Patent ID: 7933888

Claim:
A method for responding to a request for a presence publication, the method comprising: receiving, from a requestor, the request for the presence publication, wherein the requestor is considered a member of two or more of a plurality of containers, and wherein each of the plurality of containers includes a membership field, and wherein the plurality of containers are ordered in a precedence order, and wherein each of the plurality of containers comprises at least one presence publication that corresponds to a user, and wherein the at least one presence publication comprises at least one of a plurality of instances of presence information, and wherein the plurality of instances of presence information indicates a willingness of the user to communicate and indicates an availability of the user; satisfying the request for the presence publication from a highest precedence container of which the requestor is considered a member and that comprises at least one presence publication that matches the requested presence publication, wherein the highest precedence container is one of the plurality of containers, and wherein the membership field of a first container of the plurality of containers comprises at least one universal resource identifier that each represent an individual member, and wherein each individual member is considered a member of the first container, and wherein the first container is a first highest precedence container in the precedence order, and wherein a second container is a second highest precedence container in the precedence order, and wherein a third container is a third highest precedence container in the precedence order, and wherein a default container is a fourth highest precedence container in the precedence order; and wherein the method is performed by a computing device.