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H i g h N o t e W h i t e P a p e r !

July, 2014 !!!!!!!!!!

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www.concerttechnology.com bizdev@concerttechnology.com

C o n c e r t T e c h n o l o g y

Overview HighNote is a music-centric social networking system that lets friends easily share and listen to music recommen-dations. The system seamlessly meshes portable media players, desktop music clients and web services. These shared music recommendations are intended to stimulate increased consumption by exposing users to songs they might otherwise never hear. HighNote is content delivery agnostic, and should find applications in purchase, down-load and subscription models.

How It Works HighNote works like an instant messaging system. But instead of friends sending simple text messages to each other, music recommendations are sent. These recommendations contain information about a particular song that a friend has just played on his or her device. Users can configure the system to send a recommendation each time they listen to a song or they may send recommendations explicitly.

On each friend’s machine or device, a constantly updated playlist of recommended music tracks and imported tracks is resorted based on preferences set by each user. The top-most song is always the next song played and as each song fin-ishes, a recommendation message is in turn broadcast to friends—continually feeding the process.

To automate the acquisition of new content from a subscription or download service, the client software can be configured to automatically download songs corresponding to received rec-ommendations, based on score. When tailored for an online media store, the software can be configured to take the user to the appropriate purchase page.

The scoring of music tracks is controlled by factors such as genre, artist, release date and recommending friend. These fac-tors may be weighted according to the individual user’s taste. Messages sent to offline users are queued up at a central server. These messages are sent when the recipient next logs into the system.

Note that HighNote is not a file sharing network. Music con-tent is never traded between users-only recommendations.

End User Rationale Programmatic recommendation technologies are interesting, but fail to account for “peer group behavior.” Many music consumers are heavily influenced by their peer groups—particularly younger users. These younger users are also very heavy users of IM and SMS clients. HighNote adapts this familiar paradigm to the sharing of music recommendations with friends. This “social mechanism” encourages increased consumption—when friends en-counter recommended music tracks they do not already own, they are presented with a simple means for obtaining those songs.

C o n c e r t T e c h n o l o g y

Components System Level Description All clients in the HighNote network connect to a central server. This server keeps track of each user’s information, and serves as a traffic cop, routing rec-ommendations between all of the relat-ed clients. The central server also re-tains information regarding content servers. The content servers provide music content to clients that wish to purchase new music based on their received recommendations.

Desktop Client As pictured in the figure below, the user has a single, table-based screen for re-ceiving and playing music recommenda-tions. Song recommendations from friends and songs from the user’s cur-rently loaded playlist are interleaved into this table. The default setting is to disallow sorts, with tracks being sorted by score. If the user changes this preference (in Recommendation Preferences) to allow sorting, the tracks can be sorted to the user’s preference by clicking on the table’s column headings. Users can let the software automatically control playback based on user defined preferences, or they can directly select and play individual tracks from the tables.

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C o n c e r t T e c h n o l o g y

Mobile Devices A simplified version of the client can be configured for a network-en-abled mobile device. Mobile phones, PDAs, and small tablet devices can all be configured to run the HighNote client. The slightly simplified ver-sion of the application would be configured to fit the smaller screens of these devices.

For example, in the case of the Apple iPhone® pictured at right, users would scroll the recommendations track table by using simple multi-touch controls just as they do with the tracks table in the iPod® Music Library screen. In the HighNote table, they could also scroll left and right within the table to see more of the truncated columns. The icons at the bottom of the screen would allow the user to manage friends, set the source for their imported playlists, clear the table, change pref-erences, etc. !

!WebSite Users will register and download the HighNote software through a website. The figure on the left shows a screen shot of the site.

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!Partnership Opportunities

Download Content Partners Research has shown that the typical iPod® purchaser buys an average of 20-30 songs per year. HighNote provides a catalyst to spur more buying by suggesting songs to users from a very influential source—their friends. The High-Note architecture provides a mechanism by which users are constantly becoming aware of new music that they do not already own. The system as a whole should provide a significant opportunity for the purchase of new music through content providers.

