Comment-centered news reader

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10699078-B2
Application number	US-201515578195-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	May 29, 2015
Priority date	May 29, 2015
Publication date	Jun 30, 2020
Grant date	Jun 30, 2020

Abstract

Methods and systems for providing a comments-centered news reader. Configurations allow live comments to be presented along with the news or similar website content. While a user scrolls up and down in a browser presenting a news article on the user's computer device (e.g., mobile device), linked comments are shown in a selected region. The displayed comments automatically change to adapt to what parts (paragraphs, sentences) of the news article that user is currently reading. At the same time, users can publish their own comments without having to proceed to a separate section of the browser, thus saving the viewer actions and improving the user's experience. The user's system or a remote server records the comments along with the article or the place users are in the article when the comment was entered.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:
receiving, at a computing device connected to a network, content comprising a plurality of text segments, the content originating from one or more content sources connected to the network;
receiving, at the computing device, a plurality of comments previously associated with the content, the comments having origination at one of the computing device or other computing devices connected to the network;
presenting a portion of the received content including a first text segment in a first section of a display device of the computer device;
determining one or more comments of the plurality of received comments to present based at least on a topic identified from the first text segment presented in the first section of the display device, wherein a topic identified from the one or more comments is linked to the topic identified from the first text segment presented in the first section of the display device and wherein the topic identified from the one or more comments is linked to a plurality of text segments within the content;
determining whether the number of comments linked to the topic identified from the first text segment exceeds a threshold number; and
if the number of comments exceeds the threshold number, presenting the one or more comments in a second section of the display device by automatically scrolling, within the second section, the one or more comments linked to the topic identified from the first text segment.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , further comprising: receiving user entered text as a comment in a third section of the display device; and sending via the network the received comment and information relating to the content to a comment/contents-linking device.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the content comprises a news article webpage or a posting webpage.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 3 , wherein the one or more content sources comprise a server associated with a news service.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , further comprising: identifying sentences of the content having previously linked comments; and presenting the sentences of the content identified as having linked comments in a manner different from sentences of the content that do not have any linked comments.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 5 , wherein presenting the content identified as having linked comments comprises highlighting at least a portion of the sentences of the content having the linked comments.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the scrolling comprises at least one of horizontally or vertically scrolling the presented comments within the second section.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , further comprising: in response to determining the one or more comments to be presented, determining if an amount of text or characters in the determined one or more comments to be presented exceeds a threshold number; and if the amount of text or characters exceeds the threshold number, automatically scrolling the one or more comments within the second section.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 8 , wherein the scrolling comprises at least one of horizontally or vertically scrolling the presented comments within the second section.

10. A computing device comprising:
a processor;
a display device; and
a computer-readable storage medium in communication with the processor, the computer-readable storage medium having computer-executable instructions stored thereupon that, when executed by the processor, cause the computing device to:
receive content comprising a plurality of text segments, the content originating from one or more content sources connected to a network;
receive a plurality of comments previously associated with the content, the comments having origination at one of the computing device or other computing devices connected to the network;
present a portion of the received content including a first text segment in a first section of a display device of the computer device;
determine one or more comments of the plurality of received comments to present based on a topic identified from the first text segment presented in the first section of the display device, wherein a topic identified from the one or more comments is linked to the topic identified in the first text segment presented in the first section of the display device and wherein the topic identified from the one or more comments is linked to a plurality of text segments within the content; and
present the determined comments at a second section of the display device, wherein at least one comment of the determined comments is linked to the topic identified in the first text segment in near real-time and then presented in near real-time.

11. The computing device of claim 10 , wherein the computer-readable storage medium has further computer-executable instructions stored thereon that cause the computing device to: receive user entered text as a comment in the third section of the display device; and send via the network the received comment and information relating to the received content to a comment/contents-linking device.

12. The computing device of claim 10 , wherein the content comprises a news article or posting.

13. The computing device of claim 12 , wherein the one or more content sources comprise a news server.

14. The computing device of claim 10 , wherein the computer-readable storage medium has further computer-executable instructions stored thereon that cause the computing device to: identify sentences of the content having linked comments; and present the sentences identified as having linked comments in a manner different from sentences of the content that do not have any linked comments.

15. The computing device of claim 14 , wherein presenting the content identified as having linked comments comprises highlighting at least a portion of the sentences of the content having the linked comments.

16. The computing device of claim 10 , wherein the computer-readable storage medium has further computer-executable instructions stored thereon that cause the computing device to: in response to determining the one or more comments to be presented at the second section, determining whether the number of comments to be presented exceeds a threshold number; and if the number of comments exceeds the threshold number, automatically scrolling the one or more comments within the second section, wherein the scrolling comprises at least one of horizontally or vertically scrolling the presented comments within the second section.

17. The computing device of claim 10 , wherein the computer-readable storage medium has further computer-executable instructions stored thereon that cause the computing device to: in response to determining the one or more comments to be presented at the second section, determining whether an amount of text or characters in the determined one or more comments to be presented exceeds a threshold number; and if the amount of text or characters exceeds the threshold number, automatically scrolling the one or more comments within the second section.

18. The computing device of claim 17 , wherein the scrolling comprises at least one of horizontally or vertically scrolling the presented comments within the second section.

19. A computer-readable storage medium having computer-executable instructions stored thereon that, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to:
receive con

Assignees

• Microsoft Technology Licensing Llc

Inventors

• Wei Furu
• Zhou Ming
• Liu Yang
• Cao Ziqiang
• Huang Shaohan
• Dong Li
• Cui Lei

Classifications

• G06F40/134 Primary

  Hyperlinking · CPC title

• G06F40/216

  using statistical methods · CPC title

• G06F40/169

  Annotation, e.g. comment data or footnotes · CPC title

• G06F3/048

  Interaction techniques based on graphical user interfaces [GUI] · CPC title

• G06F40/295 Primary

  Named entity recognition · CPC title