Method and system for facilitating group organization using mobile devices

• US 20090271519A1
• Filed: 04/23/2008
• Published: 10/29/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 04/23/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha (Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha (Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd.)
• Inventors: Helvick, Richard Eric
• Granted Patent: US 7,882,244 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/227
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management

Abstract

Method and system for facilitating group organization using mobile devices and near field communication (NFC). Such a method in one aspect comprises the steps of selecting a first member of a group to create resources for the group, creating the resources by the first member using a mobile device belonging to the first member, bringing the mobile device belonging to the first member and a mobile device belonging to a second member of the group into proximity whereby a NFC connection is established between the mobile devices, uploading from the mobile device belonging to the second member to the mobile device belonging to the first member via the NFC connection information about the second member and adding the information about the second member to the resources.

Claims

1. A method for facilitating organization of a group using mobile devices and near field communication (NFC), comprising the steps of:

selecting a first member of a group to create resources for the group;

creating the resources by the first member using a mobile device belonging to the first member;

bringing the mobile device belonging to the first member and a mobile device belonging to a second member of the group into proximity whereby a NFC connection is established between the mobile devices;

uploading from the mobile device belonging to the second member to the mobile device belonging to the first member via the NFC connection information about the second member; and

adding the information about the second member to the resources.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of downloading from the mobile device belonging to the first member to the mobile device belonging to the second member via the NFC connection information about the group.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the resources comprise one or more of a web page, web log or Wikipedia entry for the group.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the information about the second member comprises one or more of a name, mobile device identifier, street address, email address, phone number or password for the second member.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the information about the group comprises a link to the resources.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the creating step comprises interacting with a group management system hosted on a server using a client application executing on the mobile device belonging to the first member.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the creating step comprises interacting with a group management application executing on the mobile device belonging to the first member.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the creating step comprises attempting to interact with a group management system hosted on a server using the mobile device belonging to the first member and, after a failed attempt, interacting with a group management application executing on the mobile device belonging to the first member to create the resources.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the creating step further comprises, after interacting with the group management application to create the resources, interacting with the group management system using the mobile device belonging to the first member and uploading the resources to the server.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the creating step comprises setting permissions for the group.

11. A mobile device belonging to a first member of a group selected to create resources for the group, comprising:

a NFC interface;

a user interface; and

a processor communicatively coupled with the NFC interface and the user interface, wherein under control of the processor the mobile device belonging to the first member creates the resources based at least in part on information about the group input by the first member on the user interface and adds to the resources information about at least as second member of the group uploaded via the NFC interface over a NFC connection established with a mobile device belonging to the second member.

12. The mobile device belonging to the first member of claim 11, wherein under control of the processor the mobile device belonging to the first member downloads to the mobile device belonging to the second member via the NFC interface information about the group.

13. The mobile device belonging to the first member of claim 11, further comprising a wireless network interface communicatively coupled with the processor wherein under control of the processor the mobile device belonging to the first member interacts with a group management system via the wireless network interface to create the resources.

14. The mobile device belonging to the first member of claim 11, wherein under control of the processor the mobile device belonging to the first member interacts with a group management application executing on the mobile device belonging to the first member to create the resources.

15. The mobile device belonging to the first member of claim 11, further comprising a wireless network interface communicatively coupled with the processor wherein under control of the processor the mobile device belonging to the first member attempts to interact with a group management system via the wireless network interface and after a failed attempt interacts with a group management application executing on the mobile device belonging to the first member to create the resources.

16. A mobile device belonging to a second member of a group having resources created by a first member of the group, comprising:

a NFC interface; and

a processor communicatively coupled with the NFC interface, wherein in response to a request received via the NFC interface over an NFC connection established with a mobile device belonging to the first member the mobile device belonging to the second member uploads via the NFC interface information about the second member for addition to the resources.

17. The mobile device belonging to the second member according to claim 16, wherein the mobile device belonging to the second member receives via the NFC interface over the NFC connection information about the group.

18. The mobile device belonging to the second member according to claim 16, wherein the resources comprise one or more of a web page, web log or Wikipedia entry for the group.

19. The mobile device belonging to the second member according to claim 16, wherein the information about the second member comprises one or more of a name, mobile device identifier, street address, email address, phone number or password for the second member.

20. The mobile device belonging to the second member according to claim 16, wherein the information about the group comprises a link to the resources.