Video and digital multimedia aggregator

A video and multimedia aggregator for use in a distributed digital communication network, comprising:

• means for requesting a search for program content;
• means for suggesting content based on a user's past search criterion or previously downloaded content;
• means for processing the search request;
• means for searching local and remote sources for the program content;
• means for acquiring metadata related to the program content;
• means for displaying the acquired metadata;
• means for receiving a program content download request from a user;
• means for determining that the requested program content is currently unavailable at the local and remote sources;
• means for maintaining a list of a plurality of active searches based on the requested program content responsive to determining that the requested program content is currently unavailable at the local and remote sources;
• means for acquiring the program content in the download request from said user responsive to a content change made to at least one of the local and remote sources, the content change matching at least one of the active searches, if said program content has a viewing audience above a predetermined threshold and meets a predetermined selection criterion that rejects specific items;
• means for billing a user of the user terminal;
• means for periodically crawling the communications network automatically, thereby retrieving programming information for programs not indexed on the aggregator;
• means for receiving a user selection for a program of said acquired one or more of the one or more identified programs;
• and
• means for delivering said user selected program to said user terminal.

An apparatus comprising:

• a processor;
• and
• memory storing instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the apparatus to perform:
• receiving a program content search request from a user terminal in a communications network;
• suggesting additional content based on a user's past search criterion or previously downloaded content;
• searching a local content database based on the program content search request;
• searching one or more remote content databases based on the program content search request;
• determining that the program content search request does not yield a matching result with respect to the local content database and the one or more remote content databases;
• maintaining a list of a plurality of active searches based on the program content search request responsive to determining that the program content search request does not yield a matching result with respect to the local content database and the one or more remote content databases;
• identifying one or more programs based on the searches;
• acquiring one or more of the one or more identified programs from one or more of the local content database and the remote databases responsive to a content change made to at least one of the local content database and the remote databases, the content change matching at least one of the active searches, if said one or more identified programs has a viewing audience above a predetermined threshold and meets a predetermined selection criterion that rejects specific items;
• receiving a user selection for a program of said acquired one or more of the one or more identified programs;
• and
• delivering said user selected program to said user terminal.

An apparatus comprising:

• a request and results processing server;
• and
• a search engine server;
• wherein the request and results processing server includes a content search suggestion engine configured to suggest programming content based on at least one of a user's past search criterion and previously downloaded content, and
• wherein the search engine server includes a search engine processor configured to maintain a list of a plurality of active searches based on the user's past search criterion responsive to determining that the user's past search criterion does not yield a matching result with respect to a program content database, and wherein the search engine processor is configured to receive a notification that a change is made to the program content database, and wherein the search engine processor is configured to determine that a match exists between the list of active searches and the change made to the program content database, and wherein the search engine server is configured to forward a notification of the match to the request and results processing server responsive to determining that a match exists between the list of active searches and the change made to the program content database.