Identifying paths using social networking data and application data

• US 10,176,263 B2
• Filed: 09/25/2015
• Issued: 01/08/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 09/25/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Haiby-Weiss, Neta, Pinchas, Amir, Lavy, Hanan, Weisfeld, Yitzhak Tzahi, Snir, Yair, Ronen, Royi
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen, Merilyn P
• Application Number:
  US14/865,087
• Publication Number:
  US 20170091332A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,201 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/50 of still image data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/53 Querying
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9024 Graphs; Linked lists G06F16/9027 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/00 Information and communication technology [ICT] specially adapted for implementation of business processes of specific business sectors, e.g. utilities or tourism healthcare informatics G16H
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking

Abstract

Data from social networking applications and other applications that can be used to communicate are combined for a user to generate a graph of the various relationships that the user has with other users in the social networking applications and other applications. In addition, the behaviors of each user with respect to communicating through the various social networking applications and other applications are monitored to generate task data that describes user preferences for communicating using each social networking application or other application for different tasks. At a later time, when a user is looking to connect with another user for an indicated task such as networking, the graph can be used to recommend paths to other users in the various social networking applications and other applications, and the generated task data can be used to rank the recommended paths based on the indicated task.

Claims

1. A system for combining data from multiple social networking applications and productivity applications and for responding to queries using the combined data comprising:

at least one computing device adapted to generate a query for a user; and

a graph engine adapted to;

receive first social networking data from a first social networking application, wherein the first social networking data comprises a first plurality of contacts associated with the user and a first communication type of a plurality of communication types;

receive second social networking data from a second social networking application, wherein the second social networking data comprises a second plurality of contacts associated with the user and a second communication type of the plurality of communication types;

receive application data from a productivity application, wherein the application data comprises a third plurality of contacts associated with the user and a third communication type of the plurality of communication types;

generate a graph from the first social networking data, the second social networking data, and the application data, wherein the graph comprises a plurality of nodes and each node represents one of a contact of the first plurality of contacts, a contact from the second plurality of contacts, a contact from the third plurality of contacts, or the user, and wherein the graph further comprises a plurality of edges, each edge connects two nodes of the plurality of nodes, and each edge represents one of the first communication type, the second communication type, or the third communication type;

receive the query from the user;

identify at least one node of the graph that is responsive to the query;

identify one or more paths in the graph that connect the identified at least one node and a node representing the user, wherein each of the identified one or more paths comprises a sequence of nodes and edges from the graph; and

provide the identified one or more paths to the at least one computing device in response to the query.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the query identifies a task, and wherein the graph engine is further adapted to:

receive task data associated with the user from the at least one computing device, wherein the task data identifies a plurality of tasks, each identified task is associated with a contact from the first plurality of contacts, the second plurality of contacts, or the third plurality of contacts, each identified task is associated with an indication of whether or not the identified task was successful, and each identified task is associated with one of the first communication type, the second communication type, or the third communication type;

rank each of the identified one or more paths based on the contacts represented by the nodes of the sequence of nodes comprising each path, the contacts associated with the tasks of the plurality of tasks, the first communication type, the second communication type, or the third communication type associated with the edges in each path, and the indication associated with each task of the plurality of tasks; and

provide the identified one or more paths according to the ranking.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the task identified by the query comprises one or more of a networking task, an employment task, a social task, or an education task.

4. The system of claim 2, wherein the at least one computing device includes a monitoring application, and wherein the task data is received from the monitoring application.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the productivity application comprises one or more of a word processing application, an email application, a smart phone application, an instant messaging application, and a VoIP application.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the graph engine is further adapted to receive privacy information associated with the first social networking application and the second social networking application for the user, and identify the at least one node of the graph that is responsive to the query based on the graph and the privacy information.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the query further comprises one or more terms and each node of the graph is associated with a profile from either the first social networking application or the second social networking application, and wherein the graph engine adapted to identify at least one node of the graph that is responsive to the query comprises the graph engine adapted to identify at least one node of the graph with an associated profile that matches some or all of the one or more terms of the query.

