Patent ID: 8010536

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of ranking and selecting pieces of media content for collaborative filtering, comprising: assigning a weight to each of a multiplicity of pieces of media content and each of a plurality of users, each piece of media content having at least one relationship with at least one of the users, each user having at least one relationship with at least one of the pieces of media content, a weight being assigned to each relationship; calculating, in a computer system, a weight for each one of the multiplicity of pieces of media content based on the weights of the at least one relationship that the piece of media content has; selecting from the multiplicity of pieces of media content a plurality of selected pieces of media content based on a ranking of the weights of the multiplicity of pieces of media content; and performing collaborative filtering on the plurality of selected pieces of media content and the plurality of users, the collaborative filtering including, for each of the plurality of users, calculating ratings for those pieces of the plurality of selected pieces of media content that have not been rated by the user based on ratings given to other pieces of the plurality of selected pieces of media content by the user and selected ratings given to the plurality of selected pieces of media content by other users in the plurality of users.