Patent ID: 8694531

Claim:
A method for comparing digital media files to find persons who share similar interests, the method comprising: storing, in a digital memory, a plurality of data sets, where the data sets contain information descriptive of a plurality of digital media files that are acquired by respective users, the descriptive information automatically created by media player applications of the respective users and including, for at least some of the plurality of digital media files, a genre descriptor, an artist descriptor, an album descriptor, and a title descriptor; storing, in the digital memory, a plurality of user profile records, where each user profile record contains personal identifying characteristics of one of the respective users; receiving a search criteria from a first user; searching, by a processor coupled to the digital memory, the plurality of user profile records based on the received search criteria to identify a set of user profile records whose personal identifying characteristics match the received search criteria; comparing, by the processor, a first data set containing information descriptive of a first plurality of digital media files acquired by the first user with a second data set containing information descriptive of a second plurality of digital media files acquired by a second user whose user profile record was identified as matching the received search criteria; generating a genre score that represents a degree of similarity between the genre descriptors; generating an artist score that represents a degree of similarity between the artist descriptors; generating an album score that represents a degree of similarity between the album descriptors; generating a title score that represents a degree of similarity between the title descriptors; generating an overall score for the first and second users based on an amount of descriptive information that is common between the first and second data sets, wherein the generated overall score for the first and second users represents a degree of similarity between the plurality of media files acquired by the first user and the plurality of media files acquired by the second user; and transmitting, by a network interface coupled to the processor, the generated overall score for the first and second users to the first user.