U.S. patent application number 13/874431 was filed with the patent office on 2013-11-21 for intelligent bookmarks and information management system based on the same.
The applicant listed for this patent is Prajno MALLA. Invention is credited to Prajno MALLA.
Application Number | 20130311862 13/874431 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 46653772 |
Filed Date | 2013-11-21 |
United States Patent
Application |
20130311862 |
Kind Code |
A1 |
MALLA; Prajno |
November 21, 2013 |
INTELLIGENT BOOKMARKS AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT SYSTEM BASED ON
THE SAME
Abstract
An intelligent bookmark is a collection of information,
including an address (e.g., a URL) for a document (e.g., web page)
or other hyper-media enabled item bundled together with selected
other information. The selected other information may be manually
or automatically obtained from the document, the browser history
leading up to the display of the document, user entered
annotations, etc. A collection of intelligent bookmarks may be
sorted and searched using the selected other information.
Intelligent bookmarks may be exchanged between users, and users may
edit the bookmark content or in layers above the bookmark. Users
may rate the bookmarks. A complete system provides for creating,
storing, accessing, editing, grouping, exchanging, and searching
intelligent bookmarks locally and/or remotely via a server.
Inventors: |
MALLA; Prajno; (San
Francisco, CA) |
|
Applicant: |
Name |
City |
State |
Country |
Type |
MALLA; Prajno |
San Francisco |
CA |
US |
|
|
Family ID: |
46653772 |
Appl. No.: |
13/874431 |
Filed: |
April 30, 2013 |
Related U.S. Patent Documents
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Application
Number |
Filing Date |
Patent Number |
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13031615 |
Feb 22, 2011 |
8533199 |
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13874431 |
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11611071 |
Dec 14, 2006 |
7899829 |
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13031615 |
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Current U.S.
Class: |
715/206 |
Current CPC
Class: |
G06F 40/12 20200101;
G06F 16/9562 20190101; G06F 40/169 20200101 |
Class at
Publication: |
715/206 |
International
Class: |
G06F 17/22 20060101
G06F017/22 |
Claims
1. A computer-implemented method for creating an intelligent
bookmark to a document, the document of the type including at least
an address, a title, and a body, the intelligent bookmark including
at least an address of a document and identifier information about
that document obtained at least in part from the body of the
document, comprising: displaying the document; retrieving the
address of the document; extracting certain identifier information
from the body of the document; and storing said address and said
certain identifier information such that said address and said
identifier information are associated with one another so that the
document can be accessed from the address and information about the
document can be obtained from the identifier information.
Description
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
[0001] This application claims priority as a continuation of U.S.
patent application Ser. No. 13/031,615, filed Feb. 22, 2011, which
is related to and claims priority as a continuation under 35 U.S.C.
120 from U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/611,071, filed Dec.
14, 2006, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,899,829 and entitled INTELLIGENT
BOOKMARKS AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT SYSTEM BASED ON THE SAME,
which is in turn, claims priority under 35 U.S.C. 119(e) to U.S.
Provisional Application No. 60/750,213, filed Dec. 14, 2005 and
entitled INFORMATION MANAGEMENT SYUSTEM BASED ON INTELLIGENT
BOOKMARKS, and U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/765,074 filed
Feb. 3, 2006 and entitled INFORMATION MANAGEMENT SYSTM UTILIZING
INTELLIGENT HISTORY ITEMS BASED ON INTELLIGENT BOOKMARKS, the
contents of each being hereby incorporated by reference in their
entirety.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0002] The present invention is related to accessing the Internet,
and more particularly to a method for creating and managing
bookmarks which provide search and organizational elements within a
bookmark database.
[0003] The Internet and World Wide Web provide a wealth of
information on any subject. Most people with access to the Internet
rely on it for news, stock information, research, hobbies, and
other information they seek, such as matrimony and other personal
issues. In terms of Internet technology, advancements in different
areas of communication have grown at a rapid pace. Such
advancements include e-mail, discussion boards and forums,
chatting, instant messaging, voice over IP, RSS, Podcasts, etc.
Hardware advancements include faster PCs, networking speeds and
standards, faster ISP services, etc. Software advancement includes
applications based on Flash, Java, XML, etc. Browser advancements
include more security, more customization, tabbed browsing, more
available plug-ins, etc. However, one area that has been overlooked
is advances in bookmarks.
[0004] Since information on the internet can be constantly updated
or changed, information may not always be permanently or
persistently available and may be difficult to capture or store. To
address this difficulty, users often capture information on the
internet via screenshots. Screenshots portray an exact image of
what the user is viewing. Screenshots can also be useful in
capturing a snapshot of information, particularly information that
may have been provided or accessed from a database. However, the
screenshot may be limited to the user's display size (which is
usually smaller than most articles). Screenshots do not necessarily
store any searchable text and therefore are not easily searchable.
Capturing information through a screenshot does not necessarily
allow a user to copy/paste text from it either. Also, the saving of
screenshots is not effectively integrated in the browser and thus
require the user to manually manage creating an image file from the
screenshot, naming it, and saving it under categorized folders for
further retrieval. Further, information, saved in a screenshot may
be effectively updated or changed, and the screenshot is not able
to verify such updates and changes. These steps make it very
cumbersome to user screenshots to capture information online, thus
limiting the usefulness and effectiveness of screenshots as a tool
to capture, preserve, share, and manage internet-based information
and content.
[0005] Cutting and pasting text and pictures from web pages into
word processing documents is another way of saving information.
