Patent ID: 7805129

Claim:
A method of influencing operation of devices associated with a local network comprising: identifying a plurality of user devices on the local network at a recommendation engine, each of the plurality of user devices storing media items and content information describing the media items; obtaining the content information at the recommendation engine, the content information describing the media items for the plurality of user devices; recommending a play list at the recommendation engine, the play list including the media items from more than one of the plurality of user devices for at least one of the plurality of user devices associated with the local network based on the content information obtained for the plurality of user devices; comparing content information describing media items accessible to a media player with the media items on the play list; selecting actual media items to play based on the comparison, wherein the media items accessible to the media player that match the media items on the play list are selected as the actual media items; and applying weights to the content information for the plurality of user devices based on an amount of time each of the plurality of user devices has been in the local network, wherein recommending the play list from the more than one of the plurality of user devices is further based on the weights applied to the plurality of user devices.