Subscription Content Partners Subscription services are great. Users can get whatever they want, whenever they want it. However, research has shown that the typical user rarely takes the time to download new content after the first few months of using the service. What is needed is a mechanism that allows for the constant selection and downloading of new content—i.e. HighNote. HighNote is a natural fit for music subscription providers as users would be able to download any new title recommended to them with no interaction.

C o n c e r t T e c h n o l o g y

Device and Network Partners As mp3 players take on wireless networking capabilities, and cell phones take on media player capabilities, software to take advantages of networking capabilities will grow in importance. At Concert Technology, we believe that HighNote could provide competitive differentiation for networks and devices as it addresses the need for social networking, music recommendation and intelligent synchronization between the PC and Portable Media Devices.

Advertising Partners Advertisers need to reach users in a very targeted way, and they need to be able to track results. Because High-Note is constantly collecting play history and profile information, it provides a very effective framework for target-ed advertising. With HighNote, record companies wishing to promote new artists will be able to pay for recom-mendation insertions, which will act to seed their content to the best possible audience. Concert promoters will be able to insert concert recommendations by paying for the placement of videos promoting upcoming shows. Since HighNote retains profile information for each user, targeting specific taste in specific geographic locations will be possible.

About Us Digital media distribution is fundamentally changing the relationship between consumers and content. At Concert Technology, we are engaged in R&D directed towards the creation of patented intellectual property which we use to drive licensing programs that derive revenues from the ongoing changes in technology, consumer habits and business models.

!• Rich Media Internet Services • Mobile Media Device Technologies • Recommendation Systems • Social Networking • Location Based Services !!We strive to prototype and develop products that deliver on the promise of the digital media experience: high quality entertainment that is easy to find, discover, organize, share and enjoy.

For additional information or to explore partnership opportunities with Concert Technology, please contact bizdev@con-certtechnology.com.

!Product Availability

An alpha of the Mac OSX version of the HighNote software is currently available at www.highnote.fm . Prototypes of the Windows® and Mobile versions can be demonstrated on request.

!C o n c e r t T e c h n o l o g y

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

!The following is a partial list of US patents and publications that were developed as part of the HighNote project.

reference number title

8,285,595 System And Method For Refining Media Recommendations

20090077052 Historical Media Recommendation Service

8,090,606 Embedded Media Recommendations

7,680,959 P2P Network For Providing Real Time Media Recommendations

8,327,266Graphical User Interface System for Allowing Management of a Media Item Playlist Based on a Preference Scoring System

20090055396 Scoring And Replaying Media Items Publications

8,620,699 Heavy Influencer Media Recommendations

20090077160 System And Method For Providing Media Content Selections

8,059,646System And Method For Identifying Music Content In A P2P Real Time Recommendation Network

20090083362Maintaining A Minimum Level Of Real Time Media Recommendations In The Absence Of Online Friends

20090083117Matching Participants In A P2P Recommendation Network Loosely Coupled To A Subscription Service

20090070185System And Method For Recommending A Digital Media Subscription Service

8,307,092Method And System For Collecting Information About A User's Media Collections From Multiple Login Points

20080243733Rating Media Item Recommendations Using Recommendation Paths And/Or Media Item Usage

8,112,720System And Method For Automatically And Graphically Associating Programmatically-Generated Media Item Recommendations Related To A User's Socially Recommended Media Items

20090046101Method And System For Visually Indicating A Reply Status Of Media Items On A Media Device

20090049045Method And System For Sorting Media Items In A Playlist On A Media Device

20080250067System And Method For Selectively Identifying Media Items For Play Based On A Recommender Playlist

20080301240System And Method For Propagating A Media Item Recommendation Message Comprising Recommender Presence Information

20080301241System And Method Of Generating A Media Item Recommendation Message With Recommender Presence Information

C o n c e r t T e c h n o l o g y

8,285,776System And Method For Processing A Received Media Item Recommendation Message Comprising Recommender Presence Information

20080301187 Enhanced Media Item Playlist Comprising Presence Information

20090048992System and Method for Reducing the Repetitive Reception of a Media Item Recommendation

20090049030System and Method for Reducing the Multiple Listing of a Media Item in a Playlist

20090125588System and Method of Filtering Recommenders in a Media Item Recommendation System

