Patent ID: 7885974

Claim:
A method for operating an online service facility selectively accessed by multiple member computers, the online service facility including a plurality of online data centers operated by an online service provider (OSP) to store members' data objects relating to a variety of online services that the OSP renders to its members, the method comprising operations of: providing an aggregated catalog that contains information including: (1) metadata identifying members' data objects residing in the data centers, and (2) metadata identifying members' data objects residing in local storage of respective member computers; monitoring contents of the data centers to detect new storage of prescribed types of data objects owned by the members; communicating with the member computers to identify prescribed types of data objects newly stored in the member computers' local storage; updating the aggregated catalog to list the newly stored data objects from the online data centers and member computers' local storage; responsive to each request by a member, searching the aggregated catalog and utilizing results of the search to provide an output for display at the requesting member's computer, the output comprising a consolidated listing of both online data objects and locally stored data objects owned by the requesting member; where the consolidated listing includes a member-activatable SHARE feature; where the operations further comprise, responsive to activation of the SHARE feature in conjunction with a particular one of the listed data objects, activating software to share the particular data object with a member-designated transferee.