KR102117886B1 - Method for providing community service based on near-field verification through bluetooth network - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to a method for providing a community service based on short distance verification through a Bluetooth network. Specifically, the present invention relates to a method for providing a service in which when it is verified through a short distance network such as Bluetooth and the like that a plurality of peripheral terminals exist in a short distance around an arbitrary host terminal, the terminals can very easily belong to one online community such as a chat room, thereby enabling users to easily form the online community among the users existing in a place offline.

Description

METHOD FOR PROVIDING COMMUNITY SERVICE BASED ON NEAR-FIELD VERIFICATION THROUGH BLUETOOTH NETWORK

The present invention relates to a method for providing a community service based on short-range verification through a Bluetooth network. Specifically, when it is verified through a short-range network such as Bluetooth that a plurality of peripheral terminals exist in a short distance around an arbitrary host terminal, these terminals It relates to a method of providing a service that allows users to easily form an online community among users existing in one place offline by allowing them to belong to one online community, that is, a chat room.

In the 2000s, with the development of the network, online community services such as messenger, chat service, and SNS service using such networks have been greatly developed until recently. During this process, the development of the network also contributed, but the improvement of the terminals used by users has also contributed greatly, and thus, the development of the network and the terminals has helped to create various types of online community services. On the other hand, although the online community service has steadily developed as described above, the online community service still faces limitations due to the fact that the origin of the service is based on pure online. Due to restrictions on exchanges, a certain level of security-corrected procedures (e.g., the process of sharing information that can identify each other, such as IDs and phone numbers) must be performed in order to share an exchange. There have been problems and inconveniences in that there are still great barriers to sharing exchanges.

On the other hand, as with the limitations of the above-mentioned online community service, there are a lot of inconveniences in offline community activities, for example, in the case of club activities or gatherings in which an unspecified number of people gather together, a new offline community is created. In order to form, there is the inconvenience of having to go through a cumbersome procedure such as exchanging business cards or phone numbers in the beginning. For example, assuming that 10 people are gathered at a certain offline meeting, 10C2=10!/2!8!=45 information exchange acts will be required for each to exchange information, and the number of people gathered will increase. As the above information exchange activities will increase rapidly, it is also difficult to form a new offline community by an unspecified number of people offline.

The present invention is based on the results of distressing how to easily configure a large number of unspecified communities by focusing on the limitations of online community services as described above and the problems of offline community formation, and specifically, offline meetings formed in the same space. To provide a community, for example, a chat room that can share information with each other online through a local area network, more accurately, a Bluetooth network or a Bluetooth mesh network, and verify whether each other exists in a short distance. It's about doing.

The present invention has been devised in view of such problems, and can solve the above-mentioned salpin technical problems, and invented to provide additional technical elements that cannot be easily invented by those skilled in the art. Became.

Korean Registered Patent Publication No. 10-1240551 (announced on March 18, 2013)

An object of the present invention is to allow an unspecified number of users met offline to establish an online community in a simple manner. At this time, it is possible to verify the existence of each other at a short distance through a Bluetooth mesh network between a large number of unspecified users met offline, and to move the meeting to an online community and share the exchange with the purpose of offline meeting. Is done. That is, the present invention aims to easily form and maintain a social relationship network between users within a physically limited space of offline.

In addition, in the process of establishing the above community, the present invention enables verification through a Bluetooth mesh network only for the existence of short distances between each other, and when providing a community (chat room) containing real users, a wide area such as a mobile communication network or Wi-Fi. The purpose of the network is to provide a stable environment for data transmission and reception, that is, to provide a high-quality community environment.

In addition, the present invention allows an arbitrary terminal to be designated as a host of the corresponding community, and continuously invites another user participating in the offline meeting to the community by allowing the host to continuously search for terminals capable of short-range communication in the vicinity. The goal is to enable them to do so, and to enable community activation through this.

In addition, the present invention allows users who are off-line, that is, users who are no longer able to communicate with the host, to periodically search for such information in the community, thereby making it easy to grasp the status of attendees. It is aimed at.

In addition, the present invention aims to continue the exchange in the community by continuously participating in the online community even if a user belonging to the community leaves the line offline.

In addition, the present invention does not only perform short-range communication for terminals designated as a host and terminals capable of direct Bluetooth communication, but extends by giving community participation opportunities to terminals in a Bluetooth mesh network in a larger area that can be connected to a node. The aim is to provide community services with very large surnames.

In addition, the present invention enables the transmission of an invitation message through a Bluetooth mesh network to a user who is not registered as a member of an existing community service, that is, to a non-member, and to join a community service based on the invitation message. Ultimately, it aims to provide a service that can revitalize the community.

Meanwhile, the technical problems of the present invention are not limited to the technical problems mentioned above, and other technical problems not mentioned will be clearly understood by a person skilled in the art from the following description.

In order to solve the above problems, a method of providing a community service by a service server according to the present invention includes: (a1) a request for establishing a community from a host terminal and short-range verification information for a first terminal-the short-range verification information is a Bluetooth network. Based on communication made based on-receiving; And (b1) establishing a community including a user of the host terminal and a user corresponding to the first terminal, wherein the community is accessible by the host terminal and the first terminal through a wide area network; It can contain.

