Defining a Social Network Model Implied by Communications Data

• US 20120089690A1
• Filed: 10/12/2011
• Published: 04/12/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 07/08/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Xobni Corp. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Hein, Brian, New, Jon
• Granted Patent: US 8,990,323 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/206
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/52 for supporting social networking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34

Abstract

Systems and methods to define a social network for a user using data implied by communications of the user with others. In one embodiment, a method includes scanning a set of messages (e.g., emails to and from a user of a client device) to identify a plurality of primary persons addressed in the messages as a primary recipient and to identify a plurality of secondary persons addressed in the messages as a secondary recipient; mapping the primary persons to a plurality of friends and mapping the secondary persons to a plurality of other persons; and defining a social network model based on the friends and other persons, wherein the model comprises a friends category including the friends and an all category including the friends and other persons.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

scanning, by a data processing system, a set of messages of a user to identify a plurality of primary persons addressed in the messages as a primary recipient and to identify a plurality of secondary persons addressed in the messages as a secondary recipient;

mapping, by the data processing system, the primary persons to a plurality of friends and mapping the secondary persons to a plurality of other persons; and

defining, by the data processing system, a social network model based on the friends and the other persons, wherein the model comprises a friends category including the friends and an all category including the friends and the other persons.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein each primary recipient is listed in a To field of an email, and each secondary recipient is listed in a Cc or Bcc field of an email.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising scanning the set of messages to build person profiles for each of the primary persons and each of the secondary persons.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising exposing data from the person profiles for the primary persons in response to a request from a gadget.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising storing the social network model on a user terminal, and wherein the gadget is running on the user terminal at the time of the request.

6. The method of claim 4, further comprising storing the social network model on a user terminal, and wherein the gadget is running on a device other than the user terminal at the time of the request.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the set of messages corresponds to a user, and the mapping of the primary persons is performed without manual input from the user regarding each of the friends.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising storing the social network model on a user terminal.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the set of messages is stored on the user terminal during the scanning.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising implementing the social network model with a set of common application programming interfaces (APIs) for a web-based social network application.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the set of APIs is implemented as an OpenSocial container.

12. The method of claim 10, further comprising storing the social network model on a user terminal, and hosting the set of APIs on the user terminal.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising computing scores of the primary persons to determine relevancy to the user, and selecting persons for the friends category of the social network model based on the scores.

14. A user terminal, comprising:

a storage device to store a set of messages for a user and to store a social network model;

a network builder to scan the set of messages to identify a plurality of primary persons addressed in the messages as a primary recipient and to identify a plurality of secondary persons addressed in the messages as a secondary recipient, and to map the primary persons to a plurality of friends and map the secondary persons to a plurality of other persons; and

at least one processor configured to define the social network model based on the friends and the other persons, the model comprising a friends category including the friends and an all category including the friend and the other persons.

15. A non-transitory machine readable storage media storing a set of instructions, the instructions to cause at least one processor to perform a method, the method comprising:

scanning, by the at least one processor, a set of messages of a user to identify a plurality of primary persons addressed in the messages as a primary recipient and to identify a plurality of secondary persons addressed in the messages as a secondary recipient;

mapping, by the at least one processor, the primary persons to a plurality of friends and mapping the secondary persons to a plurality of other persons; and

defining, by the at least one processor, a social network model based on the friends and other persons, wherein the model comprises a friends category including the friends and an all category including the friends and other persons.