Accessing an events repository

• US 20070233708A1
• Filed: 03/28/2006
• Published: 10/04/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 03/28/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: R2 Solutions LLC (Acacia Research Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Yahoo! Inc. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Lin, Leonard, Baio, Andrew, Luk, Gordon
• Granted Patent: US 7,668,838 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/919 Geographic

Abstract

Techniques for accessing an events repository are provided. An event information repository contains event records defining real world events. A programmatic interface is exposed to third-party applications for accessing the event records within the repository. Specifically, the programmatic interface provides a set of routines that perform operations on the repository. Using the programmatic interface, third-party applications may call the set of routines to cause operations to be executed on the repository. Further, techniques are provided for controlling the display of private events within a first-party event application and also for associating user-defined tags with events using the events repository.

Claims

1. A method comprising performing a machine-executed operation involving instructions, wherein the machine-executed operation is at least one of:

A) sending said instructions over transmission media;

B) receiving said instructions over transmission media;

C) storing said instructions onto a machine-readable storage medium; and

D) executing the instructions;

wherein said instructions are instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform the steps of;

providing access to event information in the repository through user interfaces generated by a first-party event application, wherein the event information maintained in said repository includes event records defining one or more real world events;

exposing, to third-party applications, a programmatic interface to access a particular set of routines that perform operations on event records in said repository;

receiving through said interface, from a third-party application, a call to one of said routines; and

in response to the call, executing said routine to perform one or more operations on event records in said repository.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the first-party event application interacts with the repository by making calls to said particular set of routines.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein:

the user interfaces generated by the first-party event application are web pages, generated by the first-party event application, based on information obtained from the repository; and

the method further comprises

the first-party event application generating said web pages in response to user requests; and

sending the web pages to users over a network.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein each of the event records corresponds to an event and specifies:

when the event will occur,

an author of the event, and

a geographic location of the event.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the call to said routine includes an authentication key; and

the method further comprises examining the authentication key and authenticating the call.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the call to said routine includes parameters that specify one or more event conditions; and

performing one or more database operations on the repository further comprises;

determining a set of event records within the events data, for which the one or more conditions are satisfied; and

providing information from the set of event records to the third-party application.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the one or more conditions include at least one of:

a time range;

an event author; and

a geographic location.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein the one or more conditions include a user-designated tag.

9. The method of claim 6, wherein providing information from the set of event records to the third-party application includes providing the information as Extensible Markup Language (XML) data.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein:

receiving a call for accessing the repository includes receiving a call to insert event data into the repository; and

performing one or more database operations on the repository further comprises inserting one or more sets of data identifying an event into the repository.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the call to one of said routines is a HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) request submitted in the form of a Uniform Resource Locator (URL).

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the call includes input parameters, and wherein the input parameters are submitted as elements of the URL.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein:

the input parameters include user-authentication information; and

performing one or more database operations on the repository further comprises;

determining a set of event records within the events data, based on the user-authentication information, for which a user identified by the user-authentication information is authorized to view; and

providing information from the set of event records to the third-party application.

14. A method for accessing a repository of event information, the method comprising:

in response to user input received by a third-party event application, making a call to a routine through programmatic interface, wherein the programmatic interface provides access to a set of routines that perform operations on event records within a repository of event information;

wherein the event information in the repository includes event records defining one or more real world events;

receiving, from said routine, event information retrieved from said repository, and

generating a response that includes said event information.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein each of the event records corresponds to an event and specifies:

when the event will occur,

an author of the event, and

a geographic location of the event.

16. The method of claim 14, wherein:

the call includes an authentication key; and

the programmatic interface authenticates the call based on the authentication key.

17. The method of claim 14, wherein:

the call to the routine includes parameters that specify one or more event conditions; and

receiving event information includes receiving information defining a set of event records, wherein the set of event records satisfy the one or more conditions.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the one or more conditions include at least one of:

a time range;

an event author; and

a geographic location.

19. The method of claim 17, wherein the one or more conditions include a user-designated tag.

20. The method of claim 17, wherein receiving information defining the set of event records includes receiving the information as Extensible Markup Language (XML) data.

21. The method of claim 14, wherein:

calling one of said routines includes making a call to insert event data into the repository; and

causing an operation to be performed on the repository further comprises inserting one or more sets of data identifying an event into the repository.

22. The method of claim 14, wherein the call to one of said routines is a HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) request submitted in the form of a Uniform Resource Locator (URL).

23. The method of claim 22, wherein the call includes input parameters, and wherein the input parameters are submitted as elements of the URL.