Location ranking using social graph information

• US 8,150,844 B2
• Filed: 08/18/2010
• Issued: 04/03/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 08/18/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Inventors: Redstone, Joshua, Sharon, Eyal M., Narayanan, Srinivasa P.
• Primary Examiner(s): Le, Hung
• Application Number:
  US12/858,718
• Publication Number:
  US 20120047129A1
• Time in Patent Office: 594 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 707/724
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9537 Spatial or temporal dependent retrieval, e.g. spatiotemporal queries
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/045 for graphical visualisation of monitoring data
• 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: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/029 Location-based management or tracking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/21 for social networking applications

Abstract

In one embodiment, a user of a social networking system requests to check in a place near the user'"'"'s current location. The social networking system generates a list of places near the user'"'"'s current location, ranks the places in the list of places near the user'"'"'s current location by a distance between each place and the user'"'"'s current location, as well as activity of the user and the user'"'"'s social contacts for each place, and returns the ranked list to the user.

Claims

1. A method, comprising

receiving, at a computing system, a request, wherein the request includes a user identifier associated with a user and a geographic location;

accessing a data store of location information to identify a set of one or more places in the vicinity of the geographic location;

accessing, for each place in the set of one or more places, a set of user activity data, wherein the set of user activity data comprises one or more values corresponding to check-in activity of the user and one or more values corresponding to check-in activity of one or more social contacts of the user;

ranking the places in the set of one or more places based on a distance between the geographic location and a geographic location corresponding to each place and the one or more values in the set of user activity data for each place; and

transmitting a response including a ranked set of places from the set of one or more places.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein each place in the set of one or more places is within a pre-determined distance from the current geographic location.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the request further includes a character string and wherein the accessing a data store comprises matching the character string to place identifiers corresponding to places stored in the data store.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein the matching the character string to the place identifiers corresponding to places stored in the data store further comprises matching the character string completely or partially to each place identifier.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the geographic location is identified by geographic coordinate system parameters.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the set of user activity data is arranged in a user check-in activity table.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the set of user activity data further comprises one or more values corresponding to check-in activity of a global set of users in a social network.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein the set of user activity data is arranged in a user check-in activity table.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the check-in activity of the user or the social contacts of the user comprises tagging other users in connection with a check-in to a place.

10. A apparatus comprising:

a memory;

one or more processors;

a program comprising computer-readable instructions operative, when executed, to cause the one or more processors to;

receive a request, wherein the request includes a user identifier associated with a user and a geographic location;

access a data store of location information to identify a set of one or more places in the vicinity of the geographic location;

generate, for each place in the set of one or more places, a set of user activity data, wherein the set of user activity data comprises one or more values corresponding to check-in activity of the user and one or more values corresponding to check-in activity of one or more social contacts of the user;

rank the places in the set of one or more places based on a distance between the geographic location and a geographic location corresponding to each place and the one or more values in the set of user activity data for each place; and

transmit a response including a ranked set of places from the set of one or more places.

11. The apparatus of claim 10 wherein each place in the set of one or more places is within a pre-determined distance from the current geographic location.

12. The apparatus of claim 10 wherein the request further includes a character string and wherein, to access a data store, the program further comprises instructions operative to cause the one or more processors to match the character string to place identifiers corresponding to places stored in the data store.

13. The apparatus of claim 12 wherein to match the character string to the place identifiers corresponding to places stored in the data store, the program further comprises instructions operative to cause the one or more processors to match the character string completely or partially to each place identifier.

14. The apparatus of claim 10 wherein the geographic location is identified by geographic coordinate system parameters.

15. The apparatus of claim 10 wherein the set of user activity data is arranged in a user check-in activity table.

16. The apparatus of claim 10 wherein the set of user activity data further comprises one or more values corresponding to check-in activity of a global set of users in a social network.

17. The apparatus of claim 16 wherein the set of user activity data is arranged in a user check-in activity table.

18. The apparatus of claim 10 wherein the check-in activity of the user or the social contacts of the user comprises tagging other users in connection with a check-in to a place.

19. A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions operable, when executed, to cause one or more processors to:

access a request, wherein the request includes a user identifier associated with a user and a geographic location;

access a data store of location information to identify a set of one or more places in the vicinity of the geographic location;

access, for each place in the set of one or more places, a set of user activity data, wherein the set of user activity data comprises one or more values corresponding to check-in activity of the user and one or more values corresponding to check-in activity of one or more social contacts of the user;

rank the places in the set of one or more places based on a distance between the geographic location and a geographic location corresponding to each place and the one or more values in the set of user activity data for each place; and

transmit a response including a ranked set of places from the set of one or more places.

20. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 19 wherein the check-in activity of the user or the social contacts of the user comprises tagging other users in connection with a check-in to a place.