Verizon Patent and Licensing Inc.

Verizon Data Services Inc.

Jimena Velarde

Martin Busse

Zhiying Jin

Raul I Aldrey

Michael J Naggar

John Valdez

Haosheng Guo

Edwin Elberg

Luis R Blando

Wenjie Liu

Juhong Liu

Sudhanshu Sharma

Mona A Goldstein

Jack Jianxiu Hao

Haiyan Zhou

Angel Cordero

An approach is provided for creating a personalized programming guide. A guide manager receives input from a user for creating a personalized programming guide. The guide manager retrieves one or more search criteria associated with a community of other users to construct a query. The guide manager then performs the query and displays the results of the query in a personalized programming guide.

Method and apparatus for creating a personalized programming guide

A method includes identifying at least one document associated with content from at least one digital content source. The at least one document includes information identifying at least one aspect of the content. The method also includes determining a document index for the at least one document based on keywords included in the at least one document. An activity field is inserted into the document index. The method includes accessing activity information. The activity information identifies at least one activity keyword associated with at least one activity. The method further includes identifying at least one present activity keyword in the document based on the activity information. An indicator of at least one present activity is determined based on the at least one present activity keyword. The method includes indexing the indicator of the at least one present activity in the activity field of the document index.

Activity based search

This disclosure details the implementation of apparatuses, methods and systems for improving the relevancy of Interactive Program Guide search results on a wireless user's handset and television (hereinafter, 'IPG'). The IPG implements a search facility whereby users may enter search criteria into a wireless user's handset or television or the like and receive search results sorted to provide the most relevant results first. In one embodiment, the IPG may receive search criteria into a search engine and determine one or more search results in response to the search criteria. The IPG may query one or more databases of attributes, compare the search results to the attributes, and calculate weights for each of the search results according to one or more attributes. The IPG may also sort and return the compared search results so that the results are returned in order of relevance according to the weighting.

Apparatuses, methods and systems for improving the relevancy of interactive program guide search results on a wireless user's handset and television

An exemplary method includes receiving a program guide data search request, associating a time block with the program guide data search request, identifying a set of program guide data associated with the time block, searching the set of program guide data associated with the time block to identify at least one matching media content instance based on the program guide data search request, and generating data representative of a search-based program guide view for display in a graphical user interface, the search-based program guide view exhibiting graphical data representative of the at least one matching media content instance. In certain embodiments, the method further comprises generating a virtual search channel associated with the program guide data search request and providing graphical data representative of the virtual search channel for display in the search-based program guide view. Corresponding methods and systems are also disclosed.

Search-based media program guide systems and methods

A system is configured to receive a portion of a word; retrieve a group of words matching the portion of the word; retrieve information associated with a set of words in the group, where the information, for a particular one of the words, indicates a measure of popularity of the particular word, geographic location information associated with the particular word, time information associated with the particular word, or user preference information associated with the particular word; rank the set of words based on the information; present a list of words from the set of words for display based on the ranking; receive selection of a word from the list of words; perform a search for television content based on the selected word to identify a group of television content; receive selection of television content from the group of television content; and present the selected television content for display.

Automated query generation for televison content searching

In an exemplary method, at least one telephony attribute associated with a voice call directed from a client communication subsystem to a voice network identifier is detected. Visual content that has been predefined as being associated with the at least one telephony attribute is identified. A request for the visual content is initiated in response to the detecting step. The visual content is received, in response to the initiating step, for display at the client communication subsystem.

Methods and systems for visual voice calls

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Arlington, MA, United States of America

Jimena Velarde