GENERATING A RECIPIENT LIST FOR PROPAGATING CONTACT INFORMATION CHANGES BASED ON CONTACT METRICS INVOLVING A USER AND THE RECIPIENTS ON THE LIST

• US 20090240657A1
• Filed: 03/19/2008
• Published: 09/24/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 03/19/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Snap, Inc.
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: HUFNAGEL, MARK R., SHOOK, AARON K., GRIGSBY, TRAVIS M., LACOCK, TYLER S.
• Granted Patent: US 7,904,459 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management

Abstract

A change in contact information for a communicator can be identified. Communication metrics can be acquired for the communicator. The communication metrics can specify details of communications between the communicator and at least one other party. At least one previously established programmatic rule can be applied to the acquired communication metrics to automatically determine whether each of the parties is a recipient who should be notified of the change in contact information based upon comparing the communication metrics relating to that party and the communicator against at least one previously established threshold. Recipients can be selectively added to a recipient list based upon results of the applied programmatic rule. The recipient list can represent a listing of parties who are to be notified of the change in contact information.

Claims

1. A method for determining parties who are to receive contact updates comprising:

identifying a change in contact information for a communicator;

acquiring communication metrics for the communicator, wherein said communication metrics detail communications between said communicator and at least one party;

applying at least one previously established programmatic rule to the acquired communication metric to automatically determine whether each of the at least one party is a recipient who should be notified of the change in contact information based upon comparing the communication metrics relating to that party and the communicator against at least one previously established threshold; and

selectively adding recipients to a recipient list based upon results of the applied programmatic rule, wherein said recipient list represents a listing of parties who are to be notified of the change in contact information.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

constructing at least one message addressed to each recipient in the recipient list, wherein the message is addressed using a recipient specific address suitable for a type of communication through which the message is to be conveyed, whereby the types of communication comprise email communication, instant messaging communication, phone communication, fax communication, and postal mail communications.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

automatically initiating at least one of an email message, a text message, an instant message, a postal message, and a fax message communication, which is automatically addressed to each recipient on the recipient list.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the contract metrics comprise metrics concerning a plurality of different types of communications, wherein each different type of communication is associated with a different recipient contact identifier.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

analyzing the contract metrics to determine a primary communication type used by each recipient of the recipient list to communicate with the communicator;

including an indicator of the primary communication type and a recipient contact identifier for the primary communication type for each recipient in the contact list.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

identifying a contact list of the communicator; and

selectively removing individuals from the contact list based upon results of the applied programmatic rule, wherein individuals are removed from the contact list when no communication has occurred between that individual and the communicator within a defined period of time, wherein the recipient list comprises all of the individuals of the contact list, who have not been selectively removed based upon results of the applied programmatic rule.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

identifying a contact list of the communicator, wherein the programmatic rules are configured to prefer including individuals in the contact list to the recipient list compared to including individuals not in the contact list to the recipient list.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein one of the least one previously established threshold is a threshold configurable by the communicator.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the programmatic rules are configured to prefer including recipients to the recipients list of the communicator when the recipient includes the communicator in a recipient'"'"'s contact list.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the programmatic rules are configured to prefer including recipients to the recipients list of the communicator when the recipient is included in a calendar of the communicator or when the communicator is included in a calendar of the recipient.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

identifying a blocked list of the communicator; and

excluding individuals in the blocked list from being included as a recipient of the recipient list.

12. A computer program product for designating staff of a meeting, the computer program product comprising:

a computer usable medium having computer usable program code embodied therewith, the computer usable program code comprising;

computer usable code configured to identify a change in contact information for a communicator;

computer usable code configured to acquiring communication metrics for the communicator, wherein said communication metrics detail communications between said communicator and at least one party;

computer usable code configured to apply at least one previously established programmatic rule to the acquired communication metric to automatically determine whether each of the at least one party is a recipient who should be notified of the change in contact information based upon comparing the communication metrics relating to that party and the communicator against at least one previously established threshold; and

computer usable code configured to selectively add recipients to a recipient list based upon results of the applied programmatic rule, wherein said recipient list represents a listing of parties who are to be notified of the change in contact information.

13. The computer program product of claim 12, further comprising:

computer usable code configured to construct at least one message addressed to each recipient in the recipient list, wherein the message is addressed using a recipient specific address suitable for a type of communication through which the message is to be conveyed, whereby the types of communication comprise email communication, instant messaging communication, phone communication, fax communication, and postal mail communications.

14. The computer program product of claim 12, further comprising:

computer usable code configured to automatically initiate at least one of an email message, a text message, an instant message, a postal message, and a fax message communication, which is automatically addressed to each recipient on the recipient list.

15. The computer program product of claim 12, wherein the contract metrics comprise metrics concerning a plurality of different types of communications, wherein each different type of communication is associated with a different recipient contact identifier, said computer program product further comprising:

computer usable code configured to analyze the contract metrics to determine a primary communication type used by each recipient of the recipient list to communicate with the communicator; and

computer usable code configured to including an indicator of the primary communication type and a recipient contact identifier for the primary communication type for each recipient in the contact list.

16. A system for propagating contact updates comprising;

a history data store configured to store communication history information for a user; and

a recipient list generator configured to automatically generate a list of recipients who are to receive a notification when a change to contact information for the user occurs, wherein the recipient list generator is configured to determine which recipients are to be included in the recipient list based upon the communication history information.

17. The system of claim 16, further comprising:

a contact list data store configured to maintain a contact list for the user, wherein the recipient list generator is configured to exclude individuals in the contact list from the recipient list whenever the excluded individual has failed to communicate with the user within a previously established time period as determined from the communication history information.

18. The system of claim 16, further comprising:

a message conveyer configured to initiate at least one message automatically addressed to each of the recipients in the recipient list, wherein said at least one message is intended to be utilized to convey the change to contact information for the user.

19. The system of claim 16, wherein the history data store and the recipient list generator are components of a mobile communication device, wherein said history data store comprises details for inbound communications, outbound communications, and missed communications, said mobile communication device comprising:

a user interface for changing contact information of the user; and

a history scanning component configured to scan the inbound, outbound, and missed communications to build a communicator listing for unique communicators interacting with the mobile communication device within a designated period of time, wherein the communicator listing comprises at least one contact number or address for each of the unique communicators derived from the communication history information, wherein said recipient list generator filters the communicator listing to generate the list of recipients, wherein communicators on the communicator listing are excluded from the list of recipients in the recipient list when a communication frequency with the mobile communication device determined from the communication history information is below a previously established threshold.

20. The system of claim 19, said mobile communication device further comprising:

a small messaging service (SMS) based communication component configured to create a SMS formatted message and to send the SMS formatted message to each recipient in the list, wherein said SMS formatted message indicates that contact information for the user has changed and provides current contact information for the user.