System and method for semantic analysis of social network user activities

• US 8,498,979 B1
• Filed: 02/19/2012
• Issued: 07/30/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 01/09/2012
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Wajam Internet Technologies Inc.
• Original Assignee: Wajam Internet Technologies Inc.
• Inventors: Archambault, Martin-Luc, Paquet, Andr-Philippe
• Primary Examiner(s): Trujillo, James
• Assistant Examiner(s): Chang, Jeffrey
• Application Number:
  US13/400,086
• Publication Number:
  US 20130179429A1
• Time in Patent Office: 527 Days
• Field of Search: 707/711
• US Class Current: 707/711
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0631 Item recommendations
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking

Abstract

There is described a method implemented on a social search server for presenting names of members of a social network who shared information about a commercial item to a user performing a search from a user interface of a user device. The user is registered on the social network and has connections thereon. The method comprises: indexing data representative of activities of the members on the social network; extracting commercial items from the indexed activity data; receiving a search query along with a user identifier; identifying a commercial item within the search query; using the search query and the user identifier, performing a search on the extracted commercial items specific to the user'"'"'s connections to obtain names of members who shared information about the commercial item; and returning the names of the members who shared information about the commercial item to the user device.

Claims

1. A method for presenting names of members of a social network who shared information about a commercial item to a user performing a search from a user interface of a user device, the user being registered on the social network and having connections thereon, the method comprising:

collecting, by a social search server, data representative of activities of the members on the social network from a remote server associated with the social network;

indexing, by the social search server, the data representative of activities of the members on the social network to produce indexed activity data;

extracting, by the social search server, commercial items from the indexed activity data;

receiving, by the social search server, a search query along with a user identifier from the user device;

identifying, by the social search server, a commercial item within the search query;

using the identified commercial item and the user identifier, performing a search, by the social search server, on the extracted commercial items specific to the user'"'"'s connections to obtain names of members of the social network who shared information about the commercial item;

performing a semantic analysis of the shared information to determine if the shared information represents a recommendation for the commercial item;

returning, by the social search server, the names of the members who shared information about the commercial item to the user device; and

presenting, on the user interface, the names of the members who shared information about the commercial item.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising gathering/obtaining, by the social search server, the identification of the commercial items.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the identification of the commercial items comprises at least one of a class, a category, a type, a brand, a model, a serial number and a Stock-keeping unit (SKU).

4. The method of claim 3, wherein identifying the commercial item within the search query comprises cross-referencing terms in the search query with the identification of the commercial items to find at least one matching commercial item by at least one of a class, a category, a type, a brand and a model.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the returning comprises ranking the commercial items by brand or model according to one of:

the number of members who have shared information about the brand or model;

sentiment or appreciation for the brand or model; and

whether the brand or model is in stock or not.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising returning another commercial item from a class, in a category, of a type, of a brand or a model related to the identified commercial item.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising returning the number of user'"'"'s connections who shared information about the commercial item.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising providing, on the user interface, a hyperlink to a more detailed description of the commercial item.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising providing, on the user interface, a hyperlink to a vendor of the commercial item.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising providing, on the user interface, a hyperlink to the activity of the member related to the commercial item.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising providing, on the user interface, price for commercial item, third party reviews concerning the commercial item, images of the commercial item, and number and names of merchants carrying the commercial item.

12. The method of claim 1, where the recommendation comprises at least one of a “

share”

of the commercial items, a “

like”

/“

dislike”

, a posting on a wall, a timeline or a feed, text including a review about the matched items.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the performing a semantic analysis comprises analyzing activities of a member on the social network to infer information about the member.

14. The method of claim 1, further comprising creating a reserved space on the user interface and presenting the names of ranked members in the reserved space.

15. A social search server for presenting names of members of a social network who shared information about a commercial item to a user performing a search from a user interface of a user device, the user being registered on the social network and having connections thereon, the social search server comprising:

an input for collecting data representative of activities of the members on the social network from a remote server associated with the social network and for receiving a search query along with a user identifier;

an indexing engine for indexing data representative of activities of the members on the social network to produce indexed activity data and for extracting commercial items from the indexed activity data;

a searching engine identifying a commercial item within the search query, using the search query and the user identifier, performing a search on the extracted commercial items specific to the user'"'"'s connections to obtain names of members of the social network who shared information about the commercial item, and performing a semantic analysis of the shared information to determine if the shared information represents a recommendation for the commercial item; and

an output for returning, to the user device, the names of the members who shared information about the commercial item for presentation on the user interface.

16. A method implemented on a social search server for presenting names of members of a social network who shared information about a commercial item to a user performing a search from a user interface of a user device, the user being registered on the social network and having connections thereon, the method comprising:

collecting data representative of activities of the members on the social network from a remote server associated with the social network;

indexing the data representative of activities of the members on the social network to produce indexed activity data;

extracting commercial items from the indexed activity data;

receiving a search query along with a user identifier from the user device;

identifying a commercial item within the search query;

using the search query and the user identifier, performing a search on the extracted commercial items specific to the user'"'"'s connections to obtain names of members of the social network who shared information about the commercial item;

performing a semantic analysis of the shared information to determine if the shared information represents a recommendation for the commercial item; and

returning the names of the members who shared information about the commercial item to the user device for presentation thereon.