20100199218 Method and System for Previewing Recommendation Queues

7,865,522System And Method For Hyping Media Recommendations In A Media Recommendations System

20090094248System And Method Of Prioritizing The Downloading Of Media Items In A Media Item Recommendation Network

20100094820Method For Affecting The Score And Placement Of Media Items In A Locked-To-Top Playlist

8,396,951Method And System For Populating A Content Repository For An Internet Radio Service Based On A Recommendation Network

8,200,602System And Method For Creating Thematic Listening Experiences In A Networked Peer Media Recommendation Environment

8,060,525Method And System For Generating Media Recommendations In A Distributed Environment Based On Tagging Play History Information With Location Information

20090157795Identifying Highly Valued Recommendations Of Users In A Media Recommendation Network

8,725,740 Active Playlist Having Dynamic Media Item Groups

20090259621Providing Expected Desirability Information Prior To Sending A Recommendation

7,970,922 P2P Real Time Media Recommendations

20100199295Dynamic Video Segment Recommendations Based On Video Playback Location

C o n c e r t T e c h n o l o g y

US008620699B2

(12) Ulllted States Patent (10) Patent N0.: US 8,620,699 B2 Svendsen (45) Date of Patent: Dec. 31, 2013

(54) HEAVY INFLUENCER MEDIA 5,878,218 A 3/1999 MaddaloZZo, Jr. et a1. 5,884,031 A 3/1999 Ice

RECOMMENDATIONS 5,946,464 A 8/1999 Kito et 31.

5,956,027 A 9/1999 Kr' h rth (75) Inventor: Hugh Svendsen, Chapel Hill, NC (U S) 5,960,437 A 9/1999 Kriivg?uet 5,963,916 A 10/1999 Kaplan

(73) Assignee: Napo Enterprises, LLC, Wilmington, 6,003,030 A 12/1999 Kenper et 81. DE (Us) 6,012,083 A 1/2000 Sav1tzky et a1.

6,049,821 A 4/2000 Theriault et a1. * _ _ _ _ _ 6,134,552 A 10/2000 Fritz et a1.

( ) Not1ce: Subject to any disclaimer, the term of this 6,141,759 A 10/2000 Braddy patent is extended or adjusted under 35 6,195,657 B1 2/2001 Rucker et a1. U_S_C_ 154([,) by 1421 days' 6,212,520 B1 4/2001 Maruyama etal.

6,216,151 B1 4/2001 Antoun _ 6,253,234 B1 6/2001 Hunt et a1.

(21) APPl' NO" 11/463’157 6,266,649 B1 7/2001 Linden et a1.

(22) F1 d‘ A 8 2006 6,314,420 B1 11/2001 Lang et a1. 1 e ' ug' ’ (Continued)

(65) Prior Publication Data FOREIGN PATENT DOCUMENTS

US 2009/0083116 A1 Mar. 26, 2009 CN 1208930 A 2/1999

(51) Int CL CN 1614931 A 5/2005

G06Q 30/00 (2012.01) (Continued) OTHER PUBLICATIONS

G06F 17/30 (2006-01) http://WWW.stere0gum.c0m/1366/r0be1tismithsicelebrityiplayl (52) US. Cl. ist/news/ “Robert Smith’s Celebrity Playlist” Apr. 5, 2005*

USPC .............. .. 705/5; 705/80; 705/14.4; 709/231; C . d 709/230; 709/232; 709/238 ( Ommue )

(58) Field of Classi?cation Search Primary Examiner i Randy Scott USPC ....................... .. 709/217; 705/14, 15, 13, 105 See application ?le for complete search history. (57) ABSTRACT

(56) References Cited A system and method for providing media recommendations,

U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS such as music recommendations, based on information iden tifying media recently played by a select group of heavy in?uencers for a subscription fee are provided. The group of

4,870,579 A 9;1989 H1ey_ 1 heavy in?uencers may be a group of one or more celebrities or is; 2 43‘ 5:53;? ' other persons Whose media selections may heavily in?uence 537653028 A 6/1998 Gladden ' media selections of the users of the system. 5,771,778 A 6/1998 MacLean, IV 5,864,854 A 1/ 1999 Boyle 40 Claims, 7 Drawing Sheets

