Automatic generation of native E-commerce applications for mobile devices

• US 10,007,490 B1
• Filed: 12/14/2016
• Issued: 06/26/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 12/14/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Inventors: Duque de Souza, Artur, Chencarek, Renato
• Primary Examiner(s): Khatri, Anil
• Application Number:
  US15/379,427
• Publication Number:
  US 20180165067A1
• Time in Patent Office: 559 Days
• Field of Search: 717101-108, 717116, 717120-121
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/30 Creation or generation of source code
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/36 Software reuse
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]

Abstract

An online system generates customized mobile applications for e-commerce organizations. The online system obtains information about an organization from images and text displayed on a webpage of the organization. The online system additionally obtains updated lists of products or services from the organization via a data feed. An application that can run natively on a mobile device is automatically generated by incorporating the information about the organization as well as the data about product lists into one of a plurality of templates for e-commerce applications. The organization can provide users with the generated mobile application, e.g., as a way to view merchandise natively on a mobile device.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method, the method comprising:

receiving, at an online system, a request from a third party organization to have the online system generate a native mobile application for the organization for use by users to access information about products sold by the organization;

extracting, by the online system, information about the organization from a business page of the organization hosted by the online system, the extracting comprising parsing hypertext markup language (HTML) that makes up the business page and performing text analysis on the parsed HTML of the business page;

receiving, by the online system from the organization, a data feed comprising product information describing products sold by the organization;

generating, by the online system, source code for the native mobile application that is customized using the extracted information about the organization and the received product information,

the native mobile application designed to sell products listed on the data feed, the source code including calls to an application programming interface (API) of the online system, the generating of the source code comprising;

receiving a selection from the organization of a preferred template, and

generating the source code for a native mobile application using the preferred template, the product information of the data feed, and the information about the organization extracted from the business page;

providing, by the online system to the organization, the generated source code for the native mobile application for the organization to build the native mobile application; and

receiving a call to the API of the online system from the native mobile application.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein extracting information about the organization comprises analyzing an image on the page of the organization to determine a plurality of most frequently occurring colors in the image.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the data feed information comprises one or more of:

availability of a product, a brand associated with the product, information about coloring or appearance of the product, information about a condition of the product, a name of the product, a manufacturer identification number of the product, and a price of the product.

4. A computer-implemented method, the method comprising:

receiving, at an online system, a request from a third party organization to generate a native mobile application for interaction with the organization;

extracting, by the online system, page information about the organization from a business page of the organization, the extracting comprising parsing hypertext markup language (HTML) that makes up the business page and performing text analysis on the parsed HTML of the business page;

receiving, by the online system from the organization, data feed information comprising information on products or services of the organization;

generating, by the online system, source code for the native mobile application that is customized using the extracted page information and feed information,

the native mobile application presenting the products or services of the data feed, the source code including calls to an application programming interface (API) of the online system, the generating of the source code comprising;

receiving a selection from the organization of a preferred template, and

generating the source code for a native mobile application using the preferred template, the data feed information, and the page information about the organization extracted from the business page;

providing, by the online system to the organization, the generated source code for the native mobile application.

5. The computer implemented method of claim 4, wherein extracting information about the organization comprises analyzing an image on the page of the organization to determine a plurality of most frequently occurring colors in the image.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 4, wherein extracting information about the organization comprises determining a name of the organization using text analysis of a webpage of the organization.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 4, wherein the source code for the native mobile application is generated using a declarative programming language.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 4, wherein the data feed information comprises one or more of:

availability of a product, a brand associated with the product, information about coloring or appearance of the product, information about a condition of the product, a name of the product, a manufacturer identification number of the product, and a price of the product.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 4, wherein the API of the online system comprises a function that calls dynamic advertising capabilities of the online system.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 9, wherein the online system collects statistics about calls made with the function and stores the statistics.

11. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions executable by a computer processor, the instructions comprising:

instructions for receiving, at an online system, a request from a third party organization to generate a native mobile application for interaction with the organization;

instructions for extracting, by the online system, page information about the organization from a business page of the organization, the extracting comprising parsing hypertext markup language (HTML) that makes up the business page and performing text analysis on the parsed HTML of the business page;

instructions for receiving, by the online system from the organization, data feed information comprising information on products or services of the organization;

instructions for generating, by the online system, source code for the native mobile application that is customized using the extracted page information and feed information,

the native mobile application presenting the products or services of the data feed, the source code including calls to an application programming interface (API) of the online system, the instructions for generating of the source code comprising;

receiving a selection from the organization of a preferred template, and

generating the source code for a native mobile application using the preferred template, the data feed information, and the page information about the organization extracted from the business page;

instructions for providing, by the online system to the organization, the generated source code for the native mobile application.

12. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 11, wherein extracting information about the organization comprises analyzing an image on the page of the organization to determine a plurality of colors most frequently occurring in the image.

13. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 11, wherein extracting information about the organization comprises determining a name of the organization name using text analysis of a web page of the organization.

14. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 11, wherein the source code for the native mobile application is generated using a declarative programming language.

15. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 11, wherein the data feed information comprises one or more of:

availability of a product, a brand associated with the product, information about coloring or appearance of the product, information about a condition of the product, a name of the product, a manufacturer identification number of the product, and a price of the product.

16. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 11, wherein the API of the online system comprises a function that calls dynamic advertising capabilities of the online system.

17. The computer-implemented method of claim 11, wherein the online system collects statistics about calls made with the API and stores the statistics.