User-generated community publication in an online neighborhood social network

• US 8,965,409 B2
• Filed: 04/28/2014
• Issued: 02/24/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 03/17/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Raj Abhyanker
• Original Assignee: Fatdoor Incorporated
• Inventors: Abhyanker, Raj
• Primary Examiner(s): Ho, Huy C
• Application Number:
  US14/264,020
• Publication Number:
  US 20140237053A1
• Time in Patent Office: 302 Days
• Field of Search: 455/456.3
• US Class Current: 455/456.3
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/31 User authentication
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/087 Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0261 based on user location
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/04 Real-time or near real-time messaging, e.g. instant messaging [IM]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/222 using geographical location information, e.g. messages transmitted or received in proximity of a certain spot or area
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/52 for supporting social networking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/403 Arrangements for multi-party communication, e.g. for conferences data switching systems for conference H04L12/18; arrangements for connecting several subscribers to a common circuit, i.e. affording conference facilities H04M3/56; television conferencing systems H04N7/15
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/021 Services related to particular areas, e.g. point of interest [POI] services, venue services or geofences
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/21 for social networking applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/90 Services for handling of emergency or hazardous situations, e.g. earthquake and tsunami warning systems [ETWS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/50 for emergency connections

Abstract

A method of user-generated community publication in an online neighborhood social network is disclosed. In one embodiment, a method comprising generating an online neighborhood social network in which residents are represented as users, and in which residents have associated meta-data indicating at least one of a verified physical location and a privacy setting of the users; automatically generating a community publication based on the article submitted by a community journalist at a periodically occurring interval, wherein the community journalist is a resident of a private neighborhood constrained only to neighbors living in the private neighborhood through the online neighborhood social network; and publishing the community publication in the geospatial environment to targeted users distributable to an electronic location of at least a subset of the targeted users subscribing to the community publication when the electronic location is available in the private neighborhood of the online neighborhood social network.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

generating an online neighborhood social network in which residents are represented as users, and in which residents have associated meta-data indicating at least one of a verified physical location and a privacy setting of the users;

automatically generating a community publication based on the article submitted by a community journalist at a periodically occurring interval, wherein the community journalist is a resident of a private neighborhood constrained only to neighbors living in the private neighborhood through the online neighborhood social network; and

publishing the community publication in the geospatial environment to targeted users distributable to an electronic location of at least a subset of the targeted users subscribing to the community publication when the electronic location is available in the private neighborhood of the online neighborhood social network.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising determining a timer for a duration of a checked out status of the submitted story idea, and resetting the timer when the community journalist authors an article based on the submitted story idea and submits the article to a journalism algorithm.

3. The method of claim 2 further comprising automatically determining a continuing qualification of the community journalist based on responses to the timer, and at least one of a peer feedback rating and a reader feedback rating of the article authored by the community journalist.

4. The method of claim 3 further comprising providing a consideration to the community journalist in a form of at least one of a monetary award, a salary, and a recognition point based on at least one of the peer rating feedback, a number of reader page views, the reader feedback, and an advertising revenue generated based on geo-spatially targeted advertisements adjacent to at least one of the article and a community publication.

5. The method of claim 3 further comprising:

processing a user selection of at least one indicator of a submit-a-story-idea indicator and a become-a-journalist indicator;

processing a submission form when the submit-a-story-idea indicator is selected, the processing including adding a submitted story idea that is geographically tagged with a physical location identifier to an ideas database, and causing the submitted story idea to remain in the ideas database for a threshold amount of time;

transforming a status of a different user to being a community journalist when the different user elects the become-a-journalist indicator;

altering a status of the submitted story idea as being checked out when the community journalist selects the submitted story idea as being one which the community journalist chooses to author;

determining a timer for a duration of a checked out status of the submitted story idea, and resetting the timer when the community journalist authors an article based on the submitted stow idea and submits the article to a journalism algorithm;

automatically determining a continuing qualification of the community journalist based on responses to the timer, and at least one of a peer feedback rating and a reader feedback rating of the article authored by the community journalist;

embedding in the name of the community publication a name of an operator of the geospatial environment;

automatically repositioning the article in an electronic version of the community publication based on a popularity of the article as elected by readers of the article in the electronic version of the community publication, wherein the community publication is generated to a group based on at least one of a geographic location of the group, a common professional interests of the group, a religious affiliation of the soup, a friendship between members of the group, an educational institution associated with the group, a cultural affiliation of the group, a political interest of the group, and a social interest of the group;

automatically generating a community publication based on the article and other articles submitted by other community journalists at a periodically occurring interval;

publishing a community publication in the geospatial environment to targeted users distributable to the electronic location of at least a subset of the targeted users subscribing to the community publication when the electronic location is available; and

creating a postal mailing of the community publication to another subset of the targeted users based on a mailing to the physical location of the targeted users, wherein the another subset of the targeted users have at least one of a subscription to the community publication and which are targeted as being possibly interested in the community publication.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein the community publication is generated to a group based on at least one of a geographic location of the group, a common professional interests of the group, a religious affiliation of the group, a friendship between members of the group, an educational institution associated with the group, a cultural affiliation of the group, a political interest of the group, and a social interest of the group.

