Patent Application
20140006518
This application relates to the field of Internet communications and cloud-based services, particularly in connection with personal information management and scheduling.
It has been estimated that the number of connected mobile devices in use, including mobile phones and tablets, currently exceeds the world population. In addition, market forecasts indicate that, by 2016, there will be over 10 billion of Internet-connected mobile devices, of which approximately eight billion will be smartphones and tablets.
Pervasive usage of mobile devices leads to fast growth of social mobile services. While many popular online services with increasing mobile presence, such as Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr, connect people in the virtual world, many other services are bringing together the digital and the real worlds. Examples include location-based social networks and social discovery projects, such as Foursquare, Highlight, Skout; appointment scheduling service ZocDoc; auto renting services Uber, GetAround, and Zipcar; meeting and event organizing sites and services Meetup and Constant Contact, and many others. These services aim at bringing together new people who never met each other before; offering tangible amenities, such as car/cab renting or doctor visits; etc. A significant number of services is integrated with users' mobile calendars and relies on them while scheduling meetings, appointments, and events.
In spite of recent advances, a significant area of conventional meetings between friends in their spare time has been left untouched. Mobile users don't receive much help in setting up their meeting during the time which is often marked by gray unscheduled space on their calendars, normally starting at 5 pm+ on workdays and/or occupying most of the day on weekends. Time, location, traffic, mood, friends' plans, individual and group interests and preferences, available local events and venues and many more factors play their roles in answering the question “how do I spend this evening?”
Accordingly, it is desirable to develop methods and systems for facilitating instant meetings between friends who haven't pre-scheduled any activities for a slot of their free time and rely on a mobile service to fill in the gap.
According to the system described herein, arranging a meeting between participants includes choosing a set of possible meeting participants, choosing a set of possible meeting times, choosing a set of possible meeting venues, announcing a possible meeting without knowledge of availability of at least some of the set of possible meeting participants, receiving, from at least some of the set of possible participants, preferences for at least one of: proposed meeting times and proposed meeting venues, automatically selecting a subset of meeting participants to meet at at least one particular location at at least one particular time at at least one particular venue according to preferences and availability of at least some of the set of possible meeting participants, where the subset of meeting participants is less than the set of possible meeting participants and where the subset of meeting participants is chosen based on the particular meeting venues and times, and sending an invitation to the subset of meeting participants. A first one of the participants may be a meeting organizer that initially chooses the set of possible meeting participants, the set of possible meeting times, and the set of possible meeting venues. A second one of the participants may become the meeting organizer while the first one of the participants is no longer the meeting organizer Prior to sending the invitation, the meeting organizer may eliminate choices from the subset of meeting participants, the at least one particular location, the at least one particular time, and/or the at least one particular venue. In response to the subset of meeting participants being less than two, the organizer may relax requirements for the meeting by choosing more possible meeting participants, adding possible meeting venues, adding possible meeting times, and/or expanding already-specified possible meeting times. After receiving the invitation, the subset of meeting participants may select the at least one particular location, the at least one particular time, and/or the at least one particular venue. The subset of meeting participants may be determined based at least in part on travel time for each of the possible meeting participants to a location of each of the set of possible meeting venues. The subset of meeting participants may negotiate a best meeting place and time after receiving the invitations. Following agreeing on a meeting place and time, confirmations and final meeting details may be sent to the subset of meeting participants. Following agreeing on a meeting place and time, a number of members of the subset of meeting participants may be decreased. Following agreeing on a meeting place and time, travel and meeting times may be blocked out for all of the subset of meeting participants. Following agreeing on a meeting place and time, the meeting place and time may be announced via social networks for others to join. Following agreeing on a meeting place and time, tracking information about at least some of the subset of meeting participants with location aware mobile devices may be provided to other ones of the participants. Following agreeing on a meeting place and time, the meeting place and time may be provided to invite others to join the meeting and the others may not be part of the set of possible meeting participants. The set of possible meeting venues may include virtual meeting venues and/or at least one venue that is mixed real and virtual, where some of the set of possible meeting participants meet in-person while others meet virtually.
