Social Messaging User Interface

• US 20110099486A1
• Filed: 10/28/2010
• Published: 04/28/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 10/28/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Nesladek, Christopher D., Sharkey, Jeffrey A., Hamilton, Jeffrey W., Phukan, Prasenjit
• Granted Patent: US 9,766,088 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/753
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/265 constructional aspects of navigation devices, e.g. housings, mountings, displays G01C21/3688 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3608 using speech input, e.g. using speech recognition
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/362 received from an external device or application, e.g. PDA, mobile phone or calendar application
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3661 Guidance output on an external device, e.g. car radio
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/367 Details, e.g. road map scale, orientation, zooming, illumination, level of detail, scrolling of road map or positioning of current position marker
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/1626 with a single-body enclosure integrating a flat display, e.g. Personal Digital Assistants [PDAs]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/1632 External expansion units, e.g. docking stations
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/266 Arrangements to supply power to external peripherals either directly from the computer or under computer control, e.g. supply of power through the communication port, computer controlled power-strips
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3265 Power saving in display device
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/329 by task scheduling
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/444 Spatial browsing, e.g. 2D maps, 3D or virtual spaces
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/638 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2200/1614 Image rotation following screen orientation, e.g. switching from landscape to portrait mode
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/04 Supports for telephone transmitters or receivers
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72412 using two-way short-range wireless interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72415 for remote control of appliances
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72454 according to context-related or environment-related conditions
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72457 according to geographic location
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2250/02 including a Bluetooth interface
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2250/74 : with voice recognition means
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 10/00 : Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management

Abstract

Hubs for social interaction via electronic devices are described. In one aspect, a data processing device includes a display screen displaying a social interaction hub, the social interaction hub including a collection of records. Each record includes a counterparty identifier identifying a counterparty of a past social interaction event, a mode indicium identifying a mode by which the past social interaction event with the counterparty occurred, and a collection of mode indicia each identifying a mode by which a future, outgoing social interaction event with the counterparty can occur. The counterparty identifier, the mode indicium, and the collection of mode indicia are associated with one another in the records of the social interaction hub.

Claims

1. A data processing device comprising:

a display screen for displaying a social interaction hub, the social interaction hub including a collection of records each including

a counterparty identifier identifying a counterparty of a past social interaction event,

a mode indicium identifying a mode by which the past social interaction event with the counterparty occurred, and

a collection of mode indicia each identifying a mode by which a future, outgoing social interaction event with the counterparty can occur,

wherein the counterparty identifier, the mode indicium, and the collection of mode indicia are associated with one another in the records of the social interaction hub.

2. The data processing device of claim 1, wherein the collection of mode indicia is limited to modes of social interaction that are available for social interaction with the counterparty.

3. The data processing device of claim 1, wherein at least one of the records further comprises an availability indicator labeling a first mode indicium in the collection of mode indicia, the availability indicator indicating that the counterparty is presently available for social interaction via the mode identified by the first mode indicium.

4. The data processing device of claim 3, wherein the first mode indicium identifies an electronic messaging mode.

5. The data processing device of claim 1, wherein each record further comprises an interactive graphical element that triggers display of the collection of mode indicia in response to user interaction.

6. The data processing device of claim 1, wherein each record further comprises a description of a subject of the past social interaction event.

7. The data processing device of claim 6, wherein:

a first description of the subject of a first past social interaction event comprises a subject line of an electronic mail or text message; and

a second description of the subject of a second past social interaction event comprises an excerpt of a posting on a social network.

8. The data processing device of claim 1, wherein the mode indicia identify both direct social interaction modes in which information can be exchanged directly with the counterparty and modes mediated by a social network server.

9. The data processing device of claim 1, wherein at least some the mode indicia in the collection are variants of the mode indicium identifying the mode by which the past social interaction event occurred.

10. The data processing device of claim 1, wherein the social interaction hub further comprises:

information describing a disposition of the currently displayed social interaction records within a larger collection of social interaction records; and

an interactive graphical element that triggers display of additional social interaction records within the larger collection in response to user interaction.

11. A data processing device comprising:

a display screen displaying a social interaction hub, the social interaction hub including a collection of records each characterizing a past social interaction event, the characterized social interaction events including direct social interaction events in which users have exchanged information directly with one another and a social interaction event mediated by a social network server, the records characterizing the direct social interaction events interspersed with the records characterizing the social interaction events mediated by the social network server.

