Patents

Issued April 16, 2013

A computer-implemented method and apparatus determines individual user priorities of collections of resources. The system represents collections of shared resources as end-user activities. An engine retrieves the activity access history of the user and the activity records and generates a description of each activity and a priority score. The engine may include a data collection component and a training and ranking component. Based on the activity descriptions and priority scores, the system generates and outputs for display an activity list ordered by individual user priority.

Issued April 2, 2013

Embodiments of the present invention address deficiencies of the art in respect to alert management in an activity-centric collaborative computing environment and provide a novel and non-obvious method, system and computer program product for activity thread integration of an alert log. In one embodiment of the invention, an alert log activity thread integration method can be provided. The method can include logging a reference to an alert for an activity in an activity thread, and, in response to the selection of the alert from within the activity thread, displaying the content of the alert. For instance, logging a reference to an alert for an activity in an activity thread can include creating a branch of the activity thread for inserting all alerts pertaining to the activity and inserting the reference to the alert in the created branch.

Issued January 1, 2013

Embodiments of the present invention address deficiencies of the art in respect to social media navigation in a social network and provide a method, system and computer program product for user pivot for media sharing in a social network. In an embodiment of the invention, a social networking data processing system for user pivot navigation. The system can include a social network executing in a host server, the social network providing shared media for viewing by communicatively coupled clients. The system also can include user pivot logic coupled to the social network. The logic can include program code enabled to identify a user of the social network associated with shared media selected for display in a media view to a requesting user and to generate a navigation view in a consistent location in a user interface to the social network irrespective of a page view rendered in the user interface, the view providing a link to a profile page for the identified user.

Issued September 27, 2011

A content recommendation method can include retrieving contacts for a player of a content recommendation game and listing content associated with the retrieved contacts and prompting the player in response to a selection of a particular one of the listed content to identify a specific one of the retrieved contacts as a source associated with the particular one of the listed content. The particular one of the listed content can be recommended to the identified specific one of the retrieved contacts when the player has incorrectly identified the specific one of the retrieved contacts as a source associated with the particular one of the listed content. Otherwise, the player can be awarded points in the game to a game score for the player for having correctly identified the specific one of the retrieved contacts as a source associated with the particular one of the listed content.

Filed April 15, 2011

A computer based system and method of audience-based suggestion for content creation in social media is disclosed. The content suggestor system and method receive user requests including title of content that the requester would be interested in viewing/reading. The system routes the request to any number of target users that would be likely to responsively create/upload such content, including both users the requester has deemed appropriate as well as any the system deems appropriate. A user interface displays topic requests to the target users (users the request was routed to). Upon content being uploaded in the global computer network in response to the request, the system notifies each requesting user. The content responsively created and uploaded may be in media different from the medium of the initial request.

Filed April 6, 2011

An online discussion recommendation system ranks and presents to users of a social media site discussions of interest preferably calculated through interest-matching. The discussion has many online posts. The system and method determine which post to present to the user as a sample snippet from such discussion using sentiment analysis. The sentiment of the snippet may be most polarized, sentiment matching the user’s current mood, typical user sentiment, or others.

Issued April 5, 2011

A method and system for providing a local user of an instant messaging system with updated status information regarding one or more remote users that provides indication to a local user of whether an instant messaging status message has been recently updated. The disclosed system provides a “new status message” visual indication when a status message for a remote user has recently changed. A timer may be employed to determine how long a new status message visual indication is provided after the status message has changed. The status message itself may be obtained by various specific techniques, such as hovering the cursor over a graphical object for a remote user associated with the new status indication, hovering over the new status indication itself, or clicking through the new status indication or associated graphical object, or through some other appropriate technique.

Issued November 23, 2010

A collaboration server is described that enables both real-time conferencing and content management. Thus, client applications can connect to the server to share data and collaborate in real-time. The server allows fine grained sharing of any type of content using generic shared objects (GSO). Each GSO holds one or more pieces of persistent information and defines a list of people who are allowed to access the information. Each GSO also represents a persistent conferencing session, i.e., if clients modify GSOs, modifications are broadcast to all the other clients on the list of the shared object if they are connected. The server also manages relationships between shared objects; i.e., shared objects could be contained in other shared objects or reference other shared objects.

