Dynamically customizing a user interface for the aggregation of content

• US 7,293,034 B2
• Filed: 02/23/2004
• Issued: 11/06/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 02/23/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Paya, Ismail Cem, McQuillan, Gilbert M.
• Primary Examiner(s): Vo; Tim
• Assistant Examiner(s): GORTAYO, DANGELINO N
• Application Number:
  US10/784,694
• Publication Number:
  US 20050187895A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,352 Days
• Field of Search: 707/2, 707/3, 707/100, 707/104, 707/1, 715/500, 715/900
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/958 Organisation or management of web site content, e.g. publishing, maintaining pages or automatic linking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/41 where a single sign-on provides access to a plurality of computers
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99937 Sorting
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99942 Manipulating data structure, e.g. compression, compaction, compilation
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing

Abstract

Enabling dynamic aggregation of content from a plurality of content providers. The invention stores references associated with specific display areas in a document for a particular data source. Responsive to a request for the document, the invention retrieves the references associated with the data source and dynamically inserts the references into the appropriate display area of the document. A client renders the document by obtaining the content associated with the references. In an embodiment, the invention includes a web service for cobranding a login user interface for a user authentication system. The web service places cobranding content provided by an affiliate content provider and sign-in user interface content provided by a user authentication service into different frames of a single web page.

Claims

1. A method of enabling dynamic aggregation of content from a plurality of content providers, said method comprising:

defining a template having a plurality of display areas;

receiving a reference from a content provider, said reference identifying content hosted by the content provider, said content provider having a content provider identifier associated therewith;

associating the received reference with a display area identifier related to at least one of the plurality of display areas in the defined template;

creating a document from the defined template;

associating the associated reference, the display area identifier, and the content provider identifier with the created document;

storing the created document in a memory area;

receiving a request for the document, said request comprising the content provider identifier;

responsive to the received request, retrieving the stored reference and display area identifier based on the content provider identifier;

inserting the retrieved reference into the document based on the retrieved display area identifier; and

sending the document with the reference to a client computing device, wherein an application program executing on the client computing device then dynamically renders, without input from a user, the document to the user by retrieving the content from the content provider via the reference and displaying the retrieved content in the display area identified by the display area identifier.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising sending the document with the reference to the content provider.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein defining the template having the plurality of display areas comprises defining a web page having a plurality of frames.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein receiving the reference from the content provider comprises receiving a hyperlink from the content provider.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein one or more computer-readable media have computer-executable instructions for performing the method recited in claim 1.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving the reference from the content provider comprises receiving only the reference from the content provider.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein associating the received reference with the display area identifier related to the at least one of the plurality of display areas in the defined template comprises associating only the received reference with the display area identifier related to the at least one of the plurality of display areas in the defined template.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein associating the associated reference, the display area identifier, and the content provider identifier with the created document comprises associating only the associated reference, the display area identifier, and the content provider identifier with the created document.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein inserting the retrieved reference into the document based on the retrieved display area identifier comprises inserting only the retrieved reference into the document based on the retrieved display area identifier.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the application program executing on the client computing device then dynamically renders, without input from the user, the document to the user by retrieving the content from the content provider via the reference and displaying only the retrieved content in the display area identified by the display area identifier.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving the reference from the content provider comprises receiving, from the content provider, the reference without receiving the content identified by the reference.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the content is retrieved by the application program after said sending the document.

13. A method of enabling dynamic aggregation of content from a plurality of content providers, said method comprising:

defining a template document having a plurality of frames;

receiving a hyperlink from a content provider, said hyperlink identifying content hosted by the content provider, said content provider having a content provider identifier associated therewith;

associating the received hyperlink with a frame identifier related to one of the plurality of frames in the defined template document;

creating a web page from the defined template document;

associating the associated hyperlink, the frame identifier, and the content provider identifier with the created web page;

storing the created web page in a memory area;

receiving a request for the web page, said request comprising the content provider identifier;

responsive to the received request, retrieving the stored hyperlink and frame identifier based on the content provider identifier;

inserting the retrieved hyperlink into the web page based on the retrieved frame identifier; and

sending the web page with the hyperlink to a client computing device, wherein a web browser executing on the client computing device then dynamically renders, without input from a user, the web page to the user by downloading the content from the content provider via the hyperlink and displaying the downloaded content in the frame identified by the frame identifier.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein receiving the request comprises receiving a dynamic uniform resource locator having the content provider identifier as a query string parameter.

