INTELLIGENTLY DETECTING THE LEADER OF A CO-BROWSING SESSION

• US 20140237039A1
• Filed: 02/18/2013
• Published: 08/21/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 02/18/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AirBNB Incorporated
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Bank, Judith H., Bradley, Lisa M., Sun, Lin
• Granted Patent: US 9,313,282 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/204
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/08 Monitoring or testing based on specific metrics, e.g. QoS, energy consumption or environmental parameters
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/4015 where at least one of the additional parallel sessions is real time or time sensitive, e.g. white board sharing, collaboration or spawning of a subconference
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/403 Arrangements for multi-party communication, e.g. for conferences data switching systems for conference H04L12/18; arrangements for connecting several subscribers to a common circuit, i.e. affording conference facilities H04M3/56; television conferencing systems H04N7/15
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/14 Session management for real-time applications in data packet communications networks H04L65/1066
• 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 67/54 Presence management, e.g. monitoring or registration for receipt of user log-on information, or the connection status of the users

Abstract

Managing a co-browsing session of multiple users where there are multiple roles that each user may have, and each respective user has a role. Software manages a computer system to: (i) monitor the co-browsing session to detect a condition; and (ii) responsive to detection of the condition, change the role(s) of at least one user. The change of role(s) is made automatically and without human intervention.

Claims

1. A method for managing a co-browsing session of multiple users where each respective user has at least one role selected from a set of at least two possible roles, the method comprising:

monitoring the co-browsing session to detect a condition; and

responsive to detection of the condition, changing the role(s) of at least one user;

wherein;

at the changing step, the change of role(s) is made automatically and without human intervention; and

at least the changing step is performed by computer software running on computer hardware.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the set of possible roles includes the following possible roles:

leader role; and

non-leader role.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the condition is based upon one of the following:

(i) a text analysis on chat or conference transcript;

(ii) a web page is opened by one of the users;

(iii) highlighting performed by one of the users;

(iv) joining of the co-browsing session by a new user;

(v) passage of time;

(vi) predetermined scheduling of role changes;

or (vii) calendar information of at least one user.

4. A computer program product for managing a co-browsing session of multiple users where each respective user has at least one role selected from a set of at least two possible roles, the computer program product comprising:

one or more computer-readable storage media; and

program instructions stored on the one or more computer-readable storage media;

wherein;

the program instructions include program instructions to;

(i) monitor the co-browsing session to detect a condition, and (ii) responsive to detection of the condition, change the role(s) of at least one user; and

the program instructions related to changing the role(s) of at least one user are programmed to change the role(s) automatically and without human intervention.

5. The product of claim 4 wherein the set of possible roles includes the following possible roles:

leader role; and

non-leader role.

6. The product of claim 4 wherein the condition is based upon one of the following:

(i) a text analysis on chat or conference transcript;

(ii) a web page is opened by one of the users;

(iii) highlighting performed by one of the users;

(iv) joining of the co-browsing session by a new user;

(v) passage of time;

(vi) predetermined scheduling of role changes;

or (vii) calendar information of at least one user.

7. A method of allocating a leader of a collaborative browsing session that includes a plurality of users, including a first user, with the plurality of users interactively accessing a computer network to perform the collaborative browsing session, the method comprising:

detecting a hierarchical relationship between and among the users; and

assigning at least one role, of a plurality of possible roles, with respect to the collaborative browsing session to the first user based, at least in part, upon the hierarchical relationship.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein:

at the detecting step, the first user is detected as being a highest ranked user in the hierarchical relationship of the plurality of users; and

at the assigning step, based upon the detection of the first user as the highest ranked user, the first user is assigned to a role of leader of the collaborative browsing session.