Patent Application
20150088718
The present invention relates to the field of financial management tools and social networking management tools.
Financial management systems allow for tracking transactions, while social networking systems allow users to interact with other users. However, financial systems do not provide the ability to track and group transactions based on social networking interactions, while social networking systems do not provide the ability to relate the social networking interactions to transactions.
The following presents a simplified summary of one or more embodiments of the present invention, in order to provide a basic understanding of such embodiments. This summary is not an extensive overview of all contemplated embodiments, and is intended to neither identify key or critical elements of all embodiments nor delineate the scope of any or all embodiments. Its sole purpose is to present some concepts of one or more embodiments of the present invention in a simplified form as a prelude to the more detailed description that is presented later.
Embodiments of the invention comprise systems, computer program products, and methods for a financial and social management system that provides improved tracking and management related to how, where, when, and with whom a user enters into activities. The financial and social management system captures activity information and images from various sources of information, including but not limited to social networking accounts, e-receipts, calendars, contact lists, location determination devices, and the like, and associates the activity information and images with the activities. The financial and social management system captures past activities that occurred at the same or similar locations or time periods, and assemblies the activities into packages. The packages are supplemented with the images and the activity information related to the activities captured from the various sources of information, and the activities, activity information, and images are displayed in a package interface.
One embodiment of the invention comprises receiving an indication that a first user has participated in one or more activities; identifying activity information related to a location and a time of the one or more activities; grouping the one or more activities into a package based on the location and the time of the one or more activities; accessing a social networking account of the first user; identifying one or more images associated with the one or more activities in the package from the social networking account of the first user; and displaying the package to the first user in a package interface.
In further accord with an embodiment of the invention, identifying the one or more images associated with the one or more activities in the package from the social networking account of the first user comprises identifying the one or more images taken, uploaded, or tagged at a same or similar time as the time of the one or more activities, or tagged at a same or similar location as the location of the one or more activities.
In another embodiment, the invention further comprises identifying a second user associated with the location, the time, or the one or more images of the one or more activities in the package through the social networking account of the first user; and associating the second user with the package.
In yet another embodiment, the invention further comprises identifying transactions made by users at a same or similar location or time as the location or the time of the one or more activities of the first user in the package; determining if the users are contacts of the first user in the social networking account of the first user; and associating the users with the package.
In still another embodiment, the invention comprises associating tags with the one or more activities in the package, wherein the associated tags are a location tag, a user tag, an entity tag, or a category tag.
In further accord with an embodiment of the invention, displaying the package to the first user in the package interface comprises displaying the one or more images associated with the one or more activities in the package; an activity list illustrating the one or more activities and associated activity information in the package, users associated with the one or more activities in the package, and an interactive map illustrating one or more locations of the one or more activities.
In another embodiment, the invention further comprises receiving an indication from the first user to add, remove, or edit the one or more activities associated with the package, the one or more images associated with the package, or the one or more users associated with the package.
To the accomplishment the foregoing and the related ends, the one or more embodiments comprise the features hereinafter described and particularly pointed out in the claims. The following description and the annexed drawings set forth certain illustrative features of the one or more embodiments. These features are indicative, however, of but a few of the various ways in which the principles of various embodiments may be employed, and this description is intended to include all such embodiments and their equivalents.
Having thus described embodiments of the invention in general terms, reference will now be made to the accompanying drawings, which are not necessarily drawn to scale, and wherein:
Embodiments of the present invention will now be described more fully hereinafter with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which some, but not all, embodiments of the invention are shown. Indeed, the invention may be embodied in many different forms and should not be construed as limited to the embodiments set forth herein; rather, these embodiments are provided so that this disclosure will satisfy applicable legal requirements. In the following description, for purposes of explanation, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of one or more embodiments. It may be evident; however, that such embodiment(s) may be practiced without these specific details. Like numbers refer to like elements throughout.
Generally, systems, computer program products, and methods are described herein for a financial and social management system that provides improved tracking and management related to how, where, when, and with whom a user (e.g., a customer) enters into activities (e.g., transactions for goods or services described herein as “products”, or transfers of currency) with entities (e.g., merchants, other users, or other like entities). As described herein the term activity information associated with the activity is used to not only describe the transaction (e.g., cost of the transaction, time of the transaction, or other transaction information) in which the user enters, but also other information related to the transaction, such as location, social relationship, entity, and category information. The financial and social management system 1 may display the activity and activity information in activity list interfaces, packaged activity interfaces, filtered activity interfaces, activity history interfaces, activity review interfaces, or other like interfaces that incorporate aspects of financial transactions and social networking information.
The financial and social management system 1 provides the activity and activity information in activity lists within activity list interfaces. The activity lists may include the activities (e.g., transactions) in which the user (e.g., customer) has entered, and associated images (e.g., photos, videos, icons, symbols, card art, check art, other art, or other like images), or any other type of digital content related to the activities or the environment related to the activities. The activity list may also include tagged information, such as but not limited to location tags indicating the location the activity, social relationship tags (e.g., user tags) indicating other users associated with the activity, entity tags indicating the entity (e.g., merchant, non-profit organization, historic site, national park, or the like entity) associated with the activity, or category tags (e.g., product categories such as goods, good categories, services, service categories, or the like) indicating groupings for the activities in the activity lists. The activity information and images in the activity lists may come from various sources including social networking accounts of the users, e-mail accounts of the users (e.g., e-mail correspondence, e-receipts, or the like), user calendars, user contact lists, websites over the Internet (e.g., websites of the entities or for the products), or other like accounts that provide additional activity information related to the activities in the activity list.
