RECOMMENDING USERS TO ADD TO GROUPS IN A SOCIAL NETWORKING SYSTEM

• US 20140067826A1
• Filed: 09/06/2012
• Published: 03/06/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 09/06/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Inventors: Jackson, Todd Christopher, Maschmeyer, William Russell, Jiang, Bin, Lau, Kenneth M., Novati, Michael
• Granted Patent: US 9,971,830 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/748
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/335 Filtering based on additional data, e.g. user or group profiles filtering in web context G06F16/9535, G06F16/9536
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/337 Profile generation, learning or modification
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking

Abstract

Based on information associated with users, a social networking system recommends one or more groups for a target user to join or to create. Characteristics of the target user, characteristics of users connected to the target user, characteristics of candidate groups in the social networking system may be used to identify groups for recommendation. The social networking system may provide questions to the target user and recommend a group to the target user based on received answers to the questions. For example, the answers to the provided question identify one or more characteristics of the target user, which are used to select a group for recommendation. Additionally, the social networking system may recommend additional users for the target user to add or invite to a group based on characteristics of the target user, the additional users, and/or the group.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving a request from a user of a social networking system identifying a group maintained by the social networking system;

accessing a user profile associated with the user of the social networking system, the user profile identifying one or more characteristics of the user;

determining, from the user profile, a set of candidate users connected to the user and not included in the identified group;

determining a user score for each of the candidate users, a user score for a candidate user based on one or more of;

an affinity between the user and the candidate user and common characteristics between the user and the candidate user;

selecting a candidate user from the set of candidate users based on the user scores; and

presenting the selected candidate user to the user.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein a common characteristic between the user and the candidate user comprises a number of additional users connected to both the user and the candidate user.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein selecting the candidate user from the set of candidate users based on the user scores comprises:

selecting a candidate user connected to a highest number of additional users that are also connected to the target user.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the user score for the candidate user is proportional to a number of common characteristics between the user and the candidate user.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the user score for the candidate user is proportional to a percentage of common characteristics between the user and the candidate user.

6. A method comprising:

receiving a request from a user of a social networking system identifying a group maintained by the social networking system;

accessing a user profile associated with the user of the social networking system, the user profile identifying one or more characteristics of the user;

determining, from the user profile, a set of candidate users connected to the user and not included in the identified group;

determining a user score for each of the candidate users, a user score for a candidate user based on one or more characteristics of the candidate user;

selecting a candidate user from the set of candidate users based on the user scores; and

presenting the selected candidate user to the user.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein a characteristic of the candidate user comprises one or more characteristics common to the user and the candidate user.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein selecting the candidate user from the set of candidate users based on the user scores comprises:

selecting a candidate user connected to a highest number of characteristics common to the user.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein the user score for the candidate user is proportional to a number of characteristics common to the user and the candidate user.

10. The method of claim 7, wherein the user score for the candidate user is proportional to a percentage of characteristics common to the user and the candidate user.

11. The method of claim 6, wherein a characteristic of the candidate user comprises a frequency of interaction between the candidate user and the user.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the user score for the candidate user is proportional to the frequency of interaction between the candidate user and the user.

13. The method of claim 6, wherein the group identified by the request includes the user.

14. The method of claim 6, wherein the group identified by the request is a group the user recently joined.

15. The method of claim 6, wherein one or more characteristics of the candidate user are selected from a group consisting of:

geographic information associated with the candidate user, biographic information associated with the candidate user, one or more interests of the candidate user, one or more additional users connected to the candidate user, and one or more groups including the candidate user.

16. The method of claim 6, wherein a characteristic of the candidate user comprises one or more characteristics of the candidate user associated with one or more characteristics of the group.

17. The method of claim 6 further comprising:

receiving an input from the user identifying the selected candidate user; and

adding the selected user to the group responsive to the input.

18. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

adding the selected user to the group.

19. A method comprising:

receiving a request from a user of a social networking system identifying a group maintained by the social networking system;

accessing a user profile associated with the user of the social networking system, the user profile identifying one or more characteristics of the user;

determining, from the user profile, a set of candidate users connected to the user and not included in the identified group;

determining a user score for each of the candidate users, a user score for a candidate user based on one or more characteristics of the candidate user and one or more characteristics of the group;

selecting a candidate user from the set of candidate users based on the user scores; and

presenting the selected candidate user to the user.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein determining the user score for each of the candidate users comprises:

determining affinities between each candidate user and the user;

determining characteristics common to the group and to each candidate user;

for each candidate user, combining an affinity between the candidate user and the user and a value based on characteristics common to the group and to the candidate user.