Peer discovery and connection management based on context sensitive social networks

• US 20030050977A1
• Filed: 09/10/2001
• Published: 03/13/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 09/10/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Original Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Inventors: Bowman, Clair II, Puthenkulam, Jose P.
• Granted Patent: US 7,454,464 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/204
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/285 Clustering or classification
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/403 Arrangements for multi-party communication, e.g. for conferences data switching systems for conference H04L12/18; arrangements for connecting several subscribers to a common circuit, i.e. affording conference facilities H04M3/56; television conferencing systems H04N7/15
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/104 Peer-to-peer [P2P] networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1072 Discovery involving ranked list compilation of candidate peers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/14 Session management for real-time applications in data packet communications networks H04L65/1066
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/10 Connection setup
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/18 Processing of user or subscriber data, e.g. subscribed services, user preferences or user profiles; Transfer of user or subscriber data

Abstract

An arrangement is provided for responding a networking request. An initiating communication device, representing an initiating party, sends a networking request to a receiving communication device, representing a user, to request to establish a connection between the initiating party and the user. When the receiving communication device receives the networking request, it identifies the identity of the initiating party. The receiving communication device responds the networking request according to a dynamic social network model with respect to the identity of the initiating party. The response either grants or denies the networking request.

Claims

1. A method for responding a networking request, comprising:

receiving, by a communication device representing a user, a networking request from an initiating party on an initiating communication device to establish a connection between the initiating party and the user;

identifying the identity of the initiating party; and

responding the network request according to a dynamic social network model to either grant or deny the networking request.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the responding comprises:

consulting with the dynamic social network model, established with respect to the user, to identify the initiating party;

granting the networking request, if the dynamic social network model spacifies the initiating party as a contact of the user and the context under which the networking request is issued is permitted; and

denying the networking request, if the dynamic social network model does not recognize the initiating party as a contact of the user or the context under which the networking request is issued is not permitted.

3. The method according to claim 2, further comprising:

monitoring communications between the user and zero or more other users; and

generating the dynamic social network model based on the monitoring results.

4. The method according to claim 3, wherein

the monitoring communications includes

identifying the identity of each of the other users;

observing the communication activities between the user and each of the other users;

extracting the communication context information relevant to each of the communication activities.

the generating comprises;

retrieving the identity of each of the other users;

retrieving the recorded communication activities related to the each of the other users; and

modeling the social network of the user according to the identity and the recorded communication activities.

5. The method according to claim 4, wherein the communication activities include:

electronic mailing activities at certain times of certain dates;

on-line chat actovoties at certain times of certain dates;

one-line calendar scheduling at certain times of certain dates; and

file transport activities at certain times of certain dates.

6. A method for monitoring communications, comprising:

observing the communication activities between a user and each of the contacts of the user; and

extracting the context information related to the communication activities.

7. The method according to claim 6, further comprising:

computing statistics, which charaterize different aspects of the 2-way communication between the user and the each of the contacts based on the observed communication activities and the context information; and

recording the communication activities, the extracted context information, and the computed statistics as monitoring data.

8. A method for generating a dynamic social network model, comprising:

retrieving monitoring data, recorded by a communication monitoring mechanism, related to the 2-way communications between a user and one of a plurality of contacts; and

modeling the dynamic social network of the user based on the monitoring data, retrieved by the retrieving.

9. The method according to claim 8, wherein the modeling comprises:

classifying each of the contacts into one of a plurality of categories to produce a classification result;

generating a relationship description for each of the contacts characterizing the closeness between the user and the contact;

building a contact model for each of the contacts based on the classification result, the relationship description, and the monitoring data associated with the each of the contacts to generate a collection of contact models; and

generating a dynamic social network model of the user based on the collection of contact models.

10. A method for automatic networking request responding, comprising:

receiving, by a communication device representing a user, a networking request from an initiating party on a different communication device to establish a connection;

identifying the identity of the initiating party;

retrieving a dynamic social network model established with respect to the user;

determining, based on the dynamic social network model, whether the initiating party is a contact;

determining whether the context under which the networking request is issued is permitted by either the dynamic social network model or the user;

responding the networking request by either

granting the networking request if the initiating party is a contact and the context under which the initiating party issues the networking request is permitted, or

denying the networking request if either that the initiating party is not a contact or that the context under which the initiating party issues the networking request is not permitted.

11. The method according to claim 10, further comprising:

generating new dynamic communication information based on the response, determined by said responding; and

sending the new dynamic communication information to a dynamic social network modeling mechanism to update the dynamic social network model of the user.

12. A system for responding a networking request, comprising:

a dynamic social network model, built with respect to a user operating on a communication device;

an automatic networking response mechanism for receiving a networking request from an initiating party who initiates the networking request to establish a connection with the user and for automatically responding the networking request according to the dynamic social network model.

13. The system according to claim 12, wherein the networking request responding mechanism comprises:

a networking request receiver for intercepting the networking request sent by the initiating party;

an identifying mechanism for identifying the identity of the initiating party;

a contact look-up mechanism for determining the status of the initiating party with respect to the dynamic social network of the user;

a context matching mechanism for determining whether the context under which the initiating party issues the networking request is permitted by the dynamic social network model; and

a social network sensitive responding mechanism for determining how to respond the networking request based on the results from both the contact look-up mechanism and the context matching mechanism.

14. The system according to claim 13, further comprising:

a communication monitoring mechanism for observing the communications between the user and at least one other user and for recording the monitoring data associated with the communications with the at least one other user; and

a dynamic social network modeling mechanism for constructing the dynamic social network model with respect to the user based on the monitoring data.

