Method of virally expanding social networks

摘要

Membership in a social network is virally expanded by suggesting to a user to invite contacts from the user's address book and, in addition, eligible contacts from other address books. Eligible contacts from other address books include those contacts that have e-mail addresses with the same e-mail domain as the user's e-mail address.

主权项

1. A computer-implemented method of expanding a user base of an online service that manages a plurality of client social networks, comprising:
examining an address book of a first user of the online service who is registered in a first client social network and identifying a contact in the address book who is not registered in any of the client social networks managed by the online service; and generating an invitation interface for a second user of the online service who is registered in a second client social network managed by the online service, the second client social network already existing based on a domain name that is contained in an e-mail address of the identified contact, the invitation interface displaying the identified contact as a person to invite.