Social network information may be shared across online service providers. Thus, one online service provider M that maintains a membership separate from a second online service provider N may nevertheless use the social network maintained by the second online service provider N to tailor content and/or services based on such social network information.

Sharing social network information

A preferred contact group centric interface for a communication device can be used to facilitate communications by a user. The user interface can be arranged to activate from a user's “home page” on the display, from an idle screen that is accessed after a timeout period expires, or any other appropriate mechanism that activates the preferred contact group centric experience. A user selects the preferred contact group from among an array of the user's contacts. Once the contact group is configured, a minimal number of navigation/selection features is necessary to activate any number of communication modes available to the contacts. The contact group is configured such that simple and quick navigation between the contact members is achieved. The contact group can be presented in 2D and 3D arrangements, in any number of list or geometric configurations. A pricing plan can optionally be tied to each member of the contact group.

Preferred contact group centric interface

A sender's degrees of separation from a recipient may be used to aid in spam filtering or to otherwise handle a communication. The “degrees of separation” represent a metric used to quantify whether/how the recipient is linked to the sender through intermediary people or other entities. For example, a recipient may know a first user (first degree of separation) and the first user may know a second user (second degree of separation) who knows the sender of an e-mail. In this case, the sender is separated from the recipient by two degrees of separation (by two other contacts). A level of “trust” or “legitimacy” about a sender's communication can be inferred by looking at whether the sender is linked to an intended recipient. Typically, user contact lists (e.g., address book, buddy list, and/or white list) are evaluated to determine the number of degrees (or hops) are required to link or relate two users.

Degrees of separation for handling communications

A system for sharing playlists utilizes a network, such as the Internet. A player device other than a general purpose computer, such as a dedicated media player or a remote control for a dedicated media player, is in communication with the server over the network. The player device is configured to receive a playlist, queue the playlist, display the playlist, and play a selection from the playlist. A user profile may be used to identify playlists that are likely to contain selections of interest to the user.

System and method for sharing playlists

The present invention provides a presence system capable of efficiently controlling the delivery of presence information for select individuals to a subscriber. Even if the subscriber has numerous individuals identified in a contacts list, only presence information for those individuals in an active list is provided to the subscriber. The active list can be relatively static or configured to change based on time and date, monitored events, availability of the subscriber, or other predefined criteria. The user can readily add or remove individuals from the active list in addition to selecting an inactive individual to monitor on an instantaneous basis, for a select period of time, until a successful communication occurs between the subscriber and selected individual, or until monitoring is no longer desired. The user can also issue one-time queries of typical or more detailed presence information about specific individuals.

Dynamic presence indicators

Personalizing communications for a first communication platform includes accessing status information for communication sessions by a communication identity that leverage a first communication platform other than an instant messaging platform. A participant list associated with the communication identity and the first communication platform is passively configured to persistently reflect a list of participant identities from communication sessions in which the communication identity recently participated using the communication platform.

James A. Roskind

Papers

Passive personalization of buddy lists

Personalization of recent contacts list