Deep Link Mapping Between Apps and Network Content
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing network search services struggle to catalog and discover data packaged in the form of application programs, especially on mobile devices with hardware limitations, and fail to associate network content with relevant applications, limiting utility and functionality.
Innovation Solution
Establish a bidirectional mapping between network content and application programs using extensible markup language content and metadata tags, enabling deep links with standardized or custom identifiers, and utilizing a lookup service to identify associated applications and network content.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of information
If network search services catalog data in traditional data files, then data discovery is efficient, but application program content cannot be cataloged or discovered
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies universality by creating a mapping service that handles both traditional network data and application program content through a unified interface. The system can catalog and discover both conventional data files and application-packaged content, making the search service multi-functional and adaptable to different data formats and delivery mechanisms.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a mapping service as an intermediary between network search services and application program content. This intermediary component translates application content into a format that search services can catalog and retrieve, enabling discovery of application content without requiring changes to the core search service infrastructure.
2Productivity
If dedicated applications are developed for mobile devices, then user efficiency improves, but existing network search services cannot discover or catalog application data
Solution Approach 1:
The mapping service acts as an intermediary that bridges mobile applications and network search services. It receives queries from search services, translates them into application-specific formats, and retrieves relevant content, thereby making application content searchable without compromising user efficiency on mobile devices.
Solution Approach 2:
The system segments the search functionality into two parts: the network search service that handles general queries, and the mapping service that handles application-specific content retrieval. This segmentation allows each component to specialize in its strength while working together to provide comprehensive search capability.
3Ease of manufacture
If application programs package data in custom formats, then data presentation is optimized, but network search services cannot access or catalog the content
Solution Approach 1:
The mapping service serves as an intermediary that translates between application-specific data formats and standard search service formats. It receives content from applications in custom formats, processes and standardizes it, and makes it accessible to network search services, thereby preserving both format optimization and content accessibility.
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes the parameters of data representation by maintaining the original application-optimized format for data presentation while creating a parallel standardized representation for search and cataloging purposes. This allows the same content to exist in multiple parameter sets simultaneously, serving different functions.
Data Source
AI summary
A bidirectional mapping is established between network content and application programs, based on declarations at both the network content and at the application. Additionally, bidirectional mapping can provide for deep links, which can associate specific network content with a specific presentation of data in an application program. The identification format for such deep links can conform to a predetermined standard or it can be custom implemented according to a format declared either as part of the network content or the application program. The bidirectional mapping is then utilized by a lookup service to provide functionality to a third-party entity. The lookup service can identify, to the entity, application programs associated with network content specified by that entity and network content associated with application programs specified by that entity.