Chat-enabled social circles

• US 8,832,190 B1
• Filed: 06/20/2011
• Issued: 09/09/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 06/20/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Mey, Christopher Vander, Leske, Matthew, Gustafsson, Per J., Lindholm, Lars Olof Joakim
• Primary Examiner(s): Salad, Abdullahi
• Application Number:
  US13/164,676
• Time in Patent Office: 1,177 Days
• Field of Search: 709204-205, 709217-219, 715/700, 715/733, 715/758, 715/756, 715/753
• US Class Current: 709/204
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1813 for computer conferences, e.g. chat rooms instant messaging H04L51/04; protocols for multimedia communication H04L65/1101; arrangements for multi-party communication H04L65/403; telephonic conference arrangements H04M3/56; television conference systems H04N7/15
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1822 Conducting the conference, e.g. admission, detection, selection or grouping of participants, correlating users to one or more conference sessions, prioritising transmission
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/04 Real-time or near real-time messaging, e.g. instant messaging [IM]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/52 for supporting social networking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4788 communicating with other users, e.g. chatting arrangements for providing for computer conferences, e.g. chat rooms, to substation in data switching networks H04L12/1813; distributed application using peer-to-peer [P2P] networks H04L67/104
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/15 Conference systems

Abstract

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for chat-enabling a social circle in response to user input provided by a first user, the social circle being defined by the first user and including one or more contacts, the one or more contacts including a second user, for each of the one or more contacts, issuing a chat service subscription request, determining that a subscription request associated with the second user is fulfilled, and in response to determining that the subscription request associated with the second user is fulfilled, adding the second user as a chat contact of the first user and adding the first user as a chat contact of the second user.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

one or more computing devices; and

computer-readable media coupled to the one or more computing devices and having instructions stored thereon which, when executed by the one or more computing devices, cause the one or more computing devices to perform operations comprising;

chat-enabling a first social circle and a second social circle in response to user input provided by a first user, the first social circle and the second social circle being defined by the first user and comprising one or more contacts, the one or more contacts comprising a second user;

for each of the one or more contacts, issuing a subscription request;

determining that the subscription request associated with the second user is fulfilled;

in response to determining that the subscription request associated with the second user is fulfilled, adding the second user as a chat contact of the first user and adding the first user as a chat contact of the second user;

setting a first visibility of the first user based on the user input provided by the first user and associated with the first social circle, the first visibility including an availability status of the first user in a first time span;

setting a second visibility of the first user based on the user input provided by the first user and associated with the second social circle, the second visibility including an availability status of the first user in a second time span;

determining whether the first and second visibilities of the first user conflict for the second user that is in both the first social circle and the second social circle by combining the first and second visibilities based on the first time span and the second time span;

in response to determining that the first and second visibilities of the first user conflict for the second user;

ranking the first and second visibilities based at least in part on priorities associated with a first type of the first social circle and a second type of the second social circle;

resolving the conflict by determining a maximum availability status of the first user with respect to the second user based on the rankings of the first and second visibilities; and

providing the maximum availability status of the first user to the second user at a user-specific time.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise:

chat-enabling a third social circle in response to user input provided by the second user, the third social circle being defined by the second user and comprising one or more contacts, the one or more contacts comprising the first user, wherein determining that the subscription request associated with the second user is fulfilled comprises determining that the third social circle is chat-enabled.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the subscription request associated with the second user comprises an explicit notification to the second user inviting the second user to become a user of a chat service.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein determining that the subscription request associated with the second user is fulfilled comprises receiving a confirmation from the second user.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein

the first type of the first social circle is a family circle and the second type of the second social circle is a co-worker circle.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the subscription request associated with the second user is an implicit request that the second user is unaware of.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the operations further comprise:

initiating a group chat based on at least one of the first social circle and the second social circle.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise:

chat-enabling a third social circle in response to the user input provided by the first user, the third social circle being defined by the first user and comprising one or more contacts, the one or more contacts comprising a third user;

determining that a subscription request associated with the third user is fulfilled; and

in response to determining that the subscription request associated with the third user is fulfilled, adding the third user as a chat contact of the first user and adding the first user as a chat contact of the third user.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the operations further comprise:

setting a third visibility of the first user based on the user input associated with the third social circle;

determining a first availability status of the first user with respect to the third user based on the third visibility; and

transmitting availability data to display the first availability status to the third user.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the first availability status of the first user with respect to the third user and the maximum availability status of the first user with respect to the second user are different.

