Prioritization for online contact status updates

• US 8,136,125 B2
• Filed: 10/02/2007
• Issued: 03/13/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 10/02/2007
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Beadle, Gary M., Masterson, Michael L.
• Primary Examiner(s): Anya, Charles E
• Application Number:
  US11/866,199
• Publication Number:
  US 20090089804A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,624 Days
• Field of Search: 709/207, 709/240, 715/752, 719/318
• US Class Current: 719/318
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/54 Presence management, e.g. monitoring or registration for receipt of user log-on information, or the connection status of the users
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/61 taking into account QoS or priority requirements

Abstract

Communicating information about a contact, such as presence status, may be regulated in accordance with priority values associated with contacts. Various parameters about contacts with respect to a particular environment may be collected and utilized to assign priority values to the contacts. Flow of information about the contacts is regulated based on the assigned priority values. Information about contacts with higher priority values may be communicated more frequently to client devices from one or more servers than those contacts with lower priority values. In addition, information about contacts associated with priority values that satisfy one or more criteria may be prefetched from a server to a client device.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

associating a priority value with each of a plurality of online contacts of a set of one or more applications on a device;

monitoring events on the device that involve at least one of the plurality of online contacts;

dynamically updating the priority value associated with the at least one of the plurality of online contacts based, at least in part, on the one or more monitored events; and

dynamically regulating transmission of contact information of the at least one online contact based, at least in part, on the dynamically updated priority value associated with the at least one online contact, wherein the dynamically regulating of the transmission of the contact information of the at least one online contact comprises,

transmitting of the contact information of an online contact of the plurality of online contacts that is weighted higher in comparison to others of the plurality of online contacts prior to enabling transmission of the contact information of the others of the plurality of online contacts that are weighted lower, wherein weighting of the online contacts is based on weight of the applications of the set of one or more applications that use the online contacts and based on a pervasiveness of the online contacts in the set of one or more applications, wherein the online contact of the plurality of contacts that is weighted higher in comparison to others of the plurality of online contacts has a higher priority value in comparison to others of the plurality of online contacts.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising prefetching contact information for those of the plurality of online contacts associated with priority values that satisfy one or more prefetching criteria.

3. The method of claim 2 further comprising determining those of the associated priority values that satisfy the one or more prefetching criteria.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

determining a number of the set of one or more applications that use each of the plurality of online contacts, wherein the priority values associated with the online contacts are based, at least in part, on the determined number.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the events comprise one or more of frequency of accessing the at least one contact, events related to environment of the device, using contact information of the as least one contact, sending an instant message to the at least one contact, and sending an e-mail message to the at least one contact.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein said dynamically regulating comprises:

communicating the associated priority values to a server device to allow the server device to regulate transmission of contact information for the plurality of online contacts based, at least in part, on the priority values.

7. The method of claim 6 further comprising the server device updating the communicated priority values based on one or more environmental factors of the server device.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

examining meta-data of the plurality of online contacts and historical data of the set of one or more applications, the historical data for corresponding ones of the plurality of online contacts; and

determining the priority values based, at least in part, on said examining.

9. The method of claim 8 further comprising using one or more heuristics to determine the priority values based on at least one of the examined meta-data and the historical data.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the dynamically regulating of the transmission comprises transmitting the contact information of online contacts of the plurality of online contacts that have the updated priority value that is below a threshold, through piggybacking off another message to be transmitted.

11. A method comprising:

determining pervasiveness of a plurality of online contacts on a first device with respect to a plurality of communication applications on the device;

examining data of the plurality of communication applications about corresponding ones of the plurality of online contacts;

assigning to each of the plurality of online contacts a priority value based on the determined pervasiveness and said examining; and

communicating the assigned priority values to a second device for the second device to dynamically regulate flow of contact information of the plurality of online contacts to the first device based on the assigned priority values, wherein the dynamically regulation of the flow of the contact information of the plurality of online contacts comprises,

transmitting of the contact information of an online contact of the plurality of online contacts that is weighted higher in comparison to others of the plurality of online contacts prior to enabling transmission of the contact information of the others of the plurality of online contacts that are weighted lower, wherein weighting of the online contacts is based on weight of the plurality of communication applications that use the online contacts and based on the pervasiveness of the plurality of online contacts in the plurality of communication applications, wherein the online contact of the plurality of contacts that is weighted higher in comparison to others of the plurality of online contacts has a higher priority value in comparison to others of the plurality of online contacts.

