Patent ID: 8140701

Claim:
A method for scalable delivery of a real-time media content stream for an event involving a plurality of participants which are logically interconnected through a content delivery network (CDN) comprised of a plurality of CDN computing systems which each serve one or more participants in the event, the real-time media content stream being provided by an event controller, and the method comprising: an act of instantiating one or more intermediary software applications which are each configured to intermediate between an event controller and a content delivery network (CDN); an act of one or more of the intermediary software applications joining the event as an event participant, each intermediary software application joining the event receiving from the event controller, in real time, a complete media content stream of the event as it is transpiring; and an act of the one or more intermediary software applications directly transmitting in real time the received media content stream, without caching or reassembly, to one or more computer systems of the CDN for real-time distribution to the plurality of participants; an act of the one or more intermediary software applications receiving real-time responsive communications from one or more event participants within the CDN; an act of the one or more intermediary software applications receiving such real-time responsive communications aggregating the responsive communications in accordance with an aggregation policy; and an act of transmitting the aggregated responsive communications from one or more of the intermediary software applications to the event controller which then includes the aggregated responsive communications in an updated media content stream transmitted to the one or more intermediary software applications for subsequent distribution to the CDN computing systems.