8. A method for combining data from multiple social networking applications and productivity applications and for responding to queries using the combined data comprising:

receiving first social networking data from a first social networking application by a computing device, wherein the first social networking data comprises a first plurality of contacts associated with a user and a first communication type of a plurality of communication types;

receiving second social networking data from a second social networking application by the computing device, wherein the second social networking data comprises a second plurality of contacts associated with the user and a second communication type of the plurality of communication types;

generating a graph from the first social networking data and the second social networking data by the computing device, wherein the graph comprises a plurality of nodes and each node represents one of a contact of the first plurality of contacts, a contact from the second plurality of contacts, or the user, and wherein the graph further comprises a plurality of edges, each edge connects two nodes of the plurality of nodes, and each edge represents either the first communication type or the second communication type;

receiving a query from the user by the computing device;

identifying at least one node of the graph that is responsive to the query by the computing device;

identifying one or more paths in the graph that connect the identified at least one node and a node representing the user by the computing device, wherein each identified one or more path comprises a sequence of nodes and edges from the graph; and

providing the identified one or more paths in response to the query by the computing device.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the query identifies a task and further comprising:

receiving task data associated with the user, wherein the task data identifies a plurality of tasks, each identified task is associated with a contact from either the first or the second plurality of contacts, each identified task is associated with an indication of whether or not the identified task was successful, and each identified task is associated with either the first or the second communication types;

ranking each of the identified one or more paths based on the contacts represented by the nodes of the sequence of nodes comprising each path, the contacts associated with the tasks of the plurality of tasks, the first type of communication or second type of communication associated with the edges in each path, and the indication associated with each task of the plurality of tasks; and

providing the identified one or more paths according to the ranking.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the task identified by the query comprises one or more of a networking task, an employment task, a social task, or an education task.

11. The method of claim 8, further comprising receiving application data from a productivity application, wherein the application data comprises a third plurality of contacts associated with the user and a third communication type of the plurality of communication types.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising generating the graph from the first social networking data, the second social networking data, and the application data.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein the productivity application comprises one or more of a word processing application, an email application, a smart phone application, an instant messaging application, and a VoIP application.

14. The method of claim 8, wherein the first plurality of contacts and the second plurality of contacts include at least one contact in common.

15. The method of claim 8, further comprising receiving privacy information associated with the first social networking application and the second social networking application for the user, and identifying the at least one node of the graph that is responsive to the query based on the graph and the privacy information.

16. The method of claim 8, wherein the query further comprises one or more terms and each node of the graph is associated with a profile from either the first social networking application or the second social networking application, and

wherein identifying at least one node of the graph that is responsive to the query comprises identifying at least one node of the graph with an associated profile that matches some or all of the one or more terms of the query.

17. A method for combining data from multiple social networking application and productivity applications and for responding to queries using the combined data comprising:

receiving a graph of a first social networking application and a second social networking application for a user by a computing device, wherein the first social networking application is associated with a first communication type of a plurality of communication types and the second social networking application is associated with a second communication type of the plurality of communication types, wherein the graph comprises a plurality of nodes and each node represents one of a contact of a first plurality of contacts of the first social networking application, a contact of a second plurality of contacts of the second social networking application, or the user, and wherein the graph further comprises a plurality of edges, each edge connects two nodes of the plurality of nodes, and each edge represents either the first communication type or the second communication type;

monitoring activity of the user on the computing device to generate task data, wherein the task data identifies a plurality of tasks, each identified task is associated with a contact from either the first or the second plurality of contacts, each identified task is associated with an indication of whether or not the task was successful, and each identified task is associated with either the first or the second communication types;

receiving a query from the user by the computing device, wherein the query identifies a task;

identifying at least one node of the graph that is responsive to the query by the computing device;

identifying one or more paths in the graph that connect the identified at least one node and a node representing the user by the computing device, wherein each of the identified one or more paths comprises a sequence of nodes and edges from the graph;

ranking each of the identified one or more paths based on the contacts represented by the nodes of the sequence of nodes comprising each path, the contacts associated with the tasks of the plurality of tasks, the first type of communication or second type of communication associated with the edges in each path, and the indication associated with each task of the plurality of tasks; and

providing the identified one or more paths according to the ranking in response to the query by the computing device.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the task identified by the query comprises one or more of a networking task, an employment task, a social task, or an education task.

19. The method of claim 17, wherein the first plurality of contacts and the second plurality of contacts include at least one contact in common.

20. The method of claim 17, wherein the query further comprises one or more terms and each node of the graph is associated with a profile from either the first social networking application or the second social networking application, and

wherein identifying at least one node of the graph that is responsive to the query comprises identifying at least one node of the graph with an associated profile that matches some or all of the one or more terms of the query.