Issued November 2, 2010

Embodiments of the present invention address deficiencies of the art in respect to alert bubble management and provide a method, data processing system and computer program product for interactive alert bubbles for alert bubble management. In one embodiment of the invention, an interactive alert bubble can be provided for an alert management data processing system. The interactive alert bubble can include an alert bubble interface to the interactive alert bubble. An alert text field can be disposed in the interface and configured to provide a reference to an alert notification in the alert management data processing system. Additionally, a rating control can be disposed in the interface and configured to establish a rating for the alert notification responsive to a selection of the rating control.less

Issued April 8, 2008

The present invention provides a user interface that includes a first column for chronologically displaying a set of messages (objects) in a conversation, and a second column for displaying a branch of messages (objects) corresponding to a message (object) selected in the first column. The user interface further includes, among other things, a list of participants to the conversation, a vertical index (time line), a list of related conversations and a conversation map that illustrates a hierarchy of the conversation. Each message (object) in the first column can have an associated indicator for indicating a quantity of predecessors and successors to the set of messages (objects), as well as an in-line reply button for replying to the set of messages. Each of the messages displayed of the second column can have one or more associated navigation buttons for navigating adjacent hierarchical levels.

Filed January 21, 2008

Embodiments of the present invention provide a method, system and computer program product for aggregating and visualizing reused shared lists. A method for aggregating and visualizing reused shared lists can include selecting an existing shared list, determining a topic for the selected shared list, receiving list items by rank for the determined topic, generating a new shared list with the determined topic and received list items, and storing the new shared list in association with the existing shared list. The method further can include providing a reused shared list view for all reused shared lists for a common topic. Finally, the method can include aggregating all reused shared lists for a common topic and providing a view of the aggregation with list items either for each rank for each reused shared list or in rank order for all reused shared lists for the common topic.

Filed January 19, 2008

Embodiments of the present invention address deficiencies of the art in respect to social networking and provide a method, system and computer program product for site-wide recent action management in a social network. In an embodiment of the invention, a social networking data processing system can be provided. The system can include a social networking application executing in a host server and generating different page views for different users of the social networking application. The system also can include a data store of recent actions for different ones of the users. Finally the system can include a site-wide navigation element displayed in each of the page views for each of the users irrespective of the page view and whether or not the page view is a home page or profile page. In particular, the element can include user links to different profile pages for different users with recent actions.

Filed December 31, 2007

Embodiments of the present invention address deficiencies of the art in respect to content personalization and provide a method, system and computer program product for tag-based content personalization. In an embodiment of the invention, a method for tag based personalization of content can be provided. The method can include comparing tags for a user in a social bookmarking system to keywords for content received for the user. The method further can include filtering the content when the keywords do not compare favorably with the tags. In this way, the content preference of a user can be inferred irrespective of the environment in which the content is provided as the keywords of the content can be compared with tags associated with the interests of the recipient of the content.

Filed December 28, 2006

Embodiments of the present invention address deficiencies of the art in respect to broadcast messaging in a collaborative environment and provide a method, system and computer program product for contextualized broadcast messaging for activity-centric collaborative computing. In one embodiment of the invention, a method of contextualized broadcast messaging for activity-centric collaborative computing can be provided. The method can include selecting an activity in an activity-centric collaborative computing environment, retrieving a listing of members associated with the selected activity, creating a broadcast message designating the members as recipients of the broadcast message, and issuing the broadcast message to the members.

Filed December 28, 2006

Embodiments of the present invention address deficiencies of the art in respect to managing the scatter and flood problem of the activity-centric computing environment and provide a method, system and computer program product for sorting and filtering activities in an activity-centric computing environment. In one embodiment of the invention, a method for filtering and sorting activity objects in an activity-centric computing environment can include generating at least one activity thread of hierarchically arranged activity objects, selecting at least one filtering criterion for the activity objects, and filtering the activity objects in the activity threads. Additionally, a filtered view of the activity objects can be generated in an activity map in the activity-centric computing environment.

Filed December 8, 2006

Embodiments of the present invention address deficiencies of the art in respect to activity thread management and provide a method, system and computer program product for activity objectification for non-activity objects in an activity-centric collaboration tool. In an embodiment of the invention, a method for activity objectifying non-activity/task objects in an activity-centric collaboration tool can be provided. The method can include selecting a non-activity/task object in an activity thread for an activity map of the activity-centric collaboration tool, and associating an activity attribute with the selected non-activity/task object. The non-activity/task object further can be decorated with a user interface control corresponding to a value for the activity attribute, and a state for the user interface control can be changed responsive to changes in the value for the activity attribute.

