US20090152349A1 - Family organizer communications network system - Google Patents

Abstract

The following describes a system and methods that provide integrated web-based graphic user interface to manage communications for a variety of WEB-accessible mobile devices, computers, and other consumer electronic devices. The user interface provided in conjunction with a server architecture simplifies all of a family daily communications and information. The system logic is based on utilizing networked, online, or web-based processing devices, such as servers, as the central processing and database engine for content management and communications. As the system is device and source agnostic, the system is designed to work with any web-accessible device. As a result, the user devices may provide a communications portal to collect information from and present content to the family. The system also facilitates organization and communication between family members by providing a centralized depository of all family data including calendars, shopping lists, and messages. In addition, an automated barcode, shopping, and advertising feature is provided.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
• This application claims the benefit under 35 U.S.C. §119(e) of U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/014,422, titled “Communications System” filed on Dec. 17, 2007 in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/051,339, titled “Dynamic Communications, Data, and Marketing System” filed on May 7, 2008 in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, both of which are herein incorporated by reference in their entirety for all purposes.
TECHNICAL FIELD
• The following description relates generally to an integrated web-based communications service, and in particular to a family organizer network and communications system.
BACKGROUND
• A recent poll reveals the average computer user has four different email addresses—which is just one indication that users have too many sources of incoming communications to competently maintain. In addition, conventional systems place the burden of electronic communications squarely on the shoulders of the user. Users also are presented with many different types of communications devices. Many users are simply overwhelmed by the numbers and choices of functions of these devices and software they use such that many functions go unused. And to make matters worse, communications and conversation topics often jump between a variety of mediums including voice mails, text messages, faxes, and conversations. Therefore, an improved organizational system is needed to simplify, aid, and organize this information.
SUMMARY
• In one general aspect, a method of providing a group graphical user interface generated by a service provider system for display by a user client device includes storing contact information associated with a group including two or more members, such as a group; storing calendar information associated with the group members; storing message information associated with the group members; generating a dynamic webpage providing content automatically customized for the group by dividing the interface into a number of distinct thematically organized areas based on the contact information, the calendar information, and the message information, each area providing content and inputs based on the distinct theme; receiving a user input in response to a group member interaction with the interface; and dynamically adjusting the content provided by the webpage in response to the user input.
• Dividing the interface into a number of distinct thematically organized areas may include dividing content into strips, each strip displaying the content and inputs associated with the theme. Dividing content into strips may include providing a WHO strip to present user contacts for all group members and their contacts. Providing a WHO strip may include providing contact information for people and groups. Dividing content into strips also may include providing a WHAT strip to present group member message content. Providing a WHAT strip may include providing indicators of received messages. Dividing content into strips also may include providing a WHEN strip to present a group calendar content. Providing a WHEN strip includes providing group calendar and event information. Dividing content into strips also may include providing a WHERE strip to present location content. Providing a WHERE strip may include providing location information for contacts and events.
• Receiving the user input may include receiving an input generated by a user input device in one of the strips, and dynamically adjusting the content provided by the webpage in response to the user input may include focusing content provided by each strip in response to the received user input.
• Receiving a user input may include receiving an indication of content from one strip has be dragged to another strip, and dynamically adjusting the content provided by the webpage in response to the user input may include providing a system provider function.
• The method also may include receiving data generated by a barcode reader corresponding to a scanned item in response to the input; automatically adding the received data to a shopping list associated with the group; and providing the shopping list for display on the dynamic generated webpage including a representation of the scanned item.
• The method also may include storing advertisements in a data base, determining an advertisement that is relevant to the item in the shopping list, displaying the advertisement on the dynamic generated webpage. Determining an advertisement is relevant may include filtering the advertisement based on the calendar information.
• The method also may include storing user profile information for the group members, and determining an advertisement is relevant may include filtering the advertisement based on family member user profile information.
• The method also may include receiving data generated by a barcode reader corresponding to a scanned item in response to the input; automatically adding the received data to a shopping list associated with the group; and providing the shopping list for presentation by the WHAT strip on the dynamic generated webpage including a representation of the scanned item.
• The method also may include receiving a user input indicating the advertisement has been selected, and storing the advertisement in association with the item on the shopping list.
• The method also may include automatically contacting an online storefront; presenting the advertisement; and purchasing the item for a price, wherein the advertisement is one of a coupon, a discount, an offer, or an incentive affecting the price or quantity of the item purchased.
• The method also may include automatically contacting an online storefront and purchasing the item for delivery to a family member.
• The method also may include transmitting the shopping list to a mobile processing device or mobile phone.
• Generating a web page may include providing a one touch food delivery area to present depictions of previous food orders of group members wherein selection of the depiction causes an automated online food ordering and delivery process.
• Other features will be apparent from the detailed description, drawings, and claims.
DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS
• FIG. 1 shows one exemplary block diagram of a communications system.
• FIG. 2 is an exemplary process for a user profile questionnaire.
• FIG. 3 is an exemplary block diagram of a contact aggregator system.
• FIG. 4 is an exemplary contact fill-in form.
• FIG. 5 is an exemplary process for message threading.
• FIG. 6 is an example of a message thread.
• FIG. 7 is an exemplary screen map of a user interface including examples of dynamic WHO, WHAT, WHERE, and WHEN strips.
• FIG. 8 is an example of a lozenge for use in a strip of the user interface.
• FIG. 9 is an exemplary illustration of the WHO strip.
• FIG. 10 andFIG. 11 are exemplary illustrations of the WHAT strip.
• FIG. 12 is an exemplary illustration of a message pop-up window.
• FIG. 13 is an exemplary illustration of the WHAT strip.
• FIG. 14 is an exemplary illustration of the WHERE strip.
• FIG. 15 is an exemplary illustration of the user interface with an extra large people lozenge and a large calendar lozenge.
• FIG. 16 is an exemplary illustration of the WHEN strip.
• FIG. 17 is an exemplary illustration of the user interface including an event popup window.
• FIG. 18 is an exemplary illustration of the WHO strip with the calendar lozenge focused on a contact.
• FIG. 19 is an exemplary illustration of the WHO strip with the calendar lozenge filtered for the family category.
• FIG. 20 is an exemplary illustration of the WHO strip with the calendar lozenge in the Month view.
• FIG. 21 is an exemplary illustration of the WHO strip with the calendar lozenge in the Expanded Week view.
• FIG. 22 is an exemplary illustration of the WHO strip with the calendar lozenge in the Expanded Day view.
• FIGS. 23,24, and25 illustrate an exemplary sequence of selecting and dragging to add a contact to an existing group.
• FIGS. 26,27,28,29, and30 illustrate an exemplary sequence of selecting items from multiple lozenges to drag to create an event.
• FIGS. 31,32,33, and34 illustrate an exemplary sequence of create an event by dragging a location to the calendar lozenge.
• FIG. 35 shows an exemplary focusing process for items displayed in the lozenges of the WHO, WHAT, WHERE, and WHEN strips.
• FIG. 36 shows an exemplary focused search process.
• FIG. 37 show a schematic representation of information associated with a Glad.
• FIG. 38 shows an exemplary glad placement process.
• FIG. 39 shows an exemplary process of application of glad filters.
• FIG. 40 shows an exemplary process for responding to user interaction with a glad.
• FIG. 41 shows an exemplary a shopping map route.
• FIG. 42 shows an exemplary system partner user interface screen for Glad creation.
• FIG. 43 shows an exemplary system partner user interface to monitor Glad campaigns.
• FIGS. 44,45,46, and47 illustrate the dragging and dropping of a glad to a strip of the user interface.
• FIG. 48 shows an exemplary family organizer system.
• FIG. 49 illustrates one example of a family user interface screen for the family organizer.
• FIG. 50 illustrates a second display for the customized family organizer.
• FIG. 51 shows an exemplary directory listings search interface.
• FIG. 52 shows an exemplary food delivery screen interface.
• FIG. 53 illustrates one exemplary process for shopping with the family organizer.
• Throughout the drawings and the detailed description, like reference numerals refer to the like elements.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
• The following describes a system and methods that provide integrated web-based graphic user interface to manage communications for a variety of WEB-accessible mobile devices, computers, and other consumer electronic devices. The user interface provided in conjunction with a server architecture simplifies all of a user's daily communications and information. The system logic is based on utilizing networked, online, or web-based processing devices, such as servers, as the central processing and database engine for content management and communications. As the system is device and source agnostic, the system is designed to work with any web-accessible device. As a result, the user devices may provide a communications portal to collect information from and present content to the user. The system also facilitates organization and communication between family members by providing a centralized depository of all family data including calendars, shopping lists, and messages. The family organizer user interfaces, website, system, and various processes are described in further detail below.
System Architecture
• FIG. 1 shows one block diagram of anexemplary communications system 100. Thecommunications system100 includes one ormore user devices101, aservice provider system110, other Internet Service Providers andwebsites120, system partners125, andvarious communication paths130. As thecommunications system100 is device and source agnostic, thecommunications system100 is designed to work with any web-accessible user device, as explained in further detail below.
• Theuser device101 may be any type of electronic device that presents content received from the service provider system to the user. For example, theuser device101 may be a consumer electronics device, a mobile phone, a smart phone, a personal data assistant, a digital tablet/pad computer, a hand held/mobile computer, a personal computer, a notebook computer, a work station, a vehicle computer, a game system, a set-top-box, or any other device that can implement a user interface and/or browser to communicate with and present content from theservice provider system110.
• Theuser device101 may include a processing device, one or more storage devices, and one or more communications interfaces. Auser device101 also may include additional elements, such as, for example, one or more displays or screens, one or more speakers, one or more user input devices, and a microphone. Auser device101 also may include one or more associated peripheral devices, such as, for example, a display, a memory, a printer, an input device, an output device, and speakers. The user device also may be aspecialized user device150 which may be stand alone or installed in anappliance155, for example, as described below with respect to the family organizer.
• The processing device may be implemented using any general-purpose or special purpose computer, such as, for example, a processor, a digital signal processor, a microcomputer, a field programmable array, a programmable logic unit, a microprocessor or any other device capable of responding to and executing instructions in a defined manner. The processing device may run one or more software applications that communicate with theservice provider system110 and present content received from theserver provider system110 to the user. The processing device also may access, store, manipulate, process, and create data in response to the applications. The software applications may include a computer program, a piece of code, an instruction, or some combination thereof, for independently or collectively instructing the processing device to operate as desired. Examples of software applications include: a browser, a mini browser, or other programs that interact with a front end interface application (FEIA) provided by theservice provider system110 to provide content, a login/signup, a user interface, and email among other features. Other examples of applications, include a mobile front end interface applications (e.g., for a cell or a smart phone) that allow the user device to communicate with thesystem service provider110.
• The applications, content, and data may be embodied permanently or temporarily in any type of machine, component, physical or virtual equipment, storage medium or device, or propagated signal wave capable of providing instructions or data to or being interpreted by the processing device. In particular, the applications or data may be stored by a storage medium or a memory including volatile and non-volatile memories that store digital data (e.g., a read only memory (ROM), a random access memory (RAM), a flash memory, a floppy disk, a hard disk, a compact disk, a tape, a DROM, a flip-flop, a register, a buffer, an SRAM, DRAM, PROM, EPROM, OPTROM, EEPROM, NOVRAM, or RAMBUS), such that if the memory is read or accessed by the processing device, the specified steps, processes, and/or instructions are performed and/or data is accessed, processed, or stored. The memory may include an I/O interface, such that data and applications may be loaded and stored in the memory allowing the applications, programming, and data to be updated, deleted, changed, or augmented. The memory may be removable, such as, for example, a card, a stick, or a disk that is inserted in or removed from the unit.
• The communications interface may exchange data and content with theservice provider system110 usingvarious communications paths130. The interface allows the processing device to send and receive information using thecommunications paths130. The communications interface may be implemented as part of the processing device or separately to allow the processing device to communicate using thecommunications paths130. The interface may include two or more types of interfaces, including interfaces for different types of hardware and/or software to interact with different types of communications media and protocols and to translate information/data into a format that may be used by the processing device. Similarly, the interface may translate information/data received from the processing device to a format that may be transmitted to theservice provider system110 via acommunications path130.
• Thecommunications paths130 may be configured to send and receive signals (e.g., electrical, electromagnetic, or optical) that convey or carry data streams representing various types of analog and/or digital data including content for presentation to a user. For example, thecommunications paths130 may be implemented using various communications media and one or more networks comprising one or more network devices (e.g., network interface cards, servers, routers, switches, hubs, bridges, repeaters, blades, processors, and storage devices). The one or more networks may include a local area network (LAN), a wide area network (WAN), a global area network (GAN), a plain old telephone service (POTS) network, a digital subscriber line (DSL) network, an integrated services digital network (ISDN), a synchronous optical network (SONNET), Passive and Active Optical Networks (PON or AON), or a combination of two or more of these networks. In addition, thecommunications paths130 may include one or more wireless links (e.g., microwave, radio, and satellite) that transmit and receive electromagnetic signals, such as, for example, radio frequency, infrared, and microwave signals, to convey information/data signal. In one example, acommunications path130 may include the Internet or World Wide Web.
• Theservice provider system110 facilitates communication by, organization of, and presentation of content to users. Theservice provider system110 also stores and manages user associated information in a centralized location. In particular, theservice provider system110 implements a user interface to aggregate, consolidate, organize, and simplify a user's daily communications, such as email and instant messaging into a central point for one-stop organization, data, and content management.
• Theservice provider system110 includes one or more communications devices, processors, memories/storage devices, communications interfaces, network devices, and communications paths to store, process, manipulate, organize, consolidate, maintain, and present content and data for a user. In the example shown inFIG. 1, theservice provider system110 may include a one or more security devices141 (e.g., firewalls), web servers142, anapplication server144, anSQL server145 and amirror SQL server148, and associatedmemory150 andbackup memory devices152. It is understood, however, that the example given inFIG. 1 is for illustrative purposes only, and that different configurations, combinations of devices, and numbers of devices may be provided for any particularservice provider system110. For example, the system service provider may include multiple banks of servers as need to supply adequate bandwidth for the number of users supported by the system. In addition, thesystem110 may be geographically distributed.
• In one example, theweb server143 may be implemented using a Dell PowerEdge 1900 2-Socket, Quad-Core Tower Server with a RedHat Enterprise Linux 5 operating system using an apache HTTP server programming language to provide JavaServer Pages (JSP). Theweb server143 may run a FEIA to aid in login, signup, and creation of a user account, and receive information from the first time wizard. Theapplication server144 may be implemented using a Dell PowerEdge 1900 2-Socket, Quad-Core Tower Server with a RedHat Enterprise Linux 5 operating system using programming languages YoLinux Java, Eclipse C/C++ IDE. Theapplication server144 The application server may run system applications, such as, for example, the contact importer, harvester, and maintainer, calendar maintainer and syncer, mail fetcher/sender, threader, glad logic, glad placement applications, route mapper, item finder, client communicator, and user interface. TheSQL Server145 may be implemented using a Dell PowerEdge 1900 2-Socket, Quad-Core Tower Server with a RedHat Enterprise Linux 5 operating system using an Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition for Linux (or equivalent) to maintain various databases, such as, for example, a contact database (DB). Themirror SQL148 server mirrors theSQL Server145. to maintain a user DB and a glad, advertisement, or customer incentive database, a store DB, a item DB, a contact DB, a message DB, among other described herein. The user database may include a user profile, user events, shopping lists, to-do lists, user groups and contact DB, and user locations DB. The mirror SQL server mirrors the SQL Server. The term database DB includes not only the data but may include the programming of the database application for maintaining the data.
• In order to interact with theservice provider system110, a user needs to establish an account. The user must activate the account from auser device101 running an application allowing theuser device101 to communicate with theservice provider system110, such as a browser. A browser may include any application that communicates with a web server primarily using hypertext transfer protocols HTTP (e.g., HTTP/1.1) to fetch content or provide a portal to service provided by theservice provider system110. HTTP allows the browser to submit information to servers in addition to fetching content from them. Content may be located by the browser using a uniform resource locator (URL) as an address. Many browsers also support a variety of other URL types and their corresponding protocols, such as Gopher (a hierarchical hyperlinking protocol), file transfer protocol (FTP), real-time streaming protocol (RTSP), and an SSL encrypted version of HTTP (HTTPS). Content may be provided in a hyper-text markup language (HTML) that is identified using a MIME content type. Most browsers natively support a variety of formats in addition to HTML, such as the JPEG, PNG, and GIF image formats, and can be extended to support more through the use of plugins and/or scripts. The combination of HTTP content type and URL protocol specification allows images, animations, video, sound, and streaming media to be embedded in the content.
• The browser may include coding that interacts with the FEIA. The initial code that is run in the browser may be downloaded from the service provider system110 (e.g., with purchase of an account) or retrieved from a storage medium (e.g., a CD promotional gift). The browser running on theclient device101 connects with the FEIA application run by theservice provider system10web server143 to initiate login, account activation, and provide a first-time questionnaire. During the initial account setup, the user may create a password and/or user identification (ID). In addition, theservice provider system110 may configure settings and data on the user device101 (e.g., set cookies). Theservice provider system110 also provides the user with a user profile questionnaire.
• FIG. 2 illustrates an example200 of how theservice provider system110 conducts the initial user profile questionnaire. As shown inFIG. 2, when the user login is first initiated201, theservice provider system110 asks the user several questions to help tailor the content and services that are delivered to the user. After the initial questionnaire is completed, an edit function provided by the user interface allows the user to update their profile information at any time. After the user completes their initial registration, the user then responds to the questionnaire provided by the user interface, which may be updated or changed at any time. The questionnaire may be provided in any number of formats that allow a user to provide information to theservice provider system110. For example, the questionnaire may be a webpage that includes content, such as a series, list, or groups of questions for the user to answer. Various windows, fields, boxes, lists, or drop down menus may be provided to solicit and receive information from a user. Some examples of questions asked or information requested may includepersonal information205,personal reminders210,email contacts220, andbusiness information225.
• Examples of thepersonal information205 may include: a user name, a zip code, a name of spouse, and the names of children. The user also may provide their address/contact data or the system can automatically provide address data.
• Theservice provider system110 also collects information aboutpersonal reminders210 so theservice provider system110 may remind the user of important dates, such as, anniversaries; birthdays (e.g., spouse, kids, relatives, and friends); an unlimited number of special dates and names of those events; and reminders (e.g., such as vacation, appointments, activities, or retirement). The personal reminders may be used as a source of greeting events, as explained in further detail below.
• The user also is prompted to input email addresses220 (e.g., family, friends, business contact, and relatives, among other important contacts). The user is asked to input their user names/aliases/IDs/account numbers and passwords for any online accounts, such as Yahoo!, Google, MySpace, kut, Hi5, Facebook, Friendster, Linked In, XING and Twitter. The user also is asked for any other important contact information, such as phone numbers (e.g., work, cell, and home).
• Business Information225 also may be collected by theservice provider system110, such as business zip, business email account(s), business cell phone (if different), business log-in (user name and password) for contacts and calendar.
• Once this information is collected, the information is stored in theuser profile database270.
• As shown inFIG. 3, theservice provider system110 works to collect, harvest, organize, and maintain contact information through the use of acontact aggregator system300. The contact aggregator system includes acontent aggregator301. The content aggregator includes a suite of software/applications including acontact importer310, acontact harvester320, andcontact maintainer325 run by one ormore servers330 of theservice provider system110 that runs applications in conjunction with maintaining the client contact DB and a one ormore storage devices340. In one example, theserver330 may be implemented using theapplications server144 and associatedhard disk150 andshadow storage152. Theserver330 communicates with the rest of theservice provider system110 through communications path350 (e.g., acommunications path130 secure link to theweb server143 and the SQL server145).
• Thecontact importer310 imports contacts from varioususer client devices101 and any other accounts, software, and systems associated with the user that store user contact information. Thecontact importer310 also uses various user accounts information, such as the user names, the IDs, the aliases, and the passwords gathered during the initial account set up to masquerade as the user and download the user's contact information associated with or stored by any portal and/or social networking websites that user might belong to.
• Using the passwords provided by the user during account setup, thecontact maintainer310 implements an automated process to login as the user on all supported address book/contact storage accounts, such as Yahoo!, Google mail, and Outlook. Any contacts that are identified from these accounts are imported into a temporary database. All imported contacts are compared against each other, and, if possible, the data is merged, the duplicates are deleted, and a final list of contacts and their associated information is created and placed in the user contact DB, which stores all of the user contacts.
