Communicating Information in a Social Networking Website About Activities from Another Domain

• US 20090182589A1
• Filed: 08/18/2008
• Published: 07/16/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 11/05/2007
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Inventors: D'Angelo, Adam, Palihapitlya, Chamath M., Rosenstein, Justin M., Kendall, Timothy A., Jin, Robert Kang-Xing, Bosworth, Andrew G., Zuckerberg, Mark E., Wong, Yishan, Juan, Yun-Fang, Cohler, Matthew R.
• Application Number:
  US12/193,705
• Publication Number:
  US 20090182589A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/5
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/02 Reservations, e.g. for tickets, services or events
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0215 Including financial accounts
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/12 Accounting
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/52 for supporting social networking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/125 involving control of end-device applications over a network
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles

Abstract

A social networking website logs information about actions taken by members of the website. For a particular member of the website, the website generates socially relevant ads for the member based on the actions logged for other members on the website to whom the member is connected (i.e., the member'"'"'s online friends). The advertiser associated with the social ad may compensate the social networking website for publishing the ad on the website. When presenting a member with a social ad, the website may optimize advertising revenue by selecting an ad from the received ads that will maximize the expected value of the social ad. The expected value may be computed according to a function that includes the member'"'"'s affinity for the ad content and the bid amount. The technique is also applied for providing socially relevant information off the social networking website.

Claims

1. A method for communicating information in a social networking website about activities from another domain, the method comprising:

maintaining a profile for a plurality of users of the social networking website, each profile identifying a connection to each of a plurality of other users of the social networking website;

receiving a plurality of messages from a third-party website having a different domain than the social networking website, each message communicating an action taken by a user of the social networking website in the third-party website;

logging the actions at the social networking website, each logged action including information about the action; and

for one of the users of the social networking website;

generating an informational message for the user, wherein the informational message communicates a logged action that is associated with another user of the social networking website with whom the user has a connection, and

providing a web page to the user, the web page comprising the informational message.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

storing a cookie on a local computing system of each of a plurality of the users, each cookie indicating that the corresponding user is a member of the social networking website.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

responsive to receiving a message from a third-party website about a particular action taken by a user of the social networking website, generating a confirmation message regarding an informational message about the action to be displayed in the social networking website; and

sending the confirmation message to the third-party website.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the confirmation message includes a sample of the informational message to be displayed to other users of the social networking website with whom the user has a connection.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein the confirmation message includes an option to opt out of the social networking website'"'"'s logging of the user'"'"'s action taken on the third-party website.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the informational message is presented on the web page incorporated with other informational messages that communicate logged actions associated with other users of the website with whom the user has a connection.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the informational message includes an advertisement related to the logged action communicated by the informational message.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the logged actions include a purchase made on the third-party website.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the logged actions include a reservation made on the third-party website.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the logged actions include a subscription to an informational resource made on the third-party website.

11. A system for communicating information in a social networking website about activities from another domain, the method comprising:

a profile store containing a profile for each of a plurality of users of the social networking website, each profile identifying a connection to each of a plurality of other users of the social networking website;

means for receiving information about activities of the users of the social networking website on one or more third-party websites, the third-party websites each having a different domain than the social networking website;

means for generating informational messages about users of the social networking website, wherein each informational message communicates to a user an activity that is associated with another user of the website with whom the user has a connection; and

a web server configured to present the informational messages on web pages provided to the users of the social networking website.

12. The system of claim 11, further comprising:

means for generating a confirmation message regarding an informational message about the action to be displayed in the social networking website.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein one or more of the informational message includes an advertisement related to the activity communicated by the informational message.

14. The system of claim 11, wherein the activities include at least one action selected from a group consisting of:

a purchase, a reservation, and a subscription to an informational resource.

15. A method for facilitating communication of information in a social networking website about activities from another domain, the social networking website having a plurality of users each having a connection to one or more other users of the social networking website, the method comprising:

detecting an action taken by a user on a website, the website having a different domain than the social networking website;

determining that the user is a member of the social networking website;

sending a reporting message to the social networking website, the reporting message communicating the action taken by the user of the social networking website; and

receiving a confirmation message from the social networking website, the confirmation message requesting authorization of an informational message about the action to be displayed in the social networking website to another user of the social networking website with whom the user has a connection.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein determining that the user is a member of the social networking website comprises accessing a cookie on the user'"'"'s local computing system.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the cookie is associated with a domain of the social networking website, and accessing the cookie comprises serving a web page in the domain of the third-party website that includes a nested frame in the domain of the social networking website, and accessing the cookie using the nested frame.

18. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

obtaining an identifier for the user from the cookie; and

including the user identifier in the reporting message sent to the social networking website.

19. The method of claim 16, wherein the confirmation message includes a sample of the informational message to be displayed to other users of the social networking website with whom the user has a connection.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the confirmation message includes an option to opt out of the social networking website'"'"'s logging of the user'"'"'s action taken on the third-party website.

21. The method of claim 16, wherein the informational message includes an advertisement related to the logged action communicated by the informational message.

22. The method of claim 16, wherein the action is a purchase made on the third-party website.

23. The method of claim 16, wherein the action is a reservation made on the third-party website.

24. The method of claim 16, wherein the action is a subscription to an informational resource made on the third-party website.

25. A method for communicating information in a social network about activities performed outside the social network, the method comprising:

maintaining a profile for a plurality of members of the social network, each profile identifying one or more connections to other members of the social network;

receiving information about actions taken by members of the social network outside of the social network;

recording information about the actions; and

communicating a message within the social network to a set of members of the social network with whom a first member has a connection, the message comprising information about a recorded action taken by the first member outside of the social network.

26. The method of claim 25, wherein receiving information about actions taken by members of the social network outside of the social network comprises receiving a reporting message from a third-party website.

27. The method of claim 25, wherein receiving information about actions taken by members of the social network outside of the social network comprises receiving a reporting message from an action terminal.

28. The method of claim 27, wherein the action terminal comprises a point of sale terminal, and the reporting message contains information about a purchase transaction.

29. The method of claim 27, wherein the action terminal comprises a wireless communication device.

30. The method of claim 27, wherein the action terminal comprises a television or set-top receiver, and the reporting message contains information about a program received thereby.