SOCIAL MESSAGING HUB SYSTEM

• US 20160073243A1
• Filed: 11/05/2015
• Published: 03/10/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 08/05/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: HeyWire, Inc. (Salesforce.com, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: HeyWire, Inc. (Salesforce.com, Inc.)
• Inventors: Lew, Eugene Lee, Gianoukos, Vasilios John
• Granted Patent: US 10,455,377 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04842 Selection of displayed objects or displayed text elements G06F3/0482 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2101/65 Telephone numbers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/52 for supporting social networking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/58 Message adaptation for wireless communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/106 across networks, e.g. mapping telephone numbers to data network addresses
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/14 Short messaging services, e.g. short message services [SMS] or unstructured supplementary service data [USSD]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/21 for social networking applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 60/00 Affiliation to network, e.g. registration; Terminating affiliation with the network, e.g. de-registration
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/10 Connection setup
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/26 Network addressing or numbering for mobility support

Abstract

A social messaging hub provides communication services for a data enabled device having Internet network access capabilities such as a portable media player, personal digital assistant, a Wi-Fi mobile platform, a tablet computer, portable e-Reader, a personal computer, a laptop and a netbook computer. The social messaging hub communicates with the data enabled device over the Internet or cellular data networks, and interfaces with a message infrastructure including mobile carriers, message aggregators, message exchanges and various specialized social messaging services. Messages may originate in or be delivered to other users'"'"' mobile telephones or in similarly equipped and provisioned IP data enabled devices. The social messaging hub can provide a predetermined auto-reply response and retain messages for a timed duration in a message retention queue when requested by a user. Messages may be viewed with a data enabled device application at various zoom levels.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for controlling reception of SMS messages to be delivered to a data enabled device, the method comprising:

registering the data enabled device with a social messaging hub with a unique identifier;

receiving a message from a message source through a message service directed to a user'"'"'s data enabled device registered with the unique identifier obtained from the message source;

providing the message using an inbound service;

establishing a connection between a data enabled device and the inbound service;

receiving a request to suspend message delivery and retain messages on the social messaging hub;

providing a predetermined auto-reply response to an originator of the message; and

retaining the messages in a message retention queue on the social messaging hub.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising providing a graphical user interface (GUI) on an application operating on the data enabled device to allow selection of one of the predetermined auto-reply responses.

3. The method of claim 2 further comprising providing a GUI on the application to allow setting of a timer to control the duration of a delivery suspension and retention of the messages in a message retention queue.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the timer setting GUI displays the timer status and allows resetting the timer duration and canceling the timer.

5. A social messaging hub for Short Message Service/Multimedia Messaging Service/Enhanced Messaging Service (SMS/MMS/EMS) communications comprising:

an SMS provider;

an inbound service coupled to the SMS provider;

a database coupled to the inbound service and a web server;

a Hub application operating on the web server and comprising a plurality of message services;

a message retention queue for delaying delivery of SMS messages; and

a timer for controlling message retention.