12. The data processing device of claim 11, wherein the records characterizing the direct social interaction events and the records characterizing the social interaction events mediated by the social network server are ordered chronologically according to order of occurrence.

13. The data processing device of claim 11, wherein each record comprises:

a counterparty identifier identifying a counterparty of a past social interaction event; and

a mode indicium identifying a mode by which the past social interaction event with the counterparty occurred.

14. The data processing device of claim 13, wherein each record further comprises:

a collection of mode indicia each identifying a mode by which a future, outgoing social interaction event with the counterparty can occur; and

an interactive graphical element that triggers display of the collection of mode indicia in response to user interaction.

15. The data processing device of claim 13, wherein each record further comprises a description of a subject of the past social interaction event.

16. A user-portable device comprising:

a display screen;

one or more data communication interfaces;

a data storage device configured to store a phone/message log; and

a data processing system programmed to perform activities in accordance with the logic of one or more sets of machine-readable instructions, the operations including;

one or more server interface modules for interfacing with a social network server,

a data aggregation module for aggregating data received from the phone/message log and data received from the one or more server interface modules, and

a user interface module for presenting aggregated data in a collection of records on the display screen, each record comprising

a counterparty identifier identifying another user and

a collection of mode indicia each identifying a mode by which a future, outgoing social interaction event with the counterparty can occur,

wherein at least one of the records comprises information received from the phone/message log and information received from one or more server interface modules.

17. The user-portable device of claim 16, wherein:

the information received from one or more server interface modules comprises an availability indicator indicating that a second user is presently available for social interaction via a particular mode; and

the information received from the phone/message log comprises a time when a past telephone call occurred.

18. The user-portable device of claim 16, wherein at least one of the records in the collection of records comprises a social status record characterizing a status of a second user.

19. The user-portable device of claim 16, further comprising a contact information data store storing contact information,

wherein the data aggregation module also aggregates data received from the contact information data store with the data received from the phone/message log and the data received from the one or more server interface modules.

20. The user-portable device of claim 19, wherein the data received from the contact information data store comprises a photo of a second user.

21. The user-portable device of claim 16, wherein:

the records in the collection each characterize a past social interaction event; and

the data aggregation module further filters past social interaction events to limit the past social interaction events characterized in the collection.

22. The user-portable device of claim 21, wherein the data aggregation module filters past social interaction events to limit the past social interaction events characterized in the collection based on counterparties involved in the past social interaction events.

23. The user-portable device of claim 16, wherein the data aggregation module further resolves conflicts between data received from the phone/message log and data received from the one or more server interface modules.

24. A computer-implemented communication method comprising:

displaying a list of contacts to a user of a computing device, the list of contacts including acquaintances of the user;

receiving a user selection of an entry in the list of contacts;

generating a control bar shows each of a plurality of modes by which the acquaintance can be communicated with; and

beginning communication immediately via one of the modes in response to a user of the device selecting an icon for the one of the modes to begin communicating immediately via the one of the modes.

25. A computer-implemented communication method comprising:

displaying identifiers of acquaintances of a user in a plurality of contexts in an operating system on a computing device of the user;

receiving a user selection of one of the identifiers;

identifying a plurality of communication modes by which an acquaintance who corresponds to the selected identifier can be contacted;

displaying a selectable control for each of the plurality of communication modes by which the acquaintance can be contacted;

receiving a selection of a selectable control; and

presenting the mode of communication corresponding to the selected control to the user for communicating with the acquaintance.

26. The method of claim 25, wherein displaying the selectable control comprises further displaying a peek of recent communication associated with the acquaintance via the corresponding mode of communication.

27. A social networking system, comprising:

an application programming interface;

a plurality of a social networking services providing information about members of the services upon request from remote clients that are properly authenticated; and

a plurality of computing devices operating via the application programming interface to submit requests for information from the social networking services associated with acquaintances for user of the computing devices via applications that each show information from a plurality of different social networking services using the application programming interface, wherein each of the plurality of computing devices is programmed to generate a control bar that shows mechanisms by which acquaintances of the users of the computing devices can be communicated with in response to the users pressing an image of such an acquaintance.