12. The method of claim 11 further comprising the second device modifying the priority values based on environmental factors of the second device.

13. The method of claim 11 further comprising dynamically regulating flow of contact information for the plurality of online contacts to the first device based on the assigned priority values.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein the dynamically regulation of the flow comprises transmitting the contact information of online contacts of the plurality of online contacts that have the priority value that is below a threshold, through piggybacking off another message to be transmitted.

15. An apparatus comprising:

a set of one or more network interfaces configured to receive priority values for a plurality of online contacts and configured to transmit contact information for the plurality of online contacts;

a contact list manager configured to maintain a contact list with the plurality of online contacts, to associate priority values for the plurality of online contacts received over the set of one or more network interfaces with the plurality of online contacts, and to regulate transmission of contact information for the plurality of online contacts via the set of one or more network interfaces based, at least in part, on the priority values, wherein, as part of regulation of the transmission of the contact information, the contact list manager is configured to transmit the contact information of an online contact of the plurality of online contacts that is weighted higher in comparison to others of the plurality of online contacts prior to enabling transmission of the contact information of the others of the plurality of online contacts that are weighted lower, wherein a weight of the online contacts is based on weight of applications that use the online contacts and based on a pervasiveness of the online contacts in the applications, wherein the online contact of the plurality of contacts that is weighted higher in comparison to others of the plurality of online contacts has a higher priority value in comparison to others of the plurality of online contacts.

16. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the contact list manager is further configured to modify at least one of the priority values based on at least one of load on the apparatus, administrative configuration of the apparatus, and available power of the apparatus.

17. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the contact list manager is further configured to determine a set of one or more of plurality of online contacts associated with priority values that satisfy one or more prefetch criteria, and to supply contact information for the set of one or more of the determined plurality of online contacts to a client device.

18. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein, as part of the regulation of the transmission of the contact information, the contact list manager is configured to transmit the contact information of online contacts of the plurality of online contacts that have the priority value that is below a threshold, through a piggyback off another message to be transmitted.

19. One or more non-transitory machine-readable media encoded with a program product for execution by a set of one or more processor units, the program product comprising:

code executable to associate a priority value with each of a plurality of online contacts of a set of one or more applications on a device;

code executable to monitor events on the device, wherein the events involve at least one of the plurality of online contacts;

code executable to dynamically update the priority value associated with the at least one of the plurality of online contacts based, at least in part, on the events monitored by the monitoring code; and

code executable to dynamically regulate transmission of contact information of the at least one online contact based, at least in part, on the dynamically updated priority value associated with the at least one online contact, wherein the code executable to dynamically regulate the transmission of the contact information of the at least one online contact comprises code executable to transmit the contact information of an online contact of the plurality of online contacts that is weighted higher in comparison to others of the plurality of online contacts prior to enabling transmission of the contact information of the others of the plurality of online contacts that are weighted lower, wherein weighting of the online contacts is based on weight of the applications of the set of one or more applications that use the online contacts and based on a pervasiveness of the online contacts in the set of one or more applications, wherein the online contact of the plurality of contacts that is weighted higher in comparison to others of the plurality of online contacts has a higher priority value in comparison to others of the plurality of online contacts.

20. The one or more non-transitory machine-readable media of claim 19 further comprising code executable to prefetch contact information for those of the plurality of online contacts associated with priority values that exceed a given priority value threshold for prefetching.

21. The one or more non-transitory machine-readable media of claim 19 further comprising code executable to determine a number of the set of one or more applications that use each of the plurality of online contacts, wherein the priority values associated with the online contacts are based, at least in part, on the determined numbers.

22. The one or more non-transitory machine-readable media of claim 19, wherein the code executable to dynamically regulate transmission comprises the regulating code being executable to communicate the associated priority values to a server device to allow the server device to regulate transmission of contact information from the server device for the plurality of online contacts based, at least in part, on the priority values.

23. The one or more non-transitory machine-readable media of claim 19 further comprising:

code executable to examine meta-data of the plurality of online contacts and historical data of the set of one or more applications, the historical data corresponding to ones of the plurality of online contacts; and

code executable to determine the priority values based, at least in part, on said examining code.

24. The one or more machine-readable media of claim 19, wherein the code executable to dynamically regulate the transmission of the contact information of the at least one online contact comprises code executable to transmit the contact information of online contacts of the plurality of online contacts that have the priority value that is below a threshold, through a piggyback off another message to be transmitted.