Centralized feed manager

• US 7,177,931 B2
• Filed: 05/31/2001
• Issued: 02/13/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 05/31/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: R2 Solutions LLC (Acacia Research Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Yahoo! Inc. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Patel, Ashvinkumar P., Athey, Kevin, Robison, John
• Primary Examiner(s): PWU, JEFFREY C
• Application Number:
  US09/872,635
• Publication Number:
  US 20030208598A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,084 Days
• Field of Search: 709/217, 709/218, 709/226, 709/221, 709/225, 710/10, 710/103, 705/1, 705/15
• US Class Current: 709/225
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/958 Organisation or management of web site content, e.g. publishing, maintaining pages or automatic linking

Abstract

A method delivering content from a plurality of sources to a plurality of end servers through a central manager is provided. The method includes receiving the content from the plurality of sources at the central manager, formatting the content to a form usable by the plurality of end servers, creating a transaction generic to the plurality of end servers where the transaction includes a reference to a set of instructions for storing the formatted content, sending the transaction to an end server in the plurality of end servers, and calling the reference to execute the set of instructions where the set of instructions store the formatted content into the memory of the end server.

Claims

1. A method of delivering content from a plurality of sources to a plurality of end servers through a central manager, the method comprising:

receiving the content from at least one content source at the central manager, the received content in a form used by the content source;

re-formatting the content to a form other than that used by the content source;

creating a transaction generic to the plurality of end servers, wherein the transaction identifies a set of instructions for storing the re-formatted content; and

sending the transaction to an end server in the plurality of end servers,

wherein the transaction allows the end server to execute the set of instructions identified by the transaction if the re-formatted content is desired by the end server, the set of instructions storing the reformatted content into the memory of the end server.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising sending the stored content to a plurality of clients.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising storing the transaction in a storage device.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the storage device is a cache.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising determining if the transaction is current.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein determining if the transaction is current comprises reading a flag indicating the transaction is not current.

7. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

requesting prior transactions from the storage when the transaction is not current; and

receiving the prior transactions from the storage.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising discarding the prior transactions if the prior transactions are not needed.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein discarding the prior transactions if the prior transactions are not needed comprises comparing a prior transaction in the set of prior transactions to a last transaction received and discarding the transaction if the prior transaction was already received.

10. The method of claim 8, further comprising reading in all the prior transactions into the memory.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the reference is a subject describing the content.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising filtering the content at the central manager.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising filtering the transaction at the end server.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein sending the transaction to an end server in the plurality of end servers comprises communicating between a central manager proxy and end server proxy.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the transaction includes content-identifying information.

17. The method of claim 15, further comprising sending the first content to a client.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising sending the second content to the client.

16. A method of delivering content from a plurality of sources to a plurality of end sewers through a central server, the method comprising:

receiving a first content from a first source;

receiving a second content from a second source, wherein the first content and second content are in a different format;

formatting the first and second content;

creating a first transaction including the first formatted content;

creating a second transaction including the second formatted content, wherein the first and second transaction are in the same format; and

sending the first and second transactions to an end server,

wherein the first and second transactions allow the end server to execute a first set of instructions associated with the first transactions to store the first content if the first content is desired and execute a second set of instructions associated with the second transaction to store the second content if the second content is desired.

19. A system for delivering content from a plurality of sources to a plurality of end servers, the system comprising:

a central manager coupled to the plurality of sources and configured to receive content from at least one content source, the received content in a form used by the content source; and

a software process associated with the central manager,

wherein the software process includes instructions to re-format the content to a form other than that used by the content source and create a transaction generic to the plurality of end servers,

wherein the transaction identifies a set of executable instructions;

wherein the plurality of end servers are coupled to the central manager and configured to receive the transaction and to execute the set of instructions to store the content into a memory device of an end server executing the set of instructions.

20. The system of claim 19, further comprising a transaction storage, wherein the storage stores the transaction.

21. The system of claim 20, further comprising a storing process designed to store the transaction in a format in the transaction storage.

22. The system of claim 21, wherein the format comprises default, db, flat, conversation, file, and sports.

23. The system of claim 20, further comprising a catching up process designed to retrieve a set of prior transactions from the transaction storage.

24. The system of claim 19, wherein the software process comprises a replication software process designed to forward the transaction to the plurality of end servers.

25. The system of claim 19, wherein the reference is a subject that indicates the re-formatted content.

26. The system of claim 19, wherein the transaction comprises the re-formatted content.

27. The system of claim 19, wherein the transaction comprises the set of instructions.

28. The system of claim 19, further comprising:

a proxy associated with the central manager; and

a plurality of proxies associated with the plurality of end servers,

wherein the central manager proxy and the plurality of proxies communicate to send the transaction.