SMS Based Social Networking

• US 20100081461A1
• Filed: 10/01/2008
• Published: 04/01/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 10/01/2008
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Bothra, Ajay K., Nayak, Niranjan S., Anantharaman, Vinod
• Application Number:
  US12/243,551
• Publication Number:
  US 20100081461A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/466
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/52 for supporting social networking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/58 Message adaptation for wireless communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/14 Short messaging services, e.g. short message services [SMS] or unstructured supplementary service data [USSD]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/20 Transfer of user or subscriber data

Abstract

Methods for retrieving and transmitting data associated with a social network of an entity through short message service (SMS) protocol are disclosed herein. A system for transmitting the data through SMS protocol is also disclosed. In one embodiment, input is transmitted through SMS from a cellular telephone to a database, data related to the input is retrieved from the database, and the retrieved data is transmitted through SMS protocol to the cellular telephone. The transmitted data may be presented to a user as a representation on the cellular telephone, for example. The representation may comprise a profile of the entity and/or a profile of another entity associated with the entity'"'"'s social network, for example.

Claims

1. A method of presenting one or more representations of a social network of an entity to a user, comprising:

retrieving data associated with the social network of the entity;

transmitting the retrieved data through a short message service (SMS) protocol to a device compatible with SMS technology; and

presenting the transmitted data as one or more representations of the social network of the entity to the user on the device.

2. The method of claim 1, where data is retrieved at regular intervals.

3. The method of claim 1, comprising receiving SMS data from the device compatible with SMS technology.

4. The method of claim 3, where the retrieved data is a function of the received SMS data.

5. The method of claim 3, where the received data is data related to a social network profile of one or more entities.

6. The method of claim 3, comprising creating a profile of the user as a function of the SMS data received from the device.

7. The method of claim 6, comprising updating the profile of the user when supplemental SMS data associated with the profile is received.

8. The method of claim 3, comprising constructing a social network of the user based upon the SMS data received from the device.

9. The method of claim 8, comprising adding a new entity to the social network of the entity as a function of at least one of the following:

the user selecting the new entity from a contact list on the device, the user selecting the new entity from a search of entities that use an application similar to the entity'"'"'s, and the user inputting an identification tag of the new entity.

10. The method of claim 3, comprising sending the received SMS data to n number of entities.

11. The method of claim 1, where the retrieved data relates to a social network profile of one or more entities.

12. The method of claim 1, where the transmitted data is presented on the cellular telephone as a function of an application that operates on a cellular telephone.

13. The method of claim 12, the application automatically launched when data transmitted through SMS is received by the device.

14. A system for transmitting data related to a social network of an entity, comprising:

a transmission component configured to receive short message service (SMS) data relating to the social network of the entity that is sent by a SMS compatible device and configured to send SMS data related to the social network of the entity to the device; and

a main service that is in operable communication with the transmission component and configured to retrieve data from a database based upon received input and configured to transfer the retrieved data to the transmission component.

15. The system of claim 14, comprising an auto updater configured to notify the main service to retrieve data from the database at predetermined intervals.

16. The system of claim 14, where the transmission component comprises a queue configured to store SMS data when the transmission component is not able to communicate with the SMS compatible device.

17. The system of claim 14, where the main service is configured to arrange and store the SMS data received by the transmission component.

18. The system of claim 14, where the main service conducts a query of the database and retrieves data relevant to SMS data received by the transmission component from the device.

19. The system of claim 14, where the main service is configured to provide a communication channel between n number of entities.

20. A method of presenting one or more representations of a social network of an entity to a user, comprising:

receiving input from a device compatible with short message service (SMS) technology, where the input is used to conduct a query of one or more databases that store data related to the entity'"'"'s social network;

retrieving data associated with the social network of the entity as a function of the received input;

transmitting the retrieved data through a SMS protocol to the device; and

presenting the transmitted data as one or more representations of the social network of the entity to the user on the device, where a social network application on the device functions as a platform for presenting the transmitted data.