This method is one of the most common way users store and capture
information from the internet. By cutting and pasting pictures and
text, users save such information on their own computers. However,
this method may destroy the formatting on the original webpage.
Often, the word processor uses up computer resources (such as RAM
and hard-drive space). Many cut and paste entries also copy
unnecessary tables and script which makes it very difficult to have
the information easily readable and useful.
[0006] Users may also choose to use the browser's "Save"
functionality to save a webpage. Although this method is fairly
easy, it also takes up hard-drive resources by saving every single
picture of the webpage (often including unwanted advertisements and
content, menus, etc) and retaining the original links by mapping
them to directories on the computer. This method is resource
intensive and results in the collection of vast amounts of
information that may be unnecessary. Also, this "Save"
functionality may not be very accurate in pages with scripts
because some references in these scripts that rely on server-side
processing cannot be accessed by the client side browser for later
execution, resulting in missing information when saved. Since the
"Save" functionality tries to retain the structure of the website,
any changes the user would do to sort and organize these downloaded
files/folders may potentially break the link structures of saved
pages potentially "losing" important information. These factors can
make the "Save" functionality a last resort due to the difficulty
of organization, the inaccuracy in capturing information, and the
demand in hard-drive space.
[0007] Printing is another way in which information can be captured
from the internet. Printing captures information from the internet,
but creates a non-digital version of the information. Printing
allows for users to mark up information and file it easily and also
have it accessible when not being connected to the internet.
However, not having a digital copy has a lot of drawbacks in terms
of being able to easily and effectively utilize the information in
subsequent research and other material compilation. There are other
drawbacks to printing as well. It is not always feasible to print
material off the web. Printing files, that are hundreds of pages
long, wastes ink and paper. Lot of portal sites and complex web
pages are not very printer-friendly as well and may not be
formatted to allow easy printing. Also, keeping a hard-copy of
information captured online can be difficult in terms of filing and
accessing for the future.
[0008] Bookmarks are a common but ineffective way to capture
information online. As used herein, a bookmark is a pointer acting
as a reference or navigation element to a document or to a section
of or location within a document, that automatically brings the
referred information to the user when the navigation element is
selected. This automatic functionality is part of a browser, or
other software application within which the document is being
viewed. Bookmarks are not limited to HTML or the web, but may be
used in almost any electronic media.
[0009] Bookmarks today have not changed much over the years as
information contained in a bookmark still includes only a single
line of text that holds a URL, possibly associated with the title
of the bookmarked document (either extracted from the page being
viewed or entered by the user). No element of nor content from the
body of the document is present in the bookmark. When a bookmarked
web page gets taken off-line or gets updated, the user may lose
information which was meant to be captured, since revisiting the
URL may return an updated page or a non-existing page error.
Furthermore, web-sites often undergo maintenance and restructuring
rendering bookmarks possibly no longer relevant or useful.
Bookmarked pages are also not easily searchable, and users have to
manually access each bookmarked page to search them. Another
problematic aspect about bookmarks is that when categorized,
bookmarks use folders based on a very basic user interface (In the
user interface, users are limited to the file and folder aspects of
the underlying operating system with limited drag-and-drop
functionality).
[0010] In addition, for a user to have a similar web experience on
different PCs or internet-enabled devices (including wireless), it
is important that users be able to utilize previously identified
bookmarks. Unfortunately, bookmarks are also not easily portable.
There are websites that allow you to store URLs online, but this
only lets a user use the URLs without providing a common interface
of bookmark features. Other shortcomings of bookmarks are with
dynamically generated web-pages. Internet forms that provide
receipts and pages that access data from different databases
general have no static address that they can be accessed at.
Without knowing, users try to capture such pages through bookmarks
only to revisit those bookmarks and receive errors or the parent
pages loosing valuable information. All these reasons and more make
bookmarks an ineffective way to capture and utilize information
available on the internet.
[0011] Since more users rely on the internet in their daily lives,
it is important that they have a better ability to manage
information they have gathered. It is also necessary that there are
easier ways for users to utilize the information they have gathered
by being able to access, search, share, rate this information and
integrate this in current internet technologies.
SUMMARY
[0012] Accordingly, the present invention provides a method for
creating and managing a database of intelligent bookmarks, that
provides users a better ability to manage information they have
gathered by allowing users to access, search, share and rate this
information. While there are a number of unique aspects to the
present invention, a common theme is the intelligent bookmark. An
intelligent bookmark according to the present invention is a
collection of information, including an address (e.g., a URL) for a
document or other hyper-media enabled item bundled together with
selected other information. The selected other information may be
manually or automatically obtained from the document, the browser
history leading up to the display of the document, user entered
annotations, etc.
[0013] For the purposes hereof, the term document is taken to mean
an electronic file or similar container containing content data,
formatting information, metadata (data that describe
characteristics of the document to aid in its identification,
discovery, assessment, and management), and possibly code capable
of causing selected functionality. Examples of documents include
web pages, files associated with word processing, spreadsheet,
drawing and graphics, database, and presentation software, music,
image, and game files, etc. Documents of the type of concern herein
typically will be partitioned by tags or other means into sections,
such as a title section (such as a file name), a script section
(such as formatting), a metadata section (such as date of
creation/modification), and a body section (such as a text
section).
[0014] In a first aspect of the present invention, an intelligent
bookmark is created by retrieving an address of a document, for
example a web page, extracting identifier information from the
document, and saving the address in conjunction with the identifier
information as an intelligent bookmark. Such identifier information
is obtained at least in part from the body of the document, and
therefore includes more that simply the title or name associated
with the address.
