1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to communication amongst groups of individuals, and more particularly, to generating dynamic groups that is relevant to a specific theme.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various social platforms have been provided to users to build, integrate and facilitate social interaction of users on the Internet. These social platforms provide tools that act as Internet forum or online message/boards/groups to engage user interaction. The boards, groups or forums allow digital interaction by enabling a group of users to post messages and comment on other messages or articles using interaction tools, such as emails, message blogs, etc. The primary problem with such groups is that most of the group-based and social online solutions do not sustain beyond a few weeks or months. Further, these social platforms are usually built based on static relationship of people, thereby becoming a mere extension of the real-world connections and relationships. Additionally, these groups are formed for generic interactions related to various themes and are not specific to any particular subject/theme. As a result, the subject matter for the boards/groups/forums keep changing randomly making it practically impossible to extract a specific theme from these interactions. Additionally, due to the generic nature of these interactions, users on these boards/groups/forums receive random messages from different users including messages that may be totally unrelated to the topics being discussed by the group or messages that are not generally wanted by the users. Such messages may be marked as spam messages by some members defeating the purpose of sending these messages.
Contrary to the design of conventional social platform tools, virtual world interactions need not have to reflect or be constrained by the real-world connections and relationships. Such restrictions would reduce the richness in the content of the group. It would, therefore, be desirable to enhance the richness of content within the group by opening the group to a larger audience of users. It would also be desirable to provide more focused theme-based groups so as to attract correct set of users that are interested in the group's theme who can actively contribute and enrich the content in the group and who can rely on and share the enriched content resources of the group. It would also be useful to develop a social interaction tool that would address the issue of receiving unwanted messages from members that seldom contribute.
It is in this context that the embodiments of the invention arise.
Embodiments of the present invention address the various design issues of the conventional boards/groups/forums provided by various social platform tools by defining a method, an algorithm and a system for generating a dynamic group for a specific theme. The dynamic group enables a user to expand their social circle beyond the static relationship confinement established by their social contact list. The dynamic group is theme-based enabling highly focused participation by the members of the group resulting in rich source of information that is highly relevant to the theme of the group. Due to the highly focused approach established by the theme-based group, most of the spam related issues that have generally been an issue with the conventional groups are successfully addressed. The groups are dynamic in nature making it possible for the group to grow or shrink in size, merge or de-merge so as to maintain focus in the group.
It should be appreciated that the present invention can be implemented in numerous ways, such as, methods, systems and computer readable medium. Several inventive embodiments of the present invention are described below.
In one embodiment, a method for generating a dynamic group is disclosed. The method includes defining a theme for the group. A group is initiated for the defined theme and plurality of users are invited to join the group. The activities of the plurality of users that have joined the group are monitored over time, wherein the activities are directed toward enriching information associated with the defined theme or one or more sub-themes of the defined theme. User dynamics of the group are adjusted dynamically based on the monitored activities of the users. The adjusted user dynamics define a strength value of the theme for the group of users.
In another embodiment, a computer readable medium encoding program instructions for generating a dynamic group is provided. The computer readable medium includes program instructions for defining a theme for the group. The computer readable medium further includes program instructions for initiating the group for the defined theme. The program instructions also include instructions to invite a plurality of users to join the group and to monitor activities of the users that have joined the group, wherein the activities are directed toward enriching information associated with the theme or one or more sub-themes of the defined theme. Program instructions for adjusting user dynamics of the group based on the monitored activities of the users, are also provided. The adjustment in the user dynamics define a strength value of the theme for the group of users belonging to the group.
In yet another embodiment, a system for enabling a private conversation for a content published on a website is disclosed. The system includes a dynamic group generator module configured to execute on a server to, (a) initiate a group for a theme defined by a user; (b) invite a plurality of users to join the group; (c) monitor activities of the invited users that have joined the group, wherein the activities serve to enrich information associated with one or more sub-themes of the defined theme; (d) compute participation score of each user in the group based on number of activities of the respective user; and (e) adjust user dynamics of the group based on the computed participation score associated with the plurality of users, the adjusted user dynamics defining a strength value of the theme as it relates to the users of the group.