• For each contact associated with a user's account stored in contact DB, the contact DB may include a number of data-fields to store information regarding the contact. For example, the data fields may include a contact name, one or more email addresses, a fax number, one or more mobile phone numbers, a voice phone number, a business phone number, a home number, a home address, a business address, and various IM IDs. Thecontact importer310 also captures any user avatar images when available. During the automated import process, thecontact importer310 merges the data collected from various sources and eliminates any duplicate information. For each contact the importer finds in one the user's existing contact formats, the contact importer attempts to populate as many the fields provided by the contact DB as possible with the information available from the importation process. Any contacts that are missing information may be provided to thecontact harvester320 in an attempt to retrieve the missing information. The contact importer then writes this information stored in a temporary database to the Contact DB.
• Thecontact harvester320 is an application that is used to retrieve, supplement, and/or update contact information that may be incomplete, out of date, or in error. Theservice provider system110 examines the contact DB after initial setup and periodically thereafter. As part of the examination, theservice provider system110 provides thecontact harvester320 with contacts that have information fields that are missing information, are incomplete, or may be suspected of being incorrect or out of date. Thecontact harvester320 spawns a web page for such contacts to solicit missing or information in need of updating. The web page may be hosted by theweb server143. The web page may be populated with all or a portion of the existing information for the contact stored in the contact DB. In addition, information associated with one or more fields that are blank, incomplete, or missing may be requested or solicited. The web page may include window, boxes, fields, menus that may be used by a contact to provide the missing information in conjunction with a browser. Thecontact harvester320 generates an email that is sent to the contact at one or more of the email addresses stored for the contact in the contact DB. The email contains a link to this spawned webpage which may then be filled out by the user. To assure the contact being solicited of the authenticity of the web page and the email with the link to the webpage, a personal message from the user may be included or other information known to the contact may be provided. For example, a photo or avatar of the user and/or a portion of the user's personal information may be included with the message and/or website.
• Thecontact harvester320 also may interface with a telephony based, or web-telephony based device with voice prompts and voice recognition capability. As a result, thecontact harvester320 may get in touch with a contact at a provided phone number and use automated voice recognition technology and/or automated menus to request the missing contact information directly from the contact. This is especially helpful for tracking down contact information for contacts without valid email addresses. The automated voice system translates answers from the contact into digital data that is stored in the contact DB. Thecontact harvester320 may then provide a spawned website and email to the contact to verify the information received by the automated voice system. Thecontact harvester320 provides a report to the user if thecontact harvester320 is unable to contact a user and/or determine missing information.
• When theservice provider system110 spawns a custom website for a contact to fill out their contact information, all known contact information may be filled out in the spawned form. The contact is then asked to fill in any missing info or update and change information that may be incorrect. Certain items or fields having missing or incomplete information that can be looked up with high accuracy may are filled in automatically bycontact harvester320. For example, if the contact information contains an address with the word “Calgary” in the city field, the contact harvester safely fills in the State/Province field with “Alberta” and the country field with “Canada.” If the contact includes an address field of “503 Aniston Place,Apt 43,” a city field of “Salisbury,” and a State/Province field of “WI,” the contact harvester safely fills in the Zip Code/Postal Code field with 91234 and the country field with “USA.” A sample spawned webpage which may be used by a contact to fill in missing information is shown inFIG. 4.
• As shown inFIG. 4, thewebpage400 may include apersonal greeting401 and a listing of the contact data stored in the contact DB for the contact. Missing elements may include anentry field410 for the contact to supply the missing information through use of a user input device. Checkbox420 may be provided to toggle features on and off. In addition, there may be a solicitation foradditional information430 which can spawn additional web pages to supply the requested information. In addition, the webpage may include averification440 for the existing information. No response or a yes indication does not trigger any change; however a negative indication may spawn an additional webpage to correct and/or supplement the contact information displayed. Alternatively, the user may be able to change the information directly in the webpage by using a user input device and selecting the user information to change and change the information.
• Thecontact maintainer325 is an application that helps to maintain the integrity of contact information stored in the contact DB. For example, the contact maintainer324 keeps track of failed email deliveries associated with the user account. If thecontact maintainer325 suspects that a contact has changed their email address (thereby accounting for the failed email deliveries), thecontact maintainer325 provides the information contact to thecontact harvester320. Thecontact harvester320 may then generate a spawned webpage and/or use the automated phone system to determine correct contact information and/or update the contact information in the contact DB.
• Thecontact maintainer325 also scans or reviews user emails to detect key words and/or phrases, such as “my new phone number is,” “we're moving,” and “my new address is.” If such key words, phrases, or combinations of key words are detected, thecontact maintainer325 parses the text to determine if the email is a change of address/email/phone message or is otherwise updating/change information associated with contact. If thecontact maintainer325 determines with a predetermined level of confidence that the email does contain such information, the contact maintainer prompts the user with a message, for example, like this:
• “Hi, we think that Cynthia Alvarez might be changing her phone number from 310.234.1234 to 818.334.4456. Select here to make this change, or select here to read the email.”
• The user may then select to update the user information or make further inspection of the information to determine if the contact information should be updated. The message may be provided in any number of formats including email, instant messages, or directly through a user interface of theuser device101.
• As described above, theservice provider system110 also gathers personal reminder information for users, such as contact birthdays. The contact maintainer324 uses the personal reminder information as greeting events to automatically send greetings to contacts. Examples of greeting events include birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays, among others. Thecontact maintainer325 uses the greeting event as an opportunity to periodically contact all members of the contact list. When thecontact maintainer325 determines the occurrence of a greeting event, thecontact maintainer325 sends a greeting to one or more contacts, such as “Happy New Year!” The greeting may be an email or instant message. The greeting may include a question for the contact, such as “Do you have new contact info?” If the user responds in the affirmative, thecontact harvester320 may spawn a webpage for the contact to review their stored contact information and update/change information as necessary. As a result, the greeting provides an opportunity to the contact to update their contact information and for theservice provider system110 to spread this information. More importantly, the contact maintenance is done without any additional effort or input required by the user.
• The contact aggregator is described in further detail in co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/141097, titled “Contact Aggregator” filed Jun. 18, 2008, which is herein incorporated by reference in its entirety for all purposes.
• As shown inFIG. 5, theservice provider system110 works to collect, harvest, organize, and maintain a user's calendar information through the use of acalendar aggregator system500. Thecalendar aggregator system500 includes acalendar aggregator501. The calendar aggregator includes asuite501 of software/applications including acalendar importer510, acalendar harvester520, andcalendar maintainer525 run by one ormore servers530 of theservice provider system110 that runs applications in conjunction with maintaining the client calendar DB and a one ormore storage devices540. In one example, theserver530 may be implemented using theapplications server144 and associatedhard disk150 andshadow storage152. Theserver530 communicates with the rest of theservice provider system110 through communications path550 (e.g., acommunications path130 secure link to theweb server143 and the SQL server145).
• Thecalendar importer510 imports calendar data from varioususer client devices101 and any other accounts, software, and systems associated with the user that store user calendar data and information. Thecalendar importer510 also uses various user accounts information, such as the user names, the IDs, the aliases, and the passwords gathered during the initial account set up to masquerade as the user and download the user's calendar information associated with or stored by any portal and/or social networking websites that the user might belong to.
• Using the passwords provided by the user during account setup, thecalendar importer510 implements an automated process to login as the user on all supported calendar storage accounts, such as Yahoo!, Google calendar, and Outlook. Any calendar items or data that are identified from these accounts are imported into a temporary database. All imported calendar items are compared against each other, and, if possible, the data is merged, the duplicates are deleted, and a final set of calendar data calendar is created and placed in the user calendar DB, which stores all of the user calendar information. Thecalendar importer510 and its processes may be run in conjunction with thecontact importer510.
• The calendar DB may include a number of data-fields to store information regarding the user's calendar. For example, the data fields may include a years, months, weeks, days, a timeline of hours and minutes during a day, and events, reminders, meetings, tasks, to-do items, shopping items, and there associated data and information. During the automated import process, thecalendar importer510 merges the data collected from various sources and eliminates any duplicate information. For each calendar the importer finds in one the user's existing calendar formats, thecalendar importer510 attempts to populate as many the fields provided by the contact DB as possible with the information available from the importation process. Thecalendar importer510 then writes this information stored in a temporary database to the calendar DB.
• Thecalendar harvester520 is an application that is used to retrieve, supplement, and/or update calendar information by periodically logging into the users various calendar accounts to retrieve information and update the user's calendar information. Thecalendar harvester520 is an application that is used to retrieve, supplement, and/or update calendar information by periodically checking these other calendar account databases either by accessing their data APIs, or by logging into these accounts utilizing user log on information (user name and password) provided by the user during setup. The calendar harvester has the ability to masquerade as the user, log onto their other calendar accounts, and harvest the data.
• Depending on the type of access (API or masquerade) the frequency of the checking varies. With an API checking can happen very often, whereas masquerading may happen only a few times a day.
• The calendar harvester reads the information from the user's other accounts, interprets that data thus converting it to a compatible format with the system, and then installs that data into the user's calendar.
• Thecalendar manager525 receives user input provided through the user interface to manage the user's calendar. The calendar manager provides calendar information and data to the user interface and receives use input to setup, schedule, and maintain user events. The calendar manager also has access to all system user calendars which allow to instantly providing information about a user's other contacts maintained by the system service provider.
• In addition, to maintaining a user's contacts and calendar information, the system also manages a user's various dialogs with other users. For example, emails sent to a user account are stored by theservice provider system10 in an archive database that is associated with a user account. The archive database stores the communications in their original form (e.g., STMP). The archive database also store threads of previous user communications. The threads are chronically arranged communications between two or more individuals that have a common subject. The threads contain the actual body copy of the communication with other non-essential information removed, such as, for example, headers, signatures, boiler plate or legal disclaimers, text history, wallpaper, animations, avatars, demarcations, line or extraneous characters.
• FIG. 6 shows one example600 theservice provider system10 processing of emails. As emails are received by the system service provider110 (605), the emails are stored in the archive database (610). The address of the email sender is compared to the recipient's contact data to match the identification or name of the contact sending the email with information in the contact DB (620). For example, the server compares the text string in the FROM or SENDER fields with all of the contacts stored in the contact DB that are associated with a user. The system service provider determines if the user is in thecontact DB630. Theservice provider system10 scans the archive DB of all current and previous communications sent or received by the user. Theservice provider system110 identifies those communications between the user and the identified contact. By examining the text history in the email (i.e., the content displayed at the bottom of emails preceded by the “>” characters) and by examining the subject line, theservice provider system110 determines whether or not the email is a response to a previous communication stored in thearchive DB640.
• If the email is a response, the service provider system determines a probability of which communication it is a response to645. Theservice provider system10 examines the subject, text history, and key words in the list of current conversation threads database, to determine which conversational thread the communication belongs to650. Once a thread is determined, thesystem service provider110 strips all data from the email except the actual body copy that was last typed by the contact sending theemail655. When stripping the email, the system removes all header information, all text history, signature boxes, wallpaper, avatars, animations, legal boilerplate, demarcations, lines, and extraneous characters to leave only the body copy or new communications characters sent by the contact. The body copy is then placed as a last entry to the communications thread. The updated thread is stored and an indication is provided by the user interface, as explained in further detail below660.
• If the communications is not determined to a response a new thread is created665. When creating the new thread, the system includes only the actual body copy of the communication stripping all other data, as explained above. The new communication thread is stored in and an indication is provided by theuser interface660.
User Interface
• As the number of technological advances in daily communications grows, many users find themselves overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information and content available to them. In addition, many of the user devices providing this information and content have a substantial number of functions associated with them to view and manipulate this content. As the amount of content and number of functions have grown, a typical user does not use many of the functions provided because it is difficult to access or utilize the information or the functions provided are only useful to a relatively small number of users. Therefore, a new user interface is provided to facilitate user access and manipulation of content and services provided by theservice provider system110.
• The user interface provides a primary point of interaction between the user andservice provider system110. Theweb server143 provides content and services to the user through a browser operating on theuser device101. Theuser device101 establishes a connection to aweb server143 of theservice provider system110 using acommunications path130. After the connection is established, the primary interface is presented as screen rendered by a browser on a display of theuser device101. The screen may be a dynamic webpage provided by theweb server143 that is supplemented by additional programs, applications, and plugins operating on the user device.
• The user interface provides electronic content generated by the applications, servers, and databases of thesystem service provider110. The once the use device establishes a link with theservice provider system110, the user device and system exchange data. Data is transmitted from thesystem110 to the browser in a markup language used by a client application or browser resident on theuser device101 and its operating system to render the page and present the user interface screen. Data also is transmitted from theuser device101 to thesystem110 to provide indications of user interaction with the user interface. The data sent to the user device may be in any markup language that may be interpreted by the client application or browser running on the user devices that is presenting the system webpage. In one application, Flash technologies may be used and AJAX technologies may be used to provide the webpage of the user interface using the hypertext markup language (HTML), the JavaScript programming language, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and/or the eXtensible Markup Language (XML).
• In one example, data may be transferred between the service and the user device using an HTML and/or XML format to render the page. Within the data of the markup language for the page, an instant messaging protocol application may be provided. The markup language is interpreted by the browser to run/assemble the instant messaging protocol application. Once operating in the browser, the instant messaging application may be used to establish an instant message link between the client application or browser and the system server. This may be done by providing the system server with connection information (e.g., an IP address and number of the port assigned to the client user device). In addition, the client device also is provided with the connection information (e.g., an IP address and number of a port on the system server). Because the client device and server both have the IP address and port number of the other, the two devices may be considered “linked.” As a result, certain user interactions with the browser while manipulating the user interface are sent directly to, and received directly from the server in real time. The direct “link” may be used to provide certain information directly to and from the server and client. For example, any information for calendar events may be provided directly without, for example, the need for any page refresh between the browser and the server in order to display the associated information. In addition, all online system users have this link established. As a result, when one person updates their calendar to add an event, the calendar of another system user may appear to be updated almost instantly or in real time. Similarly other items inputted by on the interface, such as tick boxes may be updated in this manner.
• The user interface may include one or more areas, portions, boxes, windows, scroll/slider bars, tools, menus, buttons, and tabs; however, the numbers and arrangement of these items is selected so as to not overwhelm a user with functionality. The functionality of the user interface may be accessed or activated through use of one or more user inputs of theuser device101. For example, items and content on the screen may be selected and manipulated using one or more screen position indicators or visual effects (e.g., a pointer, a cursor, a highlighting, a transparency, a color, an animation, or an effect) controlled by one or more user input devices (e.g., a key, a keyboard/pad, a touch screen/pad, a mouse, a joystick, a track ball, and a stylus) as is common in graphical user interfaces (e.g., a pointer controlled by a mouse to click and double-click to activate, select, and drag items within a window, browser, or desktop environment).
• In most cases, items in lists can be: selected, clicked, or tapped to designate, activate, or expand the item; double-selected, clicked, or tapped to edit an item; dragged within a list to reprioritize the item; dragged from a window, a list, a tab, or a button and dropped to another to convert an item to another type of item or to activate a function; and a special selection process, such as holding down a specific key (e.g., the Ctrl key or shift key) to allow multiple items on a list to be selected and/or dragged.
• Characters and text may be entered in specific locations (e.g., a text box or entry field) using a keyboard, a keypad, a number pad, or a virtual keyboard/keypad (e.g., provided through a touch screen).
• As the user interacts with items, functions, and content presented by the user interface, the items, functions, and content may be focused based on their interaction. Further examples of the user interface and its functionality are given in greater detail below.
• As pointed out above, many users find the number, type, and functionality of the many different user interfaces to be overwhelming or at a minimum burdensome. Accordingly, the user interface described herein presents content in manageable portions for a user. Each portion includes items, data, functions, and content concerning an area of interest to the user. In particular, the data and content of most interest to a user may be distilled into four basic areas of interest which govern their daily communications: who, what, when, and where. In addition, the user interface automatically focuses information provided within these areas to the information that is most likely desired by the user at any given moment. To aid the user and avoid confusion, all contacts, messages, and appointments may be color coded or otherwise visually distinguished to indicate which category they belong to (e.g., Red=Personal, Green=Family, Purple=Friends, and Blue=Business). As a result, items belonging to these groups may be shown in, bordered, highlighted or otherwise visually distinguished with these colors. Finally, because the user interface data, items, content, and functionality are provided by theservice provider system110, they may be accessed by the user using any web accessible device with a browser. As a result, the user has access to their information from virtually anywhere and because the information is presented consistently, the user does not need to re-familiarize themselves with different operations and functionality even when accessing the information from different user devices. Nor does the user have to worry about a lost or stolen device resulting in lost information or having it compromised.
• FIG. 7 shows ascreen map700 or layout of auser interface window701. Thescreen map700 of the user interface is implemented by theservice provider system110 in conjunction with a browser and other applications and plugins of theuser device101. Screen resolutions may be dimensions that are proportional to screen width and resolution used depending on type of display associated with theclient device110. The display also may be fully scaleable. As such, the screen dimensions and resolution shown in the figures is merely for illustration purposes only.
• Theuser interface window701 is divided into three primary areas: aninformation bar705, agraphic bar707, and auser organizer709. As shown inFIG. 7, the first portion includes aninformation bar705 that may be used to present various information pertaining to a particular user, such as, for example, auser avatar710, auser name712, any high-level alerts714 (e.g., tips or message “3 new events”), and asystem logo717. In addition, a custom websearch input field719 may be provided to allow a user into input information (e.g., key words) through use of an associated user input device. The input information is supplied to a search engine to perform a query and present a response in a separate browser window. Searches of the web may be performed using Google, Yahoo, AltaVista, or any other web-based search engine. However, theservice provider system110 may automatically narrow or focus the search based on the user's personal profile stored in the user DB. In addition, thesystem service provider110 may use its own propriety search engine to perform a search. Two buttons are provided, anInternet search button721 and asystem search button722, to select where the search is to be performed. The search features are described in further detail below.
• Asecond area707 includes a graphic bar that provides a space orwindow724 for a user photo gallery to display user photos (e.g., stored in the user database). The graphic bar also may include a products andservices branding area726 to display advertising (i.e., glads) and logos for business clients120 (e.g. a system sponsor). Thisarea707 also may be customized or used to promote a business for a sponsored user interface. The area may include identification of the business, such as a name, symbol, or logo. Selecting the business logo causes the user interface to open an additional browser to present the user with a website or other online content associated with the business. Thisarea707 of the user interface also may provide advertising content including coupons. The advertising display and glads are described in further detail below.
• Athird portion709 of the user interface provides a user organizer that organizes a user's daily communications, contacts, appointments, content and other information in several key contexts to facilitate the user's access to and manipulation of the information. As shown inFIG. 7, the user organizer is divided into four general themes, contexts, or strips: aWHO strip731, a WHATstrip733, a WHEREstrip735, and a WHENstrip737. Each strip provides data, content, and functionality to a user in manageable portions based on a general aspect, context, or theme. TheWHO strip731 provides content and functionality regarding a user's contacts including people and groups of people. The WHATstrip733 provides content and functionality regarding a user's daily activities, communications, shopping, and to-do items, and other events of a user's daily life. The WHEREstrip735 provides information about locations and points of interest to a user, such as addresses, points of interest, information related to points of interest, and maps associated with those locations. The WHENstrip737 provides access to scheduled activities, events, appointments, and any other time sensitive data associated with the user. Each of the strips also dynamically focuses content and information based on user interaction with the strips. The strips also are automated such that simple manipulation of item between and within the strips causes the system to provide certain functions and service automatically. Each of the strips, their functionality, and focusing are described in further detail below.
