Patent ID: 8688801

Claim:
A method for providing syndicated feeds from peers of a peer-to-peer network, the method comprising: receiving a request at a proxy node server from a requestor for a syndicated feed from a peer on the peer-to-peer network, wherein the proxy node server facilitates communication between the peers of the peer-to-peer network, and wherein the requestor is a feed reader provided on a computer that communicates with the proxy node server over a network; determining, by the proxy node server, whether the peer is currently online or offline; pulling, by the proxy node server, the requested syndicated feed from the peer, inserting an online status indicator in the requested syndicated feed, and serving the requested syndicated feed to the requestor if the peer is currently online; retrieving, by the proxy node server, the requested syndicated feed from a cache of the proxy node server, inserting an offline status indicator in the requested syndicated feed, and serving the requested syndicated feed to the requestor only if the peer is currently offline; and upon a user of the computer requesting a full content referenced by the requested syndicated feed, the proxy node server serving the full content from the peer only if the peer is currently online, otherwise the proxy node server providing a message of unavailability of the peer to the user consistent with the offline status indicator.