In addition, in the service providing method, in step (a1), the service server may further receive identification information for the first terminal from the host terminal, and after step (a1) The server may further include searching for a user corresponding to the identification information by referring to a database.

On the other hand, the service providing method according to another embodiment of the present invention is (a2) short-range search information from a host terminal in the established community-the short-range search information, the second terminal searched by the host terminal through the Bluetooth search Including near field verification information-receiving; (b2) joining a user corresponding to the second terminal in the previously established community, wherein the community is accessible by the host terminal and the second terminal through a wide area network.

In addition, in the service providing method, when the service server determines that a terminal corresponding to a user belonging to a conventional community is deviated as a result of the short-range search information received from the host terminal, the service server connects to the terminal within the community. It may be characterized by displaying a departure for a corresponding user, but at this time, the service server may still be characterized in that it permits access to the community even for any terminal determined to have deviated. have.

In addition, in the method of providing the service, in step (a2), the service server is further characterized in that it receives identification information about the second terminal from the host terminal, and after step (a2), the service server database Searching for a user corresponding to the identification information with reference to; may be characterized in that it further comprises.

In addition, in the service providing method, the short-range verification information that the service server receives from the host terminal is connected to the host terminal through a Bluetooth mesh network, and the short-range verification information for any terminal non-directly connected to the host terminal is provided. It may be characterized in that it further comprises verification information.

In addition, the service providing method, the service server, receiving a community list request from a third terminal; Collecting short-range verification information for the third terminal; And providing a community list accessible by the third terminal based on the collected short-range verification information.

In addition, the service providing method includes: receiving, by the service server, a member subscription request from a fourth terminal, wherein the member subscription request includes identification information of a user corresponding to the fourth terminal; Inputting identification information of a user corresponding to the fourth terminal into the database; Further comprising, the request for membership from the fourth terminal is connected to the fourth terminal through a Bluetooth network, and is made based on an invitation message received from a terminal of a user that is already input as a member in the database. Can be done with

In addition, in the service providing method, the service server provides for each user, regardless of whether or not each user belongs to a current Bluetooth network, a list of communities to which each user belongs in the past is provided. can do.

In addition, the service providing method includes: receiving, by the service server, a community list request from the fifth terminal, wherein the community list request includes at least one search word; It may further include a step of searching for communities in which the search term is included as a hash tag, the hash tag being set when each of the communities is generated, and providing a list of the searched communities.

According to the present invention, there is an effect of being able to open and exchange an online community on the fly through terminals owned by each user while performing offline community activities between people gathered in a public offline place such as a cafe, meeting place, and gathering. . In particular, according to the present invention, users can very simply, for example, with a single click, it is possible to open a community in which all nearby users participate, and thus there is an effect to promote activation of a meeting.

In addition, according to the present invention, although a meeting is started offline, it is possible to omit the cumbersome act of exchanging information with each other due to the establishment and utilization of an online community, and rather allow users to exchange information with each other very quickly. It can help to facilitate exchange activities.

In addition, according to the present invention, even after the offline meeting is over, the wide area network still allows users to perform community activities online, so that the exchange activity can be continued continuously.

In addition, according to the present invention, as the amount of use increases, short-range communication (Bluetooth mesh network) showing an unstable communication state is used only for verifying the existence of short-range existence between users, and provides a stable online network such as a mobile communication network, Wi-Fi, etc. It has the effect of enabling users to stably exchange activities.

In addition, according to the present invention, it is possible to easily invite new users into the community by allowing the host terminal to search for terminals capable of short-distance communication in a continuous vicinity, thereby increasing the scalability of the community and simultaneously leaving the offline place. By displaying one user in the community, there is an effect that makes it easy to identify users who are currently forming a meeting offline.

In addition, the present invention has an effect of inducing community participation even for terminals relatively distant from the host terminal by utilizing the Bluetooth mesh network.

Meanwhile, the effects of the present invention are not limited to those mentioned above, and other technical effects not mentioned will be clearly understood by those skilled in the art from the following description.

1 is a system diagram showing a basic environment in which a community service is provided according to the present invention.
2 shows a first embodiment according to the present invention.
3 shows a configuration of a service server and a user's terminal referred to in the present invention.
4 illustrates a state in which short-range communication between terminals is connected in a Bluetooth mesh network.
5 shows a second embodiment according to the present invention.
6 shows a system in which a community service according to the present invention, a so-called HWA (Here We Are) service, is actually implemented.
FIG. 7 conceptually illustrates how a plurality of terminals in a local area network join a community.
8 is a view for explaining community participation between terminals utilizing a beacon infrastructure provided by the OS of the terminal.
9 is a diagram for explaining a method of attracting non-members who are not registered as members of a community service.
10 shows a user using a community service according to the present invention in an arbitrary place or branch.
11 shows a plurality of community lists that are listed through the application of the terminal.
12 shows an example in which a new friend is added through the application of the terminal.
13 shows a state in which advertisements can be displayed in the application of the terminal.
14 is a view for introducing a business card service in particular among usage examples of the service according to the present invention.
15 shows an example in which the service according to the present invention is utilized in a public gathering place.
16 shows an example in which the service according to the present invention is utilized in an offline club meeting.

