METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR COLLABORATIVE WEB BROWSING

A Web browser is augmented with collaborative features to support community aware browsing sessions. The augmentation provided includes a data mining plug-in for the browser to establish collaborative context based on Uniform Resource Locator (URL) meta data keywords, or mined topics, and a collaboration co-browser (explorer bar) which displays a collaboration space, called CollabSpace, corresponding to the document that is displayed in the main browser. With this augmented browser, a user can perform various collaboration functions from the collaboration explorer bar, including viewing the online status of members of the CollabSpace, communicate with members of the CollabSpace via electronic mail (e-mail), instant messaging or discussion threads, and register as a member of the CollabSpace. CollabSpaces can be established and associated with one or more Web documents, meta data keywords or topics.