According further to the system described herein, computer software, provided in a non-transitory computer-readable medium, arranges a meeting between participants. The software includes executable code that announces a possible meeting at possible meeting times and at possible meeting venues without knowledge of availability of at least some of a set of possible meeting participants, executable code that receives from at least some of the set of possible participants preferences for proposed meeting times and/or proposed meeting venues, executable code that selects a subset of meeting participants to meet at at least one particular location at at least one particular time at at least one particular venue according to preferences and availability of at least some of the set of possible meeting participants, where the subset of meeting participants is less than the set of possible meeting participants and where the subset of meeting participants is chosen based on the particular meeting venues and times and executable code that sends an invitation to the subset of meeting participants. A first one of the participants may be a meeting organizer that initially chooses the set of possible meeting participants, the possible meeting times, and the possible meeting venues. A second one of the participants may become the meeting organizer while the first one of the participants is no longer the meeting organizer In response to the subset of meeting participants being less than two, the requirements may be relaxed for the meeting by more possible meeting participants being chosen, possible meeting venues being added, possible meeting times being added, and/or already-specified possible meeting times being expanded. The subset of meeting participants may be determined based at least in part on travel time for each of the possible meeting participants to a location of each of the possible meeting venues. The software may also include executable code that sends confirmations and final meeting details to the subset of meeting participants. The software may also include executable code that blocks out travel and meeting times for all of the subset of meeting participants. The software may also include executable code that announces the meeting place and time via social networks for others to join. The software may also include executable code that tracks information about at least some of the subset of meeting participants with location aware mobile devices and provides the information to other ones of the participants. The software may also include executable code that provides the meeting place and time to invite others to join the meeting, where the others are not part of the set of possible meeting participants. The possible meeting venues may include virtual meeting venues and/or at least one venue that is mixed real and virtual, where some of the set of possible meeting participants meet in-person while others meet virtually.
The proposed system acts as a cloud-based service connecting multiple mobile devices. The system may track user availability during their spare time based on users' manual instructions, gaps in their mobile calendars, or via semi-automatic notifications on a user mobile device that require confirmation and indication of free time span by the user. When a candidate list is sufficiently populated based on free time periods, the system may determine various possibilities for friends to meet based on their preferences, location, travel times, available venues, and other factors. Suggestions may be sent to friends for a confirmation; friends may choose between several options and may discuss alternative venues via instant communications. Once confirmations are received and the time, place and the initial list of participants are mutually agreed upon, an “instameet” group may be created by the system; participants' schedules maintained by the service may be updated by blocking travel and meeting times from participants' availability time periods. For participants who are traveling to the meeting place with location-aware devices, the system may track and broadcast their trips to the rest of the group. The system may also offer the appropriate communication methods to the participants of a meeting.
The system starts functioning for an individual user when that user logs in, joins the list of meeting candidates maintained by the system and is considered by the system as a meeting organizer Users may join the list of meeting candidates by giving manual instructions, such as “free for 5 hours right away” or “will be free for three hours in an hour”. Alternatively, the system may process user availability periods by discovering gaps in their mobile calendars at predefined times—say, “nothing scheduled after 6 pm”. Another embodiment may display to the user a predefined number of reminders around their default or customized spare time asking to confirm availability (“yes, I am available for the next 3 hours”). In addition to the availability for a given time period, the user may specify certain limitations and requests, such as maximum travel distance (“will travel 15 miles max”, “will spend max 30 min. driving”, etc.), desirable venue, which may be a category (“prefer pub or country music concert”) or a specific meeting place (for example, “see you at Pier 39”), and other circumstances (examples are, “won't drive, need pick-up”; “need public transportation hints”); candidates may also supply descriptions for certain meeting places or activities (“bring masquerade costumes”). In addition to the above meeting conditions, the user may restrict a choice of friends for the meeting to specific individuals from the friends list.
After a meeting organizer has joined the list and formulated meeting conditions, the system starts the matching process between the organizer and available friends. In one embodiment, the system first looks for friends, venues, and timeframes that satisfy all organizer requirements and where the venues, locations, driving times and other restrictions hold for each potential participant of the meeting. There may be certain conflicts in the matching process: for example, even if all location, time, venue and some other parameters are satisfied for each participant chosen by the system, the preferences of the participants of seeing each other at the meeting may be asymmetric (e.g. non-transitive); thus, two desirable friends for a candidate for whom the current list of meetings is being created may not be willing to meet each other. The system may apply various rules for conflict resolution. In the above example, two different meetings at the same place but with different groups of friends may be offered to the organizer based on an analysis of friends' lists of each potential participant. If there are no meetings satisfying all requirements of the candidate and of at least one among the chosen friends, the system may weaken some of the conditions according to system priorities or user-defined priorities in order to broaden meeting opportunities. For example, the system may start with broadening a set of venues acceptable for participants by choosing relevant or close categories to those suggested by participants (say, “jazz concert” instead of “country music concert”); then the system may gradually increase distance and travel time to the meeting place. In this way, second and subsequent circles of meeting offerings may be built.
