APPARATUS, SYSTEMS, AND METHODS FOR ANALYZING CHARACTERISTICS OF ENTITIES OF INTEREST

• US 20140279674A1
• Filed: 03/14/2014
• Published: 09/18/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 03/15/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Foursquare Labs, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Factual Incorporated (Foursquare Labs, Inc.)
• Inventors: MICHELS, Bill, BELL, Tyler, CHKLOVSKI, Tim, LAGANG, Manuel, SHIMANOVSKY, Boris
• Granted Patent: US 10,331,631 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/347
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 13/0265 the criterion being a learning criterion
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/21 Design, administration or maintenance of databases
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/23 Updating
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/235 Update request formulation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2379 Updates performed during online database operations; commit processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2386 Bulk updating operations data conversion details G06F16/258
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24564 Applying rules; Deductive queries
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2477 Temporal data queries
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/282 Hierarchical databases, e.g. IMS, LDAP data stores or Lotus Notes
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/285 Clustering or classification
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/29 Geographical information databases
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/313 Selection or weighting of terms for indexing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/337 Profile generation, learning or modification
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/35 Clustering; Classification
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 20/00 Machine learning
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 5/022 Knowledge engineering; Knowledge acquisition
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/101 Collaborative creation, e.g. joint development of products or services
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0261 based on user location
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0282 Rating or review of business operators or products
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 : Social networking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/14 : Network analysis or design
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 16/00 : Network planning, e.g. coverage or traffic planning tools; Network deployment, e.g. resource partitioning or cells structures
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 16/24 : Cell structures
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 16/30 : Special cell shapes, e.g. doughnuts or ring cells
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 16/32 : Hierarchical cell structures
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 : Services making use of location information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/021 : Services related to particular areas, e.g. point of interest [POI] services, venue services or geofences
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/025 : using location based information parameters
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/029 : Location-based management or tracking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/50 : Service provisioning or reconfiguring
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 64/00 : Locating users or terminals or network equipment for network management purposes, e.g. mobility management
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 64/003 : locating network equipment
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/38 : triggered by timers
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/08 : Mobility data transfer
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/16 : selectively restricting mobility data tracking
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/18 : Processing of user or subscriber data, e.g. subscribed services, user preferences or user profiles; Transfer of user or subscriber data
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/00 : Devices specially adapted for wireless communication networks, e.g. terminals, base stations or access point devices
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/02 : Terminal devices

Abstract

The present disclosure relates to apparatus, systems, and methods for analyzing characteristics of entities of interest. In particular, the present disclosure provides a mechanism for analyzing information about entities of interest and for rating or scoring the entities of interest based on the analyzed information. The rating or the score of an entity of interest can sometimes be referred to as a placerank value of an entity of interest.

Claims

1. An apparatus comprising:

a memory device that is configured to maintain information about an entity of interest, wherein the information includes internal data, external data, and server logs associated with the entity of interest; and

a processor, in communication with the memory device, and configured to run one or more modules that are operable to cause the apparatus to;

retrieve the internal data, the external data, and the server logs about the entity of interest;

generate a plurality of features based on the internal data, the external data, and the server logs; and

compute a score for the entity of interest based on the plurality of features, wherein the score is indicative of an importance of the entity of interest.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the one or more modules are further operable to cause the apparatus to:

receive, from a computing device, an information request including a query, requesting the apparatus to provide information on one or more entities associated with the query;

identify at least one entity associated with the query based on at least one score associated with the at least one entity; and

order the at least one entity based on the at least one score using a sorting mechanism prior to providing information on the at least one entity to the computing device.

3. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the one or more modules are further operable to cause the apparatus to modify the order of the at least one entity by altering one or more scores of the at least one entity based on one or more contextual conditions associated with the information request.

4. The apparatus of claim 3, wherein the one or more contextual conditions associated with the information request can include one or more of:

a time at which the information request is received, a geographic location from which the information request is received, an application from which the information request is received, a profile of a user from which the information request is received, and/or a type of the computing device that sent the information request.

5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein one of the plurality of features comprises summary attributes associated with a particular characteristic of the EOI, and the one or more modules are further operable to cause the apparatus to:

format the internal data, external data, and server logs into structured data having a predetermined data structure;

determine a subset of the structured data associated with the particular characteristic of the EOI; and

generate the summary attributes of the particular characteristic of the EOI based on the subset of the structured data.

6. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein one of the plurality of features comprises an aggregate count of data items, in the internal dataset, relating to the entity of interest.

7. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein one of the plurality of features comprises an information request feature indicative of a total number of information requests, received by the apparatus, for information relating to the entity of interest.

8. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein an information request is associated with one of a plurality of information request types, and the information request feature is also indicative of a total number of information requests, received by the apparatus, associated with each of the plurality of information request types.

9. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the plurality of features is normalized to a common scale.

10. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the one or more modules are further operable to cause the apparatus to determine an association between the external data and the internal data by matching one or more attributes of the external data to the internal data.

11. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the one or more modules are further operable to compute the score for the entity of interest by computing a weighted combination of the plurality of features associated with the EOI.

12. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the one or more modules are further operable to determine weights for the weighted combination based on importance labels indicating an importance of each of the plurality of features.

13. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the one or more modules are further operable to compute the score for the entity of interest by computing exponentiations of the plurality of features.

14. A method for processing information relating to an entity of interest, the method comprising:

retrieving internal data, external data, and server logs about the entity of interest;

generating a plurality of features for the entity of interest based on the internal data, the external data, and the server logs; and

computing a score for the entity of interest based on the plurality of features, wherein the score is indicative of an importance of the entity of interest.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

receiving, from a computing device, an information request including a query, requesting the apparatus to provide information on one or more entities associated with the query;

identifying at least one entity associated with the query based on at least one score associated with the at least one entity; and

ordering the at least one entity based on the at least one score using a sorting mechanism prior to providing information on the at least one entity to the computing device.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising modifying the order of the at least one entity by altering one or more scores of the at least one entity based on one or more contextual conditions associated with the information request.

17. The method of claim 14, wherein one of the plurality of features comprises summary attributes associated with a particular characteristic of the EOI, and the method further comprises:

formatting the internal data, external data, and server logs into structured data having a predetermined data structure;

determining a subset of the structured data associated with the particular characteristic of the EOI; and

generating the summary attributes of the particular characteristic of the EOI based on the subset of the structured data.

18. The method of claim 14, further comprising determining an association between the external data and the internal data by matching one or more attributes of the external data to the internal data.

19. A non-transitory computer readable medium having executable instructions operable to cause a data processing apparatus to process information about an entity of interest;

the executable instructions operable to cause the data processing apparatus to;

retrieve internal data, external data, and server logs about the entity of interest;

generate a plurality of features for the entity of interest based on the internal data, the external data, and the server logs; and

compute a score for the entity of interest based on the plurality of features, wherein the score is indicative of an importance of the entity of interest.

20. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 19, further comprising executable instructions operable to cause the data processing apparatus to:

receive, from a computing device, an information request for a plurality of scores associated with a plurality of entities of interest;

determine the plurality of scores for the plurality of entities of interest; and

order the plurality of scores using a sorting mechanism prior to providing the plurality of scores to the computing device.

21. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 19, wherein one of the plurality of features comprises summary attributes associated with a particular characteristic of the EOI, and wherein the non-transitory computer readable medium further comprises executable instructions operable to cause the data processing apparatus to:

format the internal data, external data, and server logs into structured data having a predetermined data structure;

determine a subset of the structured data associated with the particular characteristic of the EOI; and

generate the summary attributes of the particular characteristic of the EOI based on the subset of the structured data.