The activity list in the financial and social management system 1 may also include filters that allow a user to access specific views of a plurality of activities based on the activity information related to locations, social relationships, entities, and categories, and view the activities in filtered interfaces. The filters may provide interfaces with interactive maps of the location of multiple transactions, social relationships between the user and other users present during the transactions (e.g., users of the financial management systems, users of the social networking systems, other users referenced in these systems, or the like), transactions entered into with particular entities, transactions entered into based on particular categories, or other filtered activity information.
In addition to the activity lists the financial and social management system 1 provides packages (e.g., past packages, proposed packages, group packages) that consolidate activities into groups based on time period, location, categories, or the like. The past packages allow a user to consolidate activities together for a particular time period (e.g., date, date range, or the like) or location for capturing spending, budgeting, reimbursement, or other like information. The past packages may be utilized for trips or otherwise for grouping activities together. The proposed packages may consolidate activities that have occurred, are pending, or may occur in the future in order to save and budget for events, such as trips, purchases (e.g., renovating a room), or other like activities. The group packages may be proposed or past packages that can be shared between users in order to split purchases related to activities, or otherwise budget and plan for trips or purchases in the future with a group of two or more users.
The financial and social management system 1 also provides activity history interfaces for providing financial information related to activities that have occurred in the past along with social networking information or other activity information related to the activities. The financial and social management system 1 automatically, or manually based on a customer request, provides activity, activity information, and images for past activities. For example, a user may receive an update every day for activities that the user had exactly a year ago from the current day. In other examples, the user may be in a town which the user previously visited and the user may request to see all of the transactions that the user made in the town in the past in order to identify a particular restaurant, store, product, or the like. In response, the activity history interface may provide all of the activities that the user had for the particular location in the past.
The system also provides activity review interfaces that display data related to the activities the user participated in over a specified time period in order to provide spending and budgeting information regarding how, where, when, and with whom the user entered past transactions. For example, the activity review interface may illustrate statistics such as, most expensive purchase, fast food purchases vs. upscale restaurant purchases, locational spending across areas within a city, state, region, or the like, spending habits with particular friends, or the like. The system may also provide customized facts related to spending, such as consumption facts based on user spending (e.g., amount of coffee beans used based on the amount of coffee the customer drank, or the like).
As illustrated by block 104 the financial and social management system 1 accesses various sources of information in order to determine activity information associated with the one or more activities. The one or more sources of information may include the traditional source of information that is transferred to an institution (e.g., financial institution) by an entity as a result of a transaction between the entity and a user (e.g., customer). For example, if a first user 4 enters into a transaction with an entity (e.g., a merchant) the entity provides transaction information to the institution (e.g., financial institution, or third party institution) that controls the account from which the first user 4 is making the transaction. The activity information from the entity may include for example, the price of the transaction, the name of the entity, and the time of the transaction. However, in many instances the transaction information does not include the location of the transaction, a breakdown of the goods or services (e.g., products) and associated individual costs, categories for the types of products purchased, or the like. In some embodiments, the transaction information may not include the time of the transaction. Furthermore, even if the location is provided in the transaction information, it may not be the actual location at which the purchase was made or the location at which the activity will occur. For example, the first user 4 may order a product over the internet, and the product location may be location of the business not the location from which the first user 4 placed the order. Moreover, in another example the first user 4 may purchase tickets for a show in another city, the location information transferred may be the city in which the user made the transaction not the location of the ultimate transaction, such as the location of the show. In some embodiments the entity and/or the institution does not have the ability to transfer or receive information other than the total cost of the transaction and the name of the entity. Furthermore, the name of the entity may be a holding company or other name that does not reflect the true entity with which the user entered into a transaction. Therefore, the various other sources of information accessed may provide additional activity information related to the activity (e.g., transaction).
The users (e.g., first user 4, second user 6, or the like) may allow the institution to access other types of activity information from various sources of information to supplement the activity information the entity may receive during a transaction with an entity. For example, in some embodiments the user may allow the institution (e.g., financial institution, third-party institution) within the financial and social management system 1 to access the user's social networking accounts to receive additional activity information related to one or more activities (e.g., transactions). For example, the institution may be able to access photos, determine other users with which the user has social relationships through connections (e.g., friends, family, co-workers, or the like), determine locations (e.g., tagged locations, locations of photos taken or uploaded, or the like) and times at which the user was located during an activity, or the like. The social networking accounts include, but are not limited to, any medium through which users or entities share content, such as but not limited, texts, images (including videos), audio, files, links, feeds, streaming content, or any other type of digital content, or any other type of personal or professional information related to the users or entities.
In another example, the users may allow an institution to track the user's locations through a location determining device (e.g., GPS, or other like device) in a user's mobile device when entering a transaction, and thus, identify the location of users when entering the transaction. In other embodiments of the invention, the location determining device may be a Wi-Fi triangulation, or the like that can be used to determine the location of the user when the user is utilizing a Wi-Fi connection though a mobile device. For example, the user's mobile device may have a specific address when utilizing a Wi-Fi connection and the location of the user may be determined by identifying the address of the mobile device and the Wi-Fi network on which the user device is operating, such as on a Wi-Fi hot spot at an entry, or other like location.
In other embodiments of the invention electronic data captured from electronic receipts or actual receipts may be used as a source of activity information. In the online purchase context, various electronic communications may be provided to the customer from the merchant relative to a purchase. For example, following an online purchase, the merchant may provide the customer an electronic order confirmation communication. The order confirmation may be sent to the customer's computer and displayed in a web browser application. The web browser application typically allows the customer to print a hard copy of the order confirmation and to save the confirmation electronically. The merchant will also typically send an email containing the order confirmation to the customer's designated email account. The order confirmation is essentially an e-receipt for the online purchase. The order confirmation includes detailed information regarding the products or services purchased. For example, in the case of a product, the order confirmation may include stock keeping unit “SKU” code level data, as well as other parameters, such as order number, order date, product description, product name, product quantity, product price, product image, hyperlink to the product image on merchant website, sales tax, shipping cost, order total, billing address, shipping company, shipping address, estimated shipping date, estimated delivery date, tracking number, and the like. The order confirmation also includes information about the merchant, such as name, address, phone number, web address, and the like. For most online transactions, the merchant will send at least one second communication confirming shipment of the order. The order shipment confirmation is typically also sent via email to the customer and typically includes the same information as the order confirmation, and in addition, shipping date, tracking number, and other relevant information regarding the order and shipment parameters.
