APPLICATION-CENTRIC SOCIALIZATION

• US 20140280443A1
• Filed: 06/25/2013
• Published: 09/18/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 03/15/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Sivalingam, Lenin Ravindranath, Bahl, Paramvir, Musa, ABM, Chu, David
• Granted Patent: US 10,075,508 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/201
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/65 Updates security arrangements therefor G06F21/57
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46

Abstract

An application may be augmented for application-centric socialization activities for a user of the application, based on instrumenting the application for the application-centric socialization activities. The application-centric socialization activities may be launched from within the augmented application on a device, the application-centric socialization activities determined based on one or more contexts associated with the user that are determined during execution of the augmented application on the device.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

augmenting an application for application-centric socialization activities for a user of the application, based on instrumenting the application for the application-centric socialization activities, the application-centric socialization activities launched from within the augmented application on a device, the application-centric socialization activities determined based on one or more contexts associated with the user that are determined during execution of the augmented application on the device.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the one or more contexts include one or more of;

current active user usage of the augmented application,

execution activity of the augmented application during execution of the augmented application on the device,

features or functionalities of the augmented application, or

environmental information collected from a sensor associated with the device.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the augmented application is configured to initiate at least one of the application-centric socialization activities based on one or more of;

a request from the user,

user execution activity during execution of the augmented application, or

a current popularity of the at least one socialization activity that is associated with a context associated with usage of the augmented application.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the augmented application is configured to obtain a current context associated with the augmented application during execution of the augmented application, wherein;

the application-centric socialization activities include a related context-based socialization activity for the user based on the obtained current context.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein:

the augmented application is configured to determine one or more related applications based on the obtained current context, wherein the augmented application is configured to initiate at least one of the application-centric socialization activities based on providing information associated with the one or more related applications to inform the user of related aspects of the one or more related applications.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein:

the augmented application is configured to determine one or more related applications based on the obtained current context, wherein the augmented application is configured to initiate at least one of the application-centric socialization activities based on initiating user activity in at least one of the related applications.

7. The method of claim 4, wherein:

the augmented application is configured to;

determine at least one other application and content associated with the determined at least one other application based on the obtained current context,

determine whether the at least one other application is installed on the device,

provide information for installing the at least one other application on the device, if the at least one other application is not currently installed on the device, and

initiate execution of the at least one other application on the device, if the at least one other application is installed on the device.

8. The method of claim 4, wherein:

the obtained current context is represented as a pair of nodes in a context graph, wherein the pair of nodes includes a key node and a value node connected via a corresponding edge representing a key-value relationship between the key node and the value node, wherein

the augmented application is configured to initiate traversal of the context graph to determine a second context related to the obtained current context.

9. The method of claim 4, wherein:

the obtained current context is represented as a pair of nodes in a context graph, wherein the pair of nodes includes a key node and a value node connected via a corresponding edge representing a key-value relationship between the key node and the value node, wherein

the augmented application is configured to initiate traversal of the context graph to determine a second application related to the augmented application via the obtained current context.

10. The method of claim 4, wherein:

obtaining the current context includes determining a user intention associated with the current active user usage of the augmented application during execution of the augmented application.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the application is selected as any application of a plurality of different applications for the device.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein:

instrumenting the application includes instrumenting the application via an application programming interface (API) that includes a context-setting function based on setting contexts, context values, and links to pages associated with the respective contexts.

13. A computer program product tangibly embodied on a computer-readable storage medium and including executable code configured to cause one or more processors to:

receive information for augmenting an application for application-centric socialization activities for a user of the application;

instrument the application for the application-centric socialization, based on the received information, the application-centric socialization activities launched from within the augmented application on a device, the application-centric socialization activities determined based on one or more contexts associated with the user that are determined during execution of the augmented application on the device.

14. The computer program product of claim 13, wherein:

the one or more contexts include one or more of;

current active user usage of the augmented application,

execution activity of the augmented application during execution of the augmented application on the device,

features or functionalities of the augmented application, or environmental information collected from a sensor associated with the device.

15. The computer program product of claim 13, wherein:

the augmented application is configured to initiate at least one of the application-centric socialization activities based on one or more of;

a request from the user,

user execution activity during execution of the augmented application, or

a current popularity of the at least one socialization activity that is associated with a context associated with usage of the augmented application.

16. The computer program product of claim 13, wherein:

the augmented application is configured to obtain a current context associated with the augmented application during execution of the augmented application, wherein;

the application-centric socialization activities include a related context-based socialization activity for the user based on the obtained current context.

17. A system comprising:

a device that includes at least one processor, the device including an application-centric socialization engine comprising instructions tangibly embodied on a computer readable storage medium for execution by the at least one processor, the application-centric socialization engine including;

a developer input component configured to receive information for augmenting an application for application-centric socialization activities for a user of the application;

an app instrumentation component configured to instrument the application for the application-centric socialization activities, based on the received information, the application-centric socialization activities launched from within the augmented application on a device, the application-centric socialization activities determined based on one or more contexts associated with the user that are determined during execution of the augmented application on the device.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein:

the augmented application is configured to initiate at least one of the application-centric socialization activities based on one or more of;

a request from the user,

user execution activity during execution of the augmented application, or

a current popularity of the at least one socialization activity that is associated with a context associated with usage of the augmented application.

19. The system of claim 17, wherein:

the augmented application is configured to obtain a current context associated with the augmented application during execution of the augmented application, wherein;

the application-centric socialization activities include a related context-based socialization activity for the user based on the obtained current context.

20. The system of claim 19, wherein:

the augmented application is configured to determine one or more related applications based on the obtained current context, wherein the augmented application is configured to initiate at least one of the application-centric socialization activities based on providing information associated with the one or more related applications to inform the user of related aspects of the one or more related applications.