Messaging and Social Network Service Interworking for Unified Contact Management
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing messaging services face challenges in managing contacts across different platforms, leading to duplicate features and user burdens, as users need to subscribe to multiple services to experience all features, and there is a lack of interworking between messaging services and Social Network Services (SNS) to determine subscription status of contacts.
Innovation Solution
A method and apparatus for interworking between a messaging service and a Social Network Service (SNS) that allows for the determination of contact subscription status, enabling the extension of the address book by filtering contact profiles and providing users with new contacts related to their profile, even if they have not subscribed to the same service, through a client terminal and server system.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If messaging services use separate address books for each service, then each service can be independently managed, but users cannot share contacts across services and must subscribe to multiple services
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the address book functionality across messaging services and SNS by implementing a unified contact management system. The server consolidates contact information from multiple services into a single address book, allowing users to share contacts across different services without maintaining separate address books for each service.
Solution Approach 2:
The address book is designed to serve multiple functions across different services. A single address book can be used for both messaging services and SNS, allowing the same contact list to be utilized for various communication purposes without requiring service-specific address books.
2Adaptability or versatility
If users subscribe to multiple services to experience all features, then they can access diverse functionalities, but they face duplicate features and increased user burden
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines multiple service functionalities into a unified system where messaging services and SNS share common infrastructure including address books, user profiles, and contact management. This allows users to access diverse features through a single service integration rather than subscribing to multiple separate services.
Solution Approach 2:
The integrated service provides universal access to contact management and communication features across different service types. Users can perform messaging, contact sharing, and social networking functions through a unified platform that handles multiple service functionalities without requiring separate subscriptions.
3Device complexity
If RCS service notifies subscription status only to RCS address book, then subscription management is simplified, but contacts in other services cannot be notified of subscription status
Solution Approach 1:
The notification system is merged across services by implementing a unified contact notification mechanism. When a user subscribes to RCS, the system automatically notifies not only contacts in the RCS address book but also contacts in other services through the integrated address book system, ensuring cross-service notification capability.
Data Source
AI summary
A method and an apparatus for providing a contact through interworking with a Social Network Service (SNS) are provided. The method includes receiving, by a client using the other service through SNS interworking, a contact provided in the SNS, determining whether the other party's client having subscribed to the same service as that of the client is present in the received contact, and informing a user of the determination results. Based on the determination results, the client may determine subscription/non-subscription of the other party's client to the service, and may send an invite request for the service if the other party's client has not subscribed to the same service as that of the client. By doing so, the number of targets, subscription/non-subscription of which to a specific service can be determined, may be extended.