Classifications

• • G—PHYSICS
  • G06—COMPUTING OR CALCULATING; COUNTING
  • G06Q—INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
  • G06Q50/00—Information and communication technology [ICT] specially adapted for implementation of business processes of specific business sectors, e.g. utilities or tourism
  • G06Q50/10—Services
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G06—COMPUTING OR CALCULATING; COUNTING
  • G06Q—INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
  • G06Q30/00—Commerce
  • G06Q30/06—Buying, selling or leasing transactions
  • G06Q30/0601—Electronic shopping [e-shopping]
  • G06Q30/0603—Catalogue creation or management

Definitions

• Digital media can be played on portable devices configured to store, organize and playback digital music, video, games, ringtones and the like.
• Such digital media may also be downloaded to a portable device from an online media service via a network.
• Such transmission is oftentimes network-intensive .
• the present description provides a content system, including a plurality of user accounts maintained at a network-accessible online service, where a plurality of content items (e.g., music tracks) are associated with each user account.
• a catalog service is operable to provide offline metadata for the plurality of user accounts, whereby, for the plurality of content items in each of the plurality of user accounts, (a) a catalog engine of the catalog service is operable to generate a hierarchical tree descriptor for the plurality of content items, and (b) a service interface of the catalog service is operable to cause network transmission of the hierarchical tree descriptor to a remote device associated with the user account.
• the network transmission of the hierarchical tree descriptor is independent of content item downloads to the remote device.
• FIG. 1 shows a schematic depiction of an embodiment of a digital content system.
• FIG. 2 shows a flow diagram of an embodiment of a method of operating an online music service associated with a plurality of user accounts.
• FIG. 3 shows a schematic depiction of creation and transmission of a hierarchical tree descriptor. DETAILED DESCRIPTION
• Digital media such as music may be stored at an online service.
• such media may be associated with a user account of that online service.
• transmission of such media from the online service to a user's portable device via a network can be network-intensive.
• the systems and methods disclosed herein provide an approach for generating and distributing metadata associated with the media.
• the metadata may be structured to facilitate, upon receipt by a remote device, local use of the metadata, for example to provide search functionality.
• the metadata will be structured hierarchically based on the categories of available metadata (for example, artist, album and song title metadata for music files). Such a hierarchical structure can enhance the user's ability to search the media and have an organized view of media files available in the user's account.
• the metadata typically is selected and provided so that it is usable at the remote location (e.g., the portable device) independent of downloading any actual media, and independent of a network connection to the service.
• the metadata is typically useful to the user before they have downloaded the actual files that are described by the metadata.
• FIG. 1 schematically shows an embodiment of such a digital content system 100 comprising a network-accessible digital content service 102 configured to interact with a plurality of remote devices, such as portable digital content player devices 104, via a network 106.
• Portable digital content player devices 104 may include one or more mobile phones, desktop computers, laptops, portable digital assistants, etc.
• Network-accessible digital content service 102 may include a mass storage subsystem 108 containing a plurality of user accounts 110. Mass storage subsystem 108 may further include a plurality of digital content items 112 that are associated with each of the plurality of user accounts 110. As described above, such digital content items may include digital music, video, games, ringtones and the like.
• Network-accessible digital content service 102 may further include a service interface 114 configured to control communications occurring between the network-accessible digital content service 102 and portable digital content player devices 104 which are variously associated with the plurality of user accounts.
• Each device may be associated with one of the plurality of user accounts in any suitable manner.
• a user may set up a user account at the network-accessible digital content service via a web browser.
• the user may then associate the user account with a plurality of digital content items.
• Such digital content items may include items purchased from an online store and/or items uploaded by the user.
• the user may then associate the portable device with the user account by providing their account information to the device, for example a username and password.
• a user may register their device with the service, allowing the service to establish an association between the device and the user account.
• an application on the device may facilitate establishing an association between the device and the user account, such as the application described in more detail below.
• Network-accessible digital content service 102 may further include a catalog engine 116 operatively coupled with the mass storage subsystem 108.
