This document proposes an automatic status update system that allows users to share urgent status updates within their social networks. The system would use existing messaging platforms and allow users to define which friends' updates take priority over their own status and can be shared more widely. When a high priority update is received from an approved friend, the system would automatically update the user's status and share it with their friends based on predefined sharing rules. This helps spread important information from citizen journalists and others more widely than they could on their own.

1. Automatic Status Update
Sachin Gaur

2. Idea
 Making the status updates flow from friends
and networks to reach maximum impact in
the network.

3. Problem
 People are limited to communicate within
their social reaches. Not all have been able
to get visiblity in the network world as
celebrities or top bloggers.
 The rising breed of citizen journalists, which
have been reporting events much actively
then traditional media especially in war
zones and other inaccessible places.

4. Solution
 Using an already messaging platform like
twitter, SMS etc.
 Users define a priority list for friends.
− Indicating whose status message gets a
priority for replacing their own status message.
These rules are also stored by the server.
 Users define a priority level when they set
their own messages, so that people in their
own network can get updates if it is urgent.

5. Detailed solution
 Client side.
− An application for user to update their status
messages [something like Twitter]
− User indicates the priority level say 1-10.
− Client sends this message to server [where it
can be seen by everybody like twitter page of
user.]
− When client probes the server for new
messages from other users, it checks the
priority level and reset its own status if the
priority indicated is high and the user has
allowed that friend to override his own status.

6. Detailed Solution
 Server Side.
− When server receives the message with a
higher priority from a friend of user and the rule
allows the message to be overriden. Server
changes all the status messages of friends of
users in the network who has given permission
to the user to do so.

7. Notes
 It is possible to implement a server only
solution which might be handy in case of
low end mobiles only based on SMS.
− Users sends two SMS telling server allowed list of friends, first list, people
whose SMS gets a priority. Second list who gets the incoming forwarded
SMS.
− The first list indicating that a priority SMS coming from those users just
get forwarded to people in the second list.
− So the users in the network form a chain reaction. [becoming a
forwarding pipe, mostly exponential]
− So when a user sends a SMS indicating priority/urgent news to a friend.
The SMS gets forwarded to friends of friends and so on .....automatically.
 This would be a very cheap solution for developing country citizen journalist to
broadcast their news.

8. Diagram.
Network
Citizen
Journalist /
hobbyist
SMS
blogger