Abstract:
A forum participation technique enables users to participate in postings and discussions directly to a blog from a plurality of websites. The technique allows an administrator to enhance a webpage by adding to it an in-page access to the blog. The technique also enables two-way communication between users of webpages having the in-page access. In all, the forum participation technique increases the distribution of a blog by making the blog available on a plurality of websites. Moreover, by enabling the administrators to incorporate interactive, remote blogs into a website, forum participation technique provides administrators with a way of expanding and enhancing web-community interactions.

Description:
RELATED APPLICATIONS 
       [0001]    This application claims the benefit of the following commonly-owned U.S. Provisional Patent Applications, each of which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety: U.S. App. No. 60/886,641 filed on Jan. 25, 2007; and U.S. App. No. 60/897,619 filed on Jan. 26, 2007. 
     
    
     BACKGROUND 
       [0002]    1. Field 
         [0003]    The invention relates to web-based discussion groups using a distributed forum. 
         [0004]    2. Description of the Related Art 
         [0005]    In general, a web-based forum is any discussion group accessible through the web, where users submit postings for other users to read. Postings are electronic messages sent into the forum from sources such as a newsgroup or a blog, and as other users read the postings, they are free to respond, resulting in an ongoing group discussion. Forums can be either time-coincident discussions, such as chat rooms, or forums that do not require the participants to be present at the same time, such as a blog. Blog type forums, which require messages to be stored and manipulated, have been traditionally located on a particular website, and users have had to go to that particular website in order to participate in postings and discussions. 
         [0006]    There remains a need for a forum participation technique that enables users to participate in postings and discussions directly to a blog from a plurality of websites. 
       SUMMARY 
       [0007]    A forum participation technique enables users to participate in postings and discussions directly to a blog from a plurality of websites. The technique allows an administrator to enhance a webpage by adding to it an in-page access to the blog. The technique also enables two-way communication between users of webpages having the in-page access. In all, the forum participation technique increases the distribution of a blog by making the blog available on a plurality of websites. Moreover, by enabling the administrators to incorporate interactive, remote blogs into a website, forum participation technique provides administrators with a way of expanding and enhancing web-community interactions. 
         [0008]    In one aspect, a method of communicating that is disclosed herein includes receiving first web content from servers on a network; transmitting the first web content to a plurality of client applications running in a plurality of webpages, substantially all of the webpages being under different administrative control from one another; receiving second web content from at least some of the plurality of clients; and transmitting the second web content to at least some of the servers on the network. The web content may be grouped into discussion threads. The web content may be of at least one service. The service may be a blog. The method of communicating may include transmitting a plurality of instances of computer code, wherein each of the instances, when processed, provides one of the clients. The computer code, when processed, may provide a blogging application. The computer code, when processed, may provide a web browser. The computer code, when processed, may provide an instant messaging forum. 
         [0009]    In one aspect, a distributed forum platform that is disclosed herein includes a first input adapted to receive first web content from servers on a network; a first output adapted to transmit the first web content to a plurality of client applications running in a plurality of webpages, substantially all of the webpages being under different administrative control from one another; a second input adapted to receive second web content from at least some of the plurality of clients; and a second output adapted to transmit the second web content to at least some of the servers on the network. The web content may be grouped into discussion threads. The web content may include at least one service. The service may be a blog. The distributed forum platform may include a third output adapted to transmit a plurality of instances of computer code, wherein each of the plurality of instances, when processed, provides one of the clients. The computer code, when processed, may provide a blogging application. The computer code, when processed, may provide a web browser. The computer code, when processed, may provide an instant messaging forum. 
         [0010]    These and other systems, methods, objects, features, and advantages of the present invention will be apparent to those skilled in the art from the following detailed description of the preferred embodiment and the drawings. All documents mentioned herein are hereby incorporated in their entirety by reference. 
     
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES 
         [0011]    The invention and the following detailed description of certain embodiments thereof may be understood by reference to the following figures: 
           [0012]      FIG. 1  depicts a block diagram of the distributed forum platform. 
           [0013]      FIG. 2  provides an example of a forum discussion thread. 
