WO2002039300A1

WO2002039300A1 - Method and apparatus for building and participating in virtual communities

Info

Publication number: WO2002039300A1
Application number: PCT/US2001/043609
Authority: WO
Inventors: Kathryn Louise Brant; Todd Merrill Binder
Original assignee: Eduvoice, Inc.
Priority date: 2000-11-10
Filing date: 2001-11-09
Publication date: 2002-05-16
Also published as: AU2002216703A1

Abstract

A method and apparatus enables the building of, and participation in, virtual communities (Fig. 1). Data regarding members of the virtual community is collected and stored in a data repository. Predetermined criteria (criteria) is received as input, for identifying selected members of the virtual community. These members are identified based on the predetermined criteria and information associated with the identified members is retrieved from the data repository. Online communications are enabled for communicating with the selected individuals.

Description

METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR BUILDING AND PARTICIPATING

IN VIRTUAL COMMUNITIES

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1) Field of the invention

The present invention relates generally to virtual communities, and more particularly to a method and apparatus for building and participating in virtual communities.

2) Description of the prior art

The Internet is a global network connecting millions of computer devices around the world. The Internet environment is popularly referred to as a "virtual" world, wherein users perform activities online that mimic activities that were traditionally performed in the physical world. Thus, for example, users today frequently utilize the Internet to communicate and share information, similar to the manner in which people traditionally used the telephone and postal mail. The recent explosion in Internet usage has resulted in unprecedented levels of information flow and communication amongst Internet users. Currently, on-line systems offer a variety of different services to facilitate such information flow and communication: electronic mail, news feeds, electronic databases, electronic newsletters, multi-player real time online games, chat rooms and bulletin boards, to name a few. Amongst these services, bulletin boards and chat rooms, have become increasingly popular as a means for users with like interests to communicate.

A chat room is essentially a site on a network (such as the Internet) that can be accessed simultaneously by many users, with each user being able to input text to "converse" with other users. Voice chats are also becoming increasingly available, thus eliminating the need for users to input text and allowing them to simply speak to converse. Each chat room is typically focused on a specific subject matter, so a user generally knows what the topic of conversation will be prior to entering the chat room. Thus, for example, one chat room might be dedicated to a discussion of a popular television show, while another chat room may be discussing a variety of current political issues. Bulletin boards serve a similar purpose, with information being "posted" into a public area accessible by all members of the board.

Chat rooms and message boards can be restricted to a select set of members. Additionally, chat rooms and message boards can be combined with publishing features and other interactive and one-way electronic communications features to create virtual community centers, often referred to as "clubs," that may also have restricted membership. Generally, however, in order to communicate with individual members or a subset of members in a virtual community, a user will need to know the contact information for the individual and/or subset of members. Currently, the user has no means for identifying a subset of members within the community who have a specific sub-interest. For example, if the user is a parent who belongs to a virtual community comprising parents, students, teachers and administrators in an elementary school, and the user desires to identify and communicate with all parents in the community with children in the third grade, the user's only recourse is to rely on his or her own knowledge regarding the community members. The user needs to know not only which parents to communicate with, but also personally identifiable information about the parents, such as their email addresses. Alternatively, the user may create a chat room and/or a bulletin board and invite parents of other third graders to participate. The user does not, however, have a guaranteed means by which he or she can identify all the members meeting this criteria (in this example, parents of third graders), and invite them to participate in a chat room and/or a bulletin board.

As virtual communities proliferate on the Internet, this inability to identify and communicate with subsets of members within virtual communities presents a significant barrier to building virtual sub-communities and facilitating effective and efficient communication within such sub-communities.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention discloses a method and apparatus for building and participating in virtual communities. More specifically, according to one embodiment of the present invention, data regarding members of the virtual community is obtained and stored in a data repository. The data may be obtained from the members themselves and/or from a variety of data repositories. Predetermined membership criteria is received as input, for identifying selected members of the virtual community. These members are identified when the predetermined membership criteria and information associated with the identified members are retrieved from the data repository. Online communications are enabled for communicating with the selected individuals, the online communications including an invitation to said selected members to participate in a virtual sub-community.

