Identifying content items for inclusion in a shared collection

• US 8,819,138 B2
• Filed: 03/15/2013
• Issued: 08/26/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 10/29/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Dropbox, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Dropbox, Inc.
• Inventors: Houston, Drew, Beckmann, Chris
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen, Dustin
• Application Number:
  US13/840,198
• Publication Number:
  US 20140122592A1
• Time in Patent Office: 529 Days
• Field of Search: 715/246, 715/738, 715/753, 707/3, 707/104.1, 707/9, 705/8, 726/29, 709/203, 709/204, 455/518
• US Class Current: 709/204
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1068 Discovery involving direct consultation or announcement among potential requesting and potential source peers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1095 Replication or mirroring of data, e.g. scheduling or transport for data synchronisation between network nodes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1097 for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols

Abstract

Systems, methods, and computer-readable storage media for managing pooled collections of content items, such as photos, in a content management system. An example system can first receive, from a first user device, images uploaded to a first account at a synchronized online content management system, and cluster at least some of the images as a collection. The system can receive, from the first user, a request to share the collection with a second user having a second account at the content management system, and generate, in response to the request, a pooled collection at the content management system from the collection. The system can transmit an invitation to the second user to join the pooled collection, and, upon acceptance, link the pooled collection to the second user account so that the first user and the second user have access to images in the persistent pooled collection and have permission to contribute content to the pooled collection.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a processor;

a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having stored therein instructions which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to;

receive from a first user having a first account at a synchronized online content management system, a request to share a collection with a second user having a second account at the synchronized online content management system;

generate, in response to the request, a persistent pooled collection at the content management system based on the collection;

transmit, to a device associated with the second user, an invitation to join the persistent pooled collection;

upon the second user accepting the invitation, link the persistent pooled collection to the first account and the second account so that the first user and the second user have access to content items in the persistent pooled collection and have permission to contribute content items to the persistent pooled collection;

scan second content items stored in the second account, based on a commonality, to identify additional content items to contribute to the persistent pooled collection; and

add the additional content items to the persistent pooled collection.

2. The system of claim 1, further comprising instructions for causing the processor to:

cluster the content items into sets corresponding to time or location.

3. The system of claim 2, further comprising instructions for causing the processor to:

notify the first user of the sets.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein notifying the first user of the sets further comprises notifying the first user of at least one of a number of content items, a location, a date, a time, or a set storage size.

5. The system of claim 1, further comprising instructions for causing the processor to:

present a list of content items in the collection to the first user prior to the request to share the collection;

receive input from the first user indicating a list of content items to include in the collection; and

update the collection based on the input.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein updating the collection comprises at least one of adding, removing, moving, copying, or renaming an content item in the collection, or editing album details.

7. The system of claim 1, further comprising instructions for causing the processor to:

track changes to one of the persistent pooled collection or content items in the persistent pooled collection in a revision history.

8. The system of claim 7, further comprising instructions for causing the processor to:

provide an interface for browsing the revision history and restoring a previous version of an content item in the persistent pooled collection.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein generating the persistent pooled collection comprises generating pointers in the persistent pooled collection, wherein the pointers reference the content items uploaded to the first account.

10. The system of claim 1, further comprising instructions for causing the processor to:

identify additional second content items in the second account which correspond to chronological boundaries;

transmit to the second user a notification suggesting that second content items be added to the persistent pooled collection; and

upon receiving an affirmative response to the notification from the second user, add the second content items to the persistent pooled collection.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein generating the persistent pooled collection comprises generating pointers in the persistent pooled collection, wherein the pointers reference the second content items in the second account.

12. The system of claim 1, further comprising instructions for causing the processor to:

perform a content analysis of the content items to determine the second user.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the content analysis is based on at least one of location data, face recognition, content item metadata, content item tags, or exchangeable content item file format (EXIF) data.

14. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having stored therein instructions which, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to:

receiving, from a first user having a first account at a synchronized online content management system, a request to share a collection with a second user having a second account at the content management system;

generating, in response to the request, a persistent pooled collection at the content management system from the collection;

transmitting an invitation to join the persistent pooled collection to the second user;

upon the second user accepting the invitation, linking the persistent pooled collection to the first account and the second account so that the first user and the second user have access to images in the persistent pooled collection and have permission to contribute images to the persistent pooled collection;

scanning second content items stored in the second account, based on a commonality, to identify additional content items to contribute to the persistent pooled collection; and

adding the additional content items to the persistent pooled collection.

15. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 14, further comprising instructions for causing the processor to:

presenting a list of content items in the collection to the first user prior to the request to share the collection;

receiving input from the first user indicating a list of content items to include in the collection; and

updating the collection based on the input.

16. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein updating the collection comprises at least one of adding, removing, moving, copying, or renaming an content item in the collection, or editing album details.

17. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 14, further comprising instructions for causing the processor to:

tracking changes to one of the persistent pooled collection or content items in the persistent pooled collection in a revision history.

18. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 17, further comprising instructions for causing the processor to:

providing an interface for browsing the revision history and restoring a previous version of an content item in the persistent pooled collection.

19. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 14, wherein generating the persistent pooled collection comprises generating pointers in the persistent pooled collection, wherein the pointers reference the content items uploaded to the first account.

20. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 14, further comprising instructions for causing the processor to:

performing a content analysis of the content items to determine the second user.