The embodiments of the invention provide an efficient tool to generate a group that is more content rich and focused on a defined theme. The members of the group actively contribute to enrich the content of the group. The users are able to use myriads of social interactive tools, such as emails, blog tools, messenger tools, etc., to generate interactions that can support various activities related to collaboration of resources, such as discussion threads, emails, blog posts, messages, comments, etc., and sharing of resources around the theme, such as videos, books, links, pictures, ratings, reviews, events, articles, etc., within the group and such activities are updated, monitored and used to adjust the user dynamics so as to enhance and enrich the content and contribution to the group.
Other aspects of the invention will become apparent from the following detailed description, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, illustrating by way of example the principles of the invention.
The invention may best be understood by reference to the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.
a-2d illustrate the dynamic theme-based group that is generated, in one embodiment of the invention.
a-4c illustrate exemplary graphs plotting strength value of the dynamic group over time, in one embodiment of the invention.
Broadly speaking, the embodiments of the present invention provide methods, system and computer readable medium that utilizes a mechanism provided on a server to generate a theme-based dynamic group. The mechanism on the server interacts with a client-side module to receive user interaction including a defined theme for initiating a dynamic group and to monitor the user interaction to adjust the user dynamics of the group. The adjustment to the dynamics of the group includes filtering out inactive users so only users that are actively contributing to enrich and share the content of the group are retained. The mechanism also allows for deactivating a group when the interactions within the group fall below a threshold value and archiving the contents for subsequent retrieval. Additionally, the deactivated group can be re-activated by the existing members or by new members joining the group and the contents retrieved from archives so that users can continue to contribute toward the theme of the reactivated group.
With the brief overview, various embodiments of the invention will now be described in detail with reference to the figures.
The server device 200 includes a server-side interface 205 that receives the transmitted interactions from the entity driven interaction interface 110 of the client device 100 and forwards these interactions to a dynamic group generator module (or simply a “generator module”) 210 for processing. The generator module 210 analyzes the interaction to determine if there is a request to generate a new group from a user. In one embodiment, the group may be a discussion group or any other type of group that enables social collaboration. The interaction received from the client device 100 includes information that identifies a theme for which a new group is requested by the user. In one embodiment, the information may also include rules and regulations to guide user interactions within the group provided by the user. These rules and regulations are used to define the policies and principles of operation and interaction governing the group. In response to the request, the generator module 210 creates a group for the specified theme and defines the policies and principles based on the rules and regulations provided in the information. In another embodiment, the information received from the client device 100 may not include any rules and/or regulations. In this embodiment, the generator module 210 may use a set of default policies and principles that are appropriate for the requested theme, to provide guidance to user interactions for the group. In addition to the creation of the group, the generator module 210 may send out an invitation to a set of users inviting the users to participate in the group. In one embodiment, the generator module 210 may receive a list of “invitees” from the user as part of the request for creating the group. In this embodiment, the generator module 210 may send an invitation to the list of invitees to join and participate in the group. In another embodiment, in addition to the list of invitees or in place of the list of invitees, the generator module 210 may access one or more contact lists of the requesting user to identify invitees and send an invitation to the invitees to join and participate in the group. Each of the social interaction tools within the entity may maintain distinct contact lists of the user and the generator module 210 may use the one or more of these distinct contact lists of the user to send out invitations to the invitees to join the group. In one embodiment, the identified invitees may, in turn, invite additional users, who then can invite additional users, and so on, thereby expanding the user base of the group. In one embodiment, the user who initiated the creation of the group may moderate the interactions of the various users in the group by enforcing the defined policies and principles of the group and may, in some embodiment, seek assistance of one or more of the invitees in moderating the group, depending on the size of the membership, the amount of interactions, expertise of the invitees, etc.
