SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR MONITORING AND APPLYING STATISTICAL DATA RELATED TO SHAREABLE LINKS ASSOCIATED WITH CONTENT ITEMS STORED IN AN ONLINE CONTENT MANAGEMENT SERVICE

• US 20150134808A1
• Filed: 11/11/2013
• Published: 05/14/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 11/11/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Dropbox, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Dropbox, Inc.
• Inventors: Fushman, Ilya, Welinder, Nils Peter
• Granted Patent: US 9,692,840 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/954 Navigation, e.g. using categorised browsing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34

Abstract

Shareable links can be created to share content items and information pertaining to activity on those shareable links can be monitored and stored in an online content management service. Based on this activity information, predetermined actions can be executed. These actions can include sending notifications regarding link activity, disabling shareable links, and/or updating sharing limitations related to the shareable links. Using the activity information, popular shared content items can be identified and recommendations for sharing unshared content items can be provided to the user. Additionally, advertisements can be tailored to the relative popularity of the shared content items.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:

monitoring a number of requests for each of a plurality of shared content items;

monitoring a number of shareable links created for each of the plurality of shared content items;

identifying a subset of the plurality of shared content items with a number of received requests exceeding a threshold;

determining, via a processor, one or more common characteristics shared by the subset of the plurality of content items; and

sending a recommendation to create a shareable link for an unshared content item that includes the one or more common characteristics.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more common characteristics include content item name and content item metadata.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

identifying a group of target identifiers with which the subset of the plurality of shared content items have been shared; and

sending a recommendation to share the shareable link with the group of target identifiers.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining whether the unshared content item is analyzable; and

when the unshared content item is analyzable,

analyzing contents of the unshared content item,

generating the recommendation based on the analysis, and

sending a sharing recommendation for the content item.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

when the unshared content item is analyzable, analyzing metadata of the unshared content item to determine one or more of authorship and publication information.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

creating the shareable link for the content item; and

storing the shareable link and the sharing recommendation in a user share history data structure.

7. A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving, from a first client device, a request to create a shareable link for a first content item, wherein the request includes at least one target identifier;

retrieving a first data structure representing a share network associated with the client device;

determining whether the first data structure includes the at least one target identifier;

adding the at least one target identifier to the first data structure when the first data structure does not include the at least one target identifier;

identifying a second content item that includes at least one common characteristic with the first content item; and

sending a recommendation to the first client device to share the second content item with a subset of target identifiers in the first data structure.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the second content item is an unshared content item.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein the subset of target identifiers includes one or more target identifiers with which content items that include the at least one common characteristic have previously been shared.

10. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

when the at least one target identifier is not included in the first data structure, sending a notification to the first client device to confirm the at least one target identifier.

11. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

retrieving additional data structures, wherein each additional data structure represents a share network associated with a target identifier from the first data structure;

determining whether the additional data structures include the at least one target identifier; and

when the at least one target identifier is not included in either the first data structure or the additional data structures, sending a notification to the first client device to confirm the at least one target identifier.

12. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

receiving, from a second client device, a request from a recipient user associated with the at least one target identifier to bookmark the shareable link; and

adding an entry to a bookmark data structure associated with the recipient user'"'"'s account corresponding to the shareable link, wherein the entry includes the shareable link and at least one sortable metric.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

sending a representation of the bookmark data structure to the second client device for display; and

sorting the representation according to the sortable metric, wherein the sortable metric includes one or more of a view count associated with the shareable link and a user configurable metric indicating an importance of the shareable link.

14. The method of claim 13 wherein the representation is a sharing graph.

15. A system comprising:

an online content management service executing on at least one server including a computer readable medium and processor, wherein the online content management service is configured to store a plurality of content items in a plurality of user accounts and maintain a data structure representing share network associated with each of the user accounts; and

wherein the online content management service is configured to

receive, from a client device, a request to create a shareable link for a first content item stored in a user account, wherein the request includes at least one target identifier;

retrieve a data structure representing the share network associated with the user account; and

update the first data structure using the at least one target identifier.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the online content management service is further configured to:

determine whether the data structure includes the at least one target identifier; and

add the at least one target identifier to the data structure when the data structure does not include the at least one target identifier.

17. The system of claim 15, wherein the online content management service is further configured to:

identify a second content item that includes at least one common characteristic with the first content item; and

send a recommendation to the client device to share the second content item with a subset of target identifiers in the data structure.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the second content item is an unshared content item stored in the user account.

19. The system of claim 17, wherein the subset of target identifiers includes one or more target identifiers with which content items that include the at least one common characteristic have previously been shared.

20. The system of claim 16, wherein when the at least one target identifier is not included in the first data structure, the online content management service is configured to send a notification to the client device to confirm the at least one target identifier.