• The information and functionality provided by each strip are accessed through manipulation of one or more lozenges provided in each of the strips.FIG. 8 shows an example800 of a lozenge. Thelozenge800 is an interactive, dynamic window that provides content and functionality to a user. Each lozenge allows a user to quickly arrange and display information and functionality within the theme or context of the strip. The lozenge may include one or more of the following: atitle bar801 including an expandicon810 and acontract812 icon, a information/item area819, navigation aids (e.g., a scroll or slider bar)820 and a search/add field830. The area or window occupied by thelozenge800 within a strip expands and/or contracts based on a user request or via automatic processes. Generally the lozenges may be presented as: small, medium, large, and extra large. In addition, the size of one lozenge may automatically and reciprocally affect the size of the one or more other lozenges within a strip based on user interaction with the strips.
• A small lozenge generally occupies a minimal area of a strip, for example, less than 15% of the area of a strip and provides minimal information and functionality. For example, a small lozenge may include a title bar and some additional information, such as a minimal alert or counters. A medium lozenge provides a portion of the overall content associated with a lozenge focused generally, for example, on the most used or most needed content or functionality associated with the lozenge, such as alerts and/or counters. In one example, a medium lozenge occupies approximately up to half of a strip. A large lozenge may be considered full size providing multiple ways to view data while providing all the functionality associated with the lozenge. In one example, a large lozenge occupies a majority of the strip. Finally, an extra large lozenge provides additional space with an emphasis on editing data, adding/reordering items, and viewing of additional information provided by the lozenge. In one example, the extra large lozenge occupies a space larger than a strip, for example, the space of up to three large lozenges or additional strips. The individual lozenges are described below within the context of their strips.
• At the bottom of a lozenge a data search/add field820 (e.g., a text box) may be provided in which a user enters characters using user input device. As a user enters characters into the field, the system performs a character-by-character analysis to determined items featuring the letters the user is typing. The system displays in or next to the field any items that correspond with the characters. At any time the user may select one of the displayed items. If the user types in a character string that is not present in the database, and selects the items using a user input device (e.g., pressing ENTER), then the item is added to the database. The field may be used, for example, to add an item to the list or perform a search within the context of the lozenge.
• TheWHO strip731 includes two lozenges:people740 andgroups742. The WHATstrip733 includes six lozenges: activities744, to-do748,shopping750, buy (not shown), read752, and send753. The WHEREstrip735 includes two lozenges:locations760 and maps762. The WHENstrip737 includes one lozenge:dynamic calendar770. Expanding a lozenge causes a corresponding reduction in the size of one or more other lozenges within a strip, as explained in further detail below. Similarly, expanding a strip to accommodate an extra large lozenge, causes a correspond reduction in the size of one or more other strips. Any strips or lozenges that are shrunk may be done so in order of the oldest to the most recently used.
• FIG. 9 shows examples of theWHO strip731 of the user interface which is used to create, maintain, and access a user's contact information. InFIG. 9 the reciprocal relationship between a small, a medium, and a large people and a small, a medium, and a large groups lozenge is shown.
• The small people lozenge901 includes a title bar “People.”
• The medium people lozenge905 includes alist907 of a subset of a user contacts. In one example, the medium lozenge includes a list of the most popular and/or the contacts most recently communicated with. The list of contacts may include a visual indicator and label, such as stars and the word popular (not shown). Thelist907 may include up to ten contacts; however, other numbers of contacts may be provided. While connected to theservice provider system110, theweb server143 in conjunction with theapplications server144 monitors the user's interaction with the user interface to populate the list with the most relevant contacts of interest to user. The medium people lozenge905 also includes a search/adddata entry field820. The search/addfield820 may be used to search for a contact within the user's contact database. As a user enters characters within the field, the system automatically provide a list of contacts (not shown) matching those letters typed by the user. The user may select any contact from the list at any time or continue adding characters. If a contact entered in the field is not in the database, the system asks the user if they wish to add the contact to the database.
• The large people lozenge910 includes aconfigurable list912 of a user's contacts. A navigation aid830 (e.g., a scroll bar or slider) may be provided for use in conjunction with a user input device to configure, manipulate, and/or sort the contacts displayed by thelist912. For example, theconfigurable contact list912 may be sorted by: recently accessed contacts, a first name, a last name, those contacts with whom a user is currently communicating, those contacts with whom a user has planned events, appointments or activities on the calendar, those contacts for whom a user has extended an invitation, those contacts with whom a user owes a response to a message, a specific letter in a contact name, and those contacts in order of proximity to a location selected on or inputted to the “Where” strip. The desired sort option may be selected from a menu or corresponding input (e.g., a button or check box). If there are more names in a list than may be displayed within the area provided by the people lozenge, a navigation aid (e.g., a scroll bar, a slider bar, direction arrow keys, grab and move pointer, or a pointing device) may be used to navigate through or see the remaining portion of the list. Items within the list also may be rearranged by a user selecting a name with a user input device and dragging the name within the list. The large people lozenge910 also includes a search/add field820.
• The extra large people lozenge915 includes afull list920 of all user contacts with a navigation aid830 (e.g., scroll or slider bar) that may be sorted by: a contact first name and a contact last name. In addition, inputs (not shown) may be provided to jump to a specific letter of a contact's name in the list. A number of fields of data for each contact are also displayed. For example, fields for a contact address921, a contact phone number, and a contact email address may be provided for each contact. Information in the displayed fields also may be edited. The extra large people lozenge915 occupies roughly three times the size of a normal strip.
• Four additional inputs (not shown) are provided to interact with the displayed lists of the extra large people lozenge915: select, edit, add, and aggro. Using the “select” input or directly selecting a name from a list using a user input device (e.g., using a mouse to single click on any contact name) causes the name to be visually indicated (e.g., highlighted, bolded, outlined, etc.). In addition, selecting a name causes the other strips to focus on or present content associated with the selected contact, as explained in further detail below. Selecting the “edit” input or a name directly from a list using a user input device (e.g., by double-clicking on the name) allows the user to update the contact information. Selecting edit provides a pop-up area (not shown) with information fields populated with a selected contact's information that is stored in the contact DB. The user may edit any of the fields and save the edited contact information. Selecting the “add” input creates a pop-area including a number of blank data fields which may be populated with a new contact's information. Selecting the “aggro” input causes the contact aggregator to verify the contact information stored for the selected contact in the contact DB.
• A number of symbols and indicators (not shown) may be used in association with the names listed in the people lozenge to provide additional information to a user. For example, a tiny email envelope next to a contact name may be used to indicate, at a glance, that a new message has been received from the contact. A tiny calendar/clock icon next to a contact name may be used to indicate a new calendar event has been established for the contact. A tiny clock next to a contact name may be used to indicate that the contact aggregator is in the process of aggregating this contact's information. Colors (e.g., red, blue, purple, or green) may be used to display the contact name of the list to indicate the type of contact if the contact has been indicated to be one of personal, work, friend, or family contact.
• FIG. 9 also shows examples of a small, a medium, a large, and an extra large “groups” lozenge of theWHO strip731. The groups lozenge allows the user to define and select groups in order to organize their communications with multiple contacts. A color (e.g., red, blue, or green) may be associated with each group name to indicate the type of group based on the types of contacts the group is composed of, such as, for example, personal, work, or family. A group name listed in black indicates a group of contacts from multiple groups. If there are more group names than space in the tab a scroll bar or slider may be provided to navigate the list.
• The small groups lozenge930 includes a title bar “Groups.”
• Themedium lozenge935 includes alist937 of a subset of a user groups contacts. In one example, the medium groups lozenge935 includes a list of the most popular and/or the groups most recently communicated with. Thelist937 may include the names of the top ten groups; however, other numbers of groups may be provided. While connected to theservice provider system110, theweb server143 in conjunction with theapplications server144 monitors the user's interaction with the user interface to populate the list with the most relevant group names of interest to user. The medium groups lozenge935 also includes a search/add field820.
• The large groups lozenge940 includes afull list945 with a navigation aid830 (e.g., a scroll bar or slider) that may be sorted by: the most recently selected group, a group name, a groups with whom the user is currently communicating with, a group with items that are on the calendar, a group that has been invited to an event, a group size (e.g., number of members), a group's creation date, and an RSVP or a not RSVP group. Any person, group, or activity may be tagged by the user as an RSVP. This means that any activity that includes the RSVP person or RSVP group must have all contacts or groups of contacts tagged as RSVP agree to attend the activity before theservice provider system110 identifies the activity as booked. If a person, a group, or an activity is not so tagged, then the activity may be booked regardless of how many invitees agree to attend. The large groups lozenge940 also includes a search/add field820.
• The extra large groups lozenge950 includes a full list of allgroups names955 associated with the user and anavigation aid830. For each group a list ofcontacts957 in the group is provided. In addition, a number of fields associated with each group may be presented, such as, for example, a first name, a last name, an email address, an address (e.g., house number and street name)958, a city, a state/province, a zip code/postal code, a country, a home land line phone number, a mobile phone number, a work land line phone number, a relationship to the user (e.g., friend, family, or business), and a RSVP flag (either yes or no). All fields may be selected and edited by the user. Five additional inputs (not shown) are provided on extra large groups lozenge950: select, edit, create a group, add a person, and aggro. Using the “select” input or directly selecting a group name from the list using a user input device (e.g., using a mouse to single click on any group name) displays the names of all contacts within the group (e.g., highlighted, bolded, outlined, etc.). In addition, selecting a group name causes the other strips to focus on or present content associated with the selected group. Focusing is described in further detail below. Selecting the “edit” input or a group name directly from the list using a user input device (e.g., by double-clicking on the name) allows the user to edit the contacts listed in the group. Selecting the “create a group” input allows a user to create or define a group. Selecting the input “add a person” allows the user to add a new contact to an existing group. Selecting the “agro” input causes the contact aggregator to verify the contact information of the contacts listed in the group.
• A user also may create a group using the add/search field820. The user may type in a new group name in thefield820 using a user input device. The new group name is then displayed in the list ofgroups937 or945. The user may then drag and drop one or more names of contacts from the people lozenge to the group name in the groups lozenge to automatically add those people to their groups. Similarly, a user may automatically add a new contact to any existing group by dragging a name of a contact from the people lozenge to the group name in the groups lozenge.
• In addition, the size of the people and groups lozenges have a reciprocal relationship with each other. For example, when the people lozenge is small, the groups lozenge is large. When either the people or groups lozenges are medium the other lozenge also is medium. When the group lozenge is small, the people lozenge is large. When either the people or groups lozenges are extra large, the lozenge occupies the entire WHO strip731.
• The WHATstrip733 provides content and functionality regarding a user's daily communications and activities. The WHATstrip733 helps the user manage and organize these communications and activities through use of five lozenges: activities, to-do, shopping, read, and send.
• As shown inFIG. 10, the activities lozenge provides a list of activities that a user frequently engages in order to help a user plan events. The activities lozenge may be small or medium. The small activities lozenge1001 just includes a title “Lozenge.” The medium activities lozenge1005 includes a list ofactivities1007, for example, a top-ten list of activities. The top-ten list is automatically populated based on a combination of the most recently used user activities combined with activities that have been most frequently repeated. A search/adddata820 entry field also is provided. Thedata entry field820 may be used to search through a list of a user's prior activities or add a new activity to the list. Adding a new activity causes a pop-up window to be shown with fields that the user may choose to fill to further define the activity.
• In addition, the user interaction with the other lozenges affects the list of activities provided through focusing. For example, when a person or group's name is selected on the people or groups lozenge, the activities lozenge shows the top-ten activities that have been scheduled in the past with that person or group. When a location is selected from the locations lozenge, the activities lozenge is populated with up to ten activities that have most frequently occurred at or in the vicinity of the location. When a calendar date is selected, the activities lozenge is populated by the most common activities that occur on that date. For example, if a user selects Sunday morning, “Go to Church” might appear in the activities list. If the user selects the evening of February 14th, then “Valentines Day Dinner” may appear in activities list. If a user selects their own name from the people lozenge, then the activities lozenge is populated with the top ten activities attended by the user. A user may select an activity from thelist1007 with a user input device, and drag the activities onto the calendar lozenge to a particular day and/or time to create a calendar event for that activity, as explained in further detail below.
• FIG. 10 also shows an example of a small, a large, and an extra large a To-Do lozenge. The To-Do lozenge helps keep of list of items that a user wants to complete and keep track or be reminded of.
• The small To-Do lozenge1010 just includes the title “To-Do.” The medium To-Do lozenge1015 includes a list of up to the ten oldest To-Do items1017. Each To-Do item on thelist1017 may include a user selectable input to indicate completion of the item, such as a check or tick box. Using a user input device the user may select the input to cause a visual mark to appear in the box (e.g., a check mark or x) to indicate that an item has been completed. In addition, the marked item may be visually distinguished (e.g., highlighted or low lighted or grayed out) moved to the end of the list and marked as “done.” A search/adddata field820 may be provided to search for a particular To-Do item from the list and to add a new item to the To-Do list.
• The large To-Do lozenge1020 includes acomplete list1022 of all a user's To-Do items. In addition, anavigation aid830 is provided to navigate or scroll through the entire list if there are more items on the list than may be displayed in the space provided. A search/adddata field820 also is provided.
• The To-Do items may have associated with them information fields about chores and/or tasks that a user wishes to remember and complete, such as a name field, a description field, a start date/and or time field, a reminder field, and an indication of completion of the item (e.g., “Done” or a completion date and/or time). When open to the large or extra large lozenge, To-Do items may be created by the user directly typing a new item in the list. The To-Do list items may be re-ordered, edited, checked off by the user. Items may be reordered simply by selecting an item and dragging it to another position on the list. Each item may include a user selectable input to indicate completion of the item, such as a check box. Using a user input device the user may select the input to cause an indication to appear in the box (e.g., a check mark or x) to indicate that an items has be completed. In addition, the checked item may be visually distinguished (e.g., highlighted or low lighted or grayed out), moved to the end of the list and marked as “done.”
• The extra large To-Do lozenge1025 also includes acomplete list1026 of all To-Do items and the various information fields, such as, acompletion indicator1027, a date added1028, a date completed1029, and a reminder date (not shown). The items may be re-ordered, edited, checked off. The list may be sorted by: due date, reminder date, when added, letter or alphabetically, and done and/or completion date.
• FIG. 10 also shows examples of the shopping lozenge. The shopping lozenge may be used to keep track of all items to be purchased by a user.FIG. 10 shows a small, a medium, a large, and an extra large shopping lozenge. Thesmall shopping lozenge1030 just includes the title “Shopping.” Themedium shopping lozenge1032 includes a list1034 of up to ten oldest shopping or highest priority shopping items. Each shopping item on the list1034 may include a user selectable input (e.g., a check or tick box) to indicate the item has been purchased. Using a user input device the user may select the input to cause a visual mark to appear in the box (e.g., a check mark or x) to indicate that an item has been purchased. In addition, the marked item may be visually distinguished (e.g., highlighted or low lighted or grayed out) moved to the end of the list and/or removed. A search/adddata field820 may be provided to search for a particular shopping item from the list and to add a new item to the list.
• The large shopping lozenge1040 includes a complete list1042 of all a user's shopping items. The complete shopping list1042 may be re-ordered, edited, checked off. Items may be reordered simply by selecting an item and dragging it to another position on the list. Each item may include a user selectable input to indicate purchase of an item, such as a check box. Using a user input device the user may select the input to cause an indication to appear in the box (e.g., a check mark or x) to indicate that an items has been purchased. Alternatively, purchased items may be removed from the list. In addition, anavigation aid830 is provided to navigate or scroll through the entire list if there are more items on the list than may be displayed in the space provided. A search/adddata field820 also is provided to add items or items may be added by directly typing them in the list.
• The extralarge shopping lozenge1043 also includes acomplete list1045 of all shopping items in addition to various information fields, such as, a user selectable input to indicate purchase of anitem1046, adescription1047, a date added, a date purchased, and anamount1049. Shopping items may be created and added to the shopping list by the user directly typing a new item in the list. The items may be re-ordered, edited, checked off. The list may be sorted by: description, date purchased, amount, date added, and by letter or alphabetically.
• FIG. 10 also shows an example of a small, a medium, a large, and an extra large read lozenge. The read lozenge also a user to receive and manipulate various communications directed to the user.
• Thesmall read lozenge1060 just includes the title “Read.”
• The medium readlozenge1062 includes a list ofidentifiers1064 for the most recent, unopened, new messages and/or threads that have been received by theservice provider system110 directed to the user. The list may include an indicator of the contact from whom the message was sent and a subject indication.
• The large read lozenge1065 includes acomplete list1067 of identifiers for all new messages and/or threads stored by theservice provider system110 which have not yet been responded to by the user. The identifiers may include a name of the contact sending the message and a topic of the thread. In addition, an indication (not shown) of the number of new messages associated with the thread or topic may be provided. If there are more message indicators than may be displayed in area of the lozenge a navigation aid830 (e.g., a scroll bar, a slider bar, direction arrow keys, grab and move pointer, or a pointing device) may be used to navigate through or see the remaining portion of the list. In addition, search/addfield820 may be provided to search for a message.
• FIG. 11 shows and example of the extralarge read lozenge1070. The extralarge read lozenge1070 includes a complete list1075 of identifiers messages and/or threads stored by theservice provider system110 in addition to various information fields, such as, a contact sending themessage1076, a topic of themessage1077, a date the message was received1078, a number of entries in themessage thread1079, and who is to respond to themessage1080. Next to each identifier (not shown) an indication of how long (e.g., minutes, hours, days) the sender of a message has been waiting for a response. The user may select any identifier of any thread to read, edit responses, add responses, and perform other actions. Five input filtering options selections are provided for these threads: current subjects, by person, by date, by lateness, and archived. The current subjects input may be selected to display indicators of threads that are current. Current may be defined as a period of time set by the user's preferences and/or may include indicators of threads that have not been responded too. The by person input sorts the list of thread indicators alphabetically by contact name. The by date input sorts the list of threads indicators by date listing the newest threads first. The by lateness input sorts the list of thread indicators by respondent lateness. The archived input opens a complete list of indicators of archived threads that have previously been closed by the user.
• As shown inFIG. 12, selecting any thread or message indicator from either the list with a user input device (e.g., using a cursor or pointer or highlighted area controlled by a mouse, keypad/board, pointing device, touch-screen/pad to select the thread indicator) opens the thread in apopup window1200 for viewing by the user. Thewindow1200 may include aninformational area1201 and amessage area1202. Theinformational area1201 includes the type of message (e.g., personal, business, group) (not shown), themessage thread identifier1205, a start time of the message thread (not shown), and a time of last response (not shown). Themessage area1202 includes an area1210 (e.g., a rounded box) at the top of themessage thread1211 where the user may enter or type their response to the latest receivedmessage1212. Below the box is the text of each piece of themessage thread1211 and anindicator1215 of whom the piece text of the thread was generated by. A message type/link icon1220 may be provided in the window next to each received text which notifies the user which account or media type (e.g., POP3 work, POP3 home, virtual fax, IM, SMS, site specific email, etc.) that was used to send the text associated with the message. Selecting theicon1220 with a user input device opens another window (not shown) to display the original message in its full original format.
• FIG. 10 also shows an example of the send lozenge. The send lozenge is used to send messages to contacts. The send lozenge may be locked at the end of the WHATstrip733 and is provided in only as asmall send lozenge1080. In one example, thesmall send lozenge1080 may be slightly larger than other small lozenges to accommodate one ormore inputs1081. In one example, the inputs are share, chat, and organize (not shown).
• To send a message the user simply selects a name of a contact from the people lozenge, or the name of a group from the group lozenge of theWHO strip731 using a user input device. After selecting the name, the user drags the name from the list of theWHO strip731 onto any one of the buttons: share, chat, and organize. Alternatively, the user may select one of theinputs1081 with a user input device. Selecting one of thesend inputs1081 causes theservice provider system110 to create a pop-up window for display as a screen on the user device. The screen (not shown) includes the message “Who shall I send the message to?” The screen also includes a window in which the user may type the contact or group name or select a name from a drop down menu.
• The share button may be used to share pictures, videos, web sites, computer documents (e.g., PDF, MS Word, etc.), FYI, change of address, newsletter, and a vacation notification) and other content with contacts and groups. The chat button may be used for personal talk, group talk, polls, and event creation. The organize button may be used to create an event (one-time or repeating), such as, an appointment, a meeting, a party/group event; an RSVP party (e.g., a wedding or a birthday), a potluck or any other gathering of contacts. Each input causes a popup window to request information typically specific to that type of communication. If the name of the group or contact is dragged to the button, the popup window is automatically populated with the contact information for the type of message. Once the user enters the requested information, the message is sent by theservice provider system110 using the selected format and/or protocol for the type of message. In addition, the threader adds the message to the message archive.
• The WHATstrip733 also may include a buy lozenge as shown inFIG. 13. The buy lozenge may be small, medium, large or extra large. The WHATstrip733 also may include a buy lozenge.FIG. 13 shows examples of the small, medium, large or extra large buy lozenge. Thesmall buy lozenge1301 just includes the title “buy.” The user can drag any item to the buy lozenge to instruct theservice provider system110 to purchase the item. Themedium buy lozenge1310 includes alist1315 of the top five items that the system is currently trying to buy for a user. Thelarge buy lozenge1320 includes acomplete list1325 of all items being purchased by the system. The extralarge buy lozenge1330 provides acomplete list1333 of all items being purchased by the system. If there are more items that can be displayed, anavigation aid820 is provided. Adescription area1335 providesinformation1340 about a selected item1345 from the list. The information may include a name, delivery date, delivery location, total price, account payment was made by. In addition, a changebuying preferences button1350 is provided to access various fields that store user preferences allowing a user to specify price ranges for products, payment information, delivery addresses and other instructions pertinent to making a purchase.