• the catalog engine 116 may be configured to generate a hierarchical tree descriptor for the plurality of digital content items associated with the user account.
• a hierarchical tree descriptor may be an application tree, an XML content tree, etc., that organizes metadata of the digital content items associated with the user account.
• metadata may include, for example in the case of music tracks, artist metadata indicating an artist name of the track, album metadata indicating an album name of an album to which the track corresponds, and track title metadata indicating a title of the track.
• the hierarchical tree descriptor structures the artist metadata to be superior to the album metadata, and the album metadata to be superior to the track title metadata.
• the hierarchical tree descriptor may be implemented in connection with a menu interface system, in which selection of a particular artist yields a "deeper" sub-menu listing of particular albums by that artist. In turn, selection of a particular album from that artist would yield display of a still deeper sub-menu listing track titles from that album.
• the catalog engine 116 may be further configured to package the hierarchical tree descriptor into a catalog that is transmittable over network 106 to a portable digital content player device associated with the user account.
• Such a catalog may be an XML document, and may be of a much smaller size in comparison to the digital content items themselves.
• the catalog may be generated once and stored in cache on the network-accessible digital content service.
• catalog engine 116 and service interface 114 may be collectively referred to as a catalog service 118.
• Such a catalog may further include supplemental metadata available to an application on the portable digital content player device upon receipt of the catalog.
• supplemental metadata may include components of an offline store including tracks, banner images, and thumbnails of album artwork of promotional tracks.
• the supplemental metadata may further include a list of available categories, a list of available full tracks, a catalog version number, and components of an in- application billing system.
• service interface 114 may cause a transmission of the catalog to the portable digital content player device associated with the user account, where such transmission occurs independent of downloading of the plurality of digital content items to the portable digital content player device.
• the catalog including the hierarchical tree descriptor of structured metadata may be sent from network-accessible digital content service 102 to a portable digital content player device, without requiring downloading of the digital content items.
• the portable digital content player device may receive the metadata of the digital content items independent from the digital content items themselves. Creation of the hierarchical tree descriptor and transmission of the catalog are described in more detail with reference to FIGs. 2 and 3.
• Each portable digital content player device may be further configured to run an application responsive to the catalog, where the application interprets the catalog and provides local searching of the hierarchical tree descriptor in an offline mode.
• the application interprets the catalog and provides local searching of the hierarchical tree descriptor in an offline mode.
• a user of a portable digital content player device may locally search (i.e., from their portable digital content player device without a network connection) the digital content items located at the network-accessible digital content service associated with their user account.
• local searching may have the potential advantage of minimizing client/server exchanges.
• the user's entire selection of music files e.g., 1000 music files
• Any subsequent communication over the network could be deferred until the user selects a track (e.g., by using the tree as a menu interface) that had not yet been downloaded to the user's device.
• the local application may be written in Java and may be handled by the device as a traditional Java MIDlet (Mobile Information Device application).
• the application may be embedded by a handset maker (i.e., during manufacturing).
• the application may be downloaded to the device via a network connection.
• the application may be implemented to enhance user experience by allowing the user to browse a track music catalog offline, to listen to 30" second previews (by connecting to a web service), and/or to purchase media inside the application or online through an online store.
• the catalog may have a limited validity period, and the network-accessible digital content service may be configured to generate an updated version of the catalog upon expiration of the limited validity period.
• the application on the portable digital content player device may be further configured to check for the updated version of the catalog on the network-accessible digital content service via the network.
• the application may perform such a check in any suitable manner.
• One such suitable manner includes the application performing a regular check (e.g., during the first network connection after the application launches).
• the application may store information about the updated version of the catalog, and then at a subsequent launch, display a popup to inform the user of the portable digital content player device that an updated version of the catalog is available.
