US 8,285,837 B2Granted

Recording and/or use of generation information

AssigneeMicrosoft Corporation

InventorsMarc M. Sanford, Steven R. Ebeling, Anthony Schlee

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Abstract

An object (e.g., a video, a widget, etc.) may carry generation information, indicating the length of the referral chain that led to the object's being downloaded. Some users become aware of the object through initial publicity. When these users download an instance of the object, that instance is a generation zero instance. The object may contain a mechanism (e.g., a link) that invites other users to download an instance of the objects. When a user follows such a link and downloads an instance of the object, the downloaded instance has a higher generation than the instance that presented the link to the user. For example, if a generation zero object refers a download, then the downloaded object instance may have generation one. Generation information may be collected and analyzed to determine how successfully an object propagates.

Claims20

Dependent claims

One or more computer-readable memories, disks, and/or storage devices that store executable instructions to perform a method of facilitating obtaining an object, the method comprising:

accessing generation information within a first instance of the object, said object being audio, video, a moving image, or an application, said first instance of the object being a copy of the object with the generation information included in the first instance of the object;
determining, based on said generation information, a first generation count of said first instance, said first generation count being based on a length of a chain of referrals that led to obtaining said first instance;
creating a mechanism to contact a download site to obtain a second instance of the object, said mechanism indicating a second generation count that is to be assigned to said second instance of the object in an event in which said mechanism refers a download of said second instance of the object;
and
presenting said mechanism in a user interface associated with said first instance of the object,
said creating of said mechanism comprising:
creating a link to said download site, said link comprising a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) of said download site and a representation of said first generation count or said second generation count, said link further comprising an indication of a source, said source being a generation zero instance of said object that was obtained without having been referred through other instances of said object, said source being other than said first instance of said object.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.