Patent ID: 7502825

Claim:
A method, comprising: creating one or more clones of a first forum for user interaction, wherein the first forum is dedicated to a particular topic, and wherein each clone is an instance of the first forum, thereby allowing any number of users to be in the same forum dedicated to the particular topic while limiting the number of users in each instance of the first forum; determining whether an interactive relationship exists between a first user entering the first forum and a second user entering the first forum or already in the first forum, wherein an interactive relationship is determined to exist if the first user and the second user have had an online interaction with each other prior to the first user entering the first forum; when an interactive relationship exists, determining whether an instance of the first forum is full; when the instance of the first forum is full, determining whether a headroom of the instance of the first forum is full, the headroom being extra capacity reserved for use by users having an interactive relationship; and when the headroom of the instance of the first forum is full, placing the first user entering the first forum in a clone of the first forum based on the interactive relationship.