Displaying Social Networking System User Information Via a Map Interface

• US 20130073971A1
• Filed: 09/21/2011
• Published: 03/21/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 09/21/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Inventors: Lessin, Samuel, Zuckerberg, Mark E., Huang, Jeff, Watson, Thomas Andrew
• Granted Patent: US 9,773,284 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/738
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/29 Geographical information databases
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9537 Spatial or temporal dependent retrieval, e.g. spatiotemporal queries
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking

Abstract

The invention provides a display interface in a social networking system that enables the presentation of information related to a user in a timeline or map view. The system accesses information about a user of a social networking system, including both data about the user and social network activities related to the user. The system then selects one or more of these pieces of data and/or activities from a certain time period and gathers them into timeline units based on their relatedness and their relevance to users. These timeline units are ranked by relevance to the user, and are used to generate a timeline or map view for the user containing visual representations of the timeline units organized by location or time. The timeline or map view is then provided to other users of the social networking system that wish to view information about the user.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

accessing information about a plurality of items of narrative data related to users of a social networking system, each item of narrative data associated with a time and a location, and with a subject user of a social networking system;

selecting, for each of a plurality of time periods, one or more of the items of narrative data associated with a time within the time period;

generating a plurality of timeline units for each of the time periods based on the selected items of narrative data from the at least one time period;

receiving, from a client device operated by a viewing user, a request for a timeline map of the subject user for a selected time period; and

responsive to receiving the request;

selecting a plurality of the generated timeline units associated with a time in the selected time period,

generating a timeline map comprising a plurality of map markers displayed on the timeline map, each map markers corresponding to one or more of the selected timeline units and located on the timeline map at a location associated with the corresponding one or more selected timeline units,

sending, to the client device for display to the viewing user, the generated timeline map.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein clicking a map marker at a location on the timeline map, displays the one or more timeline units associated with that location on the timeline map.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the timeline map further comprises timeline filter tabs that are configured to filter the timeline units displayed on the timeline map based on filtering criteria.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the filtering criteria are taken from the group comprising location, time, associated user, and timeline unit type.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the timeline map is further configured to enable the viewing user to create new structured data associated with a selected location.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the structured data is used by the social networking system to create a new timeline unit associated with the selected location.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the timeline map further comprises a time period selector configured to enable the viewing user to select a time period, and the timeline map is further configured to render map markers on the timeline map at locations corresponding to the locations associated with timeline units from the selected time period.

8. A method comprising:

accessing information about a plurality of items of narrative data related to users of a social networking system, each item of narrative data associated with a location, and with a viewing user of a social networking system;

selecting, one or more of the items of narrative data based on a measure of the relevancy of the narrative data to the viewing user;

generating a plurality of stories based on the selected items of narrative data;

receiving, from a client device operated by the viewing user, a request for a map view; and

responsive to receiving the request;

selecting a plurality of the generated stories,

generating a story map view a plurality of map markers displayed on the story map, each map markers corresponding to one or more of the selected stories and located on the story map at a location associated with the corresponding one or more selected stories,

sending, to the client device for display to the viewing user, the generated story map.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein clicking a map marker displays the one or more stories associated with that location on the story map.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the story map further comprises story filter tabs that are configured to filter the stories displayed on the story map based on filtering criteria.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the filtering criteria are taken from the group comprising location, time, associated user, and story type.

12. The method of claim 8, wherein the story map is further configured to enable the viewing user to create new structured data associated with a selected location.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the new structured data is used by the social networking system to create a new story associated with the selected location.

14. A method comprising:

accessing information about a plurality of items of narrative data related to users of a social networking system, each item of narrative data associated with a time and a location, and with a plurality of subject users of a social networking system;

selecting, for each of a plurality of time periods, one or more of the items of narrative data associated with a time within the time period;

generating a plurality of timeline units for each of the time periods based on the selected items of narrative data from the at least one time period;

receiving, from a client device operated by a viewing user, a request for a joint timeline map of the plurality of subject users for a selected time period; and

responsive to receiving the request;

selecting a plurality of the generated timeline units associated with a time in the selected time period,

generating a timeline map comprising a plurality of map markers displayed on the timeline map, each map markers corresponding to one or more of the selected timeline units and located on the timeline map at a location associated with the corresponding one or more selected timeline units,

sending, to the client device for display to the viewing user, the generated timeline map.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein clicking a map marker at a location on the timeline map, displays the one or more timeline units associated with that location on the timeline map.

16. The method of claim 14, wherein the timeline map further comprises timeline filter tabs that are configured to filter the timeline units displayed on the timeline map based on filtering criteria.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the filtering criteria are taken from the group comprising location, time, associated user, and timeline unit type.

18. The method of claim 14, wherein the timeline map is further configured to enable the viewing user to create new structured data associated with a selected location.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the structured data is used by the social networking system to create a new timeline unit associated with the selected location.

20. The method of claim 14, wherein the timeline map further comprises a time period selector configured to enable the viewing user to select a time period, and the timeline map is further configured to render map markers on the timeline map at locations corresponding to the locations associated with timeline units from the selected time period.