Finding and consuming web subscriptions in a web browser

• US 20060288011A1
• Filed: 06/21/2005
• Published: 12/21/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 06/21/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Choi, Wayne Wy, Gandhi, Amar S., Gould, William, Lyndersay, Sean O., Kim, Jane T., Morgan, Bruce A., Lueders, John H., Stevens, Warren G.
• Granted Patent: US 9,104,773 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/958 Organisation or management of web site content, e.g. publishing, maintaining pages or automatic linking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/55 Push-based network services

Abstract

A content syndication platform, such as a web content syndication platform, manages, organizes and makes available for consumption content that is acquired from the Internet. In at least some embodiments, the platform can acquire and organize web content, and make such content available for consumption by many different types of applications. These applications may or may not necessarily understand the particular syndication format. An application program interface (API) exposes an object model which allows applications and users to easily accomplish many different tasks such as creating, reading, updating, deleting feeds and the like. Further, in at least some embodiments, a user can subscribe to a particular web feed, be provided with a user interface that contains distinct indicia to identify new feeds, and can efficiently consume or read RSS feeds using both an RSS reader and a web browser.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:

presenting a user interface having a subscription control to enable a user to subscribe to a feed;

receiving, via the user interface, a user selection of the subscription control; and

responsive to receiving the user'"'"'s selection, initiating a feed subscription process.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said acts of presenting, receiving and initiating are performed without requiring the user to preview other feeds.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein said act of initiating is performed by a web content syndication platform.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein said act of initiating comprises calling an RSS platform and adding the feed to a feed list maintained by the RSS platform.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein said act of initiating comprises calling an RSS platform and adding the feed to a feed list maintained by the RSS platform, and further comprising making said feed available, via the RSS platform, to applications that have not subscribed to the feed.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the user interface comprises a web browser interface.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising initiating the feed subscription process responsive to a user clicking on a link associated with the feed.

8. A computer-implemented method comprising:

storing a list associated with feeds that are offered by one or more web sites;

maintaining state information associated with the list;

ascertaining, from the list, whether a web site has any new feeds; and

providing user-perceptible indicia to distinguish any new feeds.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein said act of storing is accomplished using a web content syndication platform.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein said act of storing is accomplished using an RSS platform.

11. The method of claim 8, wherein the act of maintaining state information comprises maintaining information that pertains to whether a user has viewed a feed.

12. The method of claim 8, wherein the act of ascertaining is performed responsive to a user navigating to the site.

13. The method of claim 8, wherein said act of providing comprises providing visually-perceptible indicia.

14. The method of claim 8, wherein said act of providing comprises providing visually-perceptible indicia, wherein said visually-perceptible indicia comprises at least a control button indicia.

15. A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving a user selection in a reader to launch a web browser to view an item in a feed;

launching a web browser;

making the item available for viewing using the web browser; and

using the web browser to make other feed-associated items available for viewing, without requiring the user to return to the reader to make subsequence item selections.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the acts of making and using are performed using a web content syndication platform.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein the acts of making and using are performed using a web content syndication platform, and wherein the act of using is performed by:

providing the platform with a link associated with the feed; and

checking a platform feed store for any matching links.

18. The method of claim 15, wherein the acts of making and using are performed using an RSS platform.

19. The method of claim 15, wherein the reader comprises an RSS reader.