Pandora Media, Inc.

Timothy B Westergren

Joseph J Kennedy

Etienne F Handman

Thomas J Conrad

William Glaser

Jeffrey P Stearns

Jonathan M Kraft

Systems and methods of generating and modifying a playlist using contextual information are disclosed. For example, a user may provide an input seed such as a song name or artist name. The input seed is compared to database items and a playlist is generated as a result. In some examples, the contextual information is used to enhance the comparison and to select better content objects for a user's playlist. Meanwhile, in some examples the content objects in the playlist may be arranged in an enhanced order using ranking and/or contextual information.

Methods and systems for utilizing contextual feedback to generate and modify playlists

A method of determining at least one match item corresponding to a source item. A database of multiple items such as songs is created. Each song is also represented by an n-dimensional database vector in which each element corresponding to one of n musical characteristics of the song. An n-dimensional source song vector that corresponds to the musical characteristics of a source song is determined. A Distance between the source song vector and each of database song vector is calculated, each distance being a function of the differences between the n musical characteristics of the source song vector and one of source database song vector. The calculation of the distances may include the application of a weighted factor to the musical characteristics of resulting vector. A match song is selected based on the magnitude of the distance between the source song and each database songs after applying any weighted factors.

Consumer item matching method and system

Growing community of inventors

San Francisco, CA, United States of America

Timothy B Westergren