Patent ID: 8875028

Claim:
A user collaboration system comprising: a user profile database comprising community membership information, the community membership information including information about community members for a plurality of communities, where each community includes a plurality of the community members; a non-transitory memory connected to at least one computer processor, the memory comprising: a presentation layer operative to cause the at least one computer processor to receive a request for a collaborative session with an anonymous member of a specific community among the plurality of communities, the request associated with a first user, the request specifying a first subject matter and the specific community; and a logic layer including: a presence component operative to cause the at least one computer processor to determine available community members matching the first subject matter of the specific community from among the plurality of community members of the specific community; and a filter component operative to cause the at least one computer processor to: where there is at least one available community member matching the first subject matter, identifying as a second user a member from among the at least one available community members having a type of network connection compatible with the request of the first user and matching the first subject matter; where there are no available community members matching the first subject matter; determine when a member of the specific community becomes newly-available; determine whether the newly-available member of the specific community matches the first subject matter and whether a type of network connection of the newly-available member is compatible with the request of the first user; and where the newly-available member matches the first subject matter and the type of network connection of the newly-available member is compatible with the request, identify the newly-available member as the second user; and select collaboration session information based on the type of network connection and send the selected collaboration session information to the first user and the second user to facilitate initiating a collaborative session between the first user and the second user.