System and method for asynchronous exchanging electronic messages

Non-instant electronic message exchange system and method

The invention relates to a multimedia electronic information management method and device. More specifically, it relates to a management method and device for non-real-time geographic coordinate positioning information exchange for a plurality of users in a network.

Because the infrastructure of the network has gradually been completed, various network applications have been developed accordingly, and have been frequently accepted and used by users. And various electronic information exchange mechanisms are becoming more and more important, and they have become more and more important in the overall network, including telecommunications applications. In addition, with the continuous enhancement of mobile phone functions, the content of information that can be exchanged by Internet users can include more and more types of information, such as photos, sounds, images, and so on.

Traditional instant electronic message exchange, such as e-mail, instant message, short message (SMS), multimedia short message (MMS), uses an account to identify the sender and receiver of the message, and the message exchanger needs to use the account to send or receive News. However, this type of electronic message exchange method only provides that the two parties of the message exchange know each other's account in order to exchange messages, and cannot provide more diversified ways of exchanging messages. Non-real-time electronic message exchange systems, such as electronic message boards (BBS), blogs, and web albums, require a unique identification account for users to send non-real-time messages. That is, under the traditional communication system, it is actually subject to quite a lot of restrictions. However, with the current increasing popularity of e-commerce through the Internet, there is a need for more different ways of exchanging information to meet various network applications, such as online dating, discussion boards, message boards, and so on.

Therefore, it is really necessary to provide a new electronic message exchange method and system, and provide diversified message transmission methods.

One aspect of the present invention is to provide a non-real-time geographic coordinate positioning electronic message exchange method and system, so as to enable two parties with unknown accounts to exchange messages with each other.

In one aspect of the present invention, a method for non-instant electronic message exchange in the network is disclosed. This method includes receiving an electronic message from a source client, the electronic message having a content part and geographic location parameters. Store electronic messages in the database. Use the geographic location parameters of the electronic message to compare other electronic messages existing in the database according to a matching rule to determine whether the matching is successful. When the matching is successful, a matching list is generated. Then interact with at least one other client according to the matching list.

Another aspect of the present invention discloses a non-instant electronic message exchange system in the network. This system includes a plurality of clients and a server. Each client includes a geographic location parameter generation unit and a message transmission unit. The geographic location parameter generating unit is used for generating geographic location parameters, and the message transmitting unit is used for transmitting electronic messages. This electronic message includes content parts and geographic location parameters. The server side includes a receiving unit, a database, a matching unit, and a processing unit. The receiving unit is used for receiving an electronic message sent by a source client of one of the plurality of clients. The database is used to store the received electronic messages. The matching unit uses the geographic location parameters of the electronic messages to compare other existing electronic messages in the database according to the matching rules to determine whether the matching is successful, and generates a matching list when the matching is successful. The processing unit is used to interact with at least one of the plurality of clients according to the matching list.

<u style="single">the term</u>

The definitions of some terms and terms used herein are as follows, so that those skilled in the art can understand the present invention more clearly, but these descriptions should not be regarded as limitations of the present invention.

Network: Refers to the infrastructure established between various devices through various wired or wireless communication links and a predetermined communication protocol to communicate and transmit data with each other.

Server: A device used to provide a specific service in the network, such as a server used to provide information exchange, or a library server that provides data storage.

Client: refers to the device used by the user to connect to the server through the network to access various services provided by the server, such as computers, mobile phones, PDAs, etc. In this article, it is sometimes simply referred to as a user.

