JP2007200270A - Article management device, article providing method, computer program, and computer readable storage medium - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a contact address information management device for displaying the relevancy of contact address information so that a user can understand it in a short time. <P>SOLUTION: A selection part 1504 receives designation of a value of an item from the user. The selection part 1504 informs a retrieval part 1510 of the designated value of the item. The retrieval part 1510 accesses an article information storage device 1508 and refers to a schema to retrieve article relevant to the item received from the selection part 1504 and stores acquired article into a buffer (not shown). When terminating the retrieval, the retrieval part 1510 informs a display control part 1506 that the retrieval has been terminated. On receipt a notice of the retrieval end from the retrieval part 1510, the display control part 1506 arranges article stored in the buffer in time series and in the order of unicodes of titles of article to generate a screen in a blog form. The display control part 1506 displays the generated screen on a display device 1502. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2007,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a contact information management device, a contact information providing method, a computer program, and a computer-readable storage medium. More specifically, the present invention relates to a database in which contacts and information related to contacts (contact information) are registered. The present invention relates to a contact information management apparatus, a contact information providing method, a computer program, and a computer-readable storage medium that manage and provide information based on the database.

  2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, application programs for efficiently utilizing information related to contacts (people, companies, places) that are important in business and frequently used in the work of individuals and teams have become widespread. Such an application program is a kind of database that manages information about contacts. The registered information is automatically organized and the information associated with the person can be easily understood.

  Using such an application program, for example, instead of handing out a paper business card to the other party, the contact information such as the name, organization name, and telephone number written on the business card using the Internet e-mail is sent to the other party. It is done on a daily basis. RFC2426-vCard MIME Directory Profile is well known as a data format of business card information for use in Internet communication (Non-patent Document 1).

  The business card information sent in this data format includes a business card image and a plurality of sets of personal information character strings to be combined on the image, and is displayed on the display screen of the receiving computer.

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2426.txt

  However, in the conventional contact information management application program, it is only possible to display individual input contact information. That is, although the contact information management application program is a database, the user cannot display information related to a specific contact. For this reason, there is a problem that the user cannot understand how the information of a plurality of contacts is linked.

  In addition, since the details cannot be understood at all with the title alone, in order to understand the details of the information, it is necessary for the user to open a separate display form that displays the details of each information by clicking the above link. It was. Therefore, in order to understand the details of a plurality of information, it is necessary to repeatedly perform the same operation in order to open the display form many times, and there is a problem that the operation is complicated. Moreover, since each information is displayed on a separate display form, there is a problem that details of a plurality of information cannot be browsed efficiently.

  In addition, in general blogs, articles can be easily classified, but there is a problem that it is difficult to manage them in association with complicated information such as contact information.

  The present invention has been made in view of such problems, and the object of the present invention is to manage an article linked to the value of at least one item included in the contact information, and the user specifies the contact information. Then, an article information management apparatus and an article providing method for displaying articles in a blog format by classifying articles related to the designated contact by the value of at least one item included in the contact information of the contact are provided. There is.

  The present invention has been made in view of such problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide a contact information management apparatus and a contact information providing method capable of presenting the relevance of contact information that the user wants to know. It is another object of the present invention to provide a computer program and a computer-readable storage medium.

  Another object of the present invention is to provide a contact information management device, a contact information providing method, a computer program, and a computer-readable storage medium that can be displayed so that the user can understand the relevance of contact information in a short time. Is to provide.

  According to one aspect of the present invention, a contact information management device according to the present invention includes a contact information storage unit that stores a plurality of contact information, and a selection unit that receives a selection of the plurality of contact information. A search unit that searches the contact information stored in the contact information storage unit and acquires other contact information including the same value as the contact information selected by the selection unit; and acquired by the search unit Display control means for displaying other contact information on the display device.

  Here, the display control means displays the other contact information acquired by the search means in a group according to items including the same value as the contact information selected by the selection means. it can.

  Here, the display control means may display the grouped contact information according to a predetermined priority order.

  Further, the display control means may display a predetermined item among items included in other contact information acquired by the search means.

  Here, the display control means is included in the detecting means for detecting that the cursor is positioned on the other contact information displayed on the display device, and the other contact information for detecting the positioning of the cursor. And means for further displaying items that are not displayed.

  According to another aspect of the present invention, a contact information providing method according to the present invention is a contact information providing method that is executed by a contact information management apparatus that stores a plurality of contact information. Receiving one selection of the plurality of contact information, searching the stored contact information in a search unit, and other contact information including the same value as the contact information selected in the selecting step A step of acquiring, and a step of displaying the acquired other contact information on a display device in a display control unit.

  Here, the displaying step includes a step of grouping and displaying the other contact information acquired in the searching step according to an item including the same value as the contact information selected by the selection means. be able to.

  Here, the displaying step may include a step of displaying the grouped contact information according to a predetermined priority order.

  Further, the displaying step may include a step of displaying a predetermined item among items included in the acquired other contact information.

  Here, the step of displaying is included in the step of detecting that the cursor is positioned on the other contact information displayed on the display device, and the other contact information detecting the positioning of the cursor. A step of further displaying an item that is not displayed.

  According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a computer program according to the present invention, comprising: a contact information storage unit that stores a plurality of contact information; a selection unit that receives one of the plurality of contact information; Search means for searching for contact information stored in the contact information storage means, obtaining other contact information including the same value as the contact information selected by the selection means, and other information obtained by the search means It is made to function as a display control means for displaying the contact information on the display device.

  According to another aspect of the present invention, a computer-readable recording medium according to the present invention stores the above computer program.

