Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Joel E Wiljanen

Eric L Brechner

Hiroki Kobayashi

Raymond Arifianto

Stephen Paul Dolan

An express content metadata system ('ECM') may provide functionality for uploading, querying and downloading game content without heavy coding requirements on the part of the developers. The ECM may provide fast indexing, searching and data retrieval of content. The ECM may manage evolving changes to content definitions by providing flexible and efficient versioning control over content definitions that allows multiple versions of game content to coexist and be independently searchable.

Method and system for rapid and cost-effective development of user generated content

Media clips on a hard drive or other storage are automatically organized in collections and metadata automatically assigned to facilitate subsequent searching for media clips. A Clip Organizer software application initially scans a user's hard drive to identify folders containing user files of sound, picture, clip art, video and other media clips. Predefined types of folders are omitted in the scan to avoid identifying media clips that do not belong to the user or are part of another application program. A partially 'flattened' collection hierarchy is created to simplify browsing the media clips. Sufficient empty files are included to enable a user to readily locate the collections, and metadata comprising keywords derived from the path of each media clip are associated with each of the media clips to facilitate subsequent searching for the files. In addition, the collection hierarchy is automatically updated as changes are made.

Automatically indexing a collection of files of a selected type

Media clips on a hard drive or other storage are automatically organized in collections and metadata automatically assigned to facilitate subsequent searching for media clips. A Clip Organizer software application initially scans a user's hard drive to identify folders containing user files of sound, picture, clip art, video and other media clips. Predefined types of folders are omitted in the scan to avoid identifying media clips that do not belong to the user or are part of another application program. A partially &ldquo;flattened&rdquo; collection hierarchy is created to simplify browsing the media clips. Sufficient empty files are included to enable a user to readily locate the collections, and metadata comprising keywords derived from the path of each media clip are associated with each of the media clips to facilitate subsequent searching for the files. In addition, the collection hierarchy is automatically updated as changes are made.

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Sammamish, WA, United States of America

Joel E Wiljanen