SOCIAL NETWORK SURFING

• US 20050165785A1
• Filed: 01/23/2004
• Published: 07/28/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 01/23/2004
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Malkin, Peter K., Erickson, Thomas D., Kellogg, Wendy A.
• Application Number:
  US10/707,917
• Publication Number:
  US 20050165785A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/51 Discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]

Abstract

Disclosed is a method for allowing the sharing of social relationships collections including the step of creating a social relationship collection object for a first user that provides access to at least one individual with whom they have a social relationship and allowing a second user to retrieve the social relationship collection object. As a result of allowing said second user to retrieve the social relationship collection object, the second user inspects a reference contained in the first user'"'"'s social relationship collection object.

Claims

1. A method for allowing the sharing of social relationships collections comprising the steps of:

creating a social relationship collection object for a first user that provides access to at least one individual with whom they have a social relationship;

allowing a second user to retrieve said social relationship collection object; and

as a result of allowing said second user to retrieve said social relationship collection object, said second user inspects a reference contained in the first user'"'"'s social relationship collection object.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising the step of providing said social relationship collection object as a user list.

3. The method of claim 2 further comprising the step of associating said user list with a meta-tag.

4. The method of claim 3 further comprising the step of automatically modifying the meta-tag when retrieved by said second user.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising the step of providing meta-tags for said social relationship collection object for indicating when a given reference within said object was used.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising the step of providing meta-tags that indicate the type of relationship between the first user and at least one reference within said social relationship collection object.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising the step of providing a meta-tag for at least one reference within said social relationship collection object.

8. The method of claim 1 further comprising the step of providing usage history for at least one reference within said social relationship collection object.

9. A method for hosting a service that allows for the sharing of social relationships collections comprising the steps of:

creating a social relationship collection object for a first user that provides access to at least one individual with whom they have a social relationship;

allowing a second user to retrieve said social relationship collection object; and

as a result of allowing said second user to retrieve said social relationship collection object, said second user inspects a reference contained in the first user'"'"'s social relationship collection object.

10. The method of claim 9 further comprising the step of providing said social relationship collection object as a user list.

11. The method of claim 10 further comprising the step of associating said user list with a meta-tag.

12. The method of claim 11 further comprising the step of automatically modifying the meta-tag when retrieved by said second user.

13. The method of claim 9 further comprising the step of providing meta-tags for said social relationship collection object for indicating when a given reference within said object was used.

14. The method of claim 9 further comprising the step of providing meta-tags that indicate the type of relationship between the first user and at least one reference within said social relationship collection object.

15. The method of claim 9 further comprising the step of providing a meta-tag for at least one reference within said social relationship collection object.

16. The method of claim 9 further comprising the step of providing usage history for at least one reference within said social relationship collection object.

17. An apparatus for use in a computer services environment, said apparatus comprising:

at least one processor operative to create a social relationship collection object for a first user that provides access to at least one reference with whom they have a social relationship, allow a second user to retrieve said social relationship collection object, and as a result of allowing said second user to retrieve said social relationship collection object, said second user inspects a reference contained in the first user'"'"'s social relationship collection object.

18. A method for allowing a first organization to enable a second organization to use social relationship collection objects of the first organization, the method comprising the steps of:

determining the number of users in the second organization that would be using the social relationship collection objects of the first organization,

configuring and installing a server at the first organization to handle requests from the users of the second organization, and

ensuring the all relevant members of the second organization have a client application for accessing the server.