ASSOCIATION TO COMMUNITIES

• US 20080270586A1
• Filed: 04/30/2007
• Published: 10/30/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 04/30/2007
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Oath Inc. (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Yahoo! Inc. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Sampson, John, Marcoullier, Eric, Sampson, Todd, Ho, Steve, Rafer, Neil Scott
• Application Number:
  US11/742,361
• Publication Number:
  US 20080270586A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/223
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles

Abstract

A system and method are directed towards managing affiliation to community sites and making such affiliations visible to visitors to the community sites, and/or a member'"'"'s affiliation site. A visitor may register centrally to a plurality of community sites, and receive a member affiliation webpage. The member affiliation webpage may display community sites that the registered visitor may author, and/or community sites for which the registered visitor is affiliated. A visitor may also visit an affiliation webpage(s) for a community site that may display each visitor that is currently affiliated with that community site. By displaying members of the community site, other visitors might be able to quickly identify more interesting community sites, community sites popular to one of their friends, neighbors, family members, or the like. When a registered visitor visits a community site they may select to become affiliated or may become automatically affiliated based on a criteria.

Claims

1. A system for managing network activities, comprising:

an affiliation management computing device that is arranged and configured to perform actions, including;

receiving a request from a user to be centrally registered for plurality of social networking communities;

displaying a user affiliation webpage that displays at least an avatar associated with the user; and

a social networking community'"'"'s computing device that is arranged and configured to perform actions, including;

enabling the user to access a webpage managed by the social networking community'"'"'s computing device;

affiliating the user as a member of the social networking community based, in part, on the access to the webpage;

displaying another webpage that displays avatars associated with members affiliated with the social networking community including the user'"'"'s avatar; and

providing affiliation information to the affiliation management computing device to enable the user'"'"'s affiliation webpage to be updated to display the user'"'"'s affiliation to the social networking community.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein affiliating the user as a member further comprises:

automatically affiliating the user as a member based on a pre-defined action by the user with the social networking community.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein receiving a request from the user further comprises:

receiving from the user an auto-affiliation criteria that enables the user to become automatically affiliated to at least one of the plurality of social networking communities when the criteria is satisfied.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the affiliation management computing device that is arranged and configured to perform actions, further including:

providing a unique identifier to the registered user, wherein the unique identifier is employable the at least one of the social networking community'"'"'s computing device in tracking actions by or displaying information about the user.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein receiving a request from the user further comprises:

receiving information from the user associated with at least one social networking community for which the user is currently affiliated.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the user'"'"'s affiliation webpage further comprises at least one of information associated with a social networking community for which the user is an author or manages, or information associated with any social networking communities in the plurality for which the user is currently affiliated.

7. A processor readable medium that includes instructions, wherein the execution of the instructions provides for managing social networking user information by enabling actions, including:

receiving information about a user;

displaying at a client computing device a user affiliation webpage that includes at least some of the information about the user, including at least one of a community site for which the user is an author or manages, or a community site for which the user is affiliated;

receiving affiliation information for the user from at least one community site; and

displaying at the client computing device within an affiliation webpage for the community site, at least some of the information about the user along with information associated with at least one other user affiliated with the community site.

8. The processor readable medium of claim 7, wherein receiving information about the user further comprises receiving at least one of a name, an alias, an email address, or an avatar associated with the user.

9. The processor readable medium of claim 7, wherein receiving affiliation information for the user from at least one community site further comprise:

receiving affiliation information, wherein the user is automatically affiliated with the at least one community site based on a pre-defined auto-affiliation criteria.

10. The processor readable medium of claim 7, wherein enabling actions, further comprising:

receiving additional information about the user indicating that the user is un-affiliated with a community site with which the user was previously affiliated; and

updating the user affiliation webpage and the community site affiliation webpage; and

displaying at least one of the updated user affiliation webpage or the updated community site affiliation webpage.

11. A network device to manage user information over a network, comprising:

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

a processor that is operative to perform actions, including;

receiving a request from a user to be centrally registered for plurality of distributed community sites;

receiving information about the user;

displaying at a client computing device a user affiliation webpage that includes at least some of the information about the user, including at least one of a community site for which the user is an author or manages, or a community site for which the user is affiliated;

receiving affiliation information for the user from at least one community site; and

displaying at the client computing device within an affiliation webpage for the community site, at least some of the information about the user along with information associated with at least one other user affiliated with the community site.

12. The network device of claim 11, wherein receiving information about the user further comprises receiving an auto-affiliation criteria for automatically affiliating the user to a community site.

13. The network device of claim 11, wherein receiving affiliation information for the user from at least one community site further comprises:

receiving information about an action taken by the user while visiting the at least one community site; and

if the action satisfies an auto-affiliation criteria for the user, automatically affiliating the user to the at least one community site.

14. A network device that is operative to enable managing of a community site, comprising:

a memory component for storing instructions; and

a processing component for executing instructions that enables actions, including;

receiving a request from a user to access at least one webpage;

receiving information about the user;

employing the received information and at least one action taken by the user while accessing the at least one webpage, to determine if the user satisfies an auto-affiliation criteria; and

if the user action satisfies the auto-affiliation criteria, automatically affiliating the user to the community site; and

updating for display at another network device, at least one or a user affiliation webpage or a community site affiliation webpage to indicate whether the user is affiliated with the community site.

15. The network device of claim 14, wherein receiving information about the user further comprises receiving at least one of a unique identifier, a name, an alias, an email address, or an avatar.

16. The network device of claim 14, wherein the auto-affiliation criteria further comprises at least one of a number of webpages viewed by the user within the community site or a number of times the user has visited the community site.

17. A method of managing network activity over a network, comprising:

receiving a request from a user to be centrally registered for plurality of distributed community sites;

receiving information about the user;

displaying at a client computing device a user affiliation webpage that includes at least some of the information about the user, including at least one of a community site for which the user is an author or manages, or a community site for which the user is affiliated;

receiving affiliation information for the user from at least one community site; and

displaying at the client computing device within an affiliation webpage for the community site, at least some of the information about the user along with information associated with at least one other user affiliated with the community site.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein receiving affiliation information for the user further comprises receiving information useable to determine if the user has performed an action that satisfies an auto-affiliation criteria for the at least one community site.

19. The method of claim 17, wherein displaying the at least one community site further comprises displaying a clickable icon for the at least one community site, wherein clicking on the icon redirects the user to a webpage associated with the community site.

20. A modulated data signal configured to include program instructions for performing the method of claim 17.