Systems and methods for generating and displaying groupings of content recommendations using personas are provided. The system determines content for each of the plurality of personas. The determined content for each of the plurality of personas comprises content that shares a common genre or theme for each persona. The system populates each of the plurality of personas using the determined content for each of the plurality of personas. The system then causes display of at least some of the plurality of personas on a viewing device of a user. The at least some of the plurality of personas is selected for the user based on device data corresponding to the user, whereby the device data indicates user preferences and interactions with previous content.

Methods, apparatus, systems and articles of manufacture are disclosed. An example apparatus includes a controller to cause a people meter to emit a prompt for input of audience identification information at a first time and determine a first audience count based on the input, an audio detector to determine a second audience count based on signatures generated from audio data captured in the media environment, and a comparator to cause the people meter to not emit the prompt for at least a first time period after the first time when the first audience count is equal to the second audience count.

A system for collecting data from different sources is described. In one example embodiment, the system obtains content-related data from a plurality of source computer systems, automatically identifies, based on the content-related data, content items having respective popularity values greater than a predetermined threshold value as popular content items, and automatically generates a list of popular content items based on the popular content items.

Provided are methods and systems for controlling data such as content and/or application data transmitted to one or more user devices. One method can comprise receiving a request for first content and generating, in response to the request for the first content, a first transport stream comprising the first content and application data relating to a first application. At least a portion of the first transport stream is transmitted to a recipient device. An interruption in the transmission of the first transport stream is detected and a determination is made that only a first portion of the application data has been transmitted to the recipient device. A second transport stream including second content and a second portion of the application data is generated and transmitted.

Described herein are various embodiments for customizing search results in a multi-content source environment. An embodiment operates by receiving input corresponding to a search from a user and retrieving a content history indicating which content was previously viewed by the user. It is determined that the content of the content history is organized into one or more preconfigured categories. A new category of content is generated based on the content history for the user. The content of the content history for user is arranged based on both the new category and at least a subset of the one or more preconfigured categories. The arranged content is displayed in a manner customized to the user.

The methods and systems described herein aid users by providing thorough and efficient content consumption. For example, the methods and systems buffer content segments related to a current portion of the content that the system is generating for display. The methods and systems determine a characteristic of the current portion of the content and related content segments based on the characteristic. Confidence scores are determined by the systems and methods for each of the related content segments, and one or more related content segments with higher confidence scores are buffered in memory. Accordingly, the methods and systems described herein provide a thorough viewing of content through related segments that are buffered in memory for quick access.

A media switch enables a terminal to access content by receiving a content request from a terminal for a first piece of content to be distributed over a cable system, identifying.sup., a personal channel within resources available in the cable system to distribute the first piece of content to the terminal, transmitting access information to the terminal to enable the terminal to access the first piece of content through the personal channel, and interfacing with a cable headend to provide the first piece of content on the personal channel.

An information processing apparatus that can communicate with plural content viewing apparatuses includes a group registering unit that registers users of the content viewing apparatuses in groups, a sharing-level setting unit that sets sharing level information representing an information sharing level among users belonging to an identical group, a viewing-information receiving unit that receives viewing information of the users, a user-viewing-content managing unit that manages a user viewing content database, a discriminating unit that discriminates, when a viewing information request of another user is received, the other users belonging to a group identical with a group to which the user of the content viewing apparatus at the request source belongs, an information extracting unit that extracts viewing information of the discriminated other users from the user viewing content database, and a viewing-information transmitting unit that transmits the viewing information to the content viewing apparatus at the request source.

Measuring and tracking user interaction with a television receiver, such as a set top box or cable box. The television receiver may create and display a matrix code that includes temporal information, user identification information, geographic information, and/or a user selection. The matrix code may be captured by a matrix reading device and transmitted to a monitoring entity. Optionally, the matrix reading device may decode the matrix code and transmit associated data to the monitoring entity. The monitoring entity may use the code or data to track and distinguish between user interactions at different points in time.

A user device includes a viewer tracking module that tracks viewer events to form a viewer tracking log and a recommendation module that generates a timeslot viewing profile based on the viewer tracking log. The timeslot viewing profile includes television programs watched previously and a prioritized timeslot series profile determined by summing and prioritizing the count of a plurality of watched programs in a series. The recommendation module compares the timeslot viewing profile of available television programs during the timeslot, generates a first content recommendation list of available television programs, receives related content identifiers for related content that identify content that is available and is related to the television programs of the first content recommendation, and, based on the related content identifiers, generates a second content recommendation list including content that is available during the timeslot different from the first content recommendation list.