• The personal profile allows a user to specify specific items and types of items thesystem service provider110 may automatically buy for the user. The user may specify what price ranges (e.g., a maximum, a minimum or both) that are okay for the system service provider to user in determining whether to make a purchase. The user profile buy information may include payment information, such as credit card, debit card, paypal, online banking information, a single purchase spending limit, a monthly purchase spending limit, and a card balance limit. The user also may specify shipping preferences, such as carrier preference (e.g., UPS, Fed-X, USPS, etc.), transit preference (e.g., overnight, 2 day, “slow and cheap”), shipping address, special shipping instructions (e.g., doorbell inoperative), and instant delivery preferences.
• The buy lozenge may be withheld or not appear on the WHATstrip733 until a user provides their user buy information. Once set up, the user can drag any item to the buy lozenge to instruct the system service provider to purchase item. For example, a user has a To-Do item that identifies “Replace flapper valve.” The user drags the item to the BUY button. Theservice provider system110 determines the best price available online for a toilet flapper valve, orders it using the provided customer buy information, and places an item or event on the user's calendar with the expected arrival date.
• In another example, the user has an item, or items on the shopping list that they are unable to find time to buy, or would prefer not go shopping for the item at this time. The user drags the entire shopping list, or individual items to the BUY button, and the service provider system then buys those items for the user. In another example, a user has a calendar appointment, such as BBQ. In this example the user drags that item to BUY causing theservice provider system110 to look up a user profile and determine a user's identified foods associated with an event, such as a BBQ. Theservice provider system110 then purchases the user's identified BBQ foods. Similarly, a calendar appointment “ski trip” causes theservice provider system110 to book transportation (flight from local air port to destination), lodging (e.g., hotel for nights specified by trip event in calendar), and activities (e.g., advance purchase of lift tickets for closest ski resort). In yet another example, the user drags a contact name onto the BUY button. Theservice provider system110 identifies any dates, events, or activities associated with the contact (e.g., birthday, Christmas, retirement party). Theservice provider system110 may purchase a gift for the specified contact. If the contact is a user of theservice provider system110, the system may use receiver's profile in determining a suitable gift.
• The WHEREstrip735 provides information above a user's favorite places (e.g., restaurants), locations, destinations, addresses, and other information such as maps and navigation aids. The user may look at or create instant maps to link any locations together and/or receive point-to-point directions. The WHEREstrip735 includes two lozenges: maps and location.FIG. 14 shows examples of small, medium, large and extra large maps and locations lozenges.
• The locations lozenge includes locations of interest to a user. The small locations lozenge1401 just includes a title “locations.” The medium locations lozenge1405 includes a short locations list1410 of up to ten locations that may be interest to a user at any particular moment. Examples of locations: may be restaurants, businesses the user frequents (stores, malls, markets), contact's address, institutions frequented by the user (schools, DMV, church, parks). In particular, thesystem service provider110 focus the locations provided in thelist1410 based on the user's interaction with the other lozenges of the user interface. For example, when the user selects a contact from the people lozenge, thelist1410 is populated with the “Top Ten” locations associated with that person. When a user selects a group from the group lozenge, the list is populated with the “Top Ten” locations associated with that group. When an activity from the activities lozenge is selected, thelist1410 is populated with the “Top Ten” locations associated with that activity. When any time and date in the calendar is selected, thelist1410 is populated with the “Top Ten” locations associated with that day at that time. The medium locations lozenge1401 also includes a search/ adddata entry field820. The search/addfield820 may be used to search for a location within the user's database of locations associated with the user. As a user enters characters within the field, the system automatically provide a list of locations (not shown) matching those letters typed by the user. The user may select any location from the list at any time or continue adding characters. If a location entered in thefield820 is not in the database, theservice provider system110 asks the user if they wish to add the location to the database. If so, the system saves the location in a database of locations associated with the user.
• Thelarge location lozenge1415 includes a complete list ofuser locations1417. If there are more locations than may be displayed in area provided by the lozenge, a navigation aid830 (e.g., a scroll bar, a slider bar, direction arrow keys, grab and move pointer, or a pointing device) may be used to navigate through or see the remaining portion of the list. In addition, search/addfield820 may be provided to search for or add a location.
• FIG. 14 also shows the maps lozenge. The maps lozenge provides an easy to use interface to allow a user to search for and find information about a location.
• The small maps lozenge1425 just includes a title “locations.” The medium mapslozenge1430 includessmall map window1435 for a selected location. Anaddress1437 for the location also may be displayed along with several inputs (not shown), such as print directions, send to mobile device, and share location.
• Thelarge maps lozenge1440 also includes amap window1435, alocation address area1437,user inputs1439, and acustom finder1450. The extralarge maps lozenge1455 has the same functionality as the large map lozenge but includes alarger map window1435 and a driving directions window.
• Themap window1435 shows a map of a location. The maps lozenge location is focused based on a person selected from the people lozenge or an activity selected from the activities lozenge, or as a result of selection a location or using theinput field820 to look up an address on the locations lozenge. The map displayed by themap window1435 may be scalable to zoom in and out from a birds-eye-view using a user input device. For example, user inputs (not shown) neighborhood, city, county, state, and region may be provided to adjust the area displayed by the map, a slider bar may be selected to zoom in and out, orbuttons1460 may be selected to increase or decrease the scale of the map. In addition, the user input device may be used to control the zoom feature (e.g., a scroll wheel provided on a mouse). The map may include an indicator of the location within the context of the map.
• Using a screen position indicator (e.g., a cursor or a pointer) in conjunction with a user input device (e.g., a key pad/board/buttons or a mouse) or using input directly from a user input device (e.g., a stylus or finger touching a touch screen) the user may select a point on the map. Maintaining selection on the map, the user may manipulate the position indicator or stylus in along one or two axis to draw a box or rectangle on the map. After drawing the box, the system automatically populates the area outlined by the box with information and/or indicators of all contacts and/or events that have addresses stored by the system databases that correspond to the location on the map within the user drawn box. Position of a cursor or pointer on the indicators causes a pop address (not shown) to appear associated with the indicator.
• The maps lozenge includes several user selectable inputs1537: directions to this location, find near this location, and transfer data to GPS/Smartphone. Selecting directions to this location provides directions to the selected location from a current location of the user (as determined from the user database or GPS data provided by the user device101). Additionally, the user may provide a start location to manually configure a desired route.
• The find near this location inputs include a dynamic list of a number of inputs that are most likely to be desired by a user viewing the location information. The service provider system may determine the dynamic list based on data stored in the user profile (e.g., favorites and dislikes provided by the user) and/or empirical information of data found most useful by users. For example, the inputs fuel stations, restaurants, and WIFI hotspots may be selected. Selecting any one of the inputs causes a visual indicator to appear on the map of the locations associated with the selected input. Placing a cursor, a pointer, or other user controllable selection mark over the indicator causes a small popup to display in association with the indicator giving more details and a dynamic hyperlink to a webpage for the entity represented by the indicator. In addition, selecting the indicator allows the user to obtain directions to the address associated with the displayed entity.
• The transfer data to GPS/SMART phone input allows a user to transfer information, such as directions or files stored by thesystem service provider110 to a user's mobile device. As a result, the user may access the directions or files using the mobile device.
• Thecustom map finder1450 provides a window that includes a number of inputs1466 that may be selected by the user to populate the map with information. Theservice provider system110 automatically populates the list with inputs based on the user's profile and interaction with the system. The list shown in the example ofFIG. 14 includes inputs for Mexican food, pizza, Ford parts, and Art Theatres. Selection of in input, for example, fuel stations, causes the map to display indicators for fuel stations within the displayed area of the map window. The list of inputs is dynamic and is automatically populated at any particular time by the system to display those inputs to be of most use to a user. For example, the system may use time of day (e.g., lunch time or diner time) to display inputs for food choices based on the user profile stored in the system DB. Other inputs may be chosen based on information provided by the user questionnaire and user profile stored in the database, for example, indicated interests and hobbies of the user. The system may also search a user's upcoming events to populate the list with inputs. For example, if a task on the To-Do list includes “Get oil changed for Car” the dynamic list may be populated with the input service stations. If the user has an event scheduled, the list may provide an input “hotels” to suggest places to stay based on the event location.
• The search/add window820 may be provided to allow a user to manually enter in a location, name, contact, or business using a user input device. The input is provided to the system (e.g., by selecting an enter button or selecting and icon such as a magnifying glass). The system performs a search based on the input information and displays a result. The user selects an item from the list. The address is then displayed as the location and the map is automatically adjusted to display the location based on the selection.
• The WHENstrip737 keeps track of time sensitive or related information for the user. The WHENstrip737 includes a single lozenge: a calendar lozenge. The calendar lozenge displays information for a user including indicators, identifiers, and data for all activities, to-do items, appointments, and other data items having a time based element that thesystem110 tracks for the user to allow a user to manage and organize their daily events. The size of the days and weeks dynamical adjust based on user interaction with the calendar lozenge, as explained in further detail below. The calendar lozenge may be large and extra large.FIG. 15 shows an example of thelarge calendar lozenge1501. Thelarge calendar lozenge1501 provides anagenda area1510 and a mini calendar1515. Theagenda area1510 shows a list of the user's next ten events. The mini calendar is a smaller calendar that shows busy and free times but no details. The large calendar is two columns wide.
• FIG. 16 shows the extralarge calendar lozenge1601. The extralarge calendar lozenge1501 is approximately three columns wide. The extralarge calendar lozenge1601 includes a calendar indication days of the week (e.g., Sunday-Saturday) and days of the month (e.g., 1-28, 1-29, 1-30, and 1-31). The calendar also includes an information bar1615. The information bar1615 includes an indicator of themonth1617, theyear1619, atoday button1620, andinputs1625 personal, family, friends, and business to control display of items within the calendar to present events associated with a selected input. Themonth indicator1617 displays the month (e.g., May) currently displayed by the calendar. The month may be changed by selecting thearrow inputs1627 to either side of themonth indicator1617 to move to the next or previous month from the month displayed. The year indicator may be selected to change the year displayed. Additionalinputs week view1630 may be used to adjust the size of any week displayed, as described below. One or more theinputs1625 may be selected at anytime to toggle the display of events associated with the selected event category (e.g., personal, family, friends, and business). For example, selecting personal and family causes the calendar to display user events of type personal and family. Unselecting an input removes those corresponding events. In this example, unselecting family causes all events of family type to be removed leaving only personal events displayed.
• Within each day displayed on the calendar are indicators for any calendar events stored by the system associated with that date for a user. As shown inFIG. 16, the calendar is focused on personal calendar events of the user. The calendar events may include To-do items or reminders (e.g., 7 am May 1^st“walk the dog”), shopping items (not shown), activities (e.g., 8 pm May 16^th“Bowling League” and “Ski Trip”), and appointments, seminars, engagement, and meetings (e.g., 4 PM may 3^rd“BBQ” and “Management Retreat”), and coupons and/or advertisements from the glad bar (not shown).
• The user may create an event by selecting an item from any lozenge with a user input device and dragging the item from the originating lozenge to a date and/or time within the calendar lozenge. For example, a user can drag a name from the people or the group lozenge, an activity from the activities lozenge, a to-do item form the to-do lozenge, an email from the read lozenge, a shopping item from the shopping lozenge, and address from the maps lozenge, a location from the locations lozenge, to a calendar date to create an event. For example, the user may select contacts “Bob”, “Cindy”, and “Jennifer” from the people lozenge, “Ski Trip” from the activities lozenge, and “Big Bear” from the locations lozenge, and drags them all to the Sunday May 4^thto create a skitrip calendar event1635. A calendar event popup window with data fields is then presented to the user, as shown inFIG. 17.
• FIG. 17 shows a user interface with theevent popup window1601. Thewindow1601 includes a number of data entry fields that are automatically populated with information corresponding to the items dragged onto the date (e.g., the people, the activity, and the location in this example). For example, thewindow1701 may include the data entry fieldsnickname1710,location1720,description1730,attendees1733, start1735,end1737, and category1740 (e.g., personal, family, friends, and business). Information missing from the data entry fields may then be supplied by the user. Once the information is supplied, the user may select thesave button1745 to stored information in the user database for the event and close the popup window. A cancelbutton1750 may be used close the window and cancel the event. A calendar event also may be created by selecting a date and/or time directly from the calendar using a user input device causing theevent popup window1701 to be presented in which the user may enter information in any pertinent field and/or drag items from other lozenges onto the popup window.
• A calendar event may be given a nickname (e.g., “Ski Trip) as the identifier displayed in the calendar for easy reading and/or identification by a user. The item name field may be used to automatically build a nickname. For example, if the nickname is left blank the system automatically picks the name of a lozenge item dragged to create the event. For example, if ski trip is dragged for the activity lozenge then the event nickname may default to ski trip. The nickname may be edited by the user to override any automatically generated nickname.
• In another example, items directly dragged to a calendar date may automatically create an event. If a lozenge item is dragged to any date on the calendar in the month view, an event is automatically created at for noon on the that date with whatever content is associated with the lozenge. For example, if Bill is dragged to June 1, an event nickname Bill is provided for a 1 hour meeting with Bill at noon on June 1^st. A message is sent to invite Bill. The user may select the item on the calendar to access the event and to edit or provide further details. If a lozenge item is dragged to the expanded week view or day view, then the event is scheduled for the hour time slot the item is dragged to on the calendar as a default. The hour slot is also visual highlighted or shaded to indicate the planed time of the meeting. The user may then adjust the timing of the event using a pointing user input device to select the a border or portion of the highlighted region to expand or contract the highlighted area to increase or decrease, respectively, the time scheduled for the event.
• The service provider system stores the calendar event information in the user database. The database has a number of associated fields, such as a general type (e.g., appointment, activity, entertainment, travel, and meeting). In addition, the fields also provide for time and date, start and end, attendees, invitees, a location, items needed, event category type (e.g., personal, friends, family, and business), among others. Any information associated with a lozenge that is dragged to create the event is populated in the fields. This information may be changed, deleted or supplemented by the user. In addition, the fields also may be customized for information solicited based on the type of event (e.g., a particular activity, such as “BBQ” may include additional information like catering, potluck, bring an item). The information requested by the fields may be filled in by entering information in the field using a user input device. In addition, further items may be dragged from lozenges to the popup window to continue to fill out the event information. For example, additional names may be dragged from the people lozenge, a location from the location lozenge, a shopping list from the shopping lozenge. In addition to the nickname, a descriptor, a description/notes, and an advertisement or coupon from the graphic/advertising bar may be provided.
• Once the information fields are filled in and provided to the system, an event may be automatically organized by the system as described in U.S. application Ser. No. 12/141104, titled “Communications System with Dynamic Calendar,” filed Jun. 18, 2008, which is herein incorporated by reference in its entirety.
• All items shown in the calendar are color coded based on an event type, such as personal, family, business, and friends. In addition,inputs1625 are provided to filter information displayed in the calendar. For example,inputs1625 personal, business, family, friends may be provided to filter or overlay display of calendar items of the type selected or a combination thereof. One, several, or all of theinputs1625 may be selected at any time. Color coded identifiers for each calendar event are shown on their respective days. If there are more identifiers than may be shown in the space provided, the identifiers shown may be filtered. For example, a priority (such as importance, time of day, next occurring, events requiring user action or providing updated information or alerts) or the types of events shown (e.g., family, friends, business, personal), or a combination thereof may be used to filter the information presented. In addition, if sufficient space is unavailable the events displayed may be periodically rotated.
• Thesystem service provider110 maintains calendar data for each system user. As a result, the calendar may be used to show data from other calendars which may be useful in planning events, such as meetings. For example, selecting the identifier for a system user “Frank” from a user's people lozenge causes thecalendar1601 to change to the calendar shown inFIG. 18. As shown inFIG. 18, thecalendar1801 now includesindications1805 of periods of occupied time for which Frank has events scheduled. This is very useful for user's trying to schedule meeting. For example, looking at thecalendar1801, the user may determine the morning of May 17^th, Frank is unavailable to have a meeting. Holding a cursor/pointer over the indications1705 causes a popup indication of the exact time period when in the month view shown inFIG. 18.
• In addition, event categories also may be used to filter/display information. For example,FIG. 19 shows the user has selected theinput1625 family to display calendar1901. As shown, the events walk the dog, management retreat, and bowling league have been removed, family event “ski trip” is shown. In addition, family members events forJenifer1910 andCarol1920 are shown.
• A unique feature of the calendar that it dynamically adjusts the space needed to display portions of the calendar while maintaining presentation of every day in the month displayed, as shown inFIG. 20,21, and22.FIG. 20 shows a calendar lozenge with the calendar in themonth view1601. As shown, a week view input1530 is provided for each week displayed in themonth view1601.
• Selecting theweek view input1630 for the week of May 5^ththough the 11^thexpands the area used to display the selected week on the screen while reducing the other weeks presented by a corresponding amount, in the expanded week view as shown inFIG. 21. In the expandedweek view2101, more event identifiers may be displayed concurrently and other event details and information in addition to the event identifier (e.g., a time of event) may be presented. Additionally, segments for the hours during each expanded day or a timeline may be presented. At the same time, all other days outside the expanded week shrink to a smaller size. In this mode, the small days use color codes in combination with a number indicate events for that day. The color indicates the type of event that day and the number indicated the number of events of this type on that date.
• Two additional inputs are also provided. An expandinput2110 is provided for each day in the expanded week and amonth view input2120 is provided for the expended week. Selection of themonth view input2120 causes the screen to return to themonth view1601 shown inFIG. 20.
• Selection of the expandinput2110 for any day in the week causes the area for the selected day to expand with a corresponding reduction in the area of the remaining days in the expanded week as shown inFIG. 22. The expandedday view2201 may include a time line, larger fonts, and addition information provided for each event (such as identifier, time, location, attendees, and notes). In addition, atoday button1620 is provided on all of the views (2001,2101, and2201) to automatically expand the calendar to the expandedday view2201 open to the current date. The expandedday view2201 also may include aweek view input1630 to return the week to the expandedweek view2101, and amonth view input2120 also is provided to cause the screen to return to themonth view1601 shown inFIG. 20.
Item Dragging
• Because theservice provider system110 dynamically maintains all system user data, any item from a lozenge may be selected by a user input device and moved to another lozenge (e.g., dragging a selected item in one lozenge to the area of the user interface defining or occupied by a second lozenge) to cause the system to automatically perform an actions and services. This allows a user to harness the information stored by and the automation provided by the system to perform tasks for the user in a straight forward and easy manner. For example, a user may select and drag a person or a group from the people or groups lozenge to: the calendar to create an appointment or to the send lozenge to send a message to the person or group
• FIGS. 23-25 shows an example of adding a user to a group.FIG. 23 shows the user has selected “me”2301 from the people lozenge. Theselection2301 causes the groups lozenge to focus on groups the user belongs to.FIG. 24 shows that Contact “Charles Miller”2401 is selected from the people lozenge and dragged2402 to the group “Biker Club”2410. In response, theservice provider system110 automatically accesses the user database and adds an indication for “Charles Miller” to group “Biker Club.”FIG. 25 shows the “Biker Club”2510 is selected causing the people, activities, read, and locations lozenges to focus on the biker club related items. For example, people is focused to contact in the Bike Club (e.g., Me, Charles Miller, Jeff White, and Donald Lewis), activities is focused to bike activities (e.g., biker night, charity run, poker run), the read lozenge includes message sent by Bike Club members (e.g., Next Ride, Good Mechanic, and My New Bike), and locations to bike related locations (e.g.,Route 66, Piston Club, Harley Dealership, Bike world).
• In another example, items directly dragged to a calendar date may automatically create an event. If a lozenge item is dragged to any date on the calendar in the month view, an event is automatically created for noon on that date with whatever content is associated with the lozenge. For example, if Bill is dragged to June 1, an event nickname Bill is provided for a 1 hour meeting with Bill at noon on June 1st. A message is sent to invite Bill. The user may select the item on the calendar to access the event and to edit or provide further details. If a lozenge item is dragged to the expanded week view or day view, then the event is scheduled for the hour time slot the item is dragged to on the calendar as a default. The hour slot is also visual highlighted or shaded to indicate the planed time of the meeting. The user may then adjust the timing of the event using a pointing user input device to select a border or portion of the highlighted region to expand or contract the highlighted area to increase or decrease, respectively, the time scheduled for the event.
• Combinations of items also may be dragged and dropped as shown inFIGS. 26-30. For example,FIG. 26 shows a contact “Sarah Baker”2601 is selected from the people lozenge causing the other lozenges to focus based on Sarah Baker.FIG. 27 shows the user has selected “dinner”2701 from the activities lozenge causing the locations lozenge to focus on dinner locations.FIG. 28 shows the selection of a location “Venti Bar”2801 from the locations lozenge.FIG. 29 show the user drags2901 the selected items to Saturday May 10^thon the calendar lozenge. The system then automatically creates an event in the calendar for dinner at the Venti Bar with Sarah on May 10^thand displays acorresponding indicator3001 as shown inFIG. 30. Of course, many other combinations are possible.
• In another example shown inFIGS. 31-34 a user creates an event using a location. As shown inFIG. 31, the user selects themselves3101 in the people lozenge to focus on the user. As shown inFIG. 32 the user then selects a location “McDonalds”3201 from the locations lozenge causing the people lozenge to focus on people the user goes typically invites to McDonalds, groups which go to McDonalds, activities that take place at McDonalds, a map to a McDonalds.FIG. 33 shows the user drags3301 the location to a date on the calendar lozenge (e.g., May 22^nd).FIG. 34 shows theservice provider system110 then creates an event in the user's database for the user at McDonalds on the Thursday May 22, 2008 and displays anidentifier3401 for the event on the calendar.
• Table 1 table gives some examples of other actions that may be performed by selecting items displayed in the lozenges and dragging them to other lozenges.