Once the group is created for the identified theme, the users may begin interacting and collaborating within the group. The user interactions and collaborations relate to the identified theme or to one or more sub-themes within the identified theme and generate information that is focused and rich in content. The generator module 210 monitors the user interactions and collaborations and adjusts the user dynamics of the group based on the monitored interactions. During the monitoring of the various interactions and collaborations, the generator module 210, in one embodiment, keeps track of the different type of interactions and collaborations and the number of each type of interactions and collaborations originating from each user who is a member of the group and stores such information in one or more databases for subsequent retrieval and analysis.
The generator module 210 includes a filtering algorithm 215 to filter the users in the group based on the analysis of the monitored interactions. The filtering algorithm may identify the various types of interactions originating from a user, categorize the interactions into the respective types for each user, and compute a participation score for the user as a function of the type and number of interactions for each type. As mentioned earlier, the various types of interactions may include message blogs, emails, comments, ratings, reviews, etc. The aforementioned types of user interactions are exemplary and should not be considered restrictive. The filtering algorithm 215 may associate a certain weight to each type of interaction received for the theme/sub-themes and use this weight for computing the participation score of each user. In one embodiment, the filtering algorithm 215 may provide more weight to interactions, such as comments, weblogs, etc., that provide content to the group than interactions, such as ratings or reviews, etc., that do not provide any content but evaluates or provides feedback to the content.
Upon computing the participation score of each user, the filtering algorithm 215 may determine if any user needs to be filtered out of the group due to lack of participation or contribution to the group. In order to determine whether one or more users need to be filtered out of the group, the filtering algorithm 215 compares the computed participation score of the user with a pre-defined threshold value. When the participation score of the user is below the pre-defined threshold value, it is determined that the user has not significantly contributed to the group and needs to be removed from the group. As a result, the filtering algorithm uses an activator/deactivator algorithm 220, in one embodiment, to deactivate the user from the group.
In one embodiment, upon determining that the user's participation score is below the pre-defined threshold value and prior to actual deactivation of the user from the group, the filtering algorithm may send out a notification or a warning to the user indicating that the user's participation is below a threshold value and is targeted for termination from the group. This warning provides the user with an opportunity to increase his/her participation in the group in order to retain access to the information in the group. After the warning is issued, the filtering algorithm may wait for a pre-set period of time and then compute the participation score of the user to determine if the user's participation score has improved. If the participation score has improved, the filtering algorithm allows the user to continue in the group. If the participation score of the user has not improved from previous computation, the filtering algorithm may use the activator/deactivator algorithm 220 to deactivate the user from the group.
The filtering algorithm 215, thus, uses information from the captured interactions to adjust the user dynamics of the group.
As more and more users are filtered out and the group reduces in size, the generator module 210 may determine if the number of users and/or the number of interactions for the group fall below the pre-defined threshold value. In one embodiment, if the number of interactions and/or the number of users in the group fall below the threshold value, the generator module may deactivate the group so that the existing users of the group are no longer able to access the content and interact in the group. In this embodiment, the generator module may move the content accumulated for this group into an archive for later retrieval. Subsequently, when a request to revive the group is received from a user, the generator module 210 will retrieve the content and other information for the group from the archive and reactivate the group. The user may be one of the users that were active in the group before it was deactivated or may be a new user who has an interest in the theme of the group. The reactivated group is configured to receive the interactions from the users for the theme or for one or more sub-themes and to allow new users to join the group. In another embodiment, when the number of interactions and/or the number of users in the group fall below the threshold value, the generator module may delete the group. In this embodiment, the content related to the group may also be deleted.