Furthermore, according to an alternate embodiment of the present invention, a member of the virtual community is identified, membership information for the member is retrieved from a data repository, wherein the membership information includes the member's profile. The member is then presented with community information that matches his or her profile.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The present invention is illustrated by way of example and not limitation in the following drawings, in which like references indicate similar elements, and in which: FIG. 1 illustrates the web page according to one embodiment of the present invention whereby members of a virtual community are requested to present information about themselves. FIG. 2 illustrates the Community Builder™ feature according to one embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 3 illustrates the step of specifying predefined criteria for members of the community that the community creator is interested in inviting to join the new virtual community. FIG. 4 illustrates the information generated according to one embodiment of the present invention in response to the predefined criteria submitted by the community creator, enabling the community creator to generate invitations to selected individuals to join and/or participate in the virtual community. FIG. 5 illustrates an example of a web page that a virtual community member may see when accessing the virtual community's home page. FIG. 6 illustrates the SelectCast™ feature of one embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 7 illustrates the step of specifying predefined criteria for members of the community that the community creator is interested in communicating with. FIG. 8 illustrates the step of automatically generating email to the members of the virtual community identified as matching the community creator's specified criteria.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The present invention discloses a method and apparatus for building and participating in virtual communities. In the following description for the purposes of explanation, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the present invention. It will be evident, however, to one skilled in the art, that the present invention may be practiced without these specific details. In other instances, well-known structures and devices are shown in block diagram form for clarity and in order not to obscure the details of the invention. The present invention may be implemented within any computer system now known or hereafter developed. In one embodiment, such computer systems may comprise a bus for communicating information, a processor coupled with the bus for processing information, main memory coupled with the bus for storing information and instructions for the processor, a read-only memory coupled with the bus for storing static information and instructions for the processor, a display device coupled with the bus for displaying information for a computer user, an input device coupled with the bus for communicating information and command selections to the processor, and a mass storage device, such as a magnetic disk and associated disk drive, coupled with the bus for storing information and instructions. A data storage medium containing digital information may also be configured to operate with the mass storage device to allow the processor to access to the digital information on the data storage medium via the bus. The computer system may additionally include a network device that enables the computer system to connect to a network, such as the Internet and/or a wireless network. A user may thus use the computer system to communicate on the network via a web browser or other such user interface. The above described system is not, however, necessary to practice the invention. It is merely illustrative of a present day system within which the invention may be practiced. Alternative embodiments may include any system capable of receiving, storing, transmitting data to achieve the same or similar functionality described herein.

The present invention presents users with an efficient and unique means for building and participating in virtual communities. While the following description frequently uses the example of a virtual community comprising parents, teachers and administrators of a school (the "virtual educational community"), the invention is not so limited and may be practiced within a variety of virtual communities.

According to one embodiment of the present invention, members of the virtual educational community may build and participate in virtual sub-communities comprising selected individuals within the community. Members may invite these selected individuals to participate in various virtual sub-communities based on particular areas of interest. Alternatively, members may automatically enroll such selected individuals in a virtual sub- community. The virtual sub-communities will provide a gathering place for members to share information through interactive features such as chat rooms, message boards, electronic mail and private messaging, as well as through publishing of broadcast content such as announcements, frequently asked questions ("FAQs") and articles. Clubs may be open to all members of the virtual community, open only to a defined list of members of the community, or open to members meeting predefined criteria.

According to one embodiment of the present invention, a member of a club may locate and communicate with other members of the community meeting predefined criteria, without knowing anything about these members. Thus, in the example listed above, a parent who belongs to the virtual educational community may be able to specify that he or she wishes to communicate with a subset of parents matching a predefined criteria. All members of the club matching the predefined criteria will be identified, and the searching parent may then communicate with all such identified members.

Thus, in the above example, if the parent of a third-grader within the virtual educational community wants to locate other parents of third grade children in their child's school, he or she may select this criteria, namely parents of third-graders at the named school, and all parents that satisfy this criteria will be identified. Alternatively, the parents may desire to locate other parents of third-graders district wide, or more generally, parents who express a special interest, such as, in the special needs of learning-disabled children. Each of these criteria allows members of the club the flexibility to identify other members of the club.