/10 14-1

(12-1 MEDIA PLAYER

H (INFLUENCER)

[2O - ENTRAL ERVER

14 2 (122 C S r 16 18

MEDIA PLAYER RECOMMENDATION MEDIA PLAYER ‘—’ (INFLUENCER) ENSZINE (CLIENT)

- SERVICE

1 E 14-N

F MEDIA PLAYER H (INFLUENCER)

US008396951B2

(12) Ulllted States Patent (10) Patent N0.: US 8,396,951 B2 Svendsen et a]. (45) Date of Patent: Mar. 12, 2013

(54) METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR POPULATING g, in?“ et a} , , 1n en et a .

A CONTENT REPOSITORY FOR AN 6,314,420 B1 11/2001 Lang et a1‘ INTERNET RADIO SERVICE BASED ON A 6,317,722 B1 11/2001 Jacobi et a1‘ RECOMMENDATION NETWORK 6,353,823 B1 3/2002 Kumar

6,388,714 B1 5/2002 Schein et al. . ~ . 6,438,579 B1 8/2002 Hosken

(75) Inventors‘ gugh s‘gln‘irsen’ flharéel HIRI’CNC SIS)’ 6,498,955 B1 12/2002 McCarthy et a1. “gene - ‘me ya a9” (U ) 6,526,411 B1 2/2003 Ward

6,567,797 B1 5/2003 SchuetZe et a1. (73) Assignee: Napo Enterprises, LLC, Portsmouth, 6,587,127 B1 7/2003 Leeke et 81.

NH (Us) 6,587,850 B2 7/2003 Zhai

(Continued) ( * ) Notice: Subject to any disclaimer, the term of this

patent is extended or adjusted under 35 FOREIGN PATENT DOCUMENTS U-S-C- 154(1)) by 964 days- CN 1208930 A 2/1999

CN 1614931 A 5/2005

(21) Appl. N0.: 11/961,105 (Continued)

(22) File/d1 Dec- 20, 2007 OTHER PUBLICATIONS

(65) Prior Publication Data Last.fm, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, http://enwikipedia. 0rg/Wiki/Last.fm, pp. l-l2, Aug. 31, 2007.

US 2009/0164514 A1 Jun. 25, 2009 (Continued)

(51) Int. Cl. _ G06F 15/16 (200601) Primary Examiner * Andrew Chr1ss

(52) us. Cl. ...... .. 709/223; 709/231; 709/238; 709/239; ASS/mm’ Examinerf Mohamed Kamara

706/16; 706/47 57 ABSTRACT (58) Field of Classi?cation Search .................. .. 706/16, ( )

706/47; 713/168, 176; 455/414.1; 709/231, A computer-implemented method and system are provided 709/238, 239, 242, 223; 731/168, 176 for populating the content repository of the media service

See application ?le for complete search history. based on real-time media recommendation network compris ing a plurality of peer devices. Aspects of the method and

(56) References Cited system include receiving by a server a recommendation from

US. PATENT DOCUMENTS one of the plurality of peer devices for a media item that is intended for a recipient; determining if the media item is

4,870,579 A 9/1989 Hey present in the content repository; in response to determining 5,621,456 A 4/1997 Florin et al~ that the media item is not present in the content repository, 5,724,567 A 3/1998 Rose et 31' requesting that the peer device upload the media item; and in 5’77l’778 A 6/1998 MacLean’ IV res onse to the media item bein u loaded storin the media 5,956,027 A 9/1999 Krishnamurthy _ P _ _ g P i g 5,960,437 A 9/1999 Krawchuk et a1. Item 1111116 Content IBPOSIIOI'Y 5,963,916 A 10/1999 Kaplan 6,134,552 A 10/2000 Fritz et a1. 20 Claims, 6 Drawing Sheets