  According to another aspect of the present invention, an article management device according to the present invention includes a contact information storage unit that stores contact information, an article acquisition unit that acquires an article, and an article that stores the acquired article. Storage means; association means for associating the article with the contact information; selection means for receiving one designation of the contact information; search means for searching for an article associated with the designated contact information; Display means for displaying the retrieved articles on a display device.

  Here, the display means can display the searched articles in a blog format.

  The article acquisition means can acquire an arbitrary article stored on another computer via the Internet.

  The article may include at least one value included in the contact information, and the associating unit may associate the article having a common value with the contact information.

  Here, the article may include at least one of text data and object data.

  The text data may be a journal entry, a blog entry, or a news entry.

  Further, the display means can display the images in an order according to a predetermined rule.

  According to another aspect of the present invention, an article providing method according to the present invention provides an article associated with contact information stored in the contact information storage means from the article storage means. Acquiring, storing the acquired article in the article storage means, associating the stored article with the contact information, receiving one designation of contact information, and the designation Searching for an article associated with the contact information retrieved, and displaying the retrieved article on a display device.

  Here, the article may include an article of an arbitrary blog existing on the Internet.

  The displaying step may be a step of displaying the searched article in a blog format.

  The obtaining step may be a step of obtaining an arbitrary article stored in another computer via the Internet.

  Here, the contact information includes at least one value, and the step of associating may be a step of associating an article having a common value with the contact information.

  The article may include at least one of text data and object data.

  The text data may be a journal entry, a blog entry, or a news entry.

  Further, the displaying step can be a step of arranging and displaying in an order according to a predetermined rule.

  According to another aspect of the present invention, a program according to the present invention is a program for providing an article associated with contact information stored in the contact information storage means from the article storage means. Acquiring, storing the acquired article in the article storage means, associating the stored article with the contact information, receiving one designation of contact information, and the designation It is possible to execute a step of searching for an article associated with the contact information thus searched and a step of displaying the searched article on a display device.

  According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a computer-readable storage medium according to the present invention for providing an article associated with contact information stored in the contact information storage means from the article storage means. A computer-readable storage medium storing a program, the step of acquiring an article, the step of storing the acquired article in the article storage means, and the step of associating the stored article with the contact information And a program for executing a step of receiving one designation of contact information, a step of retrieving an article associated with the designated contact information, and a step of displaying the retrieved article on a display device Can be recorded.

  ADVANTAGE OF THE INVENTION According to this invention, it becomes possible to provide the information which a user does not know called the relevance of contact information. As a result, the user can clearly understand the background of the specific person.

  Further, according to the present invention, the contact information is summarized or grouped and displayed, so that the user can understand the relationship between the contact information in a short time.

  In addition, according to the present invention, when a user designates a contact, an article related to the contact can be classified and displayed in a blog format according to a value of a predetermined item included in the contact information of the contact. Therefore, it is possible to efficiently browse details of a plurality of information at a time.

  Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

Exemplary Network Environment According to embodiments of the present invention, the methods described herein can be performed on a single stand-alone computer system, but typically are distributed computer networks. It can also be run on a number of computer systems interconnected to form An environment 400 for practicing the present invention is shown in FIG. The environment 400 has a computer system 410 that is considered the primary computer system. As used herein, “computer system” is broadly interpreted as “one or more running programs for displaying and manipulating text, graphics, symbols, audio, video and / or numbers. Device or machine ".

  The invention is operational with numerous other general purpose or special purpose computer system environments or configurations. Examples of well known computing systems, system environments and / or configurations that may be suitable for use with the present invention include personal computers, server computers, handheld or laptop devices, tablet devices, multiprocessor systems, micro processors Including but not limited to processor-based systems, set-top boxes, programmable consumer electronics, network PCs, minicomputers, mainframe computers, distributed computing environments or devices including any of the above systems, etc. Not.

  The invention can be described in the general context of computer-executable instructions, such as program modules, being executed by a computer. Generally, program modules include routines, programs, objects, components, data structures, etc. that perform particular tasks or implement abstract data types. The invention may also be practiced in distributed computing environments where tasks are performed by remote processing devices that are linked through a network. In a distributed computing environment, program modules may be located in both local and remote computer storage media including memory storage devices.

  With reference to FIG. 1, an exemplary system for implementing the invention includes a multipurpose computing device in the form of a computer 410. The components of computer 410 can include, but are not limited to, processing unit 420, system memory 430, and system bus 421 that can couple various system components including system memory to processing unit 420. The system bus 421 can be any of several types of bus structures including a memory bus or memory controller, a peripheral bus and a local bus using any of a variety of bus architectures. By way of example and not limitation, such architectures include industry standard architecture (ISA) bus, microchannel architecture (MCA) bus, enhanced ISA (EISA) bus, Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) local bus, graphics dedicated high-speed bus Includes peripheral component interconnect (PCI) buses known as (AGP) and Mezzanine buses.

  Computer 410 typically includes a variety of computer readable media. Computer readable media can be accessed by computer 410 and can be any available media, including both volatile and nonvolatile media, removable and non-removable media. By way of example, and not limitation, computer readable media can include computer storage media and communication media. Computer storage media is a volatile and non-volatile, removable and fixed media implemented in any method or technique for storage of information such as computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules or other data. Includes both. Computer storage media can be RAM, ROM, EEPROM, flash memory or other memory technology, CD-ROM, digital versatile disk (DVD) or other optical disk storage, magnetic cassette, magnetic tape, magnetic disk storage or other Including, but not limited to, any other magnetic storage device or any other medium that can be used to store desired information and that is accessible by computer 410. Communication media typically embodies computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules or other data in a modulated data signal such as a carrier wave or other transport mechanism and includes any information delivery media. The term “modulated data signal” means a signal that has one or more of its characteristics set or changed in such a manner as to encode information in the signal. By way of example, and not limitation, communication media includes wired media such as a wired network or direct-wired connection, and wireless media such as acoustic, RF, infrared and other wireless media. Combinations of any of the above should also be included within the scope of computer-readable media.

