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Sharing playlists in a recommendation system

Sharing playlists in a recommendation system description/claims

This application is a divisional of U.S. application Ser. No. 11/439,723, filed on May 23, 2006, which claims the benefit of U.S. Application Ser. No. 60/683,685 filed on May 23, 2005 (attorney docket number 54261), the content of both of which are incorporated herein by reference.

This application also contains subject matter that is related to the subject matter of U.S. application Ser. No. 10/917,865, filed on Aug. 13, 2004 (attorney docket number 52075), and U.S. application Ser. No. 10/278,636, filed on Oct. 23, 2002, the content of both of which are incorporated herein by reference.

This invention relates generally to music recommendation systems, and more specifically, to sharing playlists in a music recommendation system.

Today's music scene provides a user with hundreds and thousands of different types of music that may be available for his or her enjoyment. The vast selection arena creates a dilemma for the user when faced with a decision as to the particular piece of music or album to listen or purchase.

U.S. application Ser. No. 10/917,865 describes a music recommendation system where a user may generate a playlist or search for music, using a song, album, or artist that is owned by the user as the search seed. After generating such a playlist, the generating user may want to share it with other users. However, one potential problem in sharing the playlist is that the receiving user may not have access to all of the songs in the shared playlist, leaving one or more gaps in the playlist. Accordingly, what is desired is a system and method for sharing playlists with other users that detects and intelligently fills such gaps in the shared playlists.

The present invention is directed to systems and methods for sharing playlists and playlist music characterization/essence with each other. According to one embodiment, an end user desiring to share his or her playlist invokes his or her end user device to select one or more songs from a data store, generate a playlist based on the selected songs, retrieve acoustic analysis data of one or more songs in the playlist, generate a playlist characterization based on the acoustic analysis data, and transmit the playlist and the playlist characterization to a remote end device.

According to one embodiment of the invention, the playlist characterization is based on acoustic analysis data of at least one song in the playlist. The playlist characterization may also be based on a group profile of the playlist where the group profile is generated based on acoustic analysis data of a plurality of songs in the playlist. The playlist characterization may further be based on a group profile of an artist associated with the playlist, or a group profile of an album associated with the playlist.

According to one embodiment, another end user device is configured to receive shared playlists. The end user device according to this embodiment receives a playlist of songs and searches a data store for the songs in the playlist. The data store may be a local or remote data store. The end user device identifies a first song in the playlist unavailable in the data store, and responsive to the identification of the first song, automatically identifies a second song available in the data store for replacing the first song. In identifying the second song, the end user device retrieves a playlist characterization and selects a second song based on the playlist characterization. The end user device then generates a modified playlist of songs which replaces the first song with the second song. The end user device may then play the modified playlist via a music player.

A person of skill in the art will appreciate that the system and method of the present invention aims to preserve the essence of the shared playlist in generating modified playlists. These and other features, aspects and advantages of the present invention will be more fully understood when considered with respect to the following detailed description, appended claims, and accompanying drawings. Of course, the actual scope of the invention is defined by the appended claims.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a system for sharing music essence according to one embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 2 is a detailed block diagram of an end user device generating and sharing playlists according to one embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 3 is a flow diagram of a process for sharing playlists according to one embodiment of the invention; and

FIG. 4 is a flow diagram of a process for receiving and playing shared playlists according to one embodiment of the invention.

• Provisional Patent
• Utility Patent

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