Dynamic Creation Of Content Channels

Abstract

A system and method are provided for allowing a user to define and subscribe to channels of information to be pushed to a wireless device. In defining a channel a specific area of a web page is selected by the user to be monitored for change. The user may also select data to be pushed should a change be detected. A regular expression is created to match the area of interest for changes and if changes occur to push the desired content to the wireless device. Icons on the wireless device alert the user to any unread pushed content. Users may also subscribe to predefined channels, or modify predefined channels should they have the security authorization to do so.

1 . A method in a server, the method comprising:
 receiving, from a wireless device, information about a fragment of interest from a web page to be monitored for changes;   receiving, from the wireless device, information about a change target area, the change target area defining what content is to be pushed should a change occur in the fragment of interest;   building a change expression based on static content in the fragment of interest and a matching pattern expression from a pattern dictionary; and   creating a new content channel based on the change expression, wherein when changes in the web page are detected using the change expression said content is pushed to at least one subscriber of the new content channel.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 prior to building the change expression, comparing the fragment of interest to the pattern dictionary to determine if the matching pattern expression exists in the pattern dictionary; and   if the matching pattern expression does not exist in the pattern dictionary:
 monitoring the fragment of interest for a predetermined number of detected changes; 
 building a pattern expression based on the detected changes, wherein the pattern expression includes wildcards for detected changes of the same format and static information from the monitored fragment of interest; and 
 adding the pattern expression to the pattern dictionary. 
   
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the matching pattern expression is a regular expression and the regular expression matches dynamic content and static content of the fragment of interest. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 receiving, from the wireless device, a name and categorization for the new content channel.   
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 storing the change expression in a content channel manager database, wherein the content channel manager database includes information about subscriptions to various content channels.   
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein building the change expression includes text in the fragment of interest that precedes the matching pattern expression, the matching pattern expression, and text in the fragment of interest that follows the matching pattern expression. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 scanning for changes to content of the web page utilizing the change expression; and   pushing changed content to subscribers of the new content channel.   
     
     
         8 . A method in a wireless device, the method comprising:
 receiving, via a user interface of a mobile browser, a selection of a fragment of interest from a web page to be monitored for changes;   receiving, via the user interface, a selection of a change target area, the change target defining what content is to be pushed to the wireless device should a change occur in the fragment of interest; and   sending information about the fragment of interest and information about the change target area to a server configured to create a new content channel based on the fragment of interest and the change target area.   
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 8 , further comprising:
 subscribing to the new content channel; and   receiving changed content via the new content channel, when changes occur to the fragment of interest.