Finding and consuming web subscriptions in a web browser

• US 8,832,571 B2
• Filed: 09/19/2008
• Issued: 09/09/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 06/21/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Gandhi, Amar S., Kim, Jane T., Lueders, John H., Lyndersay, Sean O., Stevens, Warren G., Choi, Wayne WY., Gould, William, Morgan, Bruce A.
• Primary Examiner(s): ALVESTEFFER, STEPHEN D
• Application Number:
  US12/234,403
• Publication Number:
  US 20090019063A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,181 Days
• Field of Search: 715/760, 707/E17.032
• US Class Current: 715/760
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/958 Organisation or management of web site content, e.g. publishing, maintaining pages or automatic linking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/55 Push-based network services

Abstract

A content syndication platform, such as a web content syndication platform, manages, organizes and makes available for consumption content that is acquired from the Internet. In at least some embodiments, the platform can acquire and organize web content, and make such content available for consumption by many different types of applications. These applications may or may not necessarily understand the particular syndication format. An application program interface (API) exposes an object model which allows applications and users to easily accomplish many different tasks such as creating, reading, updating, deleting feeds and the like. Further, in at least some embodiments, a user can subscribe to a particular web feed, be provided with a user interface that contains distinct indicia to identify new feeds, and can efficiently consume or read RSS feeds using both an RSS reader and a web browser.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:

storing a list associated with feeds that are offered by one or more web sites;

maintaining state information associated with the list;

ascertaining, from the list, whether a web site has any new feeds; and

providing user-perceptible indicia to distinguish any new feeds, the indicia not visually associated with any one particular feed and having two visual states that include;

a first visual state, based on the state information, indicating that feeds are present at the web site and that at least some of the feeds present at the web site have not been viewed by a user; and

a second different visual state, based on the state information, indicating that feeds are present at the web site and that all of the feeds present at the website have been viewed by the user.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said act of storing is accomplished using a web content syndication platform.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein said act of storing is accomplished using an RSS platform.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the act of maintaining state information comprises maintaining information that pertains to whether a user has viewed the at least some of the feeds present at the web site or all of the feeds present at the website.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the act of ascertaining is performed responsive to a user navigating to the site.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein said act of providing comprises providing visually-perceptible indicia in the form of at least a control button indicia located proximate navigational instrumentalities of a web browser, and not within a web page rendered by the web browser.

7. One or more computer-readable hardware storage media embodying computer-readable instructions that, responsive to execution, perform operations comprising:

storing a list associated with feeds that are offered by one or more web sites;

maintaining state information associated with the list;

ascertaining, from the list, whether a web site has any new feeds; and

providing user-perceptible indicia to distinguish any new feeds, wherein the indicia is not located within content of the web site when displayed, the user-perceptible indicia having changeable visible states, the user-perceptible indicia comprising a control having at least two visual states that include;

a first state when, according to the state information, feeds are present at a web site and no new feeds are present at the web site; and

a second different state when, according to the state information, feeds are present at the website and at least one new feed is available at the website.

8. The one or more computer-readable hardware storage media of claim 7, wherein said act of storing is accomplished using a web content syndication platform.

9. The one or more computer-readable hardware storage media of claim 7, wherein said act of storing is accomplished using an RSS platform.

10. The one or more computer-readable hardware storage media of claim 7, wherein the act of maintaining state information comprises maintaining information that pertains to whether a user has viewed one or more of the feeds present at the web site.

11. The one or more computer-readable hardware storage media of claim 7, wherein the act of ascertaining is performed responsive to a user navigating to the site.

12. The one or more computer-readable hardware storage media of claim 7, wherein said act of providing comprises providing the control configured to be selected to provide a preview of one or more of the new feeds present at the web site.

13. A computer-implemented method comprising:

presenting a user interface enabling navigation to a web site that maintains a listing of feeds, the user interface comprising a portion within which web pages are rendered, and a navigation portion, outside of the portion within which web pages are rendered, within which navigation controls appear;

ascertaining, in response to navigating to the web site, whether the web site has any new feeds from a stored list of feeds, the stored list of feeds associated with feeds that are offered by at least the web site;

causing display of visually-perceptible indicia to distinguish one or more new feeds, the indicia being caused to be displayed in the navigation portion and having at least two visually-perceptible states;

a first state indicating that feeds are present at a web site and the web site does not have new feeds; and

a second different state indicating that feeds are present at the web site and the web site has at least one new feed.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the navigation portion appears visually above the portion within which web pages are rendered.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein the navigation portion appears visually above the portion within which web pages are rendered, and wherein the indicia is caused to be displayed to the right of the navigation controls.

16. The method of claim 13, wherein the navigation portion appears visually above the portion within which web pages are rendered, and wherein the indicia and navigation controls are caused to be displayed at a common visual level within the navigation portion.

17. The method of claim 13, wherein the navigation portion appears visually above the portion within which web pages are rendered, and wherein the indicia comprises at least an RSS control that is configured to enable a user to view a preview of RSS feeds.

18. The method of claim 13, wherein the navigation portion appears visually above the portion within which web pages are rendered, and wherein the indicia is caused to be displayed outside of an address bar, the indicia further comprising a subscription control configured to enable initiation of a subscription process without requiring a user to preview all of the RSS feeds.