Suggesting a time for live communications among a largest possible subset of users based on previous content-consumption behavior
View Patent ↗Disclosed is a method for making media consumption more social by suggesting a time when users in a group may engage in live communications while consuming media. First, media-consumption activities of the users in the group are monitored. (For example, the set-top boxes of a cable television system monitor when and what each user watches.) Then, from this and possibly from other information, times when each user will be available for live communications are predicted. Finally, the individual predictions are correlated and, if possible, a future time is suggested when a largest possible number of the users in the group will be available for live communications. Some embodiments use other information, such as electronic calendars, to predict when users may be available. The suggested time may be shown on an electronic program guide for a user watching television and may be added to each user's electronic calendar.
1. A method for suggesting a time for live communications among a plurality of users, the method comprising:
for at least one of the users, collecting content-consumption-time information for the user;
for each of the other users of the plurality of users, collecting either content-consumption-time information or communications-availability information for that user;
based, at least in part, on the collected content-consumption-time information and on the collected communications-availability information, if any, predicting, for each of the plurality of users, a time when that user will be available for communications, the prediction based on more than content;
attempting to correlate the predicted communications-availability times for the plurality of users; and
if the correlating produces at least one predicted live-communications-availability time shared among the plurality of users, then presenting to at least one user a predicted live-communications-availability time;
else if the correlating produces no predicted live-communications-availability time shared among the plurality of users but produces at least one predicted live-communications-availability time shared among a plural but proper subset of the plurality of users, then presenting to at least one user a predicted live-communications-availability time;
else if the correlating produces no predicted live-communications-availability time shared among a plurality of the users, then informing at least one user of this result;
wherein if the correlating produces no predicted live-communications-availability time shared among the plurality of users but produces a plurality of predicted live-communications-availability times each shared among a plural but proper subset of the plurality of users, then presenting to at least one user a predicted live-communications-availability time that is shared among a largest subset of the plurality of users.
2. The method of claim 1 wherein collecting content-consumption-time information is based, at least in part, on an element selected from the list consisting of: monitoring power usage of a content-consumption device, monitoring commands sent to a content-consumption device, and monitoring delivery of content to a content-consumption device.
3. The method of claim 1 wherein the content-consumption-time information is selected from the group consisting of: live television viewing time, stored video viewing time, live radio listening time, and stored music listening time.
4. The method of claim 1 wherein predicting is further based on an electronic calendar of a user.
5. The method of claim 1 wherein correlating is restricted to users within a social network.
6. The method of claim 5 wherein presenting comprises presenting to at least one user a list of other users within the social network who are predicted to share the presented live-communications-availability time.
7. The method of claim 1 wherein correlating is restricted to predicted times wherein a plurality of users are predicted to consume content on the same type of content-consumption device.
8. The method of claim 1 wherein correlating is restricted to predicted times wherein a plurality of users are predicted to consume the same content.
9. The method of claim 1 wherein presenting comprises adding the predicted live-communications-availability time to an electronic calendar of a user.
10. The method of claim 1 wherein presenting comprises displaying the predicted live-communications-availability time on an electronic program guide of a user.
11. The method of claim 1 wherein presenting comprises presenting potential content for consumption during the predicted live-communications-availability time.
12. The method of claim 1 wherein presenting occurs on a device other than a predicted content-consumption device.
13. The method of claim 1 further comprising:
collecting content-rating information assigned by each of a plurality of users;
wherein correlating is restricted to predicted times for consuming content rated above a threshold by a plurality of users.
14. The method of claim 1 further comprising:
presenting the predicted live-communications-availability time to one of the users who is not predicted to be consuming content during the predicted live-communications-availability time.
15. The method of claim 1 further comprising:
opening a communication channel between at least two users who are predicted to be available during the predicted live-communications-availability time.