CREATION OF REAL-TIME CONVERSATIONS BASED ON SOCIAL LOCATION INFORMATION

• US 20140012927A1
• Filed: 07/09/2012
• Published: 01/09/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 07/09/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Inventors: Gertzfield, Ben, Zhang, Lucy Congyun, Davenport, Benjamin Peter, Perlow, Jonathan David, Garcia, David Harry
• Granted Patent: US 9,412,136 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/206
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/252 between a Database Management System and a front-end application
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/287 Visualization; Browsing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9537 Spatial or temporal dependent retrieval, e.g. spatiotemporal queries
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/216 Handling conversation history, e.g. grouping of messages in sessions or threads
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/222 using geographical location information, e.g. messages transmitted or received in proximity of a certain spot or area
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/52 for supporting social networking services

Abstract

A social networking system determines common location information included in a set of posts between a set of users. Using the determined common location information, the social networking system generates a message interface for grouping a set of messages into a conversation thread. For example, the messages may be grouped into a conversation thread based on common location information in the messages and being associated with participants sharing a social relationship. When a group conversation is created, the social networking system presents a message interface containing the conversation thread to one or more participants of the thread. The social networking system adds the set of messages to the conversation thread based on social information about the social relationships among the participants of the conversation thread. The social networking system then presents the message interface for display to one or more of the participants.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

maintaining a plurality of messages in a social networking system, the plurality of messages comprising a plurality of posts sent among a set of participants, wherein the participants are users of the social networking system;

determining common location information from a set of the messages;

grouping the set of messages having a determined common location information into a conversation thread, the grouped messages being associated with participants that have established a social relationship in the social networking system;

adding the conversation thread to a message interface, the message interface enabling further communications in real-time among the participants; and

providing the message interface for display to one or more of the participants of the conversation thread.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining common location information based on content included in the set of messages.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving user location information associated with one or more the set of participants; and

determining common location information based on the received user location information.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

grouping the set of messages into the conversation when the set of messages are associated with a threshold number of users and received over a predetermined threshold period of time.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the conversation thread is a previously existing conversation thread that includes messages from a subset of the participants.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the social information comprises an affinity between two or more participants.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the social information comprises a type of connection between two or more participants.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the social information comprises historical information about an interaction between a participant and an object included in the social networking system.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

sorting the conversation thread in the message interface based on the social information.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

sorting the conversation thread in the message interface based on common location information.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the message interface includes a list of conversation threads.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the message interface is a chat interface.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a selection of at least one conversation thread;

responsive to receiving the selection of the at least one conversation thread, presenting one or more message included in the at least one conversation thread; and

receiving, from an additional participant, a message to include in the at least one conversation thread, the received message including common location information and being associated with the additional participant.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the additional participant having one degree of separation from a first subset of the participants, and having greater than one degree of separation from a second subset of the participants.