Extracting media content from social networking services

Abstract

Systems and methods are disclosed for extracting media content from social networking services and presenting the extracted content to an IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) user in a personalized and easy-to-consume manner. One or more feeds from social networking services that contain data pertaining to the user's social graph are monitored by a service in the IPTV domain for media content that meets preset criteria and preferences of the user. A social networking dashboard application is hosted in the IPTV environment and includes a user interface arranged with tools to enable the user to set preferences and specify tags that control various aspects of the media content extraction. The service can also monitor the social networking feeds in a real-time manner that enables creation of a knowledge base that is usable to present media content “trends” to the IPTV user.

1 .- 10 . (canceled) 
     
     
         11 . One or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media containing instructions which, when executed by one or more processors disposed in an electronic device, implement a social network dashboard application user interface performing a method comprising:
 i. supporting functionality through the user interface for receiving input from an application user that is indicative of tags usable as criteria for extracting media content from one or more social networking feeds;   ii. providing the inputted tags to a service that extracts media content from the one or more social networking feeds when the criteria are met;   iii. receiving a plurality of media content assets from the service, the media content assets including identification of the extracted media content and related metadata; and   iv. displaying the plurality of media content assets to the user, the displaying including arranging the media content assets in a selectable manner to enable the user to select media content from the displayed media content assets for playback on a content playback device.   
     
     
         12 . The one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media of  claim 11 , wherein the criteria further include profile preferences. 
     
     
         13 . The one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media of  claim 11 , wherein the method further includes providing functionality through the user interface for receiving user input for controlling aspects of the display of the plurality of media content items. 
     
     
         14 . The one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media of  claim 13 , wherein the controlling comprises selecting among alternative display arrangements for thumbnails that are representative of the media content, the arrangement including mosaic, mesh, grid, categorization, and list. 
     
     
         15 . The one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media of  claim 11 , wherein the method further includes providing functionality through the user interface for receiving an indication from the user of a selection of a piece of media content and displaying the metadata associated with the selected piece of media content or causing the selected piece of media content to play back on a content playback device responsively to the indication. 
     
     
         16 . The one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media of  claim 11 , wherein the dashboard application is hosted on one of an IPTV, second display, disc player, media player, networked media player, set-top-box, game console, home entertainment system, or electronic device incorporating combinations of functionalities provided therein. 
     
     
         17 . A method for displaying media content extracted from a social networking service on a content playback device associated with a user, comprising:
 i. monitoring activities of one or more of members of the user's social graph on the social networking service, the monitoring performed substantially continuously so as to capture social networking updates posted by the members in near real-time;   ii. extracting media content contained in the social networking updates;   iii. adding the extracted media content to a queue of media content associated with past updates;   iv. displaying the queued media content to the user; and   v. enabling the user to select from ones of the displayed media content for playback on a content playback device.   
     
     
         18 . The method of  claim 17 , wherein the method further includes rejecting social networking updates that do not conform to pre-selected user preferences. 
     
     
         19 . The method of  claim 18 , wherein the pre-selected user preferences are representative of at least one of context, keywords, topics, concepts, subject, or genre. 
     
     
         20 . The method of  claim 17 , wherein the user-selected media content is received by the content playback device by following a link to the media content that is stored on a remote server.