Web Based Interactive Meeting Facility

• US 20100017371A1
• Filed: 06/10/2009
• Published: 01/21/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 06/16/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Meetup Incorporated (SoftBank Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Meetup Incorporated (SoftBank Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Meeker, Matt, Heiferman, Scott, Kamali, Peter, Whalin, Gregory P.
• Granted Patent: US 8,359,206 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: N/A
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/109 Time management, e.g. calendars, reminders, meetings or time accounting

Abstract

A computer program product helps organize an in-person gathering of users of topic-related interest to help maintain ongoing local interest groups by providing meeting management resources through a web-based meeting facility, where the meeting management resources may enable a meeting group organizer to manage a meeting group. The meeting facility may receive meeting group criteria from a user, and may provide to the user an indication of at least one meeting group of a plurality of meeting groups based on the user'"'"'s received meeting group criteria, wherein the meeting groups may have respective members. The meeting facility may receive from the user a selection of a meeting group to join, and the organizer may be enabled to accept the user as a new member to the meeting group and to manage meeting group user resources available to the user through a web-based graphical interface provided by the meeting facility.

Claims

1. A computer program product embodied in a computer readable medium that, when executing on one or more computers, helps organize an in-person gathering of users of topic-related interest by performing the steps of:

providing meeting management resources through a meeting facility, wherein the meeting management resources enable a meeting group organizer to manage a meeting group;

receiving meeting group criteria from a user;

providing to the user an indication of at least one meeting group of a plurality of meeting groups based on the user'"'"'s received meeting group criteria, wherein the meeting groups have respective members;

receiving from the user a selection of a meeting group to join; and

enabling the organizer to accept the user as a new member to the meeting group and to manage meeting group user resources available to the user through a web-based graphical interface provided by the meeting facility.

2. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the received meeting group criteria is input through a search interface.

3. The computer program product of claim 2, wherein the search interface is provided through the meeting facility.

4. The computer program product of claim 2, wherein the search interface is provided through a third-party.

5. The computer program product of claim 2, wherein the search interface is a search engine.

6. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the received meeting group criteria is input through browsing.

7. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the meeting group criteria includes a geographic locale of the user.

8. The computer program product of claim 7, wherein the geographic locale is provided by a zip code input by the user.

9. The computer program product of claim 7, wherein the geographic criteria is determined through a computing facility being utilized by the user.

10. The computer program product of claim 9, wherein the computing facility is a mobile computing device.

11. The computer program product of claim 9, wherein the computing facility is service provider computer facility.

12. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the meeting group criteria includes at least one of a plurality of topics.

13. The computer program product of claim 12, wherein the topic is input by the user.

14. The computer program product of claim 12, wherein the topic is selected by the user from a predetermined list of topics.

15. The computer program product of claim 12, wherein the topic is selected by the user from a list provided by a search interface.

16. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein at least one of the meeting management resources is a calendar of meetings.

17. The computer program product of claim 16, wherein the calendar of meetings specifies a location for a meeting.

18. The computer program product of claim 16, wherein the calendar of meetings specifies a date and time for a meeting.

19. The computer program product of claim 16, wherein the user may select to join one of a plurality of meetings included in the calendar of meetings.

20. The computer program product of claim 19, wherein the selection to join is through an RSVP facility.

21. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein at least one of the meeting management resources is access to at least one of the respective members of the meeting group the user joined.

22. The computer program product of claim 21, wherein access is through email.

23. The computer program product of claim 21, wherein access is through instant messaging.

24. The computer program product of claim 21, wherein access is to the organizer.

25. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the organizer is able to share access to meeting management resources with select members of the meeting group.

26. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein a meeting group is a chapter.

27. A computer program product embodied in a computer readable medium that, when executing on one or more computers, helps organize an in-person gathering of users of topic-related interest by performing the steps of:

providing a web-based meeting facility to a plurality of users, wherein each of the plurality of users choose to join at least one of a plurality of meeting groups based on topic-related interest and geographic locale;

enabling at least one user-organizer to maintain control of organizing meetings with the at least one of the plurality of meeting groups, wherein the one of the plurality of meeting groups is made up of a subset of the plurality of users; and

providing organizational facilities to the user-organizer through the web-based meeting facility for creating and facilitating activities of the at least one of the plurality of meeting groups, wherein one of the organizational facilities is scheduling meetings.