Method and system for on-demand communities

• US 9,742,708 B2
• Filed: 02/01/2016
• Issued: 08/22/2017
• 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:
  US15/012,627
• Publication Number:
  US 20160226799A1
• Time in Patent Office: 568 Days
• Field of Search: None
• 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, computer-readable medium having computer instructions stored thereon that are executable by a computing system to cause operations comprising:

providing an on-demand multi-tenant database service to provide software as a service to multiple different tenants, wherein a single instance of the software serves the multiple different tenants, each tenant including a group of users having access to the instance;

responsive to a request, received by the database service, from a first user to create an online community, creating a plurality of linked web pages as the online community and storing the plurality of linked web pages using the database service, wherein the online community is accessible via at least a profile page containing at least some personal information of the first user;

responsive to a request, received by the database service, from the first user to add one or more content items to the online community, adding the one or more content items to the online community, wherein the one or more content items are accessible via at least one of the plurality of linked web pages;

responsive to a request, received by the database service, from the first user to add additional users to the online community, granting the additional users access to the online community, wherein one or more of the additional users do not have administrative rights; and

allowing one or more of the additional users to add at least two types of widgets to a selected content item by cutting and pasting code snippets into the selected content item that has been added to the online community, wherein;

the selected content item is a profile, dashboard, article, comment, or topic created by one of the users of the online community;

the widgets are graphically displayed in the selected content item; and

at least one type of widget allows users of the online community to vote on the selected content item and at least one type of widget allows the users of the online community to promote content from other web pages external to the online community.

2. The medium of claim 1, wherein the granting the additional users access includes allowing the additional users to post comments in the online community.

3. The medium of claim 1, wherein the granting the additional users access includes allowing the additional users to post new topics in the online community.

4. The medium of claim 1, wherein the request indicates a type of community requested, wherein the type specifies one or more of:

a news community, a feedback community, or a user group community.

5. The medium of claim 1, wherein the first user is contactable via the profile page of the first user.

6. The medium of claim 1, wherein the plurality of linked web pages includes an administrator page.

7. The medium of claim 6, wherein the administrator page is accessible to the first user.

8. A method, comprising:

providing, by a computing system, an on-demand multi-tenant database service to provide software as a service to multiple different tenants, wherein a single instance of the software serves the multiple different tenants, each tenant including a group of users having access to the instance;

responsive to a request, received by the database service, from a first user to create an online community, the computing system creating a plurality of linked web pages as the online community and storing the plurality of linked web pages using the database service, wherein the online community is accessible via a profile page containing at least some personal information of the first user;

responsive to a request, received by the database service, from the first user to add one or more content items to the online community, the computing system adding the one or more content items to the online community, wherein the one or more content items are accessible via at least one of the plurality of linked web pages;

responsive to a request, received by the database service, from the first user to add additional users to the online community, the computing system granting the additional users access to the online community, wherein the additional users do not have administrative rights; and

the computing system allowing at least one of the additional users to add at least two types of widgets to a selected content item by cutting and pasting code snippets into the selected content item that has been added to the online community, wherein;

the selected content item is a profile, dashboard, article, comment, or topic created by one of the users of the online community;

the widgets are graphically displayed in the selected content item; and

at least one type of widget allows users of the online community to vote on the selected content item and at least one type of widget allows the users of the online community to promote content from other web pages external to the online community.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the computing system includes a plurality of computing devices.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the selected content item corresponds to a particular web page of the plurality of linked web pages.

11. The method of claim 8, further comprising the computing system receiving a comment from the at least one of the additional users regarding the selected content items.

12. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

in response to the request from the first user to add the additional users to the online community, sending at least one web page of the plurality of linked web pages to the additional users.

13. A non-transitory, computer-readable medium having computer instructions stored thereon that are executable by a computing system to cause operations comprising:

accessing a web page via a server computing system providing an on-demand multi-tenant database service that provides software as a service to multiple different tenants, wherein a single instance of the software serves the multiple different tenants, each tenant including a group of users having access to the instance;

sending, from a first user, a first request to the server computing system, via the web page, to create an online community, wherein the server computing system is configured to create a plurality of linked web pages as the online community in response to the first request, and wherein the online community is accessible via a profile page containing at least some personal information associated with the first user;

sending, from the first user, a second request to the server computing system to add one or more content items to the online community, wherein the server computing system is configured to add the one or more content items to the online community in response to the second request, and wherein the one or more content items are accessible via at least one of the plurality of linked web pages; and

sending, from the first user, a third request to the server computing system to add additional users to the online community, wherein one or more of the additional users do not have administrative rights, and in response to the third request, the server computing system is configured to grant the additional users access to the online community and allow the additional users to add at least two types of widgets to a selected content item by cutting and pasting code snippets into the selected content item that has been added to the online community, wherein;

the selected content item is a profile, dashboard, article, comment, or topic created by one of the users of the online community;

the widgets are graphically displayed in the selected content item; and

at least one type of widget allows users of the online community to vote on the selected content item and at least one type of widget allows the users of the online community to promote content from other web pages external to the online community.

14. The medium of claim 13, wherein the computer instructions are received from the server computing system.

15. The medium of claim 14, wherein the computer instructions are received as a component of the web page.