The filtering algorithm may weigh and rank the various interactions differently based on the defined theme. For instance, for a particular theme, such as a group related to a medical field or a class, comments provided by different users may be ranked higher due to these comments providing information to the group. Additionally, the ratings and reviews may be ranked higher than the comments and the views may be ranked lower. This may be due to the fact that the ratings/reviews may be provided by an expert in the particular theme whose contributions tend to enrich the content while the views are by those that are just viewing and not necessarily contributing toward the content. In another group, such as a football game, the ratings/reviews may be provided by fans who may not be experts in the football game theme. As a result, the ratings/reviews may be weighed and ranked lower than the comments. It should be noted that the user interactions in the various embodiments discussed herein are focused only on three types of interactions, comments, ratings/reviews and views for illustrative purpose only. It should, therefore, be understood that there could be other types of interactions and collaborations and the logic within the filtering algorithm will weigh and rank these different actions and interactions accordingly. Thus, the filtering algorithm uses various attributes related to the theme of the group and the contributing users to weigh and rank the various interactions captured for the theme/sub-themes.
In addition to computing participation score for each user of the group, the filtering algorithm may use the participation score to compute a strength value of the group, in one embodiment. The strength value of the group defines the relevance of the interactions to the theme as reflected by the users participation by interaction. The filtering algorithm computes the strength value as a function of the participation score of the users that are identified as active contributing members of the group. As the participation score of each user varies over time, the strength value also varies over time.
b illustrates an alternate sampling of a list of users in group 2 as analyzed by the generator module with the aid of the filtering algorithm. As discussed with reference to
Alternately, new users may join the group individually or by merging groups, thereby allowing the group to grow in size. This dynamically adjusted group provides rich content for the declared theme and for the one or more sub-themes within the declared theme making it a rich source of relevant information that causes active and continual engagement of users. Due to the continual engagement of users, the dynamic groups can be a good source for promoting advertisements and other promotional media that are focused and relevant to the theme/sub-themes.
c illustrates an embodiment that seeks to expand the user base of a group. As illustrated in
d illustrates an exemplary ideal group that is generated and maintained by the generator module based on the interactions of the users toward the theme. Each of the users that remain in the group are active participants that continue to provide rich content and interactions that are relevant to the theme and one or more sub-themes. The users in the group remain due to their interest in the theme and are not dependent on real-world connections thereby enabling conversations/interactions that are focused and intense. As illustrated above, the group grows or shrinks depending on the number of users and their activity. Any interaction originating from a user, who is an active member is relevant to the group and is not considered a spam as they have joined the group due to their interest and not due to their connections.
In one embodiment, when more than one groups exist for a particular theme, the groups can be merged to generate a single group for the theme. More than one groups may exist, for instance, when the users of each of the groups are located in different geographies. As a result, based on a request from a user of a first group to a moderator of a second group, the first group may be merged into the second group. After the merger, the first group will be required to follow the policies and principles of the second group, if the first and the second groups' policies and principles are different. With the bigger group, the users can access greater amount of rich information that will make interactions amongst the bigger group of users that much more interesting and relevant.
It should be noted that as a group shrinks in size, the theme may be less relevant to the users and the group shrinks to oblivion. Initially, when a group is first created based on a request by a user, other users invited to participate in the group may be from direct connects of the requesting user, either provided explicitly or through address books/contact lists. The invited users may expand the user base of the group by extending invitations to other users that they feel are interested in the theme. As the group expands, a set of unrelated individuals come together to interact for a common theme and such interactions are relevant and intense as each user has joined the group because of their innate interest in the theme. As a result, the size of the group and the amount of content exchanged amongst the users exemplifies the strength value of the theme and the group's survival. groups having themes that are relevant for short period of time, such as Super Bowl, Football World cup, etc., may attract users that provide intense engagement during the short period and then may die out or be archived. The archived content may be revived and used for subsequent interactions by the same set of users or by other users. As mentioned earlier, each group may include one or more sub-themes and the interactions under each sub-theme are collected for each sub-theme under the main theme. Thus, the generator module provides a collaboration tool that enables accumulation of knowledge based on the specific theme, share the knowledge base with other users on a perpetual basis, and link articles, events, books, videos, etc., for other users to access and share. The group can be either a public group or a private group. With a private group, the users are able to access the content and participate in the group by invitation only, whereas the public group, any user who is interested in the theme can access the content and participate in the group. The policies and principles defined for the group will determine the entry and exit/filtering-out criteria for the users in the group.
