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Designating automated agents as friends in a social network service

  • US 9,929,982 B2
  • Filed: 06/17/2011
  • Issued: 03/27/2018
  • Est. Priority Date: 04/08/2010
  • Status: Active Grant
First Claim
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1. A method, performed by an automated agent module executing on one or more computers, comprising:

  • accessing a social network module comprising accounts of respective users registered to use the social network service, each account comprising a respective contact list and user page, wherein each contact list authorizes contacts therein to both display and post messages to the corresponding user'"'"'s user page, a user'"'"'s user page, when displayed by devices operated by the user and the user'"'"'s contacts, comprising a message display area to display messages posted by the corresponding user and the corresponding user'"'"'s contacts, and further comprising a message input area through which messages are inputted and added to the message display area;

    receiving, by the automated agent module, a message sent to the agent module responsive to the message being posted by the user to the user page via the message input area, the automated agent module and the users in the user'"'"'s contact list having been previously added to the user'"'"'s contact list by the user using a contact adding/removing module of the social network module, the message having been sent to the automated agent module due to the automated agent module being a contact of the user;

    responsive to receiving the message, analyzing content of the message to decide whether the automated agent module is to reply to the message;

    responsive to deciding to reply to the message, generating a reply message by passing the content of the message to a search engine and adding a search result of the search engine to the reply message; and

    posting the reply message to the user'"'"'s user page, and in response the social network module adding the reply message to the message display area to be displayed therein with replies to the message that were posted via the input area by from the user'"'"'s other contacts, the user'"'"'s user page indicating that the reply message from the automated agent module and the replies from the user'"'"'s other contacts are associated with the message.

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