Following the initial arrangements, the system displays to the candidate the list of meetings sorted by relevance, measured as the degree of satisfying candidate's conditions, or by other parameters, such as, for example, a number of friends that may be able to attend each meeting, travel distance, estimated travel time, duration of each meeting based on available time slots by friends, etc. The candidate may choose the best option and invite friends. Alternatively, the candidate may choose several options from the list and the system may assist the candidate and friends negotiating the best arrangement for their meeting. During the discussion of meeting opportunities, the system may offer communications options to all users, such as a text or voice chat, social networks (for example, a Facebook page where the offers are published and discussed or a Twitter stream) or other venues.
Once a group of friends has confirmed a meeting according to the above process, an “instameet group” is created and participants' availability schedules in the system are updated. For example, if the estimated duration of a meeting, including a participant travel time to the meeting place, is three hours, the three hours are blocked for each participant; if any participant had previously announced a significantly longer availability period compared with the meeting time, the rest of the period may still be considered free and the participant may receive other meeting invitations for the residual time. Participants may also declare a meeting open, which will make the meeting discoverable by other system users. Additionally, the system may post an instant meeting to other social services, such as Twitter, Facebook or Meetup, which enables other friends joining the meeting if it is applicable for the venue type (e.g. café vs. concert) and reasonable with respect to time/location/other limitations.
After an instant meeting has been created, some or all participants may be traveling to the meeting place. The system may support tracking of participants' routes for the participants traveling with location-aware mobile devices. As an example, the system may broadcast to other participants a map with all participant locations (some at meeting place, others on their way), supplemented with estimated arrival time. The system may also offer adequate communications mechanisms based on each participant's status, such as hands free phone call for driving users and other appropriate means for users who have already arrived to the meeting place or travel by public transport.
As explained elsewhere herein, in the event that a meeting was broadcasted as an “open instameet”, during the meeting participants may receive additional requests to join them. Also, participants who have announced their availability beyond the end of the current meeting may receive invitations from the system to subsequent meetings with other friends based on the end time and their current location.
One implementation of the system may be achieved through its bundling with built-in and aftermarket Internet-connected car traffic navigators. Such an implementation may instantly provides location awareness, hands-free operations (including voice commands and communications) and sufficient display space, with maps and POIs already present in the car navigation system and used for multiple purpose.
While the proposed system aims, in the first place, at real-life meetings between participants, it may also be used for arranging virtual meetings (for example, multi-player games between friends) and for mixed real/virtual meetings where some participants meet in-person, while others are connecting to their mobile devices to participate remotely via audio/video conference.
Embodiments of the system described herein will now be explained in more detail in accordance with the figures of the drawings, which are briefly described as follows.
The system described herein provides an online service for setting up nearly instant meetings between friends and other participants of diverse physical and online activities, including search of meeting venues, invitations and selection of the best meeting place, tracking traveling participants and inviting additional guests. The system offers different techniques for announcing a spare time period, setting up time, space, venue, participant and other requirements, as explained elsewhere herein; in particular, the system provides techniques for setting up and broadcasting instameet groups via social media. The system replaces a traditional calendar-centric scheduling process with a free-form organization of meetings where participants are presented with viable meeting alternatives satisfying their time and space requirements and interests and where the relevant content circulates between the prospective meeting participants.
The user selects one or several friends from a friend list 120, which may be created or updated at any time. The user also chooses one or several meeting venues from an available set of venues 130. The user may include both types of the particular destinations and/or venue categories. For the first type, the system matches friends' availability, location, travel time, interests, and other profile parameters trying to choose optimal venues from the presented list. For the second type, the system attempts to locate the venues best satisfying the above requirements and belonging to the presented categories. It should be noted that, in a search of available venues by categories, places, event schedules, booking capabilities and other information, the system may interoperate with other relevant online services and information systems, such as Yelp, OpenTable, Foursquare and similar systems. Note also that the meeting venue may be a virtual meeting, such as a multi-player game between friends. The meeting venue could also be mixed real and virtual, where some participants meet in-person while others meet virtually by, for example, being connected using mobile devices to participate remotely via audio/video conferencing.
The system may calculate and display all or some of the significant phases of the meeting setup and scheduling on a timeline 140, which may be shared with prospective meeting participants. The timeline 140 may be updated based on friends' availability and the discussions on the suggested venues, event calendars, travel arrangements, etc.
