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Instant message user management

Instant message user management description/claims

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to computer software, and deals more particularly with techniques for managing user information in instant messaging systems.

2. Description of the Related Art

Instant messaging systems are a popular communications mechanism for many people, and provide for instant, real-time communication between users who are connected to the system through an on-line or electronic networking environment such as the Internet, World Wide Web (hereinafter, “Web”), or corporate internal intranets. Examples of instant messaging systems include Yahoo!® Messenger, AOL Instant MessengerSM, and Lotus Instant Messaging and Web Conferencing. (“Yahoo!” is a registered trademark of Yahoo! Inc. and “AOL Instant Messenger” is a service mark of America Online, Inc.)

Instant messaging systems provide real-time awareness of who is logged on. Typically, an instant messaging (hereinafter, “IM”) system user has an address book or “buddy list” containing names or nicknames for those people with whom he communicates. The entries in this address book are used for selecting a message recipient. In addition, the IM system (“IMS”) typically indicates, using a visual cue (such as different icons or different fonts), which of the people in the address book are logged on to the system and which are not. When the message sender and the target recipient are both currently logged on to an IMS (which may be the same IMS, or a different IMS), a message can be delivered and presented to the recipient nearly instantly (depending on network delay).

Instant messaging systems are often used for communicating among friends, and are also becoming integral business tools that enable team members or other business associates to communicate more efficiently and effectively (e.g., as they collaborate on a project).

An IMS user may also have user groups defined in his address book, where a user group comprises individual users (each of whom may also have a separate entry in the address book) and, optionally, other groups. Over time, as a user adds more and more people (or groups) to his address book, a situation arises where a number of these people/groups will not actually engage in IM sessions with the user in the near term (where “near term” may be defined in various ways, including this week, this month, this year, etc.). For example, a user “Joe” may have 300 entries in his IM address book, whereas he only engages in IM sessions on a weekly basis with 5 of these people.

In current IM systems, an IM server manages functions, such as “presence” detection, of the address book equivalently for all users. “Presence”, for an IMS, is the function whereby the IM display for a user such as Joe is dynamically updated to indicate which users from Joe's address book are currently online (and are therefore available for participating in an IM session). As can be imagined, as Joe's address book grows larger over time, the amount of system resources expended in performing management functions such as presence increases. The presence function, for example, is typically notified when a user's IM client comes online, and this presence function then notifies other IM users of the new client presence. When a user's IM client becomes inactive, enters a “do not disturb” state, or goes offline, it sends a message to the presence server, which in turn communicates that information to other IM users. In a situation such as the example described above, where Joe only interacts with 5 users but has 300 entries in his address book, a very unproductive use of resources results due to current IM servers managing functions (such as presence) of all these users. The overall efficiency of the IM server is seriously degraded when there are a number of users in this same situation.

One solution to this problem would be for Joe to simply delete users or groups from his address book, as he finds he does not interact with them frequently. However, if he subsequently wishes to engage in an IM session with a deleted user or group, he will need to manually re-enter their information into his address book. Re-entering information is time-consuming, and therefore most users do not find this approach acceptable.

Accordingly, what is needed are improvements to the management of user information in IM systems.

An object of the present invention is to provide techniques for improving the management of user information in IM systems.

Another object of the present invention is to provide techniques whereby user entries in an IM address book can be treated as “expired”, without actually deleting those entries.

A further object of the present invention is to provide techniques for managing expired IM address book entries differently from non-expired entries to thereby improve efficiency of an IMS.

Other objects and advantages of the present invention will be set forth in part in the description and in the drawings which follow and, in part, will be obvious from the description or may be learned by practice of the invention.

To achieve the foregoing objects, and in accordance with the purpose of the invention as broadly described herein, the present invention may be provided as methods, systems, and/or computer program products. In one aspect, the present invention comprises techniques for managing user information in an IMS by: determining, for an IM client, whether users remembered by the IM client should be treated as expired; and omitting those users which are to be treated as expired when performing selected IM management functions.

The omitting preferably includes omitting the expired users when performing presence determination. The determination preferably further comprises using expiration criteria selected by a user of the IM client. This determination may comprise one or more of: comparing a first date when an instant message last arrived from a particular user to a second date selected by a user of the IM client; determining whether an instant message last arrived from a particular user more than a specified length of time before the current time; comparing a first date when an instant message was last sent by a user of the IM client to a particular user to a second date selected by the IM client user; and determining whether an instant message was last sent by a user of the IM client user to a particular user more than a specified length of time before the current time.

The determination may be triggered in several ways, including by scheduling an action to analyze expiration information for each presently-unexpired user; performing the evaluation of each presently-unexpired user at configured intervals; and/or by scheduling an expiration action for each of one or more users, where each user will then be treated as expired upon execution of the scheduled expiration action for that user.

Optionally, the determination may further comprise selecting, by a user of the IM client, one or more users that will then be automatically treated as currently expired.

The determination and the omitting may also be performed for user groups remembered by the IM client.

The determination may use default expiration criteria, and a user of the IM client may be allowed to selectively override the default expiration criteria.

This aspect may further comprise receiving an inbound message from a particular user who is being treated as expired, and then treating the particular user as no longer expired, responsive to the receiving. In addition or instead, this aspect may further comprise sending an outbound message from the IM client to a particular user who is being treated as expired, and then treating the particular user as no longer expired, responsive to the sending.

• Provisional Patent
• Utility Patent

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