The present invention relates to the area of social media portals.
Over the last twenty years messaging systems have greatly evolved. The Short Messaging Service (SMS) provides the user of cellular networks with a very flexible manner of sending and receiving short text messages over cellular networks. In an evolution over SMS, the Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) further allows users to exchange multimedia material, such as for examples pictures, video clips, or music, along text.
Social media portals like Facebook™ or Twitter™ further enhance messaging technologies with the possibility to quasi-instantly notify friends about a user status, user media posted on a social media portal server, or about a user location, by subscribing for receiving notifications from friends' activities.
Portals like Facebook™ and Twitter™ target the entire Internet community and therefore end up with a very large subscriber base. They can be accessed from any Internet-connected terminal, including laptops, personal computers, smart phones, etc. Other social media portals are only intended to serve subscribers of a given telecommunication network, such as for example in the context of a cellular telecommunication network providing its own social media portal servicing only users of that network. For example, a cellular telecommunications operator such as Rogers Canada may provide its users with access to a social media portal that only serves subscribers of the Rogers Canada's network. This social media portal may be further configured to access itself the Facebook™ or Tweeter™ accounts of the registered subscribers, performing a synchronisation of the portal's accounts with corresponding user accounts from other social media portals.
Reference is now been made to
A short code is an addressable identifier such as a short telephone number, usually consisting of a number of digits, which is used to address SMS and MMS messages from a mobile phone. Each common short code is typically designed to be unique to each telecommunications operator. Short codes are used for additional mobile services including television voting, polling, ordering ring tones, making donations and queries to special services, and may be billed at a different rate than SMS or MMS messages.
The SMS message 103 so-created for user B is then sent from the portal 108 to the messaging system 106 from where it is relayed to the user B 104. The SMS message for user B may comprise a link to the portal's related subject (or user account) in order to allow user B to not only be notified of the presence of user A's comments but also for providing at the same time an easy manner for user B to access the portal 108 by simply following (i.e. clicking) the provided link. This setup is common in the telecommunication industry where the telecommunication operators provide their own social media portals in order to service their own subscriber's base. One of the advantages of such a set up is that it generates SMS traffic in the network 100 when user notifications alike the message 103 are being sent from the portal A 108, which further creates new accesses of the portal 108, thus increasing the portal's visibility and advertising revenues. For example, User B may come back to the portal and post a follow up comment. This increases usage and enables dialog between the users.
A problem exists though with the network 100 as described in
Accordingly, it should be readily appreciated that in order to overcome the deficiencies and shortcomings of the existing solutions, it would be advantageous to have a solution for flexibly and efficiently exchange messages originated by a social media portal across more than one network. The present invention provides such methods and social media portal servers.
In one aspect, the invention provides for a method for sending a message from a first social media portal server serving a first telecommunications network to a second social media portal server serving a second telecommunications network, and further to a user of the second network. The method starts by receiving at the second social media portal server a message and detecting at the second social media portal server that the message originated at the first social media portal server based on an indicator comprised in the message. Then, a second short code associated with the second social media portal is inserted in the message, and message comprising the second short code associated with the second social media portal server is sent to a messaging center for delivery to the user, wherein the message with the second short code associated with the second media portal server is routable in the second network.
In another aspect, the invention provides for a method for sending a message from a first social media portal server serving a first network to a second social media portal server serving a second telecommunications network, and further to a user of the second telecommunications network. The method starts by creating at a first social media portal server a message destined to a user in a second telecommunications network served by a second social media portal server, the message comprising a FROM field set to a short code associated with the first media portal server, and further detecting at the first social media portal server that the user is served by the second telecommunications network. The method further allows for replacing in the message the first short code with a second short code associated with the second social media portal server; and for sending the message comprising the FROM field with the second short code associated with the second social media portal server to the second social media portal server for delivery to the user, wherein the message with the second short code associated with the second media portal server is routable in the second telecommunications network.
In yet another aspect, the invention provides for a second social media portal server for serving a second telecommunications network, the server comprising a processor, a communication interface operationally connected to the processor, and an instructions repository comprising instructions that when executed by the processor cause the later, when receiving a message via the communication interface, to detect based on an indicator comprised in the message that the message originated at a first social media portal server, and to further insert in the message a second short code associated with the second social media portal server, and to yet further send the message comprising the second short code associated with the second social media portal server to a messaging center for delivery to a user of the second network. The message with the second short code associated with the second media portal server is routable in the second telecommunications network and first social media portal server serving a first network.