• TABLE 1
  	Action
  Lozenge	Lozenge	Action
  Help	any	any item dragged to help? or ? dragged to
  		any item opens context sensitive help
  Combos (after
  click to highlight
  who + what	when	creates cal event with those item fields populated
  who + where	when	creates cal event with those item fields populated -
  		prompts for event name
  who + what +	when	creates cal event with those item fields populated -
  where		prompts for event name
  where + what	when	creates cal event with those item fields populated
  Single Items
  People	Groups	adds person to group
  People	Blank Group	adds person to group, prompts for new group name
  People	To Do	creates empty to do with text “with FN LN”
  People	Shopping	creates empty shopping item with text “for FN LN”
  People	Read	Same as select/highlight - shows all messages from the
  		dragged/selected person's name
  People	Send - Share	Open a “new share” box, user may drag files (using the
  		computer's OS) or select them with a BROWSE button, then
  		click SHARE
  People	Send -	Open a “new message” box, user may type a message then
  	Discuss	click SEND
  People	Calendar	creates event that includes that person
  	(blank area)	(prompts for event name, etc.)
  People	Calendar	adds person to event attendee list
  	Appointment
  People	User Picture	adds contact image to slideshow
  People	Family	changes relationship of contact to family
  People	Business	changes relationship of contact to business
  People	Friends	changes relationship of contact to friends
  People	A Glad	Sends that Glad to that person via email
  People
  Groups	People	adds person to group
  Groups	To Do	creates empty to do with text “with <group name>”
  Groups	Shopping	creates empty shopping item with text “for <group name>”
  Groups	Read	Same as select/highlight - shows all messages from the
  		dragged/selected group name
  Groups	Send - Share	Open a “new share” box, user may drag files (using the
  		computer's OS) or select them with a BROWSE button, then
  		click SHARE to share them with that entire group
  Groups	Send -	Open a “new message” box, user may type a message then
  	Discuss	click SEND to send that message to that entire group
  Groups	Calendar	creates event that includes that group
  	(blank area)	(prompts for event name, etc.)
  Groups	Calendar	adds group to event attendee list
  Groups	A Glad	Sends that Glad to that group via email
  Activities	To Do	creates to do item with activity name
  Activities	Read	Same as select/highlight - shows all messages associated
  		with the dragged activity
  Activities	Send -	Opens a requester “Who would you like to discuss this activity
  	Discuss	with?”
  Activities	Calendar	creates event (cal event name = activity)
  	(blank area)
  Activities	Calendar	changes name of event to new activity
  	Appointment	(cal event name = activity)
  To Do	People	appends to do item with text “with <FN LN>”
  To Do	Groups	appends to do item with text “with <group name>”
  To Do	Shopping	To-Do list is moved to Shopping List
  To Do	Send -	Opens a requester “Who would you like to discuss this To-Do
  	Discuss	List item with?”
  To Do	Calendar	creates cal event (to do item = cal event name)
  	(blank area)
  To Do	Calendar	changes name of event to new activity
  	Appointment	(cal event name = to do item)
  To Do	Locations	Creates to do item “go to <location name>”
  To Do
  Shopping	People	Opens an email to that person, subject is “Shopping for
  		<item>”, then the user may continue to type a message and
  		click the SEND button.
  Shopping	Groups	Opens an email to that group, subject is “Shopping for <item>”,
  		then the user may continue to type a message and click the
  		SEND button.
  Shopping	To Do	creates to do “go shopping for <shopping list item>”
  Shopping	Send -	Opens a requester “Who would you like to discuss this
  	Discuss	Shopping List item with?”
  Shopping	Calendar	create cal event “go shopping for <shopping list item>”
  	(blank area)
  Shopping	Calendar	Changes name of event to
  	Appointment	“go shopping for <shopping list item>”
  Read	People	Open a “new message” box, user may type a message then
  		click SEND to send that message to that person
  Read	Groups	Open a “new message” box, user may type a message then
  		click SEND to send that message to that entire group
  Read	To Do	Adds message title to To-Do list
  Read	Shopping	Adds message title to Shopping list
  Read	Send - Share	Open a “new share” box, user may drag files (using the
  		computer's OS) or select them with a BROWSE button, then
  		click SHARE to share them with that the addressee list found
  		in that message
  Read	Calendar	Opens an event with the activity set to the message title, with
  	(blank area)	the attendee list set to the addressee values. Missing will be a
  		location.
  Read	Calendar	Adds message title to “comments” section of the existing
  	Appointment	appointment