           [0014]      FIG. 3  provides an example of a user window depicting a discussion thread embedded into a user&#39;s blog. 
           [0015]      FIG. 4  provides an example of a forum-level window embedded into a user&#39;s blog. 
           [0016]      FIG. 5  shows a thread-level access component. 
           [0017]      FIG. 6  shows a slim-line forum access component. 
           [0018]      FIG. 7  shows an application-level forum access component. 
       
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
       [0019]    A personal website, such as blog, allows its owner to initiate a public discussion thread by posting web content, such as a blog post. Visitors to the website may read the blog post and, in some cases, post responses. These responses may appear on the personal website, providing future visitors with the opportunity to see the initial blog post plus any and all responses. 
         [0020]    The owner of the personal website may himself visit or frequent another website. That website may contain one or more discussion threads that the owner finds relevant to his personal website. The owner may want to share these discussion threads with his personal website&#39;s visitors. However, the owner may not want to direct the visitors away from his personal website. 
         [0021]    The forum participation techniques described herein may enable the owner of the personal website to share a discussion thread at another website without directing visitors to that website. Software for accessing the discussion thread may be included in plurality personal websites by their respective owners. When this happens, a distributed forum may arise in which a plurality of visitors to a plurality of personal websites may communicate via a single discussion thread hosted at a single personal website. 
         [0022]    Throughout this disclosure references to a personal website should be understood to include any and all websites, including commercial websites. Moreover, references to an owner of a personal website should be understood to include any and all owners, including corporate owners or other non-human entities. The word “owner” should be read as “owner, administrator, or the like”. 
         [0023]      FIG. 1  shows a block diagram  100  of the components of a distributed forum platform  102  and its interactions with users  104  and web content  120 . These components and interactions include the distributed forum platform  102 , the users  104 , a website  108 , a forum  110 , a web service  112 , a thread  114 , an embeddable code  118 , web content  120 , and so on. 
         [0024]    The distributed forum platform  102  may be associated with a website  108  that users  104  may access. From this website  108  users  104  may view the forum  110 ; create a forum  110 ; access the web service  112 , and so on. 
         [0025]    The users  104  may include owners of personal websites, visitors to personal websites, and so on. 
         [0026]    The website  108  may be a personal website, corporate website, or the like. The website  108  may contain one or more forums  110 , each of which may contain one or more threads  114 . The forums  110  and the threads  114  may constitute web content  120 . The website  108  may be hosted on one or more web servers and may be available via the Internet at one or more URLs. 
         [0027]    The forum  110  may provide an online venue in which people can synchronously or asynchronously communicate. In embodiments, the forum  110  may be a blog, chat room, or the like. The forum may be encoded in HTML, XHTML, XML, or the like. The forum  110  may be hosted on a web server and may be available via the Internet at one or more URLs. Forums  110  managed within the distributed forum platform  102  may be created from a plurality of text sources, and may be supplemented with rich media, such as podcasts, video, mainstream media, and the like. It will be understood that a variety of embodiments of the forum  110  are possible. 
         [0028]    The web service  112  may provide users  104  with content that is associated with the forum  110 , the thread  114 , the web content  120 , or the like. Without limitation, the web service  112  may be an advertising service that provides, to users  104 , advertisements that are related to the forum  110 , thread  114 , and/or web content that the users  104  are receiving. For example, a user  104  may be viewing a thread  114  that relates to web hosting. In this example, the web service  112  may provide to the user  104  one or more pay-per-click advertisements that relate to web hosting. It will be understood that a variety of embodiments of the web service  112  are possible. 
         [0029]    The thread  114  may be a threaded discussion including a post followed by any and all number of comments. The comments may be nested. That is, there may be comments to comments as well as comments to the post. Alternatively or additionally, the thread may be a collection of web content  120  that is related by topic. The topic may be encoded with a tag, which may be user-supplied and/or machine-generated. The thread  114  may be organized chronologically, alphabetically, according to user feedback, and so on. It will be understood that a variety of embodiments of the thread  114  are possible. 
