SELF-DESCRIBED RENDERING OF DATA

• US 20090222516A1
• Filed: 02/29/2008
• Published: 09/03/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 02/29/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Holmes, John S., Spivey, John T.
• Granted Patent: US 8,645,474 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/204
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/04 Real-time or near real-time messaging, e.g. instant messaging [IM]

Abstract

An exemplary data package for a network-based instant messaging system includes descriptive data about a user of the instant messaging system and data indicating a network location of a gadget to render the descriptive data, the location accessible by one or more other users of the instant messaging system. Various other exemplary methods, systems, device, etc., are also disclosed.

Claims

1. A data package for a network-based instant messaging system, the data package comprising:

descriptive data about a user of the instant messaging system; and

data indicating a network location of a gadget to render the descriptive data, the location accessible by one or more other users of the instant messaging system.

2. The data package of claim 1 wherein the descriptive data and data indicating a location of a gadget comprise data written in an extensible mark-up language.

3. The data package of claim 1 wherein the data package comprises data to extend presence of a user of the instant messaging system.

4. The data package of claim 1 wherein the descriptive data comprises geographical location data.

5. The data package of claim 1 wherein the data indicating a location of a gadget comprises a URL.

6. The data package of claim 1 wherein the data indicating a network location of a gadget comprises at least one URL or a domain name associated with at least one URL.

7. The data package of claim 1 wherein the data indicating a network location of a gadget comprises an Internet Protocol address.

8. The data package of claim 1 wherein the descriptive data about a user of the instant messaging system comprises data about merchandise.

9. The data package of claim 1 wherein the data indicating a network location of a gadget comprises a domain name or an Internet Protocol address of a merchandiser.

10. The data package of claim 1 wherein the data indicating a network location of a gadget comprises a domain name or an Internet Protocol address of an instant messaging server.

11. A method, implemented at least in part by a computing device, the method comprising:

receiving data from a user of an instant messaging system;

parsing the data to identify descriptive data about the user and to identify a location of a gadget;

accessing the location of the gadget and downloading the gadget; and

executing the gadget to render the descriptive data.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein the executing the gadget visually renders the descriptive data.

13. The method of claim 11 wherein the executing the gadget audibly renders the descriptive data.

14. The method of claim 11 wherein the descriptive data about the user comprises geographical location data.

15. The method of claim 11 wherein the descriptive data about the user comprises information about an audio file or a video file.

16. A method, implemented at least in part by a computing device, the method comprising:

generating descriptive data about a user of an instant messaging system;

identifying a network location of a gadget configured to render the generated descriptive data; and

transmitting the descriptive data and the network location of the gadget to an instant messaging server of the instant messaging system.

17. The method of claim 16 further comprising:

accessing the instant messaging server; and

downloading the descriptive data and the network location of the gadget.

18. The method of claim 17 further comprising:

downloading the gadget from the network location; and

executing the gadget to render the descriptive information.

19. The method of claim 16 wherein the descriptive data comprises extended information that extends presence information of the user of the instant messaging system.

20. The method of claim 16 further comprising calling one or more application programming interfaces to perform the transmitting the descriptive data and the network location of the gadget to an instant messaging server of the instant messaging system.