Persistent customized social media environment

• US 9,782,680 B2
• Filed: 12/09/2011
• Issued: 10/10/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 12/09/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Futurewei Technologies Incorporated (Huawei Investment & Holding Co., Ltd.)
• Inventors: Lobb, Kenneth A., Blinn, Arnold, Kotzenberg, Bernhard, Gillett, Donald M., Elliott, John Darren
• Primary Examiner(s): MADAMBA, GLENFORD J
• Application Number:
  US13/315,946
• Publication Number:
  US 20130151603A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,132 Days
• Field of Search: 725 46, 709204, 705 1449
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/2145 the surface being also a display device, e.g. touch screens
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/215 comprising means for detecting acoustic signals, e.g. using a microphone
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/795 for finding other players; for building a team; for providing a buddy list
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/812 Ball games, e.g. soccer or baseball
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/843 involving concurrently two or more players on the same game device, e.g. requiring the use of a plurality of controllers or of a specific view of game data for each player
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/87 Communicating with other players during game play, e.g. by e-mail or chat
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/1075 using a touch screen
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/308 Details of the user interface
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/5553 user representation in the game field, e.g. avatar
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/556 Player lists, e.g. online players, buddy list, black list
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/8023 the game being played by multiple players at a common site, e.g. in an arena, theatre, shopping mall using a large public display
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/8088 involving concurrently several players in a non-networked game, e.g. on the same game console
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking

Abstract

One or more persistent customized social media environments are created allowing users to share content or an activity. The content or activity may comprise a shared media experience or shared participatory experience. Each user accessing the environment utilizes a device alone or in conjunction with other devices to complete a sharing experience. A persistent customized social media environment definition establishes a user environment which provides social networking services as well as content sharing and allows users who are connected to the persistent customized social media environment definition to experience instant messages, while those users who connect to the persistent customized social media environment at a later time will receive messages once they enter the environment.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method of sharing a media experience, comprising:

providing a sharing application to a media display device, the sharing application responsive to a common shared content experience service, the content experience service hosting a plurality of persistent customized social media environments, each persistent social media environment in the service having a plurality of users and maintained for a duration of the common shared content experience;

receiving a persistent customized social media environment definition from a user via the sharing application, the persistent customized social media environment definition including an identification of other users to be included in the environment, a common shared content experience, and one or more content experience modules provided in the application;

responsive to a user indicating a desire to participate in the persistent customized social media environment, outputting the persistent customized social media environment definition to configure the sharing application for user participation;

providing communications between the users participating in the persistent customized social media environment based on user input and providing an indicator notifying at least one of the users in the persistent customized social media environment of activity in a second persistent customized social media environment, different from the persistent customized social media environment and in which the at least one user is also participating and selectively switching between the first and second persistent customized social media environment;

syncing persistent customized social media communications between users to the common shared content experience;

responsive to one or more of the users connecting to the persistent customized social media environment subsequent to communications being provided between the users participating in the persistent customized social media environment, providing the communications to the one or more users connecting subsequently, the communications provided at a point in time and context corresponding to that of the common shared content experience; and

receiving a selection of third party content from one or more users identified in the definition and connected to the environment, the selection adding the third party content to an activity stream within the environment such that the common shared content experience of the users participating in the first and second persistent customized social media environments are displayed and selectively removed.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the method further includes notifying persistent customized social media member users when a user creates a persistent customized social media including persistent customized social media member users in the persistent customized social media environment definition.

3. The method of claim 1 further including tracking network enabled user activities and suggesting additional users for a persistent customized social media environment definition.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the providing communications includes:

receiving a selection from the user of a recipient to receive a private message;

receiving the private message content; and

routing the private message content to the recipient.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the providing communications includes:

receiving a selection of a group of users who are members of the persistent customized social media environment definition as recipients of a group message;

receiving group message content; and

routing the group message content to the recipients.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the providing communication services includes outputting avatars for users participating in a environment.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein the providing communication services outputting includes animating user avatars based on communication activity received for or expressed by an owner of the avatar.

8. The method of claim 1 further including, responsive to a user indicating a desire to participate in the second persistent customized social media environment, outputting a second persistent customized social media environment definition to configure the sharing application for user participation in the second persistent customized social media environment;

and

providing communications between the users participating in the second persistent customized social media environment based on user input.

13. The method of claim 1 further comprising automatically tagging shared content to provide suggestions to the users based on current activity in the environment.

9. A system providing a data store including a persistent definition of a persistent customized social media environment, the system comprising:

a data store including a plurality of persistent customized social media environment definitions, each persistent customized social media environment definition including a user list of users allowed to connect to the environment, one or more synced content experiences and an application definition including a plurality of modules, each persistent customized social media environment having a plurality of users and maintained for a duration of a common shared content experience;

a user profile database including user profile information regarding user online activities and associations to persistent customized social media environment definitions of which the user is a member;

an application store configured to provide a persistent media environment application responsive to a request for the application from a user, each application including content experience modules one of the modules being specified by each persistent customized social media environment definition, each definition specifying at least a media display module adapted to output media shared by each user in the persistent customized social media environment in an customized social media environment user interface;

an interface receiving third party content experiences associated with and selected by a user of the persistent customized social media environment, the user selectively sharing the third party content experiences with one or more other users in another persistent customized social media environment, wherein the interface includes an activity queue in which the commonly shared content of the plurality of users are displayed and selectively removed; and

a communications server receiving messages from users, the messages associated with a persistent customized social media environment definition and destined for users in said persistent customized social media environment definition or a subset thereof, wherein

the messages are provided to one or more users when the messages include time-synced content with the output media shared by each user in the persistent customized social media environment.

10. The system of claim 9 wherein the user profile information includes information on user activities in network enabled content experiences on third party systems.

11. The system of claim 10 wherein the communications server includes a private messaging system, a group messaging system and a persistent customized social media messaging system.

12. The system of claim 10 wherein the application store includes code executable in a browser to implement a user interface on a client device when the code is transmitted to the client device, the code interfacing with the data store, profile database, interface and communications server when executed on a client device.