Community-based method and system for creating and subscribing to dynamic push channels

• US 7,941,497 B2
• Filed: 02/22/2007
• Issued: 05/10/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 02/22/2007
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Blackberry Limited
• Original Assignee: Blackberry Limited
• Inventors: Schmidt, David
• Primary Examiner(s): Hwang; Joon H
• Assistant Examiner(s): LEE IV, THOMAS E
• Application Number:
  US11/677,844
• Publication Number:
  US 20080209000A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,538 Days
• Field of Search: 709/201, 709/203, 709/207
• US Class Current: 709/207
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 15/16 Combinations of two or more digital computers each having at least an arithmetic unit, a program unit and a register, e.g. for a simultaneous processing of several programs coordinating program control therefor G06F9/52; in regulating and control system G05B
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/266 Channel or content management, e.g. generation and management of keys and entitlement messages in a conditional access system, merging a VOD unicast channel into a multicast channel
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/41407 embedded in a portable device, e.g. video client on a mobile phone, PDA, laptop constructional details of equipment or arrangements specially adapted for portable computer application G06F1/1626; arrangements specially adapted for mobile receivers in broadcast systems H04H20/57
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/472 End-user interface for requesting content, additional data or services; End-user interface for interacting with content, e.g. for content reservation or setting reminders, for requesting event notification, for manipulating displayed content end-user interfaces for retrieving video data from a database G06F16/739; network services for supporting unicast streaming H04L65/612
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4821 using a grid, e.g. sorted out by channel and broadcast time
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6131 involving transmission via a mobile phone network wireless downlink channel access H04W74/006
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/64322 IP
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/60 Subscription-based services using application servers or record carriers, e.g. SIM application toolkits

Abstract

A system and method are provided for allowing a user to define and subscribe to channels of information to be pushed to a wireless device. In defining a channel a specific area of a web page is selected by the user to be monitored for change. The user may also select data to be pushed should a change be detected. A regular expression is created to match the area of interest for changes and if changes occur to push the desired content to the wireless device. Icons on the wireless device alert the user to any unread pushed content. Users may also subscribe to predefined channels, or modify predefined channels should they have the security authorization to do so.

Claims

1. A system for allowing definition of a channel for pushing information to a computing device utilizing wireless technology, said system comprising:

said computing device, comprising a resident mobile browser, said mobile browser comprising;

a page fragment selection tool for allowing selection of a fragment of a website, said selected fragment being information on said website, said selected fragment being forwarded to a push channel manager site;

a change target selection tool for allowing selection of information on said website to be pushed on said channel should a change in said selected fragment occur, said selected information being forwarded to said push channel manager site; and

a user interface for allowing utilization of said page fragment selection tool and said change target selection tool; and

a channel manager comprising one or more computing devices comprising a plurality of distributed components, said plurality of components comprising;

a web server comprising said push channel manager site, wherein said push channel manager site receives said selected fragment and said selected information from said computing device and creates channel definition information therefrom, said creating said channel definition information comprising generating a regular expression by;

monitoring said fragment on a regular basis while polling the website that comprises said fragment; and

upon detecting a predetermined number of changes in said fragment of the same format;

if an existing regular expression to match said changes in said fragment resides in a push channel manager database, utilizing said existing regular expression as part of said channel definition information;

or

if an existing regular expression does not reside in said push channel manager database, generating a regular expression to match the detected changes in said fragment;

said push channel manager database for storing said channel definition information;

a push channel monitor for detecting changes in said selected fragment using said regular expression; and

an IP Proxy for pushing said selected information to said wireless device when changes in said selected fragment have been detected by said push channel monitor using said regular expression.

2. The system of claim 1, said mobile browser further comprising:

a cache for storing information received from said IP proxy.

3. The system of claim 1, said components further comprising:

a security and administration policy manager for the purpose of determining who may create and access said channel.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein said IP proxy further comprises:

a change target transcoder.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein said user interface permits selection of a predefined channel to receive content of interest.

6. The system of claim 1 further operable to present, during said polling, a temporary icon on said user interface of said computing device utilizing wireless technology, said icon for providing a user notification that channel creation is underway.

7. The system of claim 6 further operable to:

upon selection of said temporary icon, providing a user notification that channel activation is not complete.

8. A computer implemented method for allowing definition of a channel for pushing information to said a computing device utilizing wireless technology, the method comprising the steps of:

obtaining a selection of a website of interest;

obtaining a selection of a fragment of said selected website, said selected fragment being information on said website; and

obtaining a selection of information on said website to be pushed on said channel should a change in said selected fragment occur;

sending said selections to a channel manager site to define said channel;

storing said selections as channel definition information in a push channel manager database;

analyzing said fragment by;

monitoring the fragment on a regular basis while polling the website that comprises said fragment; and

upon detecting a predetermined number of changes in said fragment of the same format;

if an existing regular expression to match said changes in said fragment resides in said push channel manager database, utilizing said existing regular expression as part of said channel definition information;

or

if an existing regular expression does not reside in said push channel manager database, generating a regular expression to match the detected changes in said fragment,

said regular expression for subsequent use in determining whether said selected fragment has changed; and

storing said regular expression in said push channel manager database as part of said channel definition information.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising the step of:

prompting for name and categorization information on said channel and sending the name and categorization information to said push channel manager site.

10. The method of claim 8, further comprising the step of:

monitoring changes in channel information in said push channel manager database and taking one of three actions;

a) creating a new channel driver;

b) dropping a channel;

or

c) reloading a channel.

11. The method of claim 8, further comprising the steps of:

tracking the rate of changes of said fragment;

if said rate is above a threshold, disabling said channel.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising the step of:

if said rate is not above said threshold and if said channel is disabled, reenabling said channel.

13. The method of claim 8, further comprising the step of:

permitting selection of a predefined channel to receive content of interest as an alternative to defining a new channel.

14. The method of claim 8, further comprising the steps of:

monitoring said fragment for changes; and

if a change in said fragment has occurred, pushing said selected information on said channel.

15. The method of claim 8, further comprising the steps of:

monitoring said fragment for changes; and

if a change in said fragment has occurred, pushing said selected information on said channel.

16. The method of claim 8 wherein said generating of said regular expression comprises keeping static information of said fragment and using a wildcard character to represent changing information of said fragment.

17. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

tracking a rate of changes of said fragment;

upon determining that said rate is not above a threshold, pushing content defined by said selected information on said channel to said computing device.

18. A physical computer medium, said medium including computer executable instructions which, when executed on a web server, cause said web server to:

receive a request to define a channel, said request comprising;

a selection of a website of interest;

a selection of a fragment of a website, said selected fragment being information on said website; and

a selection of information on said website to be pushed on said channel should a change in said selected fragment occur;

analyze said fragment by;

monitoring the fragment on a regular basis while polling the website comprising said fragment; and

upon detecting a predetermined number of changes in said fragment of the same format; and

if an existing regular expression to match said changes in said fragment resides in a push channel manager database, utilizing said existing regular expression as part of channel definition information;

or

if an existing regular expression does not reside in said push channel manager database, generating a regular expression to match the detected changes in said fragment; and

store said regular expression for use in determining whether said selected fragment has changed.

19. The medium of claim 18 further comprising instructions to permit selection of a predefined channel to receive content of interest as an alternative to defining a new channel.