Generalized interactive narratives

A method in a computing device with a processor and memory for generating a multimedia experience stream, the method comprising:

• providing a plurality of presentation components for presenting a stream of a certain media type using a type-specific application interface for controlling the presenting of the stream;
• providing, for each of the plurality of presentation components, an interface component that implements a common application interface for controlling the presenting of a stream by mapping interactions with the common application interface to interactions with the type-specific application interface of the presentation component;
• providing a narrative definition defining the multimedia experience stream as a narrative with sub-narratives, each sub-narrative defining one or more streams that are part of that sub-narrative;
• and
• for each sub-narrative of the narrative definition,
• selecting each stream of that sub-narrative and directing the interface component for the media type of that stream to present the stream such that the streams of a sub-narrative are presented in parallel;
• upon receiving from a user an indication to pause, directing each interface component that is currently presenting a stream to pause at a pause location;
• and
• upon receiving from the user an indication to resume, directing each interface component that is currently paused to resume presenting the stream at the pause location wherein when a user navigated to a different location of the content of the stream during the pause, the interface component for the stream effects a transition from the new location to the pause location before resuming the stream from the pause location.

A computer-readable storage medium embedded with computer-readable instructions for controlling a computing device to generate a multimedia experience stream, comprising:

• instructions implementing a plurality of presentation components for presenting a stream of a media type and providing a type-specific application interface for controlling the presenting of the stream, at least one presentation component having an orientation that includes position and direction for viewing the stream and having a user interface allowing a user to navigate content of the stream;
• for each of the plurality of presentation components, instructions implementing an interface component that provides a common application interface for controlling the presenting of streams and that maps interactions with the common application interface to interactions with the type-specific application interface, the common application interface providing a pause and a resume function for pausing and resuming of a stream, the pausing of at least one stream allowing a user to use the user interface of a presentation component to navigate from a current orientation to a different orientation of content of the stream, the resuming of at least one stream for automatically transitioning from the different orientation to the current view orientation at the time of the pause and continuing the presenting of the stream from the current orientation;
• instructions for accessing a narrative definition defining the multimedia experience as a narrative with sub-narratives, each sub-narrative defining one or more streams that are part of that sub-narrative;
• and
• instructions that, for each sub-narrative of the narrative definition,
• select each stream of that sub-narrative and direct the interface component for the media type of that stream to present the stream such that the streams of a sub-narrative are presented in parallel;
• upon receiving from a user an indication to pause the multimedia experience stream, direct each interface component that is currently presenting a stream to pause;
• and
• upon receiving from the user an indication to resume, direct each interface component that is currently paused to resume presenting the paused stream.