INFORMATION PROCESSING APPARATUS, METHOD AND PROGRAM

The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, an information processing method, and a program in which a content piece matching preference information of a user or a content piece similar to a specified content piece can be searched for with a smaller amount of computation and can be provided to the user. Each of items of metadata (such as title, artist name, genre, review text, tempo, beat, and rhythm) of music is classified into any of cluster layers (first to n-th layers), and is classified (clustering) into a plurality of clusters provided in the cluster layers into which actual information of each of the items is classified. Then, instead of the metadata, cluster information including cluster IDs (such as CL11 in FIG. 2) of the clusters into which actual information of each of the items of metadata is classified is compiled in a database as information indicating the features of music. The present invention can be applied to a homepage server for recommending a purchase of content such as music data, a video recorder for recommending a recording reservation of a television program, and the like.