Communication promotion method and system

• US 7,426,536 B1
• Filed: 07/28/2000
• Issued: 09/16/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 10/14/1999
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Fujitsu Limited
• Original Assignee: Fujitsu Limited
• Inventors: Matsui, Kazuki, Matsumoto, Yasuhide, Matsumoto, Tatsuro, Murakami, Masahiko, Noda, Masahide, Matsuda, Masahiro
• Primary Examiner(s): Burgess; Glenton B.
• Assistant Examiner(s): STRANGE, AARON N
• Application Number:
  US09/628,352
• Time in Patent Office: 2,972 Days
• Field of Search: 709/204, 709206-207, 345/706, 345/708, 345/710, 345/733, 345/736, 345/758, 715/706, 715/753, 715/758
• US Class Current: 709/204
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1822 Conducting the conference, e.g. admission, detection, selection or grouping of participants, correlating users to one or more conference sessions, prioritising transmission
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/56 Provisioning of proxy services store-and-forward switching systems in data switching networks H04L12/54
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/564 Enhancement of application control based on intercepted application data
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols

Abstract

A communication promotion method is provided to appropriately support communication by a plurality of users in different environments. A character 2, operable by an IRC client 5, is linked to or installed in a user terminal 8. An administration device 3 detects a specific event in a channel and sends a specific command to the IRC client 5 via IRC. Commands do not always have to be sent to all of the IRC client 5, and may be different according to the IRC client 5. The user terminal 8 detects the aforesaid command and sends it to the character 2. Characters at each user terminal 8 operate as specified by the command.

Claims

1. An administration device used in a chat system having a plurality of chat devices which share any number of virtual chat spaces being configured on a network and which send and receive messages among themselves, comprising:

an association table stored in a storage that relationally stores a predetermined event occurring in a chat space with participating chat devices, a plurality of predetermined different control instructions, and a plurality of predetermined different correlated operation instructions that correspond to the predetermined event,

wherein the plurality of predetermined different control instructions correspond to a plurality of types of image representations and/or physical representations among the chat devices, and the plurality of predetermined different correlated operation instructions correspond to a plurality of different chat device destinations to operate image representations and/or physical representations of chat participants that are linked to or installed in the chat device destinations;

a chat event detector detecting a predetermined event in the chat space, based on the association table;

an operation instruction determiner determining the plurality of the different operation instructions for the detected event, based on the association table;

a destination determiner determining the corresponding plurality of the different chat device destinations to be transmitted the determined plurality of the different operation instructions, based on the association table; and

a transmitter transmitting the determined plurality of the different control instructions and/or the determined plurality of the different operation instructions corresponding to the event via the chat system to the determined corresponding chat device destinations to operate the image representations and/or the physical representations of the chat participants that are linked to or installed in the chat device destinations, and

wherein

the image representations and/or physical representations of the chat participants are operated by the transmitted determined plurality of the different control instructions and/or the determined plurality of the different operation instructions corresponding to the event.

2. The administration device set forth in claim 1, wherein the transmitter transmits an originating address of each determined operation instruction, a destination address of each determined operation instruction, and an event detection time, to each corresponding different chat device destination together with the determined operation instruction.

3. The administration device set forth in claim 1, additionally comprising a controller selecting a plurality of operation instructions that correspond to events in the chat space to operate the image representations and/or the physical representations of the chat participants, based on predetermined conditions when the plurality of the operation instructions occur with a same chat device as a chat device destination, and sending the selected plurality of the operation instructions to the same chat device.

4. The administration device set forth in claim 1, wherein when the image representations and/or the physical representations of the chat participants are linked to or installed in one of the chat devices, the destination determiner determines one of the plurality of the image representations and/or the physical representations of the chat participants to operate from among the image representations and/or the physical representations of the chat participants, based on the detected event, and

the transmitter sends a determined operation instruction including a specification of the image representations and/or the physical representations of chat participants to the corresponding chat device destination to operate therein the specified image representations and/or physical representations of the chat participants.

