AGGREGATED, INTERACTIVE COMMUNICATION TIMELINE

• US 20130167034A1
• Filed: 02/22/2013
• Published: 06/27/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 07/22/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Ickman, Steven W., Cheng, Lili
• Granted Patent: US 9,515,891 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/733
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04845 for image manipulation, e.g. dragging, rotation, expansion or change of colour
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 7/08 Sorting, i.e. grouping record carriers in numerical or other ordered sequence according to the classification of at least some of the information they carry by merging two or more sets of carriers in ordered sequence G06F7/16
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/22 comprising specially adapted graphical user interfaces [GUI]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/04 Protocols for data compression, e.g. ROHC
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/7243 with interactive means for internal management of messages
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72445 for supporting Internet browser applications

Abstract

Described is a technology by which an interactive timeline user interface shows communication data aggregated from various sources (e.g., a telephone service, a website, an application and/or the like) in time order. To reduce the number of items in the timeline, certain items may be combined into a compressed item, e.g., items from the same source and/or of the same type may be rolled up into a rolled up item. The user may also interact to reply to a data item. For example, an editor may be provided upon interaction with a data item in the timeline, and the type of reply that is sent may automatically match the type of data item, (e.g., a text message reply to a text message).

Claims

1. In a computing environment, a method comprising:

aggregating data items associated with a first piece of communication data from a plurality of communication data;

compressing at least two of the data items associated with the first piece of communication data into a compressed item; and

outputting a representation of the first piece of communication data and the compressed item as a timeline item to a user interface.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the first piece of communication data comprises at least one of content or metadata associated with other content.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the content comprises at least one of a post, notification, update, microblog, photograph, or thumbnail.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein compressing the at least two of the data items associated with the first piece of communication data further comprises:

rolling up a plurality of data items associated with the first piece of communication data into the compressed item;

associating a text description indicating a count of the plurality of data items rolled up with the compressed item; and

displaying data item content of a first data item of the plurality of data items as the compressed item, wherein the first data item is most recent in time.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the data items comprise data item content, and wherein the data item content comprises at least one of text identifying an author of the data item content, text identifying a date associated with the data item content, or an icon representing a source sender of the data item content.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

receiving user interaction to expand the compressed item, wherein expanding the compressed item displays each data item of the compressed item on the user interface.

7. The method of claim 6 further comprising:

receiving user interaction to collapse the expanded compressed item.

8. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

organizing representations of the plurality of communication data and associated compressed items output to the user interface by time.

9. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

synchronizing to update the plurality of communication data and associated data items.

10. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

providing a communication mechanism for replying to at least one of a piece of communication data or an associated data item.

11. In a computing environment, a system comprising:

one or more processors;

a timeline program, implemented on the one or more processors, configured to aggregate a plurality of pieces of communication data associated with a same item type from a plurality of different sources, compress the plurality of pieces of communication data to provide compressed communication data, and output a representation of the compressed communication data as a compressed item on an interactive timeline interface, wherein interaction with the compressed item provides access to each of the plurality of pieces of communication data associated with the same item type.

12. The system of claim 11 wherein the plurality of different sources include users of social media.

13. The system of claim 11 wherein items displayed on the interactive timeline interface are sorted by time.

14. The system of claim 11 wherein the same item type comprises at least one of a topic, subject, person, event, group, business, or organization.

15. The system of claim 11 further comprising:

an editor configured to provide access to a user for generating a reply to at least one of the plurality of pieces of communication data or the compressed item.

16. The system of claim 11 wherein the interactive timeline interface displays a representation of a source of a piece of communication data using at least one of a textual description of the source, an icon associated with the source, or a photograph associated with the source.

17. In a computing environment, a method comprising:

filtering communication data from a plurality sources based on user preference data;

aggregating data items associated with the filtered communication data;

compressing at least some of the data items associated with one or more of the filtered communication data into compressed items; and

outputting a representation of the filtered communication data and the associated compressed items as a timeline item to a user interface.

18. The method of claim 17 wherein filtering the communication data further comprises:

outputting to the user interface only communication data corresponding to a certain type of the communication data.

19. The method of claim 17 wherein filtering the communication data further comprises:

outputting to the user interface only communication at a corresponding to a certain source of the communication data.

20. The method of claim 17 wherein compressing at least some of the data items associated with the one or more of the filtered communication data further comprises:

rolling up selected data items from a plurality of data items associated with the one or more of the filtered communication data into the compressed items; and

associating a text description indicating a count of the selected data items rolled up with each of the compressed items.