Managing presence subscriptions for messaging services

• US 8,751,582 B1
• Filed: 08/22/2005
• Issued: 06/10/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 08/22/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Behforooz, Reza, Bau, David, Perlow, Jonathan David, Burd, Gary Steven
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen, Thuong
• Assistant Examiner(s): NAJEE-ULLAH, TARIQ S
• Application Number:
  US11/210,227
• Time in Patent Office: 3,214 Days
• Field of Search: 709/206
• US Class Current: 709/206
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/043 using or handling presence information
• 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

Abstract

Presence subscriptions for messaging services are managed by automatically subscribing contacts to a user'"'"'s contact lists based one or more rules, subscription states and contact types. In some embodiments, presence subscriptions are managed by: identifying a set of contacts with respect to an identified user; applying subscription rules to the contacts; selecting a subset of contacts based on one or more subscription rules; and automatically establishing presence subscriptions for the subset of contacts.

Claims

1. A method of managing presence subscriptions for messaging services, comprising,

at a computer system having one or more processors and memory:

identifying a set of contacts with respect to an identified user;

applying one or more subscription rules to the contacts;

selecting a subset of the contacts based on the one or more subscription rules; and

automatically establishing a presence subscription for each contact in the subset of contacts, wherein a presence subscription for a respective contact enables displaying to the identified user an indication of the online status of the respective contact.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the set of contacts are identified from email contacts.

3. The method of claim 1, where applying subscription rules to the contacts and selecting a subset of contacts further comprises:

determining a respective communication activity score for each of a plurality of the contacts; and

selecting the subset of contacts based on the respective communication activity scores.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the respective communication activity score for a respective contact is based at least in part on frequency of email communications with the respective contact.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the selecting includes identifying a “

top N”

set of contacts based on frequency of email communications with the contacts.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the parameter N is adjustable.

7. The method of claim 3, wherein selecting the subset of contacts includes excluding contacts that have previously rejected a presence subscription invitation.

8. The method of claim 3, wherein selecting the subset of contacts includes excluding contacts for which the user has previously rejected a presence subscription invitation.

9. The method of claim 3, wherein the respective communication activity score for a respective contact is boosted based on at least one attribute of the respective contact.

10. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

determining a contact type for a contact; and

determining, based on the contact type, whether or not to present the contact in a display region.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

associating a subscription state with a contact; and

determining, based on the subscription state, whether or not to present the contact in a display region.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

moving a contact from a first subscription state to a second subscription state based on the one or more subscription rules.

13. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon instructions, which, when executed by a processor in a system for managing presence subscriptions, cause the processor to perform the operations of:

identifying a set of contacts with respect to an identifier user;

applying one or more subscription rules to the contacts;

selecting a subset of the contacts based on the one or more subscription rules; and

automatically establishing a presence subscription for each contact in the subset of contacts, wherein a presence subscription for a respective contact enables displaying to the identified user an indication of the online status of the respective contact.

14. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein the set of contacts are identified from email contacts.

15. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 13, where applying subscription rules to the contacts and selecting a subset of contacts further comprises:

determining a respective communication activity score for each of a plurality of the contacts; and

selecting the subset of contacts based on the respective communication activity scores.

16. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the respective communication activity score for a respective contact is based at least in part on frequency of email communications with the respective contact.

17. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein the selecting includes identifying the top N contacts based on frequency of email communications with the contacts.

18. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein the parameter N is adjustable.

19. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein selecting the subset of contacts includes excluding contacts that have previously rejected a presence subscription invitation.

20. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein selecting the subset of contacts includes excluding contacts for which the user has previously rejected a presence subscription invitation.

21. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the respective communication activity score for a respective contact is boosted based on at least one attribute of the respective contact.

22. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, further comprising instructions, which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to perform the operations of:

determining a contact type for a contact; and

determining, based on the contact type, whether or not to present the contact in a display region.

23. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 13, further comprising instructions, which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to perform the operations of:

associating a subscription state with a contact; and

determining, based on the subscription state, whether or not to present the contact in a display region.

24. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 13, further comprising instructions, which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to perform the operations of:

moving a contact from a first subscription state to a second subscription state based on the one or more subscription rules.