The details of the object and technical configuration of the present invention and its operational effects will be more clearly understood by the following detailed description based on the accompanying drawings in the specification of the present invention. An embodiment according to the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

The embodiments disclosed in this specification should not be interpreted or used as limiting the scope of the present invention. It is natural that those skilled in the art, including the embodiments of the present specification, have various applications. Accordingly, any of the embodiments described in the detailed description of the present invention are exemplary to better describe the present invention and are not intended to limit the scope of the present invention to the embodiments.

The functional blocks shown in the drawings and described below are only examples of possible implementations. Other functional blocks may be used in other implementations without departing from the spirit and scope of the detailed description. Further, although one or more functional blocks of the present invention are represented as individual blocks, one or more of the functional blocks of the present invention may be a combination of various hardware and software configurations that execute the same function.

In addition, the expression of including certain components is an expression of “open type” and simply refers to the existence of the components, and should not be understood as excluding additional components.

Furthermore, when a component is referred to as being "connected" or "connected" to another component, it should be understood that other components may be directly connected or connected to the other component, but may exist in the middle. do.

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

First, FIG. 1 shows a simplified system configuration to understand the basic concept of community service according to the present invention. According to FIG. 1, the entire system includes host terminals 100A and 100B that can be connected to a wide area network, a service server 200 for providing community services, and a plurality of terminals that will form a community by being connected to each host terminal. It may be made of a field (301 ~ 310).

As already described above, the present invention allows users who are gathered offline to create an online community that can be used immediately on the spot by using a terminal, for example, a smartphone they are carrying. It is shown as communities A and B including offline areas A and B and terminals existing in each of these offline areas. One of the most important features mentioned in the present invention is that it is confirmed that the terminals existing at a short distance around the host terminal 100 exist in the same space with each other by a short-range communication through a short-range communication network, more precisely, a Bluetooth mesh network. And, for the terminals that have been verified according to the short-range communication, the service server 200 provides a community that can share data and information with each other online, and furthermore, the service server 200 generates and provides The community is provided for each terminal through a wide area network such as a mobile communication network (LTE, etc.) and Wi-Fi.

Meanwhile, FIG. 1 shows a state in which the SNS server 700 operated by SNS operators is connected to a wide area network, and the service server 200 according to the present invention is also connected to each user through linkage with the SNS server 700 above. It can be implemented to participate in the community or share data or information. That is, through the service server 200 according to the present invention, so-called non-members who have not been previously subscribed can use the service according to the present invention by using login information of another SNS service, and further, through other SNS services. Files that have been shared may be implemented to be shared with each community through the service server 200.

2 is a first embodiment according to the present invention, that is, how the service server 200 communicates with the host terminal 100 and a plurality of peripheral terminals (first terminal 301 and second terminal 302) with each other It is a diagram for explaining whether a community service is made.

Prior to the full-scale description, first, the hardware of the terminal and the service server will be briefly described.

First, in relation to a terminal (in this case, a terminal includes a host terminal and terminals around the host terminal), the terminal refers to a device possessed or carried by a user, which includes a mobile phone such as a smartphone, PDA, or tablet PC. In addition to a possible terminal, an installed terminal such as a home PC may also be included. When viewing such a terminal from the side of the device, it is assumed that each terminal has a central processing unit (CPU) and memory. The central processing unit can also be called a controller, a microcontroller, a microprocessor, a microcomputer, and the like. In addition, the central processing unit may be implemented by hardware or firmware, software, or a combination thereof. When implemented using hardware, an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) or a digital signal processor (DSP) , DSPD (digital signal processing device), PLD (programmable logic device), FPGA (field programmable gate array), etc. When implemented using firmware or software, a module, procedure, or function that performs the above functions or operations Firmware or software may be configured to include. In addition, the memory is ROM (Read Only Memory), RAM (Random Access Memory), EPROM (Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory), EEPROM (Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory), flash (flash) memory, SRAM (Static RAM), It may be implemented as a hard disk drive (HDD) or a solid state drive (SSD).

For reference, in this detailed description, it is assumed that the terminal 100 is a smartphone or a tablet PC to help understand the invention. In this case, the terminal may include a display and a touch-sensitive surface, and additionally, one or more other physical user input means such as a physical keyboard, mouse and/or joystick may be further connected. In addition, the terminal may further include means for detecting and recording sound or voice. Meanwhile, various applications executed on the terminal may, optionally, use at least one universal means for physical user input, such as a touch-sensitive surface. The one or more functions of the touch-sensitive surface as well as the corresponding information displayed on the terminal can be optionally adjusted or changed from one application to the next and/or within individual applications. In this way, a universal physical architecture (such as a touch-sensitive surface) of the terminal can optionally support a variety of applications using user interfaces that are intuitive and clear to the user.

Meanwhile, the service server 200 is a configuration that provides a program for actually implementing the method according to the present invention, that is, a set of instructions, and further corresponds to a configuration that processes or stores various data received from a plurality of terminals. The form of the service server 200 may be at least one PC for a server managed by a specific operator, or a form of a cloud server provided by another company, that is, a form of a cloud server that an operator can sign up for and use. have. In particular, when the service server is implemented as a server PC, the service server may include a central processing unit and a memory, which will be omitted here because it has been described in detail in the description of the preceding terminal.

