PROVISIONING MY STATUS INFORMATION TO OTHERS IN MY SOCIAL NETWORK

• US 20080155080A1
• Filed: 12/22/2006
• Published: 06/26/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 12/22/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Yahoo! Inc. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Sample, Neal, Kalaboukis, Chris, Marlow, Cameron
• Granted Patent: US 8,224,359 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/223
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/66 Arrangements for connecting between networks having differing types of switching systems, e.g. gateways
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0817 by checking functioning
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/04 Real-time or near real-time messaging, e.g. instant messaging [IM]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/54 Presence management, e.g. monitoring or registration for receipt of user log-on information, or the connection status of the users
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2203/4536 Voicemail combined with text-based messaging
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2203/655 Combination of telephone service and social networking
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42374 where the information is provided to a monitoring entity such as a potential calling party or a call processing server
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5322 for recording text messages

Abstract

A device, system, and method are directed towards sending a status of a user in a social network to a recipient. In one embodiment, a status of the user is received over a channel. The channel may include an application protocol. The recipient is selected based on a membership in the social network, a preference of the recipient, or a media format of the status. Another channel is selected based on information about a mode of communication between the recipient and the user and/or another member related to the user in the social network. The status may be modified based on social network information, preferences of a recipient, receiving device information, channel information, or the like. The status is forwarded to the recipient over the other channel. Forwarding may comprise unicasting, multicasting, and/or delaying sending the status until the other channel is available.

Claims

1. A method for managing a communication over a network, comprising:

receiving a status of a user in a social network over an application protocol;

selecting a recipient for the status based on a membership of the recipient in the social network;

partitioning the status based on a relationship between the user and the recipient in the social network; and

forwarding the at least one partitioned status to the selected recipient over another application protocol.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the application protocol is different than the other application protocol.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the status comprises a hierarchy of statuses, and wherein partitioning comprises providing another status from a level of the hierarchy of statuses based on the membership of the recipient in the social network.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining a plurality of application protocols to be associated with a member in a social network based on information about the member in a plurality of address books of the user; and

selecting the other application protocol from the plurality of application protocol based on an availability of the other application protocol.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein forwarding further comprises:

modifying, before forwarding, the status based on at least one of the other application protocol, the recipient'"'"'s preference, and information about a device receiving the status over the other application protocol; and

sending the modified status based on a priority of the status.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving information about a plurality of social networks, wherein the user is in one of the plurality of social networks, and the recipient is in a different one of the plurality of social networks; and

using the information to combine the plurality of social networks into the social network.

7. A network device for managing a communication over a network, comprising:

a transceiver to send and receive data over the network; and

a processor that is operable to perform actions, comprising;

subscribing a plurality of recipients to receive a status of a user in a social network;

receiving the status of the user over a channel;

selecting a portion of the plurality of recipients based on a relationship of each of the portion of the plurality of recipients in the social network with the user, and based on whether the plurality of recipients is indicated as allowed to receive the status; and

sending the status over a plurality of channels, wherein each channel is associated with a different one of the portion of the plurality of recipients, and wherein each of the plurality of channels is determined based on an application protocol, a receiving application type, and a receiving platform type.

8. The network device of claim 7, wherein the actions further comprises:

modifying, before sending, the received status from a received media format to another media format based on a preference of at least one of the portion of the plurality of recipients, wherein the media formats includes at least one of a text message format, a voice message format, an image format, a video format, or a multimedia format.

9. The network device of claim 7, wherein the actions further comprises:

forwarding a comment about the forwarded status to the portion of the plurality of recipients over each of the plurality of channels.

10. The network device of claim 7, wherein selecting the portion of the plurality of recipients further comprises determining a member of the social network as one of the plurality of recipients based on a degree of separation between the member and the user in the social network.

11. The network device of claim 7, wherein the status includes at least one of a mood, a time, a promotion, or a location of a mobile device of the user used to send the status.

12. A system for managing a communication over a network, comprising:

a client device operable to perform actions comprising;

receiving an input of a status of a user in a social network, wherein the user is associated with the client device;

enabling a selection of a community of the user in the social network; and

forwarding the status over a plurality of channels to a recipient in the community based on the community; and

a server device operable to perform actions comprising;

intercepting the status of a user in a social network over one of the plurality of channels; and

sending at least one status over another one of the plurality of channels to the recipient.

13. The system claim 12, wherein the client device further comprises:

a biometric detector in communication with the user, wherein the biometric detector is operable to receive information about the user and to transcode the received information into the input of the status.

14. The system claim 12, wherein the plurality of channels further comprises at least one of a Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), a Short Message Service (SMS), or an instant messaging (IM) channel.

15. The system claim 12, wherein sending comprises multicasting the status.

16. The system of claim 12, wherein the server is further operable to perform actions comprising:

transcoding the status into a voice version of the status, before multicasting the voice version of the status.

17. The system claim 12, wherein the recipient is determined based on a media format of the status and a history of other media formats of other statuses sent to the recipient.

18. A processor readable medium having processor executable instructions for managing a communication over a network, the processor executable instructions configured to enable a processor to perform actions, comprising:

determining a plurality of channels to be associated with a recipient in a social network based on information about a mode of communication between the recipient and a user;

receiving a status of the user in the social network over a channel;

selecting a send channel from the plurality of channels based on a preference of the recipient; and

delaying sending the status over the send channel until the send channel is determined to be available.

19. The processor readable medium of claim 18, wherein the actions further comprises:

determining the plurality of channels based on information about another mode of communication between the recipient and another member in the social network.

20. The processor readable medium of claim 18, wherein the information about the mode of communication includes a history of a past channel used to communicate between the user and the member.