Patent ID: 7974940
Filing Date: 2011-07-05
Classification: G06Q

Abstract:
1. A method of initiating an interactive dialog in an online community, comprising: establishing a categorization of users of the online community into a plurality of subject matter categories; receiving a topic suggestion from a first person; categorizing the topic suggestion into a subject matter category of the plurality of subject matter categories; identifying, based on the categorization, a subset of users that have been categorized into the subject matter categories; wherein the subset includes one or more first users of the online community but not one or more second users of the online community; posing a test related to the subject matter category to the subset of users but not to the one or more second users; receiving responses to the test; identifying one or more third users, of the one or more first users, from whom an acceptable response was received; connecting the first person and the one or more third users from whom an acceptable response was received to facilitate a dialog, between the first person and the one or more third users; and facilitating the dialog between the first person and the one or more third users; providing each of the first person and the one or more third users a mechanism by which to indicate approval to publish the dialog; and publishing the dialog electronically to the online community only upon determining that each of the first person and the one or more third users decided the dialog should be committed for electronic publication; wherein the method is performed by one or more computing devices.