred way for users to navigate and organize data. Tags in general are user-supplied words or phrases that can be associated with particular data or files to facilitate easy retrieval of that data. The data can be of any type, but commonly it includes web pages or portions thereof. Typically, both the tags and the data items to which they are associated are stored on websites, and are available to all users.
Storage of such information on publicly-accessible websites can be problematic, however, for users who are concerned with retaining their privacy and property rights. Users may have proprietary rights in the data items themselves, the associated tags, or both.
The present invention ameliorates the challenges described above by, in some embodiments, allowing the media items to remain on the individual user's library (e.g. a local disk drive) while allowing tags for the media items to persist on the local machine but also across other users' local machines. Users can continue to benefit from the community of media users, through tag sharing, while at the same time maintaining control of their media items on their local libraries.
With users preferring to retain their media items on their local libraries, user libraries grow very large, and it is becomes increasingly more difficult to search and retrieve media items. With the present invention a meaningful “folksonomy” can be created and the individual user's media library can easily be searched and organized using universal tags.
Embodiments of the present invention provide systems and methods for transferring user-supplied tags between individual user media libraries. In embodiments of the present invention the term “tag” refers to a form of metadata, which is a freely chosen user-supplied word or short phrase associated with a media item. The term “metadata” refers generally to any data associated with a media item e.g. media item identification, user identification, tags, etc. The term “attribute” generally refers to unique information associated with media items in a user library including metadata, signal analysis, unique ID number, etc.
One embodiment comprises a client-server system, which allow tags to persist on a local machine but across multiple local machines where media items may be stored. After tags are transferred between client and server and then between server and another client, tags are stored on the local machine along with media items, providing privacy and the ability to browse media items using tags offline. A server identifies a tag, a user, a media item, and any other items with which the media item is associated. The server maps the correlating identifications and sends the correlated data to a user's local library.
Another embodiment of the invention uses a standard peer-to-peer system in which tags are stored and sent in an XML format file that associates tags with an item or set of items.
Additional aspects and advantages will be apparent from the following detailed description of preferred embodiments. The illustrated embodiments and features are offered by way of example and not limitation.
Reference is now made to the figures in which like reference numerals refer to like elements. For clarity, the first digit of a reference numeral indicates the figure number in which the corresponding element is first used. In the following description, certain specific details of programming, software modules, user selections, network transactions, database queries, database structures, etc., are provided for a thorough understanding of the embodiments of the invention. However, those skilled in the art will recognize that the invention can be practiced without one or more of the specific details, or with other methods, components, materials, etc.
In some cases, well-known structures, materials, or operations are not shown or described in detail in order to avoid obscuring aspects of the invention. Furthermore, the described features, structures, or characteristics may be combined in any suitable manner in one or more embodiments. In general, the methodologies of the present invention are advantageously carried out using one or more digital processors, for example the types of microprocessors that are commonly found in PC's, laptops, PDA's and all manner of desktop or portable electronic appliances.
Definitions: Subject to the preceding two paragraphs, the following terms, as used herein, have the meanings set forth below, and further include items or actions that provide similar functionality.
A tag is a freely chosen or arbitrary user-supplied word or short phrase associated with a media item.
A folksonomy is a system of user-supplied tags, usually a collaborative categorization using freely chosen keywords. Individual users can have their own folksonomies, and a community of users can share a folksonomy.
A media item can be any item of an expressive nature, e.g. a song, a book, a newspaper, a movie, a segment of a radio program, etc.
Attribute generally refers to unique information associated with media items in a user library including metadata, signal analysis, etc.
This is just an example of how a simple ranking algorithm to extract tags associated to an item (with metadata) could work. Extracted tags are then returned to the client and stored in the local data repository 508.
Many modifications and other embodiments of the invention will come to mind to one skilled in the art to which this invention pertains having the benefit of the teachings presented in the foregoing descriptions and the associated drawings. Therefore, it is to be understood that the invention is not to be limited to the specific embodiments disclosed and that modifications and other embodiments are intended to be included within the scope of the appended claims. Although specific terms are employed herein, there are used in a generic and descriptive sense only and not for purposes of limitation.
It will be obvious to those having skill in the art that many changes may be made to the details of the above-described embodiments without departing from the underlying principles of the invention. The scope of the present invention should, therefore, be determined only by the following claims.
This application is a non-provisional of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/753,042 filed Dec. 22, 2005. Applicant accordingly claims priority from said provisional application which is incorporated herein in its entirety by this reference.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 60753042 | Dec 2005 | US |