[0015] In some embodiments in accordance with the first aspect of
the present invention, the identifier information includes the URL
of the webpage, text within the webpage, non-text materials (e.g.,
images) and metaheaders. Portions of the non-text material may be
scanned by optical character recognition to extract any text
information contained therein. The identifier information may
further include the parent website, date and time stamp
information, search keywords used to locate the Internet webpage,
user entered text and user entered preference ratings for the
Internet webpage. The identifier information may further include
animations or video within an Internet webpage, wherein the
animations or video are recorded using a video recording tool.
[0016] In an embodiment in accordance with the first aspect of the
invention, the intelligent bookmark is saved within a Web browser
application. In an additional embodiment in accordance with the
first aspect of the invention, the intelligent bookmark is saved
onto a separate bookmark application within the user computer, and
can be accessed offline. The intelligent bookmark can be imported
from an offline source to an online source, such as a Web browser
application or remote server. In another embodiment in accordance
with the first aspect of the invention, the intelligent bookmark is
saved on a remote server. The intelligent bookmark can be accessed
by any user with access to the remote server.
[0017] In yet another embodiment in accordance with the first
aspect of the invention, a user identification is saved in
conjunction with an intelligent bookmark. The user identification
is used to denote a particular user.
[0018] In a second aspect of the present invention, a database for
intelligent bookmarks is created by retrieving an image of an
Internet webpage, extracting identifier information from the
webpage, assigning the identifier information a filing category,
filing the image in conjunction with the identifier information
according to the filing category, and saving the image in
conjunction with the identifier information as an intelligent
bookmark.
[0019] In some embodiments in accordance with the second aspect of
the present invention, the identifier information includes the URL
of the webpage, text within the webpage, non-text materials and
metaheaders. The non-text material is scanned by optical character
recognition to extract any text information contained within the
non-text material. The identifier information may further include
the parent website, date and time stamp information, search
keywords used to locate the Internet webpage, user entered text and
user entered preference ratings for the Internet webpage. The
identifier information may further include animations or video
within an Internet webpage, wherein the animations or video are
recorded using a video recording tool.
[0020] In an embodiment in accordance with the second aspect of the
present invention, the intelligent bookmark is searchable.
[0021] In other embodiments in accordance with the second aspect of
the present invention, the filing category is assigned to the
intelligent bookmark by requesting the user to input the filing
category information, is automatically assigned to the intelligent
bookmark based on the extracted identifier information or is one of
a number of default filing categories, which is automatically
assigned to the intelligent bookmark based on the extracted
identifier information.
[0022] In an embodiment in accordance with the second aspect of the
invention, the intelligent bookmark is saved within a Web browser
application. In an additional embodiment in accordance with the
first aspect of the invention, the intelligent bookmark is saved
onto a separate bookmark application within the user computer, and
can be accessed offline. The intelligent bookmark can be imported
from an offline source to an online source, such as a Web browser
application or remote server. In another embodiment in accordance
with the first aspect of the invention, the intelligent bookmark is
saved on a remote server. The intelligent bookmark can be accessed
by any user with access to the remote server.
[0023] In yet another embodiment in accordance with the second
aspect of the invention, a user identification is saved in
conjunction with an intelligent bookmark. The user identification
is used to denote a particular user.
[0024] In some embodiments in accordance with the second aspect of
the invention, the intelligent bookmark is deleted from the
database or archived. The intelligent bookmark will be deleted or
archived if it either has not been accessed for a default period of
time or if the user requests the bookmark to be deleted or
archived.
[0025] In another embodiment in accordance with the second aspect
of the invention, a database can be created by copying intelligent
bookmarks a remote server, an offline application on a user's
computer or a Web browser application to a database.
[0026] In a third aspect of the present invention, a database for
intelligent bookmarks can be accessed and managed by requesting a
user to enter a search term, searching the database for intelligent
bookmarks containing the search term, displaying a list of
intelligent bookmarks with the search term, requesting the user to
select one or more intelligent bookmarks, requesting the user to
select one or more bookmark actions to be performed on the
intelligent bookmark, and performing a selected action on the one
or more selected intelligent bookmarks.
[0027] In some embodiments in accordance with the third aspect of
the invention, the search term may include keyword text, a rating,
date and time information, a category or a user identification, to
search for intelligent bookmarks input by a particular user.
[0028] In other embodiments in accordance with the third aspect of
the invention, a bookmark action may include opening the webpage
for the intelligent bookmark on a Web browser application, sending
the intelligent bookmark to another location via an electronic mail
application or instant message application, attaching the
intelligent bookmark to an Internet Blog, exporting the intelligent
bookmark to an external file, creating a bibliography based on the
extracted identifier information or saving the intelligent bookmark
to a bookmark community, wherein said bookmark community is
accessible by multiple users.
[0029] In a fourth aspect of the present invention, users can be
notified of websites and advertisements of interest to the user by
creating a user profile, wherein the profile comprises identifier
information from the intelligent bookmarks, ratings of the internet
webpages and frequency of visits to internet webpages, evaluating
the profile to denote the most popular websites for the user, and
sending the user advertisements and websites that are similar to
the most popular websites for the user.
