User Created Tags For Online Social Networking

• US 20080046458A1
• Filed: 07/27/2007
• Published: 02/21/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 08/16/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ifwe Inc.
• Original Assignee: Tagged Incorporated
• Inventors: Tseng, Greg, Schleier-Smith, Johann
• Granted Patent: US 7,529,797 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/102
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/958 Organisation or management of web site content, e.g. publishing, maintaining pages or automatic linking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/117 Tagging; Marking up details of markup languages G06F40/143; Designating a block; Setting of attributes style sheets, e.g. eXtensible Stylesheet Language Transformation [XSLT], G06F40/154
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/169 Annotation, e.g. comment data or footnotes
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0269 based on user profile or attribute
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking
• 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

Abstract

The present invention provides a social networking system and method by which customized tags can be created by a registered user in an online social networking environment and distributed to facilitate social networking. The tags represent personal characteristics and preferences associated with users of the online social networking environment. A graphical user interface (GUI) is provided in the online social networking website that enables a specific user to create and customize tags. Tags can be embeddable in that a user can insert the tag in a website GUI for display. Also, tags may have embedded content, e.g. a photo, a song, a profile page location, etc and may be sponsored or traded in the social networking website. Also a skin that shows the personal profile page GUI style may be customized, sponsored, or traded.

Claims

1. A computer network for a social networking game:

a communications network such as the Internet;

a plurality of client devices, said client devices providing a GUI for social networking to said plurality of social networkers;

a database including various information about said plurality of social networkers;

a plurality of tags that are created, destroyed, and manipulated during said social networking game, said plurality of tags having characteristics; and

executable for embedding said tags into said social networking game by bringing the tag characteristics into said GUI through images.

2. The computer network of claim 1, wherein a customized skin that shows customized personal profile page style is created, traded, or sponsored.

3. The computer network of claim 1, wherein tags are traded among users, tag creators, sponsors.

4. The computer network of claim 1, wherein a buddy list, a tag team list, or an external distribution list is used for the purpose of socialization, contact, or distribution of tags.

5. The computer network of claim 1, wherein a tag Container is used in the online social network that conveniently stores and displays a user'"'"'s tags, which are created, selected, or received by the user.

6. A social networking method for creating customized tags, the method comprising:

providing an online social networking environment that supports tags representing personal characteristics and preferences associated with users of the online social networking environment;

opening a graphical user interface that enables a specific user to create and customize tags;

creating a specific tag according to instructions from the specific user; and

making the specific tag available for use by the specific user.

7. The method of claim 6, the instructions, wherein the user creating the specific tag includes at least selecting a name, a graphic icon, and a category.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the graphic icon is generated by uploading, linking to a URL, using a template, or drawing.

9. The method of claim 6, wherein the created tag data is stored associated with the creator.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein if the stored tag data is changed, the change is reflected on all the same tags used in the networking website.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the stored tag data includes the history of usage.

12. An embeddable tag for use in social networking, said embeddable tag comprising:

visual content encoded in a format suitable for display on a computer display screen;

a populated personal characteristic data structure; and

computer executable instructions for initiating a process to embed said embeddable tag into a GUI.

13. An embedded tag for use in social networking, said embedded tag comprising:

a visual content of personal preferences and characteristics;

embedded contents including a photo, a song, a movie, a location of a profile page, a shout out, an expression of feelings, tags, or presents; and

computer executable instructions for showing the embedded contents.

14. An advertising method in online social networking environment using sponsored tags, the method comprising:

providing an online social networking environment that supports sponsored tags representing a product, a brand, a trademark, or a generic icon of a sponsor;

opening a graphical user interface that enables a sponsor to create and customize sponsored tags;

creating a customized sponsored tag according to instructions from the sponsor; and

making the sponsored tag available for use in the online social networking environment.

15. The method of claim 14, the sponsored tag having contents, the contents including sound, URL, descriptive page, web application, or phone calls.

16. The method of claim 14, wherein the use of sponsored tags in the online social networking environment includes selling, limited distribution, and auctioning the sponsored tag.