Patent ID: 7171473

Claim:
A method of establishing and maintaining an on-line presence, said method comprising: receiving at a server a new user login request from a user computer; validating the request; if the request is validated, sending a Web page to the user computer, said Web page containing an applet and an assigned unique session ID number; receiving an HTTP request from the applet running on the user computer, said request including an IP address, the assigned unique session ID number, and the user's name, said applet using the HTTP request to maintain a virtual continuous HTTP connection with the server; upon receipt of the HTTP request, making a TCP/IP open socket request to obtain an open socket for communication with the user machine; obtaining the open socket for communication with the user computer sending the login request; updating a user table that tracks each user that is on-line to add the new user; and updating a group table that tracks groups of on-line users to reflect the on-line presence of the new user.