Endorsement indications in communication environments

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9954807-B2
Application number	US-201514737805-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jun 12, 2015
Priority date	Mar 11, 2015
Publication date	Apr 24, 2018
Grant date	Apr 24, 2018

Abstract

Communication services enable two or more users to communicate electronically using multiple modes of communication. Conversations between groups of users are common, where one or more communications may be exchanged repeatedly over a period of time. In some scenarios, a communication desired to be conveyed by a participant in a conversation may be a simple endorsement, such as receipt acknowledgment and various levels of social activity actions and/or gestures, which may be useful for other participants of the conversation to see as well. Provision of endorsement indications in communication environments may enable the participant to select an endorsement for a communication or a conversation without explicitly replying to the communication or conversation, where an endorsement indication based on the selected endorsement may be transmitted and displayed to the other participants of the conversation through an endorsement module of the communication service.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A computing device to provide endorsement indications in a communication environment, the computing device comprising:
a communication interface configured to facilitate exchange of one or more communications within a conversation;
a memory configured to store instructions; and
one or more processors coupled to the communication interface and the memory that are configured to execute a communication service, wherein the one or more processors are configured to:
provide an endorsement for an exchanged communication, wherein the endorsement is displayed in conjunction with the exchanged communication through a communication user experience associated with a recipient of the exchanged communication such that the recipient can select the endorsement for the exchanged communication;
receive a selection of the endorsement through the communication user experience;
transmit an endorsement indication based on the selected endorsement to a sender and one or more other recipients of the exchanged communication over a designated communication channel instead of transmitting the endorsement indication as a reply or reply-all type communication for reduction of computing and communication resources, wherein:
the designated communication channel is a control messaging channel in a transport layer of the communication service,
the endorsement indication is transmitted as a control message that comprises an action to create the endorsement indication and metadata associated with the action that includes the selected endorsement, and
special transport delivery agents at mailboxes of the sender and the one or more other recipients of the exchanged communication are configured to intercept the control message and process the metadata to create the endorsement indication; and

provide the endorsement indication for display through communication user experiences associated with the sender and the one or more other recipients of the exchanged communication, wherein the endorsement indication is displayed in a notification menu of the communication user experiences.

2. The computing device of claim 1 , wherein the exchanged communication is one or more of an email exchange, a meeting invite, a shared contact card, a shared task, a text message exchange, an online conference, an audio communication, a video communication, an application sharing session, a desktop sharing session, and a data sharing session.

3. The computing device of claim 1 , wherein the endorsement is one or more of a receipt acknowledgement and a social activity action.

4. The computing device of claim 3 , wherein the social activity action is one of a like, a dislike, and a mention.

5. The computing device of claim 4 , wherein the like and dislike social activity actions include one or more respective levels of like and dislike.

6. The computing device of claim 1 , wherein the endorsement indication includes one or more of the recipient, the selected endorsement, the exchanged communication, a group associated with the exchanged communication, and a time elapsed from the selection of the endorsement.

7. A method executed on a computing device to provide endorsement indications in a communication environment, the method comprising:
providing an endorsement for an exchanged communication, wherein the endorsement is displayed in conjunction with the exchanged communication through a communication user experience associated with a recipient of the exchanged communication such that the recipient can select the endorsement for the exchanged communication;
receiving a selection of the endorsement through the communication user experience;
transmitting an endorsement indication based on the selected endorsement to a sender and one or more other recipients of the exchanged communication over a designated communication channel instead of transmitting the endorsement indication as a reply or reply-all type communication for reduction of computing and communication resources, wherein:
the designated communication channel is a control messaging channel in a transport layer of a communication service,
the endorsement indication is transmitted as a control message that comprises an action to create the endorsement indication and metadata associated with the action that includes the selected endorsement, and
special transport delivery agents at mailboxes of the sender and the one or more other recipients of the exchanged communication are configured to intercept the control message and process the metadata to create the endorsement indication; and

providing the endorsement indication for display through communication user experiences associated with the sender and the one or more other recipients of the exchanged communication, wherein the endorsement indication is displayed in a notification menu of the communication user experiences.

8. The method of claim 7 , further comprising:
providing the endorsement indication for display as one of a message and a notification within the notification menu of the communication user experiences.

9. The method of claim 7 , further comprising:
enabling the sender and the one or more other recipients to preview the selected endorsement for the exchanged communication through the displayed endorsement indication.

10. The method of claim 7 , further comprising:
enabling the sender and the one or more other recipients to navigate to the exchanged communication through selection of the displayed endorsement indication.

11. The method of claim 7 , further comprising:
enabling display of an endorsement count for the exchanged communication in a communication list view through the communication user experiences associated with the sender, the recipient, and the one or more other recipients.

12. The method of claim 11 , further comprising:
in response to detecting one of a hover over and a user selection of the displayed endorsement count, providing an endorser list for the exchanged communication that indicates the sender, the recipient, or the one or more other recipients that selected endorsements for the exchanged communication.

13. The method of claim 11 , further comprising:
in response to a determination that the endorsement count for the exchanged communication is less than N, replacing the endorsement count with identifiers of the sender, the recipient, or the one or more other recipients that selected endorsements for the exchanged communication, wherein N is a predetermined integer.

14. The method of claim 7 , further comprising:
enabling display of an endorsement count for a conversation comprising the exchanged communication in a conversation list view through the communication user experiences associated with the sender, the recipient, and the one or more other recipients.

15. The method of claim 7 , further comprising:
inferring one or more endorsement suggestions for the recipient of the exchanged communication based on the recipient's endorsement related interactions associated with past exchanged communications that include similar attributes to the exchanged communication, wherein the one or more endorsement suggestions include a receipt acknowledgement, a like, an unlike, a dislike, an undislike, a mention, and a revoke mention.

16. The method of claim 7 , further comprising
aggregating one or more other endorsement indications for the exchanged communication with the endorsement indication.

17. A computer readable memory device with instructions stored thereon to provide endorsement indications in a communication environment, the instructio

Assignees

• Microsoft Technology Licensing Llc

Inventors

• Kumar Santosh
• Desouza Sana Giselli Panontini
• Teixeira Alisson
• Gupta Amit
• Kwan Cindy
• Singh Sangya
• Sundaram Naresh
• Gehrke Johannes
• Cook Jason
• Mbabazi Victoria
• Murphy Ryan
• Pazuchanics Skye

Classifications

• G06Q10/40

  Business processes related to social networking or social networking services · CPC title

• H04L51/32

  Electricity · mapped topic

• G06Q50/01

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F3/04842

  Selection of displayed objects or displayed text elements (G06F3/0482 takes precedence) · CPC title

• G06Q10/107 Primary

  Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing] · CPC title