15. The method of claim 13, further comprising sending the web page with the hyperlink to the content provider.

16. The method of claim 13, wherein defining the template document comprises defining the template document using a hypertext markup language.

17. The method of claim 8, wherein one or more computer-readable media have computer-executable instructions for performing the method recited in claim 13.

18. One or more computer-readable media having computer-executable components for enabling dynamic aggregation of content from a plurality of content providers, said components comprising:

a template component to define a template having a plurality of display areas;

an interface component to receive a reference from a content provider, said reference identifying content hosted by the content provider, said content provider having a content provider identifier associated therewith, said interface component further adapted to associate the received reference with a display area identifier related to at least one of the plurality of display areas in the template defined by the template component;

a memory component to create a document from the template defined by the template component, and to store the reference, the display area identifier, and the content provider identifier with the created document in a memory area, wherein the interface component is further adapted to receive a request for the document, said request comprising the content provider identifier, wherein the memory component, responsive to the request received by the interface component, is further adapted to retrieve the stored reference and display area identifier based on the content provider identifier; and

a generation component to insert the reference retrieved by the memory component into the document based on the display area identifier retrieved by the memory component, wherein the interface component is further adapted to send the document with the reference inserted by the generation component to a client computing device, wherein an application program executing on the client computing device then dynamically renders, without input from a user, the document to the user by retrieving the content from the content provider via the reference and displaying the retrieved content in the display area identified by the display area identifier.

19. The computer-readable media of claim 18, wherein the template component is further adapted to define a web page having a plurality of frames.

20. The computer-readable media of claim 18, wherein the interface component is further adapted to receive a hyperlink from the content provider.

21. A system for enabling dynamic aggregation of content from a plurality of content providers, said system comprising:

a first memory area to store a template defining a plurality of display areas;

a second memory area to store a plurality of references each identifying content hosted by a content provider, wherein each of the plurality of references is associated with one of the plurality of display areas in the template stored in the first memory area; and

a computing device to create a document from the template stored in the first memory area and to dynamically insert each of the plurality of references stored in the second memory area into the associated display area of the created document responsive to a request for the document, wherein the computing device is further adapted to send the document with the plurality of references to a client application program responsive to a request from a user for the document, wherein the client application program then executes to dynamically retrieve the content via the references and to render, without input from the user, the content in the document to the user.

22. The system of claim 21, wherein the document comprises a web page, wherein each of the references comprises a hyperlink, and wherein each of the display areas comprises a frame.

23. The system of claim 21, wherein one of the plurality of references comprises a reference to a user authentication service.

24. The system of claim 21, wherein each of the plurality of references identifies content from a different content provider.

25. The system of claim 21, wherein the content identifies the content provider associated therewith.

26. The system of claim 21, wherein the content comprises one or more of the following:

text, graphics, audio, and video.

27. A web service for cobranding a login user interface, said web service comprising:

a template document defining a plurality of frames;

a plurality of hyperlinks each identifying content hosted by a content provider, wherein each of the plurality of hyperlinks is associated with one of the plurality of frames defined in the template document, wherein the content for one of the plurality of hyperlinks includes a user name text box and a password text box; and

computer-executable instructions to dynamically create a web page from the defined template document and to insert each of the plurality of hyperlinks into the associated frame in the created web page responsive to a request for the web page, wherein the computer-executable instructions, when executed, send the created web page to a client computing device responsive to a request for the web page from a user, and wherein the client computing device, without input from the user, then dynamically retrieves the content identified by each of the hyperlinks and renders the retrieved content in the associated frames in the web page.

28. The web service of claim 27, wherein the client comprises an application program or a computing device or both.

29. The web service of claim 27, further comprising another plurality of hyperlinks each identifying content associated with another content provider, and wherein the computer-executable instructions execute, responsive to a request from the another content provider, to dynamically create another web page from the defined template document and to retrieve the another plurality of hyperlinks and to insert the retrieved another plurality of hyperlinks into the associated frames in the another web page.