TECHNIQUES FOR ENHANCING GROUP COMMUNICATION ON A MOBILE DEVICE

• US 20160154556A1
• Filed: 12/02/2014
• Published: 06/02/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 12/02/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Inventors: Cheung, Vincent Charles, Ho, Connie Yeewei, Tsuan, Daniel
• Granted Patent: US 10,225,700 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0481 based on specific properties of the displayed interaction object or a metaphor-based environment, e.g. interaction with desktop elements like windows or icons, or assisted by a cursor's changing behaviour or appearance
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/216 Handling conversation history, e.g. grouping of messages in sessions or threads
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/08 User group management
• 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 8/186 Processing of subscriber group data

Abstract

Techniques for enhancing group communication on a device are described. A method may include presenting a message in a message portion of a user interface (UI) for a group communication application executing on a first device, where the group communication application communicates messages among multiple devices. The method may further include monitoring an input component for the first device and detecting a first control directive from the input component. The first control directive may select a message displayed in the message portion of the user interface. The method may further include performing a pin operation on the selected message; and presenting the pinned message in a banner portion of the UI. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

presenting a message in a message portion of a user interface (UI) for a group communication application executing on a first device, the group communication application arranged to communicate messages between multiple devices;

monitoring an input component for the first device;

detecting a first control directive from the input component, the first control directive to select a message displayed in the message portion of the user interface;

performing a pin operation on the selected message; and

presenting the pinned message in a banner portion of the UI.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, comprising:

detecting the first control directive as a gesture on a touch sensitive input component.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, performing the pin operation comprising:

sending a pin request to a message server; and

receiving the selected message as the pinned message from the message server.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, comprising:

receiving a second control directive to unpin a pinned message; and

removing the pinned message from the banner portion.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, comprising:

displaying a pinned message comprising structured data that includes at least one field having a first value.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 5, comprising:

receiving a second message comprising a second value;

updating the field in the pinned message with the second value.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, comprising:

receiving a third control directive to delay displaying the pinned message until a condition is met.

8. An apparatus, comprising:

one or more processing circuits;

a storage unit storing instructions that when executed by the one or more processing circuits, causes a group communication component to;

communicate messages among a plurality of devices operated by a group of users;

receive a pin request from one of the plurality of devices, the pin request including an identifier of a message to pin;

mark the message to pin as a pinned message; and

send the pinned message to each of the devices.

9. The apparatus of claim 8, the group communication component further to:

receive an unpin request from one of the plurality of devices;

remove the marking of the message as a pinned message; and

send an unpin command to each of the plurality of devices.

10. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the pinned message comprises structured data including at least one field having a first value, the group communication component further to:

receive an update request from one of the plurality of devices including a second value;

update the pinned message by replacing the first value with the second value in the pinned message; and

send the updated pinned message to each of the plurality of devices.

11. The apparatus of claim 10, the group communication component further to:

parse the message to pin;

generate a structured data message from the parsed message, including at least one field having a value;

marking the structured data message to pin as the pinned message.

12. The apparatus of claim 11, the group communication component further to:

receive a second message from one of the plurality of devices;

parse the second message;

identify a second value for the at least one field in the parsed message;

update the pinned message with the second value; and

send the updated pinned message to each of the plurality of devices.

13. The apparatus of claim 8, the group communication component further to:

receive a delay pin request from one of the plurality of devices, the delay pin request including an identifier of a message to pin and a condition;

mark the message to pin as a pinned message; and

send the pinned message to each of the plurality of devices when the condition is met.

14. At least one computer-readable storage medium comprising instructions for a group communication application that, when executed, cause a device to:

present a message in a message portion of a user interface (UI), the group communication application arranged to communicate messages among multiple devices;

monitor an input component for the device;

detect a first control directive from the input component, the first control directive to select a message displayed in the message portion of the user interface;

perform a pin operation on the selected message; and

present the pinned message in a banner portion of the UI.

15. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 14, comprising instructions that when executed, cause the device to:

receive a second pinned message from a message server; and

replace the pinned message with the second pinned message in the banner portion.

16. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 14, comprising instructions that when executed, cause the device to:

receive a second pinned message from a message server; and

add the second pinned message to a layer in the banner portion on top of any previously pinned messages.

17. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 14, comprising instructions that when executed, cause the device to:

receive an unpin command from a message server; and

remove the pinned message from the banner portion.

18. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 14, comprising instructions that when executed, cause the device to:

present a pinned message comprising structured data that includes at least one field having a first value.

19. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 18, comprising instructions that when executed, cause the device to:

receive a second value from a message server; and

update the field in the pinned message with the second value.

20. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 18, wherein the pinned message comprises a poll having a plurality of poll responses, and comprising instructions that when executed, cause the device to:

parse each message received from the mobile devices for a poll response; and

update a poll result with each received poll response.