Patent ID: 7877694

Claim:
A method of generating notifications in a notifications system, said notifications system being configured to provide notifications to subscribers via a data communication network, said notifications containing content provided by a plurality of content providers, said method comprising: providing a parameter-driven template to the plurality of content providers for completion by the content providers; receiving a parameter-driven template from at least one of the plurality of content providers, said received template relating to a category specified by the content provider, said received template containing one or more parameters specified by the content provider, said parameters defining a plurality of events specified by the content provider and relating to the specified category, each of said events comprising a recurring event specified by the content provider, said parameters relating to a subscription for notifications and specifying a predefined scheduled generation time for the generation of notifications to occur, wherein one of the parameters in the received parameter-driven template relates to delivery of the generated notifications at a predetermined time of day specified by the content provider; enabling a notifications application based on the received template, said notifications application mapping the latest recurring event of the specified category to one or more subscribers as a function of the parameters specified by the content provider in the received parameter-driven template provided by the content provider, wherein enabling the notifications application based on the received template includes creating an application definition file that describes the notifications application; executing the notifications application on a recurring basis to generate a notification in accordance with the predefined scheduled generation time specified by the received parameter-driven template parameters, wherein the notification is generated based on matching the latest recurring event of the specified category with subscribers of the specified category, and wherein the generated notification is delivered to the subscribers of the specified category on a recurring basis in accordance with the time of day delivery parameter specified by the received parameter-driven template; and providing a user interface for the subscribers to manage the subscription whereby the managed subscription has parameters corresponding the received parameter-driven template received from the content provider.