         [0030]    The embeddable code  118  may include software providing direct access to the forum  110 , thread  114 , and/or web content  120  at the website  108 . The software may be embedded or loaded into client-side software, such as and without limitation the user&#39;s  104  blog software, the user&#39;s  104  web browser, or the like. The embeddable code  118  may be installed, linked, and/or dynamically loaded in client-side software. Alternatively or additionally, client-side software may download, interpret, and/or execute the embedded software at runtime. 
         [0031]    The owner of a personal website may provide or link to the embeddable code  118  from the personal website. A user  104  who visit the website  108  may ally receive the embeddable code  118 . The software may include JavaScript, Flash, XSLT, HTML, or the like. It will be understood that the software may include a variety of software, not just blog software. It will be understood that a variety of embodiments of the software are possible. 
         [0032]    The web content  120  may include any content provided via the World Wide Web. For example and without limitation, the web content  120  may include images, video, blog posts, comments, trackbacks, pingbacks, email, and the like. A plurality of websites (including the website  108  and remote websites) may provide the web content  120 . It will be understood that a variety of web content  120  is possible. 
         [0033]    Users  104  may communicate with the distributed forum platform  102  as a client from anywhere on the web. The user  104  (via the client) may communicate with the website  108 , forum  110 , thread  114 , web content  120 , or the like. The client may include the embeddable code  118 , which may at least in part enable the aforementioned communication. 
         [0034]    In general, the user  104  may continue to interact with the forum  102  and related web content  120  without remaining at a particular website. The user  104  may be provided with embeddable code  118 , which he may put into his personal webpage. When a visitor  104  views the personal webpage, that visitor&#39;s client application processes the embeddable code  118 . 
         [0035]    A forum participation technique includes receiving first discussion content from servers on a network. The arrow from the web content  120  to the distributed forum platform  102  depicts this. Then, the distributed form platform  102  transmits the first discussion content a plurality of client applications in a plurality of webpages. The arrow from the distributed forum platform  102  to the users  104  depicts this. In response to the web content  120 , some or all of the users  104  may post a comment, response, or the like. As shown by the arrow from the users  104  to the distributed forum platform  102 , the comment, response, or the like may be received, at the distributed forum platform  102  and from the users&#39;  104  clients, as second discussion content. The distributed forum platform  102  may transmit the second discussion content to at least some servers that are hosting the web content  120 . The arrow from the distributed forum platform  102  to the web content  120  shows this. 
         [0036]    The forum participation technique my include distributing instances of the embeddable code  118  to some or all of the users  104 . The embeddable code  118 , when processed, may provide a client-side application that implements some or all of the forum participation technique. 
         [0037]    The distributed forum platform  102  may implement the forum participation technique. The distributed forum platform  102  may include a first input adapted to receive the first discussion content. The distributed forum platform  102  may include a second input that is adapted to transmit the first discussion content to a plurality of user  104  client applications. These client applications may be running in a plurality of web pages, substantially all of which may have different owners from one another. The distributed forum platform  102  may include a second output adapted to transmit the second discussion content to at least some servers hosting the web content  120 . The distributed forum platform  102  may include a third output adapted to transmit a plurality of instances of the embeddable code  118  to users&#39;  104  client applications. It will be understood that a variety of embodiments of the distributed forum platform  102  are possible. 
         [0038]    The distributed forum platform  102  described above provides numerous feature and advantages not present in the prior art. By way of example, the distributed forum platform  102  allows users  104  on multiple websites  108  and blogs to participate in a single discussion, with users  104  posting replies directly from their own website  108 , or any site on the web. The distributed forum platform  102  provides user  104  links back to its source content, which gets real estate on websites  108  and blogs from all over the web. Allows users on multiple websites/blogs to participate in a single discussion 
         [0039]    In one aspect, the content of a distributed discussion thread may provide links to content of the distributed forum host, or to content providers, or some combination of these. Each forum may expand its presence by obtaining web page space on websites/blogs all over the web. In addition to providing enhanced advertising revenue opportunities for content creators, this approach can improve search placement by incorporating feedback from users across the web. 