After the system has detected a single venue or a set of venues best matching preferences of both the organizer and preferences of friends of the organizer, the system sends out invitations to all participants via an invitation subsystem 150 (all lists of participants include the organizer, but the lists of friends may be different for different venues). When the system organizes the meeting in a semi-automatic mode, the system only chooses the venues and the corresponding participant lists that satisfy all time, space and other requirements, save unforeseen circumstances. Alternatively, an organizer may personally select a venue or a list of venues and send invitations to some or all friends via the invitation subsystem 150. In the latter case, the system may warn the organizer that some of the participants may not be available because of conflicting meetings or other activities, current locations, interests or other factors. During negotiations of a best venue or defining final meeting details, participants may use diverse communications methods, including chat or other conferencing methods 160 and/or social networks 170. Additionally, after the meeting place and time have been chosen and an instameet group created, participants may declare the meeting open to others and instruct the system to publish the meeting info via social networks (examples are Twitter, Facebook or Meetup) for others to join. Alternatively, meeting notifications (not necessarily invitations) may be sent out via the system only to friends of participants or to a coordinated list of their mutual friends.
After the meeting location and time has been chosen, the meeting has been booked (if necessary) and each participant's timeline 140 has been updated, some of the participants may travel to the meeting place. In this case, for participants traveling with location aware devices compatible with the system, a travel tracking subsystem 180 of a location aware device may display, to other participants, a location and a dynamically estimated arrival time, subject to security limitations for traveling participants.
Following or preceding friend selection 225, the organizer may choose a preliminary list of one or more meeting venues 230. The meeting venues 230 may be a single place, a set of possible meeting places, a category of meeting places or a combination of the two latter options. The systems may assist the organizer in preliminary venue choices, as explained elsewhere herein. Subsequently, the system may begin a planning phase 235 by matching the preliminary list of venues 230 against travel times for each of the meeting candidates 225 (with due respect to available weather and traffic conditions), which results in the meeting durations; event schedules, booking capabilities and user interests may also be taken into account (if applicable) and may result in a score of each available venue. The result of such calculation may be a weighted list of available meeting places 240 and a sub-selection 245 of the preliminary selection of friends by the organizer The new friends list 245 allows each individual on the list to participate in at least one of the available meetings. If the planning phase is unsuccessful and there are no friends and/or venue available for a meeting that satisfies the time, place and other limitations of the organizer and at least one other participant, then the system may suggest that the organizer relax some of the requirements, such as choosing more friends, expanding the list of venues or allowing longer travel times.
At the end of the planning phase 235, the organizer may be presented with the list of available meeting places 240 and the group of friends 245 who may participate in some or all of the meetings. The organizer may still edit the lists and choose a subset of meetings, which will also define the list of friends who may participate in those meetings. If the planning phase 235 was completed successfully, i.e. resulted in one or more meetings with some or all of the selected friends, then the user (organizer) moves to a next phase 250 where the organizer sends invitations to the prospective participants of the list of meetings 240 filtered by the organizer Each friend may receive a list of one or more meeting places with time, travel and other details. At this phase, participants may negotiate the best meeting place and time using interactive and shared system capabilities or other communication means, such as a chat or social networking, as explained elsewhere herein. After the users have agreed on an ultimate meeting place and time, an instameet phase 255 takes place, where the instameet group may be created; confirmations and final meeting details may be sent to all participants on behalf of the group. The system may also block out travel and meeting times from all participants' calendars. If the meeting is open to others, it may be announced via social networks or via other system capabilities for others to join, as explained elsewhere herein.
The creation of the instameet group and related confirmation and scheduling activities complete a planning phase and open an actual meeting phase. Some or all of the participants may have to travel to the meeting place, as shown by a phase 260 on the timeline. For participants who are traveling with mobile location aware devices compatible with the system (such as smartphones logged into the system or car navigators with Internet access bundled with the system software and service capabilities) the system may track the travel progress of participants with mobile aware location devices, as shown by an item 265. The system may communicate the progress of participants with mobile aware location devices to other participants who have a capability of accepting such tracking information. For example, for other traveling participants, information on the group travel may be converted into voice format.