Filed December 1, 2006

Embodiments of the present invention address deficiencies of the art in respect to alert bubbles for alert management and provide a novel and non-obvious method, system and computer program product for contextual alerts for alert management. In an embodiment of the invention, an alert management data processing system can be provided. The system can include an alert bubble configured to display alert text for an associated alert, and contextual information disposed in the alert bubble interface along with the alert text. In particular, the contextual information can provide context for the associated alert.

Filed October 27, 2006

Embodiments of the present invention address deficiencies of the art in respect to persisting threads of conversation from a messaging system and provide a method, system and computer program product for third-party application chat integration. In an embodiment of the invention, a method for third-party application chat integration can be provided. The method can include managing a thread of conversation in a messaging system, selecting at least a portion of the thread of conversation for persistence, locating information in an external, third-party application, and associating at least a portion of the thread of conversation with the located information in the external, third-party application.

Filed January 20, 2006

Embodiments of the present invention address deficiencies of the art in respect to alert management and provide a method, system and computer program product for adaptive alert management. In one embodiment of the invention, an adaptive alert management data processing system can include an alert server and multiple different alert monitors disposed in corresponding application hosts. Each of the alert monitors can be configured to establish a subscription to the alert server on behalf of at least one application view of an application issuing alerts. Finally, the system can include multiple different filter rules accessible by the alert server. Each of the filter rules can specify whether or not to suppress or display an alert received in the alert server. The system further can include a data store of ratings previously applied to an alert, an established predictive rating for a target user for a received alert, and predictive alert filter logic enabled to refine the predictive rating for the received alert based upon ratings applied by a plurality of application users to the received alert in the data store.

Filed August 20, 2004

An improved solution for managing a project comprising one or more shared artifacts is described. In particular, an interactive event can be detected on a user system, and a notice of the interactive event can be generated. The notice can be provided to one or more other user systems that are currently accessing the project. A user interface at the other user system(s) can automatically surface information on the interactive event to a user.

Filed July 19, 2004

A method, system and apparatus for logging external events in a human-to-human conversational space. In a preferred aspect of the invention, a persistent human-to-human conversational system can include a persistent human-to-human conversational tool such as a persistent chat tool, and an external event processor coupled to the persistent human-to-human conversational tool. The system further can include a query interface to the persistent human-to-human conversational tool. Finally, the system can include one or more collaborative tools communicatively linked to the persistent human-to-human conversational tool.

Filed January 22, 2004

A system for providing a local user with the identities of users with which a remote user has been communicating. In response to selection of a remote user by the local user, a display is provided of persons with whom that remote user has been communicating. Any specific communication mode of the remote user may be monitored, including instant messing, electronic mail, IP (Internet Protocol) phone, electronic meeting (“emeetings”), etc. The users with which the remote user has been communicating may be presented in various ways, such as lists of names, rows of pictures, etc. Indication of the type of, direction of, and/or initiator of the communications between the displayed users and the selected remote user may also be presented in a variety of ways, such as through modified picture formats, and/or additional visual or textual information presented in association with each person in the list.

Filed January 22, 2004

A system for providing a user status message in an instant messaging system that permits editing of the user status message by the owner of the status message and other users, and that displays information in the status message regarding the editing history of the status message. An edit history for each status message is provided, including a date and time stamp associated with each of a number of entries within the status message. Each entry in the status message is further provided with an indication of the user that authored the entry. The owner of the status message and users other than the owner of the status message are permitted to add entries to the status message through interfaces provided by the disclosed system. The system may further provide the ability to include links to additional information within the status message entries based on detection of strings of adjacent characters having a predetermined capitalization format.

Filed December 17, 2003

A user interface, method, system and program product for managing collaboration data, in which a shared object is displayed in a user interface. Access to one or more collaboration management functions is provided in a portion of the user interface, and collaboration data for the shared object can be displayed in a portion of the user interface. As a result, the user is provided with a user interface that allows for both viewing and/or modifying a shared object and its corresponding collaboration data.

Filed December 10, 2003

An improved solution for managing a meeting. In particular, a meeting document is constructed in a hierarchical manner. Before the meeting, the meeting document can assist in planning the meeting by including a set of agenda items for the meeting and/or a list of participants. During the meeting, the meeting document can be used to conduct the meeting, generate minutes for the meeting, and/or index a log of the meeting. After the meeting, the meeting document can be stored for future reference.