Many merchants now also provide e-receipts to customers shopping at brick and mortar locations. In general, at the point of sale, the customer may have previously configured or may be asked at the time of sale as to whether she wishes to receive an e-receipt. By selecting this option, the merchant will send an electronic communication in the form of an e-receipt to the customer's designated email address. Here again, the e-receipt will typically include a list of services and/or products purchased with SKU level data, and other parameters, as well as information about the merchant, such as name, address, phone number, store number, web address, and the like.
Various merchants now also provide online customer accounts for repeat customers. These online customer accounts may include purchase history information associated with the customer accessible by the customer via ID and passcode entry. Purchase history provides detailed information about services and products purchased by the customer including information found on order confirmations and shipping confirmations for each purchase. Online customer accounts are not limited to online purchases. Many merchants also provide online customer accounts for customers that purchase products at brick and mortar locations and then store these transactions in the customer's online account.
For the most part, order confirmations, shipping confirmations, e-receipts, and other electronic communications between merchants and customers are used only by the customer as proof of purchase and for monitoring receipt of purchased items (i.e., for archival purposes). However, there is significant data that can be gleaned from this electronic information for the benefit of the customer, so that the customer may have detailed information regarding purchase history, spending, and the like.
The general concept is to retrieve such electronic communications from the user or the entity, parse the data in these electronic communications for activity information, and associate the activity information from the electronic communications with the corresponding activities. Therefore, the user may allow the institution to access the user's e-mail account, entity accounts, or stored e-receipts in order to access information related to electronic communication for a transaction, or otherwise allow the entity to send the e-receipts to the institution directly. The financial and social management system 1 may be able to identify activity information in the e-receipts related to the specific products and associated individual costs within the transaction, a time associated with the transaction, as well as the actual location associated with the transaction (e.g., location of show, concert, or game for which tickets were purchased, or the like), or other activity information described herein.
In the context of an online purchase, the electronic communications may take the form of purchase order confirmations provided as a web page or as an email or as both. In some, embodiments, the merchant computing system may provide a web page purchase order confirmation, and advise the customer to either print, electronically save, or book mark the confirmation web page. The purchase order confirmation is essentially an e-receipt for the online purchase transaction. The order confirmation includes detailed information regarding the products or services purchased, such as for example, in the case of a product, SKU code level data, as well as other parameters associated with the product, such as type/category, size, color, and the like, as well purchase price information, information associated with the merchant, and the like. The merchant computing system may also send other subsequent communications, such as communications confirming shipment of the order, which typically includes the same information as the purchase order confirmation, and in addition, shipping date, tracking number, and other relevant information regarding the order. In the context of an in-store purchase, the merchant computing system may send an e-receipt comprising information similar to that of the purchase order confirmation. In some instances, the customer may actually receive a paper receipt, which the customer may choose to scan into an electronic form and save in a storage device. In the description herein, the term e-receipt may be used generically to refer to any communication or document provided by a merchant to a customer relating to a purchase transaction.
As is understood, once the purchase transaction data has been extracted, various information regarding a particular purchase transaction is now known, such as merchant name, merchant web address, order number, order date, product description, product name, product quantity, product price, product image, hyperlink to the product image on merchant website, sales tax, shipping cost, order total, billing address, shipping company, shipping address, estimated shipping date, estimated delivery date, tracking number, and the like. This data can be used to enrich the activities that are described in further detail herein.
As illustrated by block 106, the financial and social management system 1 may determine activity information for the one or more activities related to the location of the one or more transactions, based at least in part on the sources of information accessed. For example, as previously discussed the financial and social management system 1 may determine the location of the user at the same or similar time at which the user participated in one or more activities based on the user's mobile device, based on the time and date at which the user indicated he/she was located within a social networking account, based on an e-receipt, or other like information.
Block 108 of
Block 110 of
As illustrated by block 112 in
As illustrated by block 114 in
As illustrated by block 116 in
As illustrated in the activity list section 210 the user may be able to view the activities associated with all of the user's accounts 212. This may include accounts that are located with other secondary financial institutions, to which the user may allow the primary financial institution to access in order to consolidate financial transaction information from multiple financial institutions into a single application. In other embodiments, the financial and social management application 15 may be hosted by a third party institution that is not a financial institution, but which consolidates account information from multiple accounts across multiple financial institutions. The activity list section 210 may also allow the user to view activities based on individual accounts (e.g., checking, savings, investment, equity line, or any other type of account involving the transfer of products, currency, or equivalent values) within a single institution or across multiple institutions.
As illustrated by the package section 220 the user may scroll through various packages that have been automatically created, or created manually by the user, in order to group the user's activities. The packages in the package section 220 may be displayed as package summaries 222 that include activity images, such as photographs, logos, or other like images, which relate to the activities in the packages. The package summaries 222 may also illustrate activity information associated with the activities in the packages, such as dates, locations, total money spent, or the like.
As illustrated by the past activity section 230 the user may scroll through various activities that the user may have engaged in over specific days, or other time periods in the past. The activities may be displayed as activity summaries 232 that include activity images and activity information as was described with respect to the package section 220. The activity lists, packages, and activity histories, as well as the associated interfaces will be explained in further detail below.
