USER-SELECTED TAGS FOR ANNOTATING GEOGRAPHIC DOMAINS CONTAINING POINTS-OF-INTEREST

• US 20110143775A1
• Filed: 12/11/2009
• Published: 06/16/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 12/11/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: LIU, Xin, LIU, Weili
• Granted Patent: US 9,218,360 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/456.3
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/29 Geographical information databases
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/021 Services related to particular areas, e.g. point of interest [POI] services, venue services or geofences
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/029 Location-based management or tracking services

Abstract

A location-based service is provided that allows a user of a mobile device to tag and track the places he or she visits and share these places with social networking members. To implement this service a system receives location information from the user'"'"'s location-aware mobile device over a wireless network. The location information identifies various locations or other points-of-interest that the user has visited. Based on this information the system determines a geographical domain that encompasses at least some of the locations the user has visited. Once a geographic domain has been determined it is presented to the user via the mobile device. The user is prompted to tag the geographical domain with an annotation that describes the geographic domain. The system stores the geographical domain and the annotation associated therewith so that it can be searched and accessed or retrieved by the user or members of the user'"'"'s social network.

Claims

1. A method for providing enhanced location information concerning a mobile user, the method comprising the steps of:

receiving information from a mobile device of a user identifying a plurality of locations the user has visited;

determining a geographical domain that encompasses at least some of the plurality of locations the user has visited;

presenting the geographical domain to the user via the mobile device;

prompting the user via the mobile device to tag the geographical domain with an annotation; and

storing the geographical domain and the annotation associated therewith for subsequent retrieval.

2. The method of claim 1 in which the geographic domain has an area that is a minimum while still encompassing said at least some of the plurality of locations.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising pushing said information from the mobile device over a wireless network.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising pulling said information from the mobile device over a wireless network.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising prompting the user via the mobile device to tag the geographical domain with the annotation by presenting the user with a list of possible annotations from which to choose.

6. The method of claim 5 in which the possible annotations are presented in an order based at least in part on a frequency at which other users have tagged the same or an overlapping geographic domain with possible annotations.

7. The method of claim 1 in which the plurality of locations are identified by their geographic coordinates.

8. The method of claim 1 in which the user has a profile specifying at least one social networking member authorized to receive enhanced location information associated with the user and further comprising presenting the geographic domain and the annotation associated therewith to the social networking member in response to a request from the social networking member.

9. The method of claim 8 in which the geographical domain is presented as an area defined on a map that is displayed on a second mobile device associated with the social networking member.

10. A method for providing enhanced location information concerning social networking members, the method comprising the steps of:

receiving a request from a member of a social networking group to obtain geographic information concerning other members of the social networking group;

based on the request, determining at least one geographical domain that encompasses at least some of a plurality of points-of-interest that at least one other member of the social network group has visited; and

communicating the geographical domain information and a tag annotating the geographical domain to the member of the social networking group.

11. The method of claim 10 further comprising the steps of:

receiving location information for the plurality of points-of-interest from location-aware mobile devices of the other members of the social networking group;

based on the location information, determining geographical domains that encompass at least some of the plurality of points-of-interest each of the other members has visited;

presenting their geographical domains to each respective other member via their respective location-aware mobile device;

prompting the other members via their respective location-aware mobile devices to tag the geographical domains with an annotation; and

storing the geographical domains and their respective annotations for subsequent retrieval.

12. The method of claim 10 in which each geographic domain includes at least a predefined minimum number of points-of-interest visited by the other member associated with that geographic domain.

13. The method of claim 12 in which the predefined minimum number of locations only includes points-of-interest that have been visited within a prescribed amount of time.

14. The method of claim 11 in which determining the geographic domains includes assigning a maximum radius to each geographic domain.

15. The method of claim 11 further comprising clustering the location information from each of the other users so that a plurality of constraints are satisfied.

16. The method of claim 15 in which the constraints include a minimum number of points-of-interest and maximum distance between any two points-of-interest in a cluster.

17. The method of claim 10 in which the request includes a query and further comprising determining the at least one geographical domain by searching tags associated with a plurality of geographic domains using text obtained from the query.

18. A location-based social networking manager comprising the following computer-implemented components:

a first interface component for receiving information obtained from a location-aware mobile device of a user identifying a plurality of points-of-interest the user has visited;

a domain calculation engine for determining one or more geographic domains based on the information obtained from the mobile device of the user;

a second interface component for prompting the user of the mobile device for an annotation describing each of the one or more geographic domains; and

a social network component for storing user profiles specifying members of a social network associated with the user who are authorized to receive, upon request, the one or more geographic domains and the annotations associated therewith.

19. The location-based social networking manager of claim 18 in which the first interface component is configured to pull the information from the location-aware mobile device.

20. The location-based social networking manager of claim 18 in which the second interface component is configured to prompt the user via the mobile device to tag the geographical domain with the annotation by presenting the user with a list of possible annotations from which to choose.