Watermarking and signal recognition for managing and sharing captured content, metadata discovery and related arrangements

1. A method comprising:

in a network system, receiving items of content captured by electronic devices associated with users, the received items being uploaded to the network system;

with one or more processors, executing instructions to perform the acts of:

extracting digital watermarks in image signals from the received items of captured content;

with watermark IDs decoded from the digital watermarks, querying a database to obtain a first instance of metadata associated with a first watermark ID extracted from a corresponding first instance of received item and querying the database to obtain other instances of metadata associated with other watermark IDs extracted from corresponding other instances of the received items;

correlating the first instance of metadata associated with the first instance of received item with the other instances of metadata corresponding to the other instances of the received items, the correlating identifying related received items that have correlated metadata; and

aggregating the related received items for presentation to a user of the network system.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the received items of captured content comprise image content captured by cameras of the users at an event, wherein each of the electronic devices captures instances of image content, the instances each being embedded with the digital watermark, which is associated with the event.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the received items of captured content comprise images of watermarked objects.

4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

deriving content fingerprints from the received items;

in the network system, identifying the received items by matching the content fingerprints with corresponding fingerprints associated with identifying metadata;

obtaining second metadata of the received items associated with the identifying metadata; and

correlating the second metadata of the received items.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising correlating the received items with each other based on the watermark IDs.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the first instance and other instances of metadata are comprised of metadata obtained by plural stages of aggregating metadata, including a first stage of obtaining first metadata associated with a watermark ID extracted from one of the received items and a second stage of obtaining metadata associated with the first metadata, and wherein the correlating determines the correlated metadata by correlating metadata of plural different received items that has been aggregated for the received items in the plural stages.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein the second stage of obtaining metadata comprises obtaining metadata indexed in plural databases by the first metadata.

8. The method of claim 1 comprising:

receiving upload metadata provided by users to the network system along with the received items when the received items are uploaded to the network system; and aggregating the upload metadata with other metadata associated with a first received item by associating the upload metadata and the other metadata with a watermark ID extracted from the first received item.

9. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

updating metadata associated with the received items in the network system by receiving metadata update information at the network system and in response, querying an ID database to obtain updated metadata for the received items that is associated with the received items based on the watermark IDs extracted from the received items.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein the updating is performed after the received items are uploaded to the network system to update metadata of the received items with new metadata created after the received items are uploaded to the network system.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein the correlating is updated by searching metadata of a second set of received items uploaded to the network system after a first set of received items has been uploaded to the network system; and updating the first set of received items by linking received items from the second set with received items that have correlated metadata.

12. A system comprising:

means for uploading, the means for uploading configured to receive items of content captured by electronic devices associated with users;

means for watermark recovery communicatively coupled to the means for uploading, the means for watermark recovery configured to extract digital watermarks in image signals from the received items of captured content; and

a server communicatively coupled with the means for watermark recovery to receive watermark IDs decoded from the digital watermarks, and configured to query a database to obtain a first instance of metadata associated with a first watermark ID extracted from a corresponding first instance of received item and to query the database to obtain other instances of metadata associated with other watermark IDs extracted from corresponding other instances of the received items and provide the first and other instances of metadata to the means for uploading;

wherein the means for uploading is configured to correlate the first instance of metadata associated with the first instance of received item with the other instances of metadata corresponding to the other instances of the received items, the means for uploading executing the correlating to identify related received items that have correlated metadata; and the means for uploading configured to aggregate the related received items for presentation to a user.

13. The system of claim 12 wherein the first instance and other instances of metadata are comprised of metadata obtained by plural stages of aggregating metadata;

wherein the means for uploading is configured to obtain, in a first stage, first metadata associated with a watermark ID extracted from one of the received items, and is configured to obtain, in a second stage, metadata associated with the first metadata; and

wherein the means for uploading is configured to obtain the correlated metadata by correlating metadata of plural different received items that has been aggregated for the received items in the first and second stages.

14. The system of claim 12 wherein the means for uploading is configured to obtain, in the second stage, metadata indexed in plural databases by the first metadata.

15. The system of claim 12 wherein the means for uploading is configured to receive upload metadata provided by users along with the received items when the received items are uploaded to the means for uploading, and is configured to aggregate the upload metadata with other metadata associated with a first received item by associating the upload metadata and the other metadata with a watermark ID extracted from the first received item.

16. The system of claim 12 wherein the means for uploading is configured to update metadata associated with the received items by receiving metadata update information, and in response, querying an ID database to obtain updated metadata for the received items that is associated with the received items based on the watermark IDs extracted from the received items.

17. The system of claim 16 wherein the means for uploading is configured to update metadata of the received items after the received items are uploaded to the means for uploading to update metadata of the received items with new metadata created after the received items are uploaded to the means for uploading.

18. The system of claim 12 wherein the means for uploading is configured to search metadata of a second set of received items uploaded to the system after a first set of received items has been uploaded to the system, and is configured to update the first set of received items by linking received items from the second set with received items that have correlated metadata.

19. The system of claim 12 wherein the watermark IDs are embedded in captured images, which are captured from watermarked objects.

20. A non-transitory computer readable medium, on which is stored instructions, which when executed by a processor, perform a method comprising:

in a network system, receiving items of content captured by electronic devices associated with users, the received items being uploaded to the network system;

with one or more processors, executing instructions to perform the acts of:

extracting digital watermarks in image signals from the received items of captured content;

with watermark IDs decoded from the digital watermarks, querying a database to obtain a first instance of metadata associated with a first watermark ID extracted from a corresponding first instance of received item and querying the database to obtain other instances of metadata associated with other watermark IDs extracted from corresponding other instances of the received items;

correlating the first instance of metadata associated with the first instance of received item with the other instances of metadata corresponding to the other instances of the received items, the correlating identifying related received items that have correlated metadata; and

aggregating the related received items for presentation to a user of the network system.