Patent ID: 7177904

Claim:
A method of communicating content information related to one or more virtual user groups from a first user system, the method comprising: storing first information on the first user system, the first information identifying a set of one or more virtual user groups subscribed to by a user of the first user system, the set of virtual user groups including a first virtual user group; Automatically identifying, at the first user system from content information accessed by a user using the first user system, content information that is relevant to any of the virtual user groups identified by the first information, the identified content information comprising content information that is relevant to the first virtual user group, wherein the identifying is done substantially free of any input from the user of the first user system; and communicating the identified content information that is relevant to the first virtual user group from the first user system to a server hosting the first virtual user group to enable communication of the identified content information relevant to the first virtual user group to one or more other subscribers of the first virtual user group; wherein automatically identifying the content information at the first user system comprises; determining, at the first user system, contents of a content source accessed using the first user system; determining, at the first user system, a topic to which the contents of the content source are related; determining, at the first user system, if the topic is related to the first virtual user group; and identifying, at the first user system, the contents of the content source as being relevant to the first virtual user group upon determining that the topic is related to the first virtual user group.