Method and Apparatus for Creating, Configuring and Displaying a Widget to Display User-Generated Highlights

• US 20080005664A1
• Filed: 06/21/2007
• Published: 01/03/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 06/23/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Rohit Chandra
• Original Assignee: Rohit Chandra
• Inventors: Chandra, Rohit
• Granted Patent: US 7,844,891 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/234
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/986 Document structures and storage, e.g. HTML extensions

Abstract

A method and system for enabling the display of portions of internet documents that have been highlighted by users of a highlighting service are disclosed. Accordingly, a highlighting service includes a web portal with a web page providing users with a snippet of code, which, when inserted into an internet document, causes the internet document to display highlights from the highlighting service. The snippet of code can be configured to query the highlighting service for highlights that were made by certain users, or, highlights made on documents from certain domains, and so forth. The code associated with the user interface object displaying the highlights can e configured to periodically query the highlighting service to retrieve up-to-date highlights, thereby dynamically changing the highlights appearing on a web page or internet document.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

presenting a user interface object for display on a web page, and having associated code that queries a highlighting service for user-generated highlights, wherein the user interface object is configured to display the user-generated highlights within the web page.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the code queries the highlighting service on a periodic basis so as to enable the user interface object to dynamically update the user-generated highlights that are displayed.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein, in addition to the user-generated highlights, the user interface object displays information associated with the user-generated highlights, the URL the highlights were made on, and/or the users who generated the highlights.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the code that queries the highlighting service is configured to query the highlighting service for user-generated highlights that satisfy specific parameters, and the user interface object is configured to display user-generated highlights and/or associated objects having characteristics that satisfy the specific parameters.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 4, wherein the specific parameters include any of the following:

a parameter indicating the source of the highlight;

a parameter indicating a rating associated with a highlight;

a parameter indicating a popularity level of a highlight;

a parameter indicating how frequently a highlight has been emailed;

a parameter indicating a domain from which a document including the highlight is from;

a parameter indicating who has made comments on the highlight, on the document the highlight is from, or the domain the highlight came from; and

/or a parameter indicating a level of privacy associated with a highlight.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the one or more user-generated highlights as displayed by the user interface object are links, thereby enabling a user to retrieve a document associated with a highlight by selecting a particular user-generated highlight.

7. The user interface object of claim 1, wherein the user interface object displays one or more links to information associated with a user-generated highlight, a document containing a user-generated highlight, or a user who made a user-generated highlight.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the display characteristics of the user interface object are user-configurable from a web page.

9. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein the code that queries the highlighting service for user-generated highlights is user-configurable from a web page.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the web page on which the user interface object is displayed is hosted on a server different from the server hosting the web page.

11. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

presenting a first web site for configuring a user interface object to be displayed on a web page of a second web site, the user interface object i) having associated code that queries a highlighting service for user-generated highlights, and ii) being configured to display the user-generated highlights within the second web page.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 11, wherein, in addition to being configured to display the user-generated highlights within the second web page, the user interface object is configured to display information associated with the user-generated highlights, the URL the highlights were made on, and/or the users who generated the highlights.

13. The computer-implemented method of claim 11, wherein presenting a first web site for configuring a user interface object to be displayed on a web page of a second web site includes enabling configuration of the user interface object without having to edit any code hosted at the second web site.

14. The computer-implemented method of claim 11, wherein the first web site provides a mechanism by which a user can establish search parameters for use by the code that queries the highlighting service for user-generated highlights.

15. The computer-implemented method of claim 14, wherein the search parameters include:

source of a highlight, range of time during which a highlight was made, origin of document where the highlight was made, highlight containing specific keywords, privacy levels, comments sources, total number of highlights to be selected for display and/or minimum or maximum rating associated with a highlight.

16. The computer-implemented method of claim 11, wherein the first web site provides a mechanism by which a user can configure display parameters that determine the display characteristics of the user interface object, user-generated highlights and/or associated data displayed by the user interface object.

17. The computer-implemented method of claim 11, wherein the first web site presents code, which, when embedded in the web page of the second web site, causes a user interface object to be displayed on the web page of the second web site.

18. A computer-implemented method comprising:

enabling a user to generate a highlight by selectively highlighting a portion of a first web page; and

automatically causing the highlight to be displayed in a second web page.

19. The computer-implemented method of claim 18, further comprising:

enabling a user to provide a comment associated with the highlight, wherein said comment is to be displayed in the second web page.

20. The computer-implemented method of claim 18, wherein automatically displaying the highlight in a second web page includes querying a user highlighting service for user-generated highlights satisfying specific parameters, and displaying the highlight only if characteristics of the highlight satisfy the specific parameters.