  The system memory 430 includes computer storage media in the form of volatile and / or nonvolatile memory such as read only memory (ROM) 431 and random access memory (RAM) 432. A basic input / output system 433 (BIOS) that includes basic routines that assist in transferring information between elements within the computer 410, such as during startup, is typically stored in the ROM 431. RAM 432 typically includes data and / or program modules that are immediately accessible to and / or presently operating by processing unit 420. By way of example and not limitation, FIG. 1 illustrates operating system 434, file system 435, application program 436, other program modules 437 and program data 438.

  The computer 410 may further include other removable / non-removable, volatile / nonvolatile computer storage media. By way of example only, FIG. 1 shows a hard disk drive 441 that reads and writes a fixed non-volatile magnetic medium, a magnetic disk drive 451 that reads and writes a removable non-volatile magnetic disk 452, and a CD-ROM or other optical medium. An example of an optical disk drive 455 that reads and writes a removable nonvolatile optical disk 456 is illustrated. Other removable / fixed volatile / nonvolatile computer storage media that can be used in typical operating environments include, but are not limited to, magnetic tape cassettes, flash memory cards, digital Applications Discs, digital video tapes, solid state RAM, solid state ROM, etc. The hard disk drive 441 is typically connected to the system bus 421 via an interface, such as a fixed non-volatile memory interface 440. Magnetic disk drive 451 and optical disk drive 455 are also typically connected to system bus 421 by a removable memory interface such as interface 450.

  The drives discussed above and illustrated in FIG. 1 and their associated computer storage media provide storage of computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules and other data for the computer 410. In FIG. 1, for example, hard disk drive 441 is shown as storage for operating system 444, application program 445, other program modules 446 and program data 447. Note that these components can either be the same as or different from operating system 434, application programs 435, other program modules 436, and program data 437. Operating system 444, application program 445, other program modules 446, and program data 447 are given different numbers herein to at least indicate that they are different copies. A user may enter commands and information into the computer 410 through input devices such as a pointing device 461, commonly referred to as a tablet (electronic digitizer) 464, a microphone 463, a keyboard 462 and a mouse, trackball or touch pad. Other input devices (not shown) may include joysticks, game pads, satellite dish, scanners, etc. These and other input devices are often connected to the processing unit 420 via a user input interface 460 coupled to the system bus, but other devices such as a parallel port, game port or universal serial bus (USB) You may connect by an interface and a bus structure. A monitor 491 or other type of display device is also connected to the system bus 421 via an interface, such as a video interface 490. The monitor 491 may also be integrated with a touch screen panel or the like that can input digitized input values such as handwriting into the computer system 410 via an interface such as a touch screen interface. Note that the monitor and / or screen panel can be physically coupled to a housing in which the computing device 410 is incorporated, where the touch screen panel functions substantially as a tablet 464. Further, a computer such as computing device 410 may also include other peripheral output devices such as speaker 495 and printer 496 that may be connected through peripheral output interface 494 or the like.

  Computer 410 can operate in a networked environment using logical connections to one or more remote computers, such as remote computer 480. The remote computer 480 can be a personal computer, server, router, network PC, peer device or other common network node, and only the memory storage device 481 is shown in FIG. Contains many or all of the elements The logical connections shown in FIG. 1 include a local area network (LAN) 471 and a wide area network (WAN) 473, but may include other networks. Such network environments are commonplace in offices, enterprise-wide computer networks, intranets and the Internet.

  When used in a LAN networking environment, the computer 410 is connected to the LAN 471 through a network interface or adapter 470. When used in a WAN networking environment, the computer 410 typically includes a modem 472 or other means for establishing communications over the WAN 473, such as the Internet. The modem 472 can be internal or external, but can be connected to the system bus 421 via a user input interface 460 or other suitable mechanism. In a networked environment, program modules drawn for computer 410 or portions thereof may be stored in a remote memory storage device. By way of example and not limitation, FIG. 1 shows a remote application program 485 as residing on a memory storage device 481. It will be appreciated that the network connections shown are exemplary and other means of establishing communications between the computers may be used.

  With this computing environment in mind, embodiments of the present invention are described with respect to logical operations being performed to implement a process that embodies that embodiment (ie, the form in which each function shown in FIG. 2 is implemented). The

  FIG. 2 is a block diagram schematically showing a functional configuration of the contact information management apparatus according to the present embodiment.

  The contact information management device 200 includes at least a display device 202, a selection unit 204, a display control unit 206, and a search unit 210.

The contact information storage device 208 stores, for example, the following information for each contact.
(1) Information to be displayed on an electronic business card Name, company name, title, address, telephone number, FAX number, Email address, and the like. An electronic business card can be displayed on a plurality of pages per person, and in this case, each item included in information to be displayed on the electronic business card can be grouped for each page to be displayed.
(2) Date and time of creation of electronic business card, type, storage location and incidental information such as security settings of the electronic business card (3) Dating record about contact information In the dating record, the received date and time of the received electronic business card, the sender's It includes a communication record of the e-mail address, the name of the sender, the transmission date and time of the transmitted electronic business card, the e-mail address of the transmission partner, and the name of the transmission partner. Further, in the dating record, various dating information related to dating with the person indicated by each electronic business card input by the user from the keyboard is included as related information of the present invention.

Examples of this dating information include information indicating when a New Year's card or Christmas card is received, when a year-end gift is received, or when and where a meeting is held.
(4) Address book created based on personal information obtained from electronic business cards (5) Other contact-related information (information indicating events to be executed for each contact)
The selection unit 204 and the search unit 210 have a function of accessing contact information stored in the contact information storage device 208.

