METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR CREATING EVENTS AND MATCHING USERS VIA BLENDED PROFILES

• US 20140310267A1
• Filed: 05/30/2014
• Published: 10/16/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 05/20/2011
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Blendabout, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Blendabout, Inc.
• Inventors: Spivak, Katharine D., Winters, Jon H.
• Application Number:
  US14/292,493
• Publication Number:
  US 20140310267A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/723
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/02 Reservations, e.g. for tickets, services or events
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063112 Skill-based matching of a person or a group to a task
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06312 Adjustment or analysis of established resource schedule, e.g. resource or task levelling, or dynamic rescheduling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0201 Market modelling; Market analysis; Collecting market data

Abstract

Certain embodiments teach a method and system for pairing users, whom do not know each other for an event, on a social networking platform. The social dining system matches people with common interests and organizes an offline event, such as a meal at a restaurant, based on user profiles, availability, and other attributes. For example, the social dining system can schedule a group meal for a user, and five to seven other people that share an interest with the user. In cases where a user prefers to be attend events with at least one known user, a single profile for the user and the known user is created as a mutual or a blended profile. The system then creates an event by matching the mutual profile with other members using a blending algorithm.

Claims

1-19. -19. (canceled)

20. A method of generating a social event by matching members of a social event system, comprising:

receiving a plurality of profiles datasets, the plurality of profiles datasets including data indicative of attributes associated with the members;

generating a blended profile based on the plurality of profiles datasets, the blended profile including at least two members of the social event system, said blended profile generated by aggregating corresponding attributes of the at least two members as a single merged entity;

determining a first set of mutual attributes for the at least two members of the blended profile, the first set of mutual attributes including common attributes, from the corresponding attributes, that are shared between the at least two members;

determining an entity that matches the blended profile based on the first set of mutual attributes associated with the blended profile; and

arranging the social event between the blended profile and the entity.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein generating the blended profile comprises:

identifying at least one recommended individual for a given member to form the blended profile based on the corresponding attributes of the given member; and

generating a recommended blended profile as the blended profile, the recommended blended profile including the given member and the at least one recommended individual.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein identifying the at least one recommended individual is further based on user activity of the given member on the social event system.

23. The method of claim 21, wherein the at least one recommended individual comprises any one of:

a member within a member set of the social event system;

a member within a set of friends of the given member on the social event system;

a member of a social networking system;

or

a member within a set of friends of the given member on the social networking system.

24. The method of claim 20, wherein generating the blended profile comprises:

receiving a blended-profile request from a given member of the social event system to invite a set of invitees to join the blended profile;

causing a set of acceptances to be transmitted to the set of invitees;

receiving at least one acceptance of the set of acceptances from the set of invitees to join the blended profile;

in response to the at least one acceptance, generating the blended profile, the blended profile including the given member and at least one of the set of invitees based on the at least one acceptance.

25. The method of claim 24, wherein the set of invitees includes any of a member of the social event system or a non-member of the social event system.

26. The method of claim 20, wherein determining the first set of mutual attributes for the at least two members of the blended profile comprises:

applying a weight to each common attribute of the common attributes that are shared between the at least two members; and

generating the first set of mutual attributes based on the weight of each common attribute, wherein the weight facilitates the determining of the entity that matches the blended profile.

27. The method of claim 20, wherein the common attributes, from the corresponding attributes, that are shared between the at least two members comprise any of:

geographical preferences;

professional industries;

interests;

or target member attributes.

28. The method of claim 20, wherein the entity comprises any one of:

a second blended profile, the second blended profile including at least another two members of the social event system;

or

an individual entity, the individual entity including any one of a member or a non-member of the social event system.

29. The method of claim 20, wherein the entity comprises two or more blended profiles matching the blended profile.

30. The method of claim 20, wherein the entity is determined using quality-thresholding clustering.

31. The method of claim 20, wherein determining the entity that matches the blended profile comprises:

determining a second set of mutual attributes for a set of given members of the entity, the set of given members including one or more members different from the at least two members of the first blended profile; and

determining mutual attributes shared between the first set of mutual attributes of the first blended profile and the second set of mutual attributes of the entity.

32. The method of claim 20, wherein arranging the social event between the blended profile and the entity comprises:

prompting and receiving availability attributes from corresponding members of the blended profile and the entity;

in response to the availability attributes, causing a reservation at a venue to be generated for the social event, wherein the reservation is generated based on a number of acceptances received from the corresponding members of the blended profile and the entity.

33. The method of claim 31, wherein the availability attributes comprises any one of:

a data and time availability;

or

a geographical location availability.

34. The method of claim 20, wherein the at least two members are any one of:

acquaintances with a preexisting relationship;

or non-acquaintances with no preexisting relationship.

35. The method of claim 20, wherein the plurality of profiles datasets comprises:

a plurality of user wish lists, each user wish list associated with a corresponding member of the social event system, each user wish list including a set of ranked members of the social event system;

a plurality of venue wish lists, each venue wish list associated with the corresponding member of the social event system, each venue wish list including a set of ranked venues.

36. A system for generating a social event by matching users of the system, comprising:

a processor;

a user interface module that works in cooperation with the processor to receive a plurality of profiles datasets from a plurality of users, the plurality of profiles datasets including data indicative of attributes associated with the plurality of users;

a mutual profile module that works in cooperation with the processor to generate a plurality of blended profiles based on the plurality of profiles datasets, each blended profile including at least two users of the plurality of users having corresponding attributes of the at least two users merged as a single entity; and

an event scheduling module that works in cooperation with the processor to determine sets of matching blended profiles and to arrange the social event for each set of matching blended profiles.

37. The system of claim 36, further comprising a restaurant module that works in cooperation with the processor to receive an indication of restaurant preferences from the plurality of users, to generate restaurant wish lists for the plurality of users based on the indication of restaurant preferences, wherein the sets of matching blended profiles are based on, at least in part, the restaurant wish lists.

38. The system of claim 37, wherein the restaurant module further comprises a monitoring module that works in cooperation with the processor to monitor restaurant-related activities of the plurality of users on the social event system, the restaurant-related activities including any of mouse-overs, mouse clicks, interaction, hyperlink selections, or search keywords, wherein the sets of matching blended profiles are based on, at least in part, the restaurant-related activities of the plurality of users.

39. The system of claim 37, wherein the restaurant module further comprises a restaurant interface module that works in cooperation with the processor to communicate with a set of restaurants for dining reservations associated with the sets of matching blended profiles.