Video Conference Aggregation via Contextual Relevance Detection

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Solution Overview

Problem

Users of videoconferencing systems are typically unaware of currently available videoconferences and must wait for an invitation to join, limiting their ability to participate in relevant discussions or interactions.

Innovation Solution

A method and system that aggregate a list of videoconferences relevant to a user's interests, allowing them to join without an invitation, by identifying contextually and member-wise relevant conferences based on topics of interest, browsing history, and participant relationships, and presenting this list on a web page.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Loss of information

If users wait for invitations to join videoconferences, then they can participate in organized discussions, but they become unaware of currently available videoconferences and miss relevant interactions

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveawareness of available videoconferencesVSAvoidability to join without invitation

Core Design Contradiction:

Loss of informationVSEase of operation

Solution Approach 1:

The system segments videoconferences into public and private categories, allowing users to discover and join public conferences independently while still participating in organized private conferences through invitations. This segmentation resolves the contradiction by providing different access modes for different conference types.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #1Segmentation

Solution Approach 2:

The system enables users to self-discover and self-join videoconferences by browsing publicly available conference listings and joining them directly without requiring host invitation. This self-service mechanism eliminates the dependency on invitations while maintaining organized conference participation.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #25Self-service

2Productivity

If users can freely join any videoconference, then they gain access to more interactions, but the system loses control over participant access and conference quality

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveuser engagement and interaction opportunitiesVSAvoidcontrol over participant access

Core Design Contradiction:

ProductivityVSReliability

Solution Approach 1:

The system applies different access control qualities to different conference types: public conferences allow open access with high user engagement, while private conferences maintain strict invitation-only access for quality control. This local differentiation resolves the contradiction by applying appropriate access policies to different contexts.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #3Local quality

Solution Approach 2:

The system dynamically adjusts conference accessibility based on conference properties and user permissions. Conferences can transition between public and private states, and user access rights are dynamically determined based on their relationship to the conference and host permissions, balancing open engagement with controlled access.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #15Dynamics

Data Source

PatentUS9959523B2Aggregating a list of current, contextually and/or member-wise relevant video conferences

Publication Date: 2018.05.01 GOOGLE LLC

AI summary

This disclosure includes a system, device, and method to aggregate a list of video conferences for a user. The method may include identifying one or more video conferences that are likely to be of interest to a user viewing a web page, and providing a list comprising the video conferences that are likely to be of interest to the user, where each video conference in the list is available to be joined by the user viewing the web page without an invitation from participants of the video conference.