As illustrated by block 304, the financial and social management system 1 identifies activity information for one or more of the activities. For example, as previously described the activity information may be a deposit of a check in the first user's account from another user (e.g., second user 4) and the identified activity information may be the identity of the second user 6. For example, the identity of the second user 6 may be determined from the information captured from an image of the check (e.g., scanned check, photo of the check, or the like). The name of the user on the check may be read from the image of the check. Alternatively, the transfer may be an electronic transfer from the second user 6 and the user's identity may be transferred electronically along with the amount of the transfer. In other embodiments of the invention the activity may be a transaction for a specific product or a transaction with a specific entity. The identified activity information may be the name of the product or the name of the specific entity (e.g., merchant, other user, or the like) that is determined from the transaction information sent to the institution after the user enters the transaction with the entity. In other embodiments, the product or entity may be identified through e-receipts, a social networking account, or other means as described throughout the specification herein.
As illustrated by block 306 in
Block 308 of
As illustrated by block 310 in
In still other embodiments of the invention, as illustrated by block 312, other images may be associated with the activity, such as but not limited to category images, location images, or personal images captured by the user. For example, with respect to category images, if a user makes a purchase for coffee and an image for the coffee merchant is not available (e.g., coffee merchant does not allow use of the image, coffee merchant does not have an image on the Internet, no image in the user's social networking account is available, or the like) a category image may be associated with the activity. The category image may be a general icon that is used for food and beverages, or more specifically coffee shops (e.g., an image of coffee beans, a cup of coffee or the like). With respect to location images, an image of the city, or other location, in which the user made the purchase may be used in association with the activity. In some embodiments of the invention a photo of the city (or other location) in which a user entered a transaction may be used instead of an image of the user, product, merchant, or the like. Personal images may also be associated with an activity instead of or in addition to a user, product, merchant, or other like image. For example, instead of using a logo for a merchant, the financial and social management system 1 may capture an image taken at the same or similar time as the transaction from a social networking account of the user, and utilize the image with the activity (e.g., utilize a family photograph at restaurant 1 from social media instead of the logo of the restaurant.)
In some embodiments of the invention the financial and social management system 1 may capture images from the first user's social networking accounts or mobile phone that were taken, uploaded, or the like, at the same or similar time as the time stamp of the transitions, or that may otherwise reference the activity. Images may be taken by a mobile device, camera, or other device that include not only a time stamp associated with the image, but also a location stamp (e.g., GPS stamp of the picture) associated with the image. For example, if a user makes a purchase with entity 1, takes a picture of the purchase, and uploads the picture to a social networking site, the financial and social management system 1 may identify the photo as being related to the purchase through the stored or uploaded photo containing location stamp. For example, if the location stamp of the photo and the location of the activity matched the photo may be associated with the activity. In other embodiments of the invention, if the photo is time stamped, the timestamp of the photo may be compared with the transaction time and associated with the activity if the transaction times are same or similar (e.g., within a specific range). For example, if the transaction time of the purchase and the uploaded photo occurred within, for example, 10 minutes of each other, the financial and social management system 1 may identify that the photo should be linked with the purchase in the first user's account. In other embodiments, if the photo was taken or uploaded outside of the time period of the activity, but the social networking account specifically referenced the name of the store, product, or location in the description of the picture, the photo may also be associated with the activity.
As illustrated by block 314, the financial and social management system 1 displays an activity list with the one or more activities, the associated activity information, and the associated one or more images in the interfaces, as described throughout this specification.
It should be understood that in some embodiments of the invention any images determined for an activity may be stored and utilized again in the future without having to identify the image again. For example, a logo of a restaurant is captured and approved by the user the first time the activity occurs, and all subsequent transactions with the restaurant will use the same image. However, in some embodiments, financial and social management system 1 may determine images for each activity as they occur in the event that the images related to the activities change over time. For example, images are determined for each activity in order to make sure an image of a product has not changed, a profile picture of a user has not changed, or the like.
As previously discussed herein other types of images may be associated with an activity in an activity list, such as card art from the users involved in the transaction, check art from the checks involved in the transaction, or other personalized data of the users associated with a transaction. For example, check art associated with a deposit of a check from user 2 in an account of user 1 may be associated and displayed with the activity of the deposit of the check in the account of user 1.
In still other embodiments of the invention the user may request that specific images be associated with a transaction on a one time, permanent, or semi-permanent basis. For example, the user may request that images for a location, user, entity, category, or period of time from public sources may be associated with an activity. The user may select an image from the Internet, from the user's camera roll on a mobile device, or like, and the image may be associated with the activity.
In still other embodiments of the invention images from an e-receipts may be associated with an activity when the financial and social management system 1 has identified an e-receipt that is related to an activity. The images used may come from the e-receipt, a link provided in the e-receipt, or the like.
In addition, the financial and social management system 1 may also be able to identify the browsing history of user and use the browsing history to associate additional activity information and images with an activity. For example, right before a user made a purchase the financial and social management system 1 may identify that the user was searching for a product or entity over the Internet. As such, the financial and social management system 1 may be able to associate images from the browser history (or other activity information) at the time of the activity or just before the time of the activity with the activity that the user subsequently entered into or previously entered into at the same or similar time. For example, the user may have searched for TVs and within the next five minutes made a purchase of a TV. Therefore, an image of the TV in the user's browser may be associated with the activity related to a large purchase that occurred at the same or similar time as the time of the browser history of the user.
In some embodiments of the invention, images may also be captured from the wish lists of users, which can be compared to activities in order to capture images from the wish list and associate the images with the activities in the financial and social management system 1.
In addition to the various ways of capturing images, which have been described above, activities may be tagged with activity information in the same or similar way that has been described with respect to associating images with activities, which is described in further detail below.
