Document distribution recommender system and method

• US 7,996,456 B2
• Filed: 09/17/2007
• Issued: 08/09/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 09/20/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: John Nicholas and Kristin Gross Trust
• Inventors: Gross, John Nicholas
• Primary Examiner(s): Jean; Frantz B
• Application Number:
  US11/856,182
• Publication Number:
  US 20080071872A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,422 Days
• Field of Search: 209/206, 209/200, 209/201
• US Class Current: 709/200
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 15/825 Dataflow computers
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/35 Clustering; Classification
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/93 Document management systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/04 Real-time or near real-time messaging, e.g. instant messaging [IM]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/08 Annexed information, e.g. attachments
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/52 for supporting social networking services

Abstract

A document management system monitors proposed recipients for documents and provides recommendations on alterations to the distribution set, such as by adding or removing recipients.

Claims

1. A method of controlling distribution of electronic messages for a first user of a social networking site with a computing system comprising:

a. identifying an electronic message for the first user to be processed with the computing system;

b. receiving an initial set of designated recipients from said social networking site for said electronic message manually identified by the first user with the computing system;

c. using the computing system to evaluate a set of first prior electronic message designations provided by the first user as well as a set of second prior electronic message designations provided by second users of the social networking site who are part of a social network group associated with the first user, including after said user has completed providing all of said initial set of designated recipients, to determine if said initial set of designated recipients for said document should be modified based on a correlation calculated for said set of first prior electronic message designations and said set of second prior electronic message designations with said initial set of designated recipients;

wherein said evaluating step by the computing system can include consideration of multiple ones of said initial set of designated recipients to identify additional potential recipients;

d. with the computing system forming a final set of designated recipients including any additional potential recipients added to said initial set of designated recipients based on the results of step (c).

2. The method of claim 1 wherein said message is compared to prior messages generated by said first user or a set of other users related to said first user to identify distribution groups of said prior messages.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein said prior message distribution groups are correlated to identify relationships between recipients and to predict an additional set of recipients to be added to said initial set of designated recipients to form said final set.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein said prior message distribution groups are correlated to identify relationships between recipients and to predict an additional set of recipients to be removed from said initial set of designated recipients to form said final set.

5. The method of claim 2 further including steps:

analyzing a plurality of messages authored by said first user or other users to classify content therein and form a set of individual content topics; and

processing said message to determine a topic associated with the same;

wherein said message is compared only to prior messages which are related to said topic to identify additional recipients.

6. The method of claim 1, further including a step:

providing a suggestion to said first user for a proposed recipient group based on correlating characteristics of recipients and messages associated with said first user.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein said final set includes a first set of additional recipients determined to be correlated above a first specified threshold value with said initial set of designated recipients.

8. The method of claim 7 further including a step:

predicting a second set of additional recipients determined to be correlated above a second specified threshold value with said first set of additional recipients.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein a sequence used by said first user for entering said initial set of designated recipients is monitored to determine a correlation to prior sequences used by said first user.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein said electronic messages are emails and/or instant messages (IMs), and said initial set of designated recipients is obtained from an email/IM address book maintained at the social networking site.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein said final set of designated recipients are derived from said email/IM address book and/or address books from third party accounts maintained at the social networking site.

12. The method of claim 1 further including a step:

providing an alert to the first user when an inappropriate recipient is detected in said initial set of designated recipients.

13. The method of claim 1 wherein step (c) is only performed when said initial set of designated recipients includes a plurality of recipients.

14. The method of claim 1 wherein content of said message is analyzed while the first user is generating said message.

15. The method of claim 1 wherein prior message designations by the first user are pre-computed prior to generating said message to accelerate evaluation during step (c).

16. The method of claim 1 wherein at least part of step (c) is performed while step (a) is taking place.

17. A method of controlling distribution of electronic messages with a computing system comprising:

a. with the computing system, identifying a first message at a social networking site from a first member of a social networking group;

b. receiving an initial set of designated recipients from said first member for said first message;

c. evaluating content of said first message with the computing system to determine at least one first topic of said message;

d. with the computing system, identifying second messages by a second set of members of said social networking group containing content related to said at least one first topic;

e. with the computing system, determining if said set of designated recipients for said first message should be modified based on comparing said set of designated recipients to a second set of recipients designated by said second set of members in said second messages;

f. forming a final set of designated recipients based on the results of step (e).

18. The method of claim 17 wherein said message is also analyzed to identify additional uniform resource locators (URLs) which should be added based on existing URLs in said message.

19. A method of controlling distribution of electronic messages with a computing system comprising:

a. generating a message for a first user of a social networking group using the computing system;

b. receiving an initial set of designated recipients for said message from said first user;

c. with the computing system, evaluating prior message distribution designations by said first user to determine if said initial set of designated recipients should be modified based on identifying selected second users of said social networking group who are correlated above a first threshold to said initial set of designated recipients based on an analysis by the computing system of prior message distributions between said first user and said selected second users;

wherein said prior message distributions are maintained at a social networking site and include different types of documents, at least one first type which includes emails, and another second type which includes instant messages;

d. with the computing system, identifying said selected users to said first user as candidates to receive said message;

e. forming a final set of designated recipients based on the results of steps (c) and (d).

20. The method of claim 19 wherein said message is also analyzed to identify additional uniform resource locators (URLs) which should be added based on existing URLs in said message.