The service server 200 has been described in that the basic configuration may be composed of a central processing unit and a memory, but when the service server 200 is viewed from the viewpoint of providing a community service according to the present invention, that is, the service server 200 3) may be represented as shown in FIG. For reference, in the present invention, the broad term “community service” is used to not specifically limit the scope of the provided service, but the following description is based on the assumption that the above community service is in the form of an online chat service to help understand the invention I will do it.

Referring to Figure 3, the service server 200 may be largely composed of an online chat service module 210 and an offline chat service module 211, wherein each service module is an XMPP server 213, an HTTP server 214. The online chat service module 210 is intended to provide an online chat service function that is currently commercially provided, which may include a chat room module 231 and a chat module 232, and furthermore, various data in the chat room. Further, a file sharing module 233 for managing information sharing may be further included. In addition, a group community module 234 may be additionally provided.

On the other hand, the offline chat module 211 may be understood as a module for managing short-term verification of terminals centered on the host terminal 100 and connection status between terminals, which manages connection status of users. The connection management module 235, a Bluetooth network-based host recognition module 236, a Bluetooth recognition module 237, and an authentication module 238 for authenticating a community group on the offline basis, that is, short-range verification, etc. Can be included.

The above-described modules may be operated in real time on the service server in connection with the database 400 in which user data, service data, chat data, etc. for which a member is registered are stored.

On the other hand, when looking at the terminal in terms of functionality, an application for using the community service according to the present invention can be driven on the terminal, and a message issuance module 131 and a message subscription module 132 are included in the module driven in conjunction with the application. As described above, a module for controlling a basic chat message, a Bluetooth mesh module 133 for controlling a Bluetooth connection with another terminal, a file module 134 for transmitting and receiving data or information (file), and a notification management module 135 ), and a user interface module 136.

On the other hand, the service server 200 and the terminals 100 and 300 may be interworked through various communication protocols such as XMPP, XML, Json, and Http.

The configuration of the terminal and the service server mentioned in the present invention has been described above with reference to FIG. 3, and the first embodiment of the method for providing community service according to the present invention will be described below with reference to FIG. 2 again. .

The first embodiment shown in FIG. 2 is, in simple terms, a situation in which an arbitrary user has attended an offline meeting and wants to establish an online community with people around him by running the application himself. When the user of the application clicks on the icon to open the chat room of the application, it shows the process of establishing a chat room with an unspecified number of neighbors (in this case, the unspecified number of users will be users of terminals within a range in which short-range communication can be achieved). .

In the first embodiment, first, the host terminal 100 performs short-range communication to the surrounding first terminal, and accordingly, the short-range verification information (in this case, the term short-range verification information means information according to the completion of short-range verification information) Rather, it may be generated as the short-range communication succeeds, sharing a step (S101A) of sharing the future service server 200 (which means information used to verify the existence of the short-range existence), and furthermore, the host terminal 100 A may be started from the step (S101B) of performing short-range communication and sharing short-range verification information for another second terminal nearby. For reference, the host terminal 100 referred to in the detailed description, the essence of which is a terminal for the first time to establish a community for a terminal or service server 200 possessed by an arbitrary user, and furthermore, from the center of the community It is revealed that the term host terminal is used to impart the meaning of the terminal that becomes the owner. In addition, terminals other than the host terminal 100 will be referred to by adding additional terms such as the following first and second to identify each.

The step of performing short-range communication and sharing short-range verification information may be performed through a short-range communication network, more precisely, a Bluetooth network, as described above, wherein the first terminal or the second terminal is close to the actual host terminal 100 and In other words, it is a transposition step to verify whether the user of the first terminal or the second terminal exists in the same space as the user of the host terminal. In step S101, there will be no limitation in the method as long as the host terminal 100 can check whether each terminal 301 or 302 exists at a short distance. However, preferably, the host terminal 100 may be composed of a process of transmitting a message (not shown) requesting short-range communication to each of the terminals 301 and 302, and the terminals receiving the response. will be. As will be described later, the host terminal 100 may transmit an advertisement message to a plurality of unspecified multiple terminals and receive a response accordingly. It should be understood that this is the same method as described above. On the other hand, the host terminal 100 may further collect identification information for each terminal in a process of attempting short-range communication and sharing short-range verification information. At this time, the identification information for the terminals may include a Bluetooth identification number, a user identification number, a terminal identification number, and the like, and the collected identification information may be used to discover who the user of the terminal is in the future. .

After step S101, the service server 200 may receive short-range verification information shared from the first terminal and the second terminal from the host terminal 100, and at the same time, generate one community from the host terminal 100 You can receive a community creation request requesting you to do it. (S102) This step may be performed by, for example, a method in which the user of the host terminal 100 presses the “create new chat room” icon on the application, and at this time, the host terminal 100 together with the community creation request The identification information for the first terminal and the second terminal collected above may be further provided. Meanwhile, step S102 in FIG. 2 is illustrated in a manner in which the host terminal 100 requests the short-range verification information and the community creation request to the service server 200, but the corresponding step shares short-range verification information after short-range communication. The first terminal 301 or the second terminal 302 may also be implemented in a manner that requests the service server 200 to participate in the community where the host terminal 100 is a host. That is, the first terminal or the second terminal, after short-range communication with the host terminal 100, if there is a desire to participate in the chat, directly to the service server 200 side identification information of each terminal, or corresponding to each terminal It is also possible to request to participate in a community established by the host terminal 100 by providing user identification information.