In the above example, having identified these other parents, the parent of the third-grader may then communicate with these other parents on a variety of topics. One embodiment of the present invention enables parents to automatically send email and/or a private messaging to the members who match the predefined search criteria. Alternatively, the present invention enables the parent to create a distribution list based on the retrieved information, for future use. The parent can be assured that the list is complete, namely that it includes all members of the community that match the predefined criteria. This matching of predefined criteria to the members of the community may occur each time a request is made, thus ensuring that the list of always current, up-to-date and complete. Alternatively, if desired, a member may create a distribution list that remains static until the member explicitly requests that the list be regenerated. Although the above example focuses on parents, in alternative embodiments, other members of the virtual community, such as administrators and teachers, may also utilize these features of the present invention.

According to one embodiment, the names and other personally identifiable information regarding the members matching the criteria may not be accessible to the searching parent. Thus, although the parent may search and automatically communicate with the other parents matching the predefined criteria, the searching parent never actually sees the email addresses to which their email is being sent. This embodiment protects the privacy of members of online virtual communities, may of whom would not participate in the community if their anonymity is not ensured. An alternate embodiment may make such personally identifiable information accessible to the searching parent.

As described above, the present invention uses a variety of user data to facilitate the building of, and participation in, virtual communities. In order to build such virtual communities, enable members to participate, and provide for communication amongst the members of the community, however, data must first be collected from the members and/or obtained from a source and then associated with the members. Member data may be collected in a variety of ways and stored in one or more data repositories. The data may be collected from members (i) through a browser-based web form which collects the data and writes it to the appropriate database; (ii) via direct access to the database tables; (iii) through file transmissions between a thin client and a back end system which writes the data into the databases; and/or (iv) through data imports, voice recognition systems, telephony technologies, and other available means of entering data into computerized systems. Member data may also be generated by the system in response to the member's actions on the system. Thus, for example, when a member joins a club, the system may generate an entry in a list of interests for the member, indicating that the member is interested in the particular topic of such a club.

In one embodiment, in order to provide data, an individual may be required to provide a personal identification number and/or password or other such information by which the individual may be authenticated. This security precaution may be used to exclude individuals from a virtual community, and may be implemented, for example, in virtual communities catering to children, to prevent individuals convicted of sexual crimes from participating in the community. In order to become a member of such a virtual community, individuals may be required to provide a social security number or other personal identification such as a drivers license number. These numbers may then be checked against a state database of sexual offenders, and those individuals whose social security numbers and/or drivers license numbers appear on the state database may be denied access to the online community catering to children. Alternate embodiments of the present invention may include no such security precautions.

Once collected, the data is stored in one or more data repositories. According to one embodiment of the present invention, the data is stored in one or more relational databases, including (i) a database on a profile server that stores data entered into the member profile forms as well as system-generated data about the user (hereafter the "Profile Server"); (ii) a database that stores publishing data transmitted by the user from a thin client (hereafter the "Publishing

Database"); and (iii) a database that stores content data replicated from the data in the publishing database as well as data entered via chats, message boards, and other means of entering data via a browser (hereafter the "Content Database"). Although the following description uses the above described data stores, in alternate embodiments, additional or fewer data stores may be used to store user data entered through any of the methods described above. Additionally, although data used by the system is stored on a permanent basis according to one embodiment of the present invention, alternative embodiments may utilize temporary data stores.

Once collected as described above, the member data may be used to create and maintain virtual communities. For illustrative purposes, the following description will once again rely on the educational virtual community discussed above. It will be apparent to one of ordinary skill that the following description may apply to a variety of other virtual communities. The educational virtual community may, for example, comprise administrators, teachers, parents and students of a particular school. Virtual sub-communities may exist within this educational virtual community, including, but not limited to, members of (i) message boards (asynchronous communications providing threaded or unthreaded messages on one or more topics in one or more categories); (ii) chats (real time interactive written or voice messaging, on one or more topics in one or more categories); (iii) clubs (on-line gathering sites that include without limitation, message boards, chats, member directories, static and dynamic content) to communicate with one another; and (iv) distribution lists for on-line messaging, telephony communications groups, wireless communications groups, and other such on-line associations. These on-line associations may also extend into the off-line world. Thus, for example, members of a virtual sub-community (such as the Parent/Teacher Organization) may meet online to plan offline events such as a car wash fund raising event. In this scenario, the on-line community of parents and teachers may meet offline, in the physical world, to implement the fund raising event that was planned online, thus extending the online community into the real world. Members of the virtual community may register to become part of the various virtual sub- communities, to take advantage of the services offered by each community. Enrollment requires users to enter specific information about themselves, including one or more of the following: name, address, phone number, and other such data. Additional information, such as occupation, associated school, specific interests, and other such data, may also be entered. As described above, according to one embodiment of the present invention, this data is stored in a Profile Server. The Profile Server additionally stores information about the user's usage of different pages of the site and the user's utilization of the interactive features of the site.