         [0040]      FIG. 2  shows a remote discussion thread hosted at a distributed forum platform. In general, the user interface  300  provided by the forum may include a toolbar  302  and one or more discussion threads  304 , each including a plurality of posts  306  or other items. A user  104 , visiting the website  108  of the distributed forum platform  102  for the first time, may utilize webservices to establish a connection to their site. The user  104  may then pull content windows up in their own site. The user  104  may choose to connect only to an individual discussion thread  304 , like the one shown in the thread illustration  300  of  FIG. 2 . Note that initially this discussion thread  304  comes from a third-party forum, and includes items  306  relating to a single discussion occurring within that forum. 
         [0041]      FIG. 3  shows a different website  400 , such as a weblog, containing code (such as Flash media, JavaScript, or the like) allowing a user to embed the discussion thread  304  of  FIG. 2  within the user&#39;s own content  402 . The user  104  may wish to allow this discussion thread  304  to embed into their own website  108 , and permit viewers of their content  402  to participate in the remote discussion, as shown in embedded thread illustration of  FIG. 3 . 
         [0042]    The embedded thread  306  may include a number of tools to support end user interaction with the discussion thread. For example, the embedded thread  306  may provide a scrollbar for navigating through thread content without disturbing the end user&#39;s window or the provider&#39;s content  402 . The embedded thread may add “reply” or “post” tools that function, from the user&#39;s perspective, in the same manner as conventional web communication systems. It will be understood that while the behavior may be similar for and end user, that operationally the behavior is significantly different because each reply or other communication is transmitted through the distribute forum platform, which may in turn periodically update content within the embedded thread  306 . Other tools such as a link to the distributed forum platform host, or help tools, option menus, and the like may similarly be included to enhance end user and content provider usage of the message thread. In order to further improve independent portability of the message thread  306 , the embedded thread on the content provider&#39;s site may include a button or other tool that permits end user&#39;s to port the embedded thread to additional web content, such as a web site or weblog hosted by the end user. 
         [0043]      FIG. 4  shows another example of web content incorporated discussions from a distributed forum. In particular, users  104  may embed a forum-level access into the content  402  of their website  600 , where the various discussion threads  602  for the forum topic are listed in a topic window  604 . The user  104  may choose to use, or provide to end users, application-level access to the forum, which combines both the thread-level window  304  and forum-level window  604 , such as within a multi-pane window embedded into the web content  600 . These components may be added using tools within the forum website, or using suitable coding to add appropriate external references to a suitably enabled web page or other content. 
         [0044]    In general, the forum may provide a number of different formats for presenting remotely hosted content.  FIG. 5  shows a thread-level component  800  including a title  802  of a discussion thread and a number of items  804  within the discussion thread.  FIG. 6  shows a slim-line forum access component  900  including a title  902  of a forum and a listing of various discussion topics  904  hosted by that forum.  FIG. 7  shows an application-level component  1000  that provides an integrated view and controls for a number of different discussion threads  1002 , and for one or more selected once of the discussion threads  1002 , a number of individual posts  904  within that thread  1002 . In addition to providing a layout and source content, each component may provide any number of additional tools such as those generally described above, to assist end users in both interacting with the content and/or re-distributing the content or otherwise incorporating the content into additional web content, all while maintaining end user connections to the forum hosting the original discussion (or other content). Thus the distributed platform may provide varying degrees of integration from which a web page or other content designer may select the most appropriate format and tools. For example, these tools cooperate to provide users  104  and bloggers with a robust forum a comment toolset for flexible integration of content from the forum. 
         [0045]    In one aspect, advertising may also be added in order to produce a revenue stream that may be allocate as appropriate among a web site displaying the content, the distributed forum platform, and an original content source. Advertisements may be placed within posts, title bar areas, or any other region within the layouts shown, for example, in  FIGS. 5-7 . 