• the application may call a check URL with an application catalog generation date as a parameter.
• Such a request is received by the network-accessible digital content service, and in response, the service compares the generation date of the catalog on the device with a generation date of the catalog on the service, and then replies to the application with the suitable download status. Such a check avoids the application re-downloading the same catalog.
• the application may be further configured to include an embedded URL pointing to a URL pool, such that the URL pool is loaded upon a first launch of the application.
• the URL pool may be an XML file containing URLs needed by the application to get, for example, a catalog update, a list of promotional titles and pages, banner images, a preview file, album artwork, etc.
• the application may be further configured to provide online searching of an online digital content store at the network-accessible digital content service 102 via the network 106.
• Such an online digital content store may include a plurality of downloadable digital content items.
• Such an online store may be a Wireless Access Protocol (WAP) store.
• WAP Wireless Access Protocol
• the URL pool described above may also include URLs needed by the application to obtain a WAP store home URL, a legal terms and conditions WAP page URL, and a full track download URL.
• the network-accessible digital content service is configured to generate a hierarchical tree descriptor that structures metadata of digital content items, such as music tracks, associated with a user account of the service, and transmit the hierarchical tree descriptor to the user's portable digital content player device.
• FIG. 2 shows a method 200 of operating an online music service associated with a plurality of user accounts, where each user account has a plurality of audio tracks.
• the steps of method 200 as described hereafter reference a user account, and it is to be understood that such a user account may be any of the plurality of user accounts, and therefore, method 200 may be applicable to each of the user accounts.
• method 200 includes associating a remote music player device with a user account.
• a remote music player device may include a mobile phone, a desktop computer, a laptop computer, a portable digital assistant, and the like.
• FIG. 3 schematically shows an exemplary user account 302 including a plurality of digital content items 304, schematically depicted as Tracks 1-30.
• method 200 includes obtaining, from each audio track associated with the user account, metadata indicating an artist name, an album title and a track title of the audio track.
• metadata is exemplary in that metadata may include any number of track attributes, such as genre, geographic location, release date, etc.
• FIG. 3 schematically shows a catalog engine 306, such as catalog engine 116 discussed above with reference to FIG. 1, which obtains metadata 308 from the plurality of tracks 304 associated with user account 302.
• method 200 includes assembling metadata of each audio track associated with the user account into a hierarchical tree descriptor.
• the hierarchical tree descriptor typically structures metadata such that, for each track, the artist name is superior to the album title and the album title is superior to the track title.
• metadata may be structured in any other suitable way depending on the nature of metadata. For example, geographic metadata may be superior to genre metadata, and genre metadata may be superior to artist metadata. A variety of hierarchical arrangements are possible in addition to the specifically depicted examples.
• method 200 may further include, upon assembling the metadata into a hierarchical tree descriptor, packaging the hierarchical tree descriptor into a catalog.
• a catalog may be an XML document, and typically is of a much smaller size than the underlying content (e.g., the music track files).
• FIG. 3 schematically shows catalog engine 306 assembling a hierarchical tree descriptor 310 structuring the metadata 308 of tracks 304 associated with user account 302.
• catalog engine 306 has packaged hierarchical tree descriptor 310 into a catalog 312.
• step 208 includes transmitting via a network the hierarchical tree descriptor to the remote music player device.
• the transmission may be performed independent of downloading of the plurality of audio tracks to the remote music player device.
• such transmission may be coordinated by a service interface of the online music service.
• step 208 further includes transmitting the catalog.
• FIG. 3 schematically shows a service interface 314 facilitating communications with remote music player device 316 such that catalog 312 containing tree descriptor 310 may be transmitted to remote music player device 316.

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• 2009
  • 2009-04-17 US US12/425,738 patent/US20100268735A1/en not_active Abandoned
• 2010
  • 2010-04-14 CN CN201080017849XA patent/CN102395990A/zh active Pending
  • 2010-04-14 KR KR1020117024212A patent/KR20110138381A/ko not_active Withdrawn
  • 2010-04-14 RU RU2011141854/08A patent/RU2011141854A/ru not_active Application Discontinuation
  • 2010-04-14 WO PCT/US2010/031103 patent/WO2010120936A2/en not_active Ceased
  • 2010-04-14 JP JP2012506184A patent/JP2012524346A/ja active Pending
  • 2010-04-14 EP EP10765128.3A patent/EP2419876A4/en not_active Withdrawn

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