Method and system for on-demand communities

• US 9,253,224 B2
• Filed: 05/02/2013
• Issued: 02/02/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 05/04/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Salesforce.com, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Salesforce.com, Inc.
• Inventors: Yoshida, Norimasa, Grenney, Jamie Veere Coleman, Lin, Likuo, Lin, Justin
• Primary Examiner(s): Hoang, Son T
• Application Number:
  US13/886,212
• Publication Number:
  US 20130297699A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,006 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/437 Administration of user profiles, e.g. generation, initialisation, adaptation, distribution
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/51 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0483 Interaction with page-structured environments, e.g. book metaphor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/134 Hyperlinking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/186 Templates
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 2230/00 Voting or election arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/046 Interoperability with other network applications or 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 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles

Abstract

In an embodiment, communities are generated on demand. In this specification a community is a group of webpages in which users share ideas with one another by posting ideas and sending messages for one another to read. An on-demand community is a community that may be created via tools specialized for creating communities, with just a few keys strokes and/or mouse clicks and by adding information (e.g., about the members and/or the topic or set of topics that the community is focused upon), such that a community maybe established within a short amount of time, such as a few minutes or a few hours. Optionally, the communities may be initially populated with ideas related to a particular topic or set of topics. Optionally, each member may be provided with tools for establishing one or more profile page and/or one or more friend pages.

Claims

1. A non-transitory machine-readable medium carrying one or more sequences of instructions causing a computer to implement a method comprising:

providing, to a user by a database service, tools for creating a community website including one or more community webpages to be made accessible to potential subscribers to the community website;

receiving, at the database service from the user via the tools, information to configure the community website, the information including one or more potential subscribers to be invited to the community website;

in response to receiving the information, sending, by the database service, an invitation to join the community website to each of the potential subscribers;

in response to an acceptance of a corresponding invitation by a potential subscriber, creating, by the database service, an active subscriber account on the community website to enable access to the community website, wherein the access to the community website includes allowing the active subscriber account to;

post content to the community website,

comment on content posted to the community website,

participate in discussions on the community website,

search for keywords, members, and comments on the community website,

send information related to the community website from the community website in an e-mail, and

vote on each particular content posted to the community website via selection of a link associated with the particular content, wherein the visually represents a count of a total number of votes cast for the particular content;

storing, by the database service for each active subscriber, at least one setting indicating a type of activity occurring on the community website that is of interest to the active subscriber;

providing, by the database service to each of the active subscribers, alerts that are responsive to an activity occurring on the community website that is of a type indicated by the at least one setting;

generating, by the database service, statistics on the community website that include a count of a number of the active subscribers to the community website;

providing, to the user by the database service, tools for the user to create a friend webpage specific to friends of the user;

receiving, at the database service from the user via the tools, information to configure a friend webpage specific to another user including information about the other user;

configuring, by the database service on behalf of the user, the friend webpage specific to the other user, wherein the friend webpage is configured to include the information about the other user received from the user; and

making, by the database service, the friend webpage having the information about the other user accessible only to the user and to additional users given permission by the user.

2. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 1, the tools including an icon which when selected creates the one or more of the community webpages.

3. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 1, the one or more community webpages having one or more snippets in a format appropriate for copying the one or more snippets.

4. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 1, the one or more community webpages having one or more Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) in a format appropriate for copying the one or more URLs.

5. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the information to configure the community website further including an initial set of existing ideas posted for viewing by members of the community, each member receiving tools for adding ideas to one of the one or more community webpages having the initial set of existing ideas.

6. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the activity includes posting a comment.

7. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 1, further comprising:

providing to the user, by the database service, a dashboard allowing the user to access and manage the one or more community webpages, wherein the dashboard includes;

information summarizing a status of activities of the user accessible via one or more tabs which when selected by the user cause the database service to display a list of content posted by the user to the community website, a number of votes on content posted by the user to the community website, and comments on the content posted by the user to the community website.

8. A method utilizing a computer processor, comprising:

providing, to a user by a database service, tools for creating a community website including one or more community webpages to be made accessible to potential subscribers to the community website;

receiving, at the database service from the user via the tools, information to configure the community website, the information including one or more potential subscribers to be invited to the community website;

in response to receiving the information, sending, by the database service, an invitation to join the community website to each of the potential subscribers;

in response to an acceptance of a corresponding invitation by a potential subscriber, creating, by the database service, an active subscriber account on the community website to enable access to the community website, wherein the access to the community website includes allowing the active subscriber account to;

post content to the community website,

comment on content posted to the community website,

participate in discussions on the community website,

search for keywords, members, and comments on the community website,

send information related to the community website from the community website in an e-mail, and

vote on each particular content posted to the community website via selection of a link associated with the particular content, wherein the link visually represents a count of a total number of votes cast for the particular content;

storing, by the database service for each active subscriber, at least one setting indicating a type of activity occurring on the community website that is of interest to the active subscriber;

providing, by the database service to each of the active subscribers, alerts that are responsive to an activity occurring on the community website that is of a type indicated by the at least one setting;

generating, by the database service, statistics on the community website that include a count of a number of the active subscribers to the community website;

providing, to the user by the database service, tools for the user to create a friend webpage specific to friends of the user;

receiving, at the database service from the user via the tools, information to configure a friend webpage specific to another user including information about the other user;

configuring, by the database service on behalf of the user, the friend webpage specific to the other user, wherein the friend webpage is configured to include the information about the other user received from the user; and

making, by the database service, the friend webpage having the information about the other user accessible only to the user and to additional users given permission by the user.

9. A system, comprising:

at least one computer processor for;

providing, to a user by a database service, tools for creating a community website including one or more community webpages to be made accessible to potential subscribers to the community website;

receiving, at the database service from the user via the tools, information to configure the community website, the information including one or more potential subscribers to be invited to the community website;

in response to receiving the information, sending, by the database service, an invitation to join the community website to each of the potential subscribers;

in response to an acceptance of a corresponding invitation by a potential subscriber, creating, by the database service, an active subscriber account on the community website to enable access to the community website, wherein the access to the community website includes allowing the active subscriber account to;

post content to the community website,

comment on content posted to the community website,

participate in discussions on the community website,

search for keywords, members, and comments on the community website,

send information related to the community website from the community website in an email, and

vote on each particular content posted to the community website via selection of a link associated with the particular content, wherein the link visually represents a count of a total number of votes cast for the particular content;

storing, by the database service for each active subscriber, at least one setting indicating a type of activity occurring on the community website that is of interest to the active subscriber;

providing, by the database service to each of the active subscribers, alerts that are responsive to an activity occurring on the community website that is of a type indicated by the at least one setting;

generating, by the database service, statistics on the community website that include a count of a number of the active subscribers to the community website;

providing, to the user by the database service, tools for the user to create a friend webpage specific to friends of the user;

receiving, at the database service from the user via the tools, information to configure a friend webpage specific to another user including information about the other user;

configuring, by the database service on behalf of the user, the friend webpage specific to the other user, wherein the friend webpage is configured to include the information about the other user received from the user; and

making, by the database service, the friend webpage having the information about the other user accessible only to the user and to additional users given permission by the user.