Patent ID: 7672974

Claim:
A method for facilitating sharing of information amongst a group of users of a computer system, the computer system including at least one input, at least one output and one or more processors coupled to the input and the output, said method comprising the steps of: (a) obtaining, via the at least one input, information of interest to one user of the group of users in order to define one or more areas of interest of the one user; (b) determining, by at least one of the one or more processors, if any of the users in the group of users have information corresponding to the information of interest to the one user, and if so which users; (c) assessing, by at least one of the one or more processors, a degree of commonality of the one user with respect to each other user in the group of users; (d) providing, via the at least one output to the one user, information corresponding to the information of interest from users in the group of users having a degree of commonality greater than a predetermined degree of commonality; (e) if the users having a degree of commonality greater than a predetermined degree of commonality do not have information of interest to the user, defining a first subset of users of the groups of users, said first subset of users having been determined to have a degree of commonality greater than a predetermined degree of commonality; (f) determining which other users in the group of users have a degree of commonality with respect to the users in the first subset of users greater than a predetermined degree of commonality; and (g) providing to the one user information corresponding to the information of interest from users in the groups of users which have a degree of commonality with respect to the users in the first subset of users greater than a predetermined degree of commonality.