Post-to-profile control

• US 8,214,457 B2
• Filed: 06/14/2011
• Issued: 07/03/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 03/06/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Inventors: Tiu, William K., Roberto, Jeffrey J.
• Primary Examiner(s): WON, MICHAEL YOUNG
• Application Number:
  US13/160,197
• Publication Number:
  US 20110246569A1
• Time in Patent Office: 385 Days
• Field of Search: 715/201, 715/203, 715/204, 715/234, 715/235, 715/236, 719/328, 709/203, 709/217
• US Class Current: 709/217
• 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 40/143 Markup, e.g. Standard Generalized Markup Language [SGML] or Document Type Definition [DTD]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/10 Multimedia information
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/52 for supporting social networking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/40 Support for services or applications

Abstract

Multimedia content is featured on user pages of an online social network using embed codes that are generated using a configuration file associated with the source ID for the multimedia content and a content ID for the multimedia content. The configuration file, the source ID and the content ID are stored locally by the online social network so that any changes to the embed codes can be made by changing the configuration file associated with the source and regenerating the embed codes. By managing multimedia content in this manner, greater control can be exercised by the online social network over the multimedia content that are featured on its user pages.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

maintaining, at a social networking system, user profile data in one or more data stores, the user profile data corresponding to one or more users, each identified by a user identifier;

providing, at the social networking system, application programming interfaces (APIs) accessible to a content server that is external to the social networking system;

receiving, at the social networking system, through the APIs information relating to selected multimedia content and a user identifier corresponding to a user account of a first user, the selected multimedia content being stored on the content server;

storing, at the social networking system, the information relating to the selected multimedia content in a data structure in association with the user identifier; and

responsive to a request for a profile page associated with the user identifier, accessing, at the social networking system, the data structure to identify the selected multimedia content and generating a profile page associated with the user identifier, the profile page including an activatable reference to the selected multimedia content embedded therein.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the information related to the selected multimedia content comprises a source identifier associated with the content server and a content identifier corresponding to the selected multimedia content.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein generating the user profile page comprises accessing a configuration file associated with the source identifier, the configuration file comprising instructions for generating embedding code for embedding the selected multimedia content in the user profile page.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the information related to the selected multimedia content comprises one or more tags.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the information related to the selected multimedia content comprises a reference to a thumbnail image associated with the selected multimedia content.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the user profile page comprises a multimedia content section and wherein the selected multimedia content is embedded in the multimedia content section of the profile page.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the selected multimedia content is an item of digital media.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein the item of digital media comprises video.

9. The method of claim 5 wherein the activatable reference comprises the thumbnail image.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein the activatable reference enables direct streaming of the selected multimedia content from the content server.

11. A social networking system comprising:

a processing unit; and

a system memory comprising programming instructions operative when executed to cause the processing unit to;

maintain user profile data in one or more data stores, the user profile data corresponding to one or more users, each identified by a user identifier;

receive, from a computing device, through a set of application programming interfaces information relating to selected multimedia content and a user identifier corresponding to a user account of a first user, the selected multimedia content being stored on a content server that is external to the social networking system;

store the information relating to the selected multimedia content in a data structure in association with the user identifier; and

responsive to a request for a user profile page associated with the user identifier, access the data structure to identify the selected multimedia content and generate a profile page associated with the user identifier, the profile page including an activatable reference to the selected multimedia content embedded therein.

12. The apparatus of claim 11 wherein the activatable reference comprises a thumbnail image associated with the selected multimedia content.

13. The apparatus of claim 11 wherein the activatable reference enables direct streaming of the selected multimedia content from the content server.

14. The method of claim 1 wherein the information relating to selected multimedia content and a user identifier is received from a computing device of the first user.

15. The method of claim 1 wherein the information relating to selected multimedia content and a user identifier is received from the content server.

16. The method of claim 1 wherein the information relating to selected multimedia content and a user identifier is received from an element of a web page associated with the multimedia content.