[0030] In a fifth aspect of the present invention, a database for
intelligent bookmarks can be created and managed from within a Web
browser application by displaying an intelligent bookmark toolbar
for actions related to intelligent bookmarks within a Web browser
application, capturing an image of a webpage using said toolbar,
extracting identifier information from the webpage, displaying
identifier information and the image to user, wherein user may make
changes to identifier information, assigning the identifier
information a category, displaying the identifier information in
conjunction with the captured image to the user as a preview,
filing the image in conjunction with the identifier information
according to the category, saving the image in conjunction with the
identifier information as an intelligent bookmark, wherein the
intelligent bookmark is not saved if an intelligent bookmark for
the particular Internet webpage already exists, and creating a link
to the intelligent bookmark within a pull-down menu within the
intelligent bookmark toolbar, wherein the link is displayed
according to the category.
[0031] In an embodiment in accordance with the fifth aspect of the
invention, a user can select the sections of the Internet webpage
to be captured.
[0032] In some embodiments in accordance with the fifth aspect of
the present invention, the identifier information includes the URL
of the webpage, text within the webpage, non-text materials and
metaheaders. The non-text material is scanned by optical character
recognition to extract any text information contained within the
non-text material. The identifier information may further include
the parent website, date and time stamp information, search
keywords used to locate the Internet webpage, user entered text and
user entered preference ratings for the Internet webpage. The
identifier information may further include animations or video
within an Internet webpage, wherein the animations or video are
recorded using a video recording tool.
[0033] In other embodiments in accordance with the fifth aspect of
the present invention, the filing category is assigned to the
intelligent bookmark by requesting the user to input the filing
category information, is automatically assigned to the intelligent
bookmark based on the extracted identifier information or is one of
a number of default filing categories, which is automatically
assigned to the intelligent bookmark based on the extracted
identifier information.
[0034] In another embodiment in accordance with the fifth aspect of
the invention, the user is allowed to edit the displayed preview.
The user may add or delete text or images.
[0035] Thus, according to one aspect of the present invention, a
computer-implemented method for creating an intelligent bookmark to
a document, the document of the type including at least an address,
a title, and a body, the intelligent bookmark including at least an
address of a document and identifier information about that
document obtained at least in part from the body of the document,
comprises displaying the document, retrieving the address of the
document, extracting certain identifier information from the body
of the document, and storing said address and said certain
identifier information such that said address and said identifier
information are associated with one another so that the document
can be accessed from the address and information about the document
can be obtained from the identifier information. The extraction may
advantageously be automatic, without requiring specific user input.
The automatically extracted information may be supplemented
manually by the user. Search history, extrinsic data, and captured
data may also be included with the identifying information. The
method may be embodied within the memory of a computing device or
as a series of steps stored on one or more computer-readable media,
such as magnetic or optical disk, flash memory, etc.
[0036] According to another aspect of the present invention, a
computer-implemented method of creating a user profile from a
user's collection of intelligent bookmarks to documents, each such
document of the type including at least an address, a title, and a
body, each intelligent bookmark including at least an address of a
document and identifier information about that document obtained at
least in part from the body of the document, comprises determining
from the user's collection of intelligent bookmarks at least one of
the following for the user: categories of interest to the user;
document characteristics of interest to the user; keywords of
interest to the user; and document behavior of interest to the
user. The method may be embodied within the memory of a computing
device or as a series of steps stored on one or more
computer-readable media, such as magnetic or optical disk, flash
memory, etc.
[0037] According to still another aspect of the present invention,
a computer server-implemented method of providing a community of
users with access to intelligent bookmarks to documents, each such
document of the type including at least an address, a title, and a
body, comprises providing an interface to the server which allows
multiple user to: create of an intelligent bookmark to a document;
view an intelligent bookmark: search for an intelligent bookmark;
edit an intelligent bookmark; rank an intelligent bookmark; upload
an intelligent bookmark; and proving storage, in communication with
said server computer, on which said intelligent bookmarks may be
stored; such that each intelligent bookmark includes at least an
address of a document and identifier information about that
document obtained at least in part from the body of the document.
The method may be embodied within the memory of a computing device
or as a series of steps stored on one or more computer-readable
media, such as magnetic or optical disk, flash memory, etc.
[0038] The above is a summary of merely a number of the unique
aspects, features, and advantages of the present invention.
However, this summary is not exhaustive. Thus, these and other
aspects, features, and advantages of the present invention will
become more apparent from the following detailed description and
the appended drawings, when considered in light of the claims
provided herein.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0039] In the drawings appended hereto like reference numerals
denote like elements between the various drawings. While
illustrative, the drawings are not drawn to scale. In the
drawings:
[0040] FIG. 1 is a an illustration of a number of elements of an
intelligent bookmark according to an embodiment of the present
invention.
[0041] FIG. 2 is an illustration of a sample record of an
intelligent bookmark according to an embodiment of the present
invention.
[0042] FIG. 3 is an illustration of a bookmark preview and editing
user interface according to an embodiment of the present
invention.
[0043] FIG. 4 is an illustration of a timeline presentation of
intelligent bookmarks according to an embodiment of the present
invention.
[0044] FIGS. 5A and 5B are illustrations of off-line (local) and
on-line (server) models, respectively, of a system according to an
embodiment of the present invention.
[0045] FIG. 6 is an illustration of a community-user model of a
system according to an embodiment of the present invention.
[0046] FIG. 7 is an illustration of a process by which a user can
share an intelligent bookmark with others according to an
embodiment of the present invention.
[0047] FIG. 8 is an illustration of the elements of a user profile
created from a population of intelligent bookmarks according to an
embodiment of the present invention.
[0048] FIG. 9 is an illustration of a process for automatically
assigning a category to an intelligent bookmark by referencing
other databases that may reside remotely or on a user's computer
according to an embodiment of the present invention.