On the other hand, the service server 200 may verify or determine whether each terminal actually exists around the host terminal 100 based on the community generation request and the short-range verification information received from the host terminal 100, and furthermore, the database 400 ) To find out which users should be included in the newly established community, that is, a user corresponding to the first terminal or the second terminal existing around the host terminal 100. (S103) In the database 400, identification information for each terminal and identification information for each user may be matched and stored, and the service server 200 refers to such a database 400, that is, a community, that is, You can decide which users to join in the chat room.

Meanwhile, the service server 200 may generate a community, that is, a chat room, in response to a community creation request from the host terminal 100, and the generated chat room is a user (host) corresponding to the host terminal, and Users (member 1, member 2) corresponding to each of the first user terminal and the second user terminal may be in a participating state. For reference, in the community created by the service server 200, the host terminal 100, the first and second terminals 301, 302 are a wide area network, for example, a mobile communication network such as LTE or a wide area network such as Wi-Fi. It can be accessed through, which is indicated in step S105 on FIG. 2. That is, after the community is created, each terminal can use a chat service through a stable network called a wide area network, and through this, not only a chat but also a large amount of data files can be shared.

For reference, in FIG. 2, the host terminal 100, the first terminal 301, and the second terminal 302 are described as an embodiment in which short-range verification information is shared with each other while being directly connected, as mentioned in the introduction. Since the present invention can utilize a Bluetooth mesh network, it can be implemented to share short-range verification information not only with a terminal directly connected to the host terminal 100 but also with terminals that can be connected indirectly. FIG. 4 illustrates a state in which the host terminal 100 is connected to terminals 301 to 307 in a short distance within a Bluetooth mesh network. As can be seen in the figure, the host terminal 100 is a fourth terminal 304 to Terminals that are not directly connected to the host terminal 100, such as the sixth terminal 306, may also be connected through a local area network, where the fourth terminal 304 and the fifth terminal 305 are within the network. It is shown that it may function as a single node. That is, when the Bluetooth function of the host terminal 100 is turned on, it is possible to transmit a message necessary for short-range communication to nearby terminals. For a terminal with a long distance (presumed to be in the Bluetooth mesh communication network at this time) It is possible to transmit messages while gradually increasing the connection distance through the intermediate relay node. For reference, at this time, the offline chatting module 211 of the service server 200 linked with the host terminal 100 connects the community while checking the host identifier and the Bluetooth identifier of the terminals in real time through the connection management module 235. It is verified whether or not each terminal can participate in the community with reference to authentication, that is, short-range verification information, which may correspond to step S102 described above. That is, the members of the terminal whose connection status is confirmed are automatically joined to the community when the application of the smartphone is clicked, and a screen is displayed on the smartphone, whereby photos and IDs of other connected members can be checked.

FIG. 5 illustrates a second embodiment of the present invention. In the second embodiment, the host terminal 100 periodically searches for other terminals in a short distance in a state in which a community, that is, a chat room is already generated, and randomly This is an embodiment that enables induction of join to a chat room by notifying the service server 200 when the terminal of the terminal is searched.

In detail, referring to the drawings, in the second embodiment, it is assumed that a community having a user of the host terminal 100 as a host has already been created (S104), and the host terminal 100 is the first neighbor. It starts from step S106 of searching for terminals capable of short-range communication (Bluetooth communication). Step S106 may be continuously performed in real time or may be performed by turning on the Bluetooth function of the host terminal 100 at a predetermined period. In addition, in step S106, the host terminal 100 may proceed in a manner of sending a message to attempt short-range communication to a plurality of unspecified peripheral terminals.

Meanwhile, when a specific third terminal is found as a result of the search, that is, when Bluetooth communication with the third terminal is successful, the host terminal 100 may share short-range verification information with the third terminal (S107), The short-range search information including the shared short-range verification information may be generated and provided to the service server 200 (S108). At this time, the short-range search information may further include identification information for identifying the third terminal.

On the other hand, after receiving the short-range search information from the host terminal 100, the service server 200 may determine or verify whether the third terminal is a terminal in the vicinity of the host terminal 100, the first implementation As in the example, the database 400 may be searched for a user corresponding to the third terminal. (S109)

After the user corresponding to the third terminal is searched, the community can be updated (S110) by joining the user to the community, that is, a chat room. From this point on, the third terminal establishes a service server 200 and a wide area network. Through this, activities in the community may be possible (S111).

The second embodiment has been described above with reference to FIG. 5.

