Systems and methods for establishing or maintaining a personalized trusted social network

• US 20080091834A1
• Filed: 10/13/2006
• Published: 04/17/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 10/13/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Twitter Inc (X Holdings Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Yahoo! Inc. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Norton, Kenneth
• Granted Patent: US 8,190,724 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/229
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/58 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9538 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/958 Organisation or management of web site content, e.g. publishing, maintaining pages or automatic linking
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/00 Administration; Management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/52 for supporting social networking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/104 Grouping of entities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34

Abstract

Automated systems and methods are provided for establishing or maintaining a personalized trusted social network for a community of users, with little or no input from any given user. To establish the personalized trusted social network, one or more trusted sources are identified for a given user. The identified trusted sources are added to a user profile for the given user. Also, identified are any annotations, bookmarks, or the like that the identified trusted sources have associated with any shared content. These annotations provide access to microcontent items that the identified trusted sources have integrated with the shared content to thereby enhance or enrich its context. One or more profiles are constructed or updated to track the associations between the identified trusted sources and their annotations. The profile information can be applied to enhance and personalize search and browsing experiences for the given user.

Claims

1. A computerized method of establishing or maintaining a personalized trusted social network for a primary user, said personalized trusted social network including a plurality of trusted sources sharing content items throughout a communications system, the method comprising:

searching communication exchanges over the communications system to identify one or more trusted sources having a specified relationship with the primary user;

associating the identified one or more trusted sources with the primary user;

identifying an annotated content item that includes an annotation provided by a trusted source selected from the identified one or more trusted sources;

associating the annotation with the selected trusted source; and

implementing the association between the primary user and the identified one or more trusted sources and the association between the annotation and the selected trusted source to establish or maintain the personalized trusted social network.

2. The method of claim 1, comprising:

providing an annotated search result in response to a query from the primary user, said annotated search result listing the annotation and identifying the authoring system user.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein said searching comprises:

identifying the one or more trusted sources from an online service.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein said identifying the one or more trusted sources comprises:

analyzing one or more online services having the primary user as a member to detect the online service being utilized to identify the one or more trusted sources.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein said identifying the one or more trusted sources comprises:

detecting one or more online services having a traffic count exceeding a threshold to detect the online service being utilized to identify the one or more trusted sources.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein said searching comprises:

parsing an RSS feed to identify the one or more trusted sources.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein said searching comprises:

detecting an owner of a blog to identify the one or more trusted sources.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein said searching comprises:

detecting an individual having contributed to a blog to identify the one or more trusted sources.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein said identifying an annotated content item comprises:

detecting a comment added to a blog by the selected trusted source to identify the annotation.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein said identifying an annotated content item comprises:

detecting an content item linked to a blog by the selected trusted source to identify the annotation.

11. The method of claim 1, comprising:

enabling the primary member to add or delete an association with a trusted source.

12. The method of claim 1, comprising:

enabling the primary member to insert, update, or delete an association with an annotation.

13. A computerized method of establishing or maintaining a personalized trusted social network for a primary user, said personalized trusted social network including a plurality of trusted sources sharing content items throughout a communications system, the method comprising:

searching communication exchanges over the communications system to identify one or more trusted sources related to an online service;

associating the identified one or more trusted sources with the primary user;

identifying a content item contributed to the online service by a trusted source selected from the identified one or more trusted sources;

analyzing the content item to detect a microcontent item, wherein the contributing trusted source has linked the microcontent item to the content item;

associating the microcontent item with the contributing trusted source; and

implementing the association between the primary user and the identified one or more trusted sources and the association between the microcontent item and the contributing trusted source to establish or maintain the personalized trusted social network.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

providing an annotated search result in response to a query from the primary user, said annotated search result including a reference to the microcontent item and the contributing trusted source.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein said searching comprises:

analyzing one or more online services having the primary user as a member to detect the online service being utilized to identify the one or more trusted sources.

16. The method of claim 13, wherein said searching comprises:

detecting one or more online services having a traffic count exceeding a threshold to detect the online service being utilized to identify the one or more trusted sources.

17. The method of claim 13, wherein said searching comprises:

parsing an RSS feed to identify the one or more trusted sources.

18. The method of claim 13, wherein said searching comprises:

detecting an owner of a blog to identify the one or more trusted sources.

19. A computerized method of establishing or maintaining a personalized trusted social network for a primary user, the method comprising:

parsing an RSS feed for a blog to identify a blogger;

associating the blogger with the primary user;

identifying a microcontent item that the blogger has published to the blog;

associating the microcontent item with the blogger; and

providing an annotated search result in response to a query from the primary user, said annotated search result including a reference to the microcontent item and the blogger.

20. The method of claim 19, further comprising:

analyzing one or more blogs having the primary user as a member to detect the blog for executing said parsing an RSS feed.

21. A computerized method of establishing or maintaining a personalized trusted social network for a primary user, the method comprising:

parsing an RSS feed for a blog;

identifying a microcontent item published to the blog;

associating the microcontent item with the blog; and

providing an annotated search result in response to a query from the primary user, said annotated search result including a reference to the microcontent item and the blog.

23. The computer program product according to claim 21, further comprising:

a seventh computer readable program code function that causes the computer to provide an annotated search result in response to a query from the primary user, said annotated search result listing the microcontent item and the contributing trusted source.

24. The computer program product according to claim 21, wherein the first computer readable program code function comprises:

computer readable program code function that causes the computer to parse an RSS feed to identify the one or more trusted sources.

25. The computer program product according to claim 21, wherein the first computer readable program code function comprises:

computer readable program code function that causes the computer to detect an owner of a blog to identify the one or more trusted sources.

22. A computer program product comprising a computer useable medium having computer readable program code functions embedded in said medium for causing a computer to establish or maintain a personalized trusted social network for a primary user, said personalized trusted social network including a plurality of users sharing content items throughout a communications system, the computer program product comprising:

a first computer readable program code function that causes the computer to search communication exchanges over the communications system to identify one or more trusted sources related to an online service;

a second computer readable program code function that causes the computer to associate the identified one or more trusted sources with the primary user;

a third computer readable program code function that causes the computer to identify a content item contributed to the online service by trusted source selected from the identified one or more trusted sources;

a fourth computer readable program code function that causes the computer to analyze the content item to detect a microcontent items, wherein the contributing trusted source has linked the microcontent item to the content item;

a fifth computer readable program code function that causes the computer to associate the microcontent item with the contributing trusted source; and

a sixth computer readable program code function that causes the computer to implement the association between the primary user and the identified one or more trusted sources and the association between the microcontent item and the contributing trusted source to establish or maintain the personalized trusted social network.