Patent ID: 7454460

Claim:
A conferencing system supporting active participants and passive participants during a conference session in which the active participant has assigned control to select and to configure media for the active participant and the passive participant has no control over media exchange, the conferencing system selects and provides the media to the passive participant, the conferencing system comprising: a client having a memory storing program instructions configured to identify whether a corresponding participant is one of the active participants or one of the passive participants; and a server having a connection to each of the active participants and to each of the passive participants, wherein the server communicates with the active participants over both a conference channel and a back channel, the server configured to execute videoconferencing software that defines a connection manager for managing the connection between the each of the active participants and the each of the passive participants and the server; a media mixer for receiving conference media and for distributing the conference media to the active participants and the passive participants; and a virtual producer for selecting the conference media to be distributed to the passive participants, wherein a layout of the conference media provided to the passive participant is dynamically determined based upon input selections sent from a set of the active participants via the back channel that are analyzed by the virtual producer during the conference session; wherein the virtual producer includes a media ranking module that provides a raw media ranking of all of the conference media based on a list of the all of the conference media of a particular conference, an active participant ranking of the conference media, interest markers associated with the conference media, and indications of triggering events associated with the conference media; and wherein the virtual producer provides the conference media and the layout of the conference media to the passive participants based on the raw media ranking of the all of the conference media.