Annotating and routing message content
AssigneeInternational Business Machines Corporation
InventorsDavid L. Kaminsky, David M. Ogle
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Methods, systems, computer program products, and methods of doing business for improving communication, whereby message content is routed efficiently while allowing different recipients to receive different versions of the content. A portion of the electronic conversation in an instant messaging session (or of messages in other messaging systems) can be identified as being relevant to a third party (or parties), and information can be specified for routing the relevant information to that third party. A variety of delivery mechanisms may be used. Approval may be obtained prior to routing an annotated message. The recipients of annotated message may be human users and/or automated processes. The message author may also be a human or an automated process.
Claims16
A system for communicating during an instant messaging (“IM”) session, comprising:
- a computer comprising a processor;
- and
- instructions which are executable, using the processor, to implement functions comprising:
- creating, by a message author participating in the IM session, a first message to be sent to each of at least one other participants in the IM session;
- designating in the first message, by the message author, at least one portion of the first message for sending to a non-participant in the IM session;
- annotating the first message, by the message author, with at least one messaging identifier associated with the non-participant and, for each of the at least one messaging identifiers, a corresponding routing method;
- sending a query to each of the at least one other participants to determine if they approve sending the at least one designated portion to the non-participant, and if a response to each sent query indicates that the at least one other participants approve the sending, then:
- programmatically generating a second message that comprises each of the at least one designated portions of the first message and excludes other portions of the first message;
- and
- sending the second message to the non-participant using at least one of the messaging identifiers with which the first message is annotated and the corresponding routing method;
- and
- sending the first message to each of the at least one other participants in the IM session using the IM session, wherein at least one of the corresponding routing methods used for sending the second message to the non-participant is different from the IM session used for sending the first message to each of the at least one other participants.
A computer program product for communicating during an instant messaging (“IM”) session, the computer program product embodied on at least one non-transitory computer-readable medium and further comprising computer-readable program code that, when executed by a computer, performs:
- receiving an annotated message at a message processor for the IM session, wherein the annotated message comprises:
- a message body, the message body comprising a portion of the IM session selected by a first participant in the IM session;
- one or more delimiters that designate a portion of the message body selected by the first participant for sending to at least one non-participant in the IM session;
- an annotation provided by the first participant and corresponding to the designated portion;
- and
- a recipient list provided by the first participant, the recipient list identifying each of the at least one non-participants and providing an identification of at least one routing method usable for sending the designated portion and the corresponding annotation to each of the at least one non-participants;
- and
- processing the annotated message by the message processor, further comprising:
- sending a query to each of the at least one other participants in the IM session to determine if they approve sending the designated portion to each of the at least one non-participants, and if a response to each sent query indicates that the at least one other participants approve the sending, then sending the designated portion and the corresponding annotation, while excluding other portions of the message body, to each of the at least one non-participants identified on the recipient list using at least one of the routing methods identified for that non-participant;
- and
- sending the message body to each of the at least one other participants in the IM session, using the IM session, wherein at least one of the routing methods used for sending the designated portion to each of the at least one non-participants is different from the IM session used for sending the message body to each of the at least one other participants.
A computer program product for communicating, during an instant messaging (“IM”) session, with a non-participant in the IM session, the computer program product embodied on at least one non-transitory computer-readable medium and further comprising computer-readable program code which, when executed by a computer, performs:
- programmatically generating a message, for the non-participant, comprising a portion of an electronic conversation in the IM session, the portion of the IM conversation designated by a first participant in the IM session for sending to the non-participant, wherein the programmatically-generated message excludes non-designated portions of the electronic conversation;
- providing the electronic conversation to each of at least one other participants in the IM session, using the IM session;
- and
- sending a query to each of the at least one other participants to determine if they approve sending the designated portion to the non-participant, and if a response to each sent query indicates that the at least one other participants approve the sending, then sending the programmatically-generated message to the non-participant using at least one messaging identifier associated with the non-participant and a routing method corresponding thereto, each of the at least one messaging identifiers and corresponding routing methods obtained from an annotation of the portion provided by the first participant during the electronic conversation, wherein at least one of the corresponding routing methods used for sending the programmatically-generated message to the non-participant is different from the IM session used for providing the electronic conversation to each of the at least one other participants.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.