CONTACT AGGREGATOR

• US 20090157717A1
• Filed: 06/18/2008
• Published: 06/18/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 12/17/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Robert Bonev
• Original Assignee: Smooth Productions Inc.
• Inventors: PALAHNUK, Samuel Louis, Bonev, Robert
• Granted Patent: US 8,086,676 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/4393 Multimedia presentations, e.g. slide shows, multimedia albums
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/00 Commerce
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0252 based on events or environment, e.g. weather or festivals
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0273 Determination of fees for advertising
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 715/963 Calendar or scheduling

Abstract

An integrated web-based communications service provides a content aggregator to simplify the task of managing personal, friends, family, and business contacts via a process of aggregation and consolidation into a central point. The content aggregator imports contacts from existing databases, harvests additional contact information, and maintain the contact information.

Claims

1. A method of automatically maintaining information for a contact in a database system, the method comprising:

determining the contact has not received an email;

determining information associated with the contact stored in the database;

generating a webpage requesting information from the contact or confirmation of information about the contact; and

sending an email to the contact with a link to access the generated webpage.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein sending an email includes sending an email addressed to two or more email addresses stored in the database that are associated with the contact.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

receiving information from the contact provided by the generated webpage; and

updating contact information in the database system with the received information.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

monitoring access of the webpage for information provided from the contact;

determining a predetermined period of time has expired; and

informing a user about the failed request for contact information.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

monitoring access of the webpage for information provided from the contact;

determining a predetermined period of time has expired;

determining whether the database stores a phone number associated with the contact;

activating an automated phone system to dial the phone number and request information about the contact.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

monitoring access of the webpage for information provided from the contact;

determining a predetermined period of time has expired;

determining whether the database stores a phone number associated with the contact; and

activating an automated phone system to dial the phone number and provide information about how to access the webpage.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein determining the email has not been received includes determining that an email has been returned or indicated as undeliverable.

8. A method of automatically importing contact information for contact database system, the method comprising:

providing an automated online questionnaire to a user;

receiving contact information in response to the questionnaire;

determining one or more online accounts associated with the user from the received contact information;

automatically accessing the one or more online accounts using the received contact information;

importing contact information stored by the online accounts;

merging the imported contact information and the received contact information; and

storing the merged contact information in the database.

9. The method of claim 8 wherein merging includes removing duplicate information or contacts.

10. The method of claim 8 wherein storing the merged contact information includes populating a number of predetermined data fields for each contact in the contact.

11. The method of claim 10 further comprising:

determining one or more fields for a contact is missing information or empty;

generating a webpage requesting the contact information associated with the one or more fields; and

sending an email to the contact with a link to access the generated webpage.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein sending an email includes sending an email addressed to two or more email addresses that are associated with the contact.

13. The method of claim 11 further comprising:

receiving information from the contact provided by the generated webpage; and

updating the one or more fields in the database system with the received information.

14. The method of claim 11 further comprising:

monitoring access of the webpage for information provided from the contact;

determining a predetermined period of time has expired; and

informing a user about the failed request for the contact information.

15. A method of automatically maintaining information for a contact in a database system, the method comprising:

storing one or more greeting events for a contact in the data base system;

determining an occurrence of a greeting event;

automatically generating an email in response to the occurrence including contact information and a request for verification;

receiving a response from the contact; and

automatically updating the contact information in the database with response.

16. A system to automatically maintain digital contact information in a database, the system comprising:

an input to receive an indication that an email address to a contact did not reach its intended destination;

a processing device to determine information associated with the contact stored in the database, generate a webpage requesting information about the contact or confirmation of information about the contact, and generate an email to the contact including a link to access the generated webpage; and

an output to send the generated email to the contact.

17. The system of claim 16 wherein the generated email is addressed to two or more email addresses stored in the database that are associated with the contact.

18. The system of claim 16 wherein the processing device is configured to provide the generated webpage for access by the contact, to receive information provided from the contact in response to accessing the generated webpage, and to update the contact database with the received information.

19. The system of claim 18 wherein the processing device is configured to determine the information from the contact has not been received within a predetermined period of time, and to inform a user about the failed request for contact information.

20. The system of claim 18 further comprising:

an automated phone system to dial a phone number associated with a contact and request contact information, wherein

the processing device is configured to determine the information from the contact has not been received within a predetermined period of time, that the database stores a phone number associated with the contact, and to activate the automated phone system to dial the phone number associated with the contact to request contact information.

21. The system of claim 20 wherein the request for contact information includes providing information to access the webpage.

22. The system of claim 16 wherein the indication that the email has not been received includes one of a returned email and an indication the email is undeliverable.

23. A system to automatically import digital contact information for a contact database, the system comprising:

an input to receive contact information from a user in response to an automated online questionnaire; and

a processing device to conduct the questionnaire, to determine one or more online accounts associated with the received contact information, to access the one or more online accounts using the received contact information, and to import contact information stored by the online accounts.

24. The system of claim 23 wherein the processing device merges the imported contact information and the received contact information, and stores the merged contact information in the database.

25. The system of claim 24 wherein merging includes removing duplicate information or contacts.

26. The system of claim 24 wherein storing the merged contact information includes populating a number of predetermined data fields of the database for each contact.

27. The system of claim 26 the processing device is further configured to determine one or more fields of the database associated with a contact is missing information or empty, generate a webpage requesting the contact information associated with the one or more fields, and to generate an email addressed to the contact with a link to access the generated webpage.

28. The system of claim 26 wherein the input is configured to receive information in response to the generated webpage, and the processing device is configured to update the one or more fields in the database with the received information.

29. A database system to automatically maintain digital contact information, the system comprising:

a storage device to store one or more greeting events for a contact;

a processor to determine an occurrence of a greeting event and automatically generate an email in response to the occurrence that includes contact information and a request for verification; and

an input to receive a response from the contact, wherein the system automatically updates the contact information in the database using the received response.

30. A system to automatically maintain digital contact information, the system comprising:

a database to store contract information; and

a content aggregator including;

a contact importer to receive the contact information from a user and store the contact information in the database;

a contact harvester to generate a webpage based on the contact information and generate an email addressed to a contact identified by the contact information including information to access the webpage; and

a contact maintainer to maintain the contact information by invoking the contact harvester in response to one of incomplete contact information, determining an email addressed to the contact was not received, and an occurrence of a greeting event.