&lt;System Overview&gt;

FIG. 1 shows a non-instant electronic message exchange system 100 according to a specific embodiment of the present invention. The non-real-time electronic message exchange system 100 is used for non-real-time message exchange with a plurality of clients (for example, the clients 110a, 110b, and 110c) in the network 105. There is a server 120 in the non-instant electronic message exchange system 100. The server 120 has a receiving unit 122, a database 124, a matching unit 126, and a processing unit 128. The receiving unit 122 is used for receiving electronic messages from a plurality of clients 110a, 110b, and 110c. It should be noted here that the clients 110a, 110b, and 110c can all send electronic messages to the server 120. For the convenience of explanation, in this embodiment, the client 110a sends a message as an example, which is also referred to as the source client here. However, those skilled in the art will understand that the same method can also be applied to the client 110b and the client 110b. 110c. The client 110a includes a geographic location parameter generating unit 112 and a message transmitting unit 114. The geographic location parameter generating unit 112 is used to generate a geographic location parameter 134, such as a global positioning system (global positioning system). system) signal. The electronic message 130 sent by the client 110 a to the server 120 includes a content portion 132 and geographic location parameters 134. For the convenience of description, the electronic message 130 will be briefly described here, and other details will be further detailed in another embodiment shown in FIG. 2.

After the client 110a sends the electronic message 130 to the server 120 through the message sending unit 114 through a network upload process (for example, sending a packet through the TCP/IP protocol), it is received by the aforementioned receiving unit 122 and stored in In the database 124. The details of the database 124 will be further detailed in FIG. 3. The matching unit 126 uses the geographic location parameter 134 of the electronic message 130 to compare other electronic messages 125 existing in the database 124 according to preset matching rules. The so-called other existing electronic messages 125, or historical messages, refer to electronic messages that have been uploaded by other clients before. In this embodiment, the matching rule is to determine whether the geographic location parameters of other electronic messages 125 stored in the database 124 match the geographic location parameters 134 of the received electronic message 130. If any historical information 125 is determined to be a match, the historical information 125 will be determined as a successful match. At this time, the historical information 125 will be recorded in the matching list 127. According to the matching list 127, the processing unit 128 interacts with the client terminal corresponding to the historical message 125 determined as a successful matching, which will be described in more detail below.

It must be noted here that the one shown in FIG. 1 is an exemplary architecture, which is not intended to limit the present invention. For example, the non-real-time geographic coordinate positioning electronic message exchange system 100 can use a dedicated architecture to handle the various functions provided by the present invention, and it can also use an open architecture, such as a general personal computer with appropriate software applications. , To achieve management work.

Similarly, the receiving unit 122, the database 124, the matching unit 126, and the processing unit 128 may be a single integrated processing circuit, such as using a centralized computing architecture, or may be independent devices, such as using a distributed Computing architecture. The database 124 may be a built-in memory device in the server 120, such as a flash memory, a magnetic disk drive, a floppy disk drive, a tape drive, an optical read/write device, a magneto-optical read/write device, and other various devices. Alternatively, the message database 124 may also be another storage server (not shown) physically separated from the server 120 for the server 120 to access data, and logically provide an integrated service with the server 120. In other embodiments, the database 124 may further include different sub-parts, such as a message storage unit and a user data storage unit for storing electronic messages and user-related data, respectively. The present invention also does not limit the internal data structure of the database 124. For example, in this embodiment, the database 124 may be a relational database. In other embodiments, any other different database structure can also be used.

Similarly, the clients 110a, 110b, and 110c can communicate with the server 120 in various ways, such as the Internet, a traditional telephone line network, a wireless network, a local area network, a mobile phone network, and so on. In other words, the present invention is not limited to various computing architectures or hardware devices, but can be applied to various architectures that have network connection capabilities and provide network services.

The following further describes various embodiments of the present invention in more detail, so that those skilled in the art can better understand the various applications and advantages of the present invention.