Focusing
• The user interface also provides a unique feature called “focusing.” Focusing intuitively connects all of the interface's basic functionality and content to provide the features and the content that are generally the most useful to a user at any particular moment in time. For example, whenever a user selects an item provided by one of the four strips WHO731, WHAT733, WHERE735, and WHEN737, the other strips and lozenges automatically react by providing the user with the content and features within the context of each strip that the user may most likely desire based on the user's selection.
• Whenever a user selects a contact name for a person or a group the other strips automatically adjust the information displayed based on the selection. For example, if the user selects “John Merk” in the People lozenge of the WHO strip731, then the Read lozenge of the WHATstrip733 also displays all current message threads between the user and John Merk. Similarly, the Calendar lozenge of theWHEN strip737 displays all upcoming appointments with John Merk and all events that the user is coordinating with him; and the maps lozenge of theWHERE strip735 displays an address and associated map for John Merk.
• Focusing may be initiated by selection of content, inputs, or features from any of the strips of the user interface. For example, if the user selects a new message “John Erikson about Fishing Trip,” the People lozenge displays a list of the contacts associated with the Fishing Trip, and the Calendar tab displays the event on the calendar which is being referred to, and the locations lozenge of theWHERE strip735 displays the boat company chartered for the trip and a map of the area surrounding the boat launch. In another example, if the user selects an event “Weekend Away” from the activities lozenge, the conversational thread regarding this event opens automatically in the Read lozenge of the WHATstrip733, and the People lozenge opens to show Sharon's contact information.
• FIG. 35 shows an example of a process3500 for focusing of the lozenges. The process starts3501 when a user accesses the user interface. The server initially populates the people lozenge with “Me” which is automatically highlighted as default in the initial startup of theuser interface3505.
• The applications server determines up to ten contacts from the user contact database for the highlighted name in the peoples lozenge. The server selects the contacts based on the ten most frequently used contact, the ten most recently used contacts, or a combination of both. The server uses the determined contacts to fill the contact list of the people lozenge3510.
• The applications server determines up to ten of the most used groups which include the name of the contact highlighted in the people lozenge (in the first instance it is the default “me”). The determined groups are then used to fill the group contact list of groups lozenge3515.
• The applications server determines up to ten of the most frequently used activities scheduled with name highlighted in the people lozenge. During an initial period of use, or if there are few activities the user has actually participated in, the system may select activities from a default list of activities based on the user profile in conjunction with the time of day, the weather, any nearby holidays, the user's location, and the time of year. The server uses the determined activities to populate the list of activities display in the activities lozenge3517.
• The applications server determines up to ten of the most used locations scheduled for the contact name highlighted in the people lozenge. The server uses the determined locations to populate the list of locations provided by the locations lozenge3520.
• The applications server determines message threads involving the contact highlighted in the people lozenge. The server selects up to ten message threads and populates the read lozenge with the thread identifiers of the selectedmessage threads3522. The server selects the newest threads over older or unanswered threads.
• The applications server determines all events including the contact highlighted in the people lozenge. The server populates the calendar with the determined events including the highlighted contact and theuser3525. If the highlighted contact is not the user (i.e., “me” is not highlighted) and the contact is a user of theservice provider system110, the calendar displays any “busy time” from that person within the calendar lozenge (e.g., black areas labeled with that person's name).
• The system monitors the user interaction with the user interface and determines whether any people are highlighted3528. If a user selects a new contact from the people lozenge, the previously selected contact is un-highlighted and theprocesses3510,3515,3517,3520, and3522 are repeated for the newly highlighted contact. The system also monitors the user interaction with the user interface to determine whether a group is selected from the groups lozenge3535.
• If a group is selected, any contact previously selected in the people lozenge is un-highlighted3537. The applications server determines up to ten contacts in the group. The determined contact then use to populate the contact list of people lozenge3539.
• The applications server determines up to ten of the most frequently used activities scheduled with group highlighted in the group lozenge. The server uses the determined activities to populate the list of activities display in the activities lozenge3542.
• The applications server determines message threads involving the contact highlighted in the people lozenge. The server selects up to ten message threads and populates the read lozenge with the thread identifiers of the selectedmessage threads3543. The server selects the newest threads over older or unanswered threads.
• The applications server also determines up to ten of the most used locations scheduled for the group name highlighted in the groups lozenge. The server uses the determined locations to populate the list of locations provided by the locations lozenge3544.
• The applications server determines all events including the group highlighted in the groups lozenge. The server populates the calendar with any of the determined group events.3547
• If no group is selected, the server monitors whether any activity is selected3550. If so, any previously selected activities are un-highlighted3552. The server also determines up to ten of the most used locations previously scheduled with the selected group or contact regarding the selectedactivity3554. In addition, the calendar is filled with all events featuring the activity named3596.
• If no activity is selected, the server determines if a location is selected by theuser3560. If so, any previous locations are un-highlighted3561. The server determines a map of the selected location, and the server populates the maps lozenge with thedetermined map3565. The server also determines options including driving directions and others appropriate for the location and provides them on themaps lozenge3565. In addition, all events featuring the location are highlighted on thecalendar3570.
• The server monitors to see if any people are selected3528. If a user selects a new contact from the people lozenge, theprocesses3530,3510,3515,3517,3520, and3522 are repeated. If not, the server determines if any group is selected3535. If the user selects a new group from the groups lozenge, theprocesses3537,3539,3542,3543, and3544 are repeated for the newly highlighted group. If not, the server determines if any activity is selected3550. If the user selects a new activity, theprocesses3552,3554, and3556 are repeated for the newly highlighted activity. If not, the server determines if a location is selected3560. If so, theprocesses3561,3565, and3570 are performed. The server continuously monitors the user's interaction (e.g., processes3528,3535,3550, and3560) to focus the lozenges accordingly.
Mobile User Interface
• A modified user interface may be supplied for mobile platforms, such as mobile phones, smart phones, and PDA that have limited processing power and/or screens. For example, WAP cell phones may be provided with an “Agenda” that allows them to see the upcoming four hours of appointments as a default screen. The interface may be provided with a number of inputs that are most useful to a user in this environment. For example, for appointments in the agenda the user may select an appointment and be provided with user inputs for specific actions with regard to those appointment. For example, the user may selection the options: running late, can't make it, and cancel meeting (with verification). Selection of any of these options causes an automatic message to be sent all contacts associated with the appointment indicating the user is running late, can't make it, or needs to cancel. The automated message is created by the system service provider and sent to the contacts associated with the appointment. The message may be an instant message, email, automated phone message, or an alert or popup window of a system user's user interface. The user interface also may display the user's shopping list listing the user's items. A check box or other indicator may be provided to allow the user to check items off the list. In addition, the To-Do list may be provided allowing a user to see items on the list, add items to the list, and check items off the list. Conflict resolution “alerts” and resolution System wide—12 hr email and SMS notification on event change.
• In addition to the features provided for WAP cell phones, smart phones may provide the additional functionality. For example, the user's agenda may also provide action notices. The smart phone also may allow a user to reorder their To-Do List. The smart phone PDA includes the dynamic calendar. The dynamic calendar also the user to filter information via persona/family/business categories. In addition, the user may be presented with day/week views. The user may add an appointment, delete Appointment, and re-order appointments in a list.
Search Tool
• FIG. 36 shows an example of an improved search tool for use with the system. The system service provider includes a lot of information that may be harnessed to facilitate user searches. As pointed out above, items within lozenges may be focused for users depending on the actions with the user interface. Similarly, user search of the web and system data may be focused. The user interface may provide a search tool. The search tool includes aword entry field719 to enter key words. Two inputs are provided to search the key words on theInternet721 and within thesystem722. In addition, any item may be dragged to theentry field719 to create a search term.
• The user enters a search term3601 and selects theInternet input721 to start a filtered Internet search. The service provider system accesses a commonsearch term database3605 to search3610 for common search terms that may produce irrelevant or unwanted search results. Thecommon term database3605 includes a database of terms that may have common different meanings which may lead to ambiguity. For example, the term apple may be related to a fruit, a computer, a tree, bowling term, slang for drug, and a mollusk. The system determines whether the search term appears in the database3615. If the term does not appear, the system submits the term to a search engine in itsoriginal form3620. If the term is found in the common term database, the system searches theuser profile3621 andother db items3622 associated with the user (e.g., the to-do list, shopping list, calendar) to see if user data provides additional information that indicates what context of the search the user actually intended3630.
• The system determines whether the user data indicates a particular meaning from among the common terms determined3640. If the system determines a particular meaning, the system selects the modifiedsearch term3645 and submits the modify search to thesearch engine3650. For example, if user profile indicates a user is60 year woman, shopping list includes pie crust, and has visit from arborist, terms computer company, mollusk, slang and bowling may be eliminated and a refined search of apple fruit and apple tree is provided to the search engine. Regardless of which search is performed (i.e.,3620 or3660), the search results are converted to a system packet that appears in the appropriate lozenge which may be dragged anywhere in thesystem3660.
Glads
• The system service provider is able to promote marketing/advertising/sales of products and services through electronic delivery of digital media, information, and content including coupons, incentives, discounts, promotions, product information, product descriptions, product comparisons, and new product/service introductions. The marketing/advertising/sales of products and services is promoted based on user data, including user profile, history, and demographic information; timing, location, and/or activity (or any combination of these among others) about the user; and the association of the user with other system users, to provide the marketing/advertising/sales information to the user when the presentation of the digital media has a higher chance or probability of impacting a user's behavior. In addition, dynamic filters associated with the marketing/advertising/sales information may be specifically tailor by system partners to target a desired user with a degree of granularity never before possible with any online marketing system.
• The digital media, information, and content used by the system service provider to promote goods and services are graphical “ads” or Glads. Glads are stored in a system Glad database and include Glad art, for presentation in the graphics bar of the user interface, and Glad filters for targeting specific users. The Glad art may include one or more of a message, an advertisement, a commercial, a description, a price, a discount, a coupon, a voucher, a ticket, a rebate, a redemption, a promotion, an offer, a slogan, a trademark, a service mark, a tag line, a company, business, or organization logo, brand, or other identification. Glad filters also include various parameters and conditions that filter the who, what, when, where of how to trigger the serving of the Glads for presentation in the products andservices branding area726 of the user interface. As a result, Glads are provided to the system users having the most likelihood of being interested in the Glad. Glads may be created by thesystem service provider110 and bysystem partners125 and stored in a Glad database.
• FIG. 37 illustrates an example of the information anddata3700 that may be stored in connection with a Glad in the Glad DB. Typically, a Glad many includeGlad art3701, afile type3710, asystem partner identifier3720, anidentifier3730, aweb address3740,filter conditions3760,display parameters3770, andhistorical data3780.
• A Glad includes digital content orGlad art3701 that is presented to users in the graphics bar707 of the user interface. The digital content may include one or more of a graphic, an image, a picture, a video, and an audio component stored as a digital file. Some examples of the file types of digital formats that may be used include .gif, .jpeg, and .swf; however, any digital media that may be presented by a web browser and/or plugin may be used. The digital content also may include any number of characters, colors, shapes, logos, images, animations, visual and sound effects that covey a message to promote a product, a goods, and/or a service. In addition, a trademark, a service mark, a tag line, a company, business, or organization logo, and brand may be provided. It should be noted thatFIG. 37 is representational and shows information associated with a Glad, but does not necessarily correspond with the actual database structure. For example, the same Glad art may be associated with multiple and different campaigns and filter conditions. As a result, instead of storing a separate copy of Glad art for each Glad, a reference or pointer to the file location of the Glad art may stored and used to access the Glad art associated with the Glad when serving the Glad art to the user interface.
• Anindicator3710 of the file type (e.g., .gif, .jpeg, and .swf) may be stored in association with the Glad to direct the system to use appropriate applications to serve the Glad to the user interface. The system partner identification3720 (e.g., a code, a name, a number) allows the system to identify any Glads with campaigns, monitor system partner operations, and to generate reports. TheGlad identifier3730 may be used by the system to identify a Glad. Aweb address3730 may be used to provide a link to a specific a website or webpage associated with the Glad. For example, the web address may be used by the user's browser to display the website based on a certain user interaction with the Glad displayed in the user interface. For example, if a user selects the Glad art displayed (e.g., double selecting, such as double clicking on theGlad art3701 on the user graphics bar), the web address may be used to navigate a popup browser to display a webpage or other online content associated with the Glad.
• Thedescription3750 may include information about the Glad. Thedescription3750 may include information about a product or a service associated with the glad, such as a name, a category, a type, a SKU, and a brand. The description also may include the type of Glad, such as an advertisement, a commercial, a promotion, a coupon, a voucher, a ticket, a rebate, or an offer. Thedescription3750 may include an amount, a discount, or a value associated with the glad.
• A number offilter conditions3760 are associated with the Glad for use by the system logic to identify and/or trigger Glads that a user may interested in. The filters conditions include who, what, where, and when conditions and criteria that are used for comparison to user data stored in association with the WHO, the WHAT, the WHERE, and the WHEN strips of user interface and the user profile information in addition to other data associated with the user (e.g., the weather at a user's location). The who conditions filter for groups, family and friends, and the user. The most general filter is the group filter. The group filter targets contacts based on demographics of a user group. Family and friends is more specific filter targeting individuals based on demographic for individuals having a personal relation to the user, such as family members, friends, and business associates. The most specific filter is who which targets the individual user based on individual demographics, such as information stored in the user's personal profile. For example, user personal profile information that may be used to target individuals includes age, gender, income, hobbies/interests, previous shopping data, and other demographic information about individuals stored in the user profile.
• The what conditions filter for a secondary activity/event, a primary activity/event, a category, a brand, a product name, and a SKU. The most general of the filters is the secondary activity/event in which a particular product/service type is specified based on the activity associated with a calendar event to which a user is invited to. The primary activity/event filter specifies a particular product type based on the activity found in a calendar event generated by the user. The category filter specifies a particular product/service category or type of product (e.g., food, grocery, meat, dairy, produce, office supply, furniture, sporting equipment, clothing, electronics, books) much like the areas in a department store that are found in association with a user's to-do or shopping list. The brand filter specifies a particular brand of product. The product name filter specifies a particular product name. The most specific filter is a SKU number or code that specifies a particular product Stock Keeping Unit (SKU) (e.g., found on a user's shopping list).
• The where conditions filter for location, such as weather, a mobile location, a destination, and a home location. The most general filter is the weather in which an advertiser specifies a particular product/service type based on the weather conditions at the location of a user. The mobile location filter is used to specify a particular product/service type based on the GPS location of a user's mobile phone or web-enabled mobile phone. The destination filters are used to specify a particular product/service type based on the user's scheduled destination locations (e.g., a location of an event). The most specific where filter is the user's home location which specifies a particular product/service type based on the user's device's actual physical location.
• The when conditions filter for a current time and a scheduled time. The current time filter allows a particular product/service type to be specified based on the current (e.g., post Glad between June 1^stand June 16^thfor a Father's Day sale). In addition, the current time may filter for days of the week (e.g., Mon-Sun) and time of day (e.g., morning, afternoon, evening, late night). The scheduled time filter allows a particular product/service type to be specified based on the time of a future or past scheduled event in the user's calendar (e.g., post Glad between x days before a calendar event and y days before a calendar event or post Glad between x days after a calendar event and y days after a calendar event), such as, a discount for an airplane ticket provided two weeks before a user's scheduled trip indicated on their calendar.
• One or more of the conditions filters3760 may be specified for each Glad to tailor who the Glad is served to wherein the more filters specified the more specific the individual user targeted becomes.
• Display parameters3770 also may be provided for the Glad. For example, if there are more Glads than may be displayed in the products andservices branding area726 of the user interface, a rotation of Glads may begin so Glads are not excluded from presentation to the user. As a result, the a duration may be provided such as “present Glad for minimum of minimum x seconds or minutes per presentation.”. A system partner also may customize the presentation of Glads as part of an overall marketing campaign or to prevent saturation of presentation of a particular Glad. Therefore, the Glad may include additional criteria for Glad presentation and display, such as “do not rotate this Glad” and present this Glad for “x minutes/hours/days.” In addition, an parameter indicating the Glad may be automatically customize by including message that inserts the customer name may be provided.
Glad Placement Logic
• Thesystem service provider110 uses a Glad placement application to match the appropriate Glad content with a user based on specific information stored about the user in the user database. The service provider system provides powerful Glad placement because of the detail of information that the system has available at any given time for any system user. In order to match content, the system searches the individual events, and the daily to-do and shopping lists stored in association with a user account to determine if any there are any Glads that match items a user may be looking for at that moment. While searching the system also looks at all user information and compares the information against the triggers or conditions in the Glad database to select and deliver specific advertising content/campaign to the user. At the very minimum, the Glad placement application posts targeted Glads to the user even if there are no daily events based on other conditions for the day, such as weather, seasonality, holidays, and other factors. In addition, the Glad placement application may verify that the campaign is appropriate for the demographics, date, day-of-week, and weather, of a user. If a Glad is determined to be a good match, then the Glad is presented to the user.
• FIG. 38 shows one example3800 of the glad placement application process. Theuser database3801 includes information on user events, shopping list, to-do list, groups, locations, and profile including a purchase history. The system also includes a database ofadvertisements3810, such as, for example, Glads. TheGlad database3810 includesGlad Filters3811 andGlad Art3812. In addition, some of the Glads may be provided by a system partners125 runningGlad campaigns3813, as explained in further detail below. In addition, other information sources, such as aweather database3815 or information outlet (e.g., national weather service) may provide information to the system about weather conditions for a user. The service provider system Glad placement application continuously monitors time sensitive items from the user database3820. In particular, the system may monitor those items of the user database having time elements, such as user calendar events, the to-do list, and the shopping list.
• The Glad placement application constantly monitors the dynamic and ever changing user data stored in association with the user database to determine if any Glads are good candidates for presentation to auser3855. In order to determine if any Glads are appropriate, the system monitors theuser database3801 and compares items in the database for each user to thefilters3811 associated with the Glads to determine any user data items matching thoseconditions3855. The determination may include using a natural language interpretation (NLI) application and a search function (e.g., described above for focusing). In addition, information stored by the user database (e.g., the user profile) may be used to interpret what if any goods, products, or services are associated with an item on a shopping, to-do list, or calendar event. For example, since the system maintains a shopping/buy history database to store items purchased by the user, and since people often buy the same items over-and-over, the shopping history may be useful in aiding the system to interpret items entered on the shopping list. The determination also may include checking current or predicted weather from a weather database ornation weather service3815. When determining a match, the system Glad placement logic uses data in the condition filters to determine if the Glad truly is a good candidate or match for a particular user. For example, the system may determine if the Glad is for the right user demographic, the right day/day-of-week, that the Glad is active, the right temperature at a user location, and that the user has not already placed an order or bought the item.
• If a match is determined3840, theGlad Art3812 is served to the user interface for presentation in the graphic bar of theuser interface3841. The system Glad placement application also determines if there is enough space in the graphic bar to present the Glad3843. If there is enough space, the Glad is presented3845. If the graphics bar is already full of Glads, the system rotates out the oldest glad after a predetermined minimum period for display for the oldest Glad is met3850, and then presents the new Glad in the vacatedslot3845.
• FIG. 39 shows another example3900 of the Glad placement logic for making a comparison between a user and the Glad logic filters. The Glad placement application selects a Glad from theGlad database3901, and selects a user fromuser database3910.
• The application compares the who filter associated with the Glad to determine if the demographics of the conditions specified apply to theuser3915. For example, for each who filter condition specified, the system determines if the condition is met for the user. In this case all condition specified must be met. Any unspecified condition is met. If no who conditions are specified, the who filter is automatically satisfied. Examples of the conditions include user demographics, family/friends demographics, and group demographics. In order to check these conditions the system checks theuser profile3807 and the user contacts/groups3805. If any condition is not met, then the application determines that filter is not satisfied, and the application determines if all users have been checked3920. If not, the application selects another user for processing for the selected Glad3910. If all users are checked, the application selects another Glad forprocessing3901.
• The application also compares the what filter associated with the Glad to determine if the conditions specified apply to theuser3925. For example, for each what filter condition specified, the system determines if any condition is met for the user. Any unspecified condition is met. If no What conditions are specified, the What filter is automatically satisfied. Examples of the conditions include a SKU, a Product Name, a Brand, a Category, an primary activity (a user's activity), a Secondary activity (one a user is invited to). In order to check these conditions the application determines if items in the users shopping list, to-do list, and calendar events meet the condition. To do this, a NLI may be used to determine if an item on the list corresponds to an item in the condition. In addition, the user profile and shopping history may be consulted to aid in the identification and/or provide disambiguation between multiple meanings for items. If any condition is met, then the application determines that filter is satisfied. If no what conditions are met, the application determines if all users have been checked3920. If not, the application selects another user for processing for the selected Glad3910. If all users are checked, the application selects another Glad forprocessing3901.
• The application also compares the where filter associated with the Glad to determine if the conditions specified apply to location of theuser3930. For example, for each filter condition specified, the system determines if the condition is met for the user. Any unspecified condition is met. If no where conditions are specified, the what filter is automatically satisfied. Examples of the conditions include a home location, a calendar event determined destination, a mobile (GPS) location, or weather at a user's location. If the where conditions are not met, then the application determines that filter is not satisfied, and the application determines if all users have been checked3920. If not, the application selects another user for processing for the selected Glad3910. If all users are checked, the application selects another Glad forprocessing3901.
• The application compares the when filter associated with the Glad to determine if the timing conditions specified apply to theuser3935. For example, for each filter condition specified the system determines if the condition of the timing of the Glad and the timing of the user is met. The timing conditions include a current time and a scheduled timing. The current time is a post/pull calendar dates. Unlike the other items, the post/pull dates filter condition may always be specified. In addition, day of the week and time of day (e.g., morning, afternoon, evening, late night) may be specified for the current time. A second condition is between x days before/after a scheduled timed item and y days before/after a scheduled timed item or calendar event. In this case, if the condition satisfying that What condition was a timed event (e.g., a calendar event or a shopping list/to-do item with a time specified), then the second timed condition is applied. If any condition is not met, then the application determines that filter is not satisfied, and the application determines if all users have been checked3920. If not, the application selects another user for processing for the selected Glad3910. If all users are checked, the application selects another Glad forprocessing3901.
• If all the Glad filter conditions are satisfied, the user is considered a match; the Glad is served to the user interface associated with the user3940. The application determines if all users have been checked3920. If not, the application selects another user for processing for the selected Glad3910. If all users are checked, the application selects another Glad forprocessing3901.
• It should be noted that the matching of filters for who, what, where, and when, may be performed in any order; however, certain orders may provide faster processing speeds. Optimal orders of filters may be determined over time from empirical data and testing. In addition, parallel processing of the logic is possible. For example, multiple applications and processors may focus on a specific number, selection, or group of Glads and/or users from within the whole system.
• The following example illustrates the Glad placement process.
• A Glad #113 includes a .jpg file of a coupon for $5 off “Spicy Good BBQ sauce” and includes a link to the website www.spicygoodbbq.com. The Glad filter conditions are specified as follows: WHO [user demographics=men and 18-50 years old, family/friends demographics unspecified, group demographics=unspecified]; WHAT [SKU=unspecified, product name barbecue sauce, brand=unspecified, category=condiments, activity=barbecue, picnic, BBQ secondary activity=unspecified]; WHERE [home=unspecified, calendar event determined destination=unspecified, mobile (GPS)=unspecified, weather=unspecified]; and WHEN [current time=between post/pull calendar dates 06-21-08 to 09-21-08, Day of week=unspecified, and Time of day=unspecified; and scheduled time=between “x days before the scheduled calendar event” and “y days before the calendar event” x,y=30, 0].
• A system user Martha a 35 year old female living in Seattle Wash. has an appointment on her calendar for Sunday, July 13th titled “BBQ.” Martha's husband Bill, also a system user, is a 39 year male with the same appointment on his calendar. The Glad placement application selects Glad #113 for placement on Jun. 23, 2008. The placement application searches through system users' for placement of the Glad. Selecting Martha the application applies the Who filter. In this case, the application determines demographic filter is for men between 18-50 and compares it Martha's personal profile and determines she is female age 35. The condition is not met.
• The placement application selects the next user Bill. The application applies the Who filter. In this case, the application determines the demographic filter is for men between 18-50 and compares it to Bill's personal profile and determines he is male age 39. The condition is met. The remaining who conditions are unspecified, and therefore are met.
• The placement application applies the What filter. The placement application determines the Glad #113 what conditions are barbecue sauce on shopping list, any kind of condiments on shopping list, or any upcoming events on their calendars with the words barbecue, picnic, or BBQ. Comparing these to Bill the system finds BBQ in an event for Bill and the what condition is met.
• The application applies the where filter. In this case, all where conditions are unspecified, so the where condition is automatically met.
• The application applies the when filter. The placement application determines Glad #113 when conditions are that the Glad will run between 06-21-08 and 08-21-08” (summer) and that if it was a timed item or event that satisfied the What condition, the triggering timed or calendar event must be within the next month (30 days before to 0 days before). The current date at Bill's user device is Jun. 23, 2008 so the first condition is met. Day of week and time of Day are unspecified so they are met. In addition, the item triggering the what condition was a calendar event so the application determines the BBQ appointment is for July 13th and therefore is within the next 30 days or month so the second condition is met.
• As all filters Who, What, Where, and When have been met, the application places an image on Bill's user interface of BBQ Ribs with the Text SPICY GOOD $5 dollars OFF a bottle with any purchase. Bill sees the Glad and clicks on it, and a window opens to window to the website www.spicygoodbbq.com with the offer and a description of the product. Enticed Bill drags the Glad to his shopping list. The coupon is then offered for printing when Bill downloads or prints his shopping list.
• FIG. 40 shows on example4000 of a process for user interactions with Glads once the Glad is served to the graphics bar of the user interface. When user selects a glad4001, the system identifies the user input and performs the desiredaction4010. For example, if the user drags a glad to the calendar the system creates and event with the Glad. The system also determines if the user interaction is dragged the item to the buy lozenge to attempt to purchase therelated item4020. If the user drags the Glad to buy lozenge, the buy lozenge is activated and the system attempts to purchase therelated item4025 using the instructions provided via the buy lozenge, and apply, present, redeem any incentive or discount provided by the Glad. The system informs the user of the results theuser4030. If the system purchases the item and the Glad was triggered by an item on the user's shopping or to-do list, the system queries the user if it should tick of the item as completed. In addition, the system stores a summary of the interaction with the Glad for thecampaign database4035.
• If the user has not engaged the system in an automatic buying of a product, the system determines whether the user is going shopping4040. If user is not shopping, the system stores a summary of the interaction with the glad for thecampaign database4035. If the user is going shopping, the system checks local store inventors for the item and any other items on the user'sshopping list4045. If the a relationship with a local business is established to allow the system servers to access store specific information and inventory data, the system searches this information to determine if a store has existing inventory and where the items are located. The system provides the results of the inventory search to theuser4050. The system also plans the shopping trip by selecting the best route or commute for theuser4055. The system finds the best route using a mapping database to provide directions from store-to-store needed to purchase all items on the shopping list. The map, route, and direction may be presented on the Maps lozenge of the user interface. In addition, the system also may provide point-to-point driving directions and in-store maps to find the items on the list, an example of which is shown inFIG. 41. If the user is at home, a pop-up a box offering to print the Glad and or any incentives or coupons associated with the Glad is provide and a shopping agenda is provided to the user at the user's specifiedhome device4060. The system also offers to download the information to the mobile device to store coupons, directions, and a shopping agenda. The user also is given the option to send an order to the store for any items on the shopping list, to preprocess the order and have the user's selection waiting for them for pickup and/orpayment4065. In addition, the system stores a summary of the interaction with the Glad for thecampaign database4035.
System Partners
