Dynamically modifying live video streams for participant devices in digital video rooms

Abstract

This disclosure describes a video room system that can efficiently and flexibly generate and facilitate video rooms for video chatting between participant devices by prioritizing video streams to provide to participant devices based on performance parameters. For example, the video room system can provide different video room streams to different participant devices based on the performance parameters of the participant devices. In addition, the video room system can customize or tailor video room streams based on identifying dominant speaker devices, determining connections between participant devices as indicated by a social graph of a social networking system, and/or based on join methods utilized by participant devices to join a video room.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A computer-implemented method comprising:
 determining, for a participant in a video room, social networking connections in relation to other participants participating in the video room;   selecting for the participant, from among the other participants participating in the video room, one or more representative participants that have a close social networking connection to the participant; and   modifying a video room stream for a participant device of the participant based on the one or more representative participants that have a close social networking connection to the participant.   
     
     
         2 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 1 , wherein selecting the one or more representative participants that have a close social networking connection to the participant comprises determining affinities between the participant and the other participants in the video room based on nodes and edges of a social graph. 
     
     
         3 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 1 , where modifying the video room stream for the participant device of the participant based on the one or more representative participants that have a close social networking connection to the participant comprises:
 selecting a subset of video streams from the other participants in the video room corresponding to the one or more representative participants that have a close social networking connections to the participant; and   providing the subset of video streams to the participant device of the participant.   
     
     
         4 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 3 , wherein providing the subset of video streams to the participant device of the participant comprises providing more video streams to the participant device of the participant than to another participant device of another participant in the video room with less close social networking connections than the participant. 
     
     
         5 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 1 , wherein:
 selecting the one or more representative participants that have a close social networking connection to the participant comprises selecting a representative participant that has a closest social networking connection to the participant; and   modifying the video room stream for the participant device of the participant comprises causing the participant device of the participant to display a video stream of the representative participant as a largest or most prominent video stream.   
     
     
         6 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 providing a peephole option to the participant prior to the participant joining the video room;   receiving a selection of the peephole option; and   in response to the selection of the peephole option, providing to the participant device of the participant a view of one or more video streams from the video room without adding the participant to the video room.   
     
     
         7 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 6 , further comprising determining that the participant has a social networking connection to a creator of the video room greater than a connection closeness threshold;
 wherein providing the peephole option to the participant prior to the participant joining the video room is based on the social networking connection to the creator of the video room greater being than the connection closeness threshold.   
     
     
         8 . A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions that, when executed by at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to perform operations comprising:
 determining, for a participant in a video room, social networking connections in relation to other participants participating in the video room;   selecting for the participant, from among the other participants participating in the video room, one or more representative participants that have a close social networking connection to the participant; and   modifying a video room stream for a participant device of the participant based on the one or more representative participants that have a close social networking connection to the participant.   
     
     
         9 . The non-transitory computer readable medium of  claim 8 , wherein selecting the one or more representative participants that have a close social networking connection to the participant comprises determining affinities between the participant and the other participants in the video room based on nodes and edges of a social graph. 
     
     
         10 . The non-transitory computer readable medium of  claim 8 , where modifying the video room stream for the participant device of the participant based on the one or more representative participants that have a close social networking connection to the participant comprises:
 selecting a subset of video streams from the other participants in the video room corresponding to the one or more representative participants that have a close social networking connections to the participant; and   providing the subset of video streams to the participant device of the participant.   
     
     
         11 . The non-transitory computer readable medium of  claim 10 , wherein providing the subset of video streams to the participant device of the participant comprises providing more video streams to the participant device of the participant than to another participant device of another participant in the video room with less close social networking connections than the participant. 
     
     
         12 . The non-transitory computer readable medium of  claim 8 , wherein:
 selecting the one or more representative participants that have a close social networking connection to the participant comprises selecting a representative participant that has a closest social networking connection to the participant; and   modifying the video room stream for the participant device of the participant comprises causing the participant device of the participant to display a video stream of the representative participant as a largest or most prominent video stream.   
     
     
         13 . The non-transitory computer readable medium of  claim 8 , wherein the operations further comprise:
 providing a peephole option to the participant prior to the participant joining the video room;   receiving a selection of the peephole option; and   in response to the selection of the peephole option, providing to the participant device of the participant a view of one or more video streams from the video room without adding the participant to the video room.   
     
     
         14 . The non-transitory computer readable medium of  claim 13 , wherein:
 the operations further comprise determining that the participant has a social networking connection to a creator of the video room greater than a connection closeness threshold; and   providing the peephole option to the participant prior to the participant joining the video room is based on the social networking connection to the creator of the video room greater being than the connection closeness threshold.   
     
     
         15 . A system comprising:
 one or more memory devices; and   one or more processing devices, coupled to the one or more memory devices, that cause the system to:   determine, for a participant in a video room, social networking connections in relation to other participants participating in the video room;   select for the participant, from among the other participants participating in the video room, one or more representative participants that have a close social networking connection to the participant; and   modify a video room stream for a participant device of the participant based on the one or more representative participants that have a close social networking connection to the participant.   
     
     
         16 . The system of  claim 15 , wherein the one or more processing devices cause the system to select the one or more representative participants that have a close social networking connection to the participant by determining affinities between the participant and the other participants in the video room based on nodes and edges of a social graph. 
     
     
         17 . The system of  claim 15 , wherein the one or more processing devices cause the system to modify the video room stream for the participant device of the participant based on the one or more representative participants that have a close social networking connection to the participant by:
 selecting a subset of video streams from the other participants in the video room corresponding to the one or more representative participants that have a close social networking connections to the participant; and   providing the subset of video streams to the participant device of the participant.   
     
     
         18 . The system of  claim 17 , wherein the one or more processing devices cause the system to provide the subset of video streams to the participant device of the participant by providing more video streams to the participant device of the participant than to another participant device of another participant in the video room with less close social networking connections than the participant. 
     
     
         19 . The system of  claim 15 , wherein the one or more processing devices further cause the system to:
 provide a peephole option to the participant prior to the participant joining the video room;   receive a selection of the peephole option; and   in response to the selection of the peephole option, provide to the participant device of the participant a view of one or more video streams from the video room without adding the participant to the video room.   
     
     
         20 . The system of  claim 19 , wherein the one or more processing devices further cause the system to:
 determine that the participant has a social networking connection to a creator of the video room greater than a connection closeness threshold;   provide the peephole option to the participant prior to the participant joining the video room based on the social networking connection to the creator of the video room greater being than the connection closeness threshold.