Instant Messaging Private Profile Segmentation
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Solution Overview
Problem
In instant messaging services, users face limitations in expressing personal information and emotions, as they must share the same profile with all friends, which can be intrusive and lacks flexibility in message transmission, especially for specific relationships.
Innovation Solution
A method for setting and transmitting private profile information that differs from default profiles, allowing users to customize their name, photo, and status messages for specific friends, using a messaging server to manage and display these private profiles only to targeted individuals, with features like billing and confirmation requests linked to respective applications.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If a user sets the same profile information for all friends, then the system is simple and easy to manage, but the user cannot express different information or feelings for different relationships
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments profile information into multiple types: default profile information visible to all friends and private profile information visible only to specific targeted friends. This segmentation allows users to express different information for different relationships while maintaining separate management for each type, resolving the contradiction between adaptability and complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies local quality by allowing profile information to have different properties for different audiences. The same user profile can display different information (private profile) to specific targeted friends while displaying default profile information to other friends, enabling relationship-specific expression without requiring complete profile duplication.
2Loss of information
If a user sets private profile information for a targeted friend, then the user can transmit specific messages and express emotions to that friend, but the system complexity increases due to multiple profile management
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts private profile information as a separate component from the default profile information. Users can set and manage private profile information independently for each targeted friend, allowing complete information transmission to specific friends without requiring management of multiple complete profiles, thus reducing the perceived complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The messaging server acts as an intermediary that automatically manages the complexity of profile information distribution. The server receives private profile information from the user, stores it, and automatically transmits the appropriate profile information to each friend based on targeting relationships, relieving the user of manual management complexity.
3Ease of operation
If private profile information is displayed to targeted friend, then the user achieves flexible message transmission, but the user's privacy may be compromised if not managed properly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments profile visibility by introducing targeted friend relationships. Private profile information is segmented to be visible only to specific targeted friends rather than all friends, enabling convenient message transmission to intended recipients while inherently protecting privacy by limiting exposure to only those who need to see the information.
4Adaptability or versatility
If the system supports multiple profile types, then the user can customize profiles for different friends, but the data storage and management complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The messaging server provides universal profile management functionality that handles both default and private profile information through a unified system. This multi-functional approach allows the system to support profile customization for different friends while using a single data storage structure, avoiding the need for separate storage systems for each profile type and reducing overall data management complexity.
Data Source
AI summary
A user profile information providing method for a messaging server that provides an instant messaging service to provide user profile information, includes: receiving private profile information set in a terminal of a user who uses the instant messaging service for a targeted friend; storing the private profile information corresponding to the targeted friend; and transmitting the private profile information to a terminal of the targeted friend. The private profile information is displayed differently from default profile information of the user, and is displayed as a profile of the user only in the terminal of the targeted friend. The default profile information is displayed as a profile of the user in terminals of friends, in which the private profile information is not set, among friends of the user.