With the above detailed description of the various embodiments, methods for initiating and sharing a private conversation for a content article published on a website will now be described with reference to
The generator module then monitors all the interactions within the group, as illustrated in operation 340. The monitoring of interactions includes ensuring that the interactions follow the defined policies and principles. The interactions may include generation and sharing of content, comment or rating the content, etc., using myriad of tools, such as email tool, photo uploading and sharing tool, video uploading and sharing tool, weblog tools, instant message tool or messenger tool, ratings tool, online deal tool, etc., to generate content that include emails, photo shows, video clips/shows, comments, blogs, messages, pulses, ratings, reviews, memberships, movies, deals, etc. The interactions from each user are gathered and used to adjust the user dynamics of the group. The generator module gathers the interactions and computes a participation score for each user. As mentioned earlier, the generator module may weigh various types of interactions differently and compute the participation score based on the type and frequency of the interaction. The participation score for each user may vary over time and reflects the level of interest of the user to the s occurring under each sub-theme and the defined theme within the group. Using the participation score, the generator module filters the users of the group dynamically. The dynamic filtering inactivates or filters out the inactive contributors that do not add any value to the group. The resulting group identifies a list of users who are active and serious contributors within the group enriching the content and adding value to the group.
The continuous monitoring and dynamic filtering enables the group to either shrink by filtering users or through de-merging so as to only include active users for the defined theme. The groups may also grow in size through mergers/users joining the group. The resulting group has rich content that caters to the interest of the users. The group that lasts longer is the one that has active participants with active theme and provides better content relevance. As a result, the group can be a hot spot for focused promotional target, and thereby for potentially huge monetization realization. As mentioned earlier, the current embodiments also provide the ability to archive the contents for a group that has reduced in size or lacks active contributing users so that the content can be retrieved and the group reactivated. The archiving and reactivation allows for preserving the rich content collected for the theme over time for later retrieval and sharing.
Embodiments of the present invention may be practiced with various computer system configurations including hand-held devices, microprocessor systems, microprocessor-based or programmable consumer electronics, minicomputers, mainframe computers and the like. The invention can also be practiced in distributed computing environments where tasks are performed by remote processing devices that are linked through a wire-based or wireless network.
With the above embodiments in mind, it should be understood that the invention could employ various computer-implemented operations involving data stored in computer systems. These operations can include the physical transformations of data, saving of data, and display of data. These operations are those requiring physical manipulation of physical quantities. Usually, though not necessarily, these quantities take the form of electrical or magnetic signals capable of being stored, transferred, combined, compared and otherwise manipulated. Data can also be stored in the network during capture and transmission over a network. The storage can be, for example, at network nodes and memory associated with a server, and other computing devices, including portable devices.
Any of the operations described herein that form part of the invention are useful machine operations. The invention also relates to a device or an apparatus for performing these operations. The apparatus can be specially constructed for the required purpose, or the apparatus can be a general-purpose computer selectively activated or configured by a computer program stored in the computer. In particular, various general-purpose machines can be used with computer programs written in accordance with the teachings herein, or it may be more convenient to construct a more specialized apparatus to perform the required operations.
The invention can also be embodied as computer readable code on a computer readable medium. The computer readable medium is any data storage device that can store data, which can thereafter be read by a computer system. The computer readable medium can also be distributed over a network-coupled computer system so that the computer readable code is stored and executed in a distributed fashion.
Although the foregoing invention has been described in some detail for purposes of clarity of understanding, it will be apparent that certain changes and modifications can be practiced within the scope of the appended claims. Accordingly, the present embodiments are to be considered as illustrative and not restrictive, and the invention is not to be limited to the details given herein, but may be modified within the scope and equivalents of the appended claims.