WO2004081829A1

WO2004081829A1 - Method for establishing contact between people by means of at least one communication system

Info

Publication number: WO2004081829A1
Application number: PCT/DE2004/000468
Authority: WO
Inventors: Stephan Blicker; Norbert Esseling
Original assignee: T-Mobile Deutschland Gmbh
Priority date: 2003-03-10
Filing date: 2004-03-10
Publication date: 2004-09-23
Also published as: DE10310743B4; DE10310743A1

Abstract

The invention relates to a method for establishing contact between people by means of a communication system, said people having access to said communication system by means of a communication terminal. According to the inventive method, each subscribing person is registered in a unique manner in a network element of the communication system, the registration including the transmission of an individual subscriber profile of the person to the network element. Said subscriber profile is stored in the form of a data record in a database of the network element. The data records of the subscribing person are checked in the network element for conformity in the respective subscriber profile. The data records are then divided into different groups as a result of said check, according to conforming characteristics. The data record of each person is associated with at least one group. A contact message is sent from the network element to the communication terminal inside said groups, said contact message containing information about the other members of the group.

Description

Method for establishing contact between people using at least one communication system

The invention relates to a method for establishing contact between people using at least one communication system and a communication system for carrying out the method.

Young people in particular need to establish contacts with other young people with the same interests or needs or to get to know a partner. As a rule, such contacts are made in restaurants, discotheques or at public events. In this way, however, it is not easy to get to know people who share the same interests and preferences, which is the basis for joint ventures.

It is also known to make contacts via so-called contact exchanges on the Internet. However, a fixed internet connection is required.

The object of the invention is to provide a method for establishing contact between people with the aid of at least one communication system, which allows contacts to be made in a simple manner to people with the same interests and preferences.

This object is achieved by the features of claim 1. A communication system for performing the method is specified in claim 18. The method requires each participant to register once with a network element of the communication system, the registration including the transmission of an individual subscriber profile of the person to the network element. This subscriber profile is stored in the network element in the form of a data record. This is followed by a check of the data records of the participating persons in the network element for matches in the subscriber profile and a division of the data records into different groups depending on matching features. Each person's record is assigned to at least one group. This group includes people who share one or more areas of interest or preferences. The network element now transmits a contact message to the communication terminal of one or more people in a group, the contact message containing information about other members of the group.

The invention thus provides a platform for the automatic assignment and placement of people with the same interest profiles, taking into account preferably mobile communication features.

The advantage of the invention is that almost anywhere, provided there is access to a communication terminal and preferably a mobile communication network, contacts can be made with people with the same areas of interest and preferences, with information about these people first being obtained and the user then deciding for himself whether he wants to get in touch with these people or not.

Preferred refinements and developments of the invention are specified in the dependent claims.

In a preferred embodiment of the invention, the transmission of the contact message is made dependent on an additional criterion transmitted by the subscriber to the network element. This means that the participant can specify further criteria in addition to the data of his existing participant profile what conditions he would like to receive information about possible contact persons. These criteria can be, for example, day of the week, time, availability of a picture of the other contact persons or any other characteristics.

As already mentioned, the transmission of the contact message from the network element to the end device of the person takes place automatically or preferably only at the request of the respective person.

The participant profile includes, among other things, information about the identity of the participating person and at least one personal criterion. This criterion can be made up of one or more personal characteristics of the participant. These characteristics can be age, gender, nationality, appearance, etc. Furthermore, the criterion can include one or more interests of the participant, such as travel, cycling, sports, work, cars, cinema, etc. Another criterion can be the current one Location or location or a limited area around this location, e.g. Within 10 km of your own location. This makes it possible to restrict a search for contacts to a specific regional environment.

Another criterion can be an offer or a demand for a certain thing or activity, such as an offer for a company, a party, a joint cinema visit or a product that is to be sold privately. According to the same criteria, a demand for activities or products can also be transmitted to the network element, which is then compared with available offers in the network element depending on the specified criteria.

The individual criteria can be classified by the participating person according to preferences and priorities, the network element taking these priorities into account when selecting potential contact persons. According to the invention, the contact message can be transmitted as a short message or email or as a voice message. This depends on the technical possibilities of the communication terminal used.

On the basis of the received contact message, the participating person can now set up a communication connection with one or more persons named in the contact message if desired. This communication connection can be a conventional telephone connection, an online connection, a video connection, etc.

Depending on which types of communication are preferred, a mobile communication network or a fixed network or a combination of several different communication networks can be used as the communication network.

A preferred embodiment of the invention is explained in more detail below with reference to drawing figures. Further features, advantages and possible uses of the invention result from the drawings and their description.