[0049] FIG. 10 is an illustration of a process for creating an
intelligent bookmark according to an embodiment of the present
invention.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
[0050] In the following description the term intelligent bookmark
is used to refer to an associated collection of information,
including an address (e.g., a URL) for a document (e.g., web page)
or other hyper-media enabled item and selected other information
(referred to herein as identifier information). Typically, the
document in question is a webpage, and the description which
follows assumes such is the case. However, it will be understood by
one skilled in the art that the document may also be an item stored
locally on a user's computer, such as a word processing,
spreadsheet, or presentation document, etc. Accordingly, the
following is by way of example, and not intended to be a limitation
on the spirit and scope of the present invention.
[0051] FIG. 1 illustrates a sample, representative Internet webpage
4, displayed in a window 6 by a web browser application. Using a
mouse, pen and tablet, or other computer interface means (not
shown), a user may capture a selectable area, 10, which the user
may wish to bookmark. That is, area 10 may contain information such
as text, picture, audio, video, etc., which the user may wish to
quickly recover (among other options which are discussed further
below) at a later time. The captured area becomes the source for
data which will form an intelligent bookmark according to the
present invention. By default, the image captured in the process of
constructing the intelligent bookmark is the whole screen the user
is currently viewing (although this may be set to other selection
choices by the user in appropriate applications of the present
invention).
[0052] Once the page is captured, the process of creating
identifier information by extracting portions of the page in the
best-suited manner is initiated. For example, text and html
information that can be extracted from the webpage are identified
and saved at 14. Keywords 16 may be identified and extracted from
text 14 or other portions of the webpage. One method for
identifying relevant keywords is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No.
6,470,307 titled "Method And Apparatus For Automatically
Identifying Keywords Within A Document" which is incorporated
herein by reference. See also U.S. Pat. No. 5,659,730, and U.S.
Pat. No. 7,082,427 for other such techniques (each of which also
being incorporated herein by reference). The URL of the website 18
and the parent site 20 are extracted. Other metadata information
22, present in the webpage may also be extracted based on page
metaheaders 24. For example, date and time stamp information 26 can
be extracted from the metaheader 24. Images and non-textual
information 28 may be identified and extracted. Based on the
available information, a category or categories 30 may
automatically be assigned. Further, the bookmark can also be
manually categorized, and keywords can be added by the user.
[0053] Based on user-selectable preferences, the user can also
choose to have images and non-textual information 28 scanned by OCR
(Optical Character Recognition) to extract further text and
information. Further integration can be incorporated in the
intelligent bookmark to generate PDF files from the website text 14
to attach to the intelligent bookmark, if necessary. Advertisements
32 (or links thereto) can be blocked, removed, or maintained, while
creating bookmarks as well. The user can manually rate the bookmark
at 34 depending on his/her interest. The bookmarked site can be
checked for a community rating at 36 as well, allowing for the user
to further update the community rating. Other features may include
capturing animation/video or other display data that dynamically
changes on the screen. There are a variety of COTS products that
capture screen animation/video by recording the screen. An example
of screen capture and recording software is Camtasia available from
TechSmith.com (http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.asp). If the user
would like to capture such information, a "record" functionality
would allow a video screenshot of such information to be stored in
the intelligent bookmark. This type of "record" functionality can
also allow for user interaction with certain websites to be
recorded and bookmarked as well.
[0054] Interface preferences allowing creation of bookmarks with
some or all of the aforementioned features will be set as a
function of the desired level of complexity of the intelligent
bookmarks (i.e., how much information should be extracted/stored,
or if special functions needed to be performed) The greater the
demand on the computing resources required for a feature (e.g.,
applying optical character recognition to an image files is
considered a moderately high demand feature) the more a user
benefits from disabling that feature unless truly required.
[0055] Collectively, the details captured above are referred to as
identifier information 40, and the address 42 and associated
identifier information 40 are collectively referred to as an
intelligent bookmark 44, as shown in FIG. 2 embodied as a database
record. While the above has provided examples of certain identifier
information, virtually any data which may be extracted from a
document or added by a user may qualify as identifier information.
Thus, the concept that an address has associated with it identifier
information is not intended to be limited by the foregoing.
[0056] An intelligent bookmark 44 is typically stored in a data
base, either on-line or off-line (discussed further below), which
can interact with a user's browser software. FIG. 3 illustrates an
interface 46 in which a user may create, view, edit, preview, etc.
intelligent bookmarks. Based on preferences, the user interface 46
allows the user to edit the intelligent bookmark 44 by modifying,
adding or deleting the various elements of the identifier
information. For example, a user may create custom categorization
and keywords, adding them to those automatically generated as
identifier information discussed above, the user may decide if the
taken screenshot/video capture adequately contains the content to
be stored, etc.
[0057] This functionality can permit a user to fetch links as well.
For example, a web page viewed by a user may itself contain
multiple hyperlinks. In addition to bookmarking the viewed page,
the user may be prompted to bookmark the pages pointed to by the
hyperlinks. This is useful in cases where the user wants to gather
information from a informative directory type page. Additionally,
the user may right-click on a link (or take another similar action)
to "fetch" that link, and "preview" how the link would look if the
user accessed the page and were to bookmark it. Before the actual
bookmarking, the user can preview the possible bookmarks of the
hyperlinks one after another to decide which, if any, should be
bookmarked. Based on this, the user can save the bookmark, open the
bookmark to edit, visit the actual link to bookmark manually
(screenshot/video capture), or discard the bookmark. Essentially
the user is permitted to bookmark a page without accessing it
manually, allowing the user to choose to bookmark selected links
(with selected identifying information) present on a website being
viewed. This allows the user to browse websites more efficiently,
without having to visit pages in separate windows or pop-ups.
