USER DEFINED GEOGRAPHICAL ZONES FOR CHAT PLATFORMS

• US 20170026460A1
• Filed: 07/21/2016
• Published: 01/26/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 07/24/2015
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: ChatZone Inc.
• Original Assignee: ChatZone Inc.
• Inventors: Patel, Ravi Harikrishan
• Application Number:
  US15/216,263
• Publication Number:
  US 20170026460A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1886 with traffic restrictions for efficiency improvement, e.g. involving subnets or subdomains
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/04 Real-time or near real-time messaging, e.g. instant messaging [IM]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/222 using geographical location information, e.g. messages transmitted or received in proximity of a certain spot or area
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/224 providing notification on incoming messages, e.g. pushed notifications of received messages
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/52 for supporting social networking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/611 for multicast or broadcast systems for broadcast or conference H04L12/18; arrangements for broadcast or distribution combined with broadcast H04H20/00; arrangements for broadcast applications with a direct linkage to broadcast information or to broadcast space-time H04H60/00; selective distribution of broadcast services, e.g. multimedia broadcast multicast service [MBMS], H04W4/06
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles
• 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 4/025 using location based information parameters
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/21 for social networking applications

Abstract

The innovation disclosed and claimed herein, in one aspect thereof, comprises systems and methods of creating and managing social networking chat platforms according to user defined geographical zones. The system and method facilitates users to create user defined geographical zones on a map. The geographical zones correlate to physical areas in the world. Chat interfaces are created and associated with the geographical zones. Chat privileges can be arbitrated according to user location, user status, or the like.

Claims

1. A system that facilitates geographical chat zones, comprising:

a fencing component that creates a geographical zone based at least in part upon on an input of the user, wherein the input is defined via a graphical user interface; and

a chat component that creates a chat interface associated with the geographical zone for users located within the geographical zone to send or receive messages within the chat interface.

2. The system of claim 1, comprising:

a mapping component that generates a map based upon a location of the user.

3. The system of claim 2, comprising:

a graphical user interface component that facilitates the input from a user wherein the user creates the geographical zone via the graphical user interface component.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the input from the user is defined by dropping three or more location ‘

pins’

such that the fencing component creates zone boundaries by connecting the three or more location pins.

5. The system of claim 3, wherein the input from the user is a closed loop input drawn on the map generated by the mapping component.

6. The system of claim 1, comprising:

a network component that shares the geographical zone with other users of the system.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the chat component monitors the location of the users to continuously update the users within the geographical zone, wherein the chat component prevents users outside the geographical zone from sending messages to the chat interface.

8. The system of claim 1, comprising a notification component that generates and sends an alert to users entering, leaving, or interacting with the geographical zone.

9. The system of claim 1, comprising:

a storage component that saves the geographical zone, wherein the geographical zone is stored using global positioning satellite coordinates of the area within the boundaries of the geographical zone.

10. A method, comprising:

receiving an input of a user, wherein the input defines a graphical zone;

generating the geographical zone based on the input of the user; and

creating a chat interface associated with the geographical zone for users located within the geographical zone to send or receive messages to the chat interface.

11. The method of claim 10, comprising:

generating a map centered around a location of the user.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the received input from the user defines boundaries of the geographical zone by the user interacting with the map.

13. The method of claim 12, comprising:

wherein the input from the user is three or more location pins dropped onto the map such that geographical zone boundaries are created by connecting the three or more location points.

14. The method of claim 12, comprising:

drawing a closed geographical zone boundary on the map, wherein the geographical zone boundary encompasses the location of the user.

15. The method of claim 10, comprising:

sharing the geographical zone with one or more other users in near real time.

16. The method of claim 10, comprising:

monitoring the location of a plurality of users;

determining a subset of the plurality of users that are located in the geographical zone;

updating the chat interface with users determined to be in the subset; and

preventing users outside of the subset from communicating with the chat interface.

17. The method of claim 10, comprising:

determining the user'"'"'s location is entering or leaving a geographical zone;

generating a notification to the user; and

sending the notification to the user.

18. The method of claim 10, comprising:

storing the geographical zone for future use as global positioning satellite coordinates of the area within the boundaries of the geographical zone.

19. A non transitory computer readable medium having instructions to direct one or more processors to:

generate a map around a location of a user;

receive an input of the user defining boundaries of a geographical zone by the user interacting with the map;

generate a geographical zone based on the input of the user; and

create a chat interface associated with the geographical zone for users located within the geographical zone to send messages to the chat interface.

20. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 19, wherein the messages are text, emojis, video recordings, video live streams, audio recordings, audio live streams, photographs, or moving GIFs.