Social Network Contact List Population via Intermediary Data

Solution Overview

Problem

Users of social networks and communication systems often face difficulties in accessing a large relevant list of people to communicate with or connect to due to sparsely populated address books or lack of synchronization across devices, which negatively impacts the overall user experience.

Innovation Solution

A system comprising a device and database that populates user contact lists by determining potential relationships between individuals based on shared contact information, suggesting invitations to register for the network, and filtering results to enhance user connectivity.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Quantity of substance

If the system relies on user address books for contact information, then the system is simple to implement, but the contact list becomes sparsely populated and insufficient for effective communication

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvecontact list populationVSAvoidsystem complexity

Core Design Contradiction:

Quantity of substanceVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent introduces a third-party service (social network platform) that acts as an intermediary to populate contact lists. Instead of relying solely on user address books, the system queries external social networks to obtain contact information, thereby increasing contact list population without requiring complex changes to the core communication system architecture.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

Solution Approach 2:

The system performs preliminary actions by pre-querying social networks for contact information before the user needs to communicate. The contact list is populated in advance using data from social networks, so when the user needs to contact someone, the information is already available, eliminating the need for real-time complex queries.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

2Quantity of substance

If the system queries social networks for contact information, then the contact list becomes more populated and relevant, but the system complexity increases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvecontact list populationVSAvoidsystem complexity

Core Design Contradiction:

Quantity of substanceVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent introduces a third-party service (social network platform) that acts as an intermediary to populate contact lists. Instead of relying solely on user address books, the system queries external social networks to obtain contact information, thereby increasing contact list population without requiring complex changes to the core communication system architecture.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

Solution Approach 2:

The system performs preliminary actions by pre-querying social networks for contact information before the user needs to communicate. The contact list is populated in advance using data from social networks, so when the user needs to contact someone, the information is already available, eliminating the need for real-time complex queries.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

3Quantity of substance

If the system uses address book information from multiple sources, then the contact list becomes more comprehensive, but the time required to gather and process information increases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvecontact list populationVSAvoidinformation gathering time

Core Design Contradiction:

Quantity of substanceVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The system performs preliminary actions by pre-querying social networks for contact information before the user needs to communicate. The contact list is populated in advance using data from social networks, so when the user needs to contact someone, the information is already available, eliminating the need for real-time complex queries.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

Solution Approach 2:

The system maintains continuous synchronization with social networks to keep contact information updated. By establishing ongoing connections with social network APIs and caches, the system continuously refreshes contact lists without requiring repeated manual queries, ensuring information availability while minimizing time loss.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #20Continuity of useful action

Data Source

PatentUS8688735B2Determining potential relationships between individuals

Publication Date: 2014.04.01 TANGOME INC

AI summary

A computer-implemented method for obtaining information corresponding to a first user. The computer-implemented method includes, obtaining information corresponding to a first user, accessing a database comprising information corresponding to a plurality of individuals, based on the information corresponding to a plurality of individuals. The method further includes determining whether a potential relationship exists between a first user and at least one of the plurality of individuals.