Venue-centric social network

Abstract

A venue may be registered with a venue-centric social networking service. The venue may be associated with a physical location where subscribers may congregate. Subscribers may join the venue by visiting the physical location, receiving an invitation, receiving a password (or other credential), or the like. The venue-centric social networking service may track which subscribers are at which venues and provide a “Who's here” listing to other subscribers. Subscribers at the same venue may be introduced to one another through the venue-centric social networking service by, inter alia, browsing the profiles of the subscribers in the “Who's here” list and/or initiating contact with other subscribers at the venue through the venue-centric social networking service. Subscriber visibility and contact preferences may be determined by subscriber privacy settings and/or privacy settings of the venues.

We claim: 
     
         1 . A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising instructions configured to cause a computing device to perform a method for providing a venue-centric social network, the method comprising:
 registering one or more venues in the venue-centric social network, each venue associated with a respective physical location;   receiving messages from subscribers of the venue-centric social network, each message indicating that a respective subscriber is currently visiting a physical location of a first venue registered with the venue-centric social network; and   using the received messages to provide a list of venue-centric social network subscribers that are currently visiting the physical location of the first venue.   
     
     
         2 . The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of  claim 1 , wherein the first venue is sponsored by an organization. 
     
     
         3 . The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of  claim 1 , wherein the first venue is sponsored by an organization, and wherein registering the first venue comprises verifying that a subscriber attempting to register the first venue is authorized to act on behalf of the sponsoring organization. 
     
     
         4 . The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of  claim 1 , wherein the first venue is un-sponsored, and wherein the physical location associated with the first venue is publically accessible. 
     
     
         5 . The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of  claim 1 , wherein access to the list of subscribers currently visiting the physical location of the first venue is based on privacy settings of the first venue. 
     
     
         6 . The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of  claim 5 , wherein the privacy settings of the first venue control access to the list of subscribers by one of:
 restricting access to subscribers that are members of the first venue; and   restricting access to subscribers that are members of the first venue and that are currently visiting the physical location of the first venue.   
     
     
         7 . The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of  claim 1 , the method further comprising:
 registering one or more subscribers of the venue-centric social network, wherein subscriber registration comprises generating a subscriber profile for each subscriber; and   displaying subscriber profile information in the list of subscribers that are currently visiting the physical location of the first venue.   
     
     
         8 . The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of  claim 7 , wherein the subscriber profiles comprise privacy settings, the method further comprising:
 determining whether a first subscriber currently visiting the physical location of the first venue is to be included in the list based on privacy settings of the first subscriber.   
     
     
         9 . The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of  claim 8 , wherein the list of subscribers currently visiting the physical location of the first venue is generated for a second subscriber, and wherein determining whether the first subscriber is to be included in the list for the second subscriber is based on the privacy settings of the first subscriber and a relationship between the first subscriber and the second subscriber in the venue-centric social network. 
     
     
         10 . The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of  claim 8 , wherein the list of subscribers currently visiting the physical location of the first venue is generated for a second subscriber, and wherein determining whether the first subscriber is to be included in the list for the second subscriber is based on the privacy settings of the first subscriber and whether the second subscriber is currently visiting the physical location of the first venue. 
     
     
         11 . The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of  claim 1 , the method further comprising providing a virtual venue interface for each of the registered virtual venues, each virtual venue interface comprising a list of subscribers currently visiting a corresponding physical location of the registered venue. 
     
     
         12 . The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of  claim 11 , the method further comprising granting membership in the first venue to a subscriber when the subscriber visits the physical location of the first venue. 
     
     
         13 . The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of  claim 11 , the method further comprising restricting access to the virtual venue interface of the first venue to subscribers that are currently visiting the physical location of the first venue. 
     
     
         14 . the non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of  claim 1 , the method further comprising:
 receiving a broadcast message from a first subscriber currently visiting the physical location of the first venue; and   forwarding to the broadcast message to subscribers of the venue-centric social network in accordance with privacy settings, the forwarding comprising one of:
 forwarding the broadcast message to subscribers that are currently visiting the physical location of the first venue; 
 forwarding the broadcast message to a pre-determined subset of subscribers specified by privacy settings of the first subscriber; and 
 forwarding the broadcast message to subscribers in the pre-determined subscriber subset that are currently visiting the physical location of the first venue. 
   
