Social discovery feed for facilitating social exploration in social networking environments

• US 10,091,323 B2
• Filed: 03/15/2013
• Issued: 10/02/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 05/17/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ifwe Inc.
• Original Assignee: The Meet Group, Inc. (ParshipMeet Holding GmbH)
• Inventors: Schleier-Smith, Johann, Tseng, Greg, Kim, Jared
• Primary Examiner(s): Williams, Clayton R
• Assistant Examiner(s): Pena-Santana, Tania M
• Application Number:
  US13/833,274
• Publication Number:
  US 20130311560A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,027 Days
• Field of Search: 709204
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0631 Item recommendations
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles

Abstract

Systems and methods of generating a common social timeline to facilitate social discovery in a social networking environment are disclosed. In one aspect, embodiments of the present disclosure include a method, which may be implemented on a system, of receiving data items associated with users of the social network, identifying a first set of data items associated with a first user, and processing the first set of data items to select a first set of characteristics. The method further comprises comparing the first set of characteristics with other sets of characteristics describing other users to select a subset of the other users having one or more characteristics that are the same or similar to one or more of the first set of characteristics.

Claims

1. A method of facilitating social exploration in a social network, the method comprising:

receiving, at a computer system, a plurality of data items associated with a plurality of users of the social network, wherein a first data item of the plurality of data items includes;

a first descriptive data, wherein the first descriptive data includes geographic locations, interests and history associated with a corresponding user of the plurality users,

a first occurrence time that includes a timestamp of an occurrence of the first descriptive data in the social network, and

a first time-indicator associated with the first descriptive data, the first time indicator indicating a time interval during which the first descriptive data is valid, the first time indicator and the first occurrence time being distinct attributes of the first data item, and wherein the receiving further includes;

determining whether a second descriptive data of a second data item of the plurality of data items is associated with a second time indicator, the second time indicator indicating a time interval during which the second descriptive data is valid,

responsive to a determination that the second descriptive data is not associated with the second time indicator, associating a timestamp of a second occurrence time of the second descriptive data in the social network with the second time indicator;

comparing, at the computer system, a first set of data items describing a first user of the plurality of users and other sets of data items describing other users of the plurality of users to identify;

a first collection of data items having common descriptive data whose time indicators overlap, wherein the common descriptive data includes descriptive data of other users that have a commonality with descriptive data of the first set of data items describing the first user, and

a second collection of data items having the common descriptive data whose time indicators do not overlap, wherein the other users are not social connections of the first user;

selecting, at the computer system, a subset of the other users based on the first collection of data items and the second collection of data items, wherein the subset of the other users have one or more characteristics that are similar to one or more characteristics of the first user, wherein the first collection of data items, which includes data items that have the common descriptive data with overlapping time indicators, is assigned a higher weight than the second collection of data items having the common descriptive data that do not have overlapping time indicators; and

generating, at the computer system, a social discovery feed including the subset of the other users, wherein the social discovery feed is dynamically updated to include recent social interaction associated with the subset of the other users on the social network.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

sending, from the computer system, the social discovery feed to a client device for electronic presentation to the first user.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein one or more of the recent social interaction comprises a modification to profile information associated with the subset of other users of the social network.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the first descriptive data includes key words or phrases related to popular or trending topics.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the first descriptive data concerning the history associated with the corresponding user of the plurality of users describes the on-line behavior of the corresponding user of the social network.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the social discovery feed includes only recent social interaction associated with the subset of other users that has been received by the computer system within a specified period of time.