In the educational virtual community described above, in one embodiment, client software may extract data from the information systems in the schools, encrypt and compress the data, and upload that data to the system where it is queued and then decompressed, decrypted, and stored in the Publishing Database. In an alternate embodiment, the data in the Publishing Database is replicated to the Content Database in order to provide superior system performance.

In yet another embodiment, the present invention may provide a client support to extract and upload "extended data" available in educational institutions. "Extended data" in this context refers to data entered by a member of the virtual community, and/or data stored in or obtained from multiple data sources, including sources such as information systems other than those described in this specification. Additionally, as described above, although the above example addresses only the educational virtual community, the present invention may be practiced in other environments using other types of data. In fact, the client software may use data from any data repository with information related to the system user. Thus, for example, in an alternative embodiment of the present invention, company personnel records may be connected with user data in order to provide virtual communities for a company's personnel.

According to one embodiment of the present invention, the Publishing Database generates at least two pieces of data for each individual for whom data has been obtained from a data source. These two pieces of data are provided for the community member, the equivalent of a user ID. and password, and communicated to the member. If the member associates these two pieces of data with their user registration data, by entering them into the member profile, the present invention may associate the data in the Profile Server to the data in the Publishing Database, thus creating a comprehensive source of member data.

While one embodiment of the present invention enables a single means of associating two unique pieces of data with the registration data, alternate embodiments may enable such capability through different methods, such as entry via telephone keypad. Additionally, the association of the Profile Server data and the Publishing Database data may be accomplished through means other than the entry of two unique pieces of data. For example, in yet another embodiment of the invention, the user may be given the opportunity to search for their records on both the Profile Server and the Publishing Database via a web page and connect the records by confirming the association via a web page. Alternately, the association of one set of data with another may occur automatically, by matching data in one set to data in the other set. In addition to, or in lieu of, storing data, for individuals, other embodiments of the present invention may also store user data for groups of individuals or for non-personal entities. Thus, for example, instead of an individual, user data may be stored for a company or a church.

According to one embodiment of the present invention, all virtual sub-communities may be open to the members of the virtual community. Alternatively, these sub-communities may also be open only to a subset of the members. The present invention offers a process for creating virtual sub-communities that are open only to a subset of the community members. This sub- community creation process includes such standard steps as naming the community, choosing the community features, and entering defining information about the community.

Additionally, the present invention enables the community creator to identify community membership criteria. Membership criteria may be based on the comprehensive user data stored in the Profile Server, the Content Database, and any other databases storing user data. Any and all of the fields in these databases may be used to define membership criteria. The community creator identifies the fields to be used and indicates the field values that must be met to qualify for sub-community membership. For example, the community creator may select the database field "city" and indicate that the criteria for qualification in this field is "Los Angeles". The community creator may also select the database field "user experience" and indicate that the criteria for qualification in this field is "expert". In doing so, the community creator may specify that users qualifying for membership in the virtual community must have the values "Los Angeles" and "expert" in the relative fields in their comprehensive user data.

In addition to defining membership criteria, the present invention allows the community creator to open membership of the sub-community to other specific users, regardless of the membership criteria. In one embodiment, for example, the community creator may himself or herself identify other users who qualify for membership in the sub-community. To do so, the community creator may enter the user's name or email address, which may be stored in the database containing all information pertaining to the virtual sub-community. An alternative embodiment of the present invention may allow for the definition of more complex criteria, such as allowing the community creator to define qualified users as users who live in Los Angeles or Washington, D.C. and are experts, unless their occupation is that of a systems administrator. The present invention may additionally support the use of a single database or multiple databases for the data from the virtual sub-communities.

While the above described embodiment bases membership on comprehensive data, an alternate embodiment of the present invention may base membership on partial data. Thus, for example, membership may be based solely on data in the Profile Server or any other source of member data. Additionally, although the above described embodiments base membership criteria purely on data stored in the system databases, other embodiments of the invention may base membership on dynamic information provided by third parties. Such information may include, for example, information pertaining to owners of specific cell phones or personal digital assistants.