     
     
         15 . The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of  claim 1 , the method further comprising:
 receiving a message from a first subscriber directed to a second subscriber, the first and the second subscribers both currently visiting the physical location of the first venue; and   forwarding the message to the second subscriber.   
     
     
         16 . The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of  claim 1 , wherein the list of subscribers currently visiting the physical location of the first venue includes an input to initiate contact between subscribers, the method further comprising:
 receiving a request from a first subscriber to initiate contact with a second subscriber, wherein both the first and the second subscribers are members of the first venue and are currently visiting the physical location of the first venue; and   initiating contact when permitted by privacy settings of the second subscriber.   
     
     
         17 . The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of  claim 16 , wherein initiating contact comprises forwarding a message from the first subscriber to the second subscriber. 
     
     
         18 . The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of  claim 16 , wherein initiating contact comprises providing the first subscriber with contact information of the second subscriber. 
     
     
         19 . A method for providing venue-centric social networking services to a plurality of subscribers, the method comprising:
 using a computing device to perform the steps of,
 registering a venue associated with a physical location in a venue-centric social network; 
 receiving messages from subscribers of the venue-centric social network, the messages indicating that the subscribers are currently visiting the physical location of the registered venue; 
 identifying subscribers that are currently visiting the physical location of the registered venue using the messages; and 
 providing a virtual venue interface representing the registered venue on a network, the virtual venue interface comprising a list of the subscribers identified as currently visiting the physical location of the registered venue. 
   
     
     
         20 . The method of  claim 19 , further comprising evaluating privacy settings of the subscribers identified as currently visiting the physical location of the registered venue, wherein subscribers are included in the list of subscribers when permitted by the respective subscriber privacy settings. 
     
     
         21 . The method of  claim 19 , wherein the list of subscribers is accessible only to subscribers identified as currently visiting the physical location of the registered venue. 
     
     
         22 . The method of  claim 19 , wherein the list of subscribers currently visiting the physical location of the registered venue is generated for a first subscriber, the method further comprising:
 evaluating privacy settings of the subscribers identified as currently visiting the physical location of the registered venue; and   including the identified subscribers in the list of subscribers when permitted by privacy settings of the respective identified subscriber.   
     
     
         23 . The method of  claim 19 , further comprising:
 receiving a message from a subscriber that includes location coordinates; and   determining whether the subscriber is currently visiting the physical location of the registered venue using the location coordinates.   
     
     
         24 . The method of  claim 19 , wherein the list of subscribers currently visiting the physical location of the registered venue includes a input to initiate subscriber contact, the method further comprising:
 receiving a request from a first subscriber to initiate contact with a second subscriber, the first and the second subscribers both currently visiting the physical location of the registered venue; and   initiating contact between the first subscriber and the second subscriber in response to the request.   
     
     
         25 . The method of  claim 24 , wherein initiating contact comprises one of forwarding a message received from the first subscriber to the second subscriber using a network, and providing contact information of the second subscriber to the first subscriber using the network. 
     
     
         26 . The method of  claim 24 , the method further comprising accessing privacy settings of the second subscriber, wherein contact is initiated between the first subscriber and the second subscriber when permitted by the privacy settings. 
     
     
         27 . A system for providing a venue-centric social networking service, comprising:
 a computing device configured to register a plurality of venues in a venue-centric social network, each venue being associated with a respective physical location;   the computing device receiving messages from subscribers of the venue-centric social network, each message indicating that a respective subscriber is currently visiting a physical location of a registered venue;   the computing device identifying subscribers currently visiting the physical locations of the registered venues using the messages and providing a plurality of virtual venue interfaces on a network, each virtual venue interface comprising a list of subscribers currently visiting the physical location of the corresponding registered venue; and   the computing device providing for initiating contact between a first subscriber and a second subscriber currently visiting the physical location of a first one of the registered venues through the virtual venue interface of the first venue.