&lt;Electronic message with geographic location parameters&gt;

FIG. 2 shows a structure of a message with geographic location parameters according to a specific embodiment of the present invention. Figure 2 illustrates the data structure of an electronic message 200 with geographic location parameters. In this embodiment, the electronic message 200 has four items of data, namely, a content part 201, a client identification code 202, a geographic location parameter 203, and other parameters 204. The content part can be a combination of text, photos, videos and other multimedia. The client identification code 202 is used to allow the server to identify the client sending the electronic message 200. For example, the client identification code 202 can be an email address, a user name, a user number, and so on. The geographic location parameter can be the coordinate information of the place where the message is sent automatically generated by the client, or the coordinate information of the place where the message is specified by the user, but it is not limited to this. The other parameters 204 may be other available parameters, such as time parameters generated by the system or specified by the user. It should be noted here that this embodiment is only used to illustrate the present invention, not to limit the scope of the present invention. For example, in other embodiments, the electronic message 200 may not include all the information fields mentioned above, for example, it may not Contains the client ID 202 or other parameters 204. Or, in other embodiments, the electronic message 200 of the present invention may also include other different information fields.

&lt;Internet upload procedure&gt;

In this embodiment, the electronic message 130 of the foregoing embodiment is uploaded to the receiving unit 122 of the server 120 through a network upload process, and the electronic message 130 is stored in the database 124. FIG. 3 shows a flowchart of this uploading procedure 300. First, in step 301, a message is generated by the user, for example, the message is input into the client device through a user interface. In step 302, a related geographic location parameter is generated. The geographic location parameter can be specified by the user or automatically generated by the client device. Then, through step 303, the message transmission unit 114 (for example, a transmitter) is sent to the network 105, and is received by the receiving unit 122 of the server 120. In step 304, the receiving unit 122 stores the electronic message in the database 124.

&lt;Matching Unit&gt;

FIG. 4 shows a matching unit 400 according to a specific embodiment of the present invention, which includes a set of preset matching rules 401 and a coordinate matching unit 402. The matching rule 401 can be preset, and the rule includes the correlation of the coordinates, such as the same coordinates, or the correlation of the users, such as the different genders of the users. When a new electronic message is stored in the database 124, the coordinate matching unit 402 will perform the matching. In other words, all electronic messages that meet the matching rule 401 will be filtered to generate a matching list 403, which is delivered to the processing unit 128 for further processing. The matching list 403 has at least one item corresponding to at least one client. As shown in FIG. 4, the matching list 403 in this embodiment has a total of N items, and each item is a historical message that meets the matching rule 401 and its corresponding client data.

The matching unit 400 is used to use the electronic messages stored in the message database 124 as a geographic coordinate comparison process to find out a plurality of electronic messages that conform to the geographic coordinate comparison process. Therefore, with this matching list 403, the processing unit 128 can exchange messages between two users whose nicknames but meet the predetermined matching rule 401. However, it must be noted here that the matching rules that use geographic coordinates for comparison are for illustration purposes. The present invention can actually include other matching rules, such as using other parameters 204 of the electronic information 200 for matching, such as filtering matches. Electronic messages at certain times.

&lt;Matching Procedure&gt;

FIG. 5 shows a flowchart of a matching program 500 according to a specific embodiment of the present invention. First, in step 501, the new electronic message is stored in the message database 124. Then, in step 502, the coordinate matching unit 402 performs matching of the new message with the existing message in the message database 105 according to the preset matching rule 401. In step 503, the messages that meet the matching rule 401 are filtered to generate a matching list 403. In step 504, it is handed over to the processing unit 128 for processing.

&lt;Processing unit and related interaction&gt;

FIG. 6 shows a flowchart of a message notification procedure 600 according to a specific embodiment of the present invention. When the electronic message is successfully matched, the processing unit 128 will interact with at least one client. In the present invention, there are many ways and types of interaction. The message notification program 600 as shown in FIG. 6 is an interactive way for enumeration. In step 601, the processing unit 128 utilizes the matching list 403 provided by the matching unit 400 and meets the matching rule 401 to select the client to interact with. In step 602, the client ID 202 of the client is retrieved from the database 124, such as the user's default notification method. In step 603, the processing unit 128 notifies the user of the client through the client identification code 202. In step 604, the server waits for a response from the client.

