System for Creating Anonymous Social Gatherings

• US 20130198281A1
• Filed: 04/26/2012
• Published: 08/01/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 04/26/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Gary Fernandes, Jeffrey Scuba
• Original Assignee: Gary Fernandes, Jeffrey Scuba
• Inventors: Scuba, Jeffrey, Fernandes, Gary
• Granted Patent: US 9,049,238 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/204
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0893 Assignment of logical groups to network elements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0421 Anonymous communication, i.e. the party's identifiers are hidden from the other party or parties, e.g. using an anonymizer
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• 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: H04W 12/02 Protecting privacy or anonymity, e.g. protecting personally identifiable information [PII]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/64 using geofenced areas
• 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

A system for creating an anonymous social gathering of 3 or more persons. The system has a server digital device and a client digital device both operatively connected to a distributed network and thus to each other. The client device is configured to display an electronic mapping received from the server digital device through the distributed network and the electronic mapping displays at least one selectable geolocation indicator. Each geolocation indicator represents an indicated location of a gathering of at least two anonymous portable digital devices. The electronic mapping is configured to display indicator identification information on the user device for the momentarily selected indicator.

Claims

1. A method for creating an anonymous social gathering, the method comprising:

displaying on a digital device of an anonymous user an electronic mapping, the mapping comprising at least one geolocation indicator, where each geolocation indicator represents an indicated location, covering an area roughly having a radius of between about 10 and about 100 meters, of a gathering of at least two anonymous portable digital devices;

the map further displaying indicator identification information on the user device for a selected indicator, where the indicator identification information does not include any personal user data for any of the portable devices represented by the indicator and the indicator identification information displayed is selected from the group of indicator identification information consisting of a community association for the indicator, a number for the number of devices represented by the indicator, an intensity rating for the gathering of devices, a geocoded nearest address, an invitation identification and an anonymous RSVP count.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the electronic mapping is selected from the group of electronic mappings consisting of an electronically displayed map, a listing of at least one set of latitude and longitude coordinate item, a listing of at least one geocoded address item, a listing of at least one location name item and any combination of such listing items.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein any such listing is ordered based on distance from the user device.

4. The method of claim 2 further comprising providing driving directions to the indicated location of the selected indicator.

6. The method of claim 2 wherein, for any selected listing item, the group of indicator identification information further consists of gathering size, change in gathering size, name of registered community association for the gathering and distance from the user device.

7. The method of claim 1 where the group of indicator identification information further consists of a community statistics summary that is tied to a catalyst points system, the primary geographic location of a selected community and the number of people who have joined a selected community.

8. A method for joining an anonymous gathering of a mingle community of interest, the method comprising:

storing in machine readable memory a plurality of names of mingle communities of interest, each community having a plurality of anonymous registered members each owning a portable digital device that is adapted for calculating and sending a location data input from the digital device over a distributed network;

using at least a first hardware processor operatively associated with the machine readable memory programed to assemble a listing of the communities and to create a data association between the names of respective members of the respective communities to create a registry of mingle communities of interest and store it in the memory;

responsive to respective location data inputs received over the network from the digital devices of the plurality of anonymous members, using a second hardware processor operatively associated with the machine readable memory programed to calculate and store in memory a location of a gathering of at least two of the anonymous portable digital devices that are proximate to each other;

responsive to a location data input from a digital device of an anonymous user, displaying on the digital device at least a portion of the registry of mingle communities, where at least one of the communities listed has a gathering location that is within a user selectable distance from the anonymous user or from a user selected alternate location;

responsive to a selection data input from the digital device of the anonymous user, causing the digital device of the anonymous user to display an electronic mapping, the mapping comprising at least one geolocation indicator representing the location of the gathering of the at least two anonymous portable digital devices.

9. A system for creating an anonymous social gathering of 3 or more persons, the system comprising:

a server digital device operatively connected to a distributed network;

a client digital device operatively connected to the distributed network and configured to display an electronic mapping received from the server digital device through the distributed network, the electronic mapping displaying at least one geolocation indicator, where each geolocation indicator represents an indicated location of a gathering of a plurality of anonymous portable digital devices, each such device not more than about 10 m from at least one other such device in the gathering;

wherein the electronic mapping is adapted for a user to select a geolocation indicator;

the electronic mapping further configured to display indicator identification information on the user device for a momentarily selected indicator, where the indicator identification information does not include any personal user data for any of the portable devices represented by the indicator and the indicator identification information displayed is selected from the group of indicator identification information consisting of;

a mingle community association for the indicator, a number for the number of devices represented by the indicator, an intensity rating for the gathering of devices, a geocoded nearest address, an invitation identification and an anonymous RSVP count.

5. The method of claim 9 wherein the driving directions are displayed at least in part on an electronic map.

10. The system of claim 9 wherein the electronic mapping is selected from the group of electronic mappings consisting of an electronically displayed map, a listing of at least one set of latitude and longitude coordinate item, a listing of at least one geocoded address item, a listing of at least one location name item and any combination of such listing items.

11. The system of claim 9 wherein the geolocation indicators are adapted to display a location based upon a location technology or a proximity sensing technology or a combination of both.

12. The system of claim 11 wherein the location technology is a GPS technology or other satellite location technology, and the proximity sensing technology is a bluetooth technology.

13. The system of claim 9 wherein the number of devices in the gathering is 3 or more.

14. The system of claim 9 further comprising in the mapping display of indicators special visuals for size, growth, experience of the gathering, and density of the gathering.

15. The system of claim 9 further comprising in the map display of indicators special visuals for intensity of the gathering, where intensity is a measure of size and or increase or decrease of size over time

16. The system of claim 9 further comprising in the map display of indicators a shadow indicator of a historical gathering.

17. The system of claim 9 further comprising invitations in the mapping display, a particular invitation selected from the group of invitations consisting of invitations from a community member inviting her community to gather, a leader inviting her community to gather, a user inviting nearby users to participate in dynamic community creation, a two person ghost gathering inviting their community to gather as part of a paired check-in or paired invitation, and a community inviting another community to gather with them or join them at an existing gathering.

18. The system of claim 9 further comprising notifications in the mapping display, a particular notification being for when a selected community gathers nearby, or for when a user is invited, or joins a gathering, where distance of what is considered nearby is selectable by the user.

19. The system of claim 18 wherein the distance set by user is selected from a set of distances consisting of a distance from user'"'"'s location and a distance from a point also selectable by user.

20. The system of claim 9 wherein the gathering of the plurality of anonymous portable digital devices contains only two devices, and the devices have initiated a paired check-in.