Selective communication of targeted information

• US 20080114829A1
• Filed: 11/13/2006
• Published: 05/15/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 11/13/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Hamilton, James Robert, Button, Thomas L.
• Granted Patent: US 7,890,576 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/203
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10015 Access to distributed or replicated servers, e.g. using brokers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/63 Routing a service request depending on the request content or context
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/029 Location-based management or tracking services

Abstract

Described is a technology by which by which information (an electronic note from a producer) that is available for delivery to a client consumer is only selectively delivered. The selective delivery may be based on metadata associated with the information, client identity data and other criteria, including a location of a client device. The information to selectively deliver may be obtained from an external information source, or generated by a service, such as when the user is near a location of interest. The client may report location changes, such as a rate corresponding to a rate of location change of the client. An information service scale to any practical number of clients via client state servers and location (of interest) servers, with each client state server associated with a set of one or more clients, and each location server associated with a set of one or more regions.

Claims

1. In a networked communications environment, a method comprising,

obtaining information from a producer for delivering to a client consumer, the client consumer associated with client identity data;

selectively determining whether to deliver the information to a client device based on metadata associated with the information, the client identity data and one or more criteria including data corresponding to client device location; and

delivering the information only when the one or more criteria are each met by the metadata associated with the information.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein obtaining the information from the producer for delivering to the client consumer comprises receiving the information from a producer comprising an external information source, or receiving the information from a producer comprising a service.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising, determining a logical or actual location of the device of the client consumer, and generating the information based on at least one set of location of interest information corresponding to the determined logical or actual device location.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the one or more criteria includes time data, or context data, or both time data and context data.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising, receiving state change information from the client consumer.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising, receiving location change information from the client at a rate corresponding to a rate of location change of the client.

7. In a networked communications environment, a system comprising:

a service including at least one server that tracks location and other state of client consumers;

a selection mechanism associated with the service, the selection mechanism configured to evaluate client-associated state data against metadata of a note generated by a note producer to determine whether to deliver the note to a given client consumer.

8. The system of claim 7 wherein the selection mechanism determines whether to deliver the note to the given client consumer based on client identity data of that given client, the client identity data including a user identifier or a device identifier, or a combination of a user identifier and a device identifier.

9. The system of claim 7 wherein the service includes a plurality of client state servers, each client state server associated with a set of one or more clients based on means for partitioning a full set of clients into subsets of client partitions, and means for assigning one or more client partitions to each client state server such that each client is associated with at least one client state server.

10. The system of claim 7 further comprising a partition manager that moves one or more client partitions between client state servers according to server loads.

11. The system of claim 7 wherein the service includes a plurality of location servers, each location server associated with a set of one or more location regions based on means for partitioning a full set of served location regions into subsets of location regions, and means for assigning one or more location regions to each location server such that locations of interest are associated with location state servers.

12. The system of claim 7 wherein the service receives client state data from the given client consumer via the Internet and delivers the note to the client via an instant messaging system.

13. The system of claim 7 wherein the selection mechanism evaluates the metadata against client state data of the given client including client location data and time or client context data, or against client location data, time and client context data.

14. In a networked communications environment, a method comprising:

obtaining information from a producer for potentially delivering to a set of one or more client consumers, and

a) selecting a client consumer of the set as a currently selected client consumer,

b) evaluating metadata associated with the information against client state data of the selected client consumer including client device location data and client context data, and

c) delivering the information to the selected client consumer only when the metadata meets requirements set forth in the client state data of the selected client.

15. The method of claim 14 wherein obtaining the information comprises, producing a note for delivery based on location of interest information associated with the client consumer and the device location data.

16. The method of claim 14 wherein evaluating the metadata associated with the information against client state data includes evaluating time data against one or more time requirements set forth in the client state data.

17. The method of claim 14 further comprising, maintaining location of interest data for at least some client consumers of the set of client consumers, receiving a location of interest change from a given client consumer, and changing the location of interest data maintained for that given client, including adding location of interest data, updating location of interest data, or deleting location of interest data.

18. The method of claim 14 further comprising, maintaining client state data with each client consumer of the set of client consumers, receiving a client state update from a given client, maintaining updated client state data with that given client consumer based on the client state update, and evaluating notes for possible delivery to the given client consumer in view of the updated state data.

19. The method of claim 18 wherein receiving the client state update includes receiving location change information from the client at a rate corresponding to a rate of location change of the client.

20. The method of claim 14 wherein the set of one or more clients corresponds to a number of clients partitioned and assigned to a particular user state server.