FIG. 1 schematically shows a communication system for carrying out the invention and the method for registering the people participating in the method.

FIG. 2 shows the procedure for exchanging information between potential contact persons.

FIG. 3 describes various options for communication connections between the contact persons.

FIG. 4 shows an example of the supply and demand for a specific activity among potential contact persons. FIG. 5 shows a possible information flow in the method according to FIG. 4.

FIG. 6 shows a possible structuring of the database on the basis of criteria of the participants.

In the following example, we consider four people who want to participate or want to participate in the method for establishing contacts. Let's call the people Kathy, Jenny, Bob and Steve. Kathy, Jenny, Bob and Steve are participants in a mobile communication network 1 and have corresponding mobile radio terminals 2, 3, 4 and 5 with which they can communicate via the mobile communication network. Kathy, Jenny, Bob and Steve have their personal interests and hobbies, where they have common as well as different interests. The four intend to participate in the contact mediation service. This service comprises a platform set up in a network element 6 of the mobile communication network 1, which records, combines and evaluates various personal information (subscriber profiles) of the participants and can make this information available to other participating persons.

In order to enable the network element 6 to transmit information about the interests and preferences of the participants to others, the users must first register with the network element. As shown in FIG. 1, Jenny, for example, registers with network element 6 via her mobile radio terminal 2. For this purpose, she enters her personal subscriber profile in her mobile radio terminal 2, which contains information about her identity, her interests and further personal characteristics. In this example, this registration information contains the name, the age, the interests, the desired maximum number of desired contact information and the location area within which contact information should be transmitted by other people. Bob, Steve and Kathy transmit similar information to the network element via their communication terminals 3, 4, 5. The network element 6 now combines the information of all participating persons and groups this information or the data records on the basis of the respective participant profiles, in particular certain characteristics of the participant profiles. For this purpose, the network element comprises a database 22, in which all data records of the subscriber profiles are stored. This is shown by way of example in FIG. 6. The data records are now divided into appropriate groups based on various characteristics such as gender: female, male, interests: travel, computers, sports, cars, work or a preferred age such as 10 to 20 years, 20 to 30 years etc. , wherein each participant record can also be divided into several different groups if it fulfills several of these characteristics or criteria. The individual data fields of the database 23 can be linked to one another.

The individual groups contain data records of people whose interests or criteria matched in certain points. If the network element 6 establishes matches between the participants, a contact message 11, 12, 13, 14 is transmitted to all persons whose interests and preferences match in certain points, as shown in FIG. This message can be transmitted automatically, for example, by means of a short message service or only at the request of the respective subscriber. The messages can also be sent as a function of additional filter criteria, which the participating person transmits directly to the network element. In addition to a predefined set of different criteria, users can also create their own rules and criteria that are taken into account when evaluating the possible contact partners.

In the example according to FIG. 2, three users have the common interest “travel”, namely Jenny, Bob and Kathy. This correspondence causes the network element 6 to send contact messages 11, 12 to Jenny and Bob. These contact messages 11, 12 contain the names and contact information of people with matching criteria, which people can be contacted afterwards. In her filter criteria, Jenny also has a picture of the possible ones Contact partner requested so that an image of the bob appears on their mobile terminal 2.

Kathy has specified in her subscriber profile that the "profession" has a higher priority than other interests, so Steve is listed first in the contact message she received, with Bob and Jenny also appearing in Kathy's contact message 13 because they share a relationship with Kathy Share interest in "travel".

In the contact message 11, 12, 13, 14, information is transmitted as to how the corresponding possible contact persons can be contacted. In the present example, for example, an email address of the possible contact persons is given. Of course, telephone number or address can also be given. This email address can be used to contact people directly, e.g. by simply selecting the appropriate name from the display of the end device. A communication connection of any kind is then established between the two people.

In the example according to FIG. 3, Jenny has decided to contact Bob by setting up a video telephone session 15. This request is processed by the network element 6 while the video images and voice data are exchanged between the terminals 2, 3 via the mobile communication network. Jenny has requested good video quality, which will also be provided if supported by the network. Kathy wants to ask Steve some questions about the job. Since Steve is in a meeting, he cannot contact her directly over the phone, so she establishes a chat session 16 and sends a chat message 17 to Steve, which enables Steve to respond to her using a message 18, as soon as time permits.

All of these communication services are fully supported and controlled by network element 6. In particular in the case of communication connections between one person and several other people, the network element 6 ensures that the Information is transmitted according to the requirements and technical possibilities of the user. The network element 6 can also store the messages if a communication partner is currently not available.

