Relationship based presence indicating in virtual area contexts

• US 8,756,304 B2
• Filed: 09/09/2011
• Issued: 06/17/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 09/11/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sococo, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Social Communications Company
• Inventors: Van Wie, David, Brody, Paul J., Leacock, Matthew
• Primary Examiner(s): JACOBS, LASHONDA T
• Application Number:
  US13/229,349
• Publication Number:
  US 20120066306A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,012 Days
• Field of Search: 709/223, 709/224, 709/203, 709/206, 709/217, 709/219
• US Class Current: 709/223
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/5573 player location
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/043 using or handling presence information
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/131 Protocols for games, networked simulations or virtual reality
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/54 Presence management, e.g. monitoring or registration for receipt of user log-on information, or the connection status of the users

Abstract

A user'"'"'s presence is established in a particular zone of a virtual area that is assigned to the user. An indication of the user'"'"'s presence in the particular zone is transmitted to each communicant who has a respective relationship tie with the user that satisfies a governance rule that is associated with the particular zone.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

in a network communications environment supporting realtime communications between a user and other communicants operating respective network nodes,

establishing a presence for the user in a particular zone of a virtual area that is assigned to the user, and

transmitting a respective indication of the user'"'"'s presence in the particular zone to each of one or more of the other communicants conditioned on the other communicant having a respective social network tie with the user that satisfies a respective governance rule that is associated with the particular zone.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the respective governance rule is configurable by the user.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the virtual area is associated with a specification of a spatial layout of zones including the particular zone, the establishing comprises defining a location for the user in the particular zone in the spatial layout, and the transmitting comprises transmitting the location definition to the one or more other communicants conditioned on satisfaction of the respective governance rule.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein, for each of multiple zones of the virtual area, the respective governance rule comprises a relationship predicate that defines one or more conditions on one or more communicant attributes that control communicant access to information relating to the zone.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein, for each of multiple zones of the virtual area, the associated relationship predicate defines one or more conditions on a relationship type attribute that indicates a level of relationship with the user.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein at least one of the conditions corresponds to a communicant having a social network tie with the user that meets a threshold relationship type level in a hierarchical arrangement of relationship types ordered by level of relationship.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein the threshold relationship type level is one of a friendship tie and a family tie.

8. The method of claim 4, wherein the information relating to the zone comprises at least one of:

an indication of presence of the user in the zone;

a respective indication of presence of each of the communicants who is present in the zone;

an indication of an activity occurring the zone; and

indication of an interaction between ones of the communicants in the zone.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein for each of multiple zones of the virtual area is associated with a respective governance rule that defines one or more conditions on one or more attributes of the other communicants that control their access to one or more resources associated with the zone.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein multiple zones of the virtual area are ordered hierarchically according to different levels of social network ties with the user and the multiple zones of the virtual area have an associated spatial arrangement in which the zones are arranged according to the hierarchical ordering of the multiple zones.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein multiple zones of the virtual area are clustered according to the different types of social network ties with the user and the multiple zones of the virtual area have an associated spatial arrangement in which the zones are clustered according to the types of relationship.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining respective levels of social network ties between the user and respective ones of the other communicants, wherein the determining of the level of social network tie between the user and each of the respective ones of the other communicants is based on a level of interactions between the user and the other communicant.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the determining of the level of social network tie between the user and each of the respective ones of the other communicants is based on one or more of:

levels of interactions between the user and the other communicant over different respective communication channels;

weights assigned to respective contexts in which the user and the other communicant have interacted; and

respective occurrence times of interactions between the user and the other communicant.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the respective context of interaction between the user and the other communicant is defined by one or more of:

a type of virtual area in which the user and the other communicant have interacted; and

a type of relationship explicitly defined between the user and the other communicant.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the particular zone comprises a prop that is associated with a network service, and further comprising defining a connection between the network service and the network node operated by the user in response to activation of the prop by the user.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the network service comprises one of:

an online content providing service;

an online gaming service;

an online social networking service; and

an online shopping service.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein the transmitting comprises transmitting an indication of activation of the prop to the one or more other communicants conditioned on satisfaction of the respective governance rule.