[0058] A user can easily search through and sort intelligent
bookmarks based on identifier information 40. For example, the
text/html 14 captured in the intelligent bookmark 44 may be
searched. Additionally, users may sort and group links based on
categories 30, or websites (e.g., parent website 20). Users can
also search and sort intelligent bookmarks by the frequency they
have been visited or the time frame of those visits. The time
frame/frequency of the visits is the number of times the user
accesses the bookmark/visits the URL after the bookmark has been
created. The time of creation would be a time-stamp of the
bookmark. Users can view intelligent bookmarks in a time-line type
display, illustrated in FIG. 4 which sorts bookmarks based on the
data and time stamp on the bookmark (for example filtered by a
keyword, bookmark rating, etc.)
[0059] Once created, an intelligent bookmark can be saved and
accessed offline, FIG. 5A, or online, FIG. 5B. In the offline
software model shown in FIG. 5A, a bookmark database 50 resides
directly on the user's computer 52. The user can access intelligent
bookmarks stored directly on his or her computer 52. By being on
the user's machine, the software accessing the intelligent
bookmarks would be able to execute commands and process information
quickly without network latency. In the online model shown in FIG.
5B, the user's computer 52 is connected to a remote server 56. The
bookmark database 58 resides on the server 56. The software itself
may be operating system-independent, allowing it to reside on a
separate device 60 such as a portable USB device, an mp3 player or
a Bluetooth enabled device. An application that does not depend on
the computer's operating system directly can be portable, which
allows the user the option of running it on a computer that does
not have the software installed or available, such as a borrowed or
public computer. This way, a user may have access to intelligent
bookmark information from a number of sources, local, remote or a
combination of the two.
[0060] Based on the device, the user can choose what resolution in
which to access bookmarks or bookmark metadata. That is, a bookmark
may be presented differently depending on the platform from which
it is accessed. For example, accessing an intelligent bookmark via
a mobile device such as a smart phone, the URL and a small version
of the screenshot is likely all that would be desired or prudent to
display. Yet accessing that same bookmark on a powerful, networked
desktop PC may produce a high resolution, large format screenshot
as well as a number of identifier information items.
[0061] Knowing the type and capabilities of the device accessing a
bookmark may also permit certain specific tool behavior. For
example, knowing that a bookmark is being accessed from a
smartphone may cause the bookmark to be displayed with easily
identified phone numbers, one-touch dialing of those phone numbers,
etc. Therefore the type of presentation and operational logic for
bookmarks may depend upon the interface device. This also means
that the information captured and stored as part of the intelligent
bookmark can anticipate specific device types, and the various
access formats can be preset, allowing fast access of such
information without further burdening computing time with
reformatting display formats, etc.
[0062] In the online server model, the user's computer 52 could run
a pre-installed software application that communicates with the
server 56 to access the remotely stored intelligent bookmark
database 58. Other embodiments may include plug-ins, toolbars or
flash-based applications that could run on the user's computer 52
(such as in conjunction with a web browser application) allowing
communication with the online server 56. The user can access an
interface to view, add or modify the intelligent bookmarks. This
feature allows for users to easily have files accessible from the
internet for later use.
[0063] Intelligent bookmarks on the server 56 may easily be
interlinked based on category, keywords, ratings, and other
metadata. Essentially, users form directories or run queries to
view similar intelligent bookmarks. Recommendation technologies,
such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,113,917, U.S. Pat. No.
6,266,649, and U.S. Pat. No. 6,064,980, each incorporated herein by
reference, would be a way (when applied to bookmarks) to
conceptually relate bookmarks for recommendations. The server (or
an element of the db management software) may also prevent
duplicate intelligent bookmarks. In such cases, when users want to
contribute information to the bookmark, ratings, keywords,
articles, pictures, video, similar websites, and other information
may be contributed. Besides the identifying information 40, other
relevant metadata such as the member's location and other
geographical factors may be used to group or categorize Intelligent
Bookmarks.
[0064] A combination of the offline (FIG. 5A) and online (FIG. 5B)
model may be utilized, allowing the user to synchronize the offline
data base 50 and online database 58. Since server database 58 can
be accessed from a network, a user may be provided a degree of
flexibility in accessing the intelligent bookmarks.
[0065] Referring now to FIG. 6, an on-line model in which a number
of users 62, 64, 66 are in communication with a server 68, which is
in turn in communication with intelligent bookmark database 70, is
illustrated. In such a model, a community of users may share, edit,
add, etc. individual intelligent bookmarks or collections of
intelligent bookmarks. For example, a user 66 can initiate access
to intelligent bookmarks stored in database 70 through use of a
community portal (software, not shown) resident on server 68. User
66 can then search, browse, copy, follow links in, etc. the
intelligent bookmarks stored in database 70. Each intelligent
bookmark in database 70 can include properties allowing a creator
of such a bookmark to permit or deny third parties from editing or
deleting the bookmark once stored. User 66 may contribute to a
community rating 36 of the intelligent bookmarks in database 70
according to a rating system, designed for example to help users
quickly narrow a search to relevant material. In searching by
keywords, metadata, dates, ratings, etc., URLs of sites others have
found relevant to a topic are more efficiently and quickly
identified. A user may then follow the URLs to the underlying
document or site at which the information the user seeks will
likely be found. The interlinked intelligent bookmark system
present on a community server thus facilitates finding information
through the use of the stored intelligent bookmarks. By
incorporating appropriate filters, the community server can also
ensure that spam and other harmful items do not reach the server,
for example based on examining the individual intelligent bookmarks
and the URLs to which they point. Furthermore, the community server
can track whether links are alive and mark bookmarks as obsolete,
current, new, etc. While the community aspect of the present
invention is, in one sense, an adjunct to traditional web searches,
the community server may itself have search engine type technology
to make searches for intelligent bookmarks very efficient.
