Authenticating Users to Media-Player Devices on Online Social Networks

One or more computer-readable non-transitory storage media embodying software that is operable when executed to:

• receive, from a media-player device, a request for an authentication key;
• send, to the media-player device in response to the request, an authentication key for broadcast by the media-player device, the authentication key being generated for a user of the media-player device who is currently logged into the online social network via a native application on a client system;
• receive, from the native application on the client system, the authentication key;
• verify the authentication key received from the native application on the client system;
• and
• send the verification to the native application on the client system authorizing the native application to send location information of the client system and social-networking information of the user to the media-player device, wherein the authorization is used to register the user as an owner or a guest of the media-player device, wherein the user is registered as a guest if the request for an authentication key was sent to the media-player device by a client system of a registered owner of the media-player device.

A system comprising:

• one or more non-transitory processors;
• and a non-transitory memory coupled to the non-transitory processors comprising instructions executable by the non-transitory processors, the non-transitory processors operable when executing the instructions to:
• receive, from a media-player device, a request for an authentication key;
• send, to the media-player device in response to the request, an authentication key for broadcast by the media-player device, the authentication key being generated for a user of the media-player device who is currently logged into the online social network via a native application on a client system;
• receive, from the native application on the client system, the authentication key;
• verify the authentication key received from the native application on the client system;
• and
• send the verification to the native application on the client system authorizing the native application to send location information of the client system and social-networking information of the user to the media-player device, wherein the authorization is used to register the user as an owner or a guest of the media-player device, wherein the user is registered as a guest if the request for an authentication key was sent to the media-player device by a client system of a registered owner of the media-player device.