Scoring social media content

• US 10,614,074 B1
• Filed: 06/27/2014
• Issued: 04/07/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 07/02/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Tomorrowish, LLC
• Original Assignee: Tomorrowish, LLC
• Inventors: Darling, Richard Michael, Dibble, Todd, Amzallag, Tristan Dix
• Primary Examiner(s): Harper, Eliyah S.
• Application Number:
  US14/318,294
• Time in Patent Office: 2,111 Days
• Field of Search: 707750
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24578 using ranking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/313 Selection or weighting of terms for indexing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques

Abstract

Among other things, a method includes accessing stored social media content, the social media content comprising elements of social media, the social media content associated with data indicating timing information associated with respective elements of social media content, at least some of the timing information expressed as an offset relative to a time associated with a media program associated with the social media content; and for at least one element of social media, determining, for at least some of terms of the element of social media, the frequency of the terms across elements of social media associated with the media program, each term comprising a portion of the element of social media, determining an importance value for at least some of the terms of the element of social media, the importance value indicating the importance of the respective term, based on the frequency of terms determined for the element of social media, and based on the received importance values, determining a frequency value for the element of social media, determining one or more weights for the element of social media, and based on the frequency value and the weights, determining a score for the element of social media.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

accessing, from one or more memories on one or more computers and by a harvester module implemented on one or more computers that selects a subset of elements of social media that are each associated with a media program and have a higher priority than other messages associated with the media program for transmission to a device to cause synchronized presentation of the subset of elements of social media with the media program, social media content i) that comprises elements of social media each of which include one or more terms that comprise a portion of the respective element of social media, ii) associated with the media program at least a portion of which has been presented, at least one of the terms for each of the elements of social media identified as relevant to the media program and iii) associated with data indicating timing information that represents a time for presentation of a respective element of social media in connection with a presentation of the media program; and

during a presentation of the media program and by the harvester module;

for at least one of the elements of social media;

determining, for at least some of the terms of the element of social media, a frequency of the respective term across multiple elements of social media associated with the media program in the one or more memories, wherein at least one of the terms is identified as relevant to the media program,

determining an importance value for at least some of the terms of the element of social media, the importance value indicating the importance of the respective term to the media program,

based on the determined frequency and importance values for the at least some of the terms of the element of social media, determining a frequency value for the element of social media,

determining one or more weights for the element of social media, and

determining a score for the element of social media by combining the frequency value and the weights;

determining, using the social media content in the one or more memories, a plurality of elements of social media that each have timing information that indicate a time for presentation of the respective element of social media during a current timeframe of the presentation of the media program;

selecting, for presentation on a display and from the plurality of elements of social media, one or more elements of social media that each have a respective score that is greater than other scores for other elements of social media that are not selected; and

in response to selecting the one or more elements of social media that each have a respective score that is greater than other scores for other elements of social media and based on the respective timing information, transmitting, using a network, the one or more elements of social media to the device to cause presentation of the one or more elements of social media on a display during the presentation of the media program.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein determining the frequency comprises determining, for at least some of the terms of the element of social media, the frequency according to a total number of elements of social media associated with the media program and a number of elements of social media that contain the term.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein determining the frequency comprises determining, for at least some of the terms of the element of social media, the frequency of the terms according to the formula log 2(M/T), wherein log 2 is the logarithm base 2 function, M is a total number of elements of social media associated with the media program, and T is a number of elements of social media that contain the term.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising separating, for the at least one of the elements of social media, the element of social media into words, wherein the terms comprise the words.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein determining the frequency comprises determining, for at least some of the terms of the element of social media, a frequency of at least one of the words based on a database that stores words and their associated frequencies.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein determining the score for the element of social media by combining the frequency value and the weights comprises determining the score at least in part by multiplying the frequency value by one or more of the weights.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising increasing the score based on the presence of one or more keywords in the element of social media, the keywords stored in a keyword database.

8. The method of claim 1 further comprising calculating a score of zero for the element of social media based on a weight determined by the presence of banned words in the element of social media.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein determining the one or more weights for the element of social media comprises:

determining if the element of social media is associated with at least a threshold number of search terms, and

assigning, to the element of social media, a weight that increases the score for the element of social media relative to other elements of social media that are not associated with at least the threshold number of search terms.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein determining the one or more weights for the element of social media comprises determining at least one weight based on a number of reposts of the element of social media.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein determining the one or more weights for the element of social media comprises determining at least one weight based on a number of affirmations of the element of social media.

12. The method of claim 1 wherein determining the one or more weights for the element of social media comprises determining at least one weight based on a popularity of a user associated with the element of social media.

13. The method of claim 1 wherein determining the one or more weights for the element of social media comprises determining at least one weight based on a URL contained in the element of social media.

