Patent ID: 7617529

Claim:
A method comprising: electronically receiving, with an interface device, a definition of a first group identifying a first plurality of users; automatically generating, with a processing system, the first group having the first plurality of users according to the definition of the first group, where the first group is a private group having content available to one or more owners of the first group and unavailable to non-owners of the first group; electronically receiving, with the interface device, a definition of a second group identifying a second plurality of users; automatically generating, with the processing system, the second group having the second plurality of users according to the definition of the second group, where the second group is a private group having content available to one or more owners of the second group and unavailable to non-owners of the second group; receiving a definition of a desired group with the interface device, where the definition of the desired group explicitly specifies that the first group is to be included in the desired group and explicitly specifies the second group is to be excluded from the desired group; and automatically generating, with a processing system, the desired group to include the first group and exclude the second group according to the received definition of the desired group, where the desired group includes the content of the first group, where the desired group is a public group allowing the content of the first group to be available to both the owners of the first and second groups and the non-owners of the first and second groups.