Social platform with enhanced privacy and integrated customization features

Abstract

A social networking platform offering various services, such as, facilitating aggregation and management of a user's interaction on one or more social networking platforms, offering enhanced control over the level of privacy associated with the flow of user data, offering tools to customize the user's exposure to advertisement-related content on the social networking platform(s), integrating features to control aspects of how data/content is presented to and visualized by the user, empowering the user to multicast direct messages to other users without the other users having to meet certain constraints, empowering the user to create and/or join a group based on messaging threads, and the like. One or more of these enhanced services/features are associated with a powerful framework of authentication/permission model for access control.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A computer-implemented method of implementing a multi-network interaction within a first social network, the method comprising:
 identifying a plurality of users to form a group within the first social network;   enabling members of the group to connect to a second social network from within the first social network, wherein the second social network is external to the first social network;   enabling members of the group to access contents posted by at least some of the other members of the group to the second social network; and,   displaying, within the first social network, contents posted by the members of the group to the second social network.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the first social network is a private social network. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein the second social network external to the first social network is a private or public social network. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the displaying of the contents posted by the members of the group to the second social network are done based on a chronological order or other sorting criteria defined by users of the first social network. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the method further comprises:
 determining identification information for the members of the group who are also members of the second social network;   based on the determined identification information, retrieving the contents posted by the members of the group members in the second social network by querying a stream of contents served by an external server associated with the second social network; and   archiving the retrieved contents at the first social network such that frequency of querying the external server is controlled.   
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the members of the group who are connected within the first social network do not have to be connected with one another on the second social network. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein additional social sharing tools for content archiving and sharing are provided to members of the group for facilitating posting and archival of content to the first social network and the second social network. 
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the method further comprises:
 disabling the displaying of contents posted by the members of the group to the second social network based on member preference.   
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 5 , wherein the method further comprises:
 authenticating the first social network as a trusted application within the second social network.   
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 9 , wherein an algorithm used for authenticating comprises OAuth algorithm. 
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 5 , wherein the archiving step comprises:
 asynchronously pushing the stream of contents by the members of the group of the first social network to an internal server for the first social network; and   storing the stream of contents in a local database coupled to the internal server for the first social network.   
     
     
         12 . The method of  claim 11 , wherein the archiving step continues irrespective of whether an initiating user goes offline at any of the first or the second social networks. 
     
     
         13 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein selective members of the group are able to see the content posted to the second social network from other group members, based on permission granted to the selective members to see one another's content on the second social network. 
     
     
         14 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the members of the group are enabled to exchange direct messages to other members of the group. 
     
     
         15 . The method of  claim 13 , wherein a first member of the group is enabled to multicast direct message to two or more members of the group. 
     
     
         16 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the members of the group are provided additional tools to create content-rich message threads. 
     
     
         17 . A computer-implemented method for dynamically creating a formalized group on a social network platform, the method comprising:
 enabling users to directly exchange messages within the social network with one or more other users of the social network;   storing a thread of messages between the users of the social network;   providing at least one of the users an ability to formally create a group as an initial group owner within the social network based on the stored thread of messages; and   providing the ability to one or more members of the formalized group to manage aspects of the formalized group.   
     
     
         18 . The method of  claim 17 , wherein prior to formalizing a group, an ad hoc set of users is chosen as potential group members. 
     
     
         19 . The method of  claim 17 , where the social network is a private social network. 
     
     
         20 . The method of  claim 17 , wherein the formal creation of the group is based on evaluating characteristics of the messages. 
     
     
         21 . The method of  claim 19 , wherein the evaluated characteristics of the messages include one or more of: content of the message; frequency of the exchange of messages; sender of the message; recipient of the message; size of the message; and, theme of the message. 
     
     
         22 . The method of  claim 17 , wherein managing aspects of the formalized group includes one or more of: inviting additional users of the private social network to join the formalized group as members; managing permission levels of individual members to interact with other existing members of the formalized group; selectively removing individual members of the formalized group; sharing content with members of the formalized group; and, delegating group ownership to another member of the formalized group. 
     
     
         23 . The method of  claim 17 , wherein the contents of the stored thread of messages include one or more of: text posts, photographs, graphics, audio files, video files, calendar events, contact information of people, and multi-media files. 
     
     
         24 . The method of  claim 17 , wherein the contents are shared within the formalized group only to be accessed by existing members of the formalized group based on individual permission level for accessing shared contents. 
     
     
         25 . The method of  claim 24 , wherein individual permission levels are configurable for existing members of the formalized group. 
     
     
         26 . The method of  claim 24 , wherein the permission level assigned to an individual member is configured to control the ability for the individual member to view shared contents, edit shared contents, comment on shared contents, and tag shared contents. 
     
     
         27 . The method of  claim 24 , wherein the permission level assigned to an individual member is configured to control the ability for the individual member to invite additional members. 
     
