Systems and Media For Updating An Instant Messaging System

• US 20090063677A1
• Filed: 05/28/2008
• Published: 03/05/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 08/26/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: John Paul Kaemmerer, Randolph Michael Forlenza
• Original Assignee: John Paul Kaemmerer, Randolph Michael Forlenza
• Inventors: Forlenza, Randolph Michael, Kaemmerer, John Paul
• Granted Patent: US 8,099,670 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/04 Real-time or near real-time messaging, e.g. instant messaging [IM]

Abstract

Systems and media for updating an instant messaging system on a network are disclosed. More particularly, hardware and/or software for updating status indicators such as ‘away’ messages of an instant messaging system are disclosed. Embodiments include determining that a change in status of the user has occurred and automatically transmitting an indication of the change in status to instant messenger system manager via a network. Embodiments include determining that a change in status of the user has occurred based oh receiving an indication that the user'"'"'s status has changed, such as from user input on a keyboard, mouse, etc. Other embodiments, include determining that a change in status has occurred based on determining that the user'"'"'s status has changed based on an electronic calendar, expiration of a time period, etc.

Claims

1. A machine-accessible medium containing instructions effective, when executing in a data processing system, to cause said data processing system to perform operations comprising:

receiving a request to configure a status indicator of the instant messaging system to an away status for a user of the instant messaging system, wherein the request to configure the status indicator includes an indication of ah ‘

away’

message, wherein the user belongs to a particular organization;

setting the ‘

away’

message, wherein the ‘

away’

message comprises a first message for other users who belong to the particular organization and a second, different message for other users who do not belong to the particular organization;

transmitting an indication of the ‘

away’

message to an instant messaging system manager via a network;

waiting until activation of a screen saver before attempting to defect activity of the user before attempting to determine whether a change in status has occurred;

after activation of the screen saver, determining that the change in status has occurred by receiving a user input via a user input device indicating that the user is active while the status indicator is in an ‘

away’

status;

after determining that the change in status has occurred, querying the user to determine if the user desires to change the status indicator to active; and

in response to an affirmative response from the user, automatically transmitting an indication of the change in status to the instant messaging system manager via the network.

2. The machine-accessible medium of claim 1, further comprising:

determining that the user is active; and

wherein the indication of a change in status is an indication of an active status.

3. The machine-accessible medium of claim 1, wherein the indication of a change in status includes a new ‘

away’

message.

4. The machine-accessible medium of claim 1, further comprising:

determining that an ‘

away’

message has the current time slot of a plurality of ‘

away’

messages; and

wherein the indication of a change in status is ah indication of the ‘

away’

message with the current time slot.

5. An instant messaging system on a network, the system comprising:

an instant messaging system manager in communication with the network, the instant messaging system manager being adapted to facilitate instant messaging between users belonging to a particular organization;

a plurality of computer systems in communication with the network, at least one computer system haying an instant messaging client to receive requests to configure a status indicator to an away status for a user, wherein the away status includes an ‘

away’

message that itself comprises a first message for other users who belong to the particular organization and a second, different message for other users who do not belong to the particular organization;

wherein the instant messaging client, after waiting until activation of a screen saver, determines if a change in the user'"'"'s status has occurred by receiving a user input via a user input device indicating that the user is active while the status indicator is in an ‘

away’

status, and wherein further the instant messaging client automatically transmits an updated status indicator to the instant messaging system manager in response to the change in status after querying the user to determine if the user desires to change the status indicator to active and receiving an affirmative response.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the change in status is from an away status to an active status.