[0066] Intelligent bookmarks can be set to automatically expire or
be archived from their database (e.g., 50, 58). Users may be
prompted before such expiration or archiving depending on set
preferences. Archiving or deleting old bookmarks or non-relevant
bookmarks preserves the wealth of information in the offline or
online database 50, 58.
[0067] FIG. 7 presents process 80 by which a user can share an
intelligent bookmark with others. Sharing is typically initiated at
step 82 from within an interface through which a user may interact
with the intelligent bookmarks. Once a user selects one or more
intelligent bookmarks to share at step 84, the user can export,
share, publish or select from a number of other sharing options as
follows. The user interface will typically control converting the
bookmark into an appropriate format, so that a user can most easily
select the appropriate sending option. While in the following we
refer to the sending of an intelligent bookmark, it will be
understood that the actual item delivered may be the database
record representing the intelligent bookmark, a pointer to the
database record located on a server or networked computer, or a
combination of the two.
[0068] First, an intelligent bookmark can be sent by e-mail at 86
to a user-specified address. The bookmark may be an attachment to
the email message or may be a portion of the email note itself.
[0069] An intelligent bookmark can be sent using instant messaging
at 88. Intelligent bookmarks can either be directly instantly
messaged to another, or the bookmark can be inserted as an
attachment.
[0070] An intelligent bookmark can be sent using a web log (blog)
system at 90. Users can create the blog post within their
bookmarks. For example, a user could comment on the selected
bookmarks as they would do in a blog. This blog entry could be
stored on the bookmarks as well in another metadata category. The
bookmark can be activated by an html script, or by cutting and
pasting into the online blogging interface provided by the blog
provider. This way, users can share their blog with comments and
attach the bookmarks to the post.
[0071] An intelligent bookmark may be shared through internet
communities at 92, as previously discussed. Again, there is
significant value in providing intelligent bookmarks to an
appropriate networked community, with its members able to search,
rate, add to, etc. those bookmarks. The server software will
typically control the uploading of bookmarks online, such as to the
community database. There may be links from the community bookmark
to individual bookmarks depending on whether or not the user wants
the bookmark to be accessible after updates or deletion. The
community may allow users to have automatic ratings of bookmarks
and to find similar bookmarks based on topics, categories, etc.
Intelligent bookmarks may include private data and public data, and
the creator of such intelligent bookmarks provided with the ability
to control third party access to the private data.
[0072] An intelligent bookmark can also be exported, from a client
machine or a server, and saved as other types of documents at 94.
For example, a bookmark can be saved in the form of a Word, Excel,
Powerpoint, PDF, html or some other document tool or other
standard.
[0073] Once a user selects one or more intelligent bookmarks at 84
the user may also generate bibliographic information at 96 based on
the identifier information. The bibliography or other useful
reference information can be easily copied and pasted into other
documents. This simplifies the use of bibliographic and reference
data from a bookmark.
[0074] Users may also import information into their bookmark
database at 98. While a typical intelligent bookmark interface will
permit fetching URLs from a file and generating identifier
information therefrom, users may also import intelligent bookmarks
from the community or other users. Intelligent bookmarks may be
downloaded, received via IM or Email, taken from a blog, or
manually copied from storage media.
[0075] Information from intelligent bookmarks within a user's
database can be used to create a user profile 100 as shown FIG. 8.
This type of profile generation does not require user accounts to
be created and the profile generated can be non-personal material.
FIG. 8 shows some of the areas from which a user profile is
developed. Different categories 102, topics 104, and keywords 108
listed in the user's bookmarks can provide insight into which areas
are of interest to the user. Based on the interaction with the
user's bookmarks, such as the frequency of visit which is captured
at 112 and time spent which is captured at 114, a count of the
number of types of links (e.g., a weighting factor) captured at
116, and other data, behavior data 110 may be generated. Also, any
specific characteristics 106 of the websites bookmarked can be
further informative of the user profile. The information available
from the user's bookmark database may be analyzed by the server and
compared to other databases to derive certain conclusions on
generating a user profile. Profile information may also be manually
set or controlled by users.
[0076] Once a user profile 100 is created, the user can be notified
of internet websites and advertisements that might be of interest
to the user. Having a user profile makes it very easy for users to
get suggestions to topics of interest from the community in an
effective manner. In an embodiment, there may be a browsing
companion (e.g., a plug-in software module) on the user's browser
which can offer similar website and topics the user can browse
based on his/her profile. As with topics of interest,
advertisements and other sponsored material may be sent to users in
a non-intrusive manner by the browsing companion. The user receives
such targeted ad information from the server which combines user
profile information with current browsing or bookmark information.
This would allow for more location and demographic based
advertisements as well.
