HOT WITHIN MY COMMUNITIES

• US 20080294768A1
• Filed: 05/22/2007
• Published: 11/27/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 05/22/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Verizon Media, Inc. (Verizon Communications Inc.), Yahoo Assets LLC
• Original Assignee: Yahoo! Inc. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Sampson, John, Marcoullier, Eric, Sampson, Todd, Ho, Steve, Rafer, Neil Scott
• Granted Patent: US 8,312,108 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34

Abstract

Embodiments of the invention are directed to identifying network resources or other topics that are of interest to members of multiple online communities to which a user belongs. Online communities include blogs, websites, games, e-commerce systems, messaging systems, wikis, etc. For each online community, click activity or other client behaviors are tracked and analyzed to determine statistical metrics about community activity, such as which articles, links, services, or other network resources are popular in the online community. At least some of the tracking or analysis can be performed by clients that access the online communities, by a server of each online community, and/or by a central tracking system. The results for each community may be further analyzed relative to each other. The results are provided for all communities with which a given user is associated. For example, a list of the most popular links in the user'"'"'s selected online communities.

Claims

1. A method for identifying network activity, comprising:

associating a user identifier with a first online community and a second online community;

performing a first analysis of first community behavior information that indicates network resources identified based on clients that interacted with the first online community;

selecting a first network resource based on the first analysis;

performing a second analysis of second community behavior information that indicates network resources identified based on clients that interacted with the second online community;

selecting a second network resource based on the second analysis; and

identifying the first network resource and the second network resource to a client associated with the user identifier.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein either of the first community or the second community comprise one of the following;

a blog, an online game environment, an e-commerce system, a messaging system, a website, and a wiki.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein each network resource comprise one of the following;

a website, a blog, an article, a network accessible product, a network accessible service, a widget, an image, and audio content.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the first community behavior information and the second community behavior information each comprise at least one of the following:

click actions indicating network resources that were accessed by clients;

temporal information determined from clients that interacted with the network resources; and

messages from clients that identify network resources.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein each of the first community behavior information and the second community behavior information comprises one of the following:

behaviors within the corresponding first community or second community by clients that interacted with the corresponding first community or second community; and

behaviors within and outside the corresponding first community or second community by clients that interacted with the corresponding first community or second community.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein each of the first analysis and the second analysis comprises at least one of the following;

a maximum, a standard deviation, and an average.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

performing a combined analysis of the first community behavior information and the second community behavior information; and

selecting a network resource based on the combined analysis.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving at least a portion of the first community behavior information or the second community behavior information from a client that tracks user interaction with the client.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining an ordering of the first community relative to the second community based on the first analysis and the second analysis.

10. A computer-readable medium including computer-executable instructions for identifying network activity, the computer-executable instructions when installed onto a computing device enable the computing device to perform the operations of claim 1.

11. A server for identifying network activity, comprising:

a processor;

a communication interface in communication with the processor;

an output component in communication with the processor; and

a memory in communication with the processor and storing data and instructions that cause the processor to perform a plurality of operations, including;

associating a user identifier with a first online community and a second online community;

performing a first analysis of first community behavior information that indicates network resources identified based on clients that interacted with the first online community;

selecting a first network resource based on the first analysis;

performing a second analysis of second community behavior information that indicates network resources identified based on clients that interacted with the second online community;

selecting a second network resource based on the second analysis; and

identifying the first network resource and the second network resource to a client associated with the user identifier.

12. The server of claim 11, wherein either of the first community or the second community comprise one of the following;

a blog, an online game environment, an e-commerce system, a messaging system, a website, and a wiki.

13. The server of claim 11, wherein the first community behavior information and the second community behavior information each comprise at least one of the following:

click actions indicating network resources that were accessed by clients;

temporal information determined from clients that interacted with the network resources; and

messages from clients that identify network resources.

14. The server of claim 11, wherein the instructions further cause the processor to perform the operation of receiving at least a portion of the first community behavior information or the second community behavior information from a client that tracks user interaction with the client.

15. A client for identifying network activity, comprising:

a processor;

a communication interface in communication with the processor;

an output component in communication with the processor; and

a memory in communication with the processor and storing data and instructions that cause the processor to perform a plurality of operations, including;

associating a user identifier with a first online community and a second online community;

gathering client behavior information;

providing the client behavior information for;

a first analysis of first community behavior information that indicates network resources identified based on clients that interacted with the first online community; and

a second analysis of second community behavior information that indicates network resources identified based on clients that interacted with the second online community;

receiving a first network resource identifier based on the first analysis;

receiving a second network resource identifier based on the second analysis; and

providing the first network resource identifier and the second network resource identifier to the output component.

16. The client of claim 15, wherein providing comprises displaying the first network resource identifier and the second network resource identifier in a web page.

17. A method for managing content over a network comprising:

providing a plurality of content, wherein each content is associated with a community;

receiving a usage pattern for each of a plurality of readers for at least one of the plurality of content;

determining at least one link for each of the content and community based on an aggregation of the usage patterns for each of the plurality of readers; and

providing the at least one link over the network to a network device associated with a user belonging to the community.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein determining the at least one link further comprises analyzing the aggregation based on a statistical metric.

19. The method of claim 17, further comprising receiving an association between the user and the community, wherein the association is at least one of the following:

a registration by the user; and

a visit by the user to a webpage associated with the community.

20. The method of claim 17, further comprising providing the at least one link if an amount of times the at least one link meets a threshold.