  The selection unit 204 provides a user interface for displaying on the display device 202 and receiving selection of contact information.

  The search unit 210 receives the selected contact information from the selection unit 204, searches the contact information stored in the contact information storage device 208 based on the received information, and relates to the selected contact information. To obtain contact information.

  The display control unit 206 edits the search result information received from the search unit 210 to create an image, and displays the image on the display device 202.

  The display device 202 includes a monitor 491.

  Next, contact information stored in the contact information storage device 208 will be described with reference to FIGS.

  FIG. 3 schematically shows an example of the format of contact information. The contact information 300 includes a contact ID, name (name and furigana), company name, department name (department 1 and department 2), job title, telephone number, type (person / location / company), history, event and Contains group information.

  Here, the department names 1 and 2 can be used to register the department name of each hierarchy when the departments are hierarchized (such as the B group of the A department).

  As will be described later, another attribute file such as an image file of a personal photograph may be associated with the contact information.

  FIG. 4 shows an example of a format of history information that is one of the items included in the contact information 300. In the example shown in the figure, the history information 500 includes personal work history, school of origin, and membership information. Note that the period information included in the history information may be registered by being included in the text or may be registered as a numerical value.

  FIG. 5 shows an example of an event that is one of the items included in the contact information 300. As shown in the figure, event information 600 is registered in association with a subject, place, participant, and period. Note that the event holding time may be registered by being included in the text as shown in the figure, or may be registered as a numerical value. The period is composed of a start date and an end date. If the event is held for one day, only the start date may be input as shown in FIG.

  FIG. 6 shows an example of a schema in which the relationship between contact information is recorded. In the schema shown in the figure, an ID indicating a relation (relation 1, relation 2,..., N) is a relation name (for example, a boss, a subordinate, etc.), a contact ID (subject ID) of a target person, a target person. Is associated with a contact ID (related party ID) related to the period and a related period. The target person ID and the related person ID can be, for example, a target person name and a target person Email address, respectively, and a related person name and a related person Email address.

  Moreover, ID (job history 1, 2,..., N) indicating the job history is associated with the type (change of job / promotion / transfer), the contact ID of the target person (target person ID), and the period.

  The ID indicating the school of origin (school of origin 1, 2,..., N) is associated with the school name / faculty name, the contact ID of the subject (subject ID), and the period.

  Further, IDs indicating membership (memberships 1, 2,..., N) are associated with the membership name, the contact information of the target person (target person ID), and the period.

  Moreover, ID (event 1, 2, ..., n) which shows an event is matched with an event name, participant contact ID (participant ID), and a period.

  Based on the schema 700, the operator can define the relationship between the persons related to the contact information. In the example shown in FIG. 6, the operator uses a specific contact ID as a target person ID, and a contact ID related thereto as a related person ID, and a relationship between these two IDs (for example, a supervisor, a subordinate, etc.) Set a certain period. The search unit 210 assigns a relation ID (relation 1, relation 2, relation 3, relation 4,..., Relation n) to information input by the operator. In this way, a record of the data group defining the relationship is created.

  In addition, the operator can define the relationship between the persons related to the contacts based on the schema 700. In the example illustrated in FIG. 6, the operator uses a specific contact ID as a target person ID, and assigns a type (change of job / promotion / transfer) to a career specified by “period” in the job career. The search unit 210 assigns a job history ID (job history 1, job history 2, job history 3, job history 4,..., Job history n) to the information input by the operator. In this way, a record of a data group defining job history is created.

  In addition, the search unit 210 retrieves information on work history, school of origin, membership, and events as shown in FIGS. 4 and 5 stored in the contact information storage device 208. Then, an ID is assigned to each row of information shown in FIGS. In the example shown in FIG. 6, the assigned ID is shown in the leftmost column.

  In this way, one record is created based on the schema 700 and stored in the contact information storage device 208. Hereinafter, this record is referred to as a “record that records the relationship”.

(First embodiment)
Next, a contact information providing method executed by the contact information management apparatus 200 according to the first embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS.

  FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing a schematic procedure of the contact information providing method. In step S502, the selection unit 204 receives selection of contact information. The selection can be accepted by displaying an object such as a menu or button for accepting the selection on the display device 202 and selecting the object by operating the input device. The selection unit 204 acquires the selected contact information from the contact information storage device 208.

  Here, a hyperlink can be used as an object to be displayed on the display device 202. The contact information management device 200 can display an electronic business card on the display device in accordance with an instruction from the user based on the execution of the contact information management program. In this case, the contact information related to the electronic business card to be displayed is displayed. It is good also as embedding and displaying the smart tag for instruct | indicating a display. Accordingly, the user operates the input device to select a smart tag, and instructs display of contact information related to the electronic business card being displayed.

  In step S504, the selection unit 204 notifies the search unit 210 of the selected contact information. The search unit 210 searches for other contact information related to the contact information received from the selection unit 204 with reference to a record in which the relationship is recorded, and stores the acquired contact information in a buffer (not shown). . The display control unit 206 is notified of the end of the search.

  In step S <b> 506, the display control unit 206 that has received the search end notification creates a screen based on the contact information stored in the buffer.

  In step S508, the display control unit 206 displays the generated screen on the display device 202.

  Next, a process for searching for other contact information executed by the search unit 210 in step S504 will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

  In step S604, the record in which the relationship is recorded is referred to, and the contact ID of the selected contact information is included in the “target person ID” in the data associated with the relationships 1 to n. Identify things. Next, contact information corresponding to the “related party ID” associated with the identified “target person ID” is acquired from the contact information storage device 208.