The present invention also includes a so-called event service. This is a service for arranging events and events between people who offer such an event and people who are looking for such an event. This arrangement is based on the interests of the people and their location area. The network element 6 offers a direct means of communication between these people in order to make an appointment for such an event. This communication can have a multimedia character, such as, for example, voice communication, text communication or video communication.

As already described above, the interest groups are selected based on filter functions and participant profiles, such as age, interests, gender, preferences, location and other characteristics.

In the example according to FIG. 4, Jenny offers the organization of a party, in particular for people who are interested in “traveling”. For this purpose, Jenny uses this offer in the data record 7 of her subscriber profile and sends this criterion to the network element 6. Jenny can use this criteria specify that are not shown in Figure 4, such as:

- only people no older than 30 years should be informed;

- only people who prefer music from the 80s should be informed;

- only people who are within a radius of 30 kilometers should be informed;

- only people who want to contribute drinks or food to the party should be informed;

- and only people who should reveal a picture of themselves are informed. Steve, Kathy and Bob are bored and decide to send a request for the "Party" event to network element 6. This is done by modifying their subscriber profiles 8, 9 and 10 by entering another search criteria: "Party". You provide some pictures of yourself and possibly other personal information.

In network element 6 it is found that the subscriber profiles of Steve, Kathy and Bob contain a search query “Party” and match the offer “Party” offered by Jenny. According to FIG. 5, Jenny receives a message 19 about potential participants for her party. At the same time, Bob, Steve and Kathy are informed about Jenny's planned party using contact messages 20, 21, 22. In these contact messages, further information about the event such as location, time, special conditions can be transmitted. Jenny, Bob, Steve and Kathy can now connect with each other and discuss the details of the party.

List of reference numbers

1 mobile communication ne

2 terminal (Jenny)

3 terminal (bob)

4 terminal (Steve)

5 terminal (Kathy)

6 network element

7 participant profile (Jenny)

8 participant profile (bob)

9 participant profile (Steve)

10 participant profile (Kathy)

11 contact message

12 contact message

13 contact message

14 contact message

15 Video connection

16 Set up chat session

17 Chat message

18 chat message

9 Contact message

20 Contact message

21 Contact message

22 Contact message

23 Database

Claims

claims

1. A method for establishing contact between people using at least one communication system, the people having access to the communication system (1) via a communication terminal (2-5), the method comprising the steps:

Each participant registers once with a network element (6) of the communication system (1), the registration including the transmission of an individual participant profile (7-10) of the person to the network element (6);

Saving the participant profile in the form of a data record in the

Network element;

Check the records of the participants in the network element

Matches in the participant profile and division of the data records into

Dependence on matching features in different groups, the data record of each person being assigned to at least one group;

Transmitting a contact message (11 -14) from the network element to the

Communication terminal of one or more people in a group, the contact message containing information about other members of the group.

2. The method according to claim 1, characterized in that the transmission of the contact message is made dependent on an additional criterion transmitted by the person to the network element.

3. The method according to any one of claims 1 or 2, characterized in that the transmission of the contact message is initiated automatically or at the request of the respective person.

4. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 3, characterized in that the participant profile comprises information about the identity of the participating person and at least one personal criterion.

5. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 4, characterized in that one or more personal characteristics of the person are used as a criterion.

6. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 5, characterized in that one or more interests of the person are used as a criterion.

7. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 6, characterized in that the location or area around the location of the person is used as a criterion.

8. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 7, characterized in that an offer for a certain thing or activity is used as a criterion.

9. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 8, characterized in that a demand for a certain thing or activity is used as a criterion.

10. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 9, characterized in that the criteria are classified by the participating person according to priorities and processed in the network element according to these priorities.

11. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 10, characterized in that the contact message is transmitted as a short message or e-mail.

12. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 11, characterized in that the contact message is transmitted as a voice message.

13. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 12, characterized in that on the basis of the contact message a communication link is established between the person receiving the message and one or more persons named in the contact message.

14. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 13, characterized in that a mobile communication network is used as the communication network.

15. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 14, characterized in that a fixed network is used as the communication network.

16. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 15, characterized in that the input and output of information from / for the person is carried out by means of the communication terminal.

17. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 16, characterized in that information about the location of the people is recorded by the communication system and taken into account in the grouping,

18. Communication system for carrying out the method according to claims 1-17, which comprises:

Devices (1) for establishing a communication link between the

Terminals (2-5) of the people using the communication system; a network element (6) with devices (23) for recording, storing and

Processing information and participant profiles from participating

People;

Facilities for recording or determining the location of the participants; and

Facilities for dialogue-oriented communication and

Information transmission between the network element and the participating

People.