Method of alerting a user of important events from a plurality of sources and a system thereof

• US 9,419,931 B2
• Filed: 03/17/2014
• Issued: 08/16/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 03/15/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Synchronoss Technologies Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Synchronoss Technologies Incorporated
• Inventors: Khandewale, Rajesh, Hegarty, David
• Primary Examiner(s): Hoang, Hieu
• Application Number:
  US14/216,903
• Publication Number:
  US 20140280660A1
• Time in Patent Office: 883 Days
• Field of Search: 709/226, 709/207
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/542 Event management; Broadcasting; Multicasting; Notifications
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/109 Time management, e.g. calendars, reminders, meetings or time accounting
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/224 providing notification on incoming messages, e.g. pushed notifications of received messages
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/55 Push-based network services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information

Abstract

Embodiments of the present invention relate to event notifications on an end-user device of events that are important to a user of the device. The user is typically subscribed to a service that pulls events from a plurality of sources indicated by the user. The sources include a native address book on the device, a social network(s), a professional network(s), and/or another remote location(s) on the Internet. Around the occurrence of an event, the service allows for automatically generating an electronic wish and for purchasing a gift to be presented to one or more recipients associated with the event. The service can transmit the content in various forms and can include a monetizing scheme. The service is able to intelligently determine which events are important to the user such to alert the user of only those relevant events, and to intelligently select an appropriate channel for transmitting the content.

Claims

1. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by a computing device, cause the computing device to perform a method comprising:

aggregating events from a plurality of sources, wherein the plurality of sources is pertinent to a user;

at a point in time within a period surrounding at least one of the events, reminding the user of that event and providing the user an option to act upon that reminder such that at least one recipient associated with that event receives an acknowledgment regarding that event;

generating a file associated with the at least one recipient, wherein the file is automatically generated based on one of a user defined group of contacts and a predefined group of contacts; and

allowing the user to edit the file prior to making the edited file available to the at least one recipient.

2. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the plurality of sources includes at least one personal source, wherein the at least one personal source is at least one of a native address book and a native calendar of an end-user device, and wherein the option is presented to the user on the end-user device.

3. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the plurality of sources includes at least one of one or more social networks and one or more professional networks.

4. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the plurality of sources includes one or more public sources of information for events, wherein the at least one public source is located on the Internet.

5. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the events include birthdays, anniversaries and holidays, wherein the holidays include at least one of national holiday and international holiday.

6. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the events include the user'"'"'s own personal events.

7. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the reminding is in a form of one of an email, a text message, a device notification, voice call, video call, multimedia message, video message and printed notification.

8. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the acknowledgment is in a form of one of a gift and an electronic wish.

9. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the electronic wish is provided in a voice call, a text message, an email, an instant message, a video chat, a post to a live feed, and a post to a profile.

10. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the file is one of a media file and a multimedia file.

11. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises, after generating a file, allowing the at least one recipient to view the file.

12. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 11, wherein the file is included as part of an electronic wish.

13. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein reference to the file is included as part of an electronic wish.

14. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises, after providing the user with an option, enabling the user to purchase a gift from an external provider.

15. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 14, wherein the gift is one of a physical gift and a digital gift.

16. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 14, wherein the method further comprises, after enabling the user to purchase a gift, monetizing the gift purchase.

17. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises:

maintaining historical data of user behavior of the user; and

data mining actions of the user from the historical data to determine which events are important to the user to at least one of intelligently serve only events that are important to the user and intelligently select an appropriate channel of providing the acknowledgment to the at least one recipient.

18. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 17, further comprising using the historical data for monetization.

19. A system comprising:

an end-user device including a memory for storing a native address book; and

a server in communication with at least the end-user device via a network, wherein the server hosts a service configured to;

pull events from a plurality of sources, wherein the plurality of sources includes the native address book and a remote location on the network;

learn from collected user behavior to determine which of the events are important to a user of the end-user device; and

for each of the important events, transmit a reminder to the end-user device of that important event and provide the user an option to act upon that reminder such that at least one recipient associated with that event receives an acknowledgment regarding that important event and automatically generate content selected from the group consisting of promotional content, personal content, and historical content around that important event, wherein the content is generated using data backed up by the user and accessible by the server.

20. The system of claim 19, wherein the user of the end-user device is subscribed to the service.

21. The system of claim 19, wherein the at least one recipient is not subscribed to the service.

22. The system of claim 19, wherein the events are manually pulled from the plurality of sources.

23. The system of claim 19, wherein the events are automatically pulled from the plurality of sources at periodic intervals.

24. The system of claim 19, wherein the service is also configured to provide an opportunity for the at least one recipient to subscribe to the service.

25. The system of claim 19, wherein the content is generated using remote data pulled from one or more of the plurality of sources.

26. The system of claim 19, wherein the acknowledgment is received by the at least one recipient via at least two communication channels.

27. The system of claim 19, wherein the service is also configured to provide the user on the user'"'"'s birthday a photo montage of wishers.

28. The system of claim 27, wherein a size of each photo in the montage is adjusted according to a social distance between the user and the respective wisher shown in the photo.

29. The system of claim 19, wherein the content is generated at the same time that the events are pulled from the plurality of sources.