As illustrated by block 404 of
In other embodiments of the invention a user's calendar (e.g., electronic calendar) may be utilized to identify the location of the user during an activity, as well as other users associated with the activity, or other general information about the activity. For example, if the user entered a transaction at 1 pm, the financial and social management system 1 may access the user's calendar to identify that the user was having lunch at noon with two other people, and then associate the location of the lunch (e.g., restaurant 1) and the other users (e.g., second user 6 and a third user) from the calendar information with the activity (e.g., the purchase made at 1 pm). The calendar may also be used to identify images that may be associated with the activity, as previously described with respect to
As illustrated by block 406 of
As illustrated by block 408, the financial and social management system 1 identifies and tags one or more locations associated with the one or more activities. The locations for a particular activity may change or vary based on the type of activity. For example, when purchasing food at a restaurant or a product at a particular store, the location of the activity is likely the restaurant or the location of the store. This location as previously discussed with respect to block 404 may be determined using the transaction information sent to the institution, social networking account information, using a location determining device in the user's mobile phone, or the like.
In some embodiments of the invention, some merchants do not include location information in the transaction information, the social networking information may not be available, the location determining device may not be active, or the location may not be related to the location of the purchase. For example, when purchases are made for products over the Internet that are later delivered to the customer, or when purchases are made for future events or products, the location tag for the transaction may be different than the location of the purchase. With respect to purchases made over the Internet, the entity associated with the activity may be located hundreds or thousands of miles away from the user entering the transaction. As such, the location associated with the activity may be more appropriately described as the shipping address, or purchase address, and not the location of the entity. For example, a first user 4 may make three purchases over the Internet with entity 1 from the first user's primary residence. One purchase may be for the first user 4 and it is shipped to the first user's primary residence, and as such either the addresses associated with the account (e.g., primary residence) or the shipping address may be the tagged location of the activity. The second purchase may be for the first user 4 and it is shipped to the first user's vacation home, and as such the shipping address should be identified as the tagged location. The third purchase may be a gift for family or friends and it is shipped to a location unrelated to the first user 4, and as such, the first user's primary residence may be the tagged location. In order to determine the correct location tag for which to tag the activity, the first user 4 may allow the financial and social management system 1 to access the user's e-mail accounts, or other types of accounts, in order to access e-receipts from the user. The financial and social management system 1 may identify information from the e-receipts that indicates the primary residence location, shipping location, the name associated with the address (e.g., could indicate whether or not the purchase was a gift), and other like information. In other embodiments of the invention, at the time of purchase, or at another point in time, the user may authorize that the entity involved in the activity may automatically send an electronic receipt of the activity information (e.g., transaction information) to the institution associated with the account that the user is utilizing to participate in the activity.
As illustrated by block 410 in
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In some embodiments of the invention, software may be utilized to identify people, locations, landmarks, products, entities, or the like within images in the social networking accounts of the users, stored databases, the Internet, or other sources of information, in order to help to determine activity information related to activities or images to associate with the activities. For example, facial recognition software may be used to identify users in images (e.g., in the foreground or background of the image) that might be associated with an activity in order to tag the user as being associated with the activity. In another example, a landmark, landscape, text (e.g., sign, caption, or the like), or other like feature within the image may be used to determine a location, entity, or category tag to associate with the activity.
The activity list interface 500 may include an activity list 510 that is sorted based on the day of the transaction. The activity list 510 may also include an account identifier 512 illustrating the institution name, institution image, or account number indicating the account associated with the activity. As illustrated in the activity list 510 multiple accounts from multiple institutions may be provided in the activity list interface 500. For example, the user may allow the financial and social management system 1 to access accounts at other financial institutions and include activities for the accounts at the other financial institutions in the activity list 510 (e.g., Bank 1, Bank 2, or the like).
The activity list 510 may also include an entity identifier 514 illustrating the entity image, entity name, or entity number indicating the entity associated with the activity. As illustrated in the activity list 510 the entity may be different merchants or users engaged in various activities (e.g., transactions, deposited checks, money transfers, account transfers, account credits or debits, or the like). The activity list may also include activity information captured from various sources, such as an entity name 516, activity category 518, activity time 520, activity location 522, activity cost 524, or other like activity information.
In some embodiments of the invention the activity list 510 may also include an activity tag section 530, which may be expanded or hidden in the activity list. Within the activity tag section 530 the tags may be automatically or manually added to the activity as previously discussed with respect to
As further illustrated in the activity list 510, the activities may be broken down into individual products within a products section 570 of the activity list 510. The products section 570 may be expanded or hidden as desired by the user. Typically only a total cost of an activity is transmitted between an entity with which a user entered a transaction and the financial institution with which the user's account is located. Therefore, the institution often does not have a list of the products associated with the activity. As previously discussed the user may allow the institution to access the user's accounts, such as but not limited to, e-mail accounts, entity accounts, social networking accounts, or the like in order to allow the financial and social management system 1 to determine a list of products associated with an activity (e.g., through e-receipts, past orders within an entity account, references to products in social networking accounts at the same or similar time as the activity, or the like). Individual products within the products section 570 may have images, as well as tags of locations, categories, entities, or the like associated with the individual products within the activity. For example, a TV and cable may be purchased through entity 1, however, entity 1 is only a distributor and the TV is actually produced by entity 5, while the cables are produced by entity 6. As such not only is the activity tagged with entity 1, but the actual products within the activity may be tagged with entity 5 and entity 6 respectfully.
As illustrated by block 604 of
The location image section 710 may include a photograph of the city, area, section of a city, or other like location that is related to the one or more activities. The image may be determined as previously described with respect to
With respect to the relationship section 720 of the activity location interface 700, the relationship section 720 may be a location map illustrating the locations of the activities on a map. The map may be interactive and may include markers 722 (e.g., pins, flags, pointers, or the like) that not only indicate the location of the activity, but also may provide activity information, such as but not limited to, the products purchased, the costs, the date and time of the activity, the name of the entity, or the like. The activity information may be identified by rolling over or selecting the one or more markers. In other embodiments of the invention, the relationship section 720 may include other activity information, such as amounts spent for grouped time periods, users, entities, categories, or the like within the specified location.