Figure 6 shows the implementation of the community service according to the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 6, it can be seen that the host terminal 100 is the center of the Bluetooth mesh network, and a community including other terminals existing at a short distance is formed. That is, when a user registered as a member of a community service goes to a specific offline meeting and drives a smartphone application, it is possible to verify that other members exist around the smartphone through Bluetooth mesh network communication. As a service server 200 recognizes the members and automatically configures one chat room. In addition, this chat room will operate all functions provided online with high quality through a wide area network.

Meanwhile, the service server 200 according to the present invention can manage and maintain a community, that is, a chat room, in various ways. Hereinafter, some examples will be described.

While the service server 200 joins the corresponding user into the community only when the terminals are verified to exist in a proximate location, when the terminal is confirmed that the terminals belong to the corresponding community and then leaves, the deviated user is still You can make it remain in the community. That is, even if the user does not exist within a close distance beyond the Bluetooth mesh network, the continuity of the community can be maintained by continuously participating in the corresponding community. However, at this time, the service server 200 may notify other users that the user is out of the area by making a display such as "OUT" in the participant list in the chat room for the user of the terminal deviating from the short distance area, Among the user list, it can be arranged at the bottom (red dotted rectangle in FIG. 6). Thereafter, when it is verified that the user's terminal has entered the Bluetooth mesh network again, the service server 200 may remove the “OUT” mark and place the user at the top of the list.

If the offline meeting ends and all users are out of the area, the service server 200 may still maintain the community. However, if all users voluntarily leave the community, the community will be destroyed.

On the other hand, when the size of the generated community increases or the function is diversified when the service server 200 manages the community, it may be implemented to create another community among users belonging therein, and furthermore A community may be created to enable 1:1 exchange. In this case, users can operate simultaneously in multiple communities as in the online service, and can maintain community activities continuously even though they are spatially out of range.

7 is a diagram for specifically describing a process in which the host terminal 100 attempts short-range communication with nearby terminals. However, FIG. 7 is only an example, and it is understood that a short range communication attempt may be made in various ways.

When one community (chat room) is created by the service server 200, the service server 200 may generate and manage a so-called community identifier (community ID; room_id) that can identify the community. . Assuming that the user of the host terminal 100 is a host in the above community, the host terminal 100 is UUID (hwa_svc) for identifying the service, the community identifier (community ID; room_id), and counting value (TTL) ), the data packet (also called a beacon advertisement packet) is propagated to the surrounding terminals. At this time, the terminal receiving the above data packet among the surrounding terminals refers to the UUID and the community ID above to the community. You can request participation. Meanwhile, the terminal receiving the data packet may function as a node to propagate the data packet to other terminals again. At this time, the counting value (TTL) value may be reduced by 1 to propagate. The counting value (TTL) is for controlling a range of terminals to participate in the community, and if the counting value (TTL) becomes 0, the terminal receiving it will no longer propagate. As a specific example, when the counting value (TTL) is 1, only terminal users who receive data packets directly from the host terminal 100 will be able to participate in the community, which is within a range of about 10 m (conference room, cafe space, etc. ). Logically, the larger the counting value TTL is, the wider the range of users can join into the community. In (a) to (c) of FIG. 7, assuming that a community is created by the first host terminal and room_id is assigned thereto, data packets having hwa_svc, room_id, and ttl values are propagated to neighboring terminals. A process in which a terminal receiving a packet propagates a data packet (a state in which the ttl value is reduced by 1) back to neighboring terminals of the receiving terminal is illustrated.

On the other hand, if the terminal has already received the data packet and propagated to another terminal, it may be implemented to ignore for a certain period of time even if the data packet containing the community ID is received, which allows the terminals to join the community in duplicate. It is to prevent and congestion.

8 is a diagram of a method of propagating a data packet for inducing community participation to neighboring terminals by utilizing a beacon infrastructure supported by the OS of the terminal.

Apple's iOS and Google's Android provide a beacon function at the OS level (iBeacon, Eddystone). At this time, a unique UUID can be assigned to each beacon service, and the UUID can identify the service according to the present invention. If can be carried in the beacon service packet of each OS company, this can also be used to effectively propagate the message for the host terminal 100 to induce community participation to neighboring terminals. More specifically, in this case, if a service application according to the present invention is installed in a terminal receiving a beacon signal including a data packet, it can be automatically executed in the background of the OS even if it is not in an execution state. The application executed in the background may output a Local Notification on the corresponding terminal to induce the user to execute the application, and thus refer to the community identifier included in the data packet to join the corresponding community. On the other hand, a terminal that has received the data packet in the background state may, in some cases, reduce the counting value (TTL) by 1 and then propagate to another terminal, or in some cases, the counting value only when the application is executed ( TTL) can be subtracted by 1 and then propagated to another terminal.

For reference, in the case of iBeacon, as shown in (a) of FIG. 8, 28 bits of 4 bytes of Major and Minor can be allocated to the community identifier (community ID, chat room ID), and 4 bits to be allocated for counting value (TTL). Can be. In the case of Eddystone, as shown in (b) of FIG. 8, 28 bits of 6 bytes of the Instance ID can be allocated to the community identifier, and 4 bits can be used for counting value (TTL).

