Singular, collective and automated creation of a media guide for online content
View Patent ↗Systems and methods are provided in which a content guide includes one or more tags associated with a single user, a group of users or a channel subscribed to by users that enables the retrieval of content for subsequent viewing and which can be supplemented by recommendations and data from other sources.
1. A content guide system comprising:
a content server configured to provide access to content;
a tag server including a searchable database of tags that reference content stored on the content server, wherein the searchable database of tags forms a content guide associated with an online community;
a tagging device in network communication with the tag server and the content server, wherein the tagging device is directed to:
access content via the content server, and
share a content recommendation by automatically generating at least one tag referencing the accessed content, wherein the generated tags are provided to the tag server for inclusion into the searchable database of tags that forms the content guide; and
a playback device in network communication with the tag server and the content server, where the playback device is directed to:
search the searchable database of tags that forms the content guide,
retrieve from the searchable database of tags that forms the content guide a tag that references content accessible via the content server,
receive a shared content recommendation including at least one tag, and
access content referenced by a tag via the content server.
2. The content guide system of claim 1 , wherein each tag includes an identifier of the content and location information of the content.
3. The content guide system of claim 2 , wherein the identifier is a unique database identifier and the location information is associated to a uniform resource identifier.
4. The content guide system of claim 2 wherein the identifier and the location information is substantially smaller in size than the content.
5. The content guide system of claim 1 wherein the playback device is directed to request a tag referencing content stored on the content server, wherein the tag is to be added to or deleted from the database.
6. The content guide system of claim 1 , wherein the network communication is through the Internet.
7. The content guide system of claim 1 , wherein the network communication is through a local area network.
8. The content guide system of claim 1 wherein the playback device is directed to request a tag referencing content to be added to the database based on the content recommendation.
9. The content guide system of claim 8 further comprising a recommendation server directed to search through the searchable database of tags that forms the content guide and to transmit content recommendations to the playback device.
10. The content guide system of claim 1 , wherein the content recommendation is based on a selection criteria and the playback device is directed to create the selection criteria.
11. The content guide system of claim 1 , wherein the playback device is directed to receive pre-cached portions of the content.
12. The content guide system of claim 1 , wherein the content server is directed to obtain pre-cached portions of the content.
13. The content guide system of claim 1 , wherein the tag server does not contain the content.
14. The content guide system of claim 1 , wherein the content server stores a portion of the content.
15. The content guide system of claim 1 wherein the tags do not include a temporal component.
16. The content guide system of claim 1 , wherein the tags are a subset of data within a database having data unrelated to the tags and the content in which the tags refer.
17. The content guide system of claim 16 , wherein the tags include at least one identifier associating the tags to a specific content guide within the database.
18. The content guide system of claim 17 , wherein the database is larger in size than the database of tags.
19. A method of accessing content distributed throughout a network, the method comprising:
accessing content using a tagging device, wherein the content is accessed from a content server;
share a content recommendation by automatically generating at least one a tag referencing the accessed content using the tagging device;
providing the generated at least one tag to a tag server using the tagging device, wherein:
the tag server includes a searchable database of tags that forms a content guide associated with an online community,
the tags in the searchable database of tags reference content stored on the content server, and
the generated at least one tag is provided to the tag server for inclusion into the searchable database of tags;
searching the searchable database of tags that forms the content guide using a playback device;
retrieving, using the playback device, a tag that references content accessible via the content server from the searchable database of tags;
receiving a shared content recommendation including at least one tag using the playback device; and
accessing content referenced by a tag via the content server using the playback device.
20. The method of claim 19 wherein, each tag includes an identifier of the content and location information of the content.