Aggregating content from different content sources at a cloud service

• US 9,888,056 B2
• Filed: 12/10/2015
• Issued: 02/06/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 06/24/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: LeCroy, Jonathan, Brar, Gurashish, Yap, Joe, Wang, Victor, Alev, Umut, Kanamaluru, Vamsi, Gavrilov, Dmitri, Roth, Tali, Desai, Aditi, Borysenko, Mike, Bernstein, Ethan, Tousignant, Patrick, Garcia, Fernando
• Primary Examiner(s): MIRZA, ADNAN M
• Application Number:
  US14/965,365
• Publication Number:
  US 20160099995A1
• Time in Patent Office: 789 Days
• Field of Search: 709204, 709217
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/109 Time management, e.g. calendars, reminders, meetings or time accounting
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/1093 Calendar-based scheduling for persons or groups
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/216 Handling conversation history, e.g. grouping of messages in sessions or threads
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/40 Support for services or applications
• 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 67/1095 Replication or mirroring of data, e.g. scheduling or transport for data synchronisation between network nodes

Abstract

A cloud service stores and aggregates content that is obtained from different content sources using different protocols. For example, the content may include electronic messages, calendar information, contacts, social network content, feed data, search results, and the like. The cloud service aggregates content for each user based on the user'"'"'s configuration settings. The cloud service may perform processing on the aggregated content before it is delivered and displayed to the user on the client device. For example, one or more views may be generated and stored by the cloud service before the view is requested from the client. Changes made to the aggregated content on the client may be synchronized with the content source. Searches may be made across all or a portion of the different content sources that are aggregated for a user.

Claims

1. A method for aggregating content at a cloud service, comprising:

obtaining first content from a first provider using a first protocol;

obtaining second content from a second provider using a second provider interface, the second provider interface enabling the obtainment of provider specific features related to the second content;

aggregating the first content, the second content, and the provider specific features to form aggregated content;

associating the aggregated content with a user;

mapping the provider specific features to a feature that may be accessed by the client;

storing the aggregated content for the user; and

using a delivery protocol to deliver aggregated content and the feature to a client computing device.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein obtaining the first content comprises obtaining electronic messages, calendar information, and contact information associated with the user.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein obtaining the first content comprises obtaining at least one of:

social network content obtained from a social network;

search results obtained from a search engine;

or feed content.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating different views of the aggregated content at the cloud service and storing the different views at the cloud service.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein storing the aggregated content for the user at the cloud service comprises storing each different content source as separate content within a data storage.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining when a change is made to the aggregated content and synchronizing the change back to the content source where the content was obtained.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the provider specific feature comprises a label to a mail folder.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving a search query from a client device and performing a search across at least a portion of the first provider and the second provider.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving a search query from a client device and performing a search using the search query across different mail sources to locate messages from different mail providers.

10. A computer-readable storage device storing computer-executable instructions for aggregating content at a cloud service, comprising:

obtaining first content from a first provider using a first protocol;

obtaining second content from a second provider using a second provider interface, the second provider interface enabling the obtainment of provider specific features related to the second content;

aggregating the first content, the second content, and the provider specific features to form aggregated content;

associating the aggregated content with a user;

mapping the provider specific features to a feature that may be accessed by the client;

storing the aggregated content for the user; and

using a delivery protocol to deliver aggregated content to a client computing device, wherein the aggregated content includes the feature.

11. The computer-readable storage device of claim 10, further comprising generating different views of the aggregated content at the cloud service and storing the different views at the cloud service.

12. The computer-readable storage device of claim 10, wherein storing the aggregated content for the user at the cloud service comprises storing each different content source as separate content within a data storage.

13. The computer-readable storage device of claim 10, further comprising determining when a change is made to the aggregated content and synchronizing the change back to the content source where the content was obtained.

14. The computer-readable storage device of claim 10, wherein the provider specific feature comprises a label to a mail folder.

15. The computer-readable storage device of claim 10, further comprising receiving a search query from a client device and performing a search across at least a portion of the first provider and the second provider.

16. The computer-readable storage device of claim 10, further comprising receiving a search query from a client device and performing a search using the search query across different mail sources to locate messages from different mail providers.

17. A system for aggregating content at a cloud service, comprising:

a processor and memory;

an operating environment executing using the processor; and

an content manager that is configured to perform actions comprising;

obtaining first content from a first provider using a first protocol, the content comprising electronic message content, calendar content, and contact content that use different protocols;

obtaining second content from a second provider using a second provider interface, the second provider interface enabling the obtainment of provider specific features related to the second content;

aggregating the first content and the second content at the cloud service to form aggregated content;

mapping the provider specific features to a feature that may be accessed by the client;

associating the aggregated content with a user;

storing the aggregated content for the user at the cloud service;

generating different views of the aggregated content at the cloud service; and

using a delivery protocol to deliver one of the views to a client computing device.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein storing the aggregated content for the user at the cloud service comprises storing each of the first content and the second content as separate content within a data storage.

19. The system of claim 17, further comprising determining when a change is made to the aggregated content and synchronizing the change back to the content source where the content was obtained.

20. The system of claim 17, further comprising obtaining provider specific information from at least one of the first provider or the second provider in addition to using a synchronization protocol specified by the provider of the content source.