US 2011/0035445 A1 · SOCIAL NETWORKING SYSTEMS AND METHODS FACILITATING IN-PERSON INTERACTIONS

Abstract

Social networking systems and methods for facilitating in-person interactions including the steps of storing a user profile for a first user into a database accessible by a networked host computer, the user profile including interest information describing the first user's interests, cross referencing an interest information indicia with the interest information, providing the first user with an indicator that includes the interest information indicia and that is configured to communicate the interest information indicia to nearby users, providing a second user with the interest information of the first user upon the second user accessing the host computer and entering the interest information indicia as a search query. The invention may facilitate in-person interaction, electronic dating, social networking, and other communication.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A social networking system, comprising:

a host computer system connected to a network;
a computer readable medium connected to the host computer system;
a database stored in the computer readable medium, the database configured to correlate data including:
user profiles including identifying information and interest information for a given user, and
identifying information indicia cross referenced to the identifying information, and
interest information indicia cross referenced to the interest information;
and
an indicator including one or more of the identifying information indicia and the interest information indicia, the indicator being configured to allow a given user to publicly communicate one or more of the identifying information indicia and the interest information indicia to other nearby users;
wherein the user profiles in the database are accessible by users via client computer systems connected to the host computer system via the network upon entering one or more of the identifying information indicia and the interest information indicia.

6 more elements

A social networking method for facilitating in-person interaction between a first user and a second user located near the first user, comprising the steps of:

storing a user profile for the first user into a database accessible by a networked host computer, the user profile including interest information describing the first user's interests and identifying information uniquely identifying the first user;
cross referencing, with a microprocessor, a user profile indicia with the user profile of the first user;
providing the first user with an indicator data file that includes the user profile indicia and that is configured to be stored on a mobile electronic device configured to broadcast the user profile indicia to nearby users;
providing, with a microprocessor, the second user with the interest information and the identifying information of the first user upon the second user accessing the host computer and entering the user profile indicia as a search query.

1 more element

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Social networking systems and methods facilitating in-person interactions

Life of this patent

Social networking systems and methods facilitating in-person interactions

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims20