Social network site including contact-based recommendation functionality

• US 7,945,862 B2
• Filed: 09/11/2007
• Issued: 05/17/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 09/11/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Salesforce.com, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Yahoo! Inc. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Truong, Vu Hao Thi, Speiser, Michael, Aldrich, William Clement, Chijiiwa, Ryo
• Primary Examiner(s): Hailu; Tadeese
• Assistant Examiner(s): Riegler; Patrick F
• Application Number:
  US11/853,768
• Publication Number:
  US 20090070684A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,344 Days
• Field of Search: 715/751, 705/319, 709/218
• US Class Current: 715/751
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/958 Organisation or management of web site content, e.g. publishing, maintaining pages or automatic linking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/986 Document structures and storage, e.g. HTML extensions
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6218 to a system of files or objects, e.g. local or distributed file system or database
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/103 Formatting, i.e. changing of presentation of documents automatic justification G06F40/189; automatic line break hyphenation G06F40/191
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/197 Version control for software G06F8/71
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/043 using or handling presence information
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0807 using tickets, e.g. Kerberos cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for entity authentication using tickets or tokens H04L9/3213

Abstract

Particular embodiments of the present invention are related to a social network site with enhanced user interaction functionality. In particular implementations, a method includes accessing a list of contacts that are connected to an owner of a personal page of a social network; identifying one or more contact pairs from the list, wherein the contacts in each contact pair are not connected to each other; computing an affinity score for each identified contact pair; randomly selecting one or more of the contact pairs based on corresponding affinity scores; providing a friend connector user interface module to the owner of the personal page, wherein the friend connector user interface prompts the owner to invite the contacts of the selected contact pair to establish a connection association relative to the social network; and conditionally transmitting an invitation to the contacts of the contact pair based on one or more actions of the owner relative to the friend connector interface.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

accessing, via a computing device, a list of contacts that are connected to an owner of a personal page of a social network;

identifying, via the computing device, one or more contact pairs from the list, wherein the contacts in each contact pair are not connected to each other;

computing, via the computing device, an affinity score for each identified contact pair;

randomly, via the computing device, selecting one or more of the contact pairs based on corresponding affinity scores;

providing, via the computing device, a friend connector user interface module to the owner of the personal page, wherein the friend connector user interface prompts the owner to invite the contacts of the selected contact pair to establish a connection association relative to the social network; and

conditionally transmitting, via the computing device, an invitation to the contacts of the contact pair based on one or more actions of the owner relative to the friend connector interface.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

adding the one or more selected contact pairs to a suggested friends list;

retrieving profile information for each contact of the one or more selected pairs; and

displaying the profile information to the owner of the personal page.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the profile information comprises profile photos or avatars for each contact of the selected contact pair.

4. The method of claim 2 wherein the profile information comprises one or more of a name, age, hobbies, and link to the contacts personal page.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising sending an invitation to each contact to connect with the corresponding contact of the contact pair for each contact pair that the owner accepts.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the affinity scores are based at least in part on attributes of each contact.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the affinity score may be based on one or more of age, hobbies, and similar contacts.

8. The method of claim 1 further comprising updating a data table to indicate if the owner has accepted the contact pair.

9. The method of claim 1 further comprising adding the contacts to each other'"'"'s contacts list if both contacts accept their respective invitations to connect.

10. A computing device comprising

at least one processor;

a storage medium for tangibly storing therein program logic for execution by the processor, the program logic comprising;

logic for accessing a list of contacts that are connected to an owner of a personal page of a social network;

logic for identifying one or more contact pairs from the list, wherein the contacts in each contact pair are not connected to each other;

logic for computing an affinity score for each identified contact pair;

logic for randomly selecting one or more of the contact pairs based on corresponding affinity scores;

logic for providing a friend connector user interface module to the owner of the personal page, wherein the friend connector user interface prompts the owner to invite the contacts of the selected contact pair to establish a connection association relative to the social network; and

logic for conditionally transmitting an invitation to the contacts of the contact pair based on one or more actions of the owner relative to the friend connector interface.

11. The computing device of claim 10 wherein the logic is further operable to cause the at least one processor to:

add the one or more selected contact pairs to a suggested friends list;

retrieve profile information for each contact of the one or more selected pairs; and

display the profile information to the owner of the personal page.

12. The computing device of claim 11 wherein the profile information comprises profile photos or avatars for each contact of the selected contact pair.

13. The computing device of claim 11 wherein the profile information comprises one or more of a name, age, hobbies, and link to the contacts personal page.

14. The computing device of claim 10 wherein the logic is further operable to cause the at least one processor to send an invitation to each contact to connect with the corresponding contact of the contact pair for each contact pair that the owner accepts.

15. The computing device of claim 10 wherein the affinity scores are based at least in part on attributes of each contact.

16. The computing device of claim 10 wherein the affinity score may be based on one or more of age, hobbies, and similar contacts.

17. The computing device of claim 10 wherein the logic is further operable to cause the at least one processor to update a data table to indicate if the owner has accepted the contact pair.

18. The computing device of claim 10 wherein the logic is further operable to cause the at least one processor to add the contacts to each other'"'"'s contacts list if both contacts accept their respective invitations to connect.