Enabling Interactive Integration of Network-Accessible Applications in a Content Aggregation Framework

• US 20080263090A1
• Filed: 07/09/2008
• Published: 10/23/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 04/12/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AirBNB Incorporated
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Thirumalai, Srikanth, Roy-Chowdhury, Amber
• Granted Patent: US 8,195,633 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/103X
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0613 Third-party assisted
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]

Abstract

Enabling network-accessible applications to be integrated into content aggregation frameworks (such as portals) and to become dynamically interactive through proxying components (such as proxying portlets), thereby providing run-time cooperation and data sharing.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method of enabling interactive integration of network-accessible applications in a content aggregation framework environment, comprising:

receiving, by a component that mediates access to a network-accessible application in the content aggregation framework environment, a response message from the network-accessible application, the response message comprising a first portion containing at least one data value to be shared and a second portion containing content requested by the mediating component from the network-accessible application in a request message, wherein the received content is for aggregating into a content view along with content provided by one or more other components; and

responsive to detecting, by the mediating component, the at least one data value in the first portion, publishing each of the at least one data value, thereby enabling each published data value to be automatically shared with any of the other components which have ability to consume that data value.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the any other components to which the published data value is published are those which have registered the ability to consume the published data value.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein a brokering mechanism receives each of the at least one published data value and, in response, automatically shares the received data value or values with the any other components.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein the any other components register, upon their initialization in the content aggregation framework environment, any data values which that component has the ability to consume.

5. The method according to claim 1, wherein the first portion comprises a cookie of the response message.

6. The method according to claim 1, wherein the first portion comprises at least one header of the response message.

7. The method according to claim 1, wherein the first portion contains a plurality of data values, each of the data values contained within a distinct one of a plurality of cookies attached to the response message.

8. The method according to claim 1, wherein the network-accessible application lacks an application programming interface used for component deployment in the content aggregation framework environment.

9. The method according to claim 1, further comprising filtering the at least one data value by the mediating component using a configured filter, prior to the publishing, and wherein the publishing suppresses the publishing for each of the at least one data value that does not pass the configured filter.

10. The method according to claim 1, wherein the mediating component is a proxying portlet and the other components are content-emitting portlets.

11. The method according to claim 1, wherein the mediating component is a proxying portlet for the network-accessible application, at least one of the other components is a proxying portlet for a different network-accessible application, and remaining ones of the other components are content-emitting portlets.

12. The method according to claim 1, further comprising forwarding, by the mediating component, the received content to a content aggregator for the aggregating into the content view along with the content provided by at least one of the one or more other components.

13. The method according to claim 1, wherein at least one of the other components with which the at least one published data value is automatically shared consumes the shared data value when generating its content and provides that generated content to a content aggregator for the aggregating into the content view.

14. A computer-implemented method of sharing data values provided by a network-accessible application in a content aggregation framework environment, comprising:

receiving, by a component that mediates access to the network-accessible application in the content aggregation framework environment, a response message from the network-accessible application, the response message comprising a first portion containing at least one data value to be shared and a second portion containing content requested by the mediating component from the network-accessible application in a request message; and

responsive to detecting, by the mediating component, the at least one data value in the first portion, forwarding each of the at least one data value from the mediating component for sharing with selected ones of the other components while also providing the received content from the second portion, by the mediating component, to an aggregator in the content aggregation framework environment, thereby enabling each forwarded data value to be automatically shared with the selected ones of the other components and the provided content to be aggregated into a content view, by the aggregator, with other content provided by at least one of the other components.

15. The method according to claim 14, wherein the mediating component is a proxying component and the other components are content-emitters.

16. The method according to claim 14, wherein the mediating component is a proxying component for the network-accessible application, at least one of the other components is a proxying component for a different network-accessible application, and remaining ones of the other components are non-proxying content-emitters.

17. The method according to claim 14, further comprising transforming the received content by the mediating component, and wherein the transformed content is provided to the aggregator instead of the received content.

18. A computer-implemented method for enabling sharing of data values provided by network-accessible applications in a content aggregation framework environment, comprising:

receiving, in the content aggregation framework environment, publication of a data type, wherein;

the publication is received from a mediating component that provides access, in the content aggregation framework, to a network-accessible component that contributes content for aggregating and rendering in a view for display in the content aggregation framework; and

the data type was delivered to the mediating component in a first portion of a response message that also contains, in a second portion, content contributed, responsive to a request message sent to the network-accessible component from the mediating component, by the network-accessible component for the aggregating and rendering in the view; and

automatically invoking an action, responsive to the publication, on selected ones of one or more other components contributing content for the aggregating and rendering in the view, wherein the selected ones are those which have registered an ability to consume data of the published data type.

19. The method according to claim 18, wherein:

the receiving further comprises receiving, for the published data type, a corresponding value;

the automatically invoking further comprises passing the corresponding value to each of the selected ones on the invocation; and

at least one of the selected ones uses the passed corresponding value to generate the content it contributes for the aggregating and rendering in the view.