7. A system for facilitating social exploration in a social network, the system comprising:

an interaction module configured to monitor a plurality of data items associated with a plurality of users of the social network, wherein a first data item of the plurality of data items includes;

a first descriptive data, wherein the first descriptive data includes geographic locations, interests and history associated with a corresponding user of the plurality users,

a first occurrence time that includes a timestamp of the occurrence of the first descriptive data in the social network, and

a first time indicator associated with the first descriptive data, the first time indicator indicating a time interval during which the first descriptive data is valid, the first time indicator and the first occurrence time being distinct attributes of the first data item, and wherein the interaction module is configured to;

determine whether a second descriptive data of a second data item of the plurality of data items is associated with a second time indicator, the second time indicator indicating a time interval during which the second descriptive data is valid,

responsive to a determination that the second descriptive data is not associated with the second time indicator, associate a time stamp of a second occurrence time of the second descriptive data in the social network with the second time indicator;

a comparison module configured to compare a first set of data items describing a first user of the plurality of users and other sets of data items describing other users of the plurality of users to identify

a first collection of data items having common descriptive data whose time indicators overlap, wherein the common descriptive data includes descriptive data of other users that have a commonality with descriptive data of the first user, and

a second collection of data items having the common descriptive data whose time indicators do not overlap, wherein the other users are not social connections of the first user;

a social feed module configured to;

select a subset of the other users based on the first collection of data items and the second collection of data items, wherein the subset of the other users have one or more characteristics that are similar to one or more characteristics of the first user, wherein the first collection of data items, which includes data items that have the common descriptive data with overlapping time indicators, is assigned a higher weight than the second collection of data items having the common descriptive data that do not have overlapping time indicators, and

generate a social discovery feed including the subset of the other users, wherein the social discovery feed is dynamically updated to include recent social interaction associated with the subset of the other users on the social network.

8. The system of claim 7, further comprising:

an interface configured to send the social discovery feed to a client device for electronic presentation to the first user.

9. The system of claim 7, further comprising:

a profile management module configured to manage profile information associated with one or more of the users of the social network, wherein one or more of the recent social interaction comprises a modification to profile information associated with the subset of other users of the social network.

10. The system of claim 7, wherein the first descriptive data includes key words or phrases related to popular or trending topics.

11. The system of claim 7, wherein the first descriptive data concerning the history associated with the corresponding user of the plurality of users describes the on-line behavior of the corresponding user.

12. The system of claim 7, wherein the social discovery feed includes only recent social interaction associated with the subset of other users that has been received within a specified period of time period, the specified period of time configurable by the first user.

13. A machine-readable storage medium having stored thereon a set of non-transitory instructions which when executed, causes a processor to perform a method of facilitating social exploration in a social network, the method comprising:

receiving, at a computer system, a plurality of data items associated with a plurality of users of the social network, wherein a first data item of the plurality of data items includes;

a first descriptive data, wherein the first descriptive data includes geographic locations, interests and history associated with a corresponding user of the plurality users,

a first occurrence time that indicates a timestamp of the occurrence of the first descriptive data in the social network, and

a first time indicator associated with the first descriptive data, the first time indicator indicating a time interval during which the first descriptive data is valid, and wherein the receiving includes;

determining whether a second descriptive data of a second data item of the plurality of data items is associated with a second time indicator, the second time indicator indicating a time interval during which the second descriptive data is valid,

responsive to a determination that the second descriptive data is not associated with the second time indicator, associating a time stamp of a second occurrence time of the second descriptive data in the social network with the second time indicator;

comparing, at the computer system, a first set of data items describing a first user of the plurality of users and other sets of data items describing other users of the plurality of users to identify;

a first collection of data items having common descriptive data whose time indicators overlap, wherein the common descriptive data includes descriptive data of other users that have a commonality with descriptive data of the first set of data items describing the first user, and

a second collection of data items having the common descriptive data whose time indicators do not overlap, wherein the other users are not social connections of the first user;

selecting, at the computer system, a subset of the other users based on the first collection of data items and the second collection of data items, wherein the subset of the other users have one or more characteristics that are similar to one or more characteristics of the first user, wherein the first collection of data items, which includes data items that have the common descriptive data with overlapping time indicators, is assigned a higher weight than the second collection of data items having the common descriptive data that do not have overlapping time indicators; and

generating, at the computer system, a social discovery feed including the subset of the other users, wherein the social discovery feed is dynamically updated to include recent social interaction associated with the subset of the other users on the social network.

14. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein the method further comprising:

sending, from the computer system, the social discovery feed to a client device for electronic presentation to the first user.