15. The system according to claim 14, wherein the communication monitoring mechanism comprises:

a contact monitor for monitoring a contact of the user who conducts communications with the user, the contact being one of the at least one other user;

an activity monitor for monitoring the communication activities between the user and the contact; and

a context monitor for monitoring and extracting the context information associated with the communication activities.

16. The system according to claim 14, wherein the dynamic social network modeling mechanism comprises:

a contact information retriever for retrieving the monitoring data, related to the communication between the user and a contact and recorded by the communication monitoring mechanism;

a contact category classifier for classifying the contact according to the monitoring data to generate a category label, indicating the nature of the relationship between the user and the contact;

a relationship description generator for generating a description characterizing the closeness of the relationship between the user and the contact; and

a dynamic social model generator for constructing the dynamic social network model based on the monitoring data, the category label, and the description.

17. A system for monitoring communication, comprising:

a contact monitor for monitoring a contact that communicates with a user;

an activity monitor for monitoring the communication activities between the user and the contact; and

a context monitor for monitoring and extracting the context information associated with the communication activities.

18. The system according to claim 17, further comprising:

a statistics extractor for computing communication statistics and for generating monitoring data related to the communications between the user and the contact, the monitoring data including the identity of the contact, the communication activities, the context information, and the communication statistics; and

a monitoring data storage for storing the monitoring data.

19. A system for modeling dynamic social network, comprising:

a contact information retriever for accessing the information related to a contact of a user;

a contact statistics retriever for retrieving the statistics associated with the communications between the user and the contact; and

a dynamic social network model generator for building a dynamic social network model of the user based on the monitoring data.

20. The system according to claim 19, further comprising:

a contact category classifier for classifying, prior to the building the dynamic social network model, the contact into a pre-determined category based on the monitoring data associated with the contact, the classifying generating a category label for the contact which is used in the building;

a relationship description generator for generating, prior to the building, a description characterizing the closeness of the relationship between the user and the contact, the description being used in the building; and

a dynamic response information receiver for receiving information associated with dynamic responses of the user to networking requests of the contact, the dynamic response information being fed to the dynamic social network model generator to update the social network model.

21. A system for a networking request responding mechanism, comprising:

a networking request receiver for intercepting a networking request from an initiating party requesting to establish a connection with a user;

an identifying mechanism for identifying the identification of the initiating party;

a contact look-up mechanism for determining whether the initiating party is a contact of the user according to a dynamic social network model of the user; and

a social network sensitive responding mechanism for automatically generating a response to either grant or deny the networking request based on whether the initiating party is a contact of the user.

22. The system according to claim 21, further comprising:

a context matching mechanism for comparing, when the initiating party is identified as a contact of the user, the current context under which the initiating party issues the networking request with the known context associated with the communications between the initiating party and the user, established in the dynamic social network model, to generate a result indicating whether the current context is compatible with the known context, the result being used by the social network sensitive responding mechanism to determine the response; and

a dynamic response information sender for sending the dynamic information about the response to a dynamic social network modeling mechanism to update the dynamic social network model of the user.

23. A computer-readable medium encoded with a program for responding a networking request, the program, when executed, causing:

receiving, by a communication device representing a user, a networking request from an initiating party on an initiating communication device to establish a connection between the initiating party and the user;

identifying the identity of the initiating party; and

responding the network request according to a dynamic social network model to either grant or deny the networking request.

24. The medium according to claim 23, wherein the responding comprises:

consulting with the dynamic social network model, established with respect to the user, to identify the initiating party;

granting the networking request, if the dynamic social network model spacifies the initiating party as a contact of the user and the context under which the networking request is issued is permitted; and

denying the networking request, if the dynamic social network model does not recognize the initiating party as a contact of the user or the context under which the networking request is issued is not permitted.

25. A computer-readable medium encoded with a program for monitoring communications, the program, when executed, causing:

observing the communication activities between a user and each of the contacts of the user; and

extracting the context information related to the communication activities.

26. The medium according to claim 25, the program, when executed, further causing:

computing statistics, which charaterize different aspects of the 2-way communication between the user and the each of the contacts based on the observed communication activities and the context information; and

recording the communication activities, the extracted context information, and the computed statistics as monitoring data.

27. A computer-readable medium encoded with a program for generating a dynamic social network model, the program, when executed, causing:

retrieving monitoring data, recorded by a communication monitoring mechanism, related to the 2-way communications between a user and one of a plurality of contacts; and

modeling the dynamic social network of the user based on the monitoring data, retrieved by the retrieving.

28. The medium according to claim 27, wherein the modeling comprises:

classifying each of the contacts into one of a plurality of categories to produce a classification result;

generating a relationship description for each of the contacts characterizing the closeness between the user and the contact;

building a contact model for each of the contacts based on the classification result, the relationship description, and the monitoring data associated with the each of the contacts to generate a collection of contact models; and

generating a dynamic social network model of the user based on the collection of contact models.

29. A computer-readable medium encoded with a program for automatic networking request responding, the program, when executed, causing:

receiving, by a communication device representing a user, a networking request from an initiating party on a different communication device to establish a connection;

identifying the identity of the initiating party;

retrieving a dynamic social network model established with respect to the user;

determining, based on the dynamic social network model, whether the initiating party is a contact;

determining whether the context under which the networking request is issued is permitted by either the dynamic social network model or the user;

responding the networking request by either

granting the networking request if the initiating party is a contact and the context under which the initiating party issues the networking request is permitted, or

denying the networking request if either that the initiating party is not a contact or that the context under which the initiating party issues the networking request is not permitted.

30. The medium according to claim 29, the program, when executed, further causing:

generating new dynamic communication information based on the response, determined by said responding; and

sending the new dynamic communication information to a dynamic social network modeling mechanism to update the dynamic social network model of the user.