7. A method comprising:

generating an online neighborhood social network in which residents are represented as users, and in which residents have associated meta-data indicating at least one of a physical location and an electronic location of the users;

processing a user selection of at least one indicator of a submit-a-story-idea indicator and a become-a-journalist indicator;

processing a submission form when the submit-a-story-idea indicator is selected, and adding a submitted stow idea that is geo-tagged to a location identifier of the user to an ideas database, and which remains in the ideas database for a threshold amount of time;

transforming a status of a different user to being a community journalist when the different user elects the become-a-journalist indicator;

altering a status of the submitted story idea as being checked out when the community journalist selects the submitted story idea as being one which the community journalist chooses to author;

determining a timer for a duration of a checked out status of the submitted story idea, and resetting the timer when the community journalist authors an article based on the submitted stow idea and submits the article to a journalism algorithm;

automatically determining a continuing qualification of the community journalist based on responses to the timer, and at least one of a peer feedback rating and a reader feedback rating of the article authored by the community journalist;

automatically generating a community publication based on the article and other articles submitted by other community journalists at a periodically occurring interval;

publishing, a community publication in the geospatial environment to targeted users distributable to the electronic location of at least a subset of the targeted users subscribing to the community publication when the electronic location is available;

creating a postal mailing of the community publication to another subset of the targeted users based on a mailing to the physical location of the targeted users, wherein the another subset of the targeted users have at least one of a subscription to the community publication and which are targeted as being possibly interested in the community publication;

automatically generating the community publication in any of a selectable number of languages based on readership preferences of the members of the group and a moderator user who serves as an editor and publisher of the community publication in the online neighborhood social network;

embedding in the name of the community publication a name of an operator of the geospatial environment; and

automatically repositioning the article in an electronic version of the community publication based on a popularity of the article as elected by readers of the article in the electronic version of the community publication,

wherein the community publication is generated to a group based on at least one of a geographic location of the group, a common professional interests of the group, a religious affiliation of the soup, a friendship between members of the group, an educational institution associated with the group, a cultural affiliation of the group, a political interest of the group, and a social interest of the group.

8. The method of claim 7 further comprising wherein the story idea is at least one of a personals listing, a wedding announcement, a classified advertisement, a residential news story, a local sports story, a funnies, a game, a marketed property listing, a crime statistics data, events data, an obituary, a polling result, a calendar listing, a horoscopes item, and a free items list.

9. The method of claim 8 wherein each reader of the community publication can vote on submitted story ideas for publication consideration in a future community publication based on a popularity of any particular submitted story idea with readers.

10. The method of claim 9 further comprising providing a mobile application to the community journalist to capture and record in video, audio, and text form an interview based on the submitted story idea, and to annotate text of the interview automatically in the mobile device.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein the mobile application is location aware based on a global positioning data provided in a mobile device embodying the mobile application and in which the community journalist does not have to indicate a current location of the journalist when navigating to a location of interest.

12. The method of claim 11 further comprising automatically generating a representation of neighbors and businesses surrounding a location of the community journalist and simultaneously providing access to a editable data provided by users in locations surrounding and including the location of interest and a present location of the community journalist in a three-dimensional visual neighborhood view.

13. The method claim 7 in a form of a machine-readable medium embodying a set of instructions that, when executed by a machine, causes the machine to perform the method of claim 7.

14. The method of claim 7, wherein the physical location identifier is one of a zip code, a city and a geographical coordinate associated with the story idea.

15. The method of claim 7, wherein the physical location identifier is one of a zip code, a city and a geographical coordinate associated with the user who submitted the story idea.

16. The method of claim 7, further comprising receiving an article authored by the community journalist based on the submitted story idea.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising publishing the article in a community publication.

18. The method of claim 7, further comprising

generating a visual representation of at least a portion of the online neighborhood social network, the visual representation including at least the physical location associated with the community journalist, and the physical location associated with the submitted story idea.

19. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

receiving an article authored by the community journalist based on the submitted story idea; and

publishing the article in a community publication.

20. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

generating a visual representation of at least a portion of the online neighborhood social network, the visual representation including at least the physical location associated with the community journalist, and the physical location associated with the submitted story idea.