• Asystem partner125 may be any type of individual, group, or entity that provides products, goods, or services. The system partner also may be a branding company that subsidizes or sponsors a user account on the service provider system. The sponsored accounts may be offered to a user as a branded gift, a customer promotion, or incentive. The graphical user interface, described above, providing access to the service provider system via one of the sponsored accounts may be branded with logos, art, images, and advertising, and other digital media and/or content to brand the user interface and promote the system partner. In particular, a branded user interface provides a year-round targeted marketing vehicle for the system partner's products, goods, and services. The service provider system also provides the system partner with a powerful marketing/advertising tool that is able to target individual users with increasing degrees of specificity to provide the right information or incentive, at the right time and location and therefore substantially increase the likelihood of the user interacting with or using the advertisement. Theservice provider system110 allows system partners125 to design ad campaigns that market directly to users based on their interaction with theservice provider system110 and the user information stored by the system databases.
• Eachsystem partner125 is granted access to theservice provider system110 through acommunication path130 to create and design a glad campaign, to view the results of previous and existing campaigns, and to edit campaigns. In one example, asystem partner125 may be provided with a username, a password, and an address or a locator to provide a browser with access to a website provided forsystem partner125 by theservice provider system110. The system partner website provides a portal for thesystem partner125 to access a glad placement application to manage a glad campaign. The glad creation application provides a system partner user interface that includes a Glad creation screen and a report screen. The Glad creation screen provides an interface to a system partner to upload information to create and edit Glads and determine how Glads are targeted to system users. The report screen provides the system partner with a tool to monitor glad placement and glad campaigns.
• FIG. 42 shows one example4200 of a Glad creation screen used to create Glads. Creating a Glad includes uploading the digital media and description that is served up to the user, selecting filters used by the service provider system for Glad placement, and submitting the Glad. The creation screen includes afile entry field4210 andbrowse button4215. Thefile entry field4210 is used to enter a file location for the digital media that will be used to create the Glad. Thebrowse button4215 provides a convenient way to search for the file location of a glad by providing a drop down menu (not shown) of file locations and navigation buttons to help location a desired glad file. Once the file is located and/or selected the file path/location is displayed in thefile entry field4215.
• The creation screen also provides a visual representation of glad filters depicted as a series of pyramids. The pyramids include inputs to set filters for serving the Glads to system users. The pyramids include aWHO pyramid4221, aWHAT pyramid4223, aWHERE pyramid4225, and aWHEN pyramid4227. The filters are used for comparison to user data stored in association with the WHO, the WHAT, the WHERE, and the WHEN strips of user interface. The each pyramid includes two or more filters that range from general (bottom of the pyramid) to specific (top of the pyramid) that may be used by a system partner to tailor a Glad campaign and how any Glad is served to a system user.
• The who pyramid includes filters forgroups4231, family andfriends4233, and theuser4235. The most general filter is the group filter. The group filter targets contacts from a user group. Family and friends is more specific filter targeting individuals having a personal relation to the user, such as family members, business associates, and relationships (e.g., wife/husband, parent/child). The most specific filter is who which targets the individual user via information stored in the user's personal profile. For example, user personal profile information that may be used by the system partner to target individuals includes age, gender, income, hobbies/interests, and other demographic information about individuals stored in the user profile.
• The what pyramid includes filters for a secondary activity/event4241, a primary activity/event4242, acategory4243, abrand4244, aproduct name4245, and aSKU4246. The most general of the what filters is the secondary activity/event in which a particular product/service type is specified based on the activity associated with a calendar event to which a user is invited to. The primary activity/event filter specifies a particular product type based on the activity found in a calendar event generated by the user. The category filter specifies a particular product/service category or type of product (e.g., food, grocery, meat, dairy, produce, office supply, furniture, sporting equipment, clothing, electronics, books) much like the areas in a department store that are found in association with a user's to-do or shopping list. The brand filter specifies a particular brand of product. The product name filter specifies a particular product name. The most specific filter is a SKU number or code that specifies a particular product SKU (e.g., found on a user's shopping list).
• The where pyramid includes filters based on location, such asweather4251, amobile location4253, adestination4255, and ahome location4257. The most general filter is the weather in which an advertiser specifies a particular product/service type based on the weather conditions at the location of a user. The mobile location filter is used to specify a particular product/service type based on the GPS location of a user's mobile device. The destination filters are used to specify a particular product/service type based on the user's scheduled destination locations (e.g., a location of an event). The most specific where filter is the user's home location which specifies a particular product/service type based on the user's device's actual physical location.
• The when pyramid includes filters for acurrent time4261 and a scheduledtime4263. The current time filter allows a particular product/service type to be specified based on the specific time at the user location (e.g., a current time, a day, a day-of-week, a time-of-day). The scheduled time filter allows a particular product/service type to be specified based on the time of a future scheduled event in the user's calendar.
• The system partner selects a particular step of the pyramid to activate the particular filter. Multiple filters on each pyramid may be selected and filters on one of more different pyramids may be selected. A pop up window4271 is presented to solicit additional information about specific condition within the filter if necessary. The popup window4271 may include a list of items4273 (e.g., hot, below zero, rain, snow), an input4275 (e.g., a check box) to select the item, and an indication4277 (e.g., a check mark) of selected items. Filters and conditions within filters may be left unspecified. Examples of specific conditions that may be solicited by who pyramid are as follows. For example, the user filter a popup window may request “Provide information on the type of user you wish to target?” Options may include age range, income range, hobbies/interests, gender. For the family/friends filter the system may indicate “the item or service is not for the user, but for someone they know. What is their relationship to the user?” Options provided may include husband, wife, son, daughter, niece, nephew, grandson, granddaughter, grandmother, grandfather, mother, father, friend, and business associate. The group popup window may solicit information based on the subjects derived from system data stored for groups allowing the advertiser to specify a general subject area for groups that the user might be involved in. Subjects may be determined or drawn from actual user data broken into groups, such as recreation, sports, scholastic, hobbies, activities, outdoor, nature, etc.).
• The SKU filter popup window may solicit a specific product identifier, such as a UPC code(s) (e.g.: 792850110991 for Burt's bees beeswax lip balm). The product name popup window solicits a product name (e.g., lip balm). The brand popup solicits a brand name (e.g., Chap Stick). A category popup window solicits a product category which may be selected from a pre-made list or via a data entry field (e.g., personal care products). The primary activity/event window may solicit a particular product type based on a user created activity found on calendar event generated by the user (e.g., beach, skiing, boating) and activities drawn from actual user data, such as recreation, sports, scholastic, hobbies, activities, outdoor, etc. The secondary activity/event popup window solicits the same information as primary event except that it specifies activities that the user is invited to.
• The weather popup window solicits information about weather at the user's location, such as hot (over 90°), warm (over 60°), cold (below 40°), freezing (below 0°), rain, and snow.
• The scheduled time window solicits information about when to deliver the glad based a date range and on a future or past date. The window may provide a date entry field and/or mini calendar to enter a date range for the glad. The current time popup window provides inputs for specific times that may be provided specified to deliver the glad based on a current time, such as days of the week, time of day (e.g., morning, afternoon, evening, late night).
• Once the file location of the glad digital media has been specified and the filters have been determined, the system partner may select the submitbutton4281 to upload the Glad digital medium to the glad database and save the select filters in association with the glad. The browser uploads the file using any of the available automated file transfer protocols. The glad digital and the proposed filter setting are stored in a database in a package called a Glad Pack. The system service provider may review the Glad Pack to assure that the content meets the minimum standards (e.g., file type, graphics, content, decency) and the filter settings provided. Once approved the Glad Pack data is provided to the customer incentive database, or they contact the system partner to make changes or adjustments to the Glad Pack info.
• In one example, a system partner Big Time Golf wants to create a glad for upcoming father's day sale of 20% Supreme golf clubs. Big Time golf uploads an image of a man receiving a card from his son with his wife looking on and a big bow around a set of new Supreme golf clubs including Big Time Golf logo and theindication 20% off all Supreme Clubs. Setting the filters, Big time golf specifies who (family and friends=father, son, daughter, wife, grandfather), what (product name=golf clubs; brand=supreme; category=sports primary activity=golf; secondary activity=golf), and when (scheduled time=June 1^stthrough June 16^th).
• The service provider system continuously checks the glad database to determine if any glads are presented via the user interface. The system searches through data stored for each user in association with the who, what, where, and when strips and the user profile. In particular, the system searches the items in the lozenges associated with each strip to compare the data stored for each user lozenge to the filters provided for the glad in the system partner campaign database. For example, the system searches items stored for the To-Do and Shopping lists, and interprets the items for comparison against the contents of the conditions in the glad database to trigger any specific glad for presentation to a user. When the system determines the user data meets the conditions stored in association with the glad, then the glad is presented via the user interface.
• FIG. 43 shows an example4300 of the report screen. The report screen displays a summary of a Glad campaigns, detailed information, and reports for each Glad campaign that has been created by a system partner. The screen includes asummary window4310, a details window4320, and areport window4330. The summary provides an indication of how many Glads campaigns are active and inactive. In addition, the summary provides overall information of how many Glads have been presented, how many Glads have been selected or otherwise viewed, and how many Glads have been associated with product purchases by time periods, such as month, week, and day.
• The detail window4320 presents individual information for each Glad campaign. The window4320 includes a system identifier of the Glad4321, a thumbnail representation/preview of the Glad4323, associated filter information (e.g., under which conditions it is shown)4324 and specific information for how many times a Glad has been displayed, interacted with by a user (e.g., viewed, manipulated, selected, dragged, and/or clicked on), and how many times a Glad has been associated with or influenced a purchase. Anavigation aid820 is provided to navigate the list of Glads if there insufficient area within the detail window4320 to display all Glads at any one time.
• A reportswindow4330 is provided to automatically compile and generate reports from system data regarding the Glads. Thewindow4330 providesvarious inputs4331 that may be selected by the system partner to generate a desired report. Theinputs4331 specify a time period and types of Glads. The time periods that may be selected include: a daily report, a weekly report, a monthly report, and a year to date report. The types of Glads for which reports may be run include: by individual Glad, by all Glads, by active Glads, and by Historic Glads. Examples of other information an data which may be stored, tracked and presented include a campaign number, a campaign name (not shown), a campaign preview (e.g., a graphic), a number of views by users (not show), seconds on screen (not shown), number of “clicks” or “hits” (not shown). System partners also may review specific user's “clicks” in an archive history of user matches. Partners also may use the data to determine a level of interactivity, a level of user response to promotion, and to analyze hits by user locations and geography and other real time information to change or “fine tune” content or a campaign.
Drag and Drop Glads
• As mentioned above, when a glad is triggered or served it is placed in the graphics bar of the user interface. As shown inFIG. 44 the graphics bar426 includes four Glads for20% offExpensive Cheese4410, Wine by theBucket4420, Rebate on AllSony products4430, Trynew coffee4440. These Glads have been served to the user interface using the Glad placement logic. Once a Glad is displayed, a user may interact with the Glad. In particular, as described above, various items presented in the user interface may be dragged and dropped from one area to another (e.g., drag a contacts name from the group lozenge to the calendar lozenge to create an appointment with the contact). This is also true for Glads as shown inFIGS. 44-47. In an example shown inFIG. 44 a user notices a Glad for20% off Expensive Cheese found in a Gourmet food chain with a store located in the user's town. The user is interested because they are attending a wine and cheese party this weekend (e.g., as indicated by the event “wine and cheese”event4443 on their calendar). The user decides thiscoupon4410 might be just the thing to bring to the event but is not going shopping today. Therefore, in order to save the coupon for her shopping trip Thursday morning, she places a user selection device (e.g., a pointer or a cursor) in position (e.g., over the glad) to select a glad (e.g., clicking a mouse button) for the glad coupon for cheese, as shown inFIG. 45. As shown inFIG. 46, the glad is captured and dragged4601 to the calendar lozenge and dropped on a specific date or event. If no event on the calendar is present and event is created. If an event does exist the coupon is added to the event. In this case the service provider system automatically saves the glad coupon by creating anevent4701 associated with the user's calendar on May 15, 2008, as shown inFIG. 47. The user is automatically reminded or presented with the coupon on that date. The glad also may be accessed at any time by selecting the event. Glads also may be dragged to the top-do list, for example, a glad for lumber dragged to a to-do item build deck. Likewise, Glads may be dragged to the shopping list of the shopping lozenge to be associated with an item on the list. A glad may be dragged to an event to be stored in association with the event. A Glad may be dragged to a person on the people lozenge or group on the group lozenge to be sent by the user to the person or group. Dragging a Glad to the lozenge without direction to a particular item may be used to automatically create and item. For example, drag a glad to the shopping lozenge or to-do lozenge may be used to add the item to the shopping list or to-do list.
Family Organizer
• The family organizer may be implemented as a platform on ahome appliance155, asseparate user device150 that is added to an existing appliance, or as astandalone user device150. The family organizer presents a specialized version of the user interface, described above, that provides a household or family with many useful functions of the standard user interface in addition to other features specifically tailored to the home environment. The family organizer also includes additional hardware, as described below.
• As shown inFIG. 48, unlike the previous user interfaces described above the family user interface may be designed to run on a specific type offamily user device4800. Thefamily user device4800 includes the following features and functions. In one example, thefamily user device4800 may include adisplay4801. In one example the display may be sized to fit in a family environment, such as a kitchen appliance or countertop. For example, the user device display may be a seven to fourteen inch diagonal, although other sizes may be used. Any type of display that may be used to present digital content may be use, as described above for a user device. In one example, the display may be a continuously on, and backlit color LCD display or equivalent. In one example, screen of thedisplay4701 may be a touch screen, such as full-screen stylus or stylus-free touch-screens, or multi-touch touch screen technologies that interface with a browser application of the family device to provide its user primary input device. For example, the screen may be touched to select and manipulate content, such as items on lozenges and Glads from the graphics bar.
• Thefamily user device4800 includes aprocessing device4810 andmemory device4815 with, at a minimum, sufficient processing power and capacity to provide at least basic Internet browser functionality, such that a specialized version of the user interface (i.e., the family user interface) may be run on it. Theprocessing device4810 andmemory device4815 may be used to run applications and store data. The processing device, memory, and applications may be the same as described above for auser device101.
• Thefamily user device4800 also may include a built-in microphone, ADC, andsupport hardware4820 to allow limited voice recordings to be stored on the device's non-volatile memory. However, voice messages and recording also may be recorded and stored as sound files (e.g., .mp3 or .wav files) and provided to theservice provider system110 via acommunications interface4825 that may exchange data and content with theservice provider system110 usingvarious communications paths130. The family user interface may access the sound files or data for playback to the user. A built-inspeaker4830 and amplifier connected to theprocessing device4810 which is large and powerful enough to play voice records and sound effects at a volume that may be heard in a noisy family kitchen environment is provided. One or more user input devices4835 (e.g., a keyboard, keypad, mouse, and/or buttons) may be provided (in addition to the touch screen or in place of the touch screen if only an LCD display is provided) to operated and command the family device, its components, and to manipulate and interact with the family user interface. One or more generic or separate interfaces/drivers4849 may be provided to allow theprocessing device4810 to communicate with and/or drive the various peripheral components (4820,4830,4835, and4840).
• A Wi-Fi or other wireless access Internet technologies, functions or interfaces may be provided for or as part of thecommunications interface4825 to allow thefamily user device4800 to easily connect to the user's home wireless network or other wireless RF networks. For example, the organizer also may include RF mobile phone or cell technology components including an antenna and software and/or a dedicated processing device (not shown) to enable the sending and receiving a calls through a mobile network. The built inmicrophone4820 andspeakers4830 and its associated D/A and A/D circuitry may be used in this application.
• Thefamily user device4800 also may include a power source (not shown) such that the device is always on, always backlit, and/or ready to use at any time. Thefamily user device4800 provides the family user interface when turned on or powered on, and there is no need for the user to launch any applications or make any selections in order to get thedevice4800 to operate.
• In one example, thefamily user device4800 may be implemented as a standalone device similar in size and shape to “digital picture frames.” The stand-alone family organizer may include a fastening device that attaches to an appliance, such as a refrigerator, with rubberized non-slip magnets, or to other prominent locations with adhesive strips, such as inside the back door of the house, on the wall above a light-switch, or on a garage wall next to an entry to the house. A built infamily device4800 is essentially identical to the stand-alone device, except that it is built into an appliance, such as a refrigerator.
• Thefamily user device4800 also includes a bar-code reader4840. Thefamily user device4800 is provided with an activation device (e.g., a user input via the screen or a user input device or a mechanical switch or button on the housing of the organizer). A user may activate thebarcode reader4840 to scan abarcode4845 on anitem4847. Once activated, thebarcode reader4840 may remain on or active for a period of time (e.g., 15 seconds) allowingmultiple items4847 to be scanned. Thebarcode reader4840 may automatically shut-down after expiration of the period. In one example, thebarcode4845 may be a universal product code (UPC) barcode. Thefamily user device4800 also may include sufficient non-volatile memory to store a barcode database (e.g., about 90 meg) allowing theprocessing device4810 to quickly look up and/or determine the UPC and a corresponding description of abarcode4845 read from thebarcode reader4840. Theprocessing user device4810 periodically updates the UPC database by downloading data from theservice provider system110. A hard button (not shown) also may be provided on thefamily user device4800 to manually operate thebar code reader4840. In this case, operation of the button automatically causes theprocessing device4810 to send the data for scanned items to theservice provider system110 to be added to a shopping list for the family. In another example, anexternal barcode reader4870 that may be integrated with the communications interface and/or plugged into a port of theuser device101 along with any corresponding software and drivers, may allow auser device101 to operate as a fully functional family organizer.
• FIG. 49 illustrates one example4900 of a family user interface screen for the family organizer. The family user interface provides all of the functionality and inputs of the system user interface described above. For example, the family user interface includes aninformation bar705 and agraphics bar707. The information bar may include a customized descriptor4901 (“Henderson Family Organizer). Two additional inputs are also provided:yellow pages4910 andfood delivery4915.
• In addition, family user organizer4817 also includes theWHO731, WHAT733, WHERE735, and WHEN737 strips. Each of the strips also is provided with their corresponding lozenges (e.g., people, groups, activities, maps, etc) and inputs. In addition, the shopping lozenge includes anadditional input4920 “barcode.” Selecting this input causes the barcode reader to activate and read barcodes off items.
• The family user interface also may include an additionalvoice reminder lozenge4920. Thevoice minder lozenge4920 may be small or medium. The small voice lozenge only includes the title “voice minder.” The mediumvoice minder lozenge4920 also includes a voice recorder skin withinputs4925 record a message, andinputs4930 to play, pause, fast forward, rewind, and replay messages, and anindicator dial4937 of the amount of space left to record messages. To record a message, a user drags the name from the people lozenge to record a message for that person. The people lozenge includes anindication4940 of how many new messages a person has, and aninput4945 that may be selected to play the message.
• The family organizer also may be customized by the user.FIG. 50 illustrates a second display for the customized family organizer. To customize the family use interface, the user connects to the system service provider using any web-enableduser device101, such as, for example, a user's desktop or laptop computer. A webpage is provided to the user that includes a special menu option for customization. In response, the user enters customizing choices selected from the menu and is provided with the opportunity to upload content for presentation by the family organizer. Customizing parameters and/or content are sent to the family organizer via the web and changes are seen after a short delay. The user can customize the family organizer to decorate the screen with family pictures, run a slide-show of family images continuously, play videos, and add photo avatars for themselves and their contacts. In the example shown, inFIG. 50 theuser interface background5001 is set to a slide show of family photographs. In addition, three inputs are provided:Food delivery4910,Yellow Pages4915, andHome5005. Selection of food delivery and yellow pages causes separate windows to be presented as described below. Selecting thehome input5005 returns thefamily interface screen5000 to the display. Indicators fornew voice minders5010 andmessages5015 may be provided.
• FIG. 51 shows an example of thefood delivery screen5100 that is presented when thefood delivery input4915 is selected. A user may select any name in the people lozenge to focus a food choice search on that person's tastes (e.g., as stored in the user database and/or based on the information provided in their personal profile). Similarly, a user may select any name in the groups lozenge to focus a food choice search on that favorites associated with the group.
• A “One Touch Ordering” area5130present photo boxes5135 showing the six most recently ordered meals, regardless of restaurant or person selected. The user may simply select a box (e.g., clicking/touching the box) to cause the system service provided to automatically order the corresponding meal that was previously order for immediate delivery. In response, the system logs onto the restaurant or food deliver facilities webpage, provides the order and customer information including payment and delivery address. The system also provides confirmation message of the order in the users read lozenge.
• The family favorites window5140 (e.g., “Henderson's Favorites”) includes alist5145 of all local restaurants in order of last used. Selecting a restaurant from thelist5145 causes asecond window5148 to list, in order of frequency, the groups' favorite previous orders. A see full menu input5150 provides a menu of the selected restaurant in thesecond window5148 to allow new or custom orders to be selected a la cart from the list. After the order is selected, the user may selectorder input5151 to purchase the order. This causes the system to log onto the restaurant or food deliver facility web page, provide the order and customer information including payment and delivery address. The system also provides confirmation message of the order in the users read lozenge. The system saves the order information and adds the order to the one touch order area.
• Items from the one touch area andfamily favorites window5140 cannot be dragged to the Activities lozenge. However, when the activities lozenge is highlighted, the family favorites foods and restaurants are focused to that activity. Any item from the one touch area andfamily favorites window5140 may be dragged to the To-Do list, causing a To-do item to be created. When items from the To-Do list are highlighted, the family favorites foods and restaurants are focused to that activity. Items from the one touch area andfamily favorites window5140 also may be dragged to the Send lozenge to be shared or chatted about. Similarly, Items from the one touch area andfamily favorites window5140 also may be dragged to the locations lozenge, causing an item to be created. Location items, when highlighted cause windows to present the restaurant or food associated with that location. The maps lozenge always shows a map of any item or location that may be highlighted, in addition to the directions and a customer finder feature.
• The recycle bin is replaced withblock input5155, which removes a search entry from ever appearing again in the search boxes. As a result, a user may eliminate businesses from re-appearing if they do not like or have no interest in those businesses.
• FIG. 52 shows an example of the Yellow Pages orlistings directory screen5200 that is presented when theYellow Pages input4910 is selected. A user may select any name in the people lozenge to focus a Yellow Pages or other listings directory search on that person's interests (e.g., as stored in the user database and/or based on the information provided in their personal profile). Similarly, a user may select any name in the groups lozenge to focus a Yellow Pages or other listings directory search on that favorites associated with the group.
• The custom search window5230 default position is a search for the special interest items to the user or “me” in the peoples lozenge (e.g., “Bob Henderson”). The window5230 includes twosections5235 and5237. Thefirst section5235 shows custom yellow pages categories. Thesecond section5237 shows information for specific businesses. Thesections5235 and5237 display pre-fetched search items determined by the system based on data in their personal profile, to-do list, shopping list, and calendar.
• The Popular search window5250 shows items based on the user's local area (e.g., “Houston”). The window5250 includes twosections5255 and5257. Thefirst section5255 shows custom yellow pages categories based on what is popular in that area. Thesecond section5257 provides choices for a selected category that are presented in order of distance to the user's home.
• Certain items from thesearch window sections5237 and5257 may be dragged to the activities, such as items that may be associated with an activity. The associations are stored in a database. When activities are highlighted, thewindows5237 and5257 focus to find businesses associated with that activity. Any search item may be dragged to the To-Do list to cause an item to be created. When highlighted To-Do items focus to find businesses associated with that to-do list item. Search items may not be dragged to the shopping list; however, shopping items, when highlighted, cause the windows to focus to find businesses associated with that shopping item. Search items may be dragged to the Send lozenge to be shared or chatted about. Any search item can be dragged to the Locations lozenge, causing an item to be created. When highlighted, location items focus the search window to find businesses associated with that location. The maps lozenge always shows a map of any search item, or location that may be highlighted, in addition to directions and a customer finder feature.
• Thesearch bar5210 features a yellow pages search in addition to the system and Internet search to focus searches, as described above.
• The recycle bin is replaced withblock input5280, which removes a search entry from ever appearing again in the search boxes. As a result, a user may eliminate businesses from re-appearing if they do not like or have no interest in those businesses.
• FIG. 53 illustrates oneexemplary process5300 for shopping with the family organizer. In one example, the family organizer is placed in the kitchen on or in proximity to an appliance where food is stored and/or disposed of. When an item is used up or more of an item is desired, for example, milk, the user activates the barcode reader or via the button or the user input on the shopping lozenge of the family organizer interface5301. The processing device instructs the barcode reader to scan a barcode on the item (e.g., the UPC code on the item)5310. The barcode reader scans the bar code and provides the results to theprocessing device5320. The item associated with the bar code is determined by looking up the bar code in memory, by sending bar code data to the service provider system for identification, or by accessing anonline database5330.
• Once the processing device system service provider identifies the scanned item, for example, milk, the scanned item is automatically added to the family shopping list the group family is selected on the groups lozenge or the shopping list of a specific family member if their name is selected on the people lozenge5340. Once activated, the barcode reader may remain active for a predetermined period of time. The processing device determines if the predetermined period of time has elapsed5350. If not, the processing device determines if there are additional barcodes to scan5350. If there are the barcode reader and processing device may continue to scan items and add them to the shopping list until there are not items left and/or the timeout occurs. If the bar code data is provided to the system for identification, it may be sent as each barcode is read or as a batch if there are more than a single or a large number of items.
• Once the items have been added to the shopping list, the system monitors the shopping list to identify any relevant Glads for the items on theshopping list5360. In addition, when items are scanned and added to the list, the system automatically knows what the item is as the item was identified by its UPC. As a result, the system does not need to interpret these items on the list using the NLI and may directly identify potential Glads to serve to the graphics bar726 of the family organizer. Any identified Glads or incentives are presented to theuser5370. Identified Glads presented to the graphics bar may be dragged to the shopping list or the calendar for saving.
• As described herein, the shopping list may be printed and/or provided to the mobile device interface (e.g., a mobile phone or smart phone). Alternatively, if the user orders items from using an online shopping service, the system may be automatically setup to store specific scanned item by UPC numbers, name of item, and/or types of items (e.g., groceries and drugstore items) in a special shopping list associated with a specific online store or shopping service. When these items are scanned they are automatically stored on the store shopping list. The system may then be activated via the shopping lozenge to periodically log on to the online shopping site, provide the required user information including passwords and payment information (e.g., credit/debit card information), orders the items on the list, and schedule delivery. The personal profile allows a user to specify specific items and types of items thesystem service provider110 may automatically buy for the user. The user may specify what price ranges (e.g., a maximum, a minimum or both) that are okay for the system service provider to user in determining whether to make a purchase. The user profile buy information may include payment information, such as credit card, debit card, paypal, online banking information, a single purchase spending limit, a monthly purchase spending limit, and a card balance limit. The user also may delivery preferences, such as time of day or day of week. This automated buy feature may be activated/deactivated at any time by the user and a manual override may be provided. Any item with a barcode and/or a UPC information may be added to the shopping list and/or ordered this way.
• Of course, the add/search field of the shopping lozenge may be used by a user to manually entered a UPC number or product code (e.g., by typing, dragging, or cut and pasting) to add the item to the shopping list. In addition, the organizer may display pictures of items that are not normally associated with or have bar code items, for example, produce, such as vegetables, fruit, and bulk items. The user may select these items using a user input device to add these items to the shopping list.
• In addition, food associated items may be scanned to automatically look up recipes that user the food items or food items from the shopping list may selected to look up recipes. The recipes may be presented in a pop-window. The recipes may include food items with hyperlinks or other indicia allowing selection (e.g., check boxes, buttons, etc.) for each food item. The user may add individual food items to the shopping list by selecting the food item using a user input device. In addition a user selection is provided to select and add all food items in the recipe to the shopping list in amounts at least sufficient to make the recipe. Additionally, the user may print out the recipe.
• The shopping listibarcode feature is a powerful device for family users. Using this feature a user no longer has to worry about forgetting to put items on the shopping list. Furthermore, because any item that is scanned is automatically added to the shopping list in real time, even if an item is used up after someone has left to go shopping, the scanned item may be displayed on a user's mobile device shopping list of the mobile interface almost instantly and therefore the item is purchased. For example, a working parent plans to go shopping after work, and their kids at home after school use up all the milk. When the kids scan the item as the throw out the carton, the shopping list is instantly updated and Dad is none the wiser when he checks his shopping list at the store, thinking milk was on there all the time.
• A number of exemplary implementations have been described. Nevertheless, it will be understood that various modifications may be made. For example, suitable results may be achieved if the steps of described techniques are performed in a different order and/or if components in a described components, architecture, or devices are combined in a different manner and/or replaced or supplemented by other components. Accordingly, other implementations are within the scope of the following claims.