INTERNET RQBIO SERVICE

cENTFiALaséERvEms) m _ USER DATA

/ M

CONTENT REPOSITORY MEDIA ITEMS 3.5 M

CONTENT ggCOUNTING MEDIA ITEMS &

FIECOMMEND1ATION ENGINE

MEDIA C(1DIB_LECTION

LICENSE ENFORCEMENT

e. ., INTERNET (9 a ) N ETWOR K PEER DEVICE

m

PEER DEVICE 12b

PEER II1)2EVICES

USOO8725740B2

(12) United States Patent (10) Patent N0.: US 8,725,740 B2 Amidon et a]. (45) Date of Patent: May 13, 2014

(54) ACTIVE PLAYLIST HAVING DYNAMIC 5,790,426 A 8/1998 Robinson MEDIA ITEM GROUPS 5,796,727 A 8/1998 Harrison

5,845,065 A 12/1998 Conte et al. . . 5,884,046 A 3/1999 Antonov

(75) Inventors: glsrytél’hegle-gZIAmlldgna A??? (IIIJCS) 5,884,282 A 3/1999 Robinson ’ my I ac ’ ary’ (Continued)

(73) Assignee: Napo Enterprises, LLC, Wilmington, DE (Us) FOREIGN PATENT DOCUMENTS

( * ) Notice: Subject to any disclaimer, the term of this patent is extended or adjusted under 35 C . d

U.S.C. 154(b) by 524 days. ( Ommue ) OTHER PUBLICATIONS

(21) Appl.No.: 12/053,782 “Pandora Internet RadioiFind New Music, Listen to Free Web

(22) Flled: Mar- 241 2008 Radio,” http://WWW.pand0ra.com/, copyright 2005-2007 Pandora

(65) Prior Publication Data Media, Inc., printed Feb. 7, 2007, 1 page.

US 2009/0240732 A1 Sep. 24, 2009 (commued)

(51) Int Cl Primary Examiner * Usmaan Saeed

Got-3F '7/00 (2006 01) Assistant Examiner * Paul Kim G06F 17/00 2006.01

(52) U 5 Cl ( ) (57) ABSTRACT

USPC ........................................................ .. 707/748 Systems and methods are Prqvided for qeatiop and manage (58) Field of Classi?cation Search ment of an act1ve playllst havmg dynam1c med1a 1tem groups.

USPC ......................... .. 707/747, 736, 916, 999.107 A numbermeedla “@1113 ‘0 be_used for the acme plaYhSF are See application ?le for complete search history ?rst 1dent1?ed and class1?ed mto one or more med1a 1tem

groups based on a primary criterion and, optionally, one or (56) References Cited more secondary criteria to provide an underlying pool of

4,870,579 5,168,481 5,262,875 5,440,334 5,616,876 5,621,456 5,621,546 5,625,608 5,710,970 5,771,778 5,787,264

9/1989 12/1992 11/1993 8/1995 4/1997 4/1997 4/1997 4/1997 1/1998 6/1998 7/1998

U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS

Hey Culbertson et a1. Mincer et al. Walters et a1. Cluts Florin et al. Klassen et al. Grewe et a1. Walters et a1. MacLean, IV Christiansen et al.

ADD MEDIA ITEM TO THE EXISTING

MEDIA ITEM GROUP

IDENTIFV MEDIA ITEMS FOR AN ACTIVE PLAYLIST

SORTTHE MEDIA ITEMS BASED ON A PRIMARV CRITERION

TO PROVIDE A SORTED LIST

media items for the active playlist. The active playlist is then populated With media items from the underlying pool of media items. More speci?cally, the active playlist is divided into media item groups corresponding to those in the under lying pool of media items. Each media item group in the active playlist is populated With a prede?ned number of the media items in the corresponding media item group in the underlying pool of media items. Thereafter, the media items in the media item groups of the active playlist are dynamically updated.

16 Claims, 13 Drawing Sheets

100

r 105

CREATE A NEW MEDIA ITEM GROUP AND ADD MEDIA ITEM

TO THE NEW MEDIA ITEM GROUP

"2

LAST MEDIA ITEM?

YES

GENERATE ACTIVE PLAYLIST

IDENTIFY AND COMBINE ADJACENT MEDIA ITEM GROUPS HAVING THE SAME, OR SIMILAR,

VALUES FOR ONE OR MORE SECONDARY CRITERIA

GET METADATA FOR A NEXT MEDIA

ITEM FROM THE SORTED LIST

115