  Next, in step S606, contact information of people who belong to the same department as the currently selected contact is searched. Specifically, the contact information items “department 1” and “department 2” stored in the contact information storage device 208 are referred to, and the selected contact information item “department 1” or “ Other contact information having the same value as the department name 2 ”is acquired.

  Next, in step S608, contact information (excluding people belonging to the same department) of employees who work for the selected contact company is searched. Specifically, the contact information items “company name”, “department 1” and “department 2” stored in the contact information storage device 208 are referred to, and the selected contact information item “company” is selected. The contact information having the same value as the “name” and the values of the items “department 1” and “department 2” are different from the selected contact information.

  Next, in step S610, contact information of a person who has worked for the selected contact company is searched. Specifically, the contact information item “history” stored in the contact information storage device 208 is referred to, and contact information including the value of “company name” of the selected contact information is acquired.

  Next, in step S612, the contact information of the person who was the employee of the company where the person of the selected contact person has worked in the past or the employee was searched. Specifically, the “job history” in the item “history” of the contact information stored in the contact information storage device 208 is referred to and included in the item “history” of the selected contact information. Get contact information with company name.

  Next, in step S614, the contact information of the person who is enrolled in the school where the selected contact person is from or who has been enrolled is searched. Specifically, the record of the relationship etc. is referenced, and the contact information of the selected contact information in the “target person ID” in the data associated with the school of origin 1 to school n Select the one containing the ID. Next, other data having the same value as the school name / faculty name associated with this subject ID is searched. The “target person ID” included in the other data searched in this way is specified. Then, other contact information corresponding to the identified “target person ID” is acquired.

  Next, in step S616, contact information of a person who has the same membership information as the person of the selected contact is searched. Specifically, the record of the relationship etc. is referenced, and the contact information of the selected contact information in the “target person ID” in the data associated with membership 1 to membership n. Select the one containing the ID. Next, another data having the same value as the “membership name” associated with the “subject ID” is searched. The “target person ID” included in the other data searched in this way is specified. Then, other contact information corresponding to the identified “target person ID” is acquired.

  Next, in step S618, contact information of a person who attends the same event multiple times as the selected contact person is searched. Specifically, the contact ID of the selected contact information is selected in “participant ID” in the data associated with event 1 to event n by referring to the record that records the relationship and the like. Select what to include. Next, other data having the same values as “event name” and “period” associated with this “participant ID” are searched. The “participant ID” included in the other data searched in this way is specified. Next, by counting the specified “participant ID”, the “participant ID” of the person who attended the same event multiple times is specified. Then, other contact information corresponding to the identified “participant ID” is acquired from the contact information storage device 208.

  Next, in step S620, contact information of people belonging to the same group as the selected contact person is searched. Specifically, referring to the item “group” of the contact information stored in the contact information storage device 208, other contact information having the same value as any of the items “group” of the selected contact information To get.

  Next, the search process executed in step S606 will be described as an example with reference to FIG.

  In step S702, a counter value i is defined and 1 is substituted.

  In step S704, the items “department name 1” and “department name 2” are matched with respect to the i-th contact information in the contact information storage device 208 and the contact information selected by the user.

  In step S706, it is determined whether the matching result values match.

  If the matching result values match, the i-th contact information is stored in the buffer area for the group “people in the same department”.

  In step S710, the counter value i is incremented by one.

  In step S712, it is determined whether or not the i-th data exists, or whether or not the maximum number of displayable data has been acquired. If the i-th data exists, the processing from step S704 is repeated.

  Note that the other steps shown in FIG. 8 can also be described in the same manner as step S606, and thus detailed description thereof will be omitted. Further, when the i-th contact information in the processing of FIG. 9 is the selected contact information, it may be controlled not to store in the buffer, or the contact information in the screen creation processing. Information may be excluded.

(Second Embodiment)
In the second embodiment of the present invention, the contact information is collectively displayed for each buffer area for grouping the contact information in step S706.

  FIG. 10 shows an example of the layout of the screen displayed on the display device in step S508 of FIG. In the example shown in the figure, grouping is done for each buffer area, relevant contacts, contacts of employees working at the same company, contacts with relevant values in the history, and The contact information of people belonging to the same group is displayed in groups.

  In addition, contact information of employees of the same company is displayed in a grouped manner as contact information belonging to the same department and contact information of employees of the same company (excluding employees of the same department).

  In addition, the contact having a related value in the history is a contact including the same value as the job history 1, ..., a contact including the same value as the job history n, and a contact including the same value as the school 1 , ..., contacts that have the same value as the original school n, contacts that have the same value as membership 1, ..., contacts that have the same value as membership n are displayed in groups. .

  Furthermore, the contact information of the persons belonging to the same group is displayed by grouping the contact information of the persons belonging to the group 1, the contact information of the persons belonging to the group n.

  A priority order may be set in advance in each buffer area for grouping contact information. In this case, the priority depends on the strength of the relevance with the selected contact information, for example, giving higher priority to employees belonging to the same department than employees of different departments in the same company. To set. By performing such processing, the display control unit 206 can create a screen on which contact information grouped according to the priority order of the buffer area is arranged and display it on the display device 202.

(Third embodiment)
FIG. 11 shows an example of a layout of other contact information related to the selected contact information displayed in the third embodiment of the present invention. The contact information management apparatus 200 stores in advance a frame defining a layout as shown in the figure, and the display control unit 206 displays the value of a predetermined item included in each contact information as a name in the frame. And arranged on each of the rows 1 to 4 and displayed on the display device 202. In the photo column provided on the left side of the figure, when the photo image file is associated with the contact information as described above, the image can be arranged and displayed.

