Personalized location information for mobile devices

A computer-implemented method of providing information about a status of a user of an instant messaging system to other users of the instant messaging system, the method comprising:

• maintaining, on behalf of a user of an instant messaging system, a first status message, the first status message having been designated by the user as being intended for a first limited subset of co-users of the instant messaging system and reflecting a status of the user that the user intends to communicate to constituent members of the first limited subset of co-users;
• maintaining, on behalf of the user of the instant messaging system and concurrently with maintaining the first status message, a second status message, the second status message being different from the first status message and having been designated by the user as being intended for a second limited subset of co-users of the instant messaging system and reflecting a status of the user that the user intends to communicate to constituent members of the second limited subset of co-users;
• processing an instruction to generate, on behalf of the user of the instant messaging system, automatic responses to incoming instant messages intended for the user of the instant messaging system;
• receiving an indication of a location attributable to the user of the instant messaging system;
• in response to receiving the indication of the location attributable to the user of the instant messaging system, updating the first status message maintained on behalf of the user to include a representation of the location attributable to the user of the instant messaging system;
• and
• after having processed the instruction to generate automatic responses to incoming instant messages intended for the user of the instant messaging system and after having updated the first status message maintained on behalf of the user to include the representation of the location attributable to the user of the instant messaging system:
• receiving, from a first co-user of the instant messaging system, a first instant message intended for the user of the instant messaging system,
• in response to receiving the first instant message intended for the user of the instant messaging system:
• identifying the first co-user of the instant messaging system as the sender of the first instant message intended for the user of the instant messaging system,
• determining that the first co-user of the instant messaging system is a member of the first limited subset of co-users,
• as a consequence of having processed the instruction to generate automatic responses to incoming instant messages intended for the user of the instant messaging system and as a consequence of having determined that the first co-user of the instant messaging system is a member of the first limited subset of co-users, generating a first automatic response to the first instant message, the first automatically-generated response including the updated first status message maintained on behalf of the user of the instant messaging system, and
• transmitting the first automatically-generated response, including the updated first status message, to the first co-user of the instant messaging system,
• receiving, from a second co-user of the instant messaging system, a second instant message intended for the user of the instant messaging system, and
• in response to receiving the second instant message intended for the user of the instant messaging system:
• identifying the second co-user of the instant messaging system as the sender of the second instant message intended for the user of the instant messaging system,
• determining that the second co-user of the instant messaging system is a member of the second limited subset of co-users,
• as a consequence of having processed the instruction to generate automatic responses to incoming instant messages intended for the user of the instant messaging system and as a consequence of having determined that the second co-user of the instant messaging system is a member of the second limited subset of co-users, generating a second automatic response to the second instant message, the second automatically-generated response including the second status message maintained on behalf of the user of the instant messaging system, and
• transmitting the second automatically-generated response, including the second status message, to the second co-user of the instant messaging system.