Once the community creator has defined the sub-community membership criteria, the present invention may construct a query to match the criteria defined by the community creator. According to one embodiment of the present invention, the query is a Structured Query Language ("SQL") query. Thus, for example, the criteria used in the above example may generate the following SQL query:

SELECT Profile.MemberlD, Profile.MemberName, Profile.MemberEmail, Profile.City,

ContentData.UserExperience FROM ContentData INNER JOIN Profile ON ContentData.MemberID =

Profile.MemberlD WHERE (((Profile.City)="Los Angeles") AND

((ContentData.UserExperience)- ' expert"))

The present invention then executes the query against the relevant databases and constructs a list of users that match the above sub-community membership criteria. The list of matching users may then be compared to a list of individual users identified in the community creation process (by member name or email address, for example), to eliminate duplicates. The resulting list represents all users that meet the sub-community membership criteria. According to one embodiment of the present invention, this list is not presented to the user creating the community. Instead, the user is given only the total number of users meeting the criteria, thus protecting the anonymity of the qualifying users while giving the community creator the information he or she needs. Alternatively, in another embodiment, the list of users that meet the sub-community membership criteria may be presented to the community creator, giving the community creator the opportunity to eliminate individuals who match the criteria but are not desired as members of the virtual community. In addition to, or in lieu of, using SQL queries, other embodiments of the present invention also enable community creators to use alternate matching schemes, such as a differential analysis, queries based on technologies, a variety of languages, and/or any other method for identifying a subset of users that match the community eligibility requirements. Additionally, instead of matching individuals to membership criteria, alternate embodiments of the present invention may match groups of individuals, companies, associations, or other such groups or categories to sub-community criteria. Thus, for example, the community creator may create a club for a certain type of company and membership would be extended to companies meeting such criteria, including all users designated by such companies.

In some instances, the total list of qualifying members may be too small or too large to meet the needs of the community creator, h such a case, the community creator may have the option of changing or refining the membership criteria which regenerates a query and creates a new list of qualifying members.

Once the list of qualifying members has been constructed, the present invention enables the community creator the opportunity to invite the qualifying users to participate in the new virtual sub-community. The community creator may, for example, generate a personalized invitation, including information about the location of the community (for example, a URL for the web page), and include information about themselves. Alternatively, once the community creator has entered the optional information regarding the community, the present invention may automatically generate electronic invitations to the community which the community creator may send to the qualifying users via email or private electronic messaging. The community creator may be allowed to add or delete information to the automatically generated electronic invitation.

The present invention may deliver to individuals via email, a closed messaging service, or via alternate technical or non-technical delivery methods now known or hereafter discovered or developed, any such invitation to participate in the new sub-community. Such alternative delivery methods include, but are not limited to, telephony, wireless messaging and postal mail. Users receiving such electronic invitations may either manually navigate via a web browser to the URL listed in the invitation, or alternatively click on hyperlinked text in the invitation to launch a web browser and view the opening page of the new virtual sub-community. In one embodiment, users may be required to log into the site in order to view such an opening page, while in an alternate embodiment, the user may view such a page without logging into the site. Users may then join the sub-community by, for example, clicking on a "join" button, which adds their member name to the sub-community member directory.

Users who access the site by entering the URL in their browser and visiting the home page may have the opportunity to view all the sub-communities for which they are eligible. For example, in one embodiment, each time a member of the virtual community logs into the general educational community home page, the user is presented with a list of all sub-communities for which he or she is eligible to participate in. This list of sub-communities may be dynamically generated by the same querying technology used to generate eligible members lists. Therefore, if users change any of their comprehensive information, their list of eligible sub-communities may change. Additionally, members joining the site after the creation of the sub-community may be eligible to join the sub-community. Thus, according to one embodiment of the present invention, the virtual sub-community may dynamically change based on the matching of community criteria with comprehensive user data on an ongoing basis, instead of remaining static based on the eligible members list generated when the sub-community is initially formed.