&lt;Client response&gt;

After the client receives the message notification, the user can choose various possible response methods, such as choosing to read the notified electronic message. FIG. 7 shows a flowchart of a client response procedure according to a specific embodiment of the present invention. In step 701, the client receives a notification message from the processing unit 128. In step 702, the user sends a message reading request. In step 703, the processing unit 128 provides the electronic message to the user, or optionally provides the matching list 403 that meets the matching rule 401 to the user. In step 704, the client receiving the electronic message can choose whether to reply to the electronic message. In step 705, the client receiving the electronic message can choose to send a communication connection request. In response to this request, the processing unit 128 selectively provides communication data to the corresponding client, so that in step 706, a communication link can be established between the clients. It should be noted here that this embodiment is only for illustration and not limitation. For example, steps 702 to 706 are some responses that can be selected by the client. However, in other embodiments, the user may choose to perform only a partial response, or to respond in a different order.

In the above embodiment, the relationship between the client that originally sent the electronic message (that is, the source client) and the client that received the message (corresponding client) is just an example for convenience, and the present invention can still have many Kind of different changes. For example, when the source client sends an electronic message to the server, and the server generates a matching list, the server can interact with the corresponding client as well as the source client, for example, matching matches The historical information of the rule is sent to the source client. Similarly, the source client can make various responses.

Through the non-instant electronic message exchange system and method disclosed in the present invention. The client uses a geographic location parameter generating unit, such as a GPS positioning system, to generate an electronic message with geographic location parameters. The server is used for receiving at least one electronic message and storing it in the database. The user uses the electronic message transmitter to send the electronic message including the user account, text, photo, image, sound, and geographic coordinates to the server. The server will perform a matching process based on the geographic coordinates of the message, and send a notification to all corresponding clients in the historical message that meets the matching rules. Through this method of information exchange, even if the users are nicknames or do not know each others contact method, through the matching rules of the server, users with the same characteristics (that is, matching the matching rules) can be made To communicate. After the matching is successful, the user can still use the nickname to continue to contact the server, or choose to directly establish a direct connection between the users, such as by traditional e-mail or telephone.

The above embodiments are used to describe the present invention. However, the present invention is not limited to the description of the above specific embodiments. The scope of the patent application of the present invention is intended to include all such modifications and changes, so as to truly comply with the spirit and scope of the present invention. .

<p>100. . . Non-instant electronic message exchange system</p><p>105. . . network</p><p>110a, 110b, 110c. . . Client</p><p>112. . . Geographic location parameter generating unit</p><p>114. . . Messaging unit</p><p>120. . . server</p><p>122. . . Receiving unit</p><p>124. . . database</p><p>125. . . Historical message</p><p>126. . . Matching unit</p><p>127. . . Matching list</p><p>128. . . Processing unit</p><p>130. . . Electronic message</p><p>132. . . Content part</p><p>134. . . Geolocation parameter</p><p>200. . . Electronic message</p><p>201. . . Content part</p><p>202. . . Client ID</p><p>203. . . Geolocation parameters</p><p>204. . . Other parameters</p><p>400. . . Matching unit</p><p>401. . . Pre-set matching rules</p><p>402. . . Coordinate matching unit</p><p>403. . . Matching list</p>

Fig. 1 shows a non-instant electronic message exchange system according to a specific embodiment of the present invention; Fig. 2 shows a structure of an electronic message according to a specific embodiment of the present invention; Fig. 3 shows the flow of an electronic message uploading procedure according to a specific embodiment of the present invention Figure; Figure 4 shows a matching unit according to a specific embodiment of the present invention; Figure 5 shows a matching flow chart according to a specific embodiment of the present invention; Figure 6 shows a flow chart of a mutual kind of program according to a specific embodiment of the present invention; 7 shows a flowchart of a client response procedure according to a specific embodiment of the present invention.