System and method for managing an online social network
First Claim
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1. A system for managing an online social network, comprising:
- a member database containing information about a plurality of members;
a relationship database containing information about relationships between members;
a first server connected to the member database and the relationship database;
a second server connected to the first server and the relationship database; and
a memory device associated with the second server in which information about relationships between members is stored in a predetermined format, wherein the first server is programmed to;
(i) receive an information exchange request, (ii) issue a processing request to the second server in response to the information exchange request, and (iii) respond to the information exchange request, and wherein the second server is programmed to;
(i) process the information stored in the memory device in response to the processing request received from the first server, and (ii) return the results of the processing to the first server.
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Abstract
An online social network is managed using one server for database management tasks and another server, preferably in a distributed configuration, for CPU-intensive computational tasks, such as finding a shortest path between two members or a degree of separation between two members. The additional server has a memory device containing relationship information between members of the online social network and carries out the CPU-intensive computational tasks using this memory device. With this configuration, the number of database lookups is decreased and processing speed is thereby increased.
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Citations
20 Claims
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1. A system for managing an online social network, comprising:
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a member database containing information about a plurality of members;
a relationship database containing information about relationships between members;
a first server connected to the member database and the relationship database;
a second server connected to the first server and the relationship database; and
a memory device associated with the second server in which information about relationships between members is stored in a predetermined format, wherein the first server is programmed to;
(i) receive an information exchange request, (ii) issue a processing request to the second server in response to the information exchange request, and (iii) respond to the information exchange request, andwherein the second server is programmed to;
(i) process the information stored in the memory device in response to the processing request received from the first server, and (ii) return the results of the processing to the first server. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5)
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6. A system connected to a network and accessible by a plurality of computers over the network, comprising:
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means for storing member information about a plurality of members and relationship information about relationships between members;
a first server connected to said means for storing and programmed to update said means for storing based on inputs received from the computers; and
a second server having a memory device associated therewith in which relationship information between members is stored in a graph data structure format and programmed to process the relationship information stored in the memory device in response to a processing request from the first server. - View Dependent Claims (7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14)
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15. A method of managing information exchange requests issued by members of an online social network, comprising the steps of:
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maintaining a first database containing information about a plurality of members and a second database containing information about relationships between members;
storing information about relationships between members in a graph data structure format; and
processing an information exchange request with a first server and a second server, the first server receiving the information exchange request from a member and issuing a processing request to the second server, and the second server processing the information stored in the memory device in response to the processing request from the first server. - View Dependent Claims (16, 17, 18, 19, 20)
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Specification