Methods and Apparatus for Identifying and Facilitating a Social Interaction Structure over a Data Packet Network

• US 20120311060A1
• Filed: 08/16/2012
• Published: 12/06/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 01/26/2004
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Charles Dazler Knuff, Christopher Clemmett Macleod Beck, James Karl Powers, Mark Franklin Sidell, Thomas Knox Gold
• Original Assignee: Charles Dazler Knuff, Christopher Clemmett Macleod Beck, James Karl Powers, Mark Franklin Sidell, Thomas Knox Gold
• Inventors: Beck, Christopher Clemmett Macleod, Sidell, Mark Franklin, Gold, Thomas Knox, Powers, James Karl, Knuff, Charles Dazler
• Application Number:
  US13/587,301
• Publication Number:
  US 20120311060A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/206
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1822 Conducting the conference, e.g. admission, detection, selection or grouping of participants, correlating users to one or more conference sessions, prioritising transmission
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/00 Network arrangements or protocols for supporting network services or applications user-to-user messaging H04L51/00; network arrangements, protocols or services for supporting real-time applications in data packet communications networks H04L65/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/55 Push-based network services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/21 for social networking applications

Abstract

A software suite for managing the publishing and consumption of information and payload data across one or more transport protocols supported by a data-packet-network includes a posting application for publishing the information and payload data, and a consuming application for accessing and consuming the information and payload data. In a preferred embodiment the posting application enables posting of information that is consumable separately from the payload data wherein the information richly describes the payload data including provision of instructions for sampling the payload data before consuming the payload data.

Claims

1. A software suite for managing the publishing and consumption of information and payload data across one or more transport protocols supported by a data-packet-network comprising:

a posting application for publishing the information and payload data; and

a consuming application for accessing and consuming the information and payload data;

characterized in that the posting application enables posting of information that is consumable separately from the payload data wherein the information richly describes the payload data including provision of instructions for sampling the payload data before consuming the payload data.

2. The software suite of claim 1 wherein the data-packet-network is the Internet network.

3. The software suite of claim 1 wherein the posting application is used to post a binary series comprising the payload data and the transport protocol is network news transport protocol (NNTP).

4. The software suite of claim 1 wherein the consuming application is a network newsreader adapted with a collector component for finding and collecting the posted payload data using the NNTP protocol.

5. The software suite of claim 1 wherein the information is a binary series index message describing the contents of the payload data and further providing instructions for sampling the data.

6. The software suite of claim 5 wherein the payload data is one of or a combination of pictures, movies, sound files, applications, or text documents.

7. The software suite of claim 1 wherein the consumer application is divided into two separate components, that of a newsreader for consuming text and that of a collector for consuming multi-media.

8. The software suite of claim 5 wherein the binary series index message is an XML-based message.

9. The software suite of claim 1 wherein the transport control protocols include but are not limited to network news transport protocol, file transport protocol, rich site summary protocol, universal discovery description and integration protocol, lightweight directory access protocol, multipurpose Internet mail protocol, post office protocol, simple message access protocol, Internet mail access protocol, and hypertext transport protocol.

10. The software suite of claim 1 wherein the information includes XML-based description of one or more of a host server identity, a poster identity, a newsgroup identity, and one or more contact identities.

11. The software suite of claim 1 integrated with an identity oriented management firewall.

12. The software suite of claim 1 wherein the data-packet-network is part of a peer-to-peer network hosted by a service provider.

13. The software suite of claim 1 where in payload description includes but is not limited to message count, message size, media type, file size, file count, play duration, picture resolution, file name, file date of creation, number of accesses, indication of sample files, indication of poster commentary, indication of commerce-related data, reference to classification parts, and indication of file priority for sampling.

14. The software suite of claim 4 wherein the collector component manages files stored locally on the station of the consumer using the information as a base for file organization and presentation.

15. The software suite of claim 14 wherein the information is reused for reposting a consumed series.

16. The software suite of claim 1 provided as a browser plug-in.

17. The software suite of claim 1 wherein the information and payload data published is consumable only by consumers approved for consumption.