28. A data processing device comprising:

a display screen;

one more data storage devices storing a database of integrated contact information and account information,

the contact information including contact identifiers that each identifies a potential counterparty for social interaction, and

the account information including a first record characterizing a first representation of a first of the potential counterparties at a first account provided by a first entity that mediates social interaction and a second record characterizing a second representation of the first of the potential counterparties at a second account provided by a second entity that mediates social interaction,

wherein the first and second records characterizing the first and second representations each includes data drawn from the respective of the first and second entities and are dispersed among other records characterizing other representations of others of the potential counterparties; and

one or more data processors programmed to

access the database of integrated contact information and identify the first and second records using the identifier of the at least one potential counterparty and

display, at the same time on the display screen, a first graphical element indicating that outgoing social interaction mediated by the first entity is available and a second graphical element indicating that outgoing social interaction mediated by the second entity is available.

29. The data processing device of claim 28, wherein the database comprises an row in a data table comprising an identifier of the category of the first account, wherein the identifier is selected from the group consisting of an identifier of a social network account and an identifier of a photo sharing network account.

30. The data processing device of claim 28, wherein the data processors are also programmed to implement:

a first interface module for interfacing with the first entity to obtain information characterizing the first of the potential counterparties from the first entity; and

a second interface module for interfacing with the second entity to obtain information characterizing the first of the potential counterparties from the second entity.

31. The data processing device of claim 30, wherein:

the first entity comprises a social network server; and

the first interface module is configured to excerpt a post by the at least one of the potential counterparties available on the social network server.

32. The data processing device of claim 28, wherein:

the display screen is a touch screen; and

the first and second graphical elements are interactive elements displayed on the touch screen;

the one or more data processors are programmed to detect user interaction with a selected one of the first and second graphical elements and trigger the outgoing social interaction indicated by the selected one of the first and second graphical elements in response to the user interaction.

33. The data processing device of claim 28, wherein a social interaction hub displayed on the display screen includes the graphical elements indicating that outgoing social interaction mediated by the first and second entity is available.

34. The data processing device of claim 28, wherein the data processing device is a handheld device that comprises a phone interface.

35. A data processing device comprising:

a display screen;

one more data storage devices storing account information including

a first record characterizing a first representation of an individual at a first account at a first entity that mediates social interaction,

first status update information characterizing a first status update drawn from the first account, the first status update information including a characterization of the updated first status and a characterization of the time when first status was updated,

a second record characterizing a second representation of the individual at a second account at a second entity that mediates social interaction, and

second status update information characterizing a second status update drawn from the second account, the second status update information including a characterization of the updated second status and a characterization of the time when the second status was updated,

one or more data processors programmed to

access the first and second representations of the individual and identify the characterizations of the times when the first and the second status were updated,

compare the times when the first and the second status were updated to determine the more recent of the first and the second status updates, and

display, on the display screen, the more recent of the first and the second status updates based on the comparison of the times when the first and the second status were updated.

36. The data processing device of claim 35, wherein the first record comprises an row in a data table comprising an identifier of the category of the first account, wherein the identifier is selected from the group consisting of an identifier of a social network account and an identifier of a photo sharing network account.

37. The data processing device of claim 35, wherein the one or more data processors is programmed to display the more recent status update in a social status record that comprises an identifier of the individual and a collection of indicia that identify modes by which a future outgoing social interaction event with the individual can occur.

38. The data processing device of claim 37, wherein the social status record further comprises a location description that describes either the present location of the individual.

39. The data processing device of claim 37, wherein the social status record further comprises an availability indicator that indicates that the individual is presently available for social interaction via one of the modes.

40. The data processing device of claim 35, wherein the first and second status update information is found in respective first and second status update records.

41. The data processing device of claim 35, wherein:

the first and second records are instantiated as first and second rows in a first data table; and

the first and second status update information is found in two different rows of a second data table, the rows of the second data table each referencing a respective one of the first and second rows in the first data table.

42. The data processing device of claim 35, wherein the one or more data processors are programmed to display the more recent status update on a display screen in a social interaction record that includes a visual indicium characterizing a social interaction event with the individual that has already occurred.

43. The data processing device of claim 42, wherein the social interaction record further comprising one or more visual indicia representing multiple modes by which a future, outgoing social interaction events with the individual can occur.

44. The data processing device of claim 43, wherein:

the display screen is a touch screen; and

the visual indicia representing multiple modes are interactive elements displayed on the touch screen;

the one or more data processors are programmed to detect user interaction with a selected one of the visual indicia representing multiple modes and trigger the outgoing social interaction represented by the selected one of the visual indicia in response to the user interaction.