[0077] FIG. 9 depicts one embodiment according to the present
invention of how a category can automatically be assigned to an
intelligent bookmark by referencing other databases that may reside
remotely or on a user's computer. These various databases may
contain keyword ratings and categories, website ratings and
categories, advertisement indexes, etc., and may be updated
periodically for improvement, accuracy, content, etc. Depending on
the embodiment, this metadata may be gathered from other
third-party sources as well which may interface with the
intelligent bookmark for purposes of categorization, organization
and other functionalities. That is, it is possible to provide
recommendations, narrow searches, and provide other services based
on extrinsic data. By accessing this extrinsic data, one can use
existing relational information to provide categorization,
organization, recommendations, etc., of or for information. For
example, if a third party maintains a database that says that most
people that like blues music will like jazz as well, this third
party (i.e., extrinsic) knowledge can help associate bookmarks or
underlying information about blues with bookmarks or underlying
information about jazz. As another example relating to articles,
there may be a automatic categorization based on extrinsic
categorization of frequently available keywords. If an article
mentions "C++" and other sites frequently categorize C++ as Science
& Technology.fwdarw.Computers, the system could employ that as
a "suggestion" to similarly categorize that topic.
[0078] FIG. 10 depicts one embodiment according to the present
invention of how an intelligent bookmark is created. A user begins
the process 140 of creating an intelligent bookmark by accessing a
bookmark interface (BI) at 142. The bookmark interface may be a
stand-alone software program or may be part of another program,
such as a web browser application. The bookmark interface may
reside on the user's computer, or may be resident on a remote
server. At 144 the bookmark interface captures the URL of the
website or document of interest. At 146-156 the identifying
information is obtained. For example, at 146 the user may capture
certain elements of the screenshot of the page of interest with a
selection tool provided by the interface. A user may then
drag-and-drop the selection to a desired location, representing for
example storage of those selected image or image portions. Users
may also be able to use pull-down menus to create the intelligent
bookmark. Additionally, the browser may include a tool bar or
button that automatically creates a fixed or customizable bookmark
for a particular web page. Other drag-and-drop functionalities may
assist the user in changing the metadata or data fields of the
Intelligent Bookmarks. Users may drag-and-drop bookmarks from
certain categories to others to have the data fields automatically
reflect such changes. The bookmark interface may provide for
timeline views which let a user see bookmarks chronologically, and
slideshow view which allows a user to see bookmarks as a
slideshow.
[0079] In addition or as an alternative to drag and drop abilities
and menu commands, the user may capture information via capture
tools. Image selecting and cropping tools may be available for
user's to highlight which area of the website should be in the
screenshot. While default settings may simply capture as much
information as possible and automatically recognize the important
information of the webpage (distinguish between menu items,
advertisements, article content, etc.), a user may use selecting
and cropping tools to highlight only certain text to be captured
(or to be ignored, such as certain images, advertisements,
etc.)
[0080] Intelligent bookmarks may also be used within documents and
internet content that may be on the user's computer (not within a
browser window). This is grounded in the concept that a bookmark
need not necessarily be to a web page, or even a networked
document, but may in fact be the address of a local document or
portion of a document. This allows a user to capture and store
various content through one interface, making it easy to deal with
gathering information. A tool such as a capture button is provided
within the context of an application such as Microsoft Word. The
user bookmarks content within the word document, for example by
highlighting a section of the document and clicking on the capture
button, which stores the bookmark to the highlighted section in the
bookmarks database. This permits a user the option of capturing
information while reviewing many different types of document, such
as word processing documents, data bases, spreadsheets, etc.
[0081] As previously mentioned, according to one embodiment of the
present invention a system for creating and employing intelligent
bookmarks includes a "record" functionality that allows the user to
capture interactions and video/animation content as a video
screenshot. This type of capturing functionality allows a user to
bookmark video and dynamic content in addition to articles and
other static elements of websites.
[0082] Another type of capturing interface, such as a submit
button, allows users to submit bookmarks to an online server to be
processed remotely. Once submitted, a server may analyze the
website for categorization, keywords, etc and store it in the
online database.
[0083] Layering may also be added to intelligent bookmarks, such as
present in image and video editing applications. For example, it is
possible to annotate an intelligent bookmark with handwriting or
highlighting on a "layer" above the bookmark itself, such that the
addition of the annotation does not change the underlying bookmark.
A view of the bookmark with or without one or more layers is
possible. This layering allows users to collaborate on Intelligent
Bookmarks as well. Being able to markup information gathered from
the internet in a digital version (as opposed to printed material)
allows users to interact more efficiently with research material.
Such layering, highlighting, and markup allow some of the unique
aspects of tablet PCs and PDAs, such as pen-based interactions with
content, to be employed. Essentially, users are able to treat
internet content as printed material by being able to easily markup
and highlight the material. Being digital, however, allows users
all the functionality of being to hide/save/undo changes and easily
communicate them to others. Document versioning may also be
integrated to keep track of changes in the intelligent bookmarks to
reflect changes of the original website. Also, document versioning
may be used to allow for multiple versioning of highlights and
markups to the intelligent bookmarks.
[0084] While a plurality of preferred exemplary embodiments have
been presented in the foregoing detailed description, it should be
understood that a vast number of variations exist, and these
preferred exemplary embodiments are merely representative examples,
and are not intended to limit the scope, applicability or
configuration of the invention in any way. For example, while the
foregoing describes certain aspects of creating, using, sharing,
etc. intelligent bookmarks via a computer such as a PC, there is
nothing in the various aspects of the present invention precluding
its use with portable or handheld devices such as tablet computers,
personal digital assistants (PDAs), and appropriately enabled cell
phones. Thus, the foregoing detailed description provides those of
ordinary skill in the art with a convenient guide for
implementation of the invention, and contemplates that various
changes in the functions and arrangements of the described
embodiments may be made without departing from the spirit and scope
of the invention defined by the claims thereto.
* * * * *
References