SOCIAL DISTANCE BASED SEARCH RESULT ORDER ADJUSTMENT

• US 20110087661A1
• Filed: 10/08/2009
• Published: 04/14/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 10/08/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Ingec, Tevfik S., Quick, David R., Battisha, Mohamed M., Mallet, Alexander E., Mroch, Michael Patrick, Smolyanskiy, Nikolay, Nichols, David A.
• Granted Patent: US 9,104,737 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/732
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24578 using ranking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/248 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/435 Filtering based on additional data, e.g. user or group profiles
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9536 Search customisation based on social or collaborative filtering
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking

Abstract

Both search criteria and a friends list associated with a user are obtained. One or more data items that satisfy the search criteria are identified as search results. An order of the search results is adjusted based at least in part on multiple additional friends lists, each of which is associated with a data item of the one or more data items. Each of the multiple additional friends lists can also be updated to reflect changes in the friends lists made by users associated with the friends lists.

Claims

1. One or more computer storage media having stored thereon multiple instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of a computing device, cause the one or more processors to:

obtain search criteria associated with a user;

obtain a friends list of the user;

identify as search results one or more data items that satisfy the search criteria; and

adjust an order of the search results based at least in part on multiple additional friends lists, wherein each friends list of the multiple additional friends lists is associated with a data item of the one or more data items.

2. One or more computer storage media as recited in claim 1, wherein to adjust the order of the search results is to adjust the order of the search results based on whether the additional friends lists identify one or more users in the friends list of the user.

3. One or more computer storage media as recited in claim 1, wherein the multiple instructions further cause the one or more processors to order, prior to adjusting the order of the search results, the search results based on ordering criteria.

4. One or more computer storage media as recited in claim 1, wherein the one or more data items are data items in a data store that both satisfy the search criteria and that have an associated access control list that indicates the data item can be accessed by the user.

5. One or more computer storage media as recited in claim 4, wherein each of the one or more data items has an associated search document that includes both the access control list for the data item and the friends list associated with the data item.

6. One or more computer storage media as recited in claim 1, the multiple instructions further causing the one or more processors to obtain a user identifier of the user, and wherein to adjust the order of the search results is to move a first data item of the one or more data items higher in the search results if the user identifier is included in the friends list associated with the first data item.

7. One or more computer storage media as recited in claim 1, wherein to adjust the order of the search results is to move a first data item of the one or more data items higher in the search results if the friends list of the user includes an identifier of a user that is also included in the friends list associated with the first data item.

8. One or more computer storage media as recited in claim 7, wherein the multiple instructions further cause the one or more processors to determine how much higher to move the first data item in the search results based on how many identifiers of users are included in both the friends list of the user and the friends list associated with the first data item.

9. One or more computer storage media as recited in claim 1, the multiple instructions further causing the one or more processors to obtain a user identifier of the user, and wherein each of the one or more data items is assigned a ranking value and the order of the search results is from a highest ranking value to a lowest ranking value, and wherein a ranking value of a first data item of the one or more data items is increased by a first amount if the user identifier is included in the friends list associated with the first data item, and the ranking value of the first data item is increased by a second amount if the friends list of the user includes an identifier of a friend that is also included in the friends list associated with the first data item, and wherein the first amount is greater than the second amount.

10. One or more computer storage media as recited in claim 1, wherein the multiple instructions further cause the one or more processors to return the search results for display in the adjusted order, and for a first data item of the one or more data items return an indication of how many identifiers of users are common to both the friends list of the user and the friends list associated with the first data item.

11. One or more computer storage media as recited in claim 1, wherein the multiple instructions further cause the one or more processors to return the search results for display in the adjusted order, and for a first data item of the one or more data items return identifiers of users that are common to both the friends list of the user and the friends list associated with the first data item.

12. One or more computer storage media as recited in claim 1, wherein the search criteria comprises at least a portion of a name and the one or more data items comprise one or more user profiles of other users.

13. One or more computer storage media as recited in claim 1, wherein the multiple instructions further cause the one or more processors to return the search results for display in the adjusted order, and for a first data item of the one or more data items an indication of whether the user is an owner of the first data item.

14. A method comprising:

receiving, in a system, an identifier of a data item associated with a user;

generating a search document for the data item, the search document including a friends list of the user;

maintaining the search document in a data store to be available for subsequent searching of one or more data items including the data item; and

updating, when the friends list of the user is changed, the search document to reflect the change to the friends list of the user.

15. A method as recited in claim 14, further comprising:

obtaining an access control list for the data item; and

wherein the generating comprises generating the search document including both the access control list and the friends list of the user.

16. A method as recited in claim 14, further comprising:

obtaining search criteria associated with a searcher;

obtaining a friends list of the searcher;

identifying as search results one or more data items that satisfy the search criteria; and

adjusting an order of the search results based at least in part on multiple friends lists, the multiple friends lists including the friends list of the user.

17. A method as recited in claim 14, wherein the data item comprises a user profile of the user.

18. A method as recited in claim 14, wherein the friends list comprises a list of identifiers of other users that the user has identified as being friends of the user.

19. A method as recited in claim 14, further comprising storing the data idem in the search document.

20. One or more computer storage media having stored thereon multiple instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of a computing device, cause the one or more processors to:

obtain search criteria associated with a user, the search criteria comprising at least a portion of a name of another person;

obtain a user identifier of the user;

obtain a friends list of the user;

identify as search results one or more user profiles that both satisfy the search criteria and that have an associated access control list indicating the user profile can be accessed by the user; and

adjust an order of the search results based at least in part on the friends list of the user and a set of friends lists, wherein each friends list in the set of friends lists is associated with a data item of the one or more data items, and wherein to adjust the order is to;

assign a ranking value to each of the one or more data items, wherein the order of the search results is from a highest ranking value to a lowest ranking value,

for each of the one or more data items, increase the ranking value of the data item by a first amount if the user identifier is included in the friends list associated with the data item, and

for each of the one or more data items, increase the ranking value of the data item by a second amount if the friends list of the user includes an identifier of a friend that is also included in the friends list associated with the first data item, and wherein the first amount is greater than the second amount.