SOCIAL MEDIA IMPACT ASSESSMENT

• US 20140189536A1
• Filed: 01/02/2013
• Published: 07/03/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 01/02/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Lange, Danny B., Yang, Hung-Chih, Zhang, Xiong, Wheeler, Graham A., Joyce, Jason J., Moore, David M., Pandit, Bhalchandra
• Granted Patent: US 9,294,576 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/753
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24578 using ranking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/248 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/48 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04817 using icons graphical or visual programming using iconic symbols G06F8/34
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04842 Selection of displayed objects or displayed text elements G06F3/0482 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0201 Market modelling; Market analysis; Collecting market data
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0255 based on user history
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0269 based on user profile or attribute
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/52 for supporting social networking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34

Abstract

A system for identifying influential users of a social network platform. The system may compute a score for each of multiple users. Such a score may be topic-based, leading to a more accurate identification of influential users. Such a topic-based score may indicate authority and/or impact of a user with respect to a topic. The impact may be computed based on authority combined with other factors, such as power of the user. The authority score may be simply computed, in whole or in part, directly from a tweet log without, for example creating a retweet graph. As a result, the scores may be computed, using MapReduce primitives or other constructs that allow the computations to be distributed across multiple parallel processors. Such scores may be used to select users based on impact as part of social trend analysis, marketing or other functions.

Claims

1. A method for determining influence of a user of social media, the method comprising:

with at least one processor;

processing a tweet log to compute, for each of a plurality of users, an influence score of the user related to a topic.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein computing the influence score of the user comprises:

computing for the user;

a power score; and

a knowledge score, the knowledge score relating to the topic; and

the influence score is computed from the power score and the knowledge score.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

selecting a user from the plurality of users based on the influence scores for the plurality of users; and

directing information to the selected user, the information relating to the topic.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein:

the information comprises an advertisement for a product associated with the topic.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

selecting at least one user from the plurality of users based on the influence scores for the plurality of users; and

after an event related to the topic, predicting based at least in part on messages sent by the selected at least one user, a reaction to the event by a group including more people than the at least one user.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein computing the influence score of the user comprises:

computing for each user of the plurality of users;

a power score; and

a knowledge score, the knowledge score relating to the topic; and

the influence score is computed as the product of the knowledge score and a log of the power score.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

associating with the influence score of at least one user an indication of sentiment relating to the topic based on a difference in a number of messages sent by the user having a positive sentiment with respect to the topic and a number of messages sent by the user having a negative sentiment with respect to the topic.

8. A method of operating at least one computing device to render a graphical user interface on a display device, the method comprising:

accessing a log of messages sent by a plurality of users using at least one social media platform;

based on at least a portion of the messages in the log of messages, computing for each of the plurality of users, a knowledge score with respect to a topic and a power score; and

rendering in the graphical user interface a chart depicting, for each of a portion of the plurality of users, a knowledge score and a power score for the user relating to the topic.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein:

an icon is rendered on the chart for each of the portion of the plurality of users;

the method further comprises, in response to user input indicating an icon for an associated user, presenting a second graphical user interface providing information about the associated user.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein:

the second graphical user interface depicts, with respect to time, a knowledge score and/or a power score of the associated user.

11. The method of claim 8, wherein:

the graphical user interface comprises at least one filter control, and

the method further comprises selecting the portion based on input received through the at least one filter control.

12. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

rendering in the graphical user interface a sentiment ratio for a user of the plurality of users.

13. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

receiving through the graphical user interface user input indicating the topic.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

rendering on the graphical user interface a control for selection of a user for which to display data.

15. At least one tangible, computer-readable medium encoded with computer-executable instructions that, when executed by at least one processor, perform a method, the method comprising:

accessing records of a plurality of messages sent by users of a social media platform;

processing at least a portion of the plurality of messages to compute, for each of a plurality of users, an influence score of the user related to a topic.

16. The at least one tangible, computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein:

computing the influence score of the user comprises;

computing for the user;

a power score; and

a knowledge score, the knowledge score relating to the topic; and

the influence score is computed from the power score and the knowledge score.

17. The at least one tangible, computer-readable medium of claim 16, wherein the method further comprises:

rendering on a graphical user interface a chart depicting, for each of a portion of the plurality of users, a knowledge score and a power score for the user relating to the topic.

18. The at least one tangible, computer-readable medium of claim 17, wherein the method further comprises:

rendering on the graphical user interface information graphically depicting changes in the influence score of a user over time.

19. The at least one tangible, computer-readable medium of claim 17, wherein the method further comprises:

rendering on the graphical user interface a sentiment ratio of a user with respect to the topic.

20. The at least one tangible, computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein:

the influence score is computed as a product of the knowledge score and a log of the power score.