Methods, systems, and software for automated growth of intelligent on-line communities

Abstract

To address problems related to interface differences and disunity among on-line services, such as newsgroups message boards and forums, the present inventors devised systems, methods, and software for automating the posting and retrieval of content across different on-line services as well as encouraging growth of active on-line communities. One exemplary system includes a posting module, a retrieval module, and a web server. The posting module allows users to create and initiate data postings that are sent automatically to several newsgroups, message boards, and/or other on-line information sources. The retrieval module automatically retrieves replies to the postings at each of the on-line sources and presents them through the webserver for user review and further reply, eliminating the need for users to repeatedly visit posting sites in search of reply messages. In addition to the retrieved replies, the retrieval module automatically finds and retrieves content based on stored search or fitness criteria, ultimately enabling its integration into the content of one or more websites or databases for convenient user access.