With respect to the activity list section 730, the activity list is filtered to only display activities within the one or more selected locations, but may have the same information as previously described with respect to the activity list interface 500 illustrated in
As illustrated by block 606 of
The social relationship image section 810 may include one or more photographs, or other type of image, associated with the one or more users. The images may be determined and included in the social relationship image section 810 as previously described with respect to
With respect to the relationship section 820 of the social relationship interface 800, the relationship section 820 may be a word map as illustrated in
With respect to the activity list section 830 the activity list is filtered to only display activities associated with one or more users, but may have the same information as previously described with respect to the activity list interface 500 illustrated in
As illustrated by block 608 of
As illustrated by block 610 of
As illustrated by block 612 of
In other embodiments of the invention the activities may be filtered based on the expenses (e.g., costs for a purchase) associated with an activity or the time at which the activities occurred during the day (e.g., morning, afternoon, night, a specific hour, or the like). As such, the user may request to filter the activities based on purchases that fall within a cost range of the activities. In some embodiments the activities may be filtered using a combination of the activity information. For example, the user may request to filter all activities related to purchases at restaurants (e.g., category filter), which occurred during lunch time (e.g., time of day filter), and were in the range of $10 to $20 (e.g., cost filter). This allows the user to view all of the activities that the user made and the associated images, users, categories, locations, and entities for the activities that meet the user's filters in order to identify spending habits and allow the user to adjust spending.
As illustrated by block 904 of
As illustrated in block 906 of
As illustrated by block 908 of
Block 910 of
In other embodiments, as illustrated by block 912, the financial and social management system 1 may identify one or more other users (e.g., second user 6) associated with one or more activities in the package. For example, the financial and social management system 1 may identify transactions made by other users at the same or similar time as the first user 4 at the same or similar location. Then the financial and social management system 1 may access the first user's social networking accounts to identify if these other users (e.g., a second user 6) are contacts with the first user 4 in the first user's social networking accounts, and as such, may be identified as being associated with the first user 4 in the package. The other users (e.g., second user 6) may then be associated with (e.g., tagged, or the like) the package or the one or more activities within the package.
As illustrated by block 914, the financial and social management system 1 may receive an indication from the first user to access the financial and social management application 15, and the financial and social management system 1 authenticates the first user 4. As illustrated by block 916, the financial and social management system 1 displays the one or more packages to the user containing the grouped activities, tagged users, and associated images. In some embodiments, as illustrated by block 918, the financial and social management system 1 may receive an indication from the user to update the one or more packages or activities within the packages by adding, removing, or editing the activities, tagged users, or images for the individual activities or the packages in general.
In other embodiments of the invention, instead of, or in addition to being automatically created, the packages may be manually created. For example, the user may select a date range for a package, a location for the package, activities to include in the package, or users to add to the package, in order to create a package or supplement an automatically created package.
The package information section 1120 may include an image tab 1122, an activity list tab 1124, and a user tab 1126. As illustrated in
As illustrated by block 1404, the financial and social management system 1 may receive an indication from a user to set up a budget for the package of one or more activities on the trip. For example, a first user 4 may set a budget of $2,000 for the trip.
Block 1406 of
As illustrated by block 1408 the user may group one or more past activities into the package. For example, a first user 4 may indicate that the plane ticket has been already purchased for a cost of $500, and assign the activity of the plane ticket and the associated cost to the package created. In other embodiments of the invention, the assignment of activities to the package may be performed automatically by the financial and social management system 1 (e.g., plane ticket is automatically associated based on the location activity information). Furthermore, as illustrated by block 1408 the user may also add proposed future activities to the package. For example, the first user 4 may have booked a hotel for the trip for $250 a night for two nights, but the user's account is not charged until the stay at the hotel is completed. As such, the first user 4 may assign the cost of the hotel to the package as a future activity expense in order to budget for the package. In other embodiments of the invention the future cost may be assigned to the package automatically by the financial and social management system 1.
Block 1410 illustrates that the financial and social management system 1 receives an indication to associate one or more users with the package or with activities in the package. For example, the first user 4 may identify and tag users from previous activities within the first user's financial accounts. The first user 4 may also tag other users by selecting various users from the first user's social networking accounts. The financial and social management system 1 may also access the social networking accounts of the first user 4 to automatically tag user's associated with the package or the one or more activities in the package as previously described with respect to the tagged relationship process 400 of
In other embodiments of the invention, the financial and social management system 1 may access the first user's e-mail accounts, phone contact list, or other accounts to identify contacts, or otherwise receive e-receipts for activities or proposed activities, in order to tag users in the package. For example, the financial and social management system 1 may identify in an e-receipt for the flight associated with the package that the flight includes a second user 6, and thus, the financial and social management system 1 tags the second user 6 within the package. Moreover, as previously discussed the financial and social management system 1 may identify users to tag in the package as previously discussed with respect to the tagged relationship process 400 of
As illustrated by block 1412, the financial and social management system 1 receives an indication to associate one or more images with the package or with the one or more activities in the package. For example, as previously described herein with respect to the image integration process 300 of
Block 1414 illustrates that the financial and social management system 1 receives an indication from the user to add, remove, or edit one or more users, images, activities, tagged activity information, or other like information within the packages.
