Broadcast Notifications Using Social Networking Systems

A notification system for notifying a broadcast stream to a plurality of users, the notification system comprising:

• a broadcaster interface configured to receive a request to notify a broadcast stream from a broadcaster;
• a preference setter configured to receive preferences from users of at least one social networking system, the preferences indicating characteristics of broadcast streams of interest to the users;
• and
• a network interface configured to send instructions to an agent associated with the at least one social networking system to send notifications about the broadcast stream to a subset of the users of the at least one social networking system based on the preferences.

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions, the instructions when executed by a processor in a computing device, cause the processor to:

• receive a request to notify a broadcast stream from a broadcaster;
• receive preferences from users of at least one social networking system, the preferences indicating characteristics of broadcast streams of interest to the users;
• and
• instruct an agent associated with the social networking system to send notifications about the broadcast stream to a subset of the users of the at least one social networking system based on the preferences.

A social networking system, comprising:

• a user relationship database for storing relationships between users of the social networking system;
• and
• a broadcaster agent configured to:
• establish relationships with the users of the social networking system, the relationships between the users and the broadcaster agent stored in the user relationship database;
• and
• send notifications about a broadcast stream to a subset of the users with the established relationships based on preferences of the users and characteristics of the broadcast stream.