Apparatus, systems, and methods for analyzing characteristics of entities of interest

• US 10,331,631 B2
• Filed: 03/14/2014
• Issued: 06/25/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 03/15/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Foursquare Labs, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Factual Incorporated (Foursquare Labs, Inc.)
• Inventors: Michels, Bill, Bell, Tyler, Chklovski, Tim, Lagang, Manuel, Shimanovsky, Boris
• Primary Examiner(s): Channavajjala, Srirama
• Application Number:
  US14/214,309
• Publication Number:
  US 20140279674A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,929 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 13/0265 the criterion being a learning criterion
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/21 Design, administration or maintenance of databases
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/23 Updating
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/235 Update request formulation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2379 Updates performed during online database operations; commit processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2386 Bulk updating operations data conversion details G06F16/258
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24564 Applying rules; Deductive queries
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2477 Temporal data queries
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/282 Hierarchical databases, e.g. IMS, LDAP data stores or Lotus Notes
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/285 Clustering or classification
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/29 Geographical information databases
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/313 Selection or weighting of terms for indexing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/337 Profile generation, learning or modification
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/35 Clustering; Classification
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 20/00 Machine learning
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 5/022 Knowledge engineering; Knowledge acquisition
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/101 Collaborative creation, e.g. joint development of products or services
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0261 based on user location
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0282 Rating or review of business operators or products
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 : Social networking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/14 : Network analysis or design
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 16/00 : Network planning, e.g. coverage or traffic planning tools; Network deployment, e.g. resource partitioning or cells structures
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 16/24 : Cell structures
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 16/30 : Special cell shapes, e.g. doughnuts or ring cells
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 16/32 : Hierarchical cell structures
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 : Services making use of location information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/021 : Services related to particular areas, e.g. point of interest [POI] services, venue services or geofences
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/025 : using location based information parameters
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/029 : Location-based management or tracking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/50 : Service provisioning or reconfiguring
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 64/00 : Locating users or terminals or network equipment for network management purposes, e.g. mobility management
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 64/003 : locating network equipment
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/38 : triggered by timers
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/08 : Mobility data transfer
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/16 : selectively restricting mobility data tracking
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/18 : Processing of user or subscriber data, e.g. subscribed services, user preferences or user profiles; Transfer of user or subscriber data
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/00 : Devices specially adapted for wireless communication networks, e.g. terminals, base stations or access point devices
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/02 : Terminal devices

Abstract

The present disclosure relates to apparatus, systems, and methods for analyzing characteristics of entities of interest. In particular, the present disclosure provides a mechanism for analyzing information about entities of interest and for rating or scoring the entities of interest based on the analyzed information. The rating or the score of an entity of interest can sometimes be referred to as a placerank value of an entity of interest.

Claims

1. An information analytics system for analyzing information related to entities of interest and establishing rankings, the information analytics system comprising:

a processor configured to acquire computer readable instructions stored in one or more memory devices and execute the instructions to;

process data relating to an entity of interest, the data comprising;

external data received from external data sources;

internal data comprising data previously received from external data sources and maintained on an internal database; and

server traffic data comprising one or more of a quantity, timing, frequency, and change in frequency, of server requests related to the entity of interest received from server logs;

determine an association between the external data and the internal data by matching one or more attributes of the external data to the internal data;

generate from the processed data a plurality of features comprising summary attributes associated with a particular aspect of the entity of interest, wherein the generation comprises processor instructions to;

format the external data, internal data, and server traffic data into structured data having a predetermined data structure,

determine a subset of the structured data associated with the particular aspect of the entity of interest, and

generate the summary attributes of the particular aspect of the entity of interest based on the subset of the structured data;

generate data comprising a computation of a score for the entity of interest using the plurality of features, the computation comprising a weighted combination of the plurality of features, wherein the score is to indicate an importance of the entity of interest;

process data comprising an information request received from a client computing device including a query, wherein the information request is to request information on one or more entities associated with the query;

identify the at least one entity associated with the query based on at least one score associated with the at least one entity;

order the at least one entity based on the at least one score using a sorting mechanism; and

initiate transmission of data comprising the at least one entity to the client computing device.