         [0046]    The user interfaces described above may be implemented as user-side client application, or as a connection to an appropriate server, which may be hosted at a web content provider that is providing the web page (or other content), or at the distributed forum platform. In another aspect, elements of the interface may be authorized and enabled by original content sources through suitable adaptations to the original content server. A management configuration interface may be located, for example, at the website  108  of the distributed forum platform  102 . A user  104  that starts a forum may specify what its focus is to be, who can post to it, whether other web sites can participate at that forum, and the like. These options may be configured through the management interface to the distributed forum platform  102  website  108 . In one embodiment, the client interface may be implemented as a Flash-object embedded within a web page that connects to a particular thread on a forum. This technique or any other suitable web technology may be employed to allow users  104  to hit a reply button or otherwise interact with discussion content without navigating away from a particular page where the distributed content is being displayed. Forum-level and application-level interfaces may be instantiated in a similar way. 
         [0047]    In a connection to a user  104  site such as a blog, the blogger writes and maintains the blog. If the blogger wants to add the blogger&#39;s own forum, or tap into an existing forum  110 , or add a forum capability to its blog, all the blogger has to do is copy the HTML code  118  and put it on their page for their users  104  to have access to the forum/discussion. The capabilities now show up on its blog to read. When a user  104  comes to the blog web site, the user  104  now sees a list of threads  114  on the forum  110 . Clicking on one of the threads  114 , the discussion appears, and the user  104  may now hit the reply button in order to join in the thread&#39;s  114  discussion. The user&#39;s  104  reply is now accessible to any person reading the forum  110 , anywhere on the web. 
         [0048]    The distributed forum platform  102  enables a user  104  to cross communicate with other users  104 , while not leaving the user&#39;s  104  own website  108 , MySpace page, blog, or the like. It will be understood that while the preceding discussion has emphasized weblog content and discussion forums, the concepts disclosed herein may be readily applied to chat rooms, bulletin boards, auctions, interactive games, or any other communication or interaction medium supported through a data network such as the Internet. All such variations as would be apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art are intended to fall within the scope of this disclosure. 
         [0049]    The elements depicted in flow charts and block diagrams throughout the figures imply logical boundaries between the elements. However, according to software or hardware engineering practices, the depicted elements and the functions thereof may be implemented as parts of a monolithic software structure, as standalone software modules, or as modules that employ external routines, code, services, and so forth, or any combination of these, and all such implementations are within the scope of the present disclosure. Thus, while the foregoing drawings and description set forth functional aspects of the disclosed systems, no particular arrangement of software for implementing these functional aspects should be inferred from these descriptions unless explicitly stated or otherwise clear from the context. 
         [0050]    Similarly, it will be appreciated that the various steps identified and described above may be varied, and that the order of steps may be adapted to particular applications of the techniques disclosed herein. All such variations and modifications are intended to fall within the scope of this disclosure. As such, the depiction and/or description of an order for various steps should not be understood to require a particular order of execution for those steps, unless required by a particular application, or explicitly stated or otherwise clear from the context. 
         [0051]    The methods or processes described above, and steps thereof, may be realized in hardware, software, or any combination of these suitable for a particular application. The hardware may include a general-purpose computer and/or dedicated computing device. The processes may be realized in one or more microprocessors, microcontrollers, embedded microcontrollers, programmable digital signal processors or other programmable device, along with internal and/or external memory. The processes may also, or instead, be embodied in an application specific integrated circuit, a programmable gate array, programmable array logic, or any other device or combination of devices that may be configured to process electronic signals. It will further be appreciated that one or more of the processes may be realized as computer executable code created using a structured programming language such as C, an object oriented programming language such as C++, or any other high-level or low-level programming language (including assembly languages, hardware description languages, and database programming languages and technologies) that may be stored, compiled or interpreted to run on one of the above devices, as well as heterogeneous combinations of processors, processor architectures, or combinations of different hardware and software. All such permutations and combinations are intended to fall within the scope of the present disclosure. 
         [0052]    While the invention has been disclosed in connection with the preferred embodiments shown and described in detail, various modifications and improvements thereon will become readily apparent to those skilled in the art, and are intended to fall within the scope of this disclosure. Accordingly, the spirit and scope of the present invention is not to be limited by the foregoing examples, but is to be understood in the broadest sense allowable by law.