DISPLAYING SOCIAL NETWORKING SYSTEM ENTITY INFORMATION VIA A TIMELINE INTERFACE

• US 20140089816A1
• Filed: 09/24/2012
• Published: 03/27/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 09/24/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Inventors: Kanter, Jeffrey Andrew, Ferguson, David, Carriero, Thomas Giovanni, DiPersia, Blaise A., Heddleston, Russell Eric
• Granted Patent: US 9,377,933 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/753
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/447 Temporal browsing, e.g. timeline
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0484 for the control of specific functions or operations, e.g. selecting or manipulating an object, an image or a displayed text element, setting a parameter value or selecting a range
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/00 Administration; Management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/01 Customer relationship services
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0241 Advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0251 Targeted advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0277 Online advertisement
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles

Abstract

A social networking system displays information about a user via a timeline included in a profile page. Narrative data about a user stored in a social networking system, including data about the user and social network activities related to the user is accessed. Timeline units summarizing information about the user are generated from the narrative data. When a viewing user requests a profile page, timeline units are displayed based information related to the viewing user and interactions with the profile page by other users connected to the viewing user. Users that administer the profile page are presented with additional information when viewing the profile page, allowing the administering users to modify appearance of the timeline or to identify actions for an administering user to take to increase interaction with the profile page.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving, a request for a profile page of a subject entity from a client device associated with a viewing user of a social networking system;

determining one or more other social networking system users who are connected to the viewing user based on connection data stored by the social networking system;

retrieving a user profile maintained by the social networking system and associated with the viewing user;

determining, from the user profile, whether the viewing user is a page administrator of the profile page;

selecting a plurality of items of narrative data stored in a social networking system, each item of narrative data associated with the subject;

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

selecting a plurality of the generated social network stories;

generating a profile page for the subject entity, the profile page including an interface for displaying a visual representation of each of the selected plurality of social network stories; and

responsive to determining the viewing user is a page administrator of the profile page;

retrieving interactions with the profile page by users of the social networking system other than the viewing user;

determining one or more statistics based on the retrieved interactions; and

presenting profile page including the one or more statistics and the interface to the viewing user.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein selecting a plurality of items of narrative data comprises:

determining affinities between the viewing user and each item of narrative data; and

selecting the plurality of items of narrative data based on the affinities.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the social network stories are timeline units each associated with a time and the profile page includes a timeline interface comprising a list of the timeline units chronologically ordered by the times.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein generating a profile page further comprises:

identifying one or more timeline units identified as pinned by the page administrator of the profile page; and

including the one or more timeline units identified as pinned at a specified location within the timeline interface.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the specified location within the timeline interface is a location before a timeline unit associated with an earliest time.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more statistics based on the retrieved interactions include a statistic indicating the number of users of the social networking system interacting with the profile page.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more statistics based on the retrieved interactions include a statistic describing interaction by social networking system users one or more visual representations of social network stories.

8. A method comprising:

receiving a request for a profile page of a subject entity from a client device associated with a viewing user of a social networking system;

retrieving a user profile maintained by the social networking system and associated with the viewing user;

determining, from the user profile, whether the viewing user is a page administrator of the profile page;

accessing information about a plurality of actions taken by other social networking system users, each action associated with the subject entity;

selecting one or more priority actions from the plurality of actions based on one or more characteristics associated with actions; and

responsive to determining the viewing user is a page administrator of the profile page;

generating at least one suggested action for the viewing user based on the one or more priority actions, and

presenting the one or more priority actions and the at least one suggested action to the viewing user in conjunction with the profile page.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein presenting the one or more priority actions and the at least one suggested action comprises:

displaying a shortcut associated with the at least one suggested action, the shortcut configured to perform the suggested action responsive to an interaction by the viewing user.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein selecting one or more priority actions from the plurality of actions based on one or more characteristics associated with actions comprises:

determining a sentiment associated with each of the plurality of actions; and

selecting actions associated with a negative sentiment.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein a sentiment associated with an action is based in part on a type associated with the action and content associated with the action.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the at least one suggested action comprises generating a message for communication to a user that performed an action associated with the negative sentiment.

13. A method comprising:

receiving a request for a profile page of a subject entity from a client device associated with a page administrator of the profile page;

sending the profile page to the client device associated with the page administrator of the profile page, the profile page including a timeline having a plurality of timeline units organized based on times associated with each timeline unit;

receiving a selection of a timeline unit to pin from the client device associated with the page administrator of the profile page;

modifying the profile page to include the selected timeline unit in a specified location within the profile page;

receiving a request for the profile page from a viewing user other than the page administrator; and

sending the modified profile page to a client device associated with the viewing user requesting the profile page.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the specified location within the profile page comprises a location on the timeline that is before a timeline unit associated with an earliest time.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein a timeline unit includes one or more of:

content associated with the subject entity, statistics related to interaction with content associated with the subject entity, statistics related to user engagement with content associated with the subject entity, and an action shortcut for an administrative action related to a timeline unit.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein at least one timeline unit includes a shortcut associated with an action, the shortcut configured to perform the suggested action responsive to an interaction with the shortcut by the page administrator.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the at least one timeline unit including the shortcut associated with the action is not viewable by users that are not the page administrator.

18. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

removing an identified timeline unit from the timeline responsive to a request from the page administrator.