5. The chat administration device according to claim 1, wherein the chat event detector detects the predetermined event from among a plurality of association table events comprising participate in the chat space, withdraw from the chat space, a number of chat participants in the chat space exceeds a predetermined number, a change in a mode or a topic of the chat space, a chat statement has not been made for longer than a specified time, a statement of a chat participant nickname or name, chatting is frequent, and specifying a chat participant image representation and/or physical representation.

6. The chat administration device according to claim 1, wherein if the chat event detector detects a plurality of the events at same chat device destination or at same image representation and/or physical representation of a chat participant, as overlapping events, the operation instruction determiner processes the detected overlapping events according to a specified event processing method.

7. The chat administration device according to claim 6, wherein the specified event processing method is one of sequentially executing the detected overlapping events, and selectively executing one or a plurality of the detected overlapping events.

8. The chat administration device according to claim 1, wherein if the chat event detector detects a plurality of the events at same chat device destination or same image representation and/or physical representation of a chat participant, as overlapping events, the operation instruction determiner selects one or a plurality of the detected overlapping events according to one or more selection criteria comprising:

if same event occurs within a specified time period, ignoring second and subsequent occurrences of the same event,

selecting a first or a last event within a specified time, or

selecting one or a plurality of the detected overlapping events according to a priority assigned to each event in the association table.

9. The chat administration device of claim 8, wherein the event priority assignment comprises:

when events occur continuously in a short time, only an operation instruction corresponding to a highest priority event or a specific number of higher priority events is selectively sent to a chat device destination or an image representation and/or physical representation of a chat participant,

giving priority to events on a current chat space rather than to events on a sub-chat space, or

giving priority to events based on a destination of the corresponding operation instructions.

10. A computer-readable recording medium recording an administration program controlling a chat administration device in a chat system in which a plurality of chat devices share any of virtual chat spaces operating on a network and send and receive messages among themselves, according to a process comprising:

preparing an association table that relationally stores a predetermined event occurring in a chat space with participating chat devices, a plurality of predetermined different control instructions that describe the type of image representations and/or physical representations of the participating chat devices, and a plurality of predetermined different correlated operation instructions that correspond to the predetermined event,

wherein the plurality of predetermined different control instructions and the plurality of predetermined different correlated operation instructions correspond to a plurality of different chat device destinations to operate image representations and/or physical representations of chat participants that are linked to or installed in the chat device destinations;

detecting a predetermined event in the chat space, based on the association table,

determining the plurality of different control instructions for the detected event, based on the association table,

determining the plurality of the different operation instructions for the detected event, based on the association table;

determining the corresponding plurality of the different chat device destinations to be transmitted the determined plurality of the different operation instructions, based on the association table; and

transmitting the determined plurality of the different control instructions and/or the determined plurality of the different operation instructions corresponding to the event via the chat system to the determined corresponding chat device destinations to operate the image representations and/or the physical representations of the chat participants that are linked to or installed in the chat device destinations, and

wherein

the image representations and/or physical representations of the chat participants are operated by the transmitted determined plurality of the different control instructions and/or the determined plurality of the different operation instructions corresponding to the event.

11. A computer-readable recording medium recording an administration program controlling a chat administration device used in a chat system having a plurality of chat devices which share any of virtual chat spaces being configured on a network and send and receive messages among themselves, according to a process comprising:

preparing an association table that relationally stores a predetermined event occurring in a chat space with participating chat devices, a plurality of predetermined different control instructions that describe the type of image representations and/or physical representations of the participating chat devices, and a plurality of predetermined different correlated operation instructions that correspond to the predetermined event,

wherein the plurality of predetermined different control instructions and the plurality of predetermined different correlated operation instructions correspond to a plurality of different chat device destinations to operate image representations and/or physical representations of chat participants that are linked to or installed in the chat device destinations;

detecting a predetermined event in the chat space, based on the association table;

determining the plurality of different control instructions for the detected event, based on the association table,

determining the plurality of the different operation instructions for the detected event, based on the association table; and

transmitting the determined plurality of the different control instructions and/or the determined plurality of the different operation instructions corresponding to the event to the plurality of different chat device destinations to operate the image representations and/or the physical representations of the chat participants that are linked to or installed in the chat device destinations, and

wherein

the image representations and/or physical representations of the chat participants are operated by the transmitted determined plurality of the different control instructions and/or the determined plurality of the different operation instructions.