     
         28 . The method of  claim 17 , wherein the method further comprises:
 assigning identification indicia to the stored thread of exchanged messages, such that contents within the stored thread of exchanged messages become available to users outside of the formalized group based on similar identification indicia, as long as the user is within the social network.   
     
     
         29 . The method of  claim 17 , wherein the identification indicia comprises one or more of a color, a descriptive text label, and a symbol. 
     
     
         30 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the method further comprises:
 importing a communication exchange thread from an external social network for the purpose of creating a group; and   integrating the imported communication exchange thread within the social network platform.   
     
     
         31 . A computer-implemented method of presenting multi-format information to a user of a social networking platform, the method comprising:
 enabling the user to control the relative proportion of various formats of information embedded within a stream of information being visualized by the user within the social network platform.   
     
     
         32 . The method of  claim 31 , wherein the various formats of information includes: text posts, graphics, video clips, calendar events, contact information, documents, and, images. 
     
     
         33 . The method of  claim 31 , wherein a configuration mechanism to control the relative proportion of various formats of information includes graphic user interface tools including one or more of: a slider, a knob, a button, and, a switch. 
     
     
         34 . The method of  claim 33 , wherein density of contextual information available to the user while visualizing the stream of information depends on a setting of the configuration mechanism. 
     
     
         35 . The method of  claim 34 , wherein the setting of the configuration mechanism can be dynamically changed while visualizing the stream of information. 
     
     
         36 . The method of  claim 31 , wherein the social network platform suggests default proportions for certain formats of information. 
     
     
         37 . The method of  claim 31 , wherein a user is enabled to choose a global setting for visualizing streams of information within all groups where the user is a member. 
     
     
         38 . The method of  claim 31 , wherein a user is enabled to choose a local setting for visualizing streams of information within each group where the user is a member. 
     
     
         39 . A computer-implemented method of globally associating identification indicia in the form of a universal tag, wherein the universal tag spans across different service types and different information types available within the social network, the method comprising:
 enabling a user within the social network to sort, organize, or otherwise categorize items using the universal tag within several formats of information including one or more of text posts, graphics, photos, video clips, calendar events, contact information, documents, and other media, wherein the tagged items are configured to be available within one or more types of services; and   archiving the universal tag and the associated items in a database of the social network.   
     
     
         40 . The method of  claim 39 , wherein services include one or more of: photo sharing, calendar event sharing, collaborative document generation, document sharing, contact information sharing, and group messaging. 
     
     
         41 . The method of  claim 39 , wherein the user is a member of a plurality of groups within the social network. 
     
     
         42 . The method of  claim 41 , wherein the universal tag spans across the plurality of groups within the social network. 
     
     
         43 . A computer-implemented method of serving advertisements to a user within a social network platform, wherein the user's personal identification information is anonymized, the method comprising:
 providing an interface on the social network platform for the user to enter information specific to the user's advertisement viewing preference, thereby setting up an advertisement filter, and, anonymizing the user's personal identification information from the provider of the social network platform; and   placing a proxy server between an advertisement provider and the social network platform server, wherein the proxy server blocks access to user's personal identification information by the advertisement provider, and, selectively presents the advertisements to the user that are passed through the advertisement filter based on the user's advertisement viewing preference.   
     
     
         44 . The method of  claim 43 , wherein the advertisement filter is configurable to reflect the user's level of interest on one or more of the following categories: a type of product, a manufacturer of a product, a brand of a product, a geographical availability of a product, a price range of a product. 
     
     
         45 . The method of  claim 44 , wherein the advertisement filter is configurable to control a level of granularity of a category. 
     
     
         46 . The method of  claim 45 , wherein the advertisement filter associates a slider to each category of advertisement, wherein the user can indicate on the slider his level of interest for that category. 
     
     
         47 . The method of  claim 43 , wherein if each of the sliders is indicating zero preference, then at least one of the sliders is automatically set to a default value indicating a default level of interest. 
     
     
         48 . The method of  claim 47 , wherein the default level of interest is determined based on the user's activities within the social network platform, the activities being specifically related to the user's advertisement viewing and interaction. 
     
     
         49 . The method of  claim 48 , wherein the advertisement filter is reconfigured based on user's definitive feedback. 
     
     
         50 . The method of  claim 42 , wherein a user is enabled to buy the privilege of not viewing any ad by paying the social network platform provider a predefined amount of money. 
     
     
         51 . The method of  claim 42 , wherein an additional proxy server is placed between the social networking platform and a site of the advertisement provider, where the user expresses a definitive intent to visit the site of the advertisement provider. 
     
     
         52 . The method of  claim 50 , wherein the definitive intent is expressed by clicking on an advertisement. 
     
     
         53 . The method of  claim 43 , wherein coupons are placed within the social network based on the user's advertisement viewing preference.