Sharing Locations with Friends on Online Social Networks

• US 20150304368A1
• Filed: 07/03/2014
• Published: 10/22/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 04/16/2014
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Inventors: Vaccari, Andrea, Jia, Yuntao, Ge, Jun, Moreels, Pierre, Bisht, Tushar
• Application Number:
  US14/323,940
• Publication Number:
  US 20150304368A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3209 Monitoring remote activity, e.g. over telephone lines or network connections
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3215 Monitoring of peripheral devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/18 File system types
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24553 of query operations
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24578 using ranking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/28 Databases characterised by their database models, e.g. relational or object models
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/29 Geographical information databases
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/387 using geographical or spatial information, e.g. location
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/51 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/5866 using information manually generated, e.g. tags, keywords, comments, manually generated location and time information
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9537 Spatial or temporal dependent retrieval, e.g. spatiotemporal queries
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/30 in albums, collections or shared content, e.g. social network photos or video
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 2201/10 Recognition assisted with metadata
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/172 Classification, e.g. identification
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/52 for supporting social networking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/403 Arrangements for multi-party communication, e.g. for conferences data switching systems for conference H04L12/18; arrangements for connecting several subscribers to a common circuit, i.e. affording conference facilities H04M3/56; television conferencing systems H04N7/15
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 : in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 : specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 : Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/55 : Push-based network services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/023 : using mutual or relative location information between multiple location based services [LBS] targets or of distance thresholds
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/027 : using movement velocity, acceleration information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/029 : Location-based management or tracking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/08 : User group management
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/14 : Short messaging services, e.g. short message services [SMS] or unstructured supplementary service data [USSD]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/20 : Services signaling; Auxiliary data signalling, i.e. transmitting data via a non-traffic channel
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/21 : for social networking applications

Abstract

In one embodiment, a mobile client system of a first user may determine a first location of the mobile client system, where the first user corresponds to a first node of a social graph of the online social network, the social graph comprises a plurality of nodes and a plurality of edges connecting the nodes, and each of the edges between two of the nodes represents a single degree of separation between them. The mobile client system may send an indication of the first location and one or more and one or more notification preferences to a computing system associated with the online social network. The mobile client system may receive a notification referencing one or more second users of the online social network, where each second user is associated with a mobile client system having a second location within a threshold distance of the first location.

Claims

1. A method comprising, by a mobile-client system associated with a first user of an online social network:

determining a first location of the mobile-client system of the first user, wherein the first user corresponds to a first node of a social graph of the online social network, the social graph comprising a plurality of nodes and a plurality of edges connecting the nodes, each of the edges between two of the nodes representing a single degree of separation between them;

sending an indication of the first location and one or more notification preferences to a computing system associated with the online social network; and

receiving a notification referencing one or more second users of the online social network, wherein each second user is associated with a mobile-client system having a second location within a threshold distance of the first location, and wherein each identified second user corresponds to a second node within a threshold degree of separation of the first node.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the notification preferences comprise a time period during which the indication of the first location is accessible by the computing system associated with the online social network.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the notification preferences comprise sending the indication of the first location to a group of users specified by the first user.

4. The method of claim 3, further wherein the indication of the first location is sent only to one or more users of the group of users, each of the one or more users having a current location within a threshold distance of the first location.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the indication of the first location further comprises one or more content items shared by the first user.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the indication of the first location comprises a map view to be displayed to users who are authorized to view the indication of the first location.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the indication of the first location comprises a time stamp indicating a time at which the first user was at the first location.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the first location is updated based on a movement of the first user.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the indication of the first location is sent as one or more of a SMS message, a MMS message, an email message, a banner notification, a pop-up notification, an in-app notification, a cloud-to-device notification, or any combination thereof.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the indication of the first location is sent within a group message to other users of the online social network participating in the group message.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the first location is based on one or more of a global position system (GPS) signal, a Wi-Fi signal, or a cellular radio signal.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the notification comprises an activable element for the first user to send an indication of the first location to the second user referenced in the notification.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the notification comprises an indication of one or more second locations sent by one or more second users.

14. The method of claim 13 wherein the notification comprises a map view of the second location.

15. The method of claim 13, further comprising sending a request in response to the notification for an updated second location.

16. The method of claim 13, wherein the notification comprises an activable element for the first user to send an indication of the first location to the one or more second users in response to the notification.

17. The method of claim 13, wherein the notification comprises an activable element for the first user to delete the notification.

18. The method of claim 13, wherein the notification comprises an activable element for the first user to send a communication to the second user.

19. One or more computer-readable non-transitory storage media embodying software that is operable when executed to:

determine a first location of the mobile-client system of the first user, wherein the first user corresponds to a first node of a social graph of the online social network, the social graph comprising a plurality of nodes and a plurality of edges connecting the nodes, each of the edges between two of the nodes representing a single degree of separation between them;

send an indication of the first location and one or more notification preferences to a computing system associated with the online social network; and

receive a notification referencing one or more second users of the online social network, wherein each second user is associated with a mobile-client system having a second location within a threshold distance of the first location, and wherein each identified second user corresponds to a second node within a threshold degree of separation of the first node.

20. A system comprising:

one or more processors; and

a memory coupled to the processors comprising instructions executable by the processors, the processors operable when executing the instructions to;

determine a first location of the mobile-client system of the first user, wherein the first user corresponds to a first node of a social graph of the online social network, the social graph comprising a plurality of nodes and a plurality of edges connecting the nodes, each of the edges between two of the nodes representing a single degree of separation between them;

send an indication of the first location and one or more notification preferences to a computing system associated with the online social network; and

receive a notification referencing one or more second users of the online social network, wherein each second user is associated with a mobile-client system having a second location within a threshold distance of the first location, and wherein each identified second user corresponds to a second node within a threshold degree of separation of the first node.