As illustrated in block 1416 the financial and social management system 1 may add links to one or more activities within the packages. For example, a link to the first user's flight status may be included in the package in order to allow the user check the status of the flight as the trip approaches. The user may allow the links to be added by allowing the financial and social management system 1 to access an e-receipt or other linked information included in the first user's e-mail account, or other account (e.g., an account with the specific entity). In another example, the financial and social management system 1 may identify activities purchased before the trip, such as tickets to a game, and provide linked information in the package regarding the game (e.g., website of the team, directions from the hotel to the game, or the like). In some embodiments, the financial and social management system 1 may provide links for activities that are not yet included in the package in order to provide suggested offers for activities in which to participate while at or near the location associated with the package.
As illustrated by block 1418, the financial and social management system 1 may share the one or more packages with other users that may be involved with the trip. For example, a group of people may be involved in planning the trip and paying for aspects of the trip, and as such, the packages (but not the user's financial account information) may be shared with various users to budget and pay for the trip associated with the package. Multiple users may be able to add, delete, and edit information within the package in order to plan for a trip or other event (e.g., saving for a purchase, or the like). In some embodiments of the invention payments may be collected or disbursed from or to the users in the package by pulling or pushing funds between the financial accounts of the users within the package.
In some embodiments of the invention the packages, and in particular the past packages, may be exported to another file type, printed out, or the like, in order to create an expense report for a business trip, to share the activities with budgeting software, or to share the activities with other users (e.g., users on the trip, or the like).
In some embodiments of the invention the packages may be formed based on groups within the social networking accounts of a user. For example, a user may be a part of a group within a social networking account, such as a charity group, a fan group, alumni group, a group associated with a product, entity, user, or category, or another like group. The financial and social management system 1 may identify that one or more activities of the user may be associated with the group and information from the social networking group may be captured. For example, users within the group may be tagged as being associated with an activity. In other embodiments, other activity information, images, or other digital content may be captured from the group within the social networking account and associated with an activity.
In some embodiments of the invention the social networking accounts of a user may be utilized to not only identify activities in the past (e.g., past locations of the user) or current activities (e.g., current locations of the user), but may also have the ability to identify future activities (e.g., locations at which the user will be in the future). To the extent that a social networking account includes information about the user in the future, the financial and social management system may be able to capture the future information and associate this type of activity information with an activity, as previously described herein with respect to past or current activities of the user.
As illustrated in block 1504 in
Block 1506 in
As illustrated by block 1508, the financial and social management system 1 displays the one or more activities that meet the activity history along with activity information related to the location, associated users, entities, or categories, as well as images as previously described herein. This information may be stored by the financial institution, however, in some embodiments it may be difficult to store all of this information for all the activities of all of the users, and thus, instead of storing this information, the financial and social management system 1 may access this information again on an as needed basis from the user's social networking accounts, the Internet, or the like as previously described herein.
The location history section 1620, may include an image of one or more activities that occurred at a particular location in which the user is located (e.g., within 3 miles) or for which the user requested (e.g., activities in city 1). The image illustrated in the location history section 1610 may be stored from the original activity, or otherwise determined as needed in the same or similar way as was previously described with respect to the image integration process 300 illustrated in
In some embodiments of the invention the financial and social management system 1 may push, pull, share, export, or otherwise allow other users to view or share at least some of the activity history with other users within or outside of the financial and social managements system 1. The activity history of the first user 4 may be sent to other users (e.g., second user 6). For example, if a first user 4 went to dinner with a second user 6 on the first user's birthday a year ago, a portion or all of the activity history related to the restaurant, images, users, amount spent, or other activity information may be made available to the second user 6 as a reminder of the activities of the first user 4 and second user 6 in the past.
In addition to sending activity history that may be shared between users, sponsored offers (e.g., coupon, discount, rebate, price reduction, or the like) may be sent to the first user and/or the other users associated with the activity history information. The financial and social management system may provide an offer to the first user 4 or the second user 6 when the activity information is shared. For example, the restaurant at which the users were located may provide an offer to the users through the financial and social management system 1 when it is determined that the users have not participated in any activities at the restaurant in the last three months. The financial and social management system 1 may provide activity history related to the experience of the users at the restaurant along with the offer in order to provide a more personalized offer to the users.
As illustrated by block 1704, the financial and social management system 1 may identify the activity information to aggregate over the time period automatically, or based on input from a user. For example, the financial and social management system 1 may automatically identify the first user's largest purchase over the past year, the user with which the first user 4 spent the most money, the one or more categories for which the first user 4 spent the most money, or the like. In other embodiments of the invention the user may select the activity information to aggregate. For example, the first user 4 may select that he would like to view how much money he spent when he was with the second user 6, his largest purchase, the five categories for which the first user 4 spent the most money, or any other like activity review information. Block 1706 of
As illustrated in Block 1708 of
Block 1710 of
The sections illustrated in the activity review interface 1800 may be interactive to allow a user to drill-down to additional aggregated activity information and consumption information. For example, as illustrated by the consumption interface 1900 in
In some embodiments of the invention aggregated information and the associated educational information (e.g., the consumption information) may be displayed using info-graphics that include images, video, clips, or other digital content that helps to illustrate the aggregated activity information.
In addition to embodiments of the invention described herein, the financial and social management system 1 may provide deals for activities, packages, past activities, or the like. The deals may be provided in the activity lists, packages, or past activity interfaces described herein.
In some embodiments of the invention the financial and social management system may allow a user to transfer information back to, or share information with the social networking accounts of the user, based in part on the activities in which the user participates. For example, the after a user makes a purchase, and the identity of the product, entity, category, or user is identified from the various sources of information, the financial and social management system 1 may prompt the user if the user would like to “like,” support, follow, or otherwise indicate that the user has a relationship with the product (e.g., likes the product), entity (e.g., follows or likes the entity), or user (add the user as a contact in the social networking account of the user). In other examples, the financial and social management system 1 may prompt the user to determine if the user would like to write a review of a product, entity, location, or the like on site that may allow the user to review these types of activities.