Claims (23)

1. A method of providing a group graphical user interface generated by a service provider system for display by a user client device, the method comprising:

storing contact information associated with a group including two or more members;

storing calendar information associated with the group members;

storing message information associated with the group members;

generating a dynamic webpage providing content automatically customized for the group by dividing the interface into a number of distinct thematically organized areas based on the contact information, the calendar information, and the message information, each area providing content and inputs based on the distinct theme;

receiving a user input in response to a group member interaction with the interface; and

dynamically adjusting the content provided by the webpage in response to the user input.

2. The method ofclaim 1 wherein dividing the interface into a number of distinct thematically organized areas includes dividing content into strips, each strip displaying the content and inputs associated with the theme.

3. The method ofclaim 2 wherein dividing content into strips includes providing a WHO strip to present user contacts for all group members and their contacts.

4. The method ofclaim 3 wherein providing a WHO strip includes providing contact information for people and groups.

5. The method ofclaim 2 wherein dividing content into strips includes providing a WHAT strip to present group member message content.

6. The method ofclaim 5 wherein providing a WHAT strip includes providing indicators of received messages.

7. The method ofclaim 2 wherein dividing content into strips includes providing a WHEN strip to present a group calendar content.

8. The method ofclaim 7 wherein providing a WHEN strip includes providing group calendar and event information.

9. The method ofclaim 2 wherein dividing content into strips includes providing a WHERE strip to present location content.

10. The method ofclaim 9 wherein providing a WHERE strip includes providing location information for contacts and events.

11. The method ofclaim 2 wherein receiving the user input includes receiving an input generated by a user input device in one of the strips, and dynamically adjusting the content provided by the webpage in response to the user input includes focusing content provided by each strip in response to the received user input.

12. The method ofclaim 2 wherein receiving a user input includes receiving an indication of content from one strip has be dragged to another strip, and dynamically adjusting the content provided by the webpage in response to the user input includes providing a system provider function.

13. The method ofclaim 1 further comprising:

receiving data generated by a barcode reader corresponding to a scanned item in response to the input;

automatically adding the received data to a shopping list associated with the group; and

providing the shopping list for display on the dynamic generated webpage including a representation of the scanned item.

14. The method ofclaim 13 further comprising storing advertisements in a data base, determining an advertisement that is relevant to the item in the shopping list, displaying the advertisement on the dynamic generated webpage.

15. The method ofclaim 14 wherein determining an advertisement is relevant includes filtering the advertisement based on the calendar information.

16. The method ofclaim 14 further comprising storing user profile information for the group members, and determining an advertisement is relevant includes filtering the advertisement based on family member user profile information.

17. The method ofclaim 5 further comprising:

receiving data generated by a barcode reader corresponding to a scanned item in response to the input;

automatically adding the received data to a shopping list associated with the group; and

providing the shopping list for presentation by the WHAT strip on the dynamic generated webpage including a representation of the scanned item.

18. The method ofclaim 14 further comprising receiving a user input indicating the advertisement has been selected, and storing the advertisement in association with the item on the shopping list.

19. The method ofclaim 18 further comprising:

automatically contacting an online storefront;

presenting the advertisement; and

purchasing the item for a price, wherein the advertisement is one of a coupon, a discount, an offer, or an incentive affecting the price or quantity of the item purchased.

20. The method ofclaim 13 further comprising automatically contacting an online storefront and purchasing the item for delivery to a family member.

21. The method ofclaim 13 further comprising transmitting the shopping list to a mobile processing device or mobile phone.

22. The method ofclaim 1 wherein generating a web page includes providing a one touch food delivery area to present depictions of previous food orders of group members wherein selection of the depiction causes an automated online food ordering and delivery process.

23. The method ofclaim 1 wherein the group is a family.

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