9 is a view for explaining a process of joining so-called non-members who are not originally subscribed to the community service according to the present invention. Referring to the drawings, the user's terminal that is registered as a member of the community (the terminal at this time is interpreted as including a host terminal or a peripheral terminal) is connected to the non-member terminals around the Bluetooth mesh network. You can send a message to induce. At this time, the message may include a text, an image, a video, or a combination thereof, which briefly introduces the service according to the present invention, or may include a URL address for downloading an application. On the other hand, a terminal of a non-member who has received such a message can sign up (directly sign up) through direct access to the service server 200, or sign up (bypass sign up) using other SNS service login information. Can be. In the case of direct subscription, the non-member will provide his/her personal information and generate new login information, then download the application and use the service according to the present invention. In the case of bypass subscription, log in to another SNS service After entering the ID and password to be used and going through a series of consent procedures, you will be able to download the application and use the service.

Meanwhile, the service server 200 may perform various functions in addition to the function of newly creating a community or verifying proximity of neighboring terminals according to a community establishment request from the host terminal 100, which will be described through some examples below. Let's see.

10 illustrates a list of communities (chat rooms) displayed when an arbitrary user executes an application, and can be generally understood as a screen that is a starting point of using an application. As can be seen in FIG. 10, the user can check through the corresponding screen which communities are created and how many users are currently participating around the point where the user is currently located.

Referring to FIG. 10, reference numeral A denotes an example in which an arbitrary user executes an application at an arbitrary location, and on the corresponding screen, there are currently two communities (A; tumbler exchange, 10/20) You can see that it is being activated. On the other hand, at this time, the location of the user is a short-term verification information provided to the service server 200 on the basis of a host terminal (not shown in the figure) connected through a Bluetooth mesh network capable of short-range communication with the user. Through the service server 200 would have been able to recognize. In addition, the arbitrary location may be more accurately identified by using a GPS function among the functions of the terminal itself, for example, the current location of the user may be determined to be at the Starbucks Gangnam R point by referring to GPS information. . On the other hand, reference numeral B may be communities in which the user has participated in the past and has been maintained to this day. On the other hand, reference numeral C denotes a list of commercial communities for a previously created point of interest (POI), for example, a key place in a major area for any business entity for or through business. Pre-established community in famous restaurants, stores), and commercial communities are searched when the user launches the application in or around this place, so that the user can accurately identify and recognize the place, and the site operator In, you can get an effect that can be used as a marketing venue.

Referring back to FIG. 10, reference numeral D denotes a plurality of community-wide community lists managed by the service server 200 according to a predetermined criterion, for example, the order of the community with the largest number of current participants, for the longest time. It can be understood as an icon for requesting that the list be displayed according to predetermined criteria such as the order of the maintained community. With reference to reference numeral D will be described in more detail in the description of FIG.

Reference numeral E in FIG. 10 is an icon that a user can click to open a new community at the current location, and the terminal of the user who clicked it becomes the host terminal 100 to create a new community with neighboring terminals. It becomes possible. For reference, although not separately illustrated in FIG. 10, when a user opens a new community, some arbitrary keywords may be input as a hashtag, which may be used by future users or other users based on the keyword. This is to make it searchable. For example, if a user has set the keyword #Christmas as a hash tag when a new community is opened, the corresponding community can be searched by the search term above Christmas. On the other hand, from a general user's point of view, when entering the above search terms, all the community lists that have been set as the hashtag can be searched. Among them, by clicking on any one of the desired communities, the situation of the corresponding community can be monitored and looked into. have. For reference, as in such a case, the service server 200 may limit the authority to a user accessing the community based on an online search term without authentication through a Bluetooth mesh network, for example, for such a user directly Restrictions such as disallowing chat or disallowing file sharing are allowed.

On the other hand, reference numeral F in FIG. 10 is a community creation time point in which the user can know when the corresponding community has been created.

FIG. 11 shows an embodiment of a screen provided when the reference number D in FIG. 10 is previously clicked, and the service server 200 is displayed in the order of the number of participants in which the list of currently active communities is generated. will be. Preferably, a community list targeting the whole country may be displayed, not a community around the point where the user is currently located. That is, since the service server 200 can manage and monitor all active communities, it can provide the user with newly processed information based on the collected information and big data, for example, after counting the key search terms. By showing the order, it is possible to provide information on which local community is currently controversial in terms of search terms, that is, the public interest in real time by region. Providing this information can also help users easily grasp public opinion.

FIG. 12 shows how a user has received a friend request from any other user connected through a Bluetooth mesh network, and the service server 200 receives a friend request from a user of one terminal in this way. Can be delivered to the user. Such a friend request function can be made possible only among users who are close to each other in the offline area, and through this, it is possible to face-to-face directly and add a friend online.

FIG. 13 illustrates a screen in which a chat is performed in a community, and as a remarkable matter, icons that can be connected to several independent services at the bottom of the screen are displayed (drawing code G). That is, in the chat room, a function that can be connected to a separate service such as a business card, a transaction, a share/carpool, etc. in addition to the functions (album, camera) required for chatting may be implemented, and these separate services provide a service according to the present invention It may be provided by the same subject as the subject, but is not necessarily limited to this, and may be provided by other contractors.

Hereinafter, it will be described with respect to which case the community service according to the present invention can be actually used.