In yet another aspect, the invention provides for a first social media portal server serving a first network, the server comprising a processor, a communication interface operationally connected to the processor; and an instructions repository comprising instructions that when executed by the processor cause the later to create a message destined to a user in a second network served by a second social media portal server, the message comprising a FROM field set to a short code associated with the first media portal, and to further detect that the user is served by the second telecommunications network and to replace in the message the first short code with a second short code associated with the second social media portal server, the processor further sending via the communication interface the message comprising the FROM field set to the second short code associated with the second social media portal server to the second social media portal server for delivery to the user. The message with the second short code associated with the second media portal server is routable in the second network.
For a more detailed understanding of the invention, for further objects and advantages thereof, reference can now be made to the following description, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:
FIG. 3.a shows a nodal operation and signal flow diagram of another exemplary preferred embodiment of the invention providing multiple social media portal servers in a telecommunications network;
FIG. 3.b shows a nodal operation and signal flow diagram of another variant of an exemplary preferred embodiment of the invention providing multiple social media portal servers in a telecommunications network; and
The innovative teachings of the present invention will be described with particular reference to various exemplary embodiments. However, it should be understood that this class of embodiments provides only a few examples of the many advantageous uses of the innovative teachings of the invention. In general, statements made in the specification of the present application do not necessarily limit any of the various claimed aspects of the present invention. Moreover, some statements may apply to some inventive features but not to others. In the drawings, like or similar elements are designated with identical reference numerals throughout the several views.
The present invention provides for methods and social media portals for seamlessly exchanging messages generated via social media portal servers, such as for example SMS notification messages, across telecommunications networks. The invention allows for sending a message from a first social media portal server serving a first telecommunications network (e.g. in a given first country) to a second social media portal server serving a second telecommunications network (e.g. in another second country), and further to a user of the second telecommunications network.
Reference is now being made to
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For example, assuming that the social media portal server 400 implements the functionality of the portal server 212 of FIG. 3.a, the instructions repository may comprise instructions that when executed by the processor 402 cause the later, when receiving a message via the communication interface 406, to detect based on the indicator 314 comprised in the message that the message originated at a first social media portal server (e.g. the server 210) of another telecommunications network, and to further insert in the message a second short code associated with the second social media portal server (e.g. the server 212), and to yet further send the message comprising the second short code associated with the second social media portal (e.g. the server 212) to the messaging center 208 for delivery to the user B 204 of the second telecommunications network (e.g. network 205). The message with the second short code associated with the second media portal server is routable in the second telecommunications network.
In another example, assuming that the social media portal server 400 implements the functionality of the portal server 210 of FIG. 3.b, the instructions repository may comprise instructions that when executed by the processor 402 cause the later to create a message destined to user B 204 of the second network (e.g. network 205) served by the second social media portal server (e.g. server 212), the message comprising a “FROM” field set to a short code associated with the first media portal server (e.g. server 210), and to further detect that the user B 204 is served by the second network (e.g. network 205) and to replace in the message the first short code with a second short code associated with the second social media portal server (e.g. server 212), the processor further sending via the communication interface 406 the message comprising the “FROM” field set to the second short code associated with the second social media portal server (e.g. the server 212) to the second social media portal server for delivery to the user B 204. The message with the second short code is routable in the second network.
Based upon the foregoing, it should now be apparent to those of ordinary skills in the art that the present invention provides an advantageous solution, which offers a simple yet flexible and efficient manner of obtaining sensed data from sensor nodes. Although the system and method of the present invention have been described with particular reference to certain type of messages and nodes, it should be realized upon reference hereto that the innovative teachings contained herein are not necessarily limited thereto and may be implemented advantageously in various manners. It is believed that the operation and construction of the present invention will be apparent from the foregoing description. While the method and system shown and described have been characterized as being preferred, it will be readily apparent that various changes and modifications could be made therein without departing from the scope of the invention as defined by the claims set forth hereinbelow.
Although several preferred embodiments of the method and system of the present invention have been illustrated in the accompanying Drawings and described in the foregoing Detailed Description, it will be understood that the invention is not limited to the embodiments disclosed, but is capable of numerous rearrangements, modifications and substitutions without departing from the spirit of the invention as set forth and defined by the following claims.