  Thus, by narrowing down the information to be displayed to several lines, there is an advantage that the user can understand the relevance between the contact information in a short time.

  FIG. 12 shows the name shown in FIG. 11 and the items in the contact information displayed in rows 1 to 4. In the figure, each column corresponds to a group of contact information.

  The contact information management apparatus 200 stores the frame shown in FIG. 11 and the correspondence information shown in FIG. Thereby, the display control part 206 can display the information of the predetermined item which changes for every group, when grouping and displaying the acquired contact information. Therefore, for example, if it is an employee of the same company as the selected contact information, it can be controlled not to display the company name. Alternatively, there is an advantage that information of other items can be displayed instead of the company name.

(Fourth embodiment)
When the contact information is narrowed down and displayed as described above, a user interface that allows the user to easily browse information that is not displayed may be provided.

  FIG. 13 shows functional blocks of the display control unit 206 according to the fourth embodiment of the present invention. The display control unit 206 includes a detection unit 1202 and a balloon display unit 1204. The detection unit 1202 of the display control unit 206 detects that the cursor is positioned on the contact information displayed on the display device 202 (hovering), and the balloon display unit 1204 detects the position of the cursor. Display undisplayed items included in. FIG. 14 shows an example of contact information displayed by the display control unit 206. Of the contact information 1302 and 1304 displayed on the display device 202, regarding the contact information 1302 where the arrow-shaped cursor is positioned, the contact information including an item not displayed is superimposed on the displayed contact information. Displayed as a balloon 1306.

(Fifth embodiment)
Next, a fifth embodiment of the present invention that provides text data in association with contact information will be described.

  There is a blog format as a display format in which details of a plurality of information can be browsed efficiently. The blog in this specification means that articles can be managed in predetermined units, and the information can be classified according to the values of items such as date and title, and displayed in date order. Here, the articles are displayed in order of date, but this is an example, and any other order such as Unicode order may be used.

  FIG. 15 is a configuration diagram of an article information management apparatus 1500 according to the fifth embodiment.

  The article information management device 1500 includes at least a display device 1502, a selection unit 1504, a display control unit 1506, an article information storage device 1508, a search unit 1510, a contact information storage device 1512, an association unit 1514, and an article acquisition unit 1516.

  The contact information storage device 1512 that stores contact information and the article information storage device 1508 that stores articles may be independent storage devices, or one or a plurality of storage devices that are distributed on a network. it can.

  Note that the article information storage device 1508 and the contact information storage device 1512 may be assigned storage areas for mounting each in one storage device.

The article acquisition unit 1516 can acquire an article input from an input device (not shown) and an article stored in a storage device mounted on a computer on the Internet. Articles stored in computer storage devices on the Internet can also include blog articles. The article acquired by the article acquisition unit 1516 includes, for example, (1) the title of the article, (2) the subject name or participant name, (3) the sentence that becomes the article, (4) membership, (5) the date on which the article was posted, etc. (6) Period (7) All types of objects such as text, images, audio, etc. (8) Information such as electronic business cards may be added by the operator as needed. be able to.

  The associating unit 1514 can access the article information storage device 1508 and the contact information storage device 1512, and can associate the contact information with the article. The association between the contact information and the article by the associating unit 1514 may be made by associating the contact information having a common value with the article when the article includes a value included in the contact information, or the operator arbitrarily The contact information and the article may be associated with each other.

  The selection unit 1504 accesses the contact information storage device 1512 to acquire one item in the contact information, for example, a name, displays the acquired name on the display device 1502 in a list format, and selects the name. By receiving it, a user interface for receiving designation of contact information can be provided. The selection unit 1504 can transmit the contact ID of the received contact information to the search unit 1510. The contact ID can be, for example, a contact name and a contact Emai address.

  The search unit 1510 is connected to the selection unit 1504 and the display control unit 1506, respectively, and can access the contact information storage device 1512 and the article information storage device 1508, respectively. The search unit 1510 receives a contact ID corresponding to the specified name from the selection unit 1504, searches a schema 1700, which will be described later, and identifies an article ID associated with the received contact ID. Thereafter, the search unit 1510 can access the article information storage device 1508 and take out an article with the identified article ID. When the article information storage device 1508 is a distributed type, the search unit 1510 circulates through each storage device distributed on the network and searches each storage device. Further, the search unit 1510 can transmit the article retrieved by the search to the display control unit 1506.

  The display control unit 1506 generates articles in a blog format by arranging the articles received from the search unit 1510 according to a predetermined priority order, and displays the images on the display device 1502. The arrangement according to the priority order may be a time-series order or a unicode order of article titles.

  The display device 1502 includes a monitor and can display an image generated by the display control unit 1506.

  The article information management apparatus 1500 can acquire an article input from an input device and an article existing on the Internet, and manage the acquired article in association with contact information. It is assumed that a plurality of computers on the Internet and a computer on which the article information management device 1500 is mounted are connected to each other via a network such as the Internet.

  In the article information management device 1500 configured as described above, when the operator designates specific contact information by, for example, designating a name through the user interface provided by the selection unit 1504, the search unit 1510 is designated. Accesses the article information storage device 1508, searches for articles associated with the specified contact information, and stores the acquired articles in a buffer (not shown). When the search is completed, the search unit 1510 transmits a search end notification to the display control unit 1506.

  Upon receiving the search end notification, the display control unit 1506 generates a blog format screen of the articles stored in the buffer. At that time, if the article is an article acquired from an external computer, the entire article is displayed when permission to reprint the article is displayed, and a part of the article and its article when permission to reprint the article is not obtained A link to can also be displayed. The display control unit 1506 can display the generated screen on the display device 1502.

  Next, articles stored in the article information storage device 1508 will be described with reference to FIG.