14 shows an example in which a business card service is provided together with a community service according to the present invention. According to this usage example, the user can directly input his/her business card information when signing up for a community service, and for example, store a scanned image through a smartphone camera. At this time, the image may be converted into a standard template and stored in a database. On the other hand, when the user joins a specific community while the business card information is prepared in advance, the user can share his/her business card information to all users in the corresponding community with a simple click, and conversely, other users also It can be implemented to easily share business card information. Through this business card service, each user will save the trouble of having to organize business cards in the future. On the other hand, if the user is a member who is not subscribed to the community service, or if the business card information is not input in advance, the user can receive business card information of other users by participating in the community through the Bluetooth mesh network. Information can be shared through input later so that each user can easily exchange information. In particular, when sending a message to induce a community join or a message to induce a subscription to a community service to a user who meets for the first time offline, the business card information is delivered together, so it is easy to start information exchange even when there is no connection information. Can be done. This is because the introduction process, which should be started by exchanging business cards, phone numbers, e-mails, etc. through greetings when first met, can be replaced by simple actions on the fly, which greatly improves convenience for users.

15 shows an example in which the community service according to the present invention is utilized in a public gathering place. For example, if the user runs the application at the campaign site and clicks the chat room creation icon, a community (chat room) is automatically created between nearby members, allowing easy exchange. In addition, these communities continue to connect unspecified numbers through the Bluetooth mesh network, allowing them to form huge communities online. On the other hand, these communities still remain after the meeting, allowing them to form and maintain a huge social network, and can also be used as a means to further strengthen the purpose of the meeting. This is not an online community created in common by the group that organized this meeting, but a community created by gathering people around them. This could be used not only in the electoral arena, but also in many political, social, cultural, educational, sports, entertainment, and public gatherings.

16 shows an example in which the community service according to the present invention is used in an offline club meeting. For example, a community service according to the present invention can be utilized even when a large number of members have a bicycle club meeting and have an instant meeting in the middle while enjoying bicycle driving. Although they are members of the same club, if they have a large number of members, in fact, most of them do not know personally, and the time to meet with each other can be very limited. You will also need to exchange information. In the case of such sports clubs, since several people meet in a very limited place at the same time in a short time, there may be very little opportunity for information exchange or conversation with each other. You can create a community (chat room) only by acting, and through this, you can maintain a continuous online community even after the club meeting is over.

So far, we looked at how to provide community service based on short-range verification through a Bluetooth network. On the other hand, the present invention is not limited to the specific embodiments and application examples described above, and various modifications are carried out by those skilled in the art to which the invention pertains without departing from the gist of the invention as claimed in the claims. As well as possible, these modifications should not be understood as being distinguished from the technical idea or prospect of the present invention.

100 host terminal
200 service servers
301~310 (Nearby) Terminal
400 databases
700 SNS server

Claims (11)

In the way the service server provides community services,
(a1) receiving a community establishment request from a host terminal; And
(b1) establishing a community including a user of the host terminal;
(c1) receiving a community participation request from a first terminal, wherein the community participation request includes a UUID for identifying the community service and a community identifier corresponding to the community;
(d1) joining the first terminal to the community;
Including,
The UUID and the community identifier included in the community participation request of the first terminal are characterized in that the host terminal is included in a data packet propagated through the Bluetooth network to peripheral terminals,
The community is accessible by the host terminal and the first terminal through a wide area network,
The data packet further includes a counting value (TTL), wherein the counting value (TTL) is for controlling a range of terminals to which the service server wants to participate in the community, and the terminal receiving the data packet is surrounding again. When the data packet is propagated to the terminals, the counting value (TTL) is reduced by 1,
How to provide community service
delete delete According to claim 1,
The service server requests community participation from the second terminal-The community participation request from the second terminal includes a UUID, a community identifier, and a counting value (TTL) included in a data packet propagated by the first terminal to neighboring terminals. ), wherein the counting value (TTL) is smaller than that received by the first terminal-receiving; And
The service server engaging the second terminal with the community;
Characterized in that it further comprises,
How to provide community services.
According to claim 1,
The service server receiving a community list request from a third terminal;
Providing, by the service server, a community list accessible by the third terminal;
Characterized in that it further comprises,
How to provide community services.
According to claim 1,
Receiving, by the service server, a member subscription request from a fourth terminal, wherein the member subscription request includes identification information of a user corresponding to the fourth terminal;
Inputting identification information of a user corresponding to the fourth terminal into a database by the service server;
Including more,
Membership request from the fourth terminal, characterized in that based on the invitation message received from the terminal of the user that has been previously entered as a member in the database as connected through the Bluetooth network with the fourth terminal,
How to provide community services.
According to claim 1,
The service server,
For each user, regardless of whether or not each user belongs to the current Bluetooth network, characterized in that each user provides a list of communities to which the user belongs in the past,
How to provide community services.
According to claim 1,
Receiving, by the service server, a community list request from the fifth terminal, wherein the community list request includes at least one search term;
The service server searching for communities in which the search term is included as a hash tag, the hash tag being set when each of the communities is created, and providing a list of the found communities;
Characterized in that it comprises,
How to provide community services.
delete delete delete

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