Although the above embodiments envision users accessing virtual communities via web browsers, in alternative embodiments, wireless technologies may enable users to access such communities through Internet devices or wireless phones. In such embodiments, for example, the present invention may facilitate membership and notification of communities using wireless technologies. Additionally, other embodiments of the present invention may enable users to access such communities through telephone keypad entries, voice recognition, and dynamic joining based on other user activities. Thus, for example, a user may be automatically added as a member of a virtual sub-community based on other activities that they participate in. More specifically, all parents of kids in a particular third grade class may be automatically added as members of that third grade class' club.

FIGS. 1 - 8 illustrate example screen shots of various web pages of a virtual educational community according to one embodiment of the present invention. It will be apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art that alternate pages may be designed to provide the same or similar functionality, without departing from the spirit of the invention.

The present invention enables members of the virtual community to provide information that may be used to take advantage of various features of the invention. Thus, as illustrated in FIG. 1, members of the virtual community are informed that the Community Builder™ feature of the present invention may be used to find people of similar interests and to create clubs to meet and share ideas with them. Additionally, the member is invited to select a list of interests and activities which will be made available to the Community Builder™ feature. Thus, for example, a member may specify that he is a parent with a third grade child in Ms. Smith's English class. Members of the virtual community will thus be able to later specify the criteria of "parents with third grade children in Ms. Smith's English class" and locate this member to send email to and/or to invite to join a club.

FIG. 2-4 illustrates the Community Builder™ feature of the present invention. As illustrated in FIG. 2, the web page identifies the member ("Welcome John") and presents John with the various features of the site. The web page describes the Community Builder™ feature of the present invention which enables a member to find other people with similar interests and to create and participate in clubs to meet with them and share ideas. If John selects the "Create New Club" feature of the present invention, in step 1, John may specify the details of the club, such as the club's name and club description. In step 2, as illustrated in FIG. 3, John may additionally specify predefined criteria for members of the community. Thus, for example, John may decide that the community that he or she is starting is for all those members of the virtual community who are interested in chess.

Upon selecting chess as the interest, in step 3, the present invention may automatically match this interest with the previously collected interests of the members of the virtual community. As illustrated in FIG. 4, the present invention informs John that 456 members of the virtual community match the criteria. Once this list of members of the virtual community who match the club membership criteria is constructed, John may generate electronic invitations to the subset of members to invite them to join the club. While one embodiment of the present invention does not disclose the names of the members of the community to John, according to an alternate embodiment, such names may be revealed. Additionally, as illustrated, John may specify other members who automatically qualify to join the club, regardless of whether they match the criteria. By entering these members' email addresses in the appropriate location on the web page, the members may also receive an invitation to join the club. In this manner, John, and other members of the virtual community, may create various clubs, as well as join clubs created by other members.

FIG. 5 illustrates an example of a web page that a virtual community member may see as a participant in the virtual community. Thus, for example, John belongs to a club for "Parents of Children with ADD" and sees that club listed when he logs into his account. The web page additionally includes information about John's identity, i.e. "School Administrator." John may additionally have a second identity on the same site as, for example, "Parent." When John logs in as a parent, he will be presented with the appropriate information for that identity, which is likely to be, but is not necessarily, different than the information he sees when he logs in as the School Administrator.

FIG. 6 illustrates yet another feature of the present invention. As illustrated, John may use the SelectCast™ utility on this web page to find others with particular interests and to send messages to that group. Thus, in step 1, John may create a message (SelectCast™ Text) and in step 2, illustrated in FIG. 7, John may select the recipient criteria and the area of interest. Having thus identified a subset of members of the virtual community, in step 3 illustrated in FIG. 8, John may then request that automatic emails and/or private messaging be generated to this subset of members. Once again, John is informed of the number of members who meet the criteria he specified. This feature of the present invention enables John to communicate with a subset of the members of the virtual community without having to create or join a club.

Although the above description focuses on the creation of clubs, the various features of the present invention may also be utilized to create bulletin boards or chat rooms. Additionally, the virtual community web site may offer various other features such as a means for managing clubs after they are created and a means for simply observing, i.e. not being a member of, a club or a bulletin board or a chat room. The present invention presents members of virtual communities with powerful tools to build and participate in sub-groups within such virtual communities.

Thus, a method and apparatus for building and participating in virtual communities is disclosed. Although the present invention has been described with reference to specific exemplary embodiments, it will be evident to those skilled in the art that various changes and modifications may be made to these embodiments, and equivalents may be substituted for elements in these embodiments, without departing from the general spirit and scope of the invention as set forth in the claims. In addition, many modifications may be made to adapt a particular element, technique or implementation to the teachings of the present invention without departing from the central scope of the invention. Accordingly, the specification and drawings should be regarded in an illustrative rather than a restrictive sense.