Embodiments of the invention are described herein as a financial institution incorporating information from a social networking account. In some embodiments, the interfaces described herein may be displayed through an online banking account controlled by the financial institution. In other embodiments of the invention a social networking institution can incorporate information from the financial institution accounts. In some embodiments, the interfaces described herein may be displayed through the social networking accounts controlled by the social networking institution. In still other embodiments as previously discussed, a third-party can incorporate information from the accounts of the user at financial institutions and social networking institutions into a financial and social management system 1 run by the third-party institution.
The network 2 may be a global area network (GAN), such as the Internet, a wide area network (WAN), a local area network (LAN), or any other type of network or combination of networks. The network 2 may provide for wireline, wireless, or a combination of wireline and wireless communication between devices on the network 2.
In some embodiments of the invention the first user 4 and the second user 6 (e.g., customers, clients, employees, agents, contractors, legal representatives, or the like), or other users, may have access to the financial and social management application 15 for tracking and managing user activities.
As illustrated in
The processing device 14 uses the communication device 12 to communicate with the network 2 and other devices on the network 2, such as, but not limited to, the first user computer system 20, the social networking systems 30, the second user computer system 30, and other user computer systems or financial institution systems (e.g., systems of a second financial institution). As such, the communication device 12 generally comprises a modem, server, or other device for communicating with other devices on the network 2.
As further illustrated in
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As further illustrated in
As previously indicated, in some embodiments of the invention the financial and social management application 15, may be located completely or partially on the financial institution systems 10, first user computer system 20, social networking systems 30, second user computer system 40, entity computer systems 50, other user systems, other financial institution systems, or other systems not specifically illustrated or described with respect to
As will be appreciated by one of skill in the art in view of this disclosure, the present invention may be embodied as an apparatus (e.g., a system, computer program product, and/or other device), a method, or a combination of the foregoing. Accordingly, embodiments of the present invention may take the form of an entirely hardware embodiment, an entirely software embodiment (including firmware, resident software, micro-code, etc.), or an embodiment combining software and hardware aspects that may generally be referred to herein as a “system.” Furthermore, embodiments of the present invention may take the form of a computer program product comprising a computer-usable storage medium having computer-usable program code/computer-readable instructions embodied in the medium.
Any suitable computer-usable or computer-readable medium may be utilized. The computer usable or computer readable medium may be, for example but not limited to, an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system, apparatus, or device. More specific examples (a non-exhaustive list) of the computer-readable medium would include the following: an electrical connection having one or more wires; a tangible medium such as a portable computer diskette, a hard disk, a random access memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM or Flash memory), a compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM), or other tangible optical or magnetic storage device.
Computer program code/computer-readable instructions for carrying out operations of embodiments of the present invention may be written in an object oriented, scripted or unscripted programming language such as Java, Pearl, Smalltalk, C++ or the like. However, the computer program code/computer-readable instructions for carrying out operations of the invention may also be written in conventional procedural programming languages, such as the “C” programming language or similar programming languages.
Embodiments of the present invention described above, with reference to flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams of methods or apparatuses (the term “apparatus” including systems and computer program products), will be understood to include that each block of the flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, and combinations of blocks in the flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, can be implemented by computer program instructions. These computer program instructions may be provided to a processor of a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, or other programmable data processing apparatus to produce a particular machine, such that the instructions, which execute via the processor of the computer or other programmable data processing apparatus, create mechanisms for implementing the functions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks.
These computer program instructions may also be stored in a computer-readable memory that can direct a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to function in a particular manner, such that the instructions stored in the computer readable memory produce an article of manufacture including instructions, which implement the function/act specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks.
The computer program instructions may also be loaded onto a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to cause a series of operational steps to be performed on the computer or other programmable apparatus to produce a computer implemented process such that the instructions, which execute on the computer or other programmable apparatus, provide steps for implementing the functions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks. Alternatively, computer program implemented steps or acts may be combined with operator or human implemented steps or acts in order to carry out an embodiment of the invention.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. ______ to Votaw, entitled “Financial and Social Management System,” U.S. patent application Ser. No. ______ to Votaw, entitled “Activity List Enhanced With Images For a Financial and Social Management System,” U.S. patent application Ser. No. ______ to Votaw, entitled “Activity List Tagged With Activity Information For a Financial and Social Management System,” U.S. patent application Ser. No. ______ to Votaw, entitled “Linking Users and Activities Through Activity Information in a Financial and Social Management System,” U.S. patent application Ser. No. ______ to Votaw, entitled “Activity List Linked with Receipts for a Financial and Social Management System,” U.S. patent application Ser. No. ______ to Votaw, entitled “Activity List Filters For a Financial and Social Management System,” U.S. patent application Ser. No. ______ to Votaw, entitled “Proposed Packages For a Financial and Social Management System,” U.S. patent application Ser. No. ______ to Votaw, entitled “Grouped Packages For a Financial and Social Management System,” U.S. patent application Ser. No. ______ to Votaw, entitled “Activity History For a Financial and Social Management System,” U.S. patent application Ser. No. ______ to Votaw, entitled “Activity Review For a Financial and Social Management System,” and U.S. patent application Ser. No. ______ to Votaw, entitled “Interactive Map for Grouped Activities Within a Financial and Social Management System,” are all filed concurrently herewith, and are all hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety.
Specific embodiments of the invention are described herein. Many modifications and other embodiments of the invention set forth herein will come to mind to one skilled in the art to which the invention pertains, having the benefit of the teachings presented in the foregoing descriptions and the associated drawings. Therefore, it is to be understood that the invention is not to be limited to the specific embodiments disclosed and that modifications and other embodiments and combinations of embodiments are intended to be included within the scope of the appended claims.
Although specific terms are employed herein, they are used in a generic and descriptive sense only and not for purposes of limitation.
