Method and apparatus of cross-pollinating a post to computerized bulletin boards

• US 7,203,704 B1
• Filed: 06/03/2002
• Issued: 04/10/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 06/03/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: General Electric Company
• Original Assignee: General Electric Company
• Inventors: Stern, Douglas E., Japp, Christopher N., Crisostomo, Annebelle B.
• Primary Examiner(s): Motiz; Apu
• Assistant Examiner(s): Nguyen; Cindy
• Application Number:
  US10/063,998
• Time in Patent Office: 1,772 Days
• Field of Search: 707/102, 707/104.1, 707/5
• US Class Current: 707/627
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/353 into predefined classes
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 70/00 ICT specially adapted for the handling or processing of medical references
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99935 Query augmenting and refining, e.g. inexact access
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing

Abstract

A GUI such as a web page having a hyperlink thereon is provided and that allows a user to contribute a post to a bulletin board or a thread dedicated to a particular topic of interest. The present invention also includes a process by which the content of the user post is evaluated to determine if the post is relevant to other topics of interest to which other bulletin boards or threads are dedicated. If the user post is related to multiple topics of interest, then a copy of the post is automatically placed on each bulletin board or included in each thread to which the post relates. If a thread does not exist dedicated to a topic of interest, then a thread is automatically created.

Claims

1. A method of cross-pollinating postings across more than one computerized bulletin board comprising the steps of:

detecting a post having a body and a subject header to a computerized bulletin board;

automatically determining at least one topic of relevance from the body of the post to the computerized bulletin board;

automatically determining one or more other computerized bulletin boards related to the at least one topic of relevance; and

automatically placing a copy of the post on each of the one or more other computerized bulletin boards related to the at least one topic of relevance.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising the step of automatically searching the body of the post for one or more keywords indicative of the at least one topic of relevance.

3. The method of claim 2 further comprising the step of accessing a smart database and determining therefrom terms related to the one or more keywords.

4. The method of claim 2 further comprising the step of matching the one or more keywords with one or more computerized bulletin board topic identifiers to determine an appropriate computerized bulletin board to place a copy of the post.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the computerized bulletin board is related to general topics of relevance and the one or more other computerized bulletin boards are related to specific topics of relevance.

6. The method of claim 5 further comprising the step of scanning text of the body of the post to the computerized bulletin board related to general topics of relevance for keywords referencing one or more specific topics of relevance and automatically placing a copy of the post on each of the one or more other computerized bulletin boards related to the one or more specific topics of relevance.

7. The method of claim 6 further comprising the step of automatically placing a copy of a post to a computerized bulletin board related to a specific topic of relevance on the computerized bulletin board dedicated to general topics of relevance.

8. The method of claim 1 further comprising the step of determining if the post relates to a thread of previous posts on the computerized bulletin board and, if so, automatically placing the post in the thread.

9. The method of claim 8 further comprising the step of automatically creating a new thread on the computerized bulletin board related to the at least one topic of relevance.

10. A computer readable storage medium having a computer program for content tagging posts to computerized bulletin boards and representing a set of instructions that when executed by a computer causes the computer to:

detect a user post to a general computerized bulletin board, the post having a subject identifier and a commentary;

determine one or more specific topics of relevance of the user post from text of the commentary of the user post;

determine one or more specific computerized bulletin boards dedicated to the one or more specific topics of relevance; and

place a copy of the user post on each of the one or more specific computerized bulletin boards.

11. The computer readable storage medium of claim 10 wherein the set of instructions further causes the computer to search the text of the commentary of the user post for one or more keywords indicative of the one or more specific topics of relevance to which the user post refers.

12. The computer readable storage medium of claim 11 wherein the set of instructions further causes the computer to scan at least text in the subject identifier and text in the commentary of the user post to find the one or more keywords indicative of the one or more specific topics of relevance.

13. The computer readable storage medium of claim 10 wherein the set of instructions further causes the computer to determine an author of the post and based on the determined author place a copy of the post to one or more specific computerized bulletin boards dedicated to one or more fields of interest of the author.

14. The computer readable storage medium of claim 13 wherein the set of instructions further causes the computer to determine the one or more fields of interest of the author from a look-up table containing data correlating author information with field-of-interest information.

15. The computer readable storage medium of claim 10 wherein the set of instructions further causes the computer to automatically place the user post in a thread dedicated to a specific topic of relevance on the one or more specific computerized bulletin boards.

16. The computer readable storage medium of claim 10 wherein the set of instructions further causes the computer to automatically generate a new thread on a specific computerized bulletin board dedicated to a specific topic of relevance of the user post.

17. A computer readable storage medium having a set of instructions which, when executed by at least one processor, causes the at least one processor to integrate a post with one or more computerized bulletin boards by:

displaying a GUI having thereon one or more buttons, wherein each button is associated with a topic of interest;

detecting a user selection era button;

reeeiving a post having a subject identifier and a body relevant to a topic of interest associated with the button selected;

placing the post on a computerized bulletin board dedicated to the topic of interest;

scanning the body of the post and determining another topic of interest to which the post is relevant; and

automatically placing a copy of the post on another computerized bulletin board related to the another topic of interest.

18. The computer data signal of claim 17 further causing the act of determining at least one subtopic of interest of the user post.

19. The computer data signal of claim 18 further causing the act of assigning the post to a thread of previous posts discussing a subtopic of interest.

20. The computer data signal of claim 18 further causing the act of generating a new thread of discussion related to a subtopic of interest if there is not an existing thread of discussion dedicated to the subtopic of interest.

21. The computer data signal of claim 17 further causing the acts of detecting a user post directly to a computerized bulletin board dedicated to a topic of interest and automatically placing a copy of the user post directly to another computerized bulletin board dedicated to another topic of interest to which the user post directly to the computerized bulletin board relates.

22. A computerized system of networked bulletin boards to facilitate discussion of a number of topics of interest comprising:

a set of content-specific bulletin boards wherein each content-specific bulletin board is dedicated to a specific topic of interest;

a content-general bulletin board dedicated to a general topic interest related to the specific topics of interest;

at least one GUI having a hyperlink thereon corresponding to at least one of the content-specific bulletin boards and the content-general bulletin board; and

a computer having;

means to display the at least one GUI;

means to detect a user post associated with at least one topic of interest;

means to determine at least one of a specific topic of interest and a general topic of interest of the user post; and

means to automatically place a copy of the user post on each content-specific bulletin board to which the post relates and on the content-general bulletin board without copying all other user posts of the set of content-specific bulletin boards.