Automatically Determining Relationships between Mobile Devices

• US 20140330643A1
• Filed: 05/02/2013
• Published: 11/06/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 05/02/2013
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Lotame Solutions Incorporated
• Original Assignee: AdMobius, Inc. (Lotame Solutions Incorporated)
• Inventors: Duong, Hao, Grigorovici, Dan, Abdala, Omar, Stein, Melissa
• Application Number:
  US13/886,187
• Publication Number:
  US 20140330643A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/14.52
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0254 based on statistics
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0255 based on user history
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0267 Wireless devices

Abstract

Relationships between a plurality of mobile devices are automatically determined. For each mobile device in the plurality of mobile devices, characteristics of a user of the mobile device are determined. Based on the characteristics of the users of the mobile devices, a first role of a first user of a first mobile device is determined. Based on the characteristics of the users of the mobile devices, a second role of a second user of a second mobile device is determined. Based on the first role and the second role, a relationship between the first user and the second user is determined. A determination is made that a relationship between the first mobile device and the second mobile device is equal to the relationship between the first user and the second user.

Claims

1. A method for automatically determining relationships between a plurality of mobile devices, comprising:

determining, for each mobile device in the plurality of mobile devices, characteristics of a user of the mobile device;

determining, based on the characteristics of the users of the mobile devices, a first role of a first user of a first mobile device;

determining, based on the characteristics of the users of the mobile devices, a second role of a second user of a second mobile device;

determining, based on the first role and the second role, a relationship between the first user and the second user; and

determining that a relationship between the first mobile device and the second mobile device is equal to the relationship between the first user and the second user.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the first mobile device comprises a tablet computer or a smartphone.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising a preliminary step of grouping the plurality of mobile devices.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the users of the plurality of mobile devices belong to a single household or a single workplace.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining a first targeted advertising message to send to the first mobile device and a second targeted advertising message to send to the second mobile device based on the relationship between the first mobile device and the second mobile device.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein characteristics of a mobile device user include a demographic estimate of that user.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the demographic estimate comprises one or more dimensions of a group containing gender, age, ethnicity, and household income.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein the demographic estimate comprises a probability distribution over classes of interest for a dimension.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein characteristics of a mobile device user include a behavioral segment determined based on that user'"'"'s usage of an application or content.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the behavioral segment grades the mobile device based on one or more elements of a group containing recency, frequency, and volume of use of content of a particular type.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the characteristics of the user of the mobile device comprises analyzing device-level characteristics of the mobile device.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein device-level characteristics of the mobile device comprise one or more elements of a group containing a make of the mobile device, a model of the mobile device, an operating system installed on the mobile device, one or more applications installed on the mobile device, a connection type used by the mobile device, and a connection Internet Protocol (IP) address used by the mobile device.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the characteristics of the user of the mobile device comprises analyzing log data regarding application usage or content usage of the mobile device.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein log data regarding application usage or content usage of the mobile device comprise one or more elements of a group containing a name of an application, a timestamp, a location of the mobile device, an IP address with which the mobile device communicated, a frequency of user interaction, one or more user actions, one or more search terms entered by the user of the mobile device, a referring uniform resource locator (URL), and content consumed.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the first role comprises Head of Household, Parent, Father, Mother, Child, Son, or Daughter.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the first role comprises Product, Sales, Finance, or Information Technology.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein determining, based on the characteristics of the users of the mobile devices, the first role of the first user of the first mobile device comprises:

for each mobile device in the plurality of mobile devices;

comparing an expected user characteristic profile for the first role to the characteristics of the user of the mobile device; and

determining a measure of similarity between the expected user characteristic profile and the characteristics of the user of the mobile device; and

assigning the first role to the user whose characteristics most strongly match the expected user characteristic profile.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the expected user characteristic profile is expressed as a vector, the characteristics of the user of the mobile device are expressed as a vector, and determining the measure of similarity between the expected user characteristic profile and the characteristics of the user of the mobile device comprises calculating a dot product of the expected user characteristic profile vector and the user characteristics vector.

19. The method of claim 1, wherein the relationship between the first user and the second user comprises spousal, parental, or sibling.

20. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing executable computer program instructions for automatically determining relationships between a plurality of mobile devices, the instructions performing steps comprising:

determining, for each mobile device in the plurality of mobile devices, characteristics of a user of the mobile device;

determining, based on the characteristics of the users of the mobile devices, a first role of a first user of a first mobile device;

determining, based on the characteristics of the users of the mobile devices, a second role of a second user of a second mobile device;

determining, based on the first role and the second role, a relationship between the first user and the second user; and

determining that a relationship between the first mobile device and the second mobile device is equal to the relationship between the first user and the second user.

21. A system for automatically determining relationships between a plurality of mobile devices, the system comprising:

at least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing executable computer program instructions comprising instructions for;

determining, for each mobile device in the plurality of mobile devices, characteristics of a user of the mobile device;

determining, based on the characteristics of the users of the mobile devices, a first role of a first user of a first mobile device;

determining, based on the characteristics of the users of the mobile devices, a second role of a second user of a second mobile device;

determining, based on the first role and the second role, a relationship between the first user and the second user; and

determining that a relationship between the first mobile device and the second mobile device is equal to the relationship between the first user and the second user; and

a processor for executing the computer program instructions.