Patent ID: 7346649

Claim:
A method of displaying one or more periodically updated channels of electronic information received over a network from a content server, the method comprising the computer-implemented steps of: initiating execution, in an end-user computer that is coupled over a public network to one or more content servers, of a personal server software that is hosted within the end-user computer; receiving and storing at the end-user computer, content channel information defining a plurality of content channels available from a plurality of sources associated with the one or more content servers; selecting a subset of channels from among the plurality of available content channels; periodically retrieving updated channel content for the subset of channels from the content servers across the public network, without communicating the channel selection information across the network; synthesizing one or more original, personalized electronic documents from the updated channel content from various sources; displaying the one or more documents; wherein the receiving, storing, selecting, retrieving and synthesizing are carried out by the personal server software that executes at the end-user computer.