11. The system of claim 8, wherein the operations further comprise:

receiving a first request from the first user to display a web page associated with the first social circle; and

transmitting web page data and chat display instructions to display the web page to the first user, wherein the chat display instructions, when executed, cause an instant message (IM) interface to be displayed in the web page and the second user to be listed higher in a list of contacts provided in the IM interface than the third user.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the operations further comprise:

receiving a second request from the first user to display a web page associated with the third social circle; and

transmitting the web page data and the chat display instructions to display the web page to the first user, wherein the chat display instructions, when executed, cause the IM interface to be displayed in the web page and the third user to be listed higher in the list of contacts provided in the IM interface than the second user.

13. The system of claim 1, wherein the first social circle comprises one of a personal social circle, a shared private social circle and a shared public social circle.

14. Non-transitory computer storage media encoded with one or more computer programs, the one or more computer programs comprising instructions that when executed by a data processing apparatus cause the data processing apparatus to perform operations comprising:

chat-enabling a first social circle and a second social circle in response to user input provided by a first user, the first social circle and the second social circle being defined by the first user and comprising one or more contacts, the one or more contacts comprising a second user;

for each of the one or more contacts, issuing a subscription request;

determining that the subscription request associated with the second user is fulfilled;

in response to determining that the subscription request associated with the second user is fulfilled, adding the second user as a chat contact of the first user and adding the first user as a chat contact of the second user;

setting a first visibility of the first user based on the user input provided by the first user and associated with the first social circle, the first visibility including an availability status of the first user in a first time span;

setting a second visibility of the first user based on the user input provided by the first user and associated with the second social circle, the second visibility including an availability status of the first user in a second time span;

determining whether the first and second visibilities of the first user conflict for the second user that is in both the first social circle and the second social circle by combining the first and second visibilities based on the first time span and the second time span;

in response to determining that the first and second visibilities of the first user conflict for the second user;

ranking the first and second visibilities based at least in part on priorities associated with a first type of the first social circle and a second type of the second social circle;

resolving the conflict by determining a maximum availability status of the first user with respect to the second user based on the rankings of the first and second visibilities; and

providing the maximum availability status of the first user to the second user at a user-specific time.

15. A computer-implemented method comprising:

chat-enabling a first social circle and a second social circle in response to user input provided by a first user, the first social circle and the second social circle being defined by the first user and comprising one or more contacts, the one or more contacts comprising a second user;

for each of the one or more contacts, issuing a subscription request;

determining, with one or more processors, that the subscription request associated with the second user is fulfilled;

in response to determining that the subscription request associated with the second user is fulfilled, adding the second user as a chat contact of the first user and adding the first user as a chat contact of the second user;

setting a first visibility of the first user based on the user input provided by the first user and associated with the first social circle, the first visibility including an availability status of the first user in a first time span;

setting a second visibility of the first user based on the user input provided by the first user and associated with the second social circle, the second visibility including an availability status of the first user in a second time span;

determining whether the first and second visibilities of the first user conflict for the second user that is in both the first social circle and the second social circle by combining the first and second visibilities based on the first time span and the second time span;

in response to determining that the first and second visibilities of the first user conflict for the second user;

ranking the first and second visibilities based at least in part on priorities associated with a first type of the first social circle and a second type of the second social circle;

resolving the conflict by determining a maximum availability status of the first user with respect to the second user based on the rankings of the first and second visibilities; and

providing the maximum availability status of the first user to the second user at a user-specific time.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising chat-enabling enabling a third social circle in response to user input provided by the second user, the third social circle being defined by the second user and comprising one or more contacts, the one or more contacts comprising the first user, wherein determining that the subscription request associated with the second user is fulfilled comprises determining that the third social circle is chat-enabled.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein the subscription request associated with the second user comprises an explicit notification to the second user inviting the second user to become a user of a chat service.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein determining that the subscription request associated with the second user is fulfilled comprises receiving a confirmation from the second user.

19. The method of claim 15,

wherein the first type of the first social circle is a family circle and the second type of the second social circle is a co-worker circle.

20. The method of claim 15, wherein the first social circle comprises one of a personal social circle, a shared private social circle and a shared public social circle.