  FIG. 16 schematically shows an example of an article format. Is the article 1600 an article ID, article title, subject name or participant name, article text, date of posting, membership, period, object, electronic business card, information provider, or article prohibited from forwarding? It is possible to register information such as whether or not it is a private article. In this specification, membership represents the group to which the subject or participant and the article itself belong, and the period represents the start time and end time or date of the event conveyed by the article. The date on which the article is posted can be arbitrarily specified by the operator, but if the operator does not specify the date, the stored date of the article is automatically recorded by the article information storage device 1508. In addition, the posting date can be changed later.

  Such an article may be created when an operator inputs article information from a user interface (UI) using an input device. FIG. 17 shows an example of a UI screen layout displayed on the display device.

  In addition to this, the operator can additionally input a period, an electronic business card, various objects, and the like as necessary by selecting an object displayed on the menu 1860 of FIG. In this way, by making it possible for the operator to change the configuration of the article as appropriate, the configuration of the article is narrowed down by eliminating unnecessary elements, and a concise display that makes it easy for the user to understand the article in a short time and necessary information. It is possible to provide a sufficiently detailed display.

  Using an input device such as a keyboard, the operator sets the article title in box 1810, the name of the subject or participant in box 1820, the sentence describing the contents of the article in box 1830, and membership related to the article. Each can be entered in box 1850. The subject name or participant name can also be entered by clicking on button 1825 to invoke the picker and selecting from the contacts displayed by the picker. Membership can also be entered by selecting from menu 1840.

  Further, the article may be taken in from the storage device mounted on the computer on the network by the article acquisition unit 1516. The article acquisition unit 1516 can store the acquired article as it is in the article information storage device 1508. However, the article acquisition unit 1516 is about an article written using a markup language or a blog article that is well-structured as an article. Can be stored in the article information storage device 1508 after its contents are analyzed and automatically converted into a format as shown in FIG. Moreover, the article acquisition unit 1516 can edit the acquired article based on an instruction from the operator.

  When the input of the item is completed by pressing the save button 1855, the article information management apparatus 1500 can uniquely add an article ID to the created article and store it in the article information storage apparatus 1508. When the article is stored in the article information storage device 1508, the article information storage device 1508 can record the date on which the article is stored as the posting date in the article.

  FIG. 18 shows an example of a schema that records the relationship between articles. In the schema 1700 shown in the figure, the article ID (article 1, 2,..., N) indicating the article is associated with the article title, the name of the subject or the participant, the membership, the period, the posting date. Corresponding to each value of the contact ID.

  Using the schema 1700, the associating unit 1514 associates contact information with an article including a value included in the contact information, and can register a contact ID associated with the schema 1700. For example, when the name registered as the contact information is included in the article, the associating unit 1514 can associate the article with the contact information including the name. In addition, the associating unit 1514 can arbitrarily associate the article and the contact information with each other without associating the article including the same value with the contact information.

  The search unit 1510 can search the schema to obtain an article ID associated with the designated contact information, and can obtain an article related to the designated contact information.

  FIG. 19 is a flowchart showing a schematic procedure of the article providing method.

  In step S1902, the selection unit 1504 receives designation of an item value from the user. The designation can be received by displaying an object of a menu such as a list box or a button for accepting the designation on the display device 1502 and selecting the object by operating the input device. FIG. 20 shows an example of a list box that displays a list of contacts. The user can specify a specific contact from this list box. A contact is associated with multiple contact information such as name, membership, email address, title, etc., so the user can specify multiple contact values at once by specifying the contact. Can be specified.

  In step S1904, the selection unit 1504 notifies the search unit 1510 of the value of the designated item. The search unit 1510 accesses the article information storage device 1508, searches for an article related to the item received from the selection unit 1504 by referring to the schema 1700, and stores the acquired article in a buffer (not shown). When the search is finished, the search unit 1510 notifies the display control unit 1506 that the search is finished.

  In step S <b> 1906, the display control unit 1506 that has received the notification of the search end from the search unit 1510 arranges the articles stored in the buffer in the time series and the order of the article titles in order to create a blog format screen.

  In step S1908, the display control unit 1506 displays the generated screen on the display device 1502.

  FIG. 20 is a diagram illustrating an example of a list box that displays a list of names. In the present embodiment, a list of names is used to select contact information, but a list of values of other items may be used to select contact information.

  FIG. 21 shows an example of the layout of the screen displayed on the display device in step S1908 of FIG.

  In the example shown in FIG. 21, when a user designates a name from a list box 2110 that displays a name list and selects a related information (Relationship Information) tab 2120, articles 2130 and 2140 are displayed. These articles 2130 and 2140 are displayed in chronological order as articles related to the designated contact information, and not only the title of the article but also all the contents of the article are displayed. For each article, from the top, the title of the article, the date of posting the article, the name of the subject or participant (Contacts), the sentence describing the content of the article, the date (Date), the attached item (Attach Item), the membership ( Group), an edit button 2150, and a delete button 2160.

  When the user designates the name “Masa Ando” from the list box 2110, the contact information of “Masa Ando” is displayed. This contact information includes all information associated with “Masao Ando”, but when the user selects the related information tab 2120, an article displayed in a blog format is displayed. The article 2130 is displayed as an article related to the contact information designated by the user because the contact name “Masao Ando” designated by the user exists in the target person name or participant name (Contacts) column. . On the other hand, the name “Contact Masaru Ando” of the designated contact does not exist in the subject name or participant name (Contacts) column of the article 2140. However, although not displayed in FIG. 21, the article 2140 matches the contact information of “Masao Ando” in items other than the subject name or the participant name (Contacts) such as the membership (Groups) 2175. Similar to the article 2130, it is displayed as an article related to the contact information designated by the user. That is, if any one of a plurality of items included in the contact information is associated with an article, the article information according to the present embodiment can be provided.