2. The information analytics system of claim 1, wherein the processor is to further execute the one or more computer instructions to modify the order of the at least one entity by altering one or more scores of the at least one entity based on one or more contextual conditions associated with the information request.

3. The information analytics system of claim 2, wherein the one or more contextual conditions associated with the information request comprise at least one of:

a time at which the information request is received, a geographic location from which the information request is received, an application from which the information request is received, a profile of a user from which the information request is received, or a type of the computing device that sent the information request.

4. The information analytics system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of features comprises an aggregate count of data items in an internal dataset relating to the entity of interest.

5. The information analytics system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of features comprises an information request feature to indicate a number of information requests received by the apparatus for information relating to the entity of interest.

6. The information analytics system of claim 5, wherein an information request is associated with one of a plurality of information request types, and the information request feature is also indicative of a total number of information requests received by the apparatus and associated with each of the plurality of information request types.

7. The information analytics system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of features is normalized to a common scale.

8. The information analytics system of claim 1, wherein the processor is to further execute the one or more computer instructions to determine weights for the weighted combination based on importance labels indicating an importance of each of the plurality of features.

9. The information analytics system of claim 1, wherein the processor is to further execute the one or more computer instructions to compute the score for the entity of interest by computing exponentiations of the plurality of features.

10. A method for analyzing information related to entities of interest and establishing rankings, the method comprising:

processing data relating to an entity of interest, the data comprising;

external data received from external data sources;

internal data comprising data previously received from external data sources and maintained on an internal database; and

server traffic data comprising one or more of a quantity, timing, frequency, and change in frequency, of server requests related to the entity of interest received from server logs;

determining an association between the external data and the internal data by matching one or more attributes of the external data to the internal data;

generating from the processed data a plurality of features comprising summary attributes associated with a particular aspect of the entity of interest, generating the plurality of features comprising;

formatting the external data, internal data, and server traffic data into structured data having a predetermined data structure;

determining a subset of the structured data associated with the particular aspect of the entity of interest; and

generating the summary attributes of the particular aspect of the entity of interest based on the subset of the structured data;

generating data comprising a computation of a score for the entity of interest using the plurality of features, the computation comprising a weighted combination of the plurality of features, wherein the score is to indicate an importance of the entity of interest;

receiving, from a client computing device, data comprising an information request including a query requesting information on one or more entities associated with the query;

identifying at least one entity associated with the query based on at least one score associated with the at least one entity;

ordering the at least one entity based on the at least one score using a sorting mechanism; and

initiating transmission of data comprising information on the at least one entity to the computing device.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising modifying the order of the at least one entity by altering one or more scores of the at least one entity based on one or more contextual conditions associated with the information request.

12. A non-transitory computer readable medium having computer instructions executable by one or more processors to:

process data relating to an entity of interest, data comprising;

external data received from external data sources;

internal data comprising data previously received from external data sources and maintained on an internal database; and

server traffic data comprising one or more of a quantity, timing, frequency, and change in frequency, of server requests related to the entity of interest received from server logs;

determine an association between the external data and the internal data by matching one or more attributes of the external data to the internal data;

generate from the processed data a plurality of features comprising summary attributes associated with a particular aspect of the entity of interest, wherein the generation comprises processor instructions to;

format the external data, internal data, and server traffic data into structured data having a predetermined data structure,

determine a subset of the structured data associated with the particular aspect of the entity of interest, and

generate the summary attributes of the particular aspect of the entity of interest based on the subset of the structured data;

generate data comprising a computation of a score for the entity of interest using the plurality of features, the computation comprising a weighted combination of the plurality of features, wherein the score is to indicate an importance of the entity of interest;

process data comprising an information request received from a client computing device including a query, wherein the information request is to request information on one or more entities associated with the query;

identify the at least one entity associated with the query based on at least one score associated with the at least one entity;

order the at least one entity based on the at least one score using a sorting mechanism; and

initiate transmission of data comprising the at least one entity to the client computing device.