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The present invention concerns a computer system, and a related process, for management of a social network of users and for management of messages sent by said users, having public or hidden identity. More in particular, the computer system can manage an internet website, directly reachable using a personal computer connected to the internet, otherwise by using a mobile phone, or a smartphone, connected to a telecommunication network.

The concept, from which the present invention arises, comes from the need to put in touch a large number of persons, in example the users that are registered to a website of a social network, according to a different mode in respect to the users of the existing social networks, like in example Facebook ®, Hi5®, MySpace®, etc. In fact, nowadays the mechanism of introducing users each other is based on the well-known mechanism of "friendship request", that is: a user seeks, by using a search engine belonging to the same website, a person that he/she would like to contact, checking that he/she is a registered user. This person could be, in example, a person already met in the past by the same user in the real life, and maybe someone with whom he/she has lost the contact. Once this person has been found, he/she sends a "friendship request' and the addressee receives the request and decides in order to accept or deny the request. In case that the addresse accepts the request, a connection is established between these two users of the website, and they can communicate each other and see their respective personal data, so that they can definitely enter in touch on the website and possibly in the real life. This mode of interaction presents some significant drawbacks. First, in case that the "friendship request' is not accepted and/or not welcome by the addressee, the sender is exposed to uncomfortable feelings and can be embarassed, because he/she asked to be in touch with someone who decide to reject or ignore the request. Furthermore, from the point of view of people receving many "friendship requests", often and frequently, from strangers and/or stalkers, the risk to feel uncomfortable and embarassed is even higher.

The present invention permits to overcome all the above drawbacks, proposing a technical solution that allows a sender of a "friendship request' to be kept anonymous, or invisible, until the addressee of the request has sent also a similar or identical request to the sender; at that time the system unblocks the messages and sends them to both the respective users, that can enter in touch according to their common and reciprocal intentions.

Indeed, the invention has been thought in order to solve situations where a couple of persons have been in a relationship in the past, and they have been separated and/or gone to a final breakdown. In case there could a wish from both sides to solve any misunderstanding, after a certain time, but nobody makes the first move because afraid to receive a rejection or a deny from the other side, a system like this of the present invention could help because permits the registered users of a website to send a communication to a message box, that works in a similar way to a black box. The message box saves all the received requests of contact (for example both the messages sent by a couple) with indications of the sender's name and the addreessee's name. The messages are kept blocked into the message box and they are invisible from the outside, until it is verified that the same requests has been sent by both sides. At that point, both the messages are unblocked and automatically sent to the proper users, with a mail of notification to the sender. In order to check the genuinity of the requests, and avoid an improper use of the system, the messages could include some additional information related to the past experience of the couple, like in example the day of the anniversary, the duration of the relationship, the birthday of the ex partner, etc.). In this way, the management system of the message box can compare the data in both the requests from both sides, and decide to unblock the respective messages only if the contained information results to be consistent.

Therefore, the disclosed technical solution permits to be used in many circumstances, like in example:

1 ) shy friends that would like to be closer each other without being exposed to a risk of rejection; 2) couples that had an argument in the past and want to restart the relationship without to admit that they were wrong; 3) friends or relatives that have been lost the contact each other, for any reason, and now want to restart again without to explain the reason; 4) ex partners of a relationship that, after broken up, want to return together again; 5) separated and/or divorced couples that want to return together again without giving any explanation; 6) couples, or friends, or relatives, that have been hurt and want to run away without to face the situation.

Therefore, it is specific subject of the present invention a computer system, and related process, suitable for management of a social network of users and for management of messages sent by said users, having public or hidden identity, characterized in that comprising:

a virtual container, the so called message box, to which each user sends a respective message that is addressed to another user, said message is related to a request of contact;

means comparing, matching and routing of said messages, each of them being sent by a user, each message related to a request of contact,

so that, in case two users A and B have sent both a request of contact, user A to user B, and user B to user A, the system verifies some control information and forwards automatically message of user A to user B, and message of user B to user A; otherwise the system saves messages of A and B in memory, until the time in which the above condition of reciprocity is vefified.

The present invention will now be described for illustrative and non-limiting purposes, according to its preferred embodiments, with particular reference to figures of the enclosed drawings, wherein:

figure 1 is a schematic view of a management system of a message box, suitable to receive contact requests from users of an internet website, where said system saves and unblocks the requests only when a reciprocity condition by users is obtained;

figure 2 is a schematic view of a management system of a message box, according to a different embodiment, suitable to receive contact requests from users of a mobile telephone network, where said system saves and unblocks the requests only when a reciprocity condition by users is obtained.