  The article 2130 can be attached with various objects such as an image 2170 and a document file. These attached objects can be pasted so that the contents can be confirmed directly like an image 2170, or can be pasted as a hyperlink indicating the object. The article information management device 1500 can call various objects such as images on the display device in response to an instruction from the user such as clicking a hyperlink.

  Each article is provided with an edit button 2150, a delete button 2160, and an action button 2180. By pressing these buttons even when displayed in the blog format, editing, deletion, and other people of the article are performed. Send to, print, upload to blog, and output to other applications.

  In this embodiment, an article is exemplified as data to be provided. However, in addition to an article, text data such as a journal entry, a blog entry, and a news entry, and a combination of the text data and an object may be included.

  The order of execution or performance of the methods illustrated and described herein is not essential unless otherwise specified. That is, the inventor may perform the elements of these methods in any order unless otherwise specified, and these methods may include more or fewer elements than those disclosed herein. It is contemplated that there may be cases.

  In view of the above, it will be seen that the several objects of the invention are achieved and other advantageous results are achieved.

  Various modifications can be made in the above arrangements and methods without departing from the scope of the embodiments of the present invention.

  Accordingly, it is intended that all content contained in the above description and shown in the accompanying drawings shall be interpreted as illustrative rather than limiting.

It is a block diagram which shows the example of the environment for implementing this invention. It is a block diagram which shows roughly the function structure of the contact information management apparatus which concerns on one Embodiment of this invention. It is a figure which shows an example of the format of contact information. It is a figure which shows an example of the format of the log | history information contained in contact information. It is a figure which shows an example of the format of the event contained in contact information. It is a figure which shows an example of the schema which recorded the relationship etc. It is a flowchart which shows an example of the schematic procedure of the contact information provision method. It is a flowchart which shows an example of the process which searches the other contact information performed by step S504. It is a flowchart which shows an example of the search process performed by step S606. It is a figure which shows an example of the layout of the screen displayed on a display apparatus in one Embodiment of this invention. It is a figure which shows an example of the layout of each contact information displayed on a display apparatus in one Embodiment of this invention. It is a figure which shows the name in the name shown in FIG. 11, and the item in the contact information displayed on the lines 1-4. It is a functional block diagram of the display control part which concerns on one Embodiment of this invention. It is a figure which shows an example of the contact information displayed by a display control part. It is a block diagram which shows roughly the function structure of the article information management apparatus which concerns on one Embodiment of this invention. It is a figure which shows an example of the format of an article. It is a figure which shows an example of the layout of the screen of UI displayed on a display apparatus. It is a figure which shows an example of the schema which recorded the relationship etc. It is a flowchart which shows an example of the schematic procedure of the article provision method. It is a figure which shows an example of the list box which displays the list of names. It is a figure which shows an example of the layout of the screen displayed on a display apparatus.

Explanation of symbols

200 Contact Information Management Device 202 Display Device 204 Selection Unit 206 Display Control Unit 208 Contact Information Storage Device 210 Search Unit 300 Contact Information 500 History Information 700 Schema 1202 Detection Unit 1204 Balloon Display Unit 2130, 2140 Article

Claims (16)

Contact information storage means for storing contact information;
Article acquisition means for acquiring articles;
Article storage means for storing the acquired article;
Association means for associating the article with the contact information;
Selecting means for receiving one designation of the contact information;
Search means for searching for articles associated with the specified contact information;
An article management apparatus comprising: display means for displaying the retrieved article on a display device.   The article management apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the display unit displays the searched article in a blog format.   The article management apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the article acquisition unit acquires an arbitrary article stored on another computer via the Internet.   4. The article according to claim 1, wherein the article includes at least one value included in the contact information, and the associating unit associates the article having a common value with the contact information. The article information management device described.   The article management apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the article includes at least one of text data and object data.   6. The article management apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the text data is any one of a journal entry, a blog entry, and a news entry.   The article management apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 6, wherein the display means displays the images arranged in an order according to a predetermined rule. A method of providing an article associated with contact information stored in the contact information storage means from the article storage means,
A step of obtaining an article;
Storing the acquired article in the article storage means;
Associating the stored article with the contact information;
Receiving one specification of contact information;
Searching for articles associated with the specified contact information;
And a step of displaying the retrieved article on a display device.   The method according to claim 8, wherein the displaying step is a step of displaying the retrieved articles in a blog format.   The method according to claim 8 or 9, wherein the obtaining step is a step of obtaining an arbitrary article stored in another computer via the Internet.   11. The method according to claim 8, wherein the contact information includes at least one value, and the associating step associates an article having a common value with the contact information. .   12. The method according to claim 8, wherein the article includes at least one of text data and object data.   The method according to claim 8, wherein the text data is any one of a journal entry, a blog entry, and a news entry.   The method according to any one of claims 8 to 13, wherein the displaying step is a step of arranging and displaying in an order according to a predetermined rule. A program for providing an article associated with the contact information stored in the contact information storage means from the article storage means,
A step of obtaining an article;
Storing the acquired article in the article storage means;
Associating the stored article with the contact information;
Receiving one specification of contact information;
Searching for articles associated with the specified contact information;
And displaying the retrieved article on a display device. A computer-readable storage medium storing a program for causing an article storage means to provide an article associated with contact information stored in the contact information storage means,
A step of obtaining an article;
Storing the acquired article in the article storage means;
Associating the stored article with the contact information;
Receiving one specification of contact information;
Searching for articles associated with the specified contact information;
A computer-readable storage medium storing a program for executing the step of displaying the retrieved article on a display device.

Images