Presenting messages associated with locations

摘要

A user may express an interest in a set of individuals represented in a set of individual stores (e.g., friends in a social network and colleagues in an academic directory). Such individuals may send to the individual stores messages that are associated with a location, and the user may request, from respective individual stores, a presentation of the locations. According to the techniques presented herein, the messages from the individual stores may be aggregated, and the locations associated with the aggregated messages may be presented in a map, thereby presenting to the user the locations of the messages of the individuals irrespective of from which individual store each message was received. Additionally, the map may present the messages to the user, and upon receiving form the user a reply to a message, may send the message to the individual store from which the message was received.

主权项

1. A method of presenting, on a device having a processor and operated by a user, locations of individuals, wherein the respective individuals are represented in an individual store, the method comprising:
executing, on the processor, instructions that cause the device to:
receive messages respectively indicating a presence of at least one of the individuals at the location;present to the user a map indicating, for at least one of the individuals, an indicator positioned on the map at the location of the at least one of the individuals as indicated by at least one message; andresponsive to a selection by the user of a selected indicator on the map:
retrieve, from the individual store, at least one contact option for contacting at least one of the individuals represented by the selected indicator, where the contact option identifies an individual contact address for contacting the at least one of the individuals through a particular contact channel, andpresent, on the map, the at least one contact option for contacting at least one of the individuals represented by the selected indicator, including, for the respective contact options, the particular contact channel identified by the contact option for contacting at least one of the individuals; andresponsive to a selection by the user of a selected contact option, initiate contact between the user and at least one of the individuals using the individual contact address for the at least one of the individuals through the particular contact channel identified by the selected contact option.