PROVIDING CONTEXTUAL INFORMATION AND ENABLING GROUP COMMUNICATION FOR PARTICIPANTS IN A CONVERSATION

• US 20120304079A1
• Filed: 05/24/2012
• Published: 11/29/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 05/26/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Palay, Andrew James, Rideout, Ariel Lauren, Bills, Steven Henry, Khomenko, Maria, Cornwell, Jason Briggs, Striebeck, Mark, McDonald, Paul Morell, Hyder, Zohair, Treitel, Richard James, Gray, Jamison Richard
• Granted Patent: US 9,070,117 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/758
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04842 Selection of displayed objects or displayed text elements G06F3/0482 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1818 Conference organisation arrangements, e.g. handling schedules, setting up parameters needed by nodes to attend a conference, booking network resources, notifying involved parties
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/046 Interoperability with other network applications or services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/216 Handling conversation history, e.g. grouping of messages in sessions or threads
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/52 for supporting social networking services

Abstract

Configurations for providing a widget that displays participants involved in the conversation thread and provides different graphical elements (e.g., buttons) to initiate one click actions to start a group chat, create a meeting on each participant'"'"'s calendar, or start a new conversation thread. In the case of the group chat, the subject technology can include the contents of the group chat session as an additional electronic message in the conversation thread. In one example, the widget is implemented as a floating toolbar that can be positioned in the user interface while in the conversation thread view.

Claims

1. A machine-implemented method for initiating a group communication, the method comprising:

determining, using one or more computing devices, multiple participants included in an electronic message provided in an electronic messaging application;

providing for display, using the one or more computing devices, a representation of each of the determined multiple participants in a widget included in the electronic messaging application;

receiving, in the widget, user input to activate a group web service different from the electronic messaging application for the multiple participants of the electronic message; and

activating the different group web service in response to the received user input in the widget, wherein the activated different group web service initiates a communication thread in the different group web service including at least a subset of the multiple participants of the electronic message.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the multiple participants included in the electronic message is based on respective e-mail addresses of the multiple participants.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the widget is a sub-application included in the electronic messaging application.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the different group web service includes one of a group chat session and a group calendar appointment.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein an active session for the different group web service is created upon activating the different group web service.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the user input comprises a single click input.

7. The method of claim 3, wherein the single click input includes one from a mouse-click input, touch input, keyboard input, or voice input.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the electronic messaging application is an e-mail application.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the e-mail application is web-based.

10. A machine-implemented method for providing contextual information for multiple participants of an electronic message, the method comprising:

determining, using one or more computing devices, multiple participants included in an electronic message provided in an electronic messaging application;

obtaining, using the one or more computing devices, contextual information from one or more data sources for each participant, wherein the one or more data sources respectively correspond to an external web service; and

providing, using the one or more computing devices, for display a representation of each of the determined multiple participants and the determined contextual information in a widget included in the electronic messaging application.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein a respective participant of the electronic message is a user of the external web service.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the external web service includes one of a calendar service, online social networking service or document sharing service.

13. The method of claim 10, wherein the contextual information includes profile data of at least one of the multiple participants.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the profile data includes a user name, contact data, or an image.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein the profile data is based on a online social network profile.

16. The method of claim 10, wherein the one or more data sources further include a data source for storing one or more e-mail messages or e-mail attachments from each participant.

17. A system for providing contextual information for multiple participants of a conversation thread, the system comprising:

one or more computing devices, the one or more computing devices comprising;

memory;

one or more processors;

one or more modules stored in memory and configured for execution by the one or more processors, the modules comprising;

an electronic messaging module configured to receive one or more electronic messages in a conversation thread between multiple participants;

a group messaging module configured to activate one of different web services between the multiple participants; and

a graphical user interface (GUI) display module configured to, in a conversation thread view of the conversation thread, provide for display a representation of the conversation thread, wherein the representation includes separate display regions.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the separate display regions comprise:

one or more electronic message regions respectively corresponding to each of the electronic messages in the conversation thread;

a conversation participants region including different graphical elements representing the multiple participants of the conversation thread; and

a group web service region including one or more graphical elements respectively representing one or more different group web services.

19. The system of claim 17, further comprising:

a contextual data module configured to receive user input for selecting a participant among the multiple participants of the conversation thread, and receive, in response to the received user input, different contextual data associated with the selected participant.

20. The system of claim 19, wherein the different contextual data includes at least one of profile data, an e-mail message, a document, a calendar appointment, and a social networking status update.

21. The system of claim 19, wherein the GUI display module is further configured to:

provide for display the received contextual data associated with the selected participant.

22. The system of claim 17, wherein the group messaging module is further configured to:

store a historical record of activity during an active session of the activated one of the different group web services.

23. The system of claim 22, wherein the GUI display module is further configured to:

provide for display the historical record as an additional electronic message in the conversation thread between the multiple participants.

24. A non-transitory machine-readable medium comprising instructions stored therein, which when executed by one or more computing devices, cause the one or more computing devices to perform operations comprising:

receiving one or more electronic messages in a conversation thread between multiple participants;

in a conversation thread view of the conversation thread, providing for display a representation of the conversation thread, wherein the representation includes separate display regions, the separate display regions comprising;

one or more electronic message regions respectively corresponding to each of the electronic messages in the conversation thread;

a conversation participants region including different graphical elements representing the multiple participants of the conversation thread; and

a group web service region including one or more graphical elements respectively representing one or more different group web services; and

receiving user input for selecting a participant among the multiple participants of the conversation thread;

receiving, in response to the received user input, different contextual data associated with the selected participant; and

providing for display the different contextual data associated with the selected participant.

25. The machine-readable medium of claim 24, wherein the different contextual data includes at least one of profile data, an e-mail message, a document, a calendar appointment, and a social networking status update.