Enhancing network messaging with a real-time, interactive representation of current messaging activity of a user's contacts and associated contacts

A system for enhancing network messaging among a community of users of a messaging service over a communications network, the system providing to each user of the community a personalized live feed that visually represents the current communications activities of other users over the network who are personal contacts of the active user, said system comprising:

• a communications network;
• and
• at least one server configured to be accessed over the network by messaging devices operated by the users of the community, the server configured to:
• for each user of the community, continuously maintain a unique mapping between each user and all other users of the community that are currently personal contacts of the user;
• and
• continuously generate a live feed for each user of the community who is actively using the messaging service, said generating further comprising:
• continuously receive indicator objects, the indicator objects being generated and transmitted over the network by the messaging devices of the users, the indicator objects being representative of the communications activities in which each generating and transmitting user is currently engaged while using the service, each of the indicator objects being uniquely associated with the user whose messaging device has generated and transmitted them;
• and
• for each indicator object received by the server:
• access the unique mapping for the user uniquely associated with the received indicator object, and
• transmit back over the network an instantiation of the indicator object to each of the active users who are mapped to the user associated with the received object by the accessed mapping, the continuously transmitted instantiations of each indicator object forming a personal live feed for each user that can be used by the user's messaging device to display a visual representation of the current communications activities of the user's contacts in real time.