It is here underlined that only few of the many conceivable embodiments of the present invention are described, which are just some specific non-limiting examples, having the possibility to describe many other embodiments based on the disclosed technical solutions of the present invention.

Figure 1 shows a basic architecture of a computer system 100 managing a message box, suitable to receive contact requests from users of an internet website. A user accesses to the website 105 by internet, and the first time follows a registration process. The registration could be as a visible user, following the current registration process of the social networks, or as a hidden user, or anonymous or confidential. The visible user submits a set of personal data, like in example name, family name, day and place of birth, residence address, e-mail address, and one or more photos in a digital format. The invisible user must submit in any case a set of specific data that should be used by the system only as a set of verification data, to be used to assess the genuinity of the incoming requests, in order to avoid an improper use of the system.

A user 102a, after the registration process, sends a message 103a of contact request to the message box 101 , addressed to a user 102b. Both the users can belong to the class of the visible users and/or of the invisible users. Once the message 103a arrives to the message box 101 , it is saved and blocked as in a black box, and it is unreachable or visible from the outside. When the user 102b, after the registration process, sends a message 103b of contact request to the message box 101 , addressed to the user 102a, an automatic process unblocks the previous message 103a, and sends simultaneously the contact request 103a to the user 102b, and the contact request 103b to the user 102a.

In such a way, the system 100 allows a personal contact of users only, and specifically only, if both of them have expressed independentely their own decision to establish a contact. The verification of the genuinity of the requests can be achieved by asking both the users 102a and 102b to complete the respective messages 103a and 103b with additional information, like in example filling forms 106a, 107a, 108a, and 106b, 107b, 108b, with data that only the real persons could know, like in example the birthday of the ex partner, etc.

The system, before to unblock the messages 103a and 103b and exchange the related communications to the proper addressees, checks that the submitted data 106a, 107a, 108a, and 106b, 107b, 108b, is similar or exacly the same. In a positive case, the respective users 102a and 102b are put in touch and the system 100 has achieved perfectly the objective of putting users 102a and 102b in touch only under a condition of contact requests expressed by both of them. If user 102b does not send a similar contact request 103b to user 102a, he would never receive any message, and in such a situation user 102a could be saved from the shame and/or embarrassment of seeing the contact request to be rejected or ignored.

Figure 2 shows a basic architecture of a computer system managing a message box 101 , according to a different embodiment, suitable to receive contact requests from users of a mobile telephone network. A user accesses to the network by using a mobile phone, or a smartphone, and the first time follows a registration process. A user 1 10a, after the registration process, sends a message 1 12a of contact request to the message box 101 , addressed to a user 1 10c.

Once the message 1 12a arrives to the message box 101 , it is saved and blocked as in a black box, and it is unreachable or visible from the outside. When the user 1 10c, after the registration process, sends a message 1 12c of contact request to the message box 101 , addressed to the user 1 10a, an automatic process unblocks the previous message 1 12a, and sends simultaneously the contact request 1 12a to the user 1 10c, and the contact request 1 12c to the user 1 10a.

In such a way, the system starts a personal contact of users only, and specifically only, if both of them have expressed independentely their own decision to establish a contact. A similar situation is that represented by a user 1 10b that, after the registration process, sends a message 1 12b of contact request to the message box 101 , addressed to the user 1 10c or to the user 1 10d.

Once the message 1 12b arrives to the message box 101 , it is saved and blocked as in a black box, and it is unreachable or visible from the outside. When the user 1 10d, after the registration process, sends a message 1 12d of contact request to the message box 101 , addressed to the user 1 10b, an automatic process unblocks the previous message 1 12b, and sends simultaneously the contact request 1 12b to the user 1 10d, and the contact request 1 12d to the user 1 10b.

It is remarked that user 1 10b has sent a contact request also addressed to user 1 10c, but user 1 10c did not send any message to user 1 10b, therefore users 1 10b and 1 10c are not put in touch, and the system would not send any communication from the message box 101 .

In this alternative embodiment, the invention applies the same principle in a different situation, that is when the persons meet each other in the real life, and use their mobile phone or smartphone to enter in touch with others being physically there, in the same place, like in example in a coffee shop, a restaurant, a pub, a gym or a department store.

Therefore, all the above examples show that the present invention achieves all the expected goals. In fact, it allows a sender of a "friendship request" to be kept anonymous, or invisible, until the addressee of the request has also sent a similar or identical request to the sender; at that time the system unblocks the messages and sends them to both the respective users, that can enter in touch according to their common and reciprocal intentions.

The present invention has been described for illustrative but not limitative purposes, according to its preferred embodiments, but it is clear that modifications and/or changes can be introduced by those skilled in the art without departing from the relevant scope, as defined in the enclosed claims.