A meeting 270 starts when the first two participants arrive and enter the meeting place, which is schematically shown by an item 275. Other participants may arrive at later times, presumably not later than a meeting end time 290. During the meeting, other friends may join the meeting as illustrated by an item 280 and participants may be receiving invitations to later meetings if the participants elected to do so, as shown by an item 285. After an end time 290 of the meeting illustrated in
Referring to
After the step 630, processing proceeds to a step 640 where the available friends are invited to the matching meetings and the friends discuss meeting opportunities, as explained elsewhere herein (see descriptions for
Referring to
Referring to
After the step 820, processing proceeds to a test step 825 where it is determined if at least one primary meeting place was found. If so, then processing proceeds to a step 830 where the meeting organizer is offered a list of primary meeting places and the friends who may participate in each meeting based on recorded requirements of the friends; otherwise, processing proceeds to the step 840, which is also reached from the step 815 if primary meeting areas have not been found. At the step 840, the system relaxes meeting organizer's and friends' requirements within the admissible boundaries. After the step 840, processing proceeds to a step 845 where the system defines secondary meeting areas based on the relaxed requirements of the meeting organizer and the friends from the pre-selected list. After the step 845, processing proceeds to a test step 850 where it is determined if the secondary meeting areas have been found by the system. If so, then processing proceeds to a step 855 where the meeting organizer is offered a list of secondary meeting places and the friends who may participate in each meeting based on the relaxed requirements; otherwise, processing proceeds to a step 865. After each of the steps 830, 855, processing proceeds to a test step 860 where it is determined if the meeting organizer likes some of the proposed places (primary places in the case of reaching the step 860 from the step 830 and secondary places if the preceding step was the step 855). If so, then the list of available meeting places and the matching list(s) of friends who may participate in the meetings is found and the processing is complete; otherwise, processing proceeds to a test step 870, which is explained elsewhere herein.
At the step 865 which is reached from the test step 850 if it is determined that secondary meeting places have not been found, the meeting organizer is notified about the non-availability of meeting places satisfying the initial or relaxed requirements. After the step 865, processing proceeds to the test step 870 that is also reached from the step 860 as described above. At the test step 870, it is determined whether the meeting organizer is willing to update the conditions for the system search of a meeting place. If so, then processing proceeds to a step 875 where new conditions are communicated and the system restarts meeting planning with the new conditions; otherwise, processing is complete without finding matching meeting places. After the step 875, processing is complete.
Referring to
After the step 920, processing proceeds to a step 925 where an instameet group is created and the meeting is confirmed and added to the system timeline. After the step 925, processing proceeds to a step 930 where the participants meeting time is blocked out on the system timeline. After the step 930, processing proceeds to a test step 935 where it is determined if the meeting is open for some or all of the mutual friends of participants who were not included on the initial list of the meeting organizer If so, processing proceeds to the step 940 where meeting notifications are sent to such mutual friends; otherwise, processing is complete. After the step 940, processing proceeds to a test step 945 where it is determined if the participants also wish to announce the meeting on social networks (including the present system). If so, processing proceeds to the step 950 to post the meeting to social networks; otherwise, processing is complete. Processing is also complete after the step 950.
At the test step 955 (which is reached from the step 915 if it turned out that the participants have not agreed on the meeting), it is determined if the participants wish to update conditions for a meeting search. If not, then processing is complete without a meeting; otherwise, processing proceeds to a step 960 where the new conditions are communicated and the system restarts meeting planning with the new conditions. After the step 960, processing is complete.
Various embodiments discussed herein may be combined with each other in appropriate combinations in connection with the system described herein. Additionally, in some instances, the order of steps in the flowcharts, flow diagrams and/or described flow processing may be modified, where appropriate. Subsequently, elements and areas of screen described in screen layouts may vary from the illustrations presented herein. Further, various aspects of the system described herein may be implemented using software, hardware, a combination of software and hardware and/or other computer-implemented modules or devices having the described features and performing the described functions. The system described herein may be implemented using a cell phone, although other devices are also possible.
Software implementations of the system described herein may include executable code that is stored in a computer readable medium and executed by one or more processors. The computer readable medium may be non-transitory and include a computer hard drive, ROM, RAM, flash memory, portable computer storage media such as a CD-ROM, a DVD-ROM, a flash drive, an SD card and/or other drive with, for example, a universal serial bus (USB) interface, and/or any other appropriate tangible or non-transitory computer readable medium or computer memory on which executable code may be stored and executed by a processor. The system described herein may be used in connection with any appropriate operating system.
Other embodiments of the invention will be apparent to those skilled in the art from a consideration of the specification or practice of the invention disclosed herein. It is intended that the specification and examples be considered as exemplary only, with the true scope and spirit of the invention being indicated by the following claims.
This application claims priority to U.S. Prov. App. No. 61/664,908, filed Jun. 27, 2012, and entitled “METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR SETTING UP INSTANT MEETINGS WITH CALENDAR FREE SCHEDULING”, which is incorporated herein by reference.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 61664908 | Jun 2012 | US |
