Friends list management

• US 8,464,166 B2
• Filed: 02/11/2009
• Issued: 06/11/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 02/11/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ganz
• Original Assignee: Ganz
• Inventors: Ganz, Howard, Borst, Karl Joseph, Christensen, Sally
• Primary Examiner(s): Sax, Steven
• Assistant Examiner(s): VARGA, WILSON V
• Application Number:
  US12/369,349
• Publication Number:
  US 20090204908A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,581 Days
• Field of Search: 715/757, 715/758, 709/319
• US Class Current: 715/757
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management

Abstract

A method and system of managing a user'"'"'s friends in a virtual environment are presented. The method includes interacting a virtual character with a plurality of additional virtual characters in response to commands input from the user entered via the user computer. A subset of the additional users, the additional virtual characters, or a combination of the additional users and the additional virtual characters are designated as friends of the user in the virtual environment, and the friends are added to a list of friends associated with the user. The friends on the list displayed to the user can be ranked in an order based at least in part on the interacting of the virtual character controlled by the user with the plurality of additional virtual characters in the virtual environment.

Claims

1. A method of managing a user'"'"'s friends in a virtual environment presented to the user via a user computer, the method comprising:

on a server computer, representing a toy in the real world as a virtual character in the virtual environment;

accepting commands from the user to control the virtual character;

establishing a user account for the user in said virtual environment and saving the virtual character with the user account;

registering a plurality of additional virtual characters in the virtual environment to additional users, wherein additional toys in the real world are represented by the additional virtual characters in the virtual environment and the additional users control the additional virtual characters in the virtual environment;

using the server computer for interacting the virtual character with the plurality of additional virtual characters in response to commands accepted from the user;

transmitting content for displaying, with the user computer, an interface populated with an identifier indicative of each of the plurality of additional users controlling one of the additional virtual characters present in a communal portion of the virtual world also occupied by the virtual character, and said plurality of additional users are not already registered as friends of the user in the virtual environment, where said identifier is selectable by the user to allow the user to extend an invitation to any of the plurality of additional users to become the user'"'"'s friend, said invitation to be sent to at least one of the additional users selected using the interface that controls one of the additional virtual characters in the communal portion of the virtual world also occupied by the virtual character controlled by the user, and where the plurality of additional users are users who can control additional virtual characters and are not currently a friend of the user;

designating a subset of a combination of the additional users and the additional virtual characters that have received and accepted an invitation to become a friend from the user as friends of the user in the virtual environment and adding the friends to a list of friends associated with the user account;

sending information which causes the user account to be displayed to the user via the user computer; and

ranking the friends on the list displayed to the user in an order based at least in part on participation of the virtual character controlled by the user and one or more of the plurality of additional virtual characters controlled by the friends on the list in a common activity within a portion of the virtual environment occupied by both the virtual character and the one or more of the plurality of additional virtual characters, wherein

the participation in the common activity affecting the order of the friends comprises involvement of the virtual character controlled by the user and the one or more of the plurality of additional virtual characters in a game in the portion of the virtual environment.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said ranking the friends on the list comprises ranking a first friend higher than a second friend when a number of interactions between the virtual character and a first additional virtual character corresponding to the first friend is greater than a number of interactions between the virtual character and a second additional virtual character corresponding to the second friend.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the number of interactions between the virtual character and each of the first and second additional virtual characters is determined during a predetermined period of time before the ranking is performed.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the predetermined period of time is a period of time that begins approximately when the user account is established and ends approximately when the ranking is performed.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein said ranking the friends on the list comprises ranking a first friend higher than a second friend when a frequency of interactions between the virtual character and a first additional virtual character corresponding to the first friend is greater than a frequency of interactions between the virtual character and a second additional virtual character corresponding to the second friend.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein said designating comprises:

responsive to a request from the user entered via the user computer, transmitting an invitation over the at least one communication network to recipients invited by the user to join the user'"'"'s list of friends;

receiving an acceptance over the at least one communication network from each of the recipients that has agreed to join the list; and

adding to the list as friends each of the recipients that has transmitted their acceptance over the at least one communication network.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the list of friends comprises less than all additional users and additional virtual characters in the virtual environment.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein representing the toy in the virtual environment comprises validating a registration code transmitted over the at least one communication network, the registration code being associated with the toy;

and representing the toy in the virtual environment via a virtual replica of the toy.

