Patent ID: 8260823

Claim:
A method of aggregating and discovering people with one or more attributes, the method comprising: in response to receipt of a request to tag a person identifier (ID) within a contact list with an attribute tag, tagging the person ID with the attribute tags in each of a plurality of contact lists belonging to a plurality of clients; assigning a quality value to one or more of the attribute tags for the person ID in each of the plurality of contact lists, wherein the quality value is a numerical value that indicates a degree of expertise of a person identified by said person ID in a particular field represented by an associated attribute; aggregating, in a community database, person IDs tagged with attribute tags from said plurality of contact lists belonging to said plurality of clients, wherein only person IDs that are tagged with an attribute tag are placed within the community database, wherein said aggregating further comprises: receiving a tagging message from a creator, said tagging message including a tag, a person ID, a value, and a creator identifier (ID), wherein the creator ID identifies said creator; determining whether the tag in said tagging message is for a new tag category; and in response to determining that said tag in said tagging message is for a new tag category: creating the new tag category in a tagging table; and adding the person ID, value, and the creator ID of said tagging message to the new tag category in said tagging table; receiving a request for a list of person IDs tagged with a particular attribute; and in response to said receiving: searching said community database for person IDs tagged with said particular attribute; and returning to a requester a list of person IDs tagged with said particular attribute.