PROPAGATING AND RESPONDING TO ANNOUNCEMENTS IN AN ENVIRONMENT HAVING PRE-ESTABLISHED SOCIAL GROUPS

摘要

Strategies are described for propagating and responding to announcementswithinan environment having pre-established social groups, such as pre-establishedinstantmessenger social groups. More specifically, a member within a group can createanannouncement, whereupon the announcement becomes associated with the member'sidentity. The member can then propagate that announcement out as part of theiridentityto members within the member's immediate social order group. If the member soauthorizes, the announcement can also be propagated out to other social groupslinked tothe member's immediate social group. A member within the immediate socialgroup orone of the linked social groups can responds to the announcement. The use ofpre-established social groups to transact announcement-related exchangesprovides a level oftrust not offered by conventional network-based messaging and merchandisingservices.