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Predicting locations and movements of users based on historical locations for users of an online system

  • US 10,078,852 B2
  • Filed: 12/30/2014
  • Issued: 09/18/2018
  • Est. Priority Date: 12/30/2014
  • Status: Active Grant
First Claim
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1. A method comprising:

  • receiving location information from a plurality of user devices used by users of an online system, the location information identifying a plurality of different locations at which each of the user devices was located;

    extracting from the location information a plurality of chains of locations visited by each of plurality of users of the online system, each chain of locations including two or more locations visited by a respective user, wherein extracting the plurality of chains of locations comprises;

    identifying two or more locations wherein (1) the user was located at both of the two or more locations within a first maximum threshold length of time, and (2) the user was located at each of the two or more locations for at least a second minimum threshold amount of time, and extracting the two or more locations as a chain of locations visited by the user;

    generating one or More location pairs using the chains of locations, each location pair including a first location and a second location, wherein generating the one or more location pairs comprises;

    determining an association between two location in the chains of locations based on a number of occurrences of the first location and the second location in common chains of the extracted plurality of chains of locations, and pairing the two locations responsive to the association being greater than a third threshold;

    determining that a viewing user previously visited one of the locations in a location pair; and

    responsive to the determination, selecting a content item for the other location in the location for presentation to the user.

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