Content recommendation using third party profiles

• US 8,296,660 B2
• Filed: 02/26/2008
• Issued: 10/23/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 02/28/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Yahoo Assets LLC
• Original Assignee: AOL Inc. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Macadaan, Mike, Wetherell, William G., Liu, David
• Primary Examiner(s): Rinehart, Mark
• Assistant Examiner(s): TITCOMB, WILLIAM D
• Application Number:
  US12/037,700
• Publication Number:
  US 20080209343A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,701 Days
• Field of Search: 715/747, 715/745, 715/735, 715/758
• US Class Current: 715/751
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/248 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/252 between a Database Management System and a front-end application
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/54 Browsing; Visualisation therefor
• 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 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0255 based on user history
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0269 based on user profile or attribute
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0271 Personalized advertisement
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34

Abstract

A method for personalizing content for a particular user in a computing system comprising a user interface configured to display content. The method comprises identifying one or more features of a short term profile of a user that are not included in a long term profile of the user, using the one or more features to identify one or more third party profiles having features that substantially match the one or more features of the user'"'"'s short term profile, accessing the identified one or more third party profiles, and providing one or more content items included in the third party profile to the user, the one or more content items having associated features that match the one or more features of the short term profile. An alternative method comprises accessing one or more third party profiles that are not a profile of the user, and using the accessed third party profile to identify a plurality of content items for recommendation to the user based on a feature set of the third party profile.

Claims

1. A method for personalizing content for a particular user, in a computer system comprising a user interface configured to display content items, the method comprising:

identifying, in the computer system one or more features of a short term profile of a user that are not included in a long term profile of the user, the long term profile of the user being based on a first, longer history of user inputs received from the user via a social network over a plurality of social networking sessions, the short term profile of the user being based on a second, shorter history of user input received from the user via the social network during a single social networking session;

using the one or more features of the user'"'"'s short term profile to identify a third party profile having features that match the one or more features of the user'"'"'s short term profile, the third party profile being a long term profile based on a history of user inputs received from a third party via the social network over a plurality of social networking sessions;

determining whether the third party is logged in to the social network;

enabling the user to communicate with the third party if the third party is logged in to the social network;

accessing the identified third party profile; and

providing one or more content items included in the third party profile to the user, the one or more content items having associated features that match the one or more features of the user'"'"'s short term profile.

2. The method in accordance with claim 1, wherein the one or more content items are provided to the user for a predetermined amount of time.

3. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the one or more content items include web pages, articles, advertising, and image clouds.

4. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein providing the one or more content items to the user comprises displaying the content items on a user interface.

5. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the third party is unknown to the user.

6. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein interaction with the identified third party profile causes the user'"'"'s short and/or long term profile to be updated.

7. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein interaction with the identified third party profile does not cause the user'"'"'s short and/or long term profile to be updated.

8. A computer program product comprising one or more physical computer-readable media having thereon computer-executable instructions that are structured such that, when executed by one or more processors of a computing system including a user interface configured to display content items, the computing system is caused to perform a method for personalizing content for a particular user, the method comprising:

identifying one or more features of a short term profile of a user that are not included in a long term profile of the user, the long term profile of the user being based on a first, longer history of user inputs received from the user via a social network over a plurality of social networking sessions, the short term profile of the user being based on a second, shorter history of user input received from the user via the social network during a single social networking session;

using the one or more features of the user'"'"'s short term profile to identify a third party profile having features that match the one or more features of the user'"'"'s short term profile, the third party profile being a long term profile based on a history of user inputs received from a third party via the social network over a plurality of social networking sessions;

determining whether the third party is logged on to the social network;

enabling the user to communicate with the third party if the third party is logged on to the social network;

accessing the identified third party profile; and

providing one or more content items included in the third party profile to the user, the one or more content items having associated features that match the one or more features of the user'"'"'s short term profile.

9. The computer program product as recited in claim 8, wherein the physical computer-readable media has thereon computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, further cause the computing system to perform the following:

display the content items on a user interface.

10. The computer program product as recited in claim 8, wherein the one or more content items are provided to the user for a predetermined amount of time.

11. The computer program product as recited in claim 8, wherein the third party is unknown to the user.

12. The computer program product as recited in claim 8, wherein interaction with the identified third party profile causes the user'"'"'s short and/or long term profile to be updated.

13. The computer program product as recited in claim 8, wherein the physical computer-readable media includes one of RAM, ROM, EEPROM, CD-ROM, other optical disk storage, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices.