Patent ID: 7406500

Claim:
A method for providing a virtual workspace comprising a plurality of electronic devices, wherein information can be exchanged among the plurality of electronic devices through a plurality of connections between the electronic devices, the method performed by one or more of the electronic devices in the virtual workspace and comprising the steps of: determining services available within the virtual workspace; selecting one or more of said plurality of electronic device in the virtual workspace able to provide data of interest; determining one or more data formats associated with the data, wherein a portion of the data has a given one of one or more data formats; selecting, based at least in part on a plurality of predetermined criteria and the given data format, an electronic device of the plurality of electronic devices suitable for presenting at least the portion of the data by using one of the services, wherein the predetermined criteria comprise user preferences, and wherein the step of selecting an electronic device suitable for presenting further comprises the step of selecting, based on a multidimensional score determined using at least the user preferences; determining a route through the plurality of connections to the selected electronic device suitable for presenting; routing at least the portion of the data associated with the given data format through at least a portion of the route; and determining the multidimensional score by adding two or more terms, each term having a value determined by multiplying a variable by a weight, wherein each weight corresponds to a user preference.