US 7,890,876 B1Granted

Electronic messaging contextual storefront system and method

AssigneeAmerican Greetings Corporation

InventorsJosef A. Mandelbaum, Benjamin J. Tripoli, Jeffrey M. Rapp, Bryan A. Malkowski, Jason S. Jhonson, Bryan A. Biniak, Dave Higham

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Abstract

An electronic messaging contextual storefront system and application provides electronic and instant messaging with contextual graphical and textual content which corresponds with or is related to the subject matter of an electronic or instant message string or chat stream. Graphical and textual content for the contextual storefronts is retrieved based upon detected keywords, and presented in contextual storefronts which are associated with conversation and text entry boxes or other parts of an electronic message system display. Selected graphical and textual content can be placed directly in the text stream or elsewhere in the display either by user commands or automatically by the system. The graphical and textual content is stored by subject matter or theme or by association with keywords in a relational database. Access to contextual storefront content can be tracked, accounted for and controlled by a payments processing system.

Claims24

Dependent claims

A system for the presentation and use of graphical and textual content in connection with electronic messaging systems, the system comprising:

a first display which includes a conversation box and a text entry box, the conversation box configured to display messages which are entered by a first user and a second user into the text entry box;
a conversation box graphical storefront including a first set of one or more graphical images which are selected from a database of graphical images for inclusion in the conversation box graphical storefront based upon textual content which appears in the conversation box;
a conversation box textual storefront including a first set of one or more text items which are selected from a database of text items based upon textual content which appears in the conversation box;
a text entry box graphical storefront including a second set of one or more graphical images which are selected from a database of graphical images for inclusion in the text entry box graphical storefront based upon textual content which appears in the text entry box;
a text entry box textual storefront including a second set of one or more text items which are selected from a database of text items based upon textual content which appears in the text entry box,
system operative to enable selection by a client-user of a graphical image from the conversation box graphical storefront, the conversation box textual storefront, the text entry box textual storefront or the text entry box graphical storefront for insertion into the text entry box.

3 more elements

An electronic messaging contextual storefront system comprising:

an application residing on an application server which is connected via a network to two or more client user devices capable of sending and receiving electronic messages which contain textual and graphic content;
the application server communicatively connected to a contextual storefront content server having access to multiple different items of textual and graphical content;
the application operative to generate a display for the two or more client user devices, the display having a conversation box and a text entry box and at least one contextual storefront for displaying textual and graphic content;
the application further operative to retrieve from the contextual storefront content server multiple items of graphical and textual content based upon text content of messages sent or received via the system, and to display the multiple items of graphical and textual content within the at least one contextual storefront;
the application further operative to enable a client user to select one or more items of graphical or textual content from the at least one contextual storefront for placement in the conversation box or text entry box.

2 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.