14. The method of claim 1 further comprising normalizing the determined scores for the elements of social media.

15. The method of claim 14 wherein normalizing the scores comprises converting the scores to a range from 0 to 1.

16. The method of claim 1 further comprising

determining, based on the respective scores of the elements of social media, at least some of the elements of social media to include in a stream of social media, and

displaying, on a user interface presented on the display, at least some of the determined elements of social media concurrently with the media program.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the at least some of the elements of social media are determined based on an identity of a user associated with the stream of social media.

20. The method of claim 1, wherein transmitting, during the presentation of the media program and using the network, the one or more elements of social media to the device comprises transmitting, during a broadcast of the media program and using the network, the one or more elements of social media to the device to cause presentation of the one or more elements of social media on the display during the broadcast of the media program.

21. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the plurality of elements of social media comprises determining two or more elements of social media that each have timing information that indicate a time for presentation of the respective element of social media during a current timeframe of the presentation of the media program, at least one of the two or more elements of social media from a first presentation of the media program and at least one of the two or more elements of social media from a second presentation of the media program that is a different presentation than the first presentation of the media program.

22. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the plurality of elements of social media comprises determining, from all of the elements of social media associated with the media program, a proper subset of elements of social media that each have timing information that indicate a time for presentation of the respective element of social media during the current timeframe of the presentation of the media program.

18. A computer readable storage device storing a computer program product comprising machine readable instructions that, when executed, cause a harvester module implemented on one or more computers to carry out operations comprising:

accessing, from one or more memories on one or more computers and by the harvester module that selects a subset of elements of social media that are each associated with a media program and have a higher priority than other messages associated with the media program for transmission to a device to cause synchronized presentation of the subset of elements of social media with the media program, social media content i) that comprises elements of social media each of which include one or more terms that comprise a portion of the respective element of social media, ii) associated with the media program at least a portion of which has been presented, at least one of the terms for each of the elements of social media identified as relevant to the media program and iii) associated with data indicating timing information associated with that represents a time for presentation of a respective element of social media in connection with a presentation of the media program; and

during a presentation of the media program and by the harvester module;

for at least one of the elements of social media;

determining, for at least some of the terms of the element of social media, a frequency of the respective term across multiple elements of social media associated with the media program in the one or more memories, wherein at least one of the terms is identified as relevant to the media program,

determining an importance value for at least some of the terms of the element of social media, the importance value indicating the importance of the respective term to the media program,

based on the determined frequency and importance values for the at least some of the terms of the element of social media, determining a frequency value for the element of social media,

determining one or more weights for the element of social media, and

determining a score for the element of social media by combining the frequency value and the weights;

determining, using the social media content in the one or more memories, a plurality of elements of social media that each have timing information that indicate a time for presentation of the respective element of social media during a current timeframe of the presentation of the media program;

selecting, for presentation on a display and from the plurality of elements of social media, one or more elements of social media that each have a respective score that is greater than other scores for other elements of social media that are not selected; and

in response to selecting the one or more elements of social media that each have a respective score that is greater than other scores for other elements of social media and based on the respective timing information, transmitting, using a network, the one or more elements of social media to the device to cause presentation of the one or more elements of social media on a display during the presentation of the media program.

19. A system comprising:

a harvester module implemented on one or more computers that selects a subset of elements of social media that are each associated with a media program and have a higher priority than other messages associated with the media program for transmission to a device to cause synchronized presentation of the subset of elements of social media with the media program, the harvester module configured to perform operations comprising;

accessing, from one or more memories on one or more computers, social media content i) that comprises elements of social media each of which include one or more terms that comprise a portion of the respective element of social media, ii) associated with the media program at least a portion of which has been presented, at least one of the terms for each of the elements of social media identified as relevant to the media program and iii) associated with data indicating timing information that represents a time for presentation of a respective element of social media in connection with a presentation of the media program; and

during a presentation of the media program;

for at least one of the elements of social media;

determining, for at least some of the terms of the element of social media, a frequency of the respective term across multiple elements of social media associated with the media program in the one or more memories, wherein at least one of the terms is identified as relevant to the media program,

determining an importance value for at least some of the terms of the element of social media, the importance value indicating the importance of the respective term to the media program,

based on the determined frequency and importance values for the at least some of the terms of the element of social media, determining a frequency value for the element of social media,

determining one or more weights for the element of social media, and

determining a score for the element of social media by combining the frequency value and the weights;

determining, using the social media content in the one or more memories, a plurality of elements of social media that each have timing information that indicate a time for presentation of the respective element of social media during a current timeframe of the presentation of the media program;

selecting, for presentation on a display and from the plurality of elements of social media, one or more elements of social media that each have a respective score that is greater than other scores for other elements of social media that are not selected; and

in response to selecting the one or more elements of social media that each have a respective score that is greater than other scores for other elements of social media and based on the respective timing information, transmitting, using a network, the one or more elements of social media to the device to cause presentation of the one or more elements of social media on a display during the presentation of the media program.