INTELLIGENT IDENTIFICATION OF MULTIMEDIA CONTENT FOR SYNCHRONIZATION

1 . A method of managing content on a portable media device, the method comprising:

identifying a library of one or more content selections;

accessing one or more rules related to user preferences for content;

structuring the library of one or more content selections based on the rules to define at least one group of content selections of interest to the user;

determining a storage capability for a portable media device;

generating a first configuration for the portable media device, wherein the first configuration indicates a first subset of content selections from among the group of content selections of interest to be loaded to the portable media device;

accessing one or more additional rules related to user preferences requiring variation of content to be loaded to the portable media device; and

during a subsequent connection between the portable media device and the library, generating a second configuration for the portable media device, wherein the second configuration indicates a second subset of content selections from among the group of content selections of interest to be loaded to the portable media device, the second subset differing from the first subset in accordance with the one or more additional rules requiring variation of the content selections loaded to the portable media device.

2 . The method of claim 1 wherein the library is dynamic such that the group of content selections changes between the generation of the first configuration and generation of the second configuration, and the user preferences vary the content selections based on criteria other than the dynamic status of the library.

3 . The method of claim 1 wherein determining the storage capability includes determining the storage capability that reflects an entire physical storage capacity of the portable media device.

4 . The method of claim 1 wherein determining the storage capability includes determining the storage capability that reflects a portion a physical storage capacity of the portable media device allocated to playlist storage.

5 . The method of claim 1 wherein the rules requiring variation include a variation threshold.

6 . The method of claim 5 wherein the variation threshold is expressed as a desired rate of change for content defining the group of content available to be loaded.

7 . The method of claim 5 wherein the variation threshold is expressed as a desired percentage of change for content defining the group of content available to be loaded.

8 . The method of claim 5 wherein the variation threshold is expressed with respect to one partition on a portable media device with multiple partitions.

9 . The method of claim 8 wherein each of the multiple partitions has a different variation threshold.

10 . The method of claim 1 further comprising presenting a user interface to enable user input of the rules requiring variation.

11 . The method of claim 1 further comprising soliciting, from the user, specification of a rule to be designated as the rules related to the user preferences.

12 . The method of claim 1 wherein accessing the rules related to the user preferences includes accessing a service-provider rule or a default rule.

13 . The method of claim 1 wherein accessing the rules related to the user preferences includes accessing a storage instruction configured to allocate partitions on the portable media device.

14 . The method of claim 13 wherein accessing the storage instruction includes allocating partitions by absolute criteria, relative criteria, or a combination of relative criteria and absolute criteria.

15 . The method of claim 13 wherein accessing the storage instruction includes specifying a preference for a genre, an artist, an album, an actor, an author, a director, a studio, a record label, a tempo, a mood, a station, a channel, or a content provider.

16 . The method of claim 15 wherein specifying the preference includes specifying an absolute preference, a relative preference, a factoral preference, a frequency preference, a boolean preference, a personal preference, a household preference, or a demographic preference.

17 . The method of claim 1 wherein accessing the rules related to user preferences includes specifying an update basis indicating how the portable media device should be updated.

18 . The method of claim 17 wherein specifying the update basis includes specifying that the portable media device should vary content every synchronization, every day, every week, after every content selection on the portable media device has been perceived, after a particular content selection on the portable media device has been perceived, or when a replacement selection becomes available.

19 . The method of claim 1 wherein accessing the rules related to user preferences includes specifying how the portable media device should operate in the event that the portable media device exhausts storage or is projected to exhaust storage.

20 . The method of claim 1 wherein accessing the rules related to user preferences includes accessing a promotional instruction configured to include at least some promotional content on the portable media device.

21 . The method of claim 20 wherein accessing the promotional instruction includes establishing a transaction gateway so that the user may interact with the promotional content on the portable media device to initiate a transaction upon a subsequent communication with the portable media device.

22 . The method of claim 1 wherein generating the first configuration includes:

determining, for one or more content selections, a metric indicating a predicted user interest;

relating the metrics to determine a relative priority for the content selection;

using intercontent selection factors to adjust the metric;

identifying a conflict between two different content selections having the same relative priority;

resolving the conflict; and

identifying a selected subset of content selections from the library that should be loaded to the portable media device.

23 . The method of claim 22 wherein using intercontent selection factors includes increasing a first metric for a first content selection when a user prefers a second content selection and the second content selection is determined to be related to the first content selection.

24 . The method of claim 23 wherein the second content selection is determined to be related to the first content selection when the first content and the second content selection are associated with a same genre, a same artist, a same album, a desired transition, a desired mood, a desired balance of content, a desired tempo, or a desired advertisement placement.

25 . The method of claim 22 wherein resolving the conflict includes removing a first content selection in favor of a second content selection.

26 . The method of claim 22 wherein resolving the conflict includes identifying content more responsive to the user interest that complies with the storage capability.