Claims

We claim: 1) A method for building a virtual community comprising the steps of: collecting data regarding members of the virtual community;

storing said data in a first data repository;

receiving as input predetermined criteria;

identifying selected members of said virtual community based on said predetermined criteria;

retrieving from said first data repository information associated with said selected members; and

enabling online communications with said selected members.

2) The method according to Claim 1 wherein said online communications including an invitation to said selected members to participate in a virtual sub-community.

3) The method according to Claim 2 further including the steps of: obtaining additional information pertaining to said members of said virtual community; and

storing said additional information in said first data repository. 4) The method according to Claim 2 further including the step of: obtaining additional information pertaining to said members of said virtual community; and

storing said additional information in a second data repository.

5) The method according to Claim 4 further including the step of associating the data for said member in said first data repository with the additional data for said member in the second data repository.

6) The method according to Claim 5 wherein said first data repository and said second data repository reside on a single computer system.

7) The method according to Claim 5 wherein said first data repository and said second data repository reside on different computer systems.

8) The method according to Claim 7 wherein said first data repository is maintained by a first entity and said second data repository is maintained by a second entity.

9) The method according to Claim 2 wherein said virtual sub-community is a club.

10) The method according to Claim 9 wherein said step of enabling online communication further includes the step of automatically generating an electronic message which may be edited by one of said selected members of said club prior to being sent to another of said selected members of said club.

11) The method according to Claim 2 wherein virtual sub-community is a bulletin board.

12) The method according to Claim 2 wherein said virtual sub-community is a chat.

13) The method according to Claim 2 wherein said virtual community is a virtual educational community.

14) The method according to Claim 13 wherein said virtual educational community includes parents.

15) The method according to Claim 13 wherein said virtual educational community includes teachers.

16) The method according to Claim 13 wherein said virtual educational community includes students.

17) The method according to Claim 13 wherein said virtual educational community includes administrators.

18) The method according to Claim 17 wherein said administrators are school administrators. 19) The method according to Claim 17 wherein said administrators are district administrators.

20) The method according to Claim 13 wherein said virtual educational community includes school staff.

21) The method according to Claim 20 wherein said school staff includes media specialists.

22) The method according to Claim 20 wherein said school staff includes guidance counselors.

23) The method according to Claim 20 wherein said school staff includes non-instructional school staff.

24) A method for enabling participation in a virtual community, the method comprising the steps of: identifying a member of the virtual community;

retrieving membership information for said member from a data repository, said membership information including said member's profile; and

presenting said member with community information matching said member's profile.

25) The method according to Claim 24 wherein said step of presenting said member with community information matching said member's profile includes the steps of: examining said member's profile information; and

using said member's profile information to match said member's areas of interest to said community information.

26) The method according to Claim 25 wherein said virtual community is a virtual educational community.

27) The method according to Claim 25 wherein said types of said community information include information about a club.

28) The method according to Claim 25 wherein said types of said community information include information about a bulletin board.

29) The method according to Claim 25 wherein said types of said community information include information about a chat.

30) An apparatus for identifying and contacting individuals in a virtual community matching a predetermined criteria, said apparatus comprising: an interface, said interface receiving as input said predetermined criteria;

a data repository, said data repository containing information associated with said individuals;

means for retrieving said contact information from said database for said individuals who match said predetermined criteria; and an online communication system, said online communication system enabling communications with said individuals who match said predetermined criteria.

31) The apparatus according to Claim 30 wherein said information associated with said individuals includes contact inforaiation and said online communication system uses said contact information to enable communications with said individuals who match said predetermined criteria.

32) A system for building and participating in a virtual community, the system comprising: a data repository, said data repository including information pertaining to members of said virtual community;

an interface, said interface accepting as input predetermined criteria for identifying selected characteristics of said members of said virtual community; and

means for retrieving from said data repository said information pertaining to said members of said virtual community that match said predetermined criteria.

33) A method for building a virtual community comprising the steps of: accessing data regarding members of the virtual community;

specifying predetermined criteria;

communicating with selected members of said virtual community identified based on said predetermined criteria.