Location-Aware Conferencing

• US 20110271207A1
• Filed: 04/30/2010
• Published: 11/03/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 04/30/2010
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: American Teleconferencing Services Limited (Premiere Global Services Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: American Teleconferencing Services Limited (Premiere Global Services Incorporated)
• Inventors: Martin, J Douglas, Jones, Boland T., Stewart, Peter, Guthrie, David Michael, Schaefer, Laurence
• Application Number:
  US12/771,827
• Publication Number:
  US 20110271207A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/753
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04886 by partitioning the display area of the touch-screen or the surface of the digitising tablet into independently controllable areas, e.g. virtual keyboards or menus
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/023 using mutual or relative location information between multiple location based services [LBS] targets or of distance thresholds
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/21 for social networking applications

Abstract

Various embodiments of systems, methods, and computer programs are disclosed for providing an online conference. One method comprises: a conferencing system obtaining location information from a plurality of participants; the conferencing system associating the unique location information with a corresponding participant identifier; the conferencing system establishing an audio conference with the plurality of participants; the conferencing system presenting a conference interface to the plurality of participants; and the conference interface selectively displaying a map view of the audio conference which identifies a location of each of the plurality of participants.

Claims

1. A method for providing an online conference, the method comprising:

a conferencing system obtaining location information from a plurality of participants;

the conferencing system associating the unique location information with a corresponding participant identifier;

the conferencing system establishing an audio conference with the plurality of participants;

the conferencing system presenting a conference interface to the plurality of participants; and

the conference interface selectively displaying a map view of the audio conference which identifies a location of each of the plurality of participants.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the conferencing system obtaining location information comprises:

the conferencing system receiving an IP address.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the conferencing system obtaining location information comprises:

a client device associated with one of the participants sending GPS coordinates to the conferencing system.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the conferencing system obtaining location information comprises:

one of the participants providing the location information to the conferencing system.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the conferencing system obtaining location information comprises:

the conferencing system receiving the location information associated with a participant identifier from a social networking system.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the conferencing interface displaying the map view comprises:

the conferencing system sending the location information to a map service; and

the map service providing the map view.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the conference interface comprises a virtual conference location based on a simulated location view.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising the conference interface displaying, for each of the participants, an object identifying the corresponding participant in a computer-simulated location.

9. The method of claim 7, further comprising the conferencing system customizing the simulated location view based on the location information.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

the conference interface presenting location-specific resources to the participants based on the corresponding location information.

11. A method for providing an online conference, the method comprising:

a conferencing system obtaining location information from a plurality of participants;

the conferencing system associating the unique location information with a corresponding participant identifier;

the conferencing system establishing an audio conference with the plurality of participants; and

the conferencing system selectively displaying during the audio conference via a conference interface a map view graphically identifying the location information for the plurality of participants.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the location information comprises one of the following:

GPS coordinates;

an IP address;

data from a social networking communication channel;

user-specified information;

an originating telephone number.

13. The method of claim 11, further the conferencing system customizing the presentation of the conference interface based on the location information.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein the conferencing system selectively displaying the location information for the plurality of participants comprises:

selectively displaying a map view.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the selectively displaying the map view comprises:

sending the location information to a map service; and

the map service providing the map view.

16. The method of claim 11, wherein the conference interface comprises a virtual conference location.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the virtual conference location comprises:

a first graphical representation of a conference location according to a simulated location view; and

for each of the plurality of participants, a second graphical representation identifying the participant with the corresponding location information.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising the conferencing system customizing the simulated location view for at least one of the participants based on the location information corresponding to the participant.

19. A method for joining an online conference having an audio component, the method comprising:

a client device accessing a conferencing system to join an online conference having an audio component;

the conferencing system obtaining location information associated with the client device;

the conferencing system determining a dial-in telephone number for accessing the audio component of the online conference, the dial-in telephone number based on the location information;

the conferencing system providing the dial-in telephone number to the client device; and

the client device joining the audio component of the online conference via the dial-in telephone number.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the location information comprises one of the following:

GPS coordinates of the client device;

an IP address from a carrier associated with the client device; and

user-specified information.