Thread-based conversation management

• US 8,171,087 B2
• Filed: 01/16/2007
• Issued: 05/01/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 01/16/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Carrer, Marco, Mor, David, Arun, Gopalan
• Primary Examiner(s): Hashem, Lisa
• Application Number:
  US11/653,597
• Publication Number:
  US 20080172462A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,932 Days
• Field of Search: 709205-207, 455/519, 455/556.2, 379/67.1, 379/88.17, 379/202.01
• US Class Current: 709/206
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/00 Administration; Management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1831 Tracking arrangements for later retrieval, e.g. recording contents, participants activities or behavior, network status
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/04 Real-time or near real-time messaging, e.g. instant messaging [IM]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/066 Format adaptation, e.g. format conversion or compression
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/216 Handling conversation history, e.g. grouping of messages in sessions or threads

Abstract

Systems, methods, and other embodiments associated with thread-based conversation management are described. One system embodiment includes a conversation manager that provides access to communication applications, that provides lifecycle management for an electronic conversation carried on over the communication applications, and that organizes conversation elements belonging to a conversation carried on using the communication applications. The conversation lifecycle may include pausing and resuming a conversation carried on, at least in part, over a synchronous, online, real-time, communication application. The system embodiment may also include a thread manager to provide thread-based storage for conversation elements.

Claims

1. A system, comprising:

a conversation manager to provide access to one or more communication applications including a synchronous online real-time communication application, and to provide lifecycle management for a conversation carried on, at least in part, over the synchronous online real-time communication application, the lifecycle management including pausing the conversation and resuming the conversation; and

a thread manager to organize in thread-based storage one or more conversation elements belonging to the conversation;

where the conversation manager is configured to resume the conversation with a different communication application than the synchronous online real-time communication application; and

where the conversation manager includes executable instructions stored on a non-transitory computer readable medium that when executed cause at least a processor to navigate the one or more conversation elements including metadata from the paused conversation to determine a set of participants to include in the resumed conversation which include one or more participants that are different from participants of the paused conversation.

2. The system of claim 1, where the different communication application is an asynchronous communication application.

3. The system of claim 1, where the synchronous online real-time communication application is an instant messaging (IM) application, or a chat application, and where the different communication application is an email application or a discussion forum application.

4. The system of claim 1, the conversation manager comprising:

a conversation management logic to provide the lifecycle management for the conversation, the lifecycle including conversation initiation and conversation termination;

a metadata logic to process metadata associated with the conversation; and

an archive logic to provide a conversation element to the thread manager, to provide conversation metadata to the thread manager, to provide access to a stored conversation element, and to provide access to stored conversation metadata.

5. The system of claim 4, where providing lifecycle management for the conversation includes one or more of, receiving third party submissions, receiving off-line submissions, integrating third party submissions into an archived conversation, and integrating off-line submissions into an archived stored conversation.

6. The system of claim 4, where the metadata associated with the conversation includes one or more of, a topic, a context, a set of questions, and a set of answers.

7. The system of claim 6, where processing the metadata includes one or more of, adding metadata, filtering metadata, deleting metadata, and establishing relations between metadata elements.

8. The system of claim 7, the metadata being acquired automatically from a set of conversation elements.

9. The system of claim 4, the conversation manager including an interface logic to provide an interface to present the conversation as being implemented using a single communication modality.

10. The system of claim 9, the interface logic to automatically provide a suggestion concerning a communication modality for the conversation based, at least in part, on the online status of one or more conversation participants.

11. The system of claim 9, the interface logic to automatically provide a selection concerning a communication modality for the conversation based, at least in part, on the online status of one or more conversation participants.

12. The system of claim 4, the conversation management logic to selectively provide a notification upon an occurrence of a lifecycle event.

13. The system of claim 12, the notification being a link to a one or more of, a conversation, a conversation element, and a conversation summary, a link being one or more of, a URL, a GUID, and a pointer.

