Patent ID: 8260873

Claim:
A method for grouping devices based on proximity, comprising: determining that a first avatar associated with a first device is in a virtual world proximity of a second avatar associated with a second device; determining that the first device is in a communications proximity of the second device where the first device is determined to be in the communications proximity of the second device when the communications proximity is below a threshold; initiating a proximity cluster session between the first device and the second device when the first avatar is in the virtual world proximity of the second avatar and the first device is in the communications proximity of the second device; identifying one of the first device and the second device as a master device and another of the first device and the second device as a slave device; providing a plurality of slave devices; combining data destined for the master device and data destined for the slave device into a composite message; and sending the composite message to the master device, wherein combining the data destined for the master device and the data destined for the slave device into the composite message and sending the composite message to the master device comprises determining if data destined for one of the plurality of slave devices is identical to data destined for another of the plurality of slave devices and putting a single occurrence of the data destined for the one of the plurality of slave devices into the composite message and indicating in the composite message that the data destined for the one of the plurality of slave devices should be forwarded to the one of the plurality of slave devices and the another of the plurality of slave devices after the message is received at the master device.