18. The method of claim 1, further comprising

in response to configuration information received from the user, setting in the governance rule a condition on access to information relating to the particular zone to a communicant having a social network tie that meets a threshold relationship type level in a hierarchical ordering of relationship types ordered by level of relationship.

19. The method of claim 1, further comprising configuring the virtual area based on configuration information received from the user, wherein the configuring comprises at least one of:

changing one or more geometric elements of a two-dimensional visualization of the virtual area in response to the instruction received from the user;

adding a zone to the virtual area;

deleting one or more zones of the virtual area;

spatially rearranging one or more zones of the virtual area;

adding to each of one or more zones of the virtual area a respective prop that is associated with a respective network service; and

deleting from each of one or more zones of the virtual area a respective prop that is associated with a respective network service.

20. The method of claim 1, wherein each of multiple zones of the virtual area is associated with a respective semantic signifier that contextualizes communicant presence in the zone, and the respective indication of the user'"'"'s presence in the particular zone comprises the semantic signifier that is respectively associated with the particular zone.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein the semantic signifier that is respectively associated with the particular zone comprises a textual signifier of an element of a physical environment.

22. The method of claim 20, wherein the semantic signifier respectively associated with the particular zone comprises a graphical representation of an element of a physical environment.

23. The method of claim 1, wherein the transmitting comprises, conditioned on satisfaction of the respective relationship predicate, transmitting to the one or more other communicants at least one of:

a respective indication of presence of each of the communicants who is present in the zone;

an indication of an activity occurring in the particular zone; and

indication of an interaction between ones of the communicants in the particular zone.

24. The method of claim 1, wherein the governance rule comprises an access control predicate that defines one or more conditions on one or more communicant attributes that control communicant access to the particular zone;

and

further comprising, in response to receipt of a request to enter the particular zone from a particular one of the other communicants having a respective social network tie with the user that satisfies the respective governance rule, establishing a presence for the particular communicant in the particular zone conditioned on one or more attributes of the particular communicant satisfying the access control predicate.

25. The method of claim 24, wherein, in response to a determination that the one or more attributes of the particular communicant fail to satisfy the access control predicate, establishing a presence for the particular communicant in another zone of the virtual area that is associated with a respective access control predicate that is satisfied by one or more attributes of the particular communicant.

26. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining each of one or more of the other communicants in the network communications environment who has a social network tie with the user that satisfies a particular relationship predicate and who is present in a zone of a respective other virtual area that is assigned to the other communicant; and

transmitting to the network node operated by the user a respective indication of presence of each of the determined other communicants in the zone of the respective other virtual area.

27. The method of claim 26, wherein each of one or more of the other virtual areas is partitioned into multiple respective zones, and each of the respective indications of the presence of the determined other communicants that is transmitted to the network node operated by the user comprises a respective indication of a particular one of the zones of the respective other virtual area in which the determined other communicant is present.

28. The method of claim 27, wherein each of the zones of each of the other virtual areas is associated with a respective semantic signifier that contextualizes communicant presence in the zone, and the respective indication of the presence of each of the determined other communicants that is transmitted to the network node operated by the user comprises the semantic signifier that is respectively associated with the particular zone in which the determined other communicant is present.

31. The method of claim 1, wherein each social network tie represents a respective social relationship between the user and a respective one of the other communicants.

29. Apparatus, comprising:

a memory storing computer-readable instructions; and

a data processor coupled to the memory, operable to execute the instructions, and based at least in part on the execution of the instructions operable in a network communications environment supporting realtime communications between a user and other communicants operating respective network nodes to perform operations comprising

establishing a presence for the user in a particular zone of a virtual area that is assigned to the user, and

transmitting a respective indication of the user'"'"'s presence in the particular zone to each of one or more of the other communicants conditioned on the other communicant having a social network tie with the user that satisfies a respective governance rule that is associated with the particular zone.

30. At least one non-transitory computer-readable medium having computer-readable program code embodied therein, the computer-readable program code adapted to be executed by a computer in a network communications environment supporting realtime communications between a user and other communicants operating respective network nodes to perform operations comprising:

establishing a presence for the user in a particular zone of a virtual area that is assigned to the user; and

transmitting a respective indication of the user'"'"'s presence in the particular zone to each of one or more of the other communicants conditioned on the other communicant having a respective social network tie with the user that satisfies a respective governance rule that is associated with the particular zone.