14. The system of claim 4, the conversation management logic to resume a conversation using one or more of, an original communication application, and a communication application other than the original communication application, and the conversation management logic to resume a conversation with one or more of, an original set of participants, and a set of participants different than the original set of participants.

15. The system of claim 4, the archive logic to provide access to archived conversation elements and to archived conversation metadata to a party other than an original conversation participant.

16. The system of claim 1, wherein the thread manager is configured to organize the conversation elements in the thread-based storage with a discussion forum configuration.

17. The system of claim 1, further including an artificial intelligence logic to perform semantic analysis on the conversation elements, and

to generate a conversation summary that includes one or more of, a first conversation element, a last conversation element, a first N conversation elements, N being an integer greater than 1, a last M conversation elements, M being an integer greater than 1, a set of questions, a set of answers related to the set of questions, and a topic extracted from an archived conversation by the artificial intelligence logic.

18. A non-transitory machine-readable medium having stored thereon machine-executable instructions that if executed by a machine cause the machine to perform a method, the method comprising:

managing, with at least actions from a processor, a conversation having a lifecycle comprising starting, pausing, resuming, terminating, accepting on-line contributions, accepting off-line contributions, and accepting contributions from third parties, the conversation being carried on, at least in part, over a synchronous electronic communication modality;

pausing the conversation via the synchronous electronic communication modality;

archiving, as a thread, the conversation comprising a set of conversation entries;

archiving conversation metadata from the conversation; and

organizing the archived conversation entries based, at least in part, on the archived conversation metadata; and

resuming the paused conversation over an asynchronous communication modality and preserving a context of the conversation using, at least in part, the archived conversation metadata;

wherein the resuming includes causing at least the processor to search and navigate the archived conversation metadata from the paused conversation to determine, from at least the archived conversation metadata, a set of participants to include in the resumed conversation which include one or more participants that are different from participants of the paused conversation.

19. The machine-readable medium of claim 18, where archiving a set of conversation entries includes posting a conversation entry to a discussion forum thread, the thread being accessible to a party other than an original conversation participant.

20. The machine-readable medium of claim 18, including selectively providing a message to a user upon the occurrence of a conversation lifecycle event.

21. The machine-readable medium of claim 20, the message including a conversation re-entry point.

22. The machine-readable medium of claim 21, the message including a conversation overview comprising one or more of, a set of conversation entries, a set of questions asked in a conversation, a set of answers related to the set of questions, and the output of an artificial intelligence process that was provided with the archived conversation.

23. The machine-readable medium of claim 18, where resuming a conversation includes one or more of, resuming a conversation using an original communication modality, resuming a conversation using a communication modality different from an original communication modality, resuming a conversation using two or more communication modalities, resuming a conversation with an original set of participants, and resuming a conversation with a set of participants different from the original set of participants.

24. The machine-readable medium of claim 18, where managing a conversation includes automatically selecting a communication modality over which a conversation is to proceed based, at least in part, on the online status of one or more conversation participants.

25. The machine-readable medium of claim 18, where archiving conversation metadata includes, providing an archived conversation to an artificial intelligence logic and automatically creating a value for a metadata element based on the output of the artificial intelligence logic.

26. A non-transitory machine-readable medium having stored thereon machine-executable instructions that if executed by a machine cause the machine to perform a method, the method comprising:

providing an interface for participating in an electronic conversation carried on, at least in part, using a synchronous online communication application;

archiving, with at least actions from a processor, elements of the conversation and metadata related to the conversation in a thread-based system;

pausing the conversation from the synchronous online communication application; and

resuming the conversation based, at least in part, on the archived elements of the conversation and the metadata related to the archived conversation elements, where the conversation is resumed with an asynchronous communication application;

wherein the resuming includes causing at least the processor to navigate the archived elements including the metadata from the paused conversation to determine from at least the metadata a set of participants to include in the resumed conversation which include participants that are different from participants from the paused conversation.