Facebook, Inc.

Aol Inc.

Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Oath Inc.

Brian Heikes

Deborah Ruth Yurow

Andrew Lee Wick

Barry Appelman

John Thomas Love

James A Odell

Xiaoyan Yin

Kristine Amber Krantz

William Frischling

Andrew S Weaver

Venkatesh Ramanathan

Eric Jeffrey Wolf

Edward L Sears

Julie McCool

Julie Mills

Kelly Matthews

Russell Scott Medeiros

Richard W Robinson, Jr

Kelly Monroe Mathews

Perry E Miranda Roman

Roy Ben-Yoseph

Valerie Kucharewski

Justin Russell Uberti

Xiaopeng Zhang

David Gang

Janet Hall

Perry E Roman

A lead user may share an on-line media content experience with one or more followers by identifying content of interest being experienced on the lead user system, identifying one or more followers with whom to share the content of interest, inviting the followers to experience the content of interest, and enabling the followers to access the content of interest.

Sharing on-line media experiences

A computer implemented method enables perception of multiple online personas in an instant messaging communications session by identifying at least two identities within a communications environment to whom messages may be directed, and by enabling a first persona of a user to be projected to a first of the identities while concurrently enabling a second persona of the same user to be projected to a second of the identities.

Multiple personalities

Managing instant messages may include receiving instant messages created by or on behalf of one or more message sources for delivery to an intended recipient. From among the received instant messages, qualifying instant messages may be identified that satisfy a capture rule, and two or more of the qualifying instant messages may be captured. The intended recipient may be informed of the captured instant messages unobtrusively, and also may be enabled to manage the captured instant messages.

Methods for controlling display of electronic messages captured based on community rankings

Sharing content includes classifying content perceived by a sharing user, determining a set of recipient candidates likely to be interested in the content based upon the classification of the content and prior sharing activity of the recipients with respect to content of the same or similar classification, and presenting to the sharing user one or more members of the set of recipient candidates for sharing the content being perceived by the sharing user.

Buddy share

A computer program or method provides away messages from a first user to other users of a communications system, where the first user has grouped the other users into two or more groups. An interface is provided to the first user that displays representations of the other users in a manner that identifies how the first user has grouped the other users into the groups. The first user is able to select a selected group from the groups using the interface. The first user also is able to set a group away message for the selected group using the interface. The group away message is sent to a second user that has been grouped in the selected group when the second user attempts to communicate with the first user using the communications system and the first user is offline.

Offline away messages

A computer implemented method for intelligently enabling menu choices includes rendering, on a client system, an address book user interface comprising information related to one or more contacts, selecting a contact from the address book user interface, determining an online presence state for the selected contact, enabling one or more menu options based upon the determined online presence state, with the menu options enabled for a first online presence state differing from the menu options enabled for a second online presence state, and presenting the enabled menu options to a user in a user interface.

Intelligently enabled menu choices based on online presence state in address book

Enabled and disabled menu choices based on presence state

Methods for capturing electronic messages based on capture rules relating to user actions regarding received electronic messages

Controlling the volume of an audible alert associated with an instant messaging communications session includes rendering, on a first instant messaging user system, an instant messaging application user interface for an instant messaging communications session involving at least a first instant messaging user and a second instant messaging user, receiving notification of an event related to the instant messaging communications session, determining a characteristic of the event, accessing an audible alert to be rendered to signal existence of the event, adjusting based upon the determined characteristic of the event a volume of the audible alert corresponding to the event, and rendering the audible alert to signal existence of the event.

Changing event notification volumes

Methods for capturing electronic messages based on capture rules relating to online contexts of users

Changing sound alerts during a messaging session

Growing community of inventors

Ashburn, VA, United States of America

Brian Heikes