Location-based place determination using online social networks

• US 10,271,173 B1
• Filed: 05/04/2018
• Issued: 04/23/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 11/06/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Inventors: Kalis, Jan, Moore, Justin, Kodovsky, Jan, Adcock, Aaron Bryan, Rothermel, Danielle, Wang, Zhong
• Primary Examiner(s): Milord, Marceau
• Application Number:
  US15/971,352
• Time in Patent Office: 354 Days
• Field of Search: 4554561, 4554042, 4554563
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/52 for supporting social networking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/023 using mutual or relative location information between multiple location based services [LBS] targets or of distance thresholds
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/029 Location-based management or tracking services

Abstract

In one embodiment, a method includes sending information associated with multiple candidate place-entities to a user, receiving a selection of one candidate place-entity by the user, and updating the rating of the selected candidate place-entity on an online social network. In particular, the sending is based on calculated probabilities the candidate place-entities are associated with a particular geographic location.

Claims

1. A method comprising, by one or more computing devices:

sending, to a mobile-client system of a first user, information associated with a plurality of candidate place-entities based on calculated probabilities the candidate place-entities are associated with a particular geographic location, wherein the information associated with each place-entity comprises a rating of the candidate place-entity;

receiving, from the mobile-client system, a selection by the first user of one of the plurality of candidate place-entities; and

updating, by the one or more computing devices, the rating of the selected candidate place-entity on an online social network responsive to the selection by the first user of the selected candidate place-entity.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the particular geographic location is associated with a latitude-longitude pair determined based on one or more signals received by the mobile-client system.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the one or more signals comprise one or more of a Global Positioning System (GPS) signal, a Wi-Fi signal, a BLUETOOTH signal, a cellular signal, or a near field communication (NFC) signal.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein each of the one or more signals is associated with one or more of:

a signal strength;

or

an identifier of a device that sent the signal.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

accessing a social graph comprising a plurality of nodes and a plurality of edges connecting the nodes, each of the edges between two of the nodes representing a single degree of separation between them, wherein the first user corresponds to a first node in the social graph and the plurality of candidate place-entities correspond to a plurality of second nodes in the social graph, respectively.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein each of the calculated probabilities further represents a probability that the mobile-client system is located at a corresponding candidate place-entity.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein each of the calculated probabilities is further based on social-graph information associated with the corresponding candidate place-entity of the online social network, the candidate place-entity being within a threshold degree of separation from the first user.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein each of the calculated probabilities is further based on a location-probability distribution associated with the candidate place-entity.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein:

the location-probability distribution associated with the candidate place-entity comprises a point, the point corresponding to a geographic location of the candidate place-entity; and

the calculated probability is further based on a distance between the point and the particular geographic location.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein:

the location-probability distribution associated with the candidate place-entity comprises a power-law distribution centered at a point, the point corresponding to a geographic location of the candidate place-entity; and

the calculated probability is further based on a value of the power-law distribution at the particular geographic location.

11. The method of claim 8, wherein:

the location-probability distribution associated with the candidate place-entity comprises a kernel density estimate corresponding to a probability density associated with the candidate place-entity; and

the calculated probability is further based on a value of the kernel density estimate at the particular geographic location.

12. The method of claim 8, wherein:

the location-probability distribution associated with the candidate place-entity comprises a polygon representing a shape of the candidate place-entity; and

the calculated probability is further based on the particular geographic location with respect to the polygon.

13. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

recalculating, based on the received selection, the location-probability distribution associated with one or more of the plurality of candidate place-entities sent to the mobile-client system.

14. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a plurality of new information associated with a new place-entity, the new information sent by a respective plurality of other mobile-client systems associated with a respective plurality of other users of the online social network;

generating, in a social graph, a new social-graph node corresponding to the new place-entity, the social graph comprising a plurality of nodes and a plurality of edges connecting the nodes; and

creating an edge between the new social-graph node and each node associated with each of the plurality of other users.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the information sent to the mobile-client system comprises an advertisement associated with one of the candidate place-entities based on its respective calculated probability.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the information sent to the mobile-client system comprises a suggestion to the first user to perform an action associated with one of the one or more candidate place-entities.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the action comprises one or more of:

a check-in to the candidate place-entity;

or

a request for additional information of the candidate place-entity.

18. The method of claim 1, wherein each candidate place-entity represents a particular physical place associated with a particular feature.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the particular feature comprises one or more of:

an attribute associated with the candidate place-entity;

a type associated with the candidate place-entity;

a descriptor associated with the candidate place-entity;

or

a characteristic associated with the candidate place-entity.

20. One or more computer-readable non-transitory storage media embodying software that is operable when executed to:

send, to a mobile-client system of a first user, information associated with a plurality of candidate place-entities based on calculated probabilities the candidate place-entities are associated with a particular geographic location, wherein the information associated with each place-entity comprises a rating of the candidate place-entity;

receive, from the mobile-client system, a selection by the first user of one of the plurality of candidate place-entities; and

update, by the one or more computing devices, the rating of the selected candidate place-entity on an online social network responsive to the selection by the first user of the selected candidate place-entity.

21. A system comprising:

one or more processors; and

a memory coupled to the processors comprising instructions executable by the processors, the processors operable when executing the instructions to;

send, to a mobile-client system of a first user, information associated with a plurality of candidate place-entities based on calculated probabilities the candidate place-entities are associated with a particular geographic location, wherein the information associated with each place-entity comprises a rating of the candidate place-entity;

receive, from the mobile-client system, a selection by the first user of one of the plurality of candidate place-entities; and

update, by the one or more computing devices, the rating of the selected candidate place-entity on an online social network responsive to the selection by the first user of the selected candidate place-entity.