Crowdsourced multi-media data relationships

Abstract

The present disclosure describes a data association and retrieval facility. Attribute resources, such as metadata tags, that are not to be rendered along with a file, and content resources, such as annotations and commentary, which are to be rendered along with a file are associated with files, in particular multi-media files. The attribute and content resources may be searched and filtered against, and statistics on of file and resource accesses are tracked. Attribute and content resources may also be aggregated and redistributed. Altogether, these facilities constitute a platform to develop crowd-sourced applications and content packages. Finally, various user interfaces supporting particular applications are disclosed.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A method comprising:
 receiving a resource having metadata attributes and content to be rendered along with a multimedia data file;   associating the resource with at least one multimedia data file stored in a data store having stored thereon a plurality of multimedia data files;   extracting retrieval indicia from at least one of (i) the content and (ii) the metadata attributes of the resource;   associating the extracted retrieval indicia with the at least one multimedia data file associated with the resource;   receiving a retrieval request for a multimedia data file, the retrieval request comprising at least one file retrieval term; and   retrieving at least one multimedia data file from the plurality of multimedia data files stored in the data store whose associated extracted retrieval indicia match the at least one file retrieval term in the retrieval request.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising presenting the at least one retrieved multimedia data file. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1 ,
 wherein the resource is an annotation comprising annotation text; and   wherein extracting indicia from the resource includes parsing the annotation text for file retrieval terms.   
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1 ,
 wherein the at least one multimedia data file associated with the resource is a video file;   wherein the resource is an annotation comprising a hyper-link to an electronic document; and   wherein the annotation is associated with a particular location and a time during the rendering of the video file.   
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1 ,
 wherein the at least one multimedia data file associated with the resource is a source video file; and   wherein the resource is an annotation, comprising a hyper-link associated with a particular location and a time during the rendering of a target video file.   
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 1 ,
 wherein the resource is a hyper-link to an electronic document; and   wherein extracting indicia from the hyper-link resource includes parsing the electronic document for file retrieval terms.   
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 2 , further comprising:
 receiving a file filter specification comprising at least one file filtering term;   storing the received file filter specification; and   limiting presenting of the at least one retrieved multimedia data file to those multimedia data files of the plurality of multimedia data files, whose associated extracted retrieval indicia match at least one file filtering term in the file filter specification.   
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 7 , further comprising:
 receiving a channel subscription request having a channel subscription request identifier at least one notification point, and at least one file filter specification identifier;   associating the file filter specification corresponding to the file filter specification identifier to the at least one notification point, for each file filter specification identifier in the received channel subscription request;   receiving a channel refresh event comprising at least one channel subscription request identifier and a date-time stamp; and   limiting presentation of the retrieved multimedia data files to those multimedia data files of the plurality of multimedia data files, posted after the date-time stamp of the channel refresh event.   
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 8 , further comprising limiting presentation of the multimedia data files to only the at least one notification point corresponding to the at least one channel subscription request identifier in the received channel refresh event. 
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the file retrieval request is received during a rendering of a multimedia data file, the at least one file retrieval term comprising an identifier of a next multimedia data file to be rendered. 
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 10 , further comprising:
 receiving a second file retrieval request during the rendering of the multimedia data file, the second retrieval request comprising at least a second file retrieval term, the second file retrieval term comprising a second identifier of a next multimedia data file to be rendered; and   limiting presentation of the retrieved multimedia data files to a single multimedia file whose associated extracted retrieval indicia match the first and second identifiers of a next multimedia data file to be rendered of the first and second file retrieval requests, respectively.   
     
     
         12 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the resource is a first poll result that is received during the rendering of a multimedia data file, the first poll result comprising a ranking measure of the content of the multimedia data file being rendered. 
     
     
         13 . The method of  claim 12 , further comprising:
 receiving a second poll result resource, wherein the second poll result is received during the rendering of the multimedia data file, the second poll result comprising a second ranking measure of the content of the multimedia data file being rendered; and   calculating a statistical value aggregating at least the first and second ranking measures of the first and second poll results respectively, wherein the rendering of the first and second poll results is performed by displaying the calculated aggregating statistical value.   
     
     
         14 . The method of  claim 13 :
 wherein the first poll result further comprises a date-time stamp of when the first poll result was received;   wherein the second poll result further comprises a date-time stamp of when the second poll result was received; and   wherein the calculated statistical value aggregating at least the first and second ranking measures of the first and second poll results, respectively, is rendered during the rendering of the multimedia file.   
     
     
         15 . A method of reporting statistics on resources associated with multimedia data files, the method comprising:
 receiving a request for resource statistics on resources associated with a multimedia data file;   retrieving all resources associated with the multimedia data file;   retrieving all extracted retrieval indicia corresponding to the retrieved resources;   counting the instances of the retrieved extracted retrieval indicia; and   creating a sorted list of the counts of the instances of the retrieved extracted retrieval indicia.   
     
     
         16 . The method of  claim 15 , further comprising presenting the sorted list of the counts of the instances of the retrieved extracted retrieval indicia. 
     
     
         17 . A method of reverse link aggregation for a multi-media file, the method comprising:
 receiving user generated content in the form of resources;   receiving user generated content in the form of links to a resource belonging to a resource provider;   extracting retrieval indicia relating to the resource belonging to the resource provider;   selecting the user generated content in the form of resources using at least some of the extracted retrieval indicia;   repackaging at least some of the selected user generated content in the form of resources; and   distributing the repackaged user generated content in the form of resources to the resource provider.   
     
     
         18 . A method of crowdsourcing news content collection, the method comprising:
 posting a submission point for the news content collection;   receiving a content posting comprising multimedia content; and   associating the content posting with the submission point.   
     
     
         19 . The method of  claim 18 , the method further comprises:
 receiving a request to display content, wherein the request is associated with a submission point;   displaying an amalgamation of at least some of the content associated with the submission point associated with the request; and   receiving commentary associated with the multimedia content of at least one of the content postings, wherein the displayed content amalgamation includes at least some of the associated commentary.   
     
     
         20 . The method of  claim 19 , further comprising:
 instantiating an embeddable widget;   selecting a submission point;   correlating multimedia content associated with the selected submission point with the embeddable widget;   correlating commentary with the embeddable widget, wherein the commentary is associated with at least some of the multimedia content associated with the embeddable widget; and   exporting the embeddable widget.