AGGREGATING AND SEARCHING PROFILE DATA FROM MULTIPLE SERVICES

• US 20080316925A1
• Filed: 06/21/2007
• Published: 12/25/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 06/21/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Dolin, Rob, Obasanjo, Oludare, Fluegel, Jason C., Torres, Michael I.
• Granted Patent: US 7,818,396 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/232
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising

Abstract

Profile data from multiple networking services can be combined and queried from one networking service. A primary networking service may store user profile data for one or more secondary networking services and the primary networking service. When stored, the data from the multiple networks may be aggregated or merged. The stored data may include user profile data and relationship data for each networking service that a primary networking service has a profile account with. A graph of user-contact relationships existing over the primary networking service and one or more secondary networking services may be constructed and queried against.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method for storing data, comprising:

identifying a first user of a primary networking service associated with a first set of profile data maintained by the primary networking service;

retrieving a second set of profile data associated with the first user from a first secondary networking service, the primary networking service and secondary networking service storing their respective user profile data separately from each other;

aggregating the first set of profile data associated with the primary networking service with the second set of profile data associated with the secondary networking service; and

storing the aggregated data in a data store.

2. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein the second set of profile data is retrieved by a crawler mechanism in communication with the one or more data stores.

3. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein said step of identifying includes:

receiving a username and password for a user having an account with the primary networking service.

4. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein said step of retrieving a second set of profile data associated with the first user includes:

determining location information for a profile for the first user associated with an account for the secondary networking service based on a user identifier for the user associated with the secondary networking service account; and

accessing the user profile of the secondary networking service using the location information.

5. The computer implemented method of claim 4, wherein said step of determining location information includes:

determining a URL based on the user identifier.

6. The computer implemented method of claim 4, wherein said step of determining location information includes:

determining the location information from the user identifier and URL data contained in a configuration file accessible by the primary networking service.

7. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein said step of storing includes:

storing user identification information or authentication information for the primary networking service and profile user data associated with the secondary networking service account in a user profile table.

8. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein said step of storing includes:

storing user identification information for the primary networking service and profile relationship data associated with the secondary networking service account in a user relationship table.

9. The computer implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

providing the aggregated first set of profile data and second set of profile data as one set of aggregated profile data to a requesting entity.

10. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein said step of providing aggregated profile data includes:

receiving a request to view a profile for the first user from a client;

retrieving the aggregated profile data; and

transmitting the aggregated profile data to the client within content page data to be viewed by a browser application.

11. One or more processor readable storage devices having processor readable code embodied on said processor readable storage devices, said processor readable code for programming one or more processors to perform a method comprising:

receiving a request for one or more user profiles of a primary networking service;

querying a data store for the requested one or more profiles, the data store containing aggregated profile data constructed from one or more first sets of profile data for the primary networking service and one or more second sets of profile data for one or more secondary networking services, wherein the primary networking service and secondary networking service are separate services provided over a network;

accessing a subset of the aggregated profile data based on relationship data included in the one or more first sets of profile data and the one or more second sets of profile data,

wherein the relationship data in the one or more second sets of profile data of the secondary networking service includes a trusted relationship between two users of the primary networking service that is not specified in the relationship data of the one or more first sets of profile data of the primary networking service; and

providing the subset of the aggregated profile data to the client.

12. The one or more processor readable storage devices of claim 11, wherein said step of querying a data store includes:

accessing a user relationship table than contains relationship data between users of the primary networking service over the one or more secondary networking services.

13. The one or more processor readable storage devices of claim 11, wherein the request includes a criteria parameter and a relationship separation parameter, the query including the criteria parameter and the relationship separation parameter to the data store.

14. The one or more processor readable storage devices of claim 13, wherein the relationship separation parameter indicates the degrees of separation allowed between a specified profile of the primary networking service and each of one or more profiles within the subset of aggregated profile data.

15. The one or more processor readable storage devices of claim 11, wherein the relationship data indicates:

a first trusted relationship exists between a first user and a second user in the primary networking service;

a second trusted relationship exists between the second user and a third user in the secondary networking service; and

a relationship exists between the first user and the third user over two degrees of separation.

16. The one or more processor readable storage devices of claim 11, wherein the subset of aggregated data includes one or more selected profiles for one or more profiles that comply with the query, at least one of the selected profiles including aggregated profile data accessed from the primary networking service and the secondary networking service.

17. A computer implemented method for accessing data, comprising:

selecting a first user of a primary networking service associated with a first set of profile data maintained by the primary networking service;

retrieving a second set of profile data associated with the first user from a first secondary networking service;

storing the second set of profile data in one or more data stores associated with the first primary networking service,

wherein said step of storing includes linking the first set of profile data associated with the primary networking service with the second set of profile data associated with the secondary networking service within the one or more data stores;

receiving a request for one or more user profiles of a primary networking service from a client, the request associated with a relationship separation parameter;

selecting the linked data which matches the relationship separation parameter,

wherein the selected linked data includes a trusted relationship between two users of the primary networking service that is not specified in the relationship data of the one or more first sets of profile data of the primary networking service; and

providing the selecting the linked data to the client.

18. The computer implemented method for accessing data of claim 17, wherein the linked data includes profile data from the primary networking service aggregated with profile data from the secondary networking service.

19. The computer implemented method for accessing data of claim 17, wherein the linked data includes profile data and content data from the primary networking service merged with profile data from the secondary networking service.

20. The computer implemented method for accessing data of claim 17, wherein the linked data is related through relationship data associated with the secondary networking service and the primary networking service, the relationship data stored in one more data stores associated with the primary networking service.