Social Network Activity Envelope for External Website Sharing

Resolve Bottlenecks,
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions

Solution Overview

Problem

Existing content sharing methods, such as emails and social network posts, often fail to deliver private URLs to intended recipients due to security restrictions, leading to inaccessible shared content.

Innovation Solution

A method that allows a social network to automatically notify its users of activities performed on external websites by registered members, using an activity envelope to parse and deliver notifications to specified recipients within the social network, eliminating the need for manual post creation and ensuring secure sharing of actions from external web sites.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Ease of operation

If users share private URLs directly via email or social network posts, then the sharing process is simple and direct, but the recipients cannot access the content due to security restrictions requiring login credentials

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvesimplicity of sharing processVSAvoidaccessibility of shared content

Core Design Contradiction:

Ease of operationVSReliability

Solution Approach 1:

The patent introduces an intermediary system that acts as a bridge between the content owner and recipients. This system generates public access URLs that do not require login credentials, while still maintaining security through controlled access mechanisms. The intermediary translates private URLs into publicly accessible formats, resolving the contradiction between sharing simplicity and content accessibility.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

Solution Approach 2:

The patent segments the URL access mechanism into two parts: the original private URL requiring credentials, and a newly generated public URL that provides access without credentials. This segmentation allows the system to maintain both the security of the original content and the accessibility needed for broad sharing, eliminating the need for recipients to have login information.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #1Segmentation

2Productivity

If users manually create social network posts to share content, then they have control over the sharing process, but the process becomes time-consuming and complex

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvespeed of content sharingVSAvoidcomplexity of post creation process

Core Design Contradiction:

ProductivityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent implements a self-service mechanism where the system automatically generates public access URLs and creates social network posts without requiring manual user intervention. The system autonomously handles URL transformation, post creation, and distribution to recipients, dramatically improving sharing speed while reducing complexity to a simple user action of initiating the share.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #25Self-service

Solution Approach 2:

The patent performs preliminary actions by pre-generating public access URLs and pre-configuring post templates before the actual sharing moment. This preparation allows the system to execute sharing operations instantly when triggered, eliminating the need for users to manually compose posts or configure sharing parameters at the moment of sharing.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

3Reliability

If social network posts include extracted information from web pages, then viewers can assess safety and nature of the content, but the process of visiting and extracting information adds complexity

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvesafety assessment of shared contentVSAvoidcomplexity of content verification process

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent uses an intermediary system that automatically visits the web page, extracts relevant safety and nature information, and includes it in the social network post. This intermediary handles the complex verification process transparently, providing viewers with safety information without requiring them to manually visit or analyze the source page, thus maintaining reliability while reducing perceived complexity.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

Solution Approach 2:

The patent replaces the manual mechanical process of visiting and analyzing web pages with an automated computational system. The system programmatically extracts metadata, content samples, and safety indicators from web pages, substituting human analysis with automated information extraction that provides the same safety assessment function with minimal user effort.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #28Mechanics substitution (Replace mechanical system)

Data Source

PatentUS10868885B2Method for generating social network activity streams

Publication Date: 2020.12.15 MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY LICENSING LLC

AI summary

A method for notifying users of an online social network of an activity performed within a web site that is external to the online social network by an individual who is a registered user of the online social network and the web site. The method comprises the steps of receiving a notification package from the external web site, the notification package including a notification message that describes the activity performed, parsing the notification package to extract a list of recipients, each of whom is to receive the notification message, and issuing the notification message to each of the recipients.