9. The method of claim 1 further comprising limiting a number of friends on the list to a predetermined maximum number of allowable friends and preventing said adding of friends to said list if said adding will exceed said predetermined maximum number.

10. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

restricting access to a restricted portion of the virtual environment associated with the virtual character to prevent interactions between additional virtual characters that do not correspond to a friend on the list; and

granting access to the restricted portion of the virtual environment to the additional virtual characters that correspond to friends on the list.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the restricted portion of the virtual environment comprises at least one of:

a virtual room associated with the virtual character;

a virtual toy associated with the virtual character; and

a virtual furnishing associated with the virtual character.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein interacting the virtual character with the plurality of additional virtual characters comprises:

transmitting communications between the virtual character and the additional virtual characters in the virtual environment.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the ranking the friends on the list occurs periodically, at regular intervals of time.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the ranking the friends on the list occurs substantially in real time upon each interacting of the virtual character with the plurality of additional virtual characters.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the virtual environment is a website accessible by the user via the user account.

16. The method of claim 1 further comprising transmitting content for presenting the user with a search interface allowing the user to search for a predetermined identifier known by the user to correspond to another user, another virtual character, or both another user and another virtual character the user desires to invite to become a friend.

17. A web server system comprising:

a network connection port through which content is to be served over a communication network to a user computer and a plurality of additional user computers for generating a virtual environment on a website to be viewed by a user via the user computer and by a plurality of additional users via the plurality of additional user computers, wherein the network connection port is configured to serve outbound content to at least ten (10) concurrent client connections over the communication network; and

a plurality of computer-readable memory modules forming a storage array operatively connected to the web server system for storing the outbound content to be served via the network connection port, wherein a plurality of the computer-readable memory modules of the redundant array stores substantially similar content to provide at least one backup copy of the substantially similar content,

a computer part, communicating with said network connection part and said memory modules,

wherein

the substantially similar content stored by the computer-readable memory modules and served by said computer part over the communication network to the user computer comprises;

a virtual character that can be controlled by the user in the virtual environment via the user computer, wherein a toy in the real world is represented by the virtual character in the virtual environment,

a plurality of additional virtual characters that can be controlled by the plurality of additional users in the virtual environment, wherein a plurality of additional toys in the real world are represented by the plurality of additional virtual characters in the virtual environment,

an interface that presents to the user an identifier representing each of a plurality of the additional virtual characters that are present in a communal portion of the virtual environment also occupied by the virtual character, and an invitation tool that is operable by the user to extend a friend invitation to at least one of the additional users controlling one of the additional virtual characters presented in the interface by selecting the identifier corresponding to the at least one of the additional users that is not already registered as a friend of the user'"'"'s in the virtual environment and is to receive the friend invitation from the interface, and

a list, accessible and editable by the user, and including a subset of at least one of the additional characters and the additional users that have become friends of the user in the virtual environment, said friends on the list being ranked in order based at least in part on interactions between the virtual character controlled by the user and the plurality of additional virtual characters participating in a common activity within a portion of the virtual environment that is occupied by both the virtual character and the one or more of the plurality of additional characters during the common activity, wherein access to a restricted portion of the website where the virtual character is to appear and be controlled by the user and the additional characters on the list can appear and be controlled by the additional users is granted to the plurality of additional characters on the list and restricted for other additional characters that are not on the list.

18. The web server system of claim 17, wherein a first friend is ranked higher than a second friend when a number of the interactions between the virtual character and a first additional virtual character corresponding to the first friend is greater than a number of the interactions between the virtual character and a second additional virtual character corresponding to the second friend.

19. The web server system of claim 18, wherein the number of the interactions between the virtual character and each of the first and second additional virtual characters is determined during a predetermined period of time before the friends are ranked.

20. The web server system of claim 19, wherein the predetermined period of time is a period of time that begins approximately when a user account is established for the user and ends approximately when the friends are ranked.

21. The web server system of claim 17, wherein a first friend is ranked higher than a second friend when a frequency of interactions between the virtual character and a first additional virtual character corresponding to the first friend in the virtual environment is greater than a frequency of interactions between the virtual character and a second additional virtual character corresponding to the second friend.