Hybrid recommendation system

• US 8,661,050 B2
• Filed: 07/10/2009
• Issued: 02/25/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 07/10/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Varshavsky, Roy, Tennenholtz, Moshe, Karidi, Ron
• Primary Examiner(s): Pham, Khanh
• Assistant Examiner(s): JOHNSON, JOHNESE T
• Application Number:
  US12/500,657
• Publication Number:
  US 20110010366A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,691 Days
• Field of Search: 707/765
• US Class Current: 707/765
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9536 Search customisation based on social or collaborative filtering
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising

Abstract

A recommendation system may use a network of relationships between many different entities to find search results and establish a relevance value for the search results. The relevance value may be calculated by analyzing trust and similarity components of each relationship between the search user and the entity providing the search results. The entities may be, for example, persons associated within express or implied social networks, or corporations or other organizations with a historical or other reputation. The relationships may be created through many different contact mechanisms and may be unidirectional, asymmetric bidirectional, or symmetric bidirectional relationships. The relationships may be different based on topic or other factors.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving a search request from a search user;

creating a network of entities, the network including relationships among the entities, wherein the entities include a search user entity representing the search user and one or more result entities;

defining trust components and similarity components for the relationships among the entities, wherein the similarity components express relative similarity of the entities and the trust components express relative trust among the entities;

identifying a plurality of search results, wherein the one or more result entities provide the plurality of search results and the plurality of search results are identified based on the search request;

for the plurality of search results provided by the one or more result entities, determining, from the network, a set of relationships connecting the search user entity to the one or more result entities along one or more paths;

determining, based on the set of relationships connecting the search user entity to the one or more result entities, relevance values for the plurality of search results, wherein the relevance values are determined based on both;

individual similarity components that express relative similarity of individual entities along the one or more paths, and

individual trust components that express relative trust among the individual entities along the one or more paths;

ranking the plurality of search results based on the relevance values for the plurality of search results; and

presenting, to the search user, individual search results from the plurality of search results according to the ranking,

wherein at least the ranking is performed by a hardware computer processor.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

performing an analysis of the search request to determine a category of the search request;

determining that the category of the search request is not included in a set of categories for a first one of the individual entities along the one or more paths; and

responsive to determining that the category of the search request is not in the set of categories for the first individual entity, ignoring the first individual entity when identifying the plurality of search results.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the network is created prior to receiving the search request.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the network is created after receiving the search request.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

performing an analysis of the search request to determine a category of the search request; and

determining a weighting for the trust components and the similarity components, the weighting being a function of the category,

wherein the trust components are weighted more heavily than the similarity components for some categories, and

wherein the similarity components are weighted more heavily than the trust components for other categories.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the search user entity is a first person in a social network and an individual result entity is a second person in the social network that provides one or more of the individual search results that are presented to the first person.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein an individual result entity is an organization that provides one or more of the individual search results that are presented to the search user.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

limiting the network to a predefined number of generations of relationships among the entities.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining the similarity components of the relationships based on traits of the entities.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the traits used to determine the similarity components of the relationships include:

age of the entities,

sex of the entities,

family status of the entities, and

education of the entities.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the traits used to determine the similarity components of the relationships include one or more of:

age of the entities,

sex of the entities,

family status of the entities, or

education of the entities.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

applying a random walk search algorithm to search among the entities to find the individual search results that are presented to the search user.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the creating the network further comprises:

identifying a first set of first entities having first relationships with the search user entity;

adding the first set of first entities to the network; and

for individual first entities in the first set, identifying a second set of second entities having second relationships to the individual first entities, and adding the second set of second entities to the network.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the creating the network is performed as a background process prior to receiving the search request.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein:

an individual result entity is a weblog that provides one or more of the individual search results that are presented to the search user; and

at least one of the individual trust components expresses relative trust of the search user in the weblog.

16. A system comprising:

a database comprising entities and relationships among the entities, wherein;

the entities including a search user entity representing a search user and one or more result entities,

the relationships include trust components and similarity components,

the similarity components express relative similarity among the entities, and

the trust components express relative trust among the entities;

a network creator configured to identify a starting entity and build a network of entities based on the relationships;

a search manager configured to;

receive a search request from the search user, the search user being the starting entity for the network;

search the network of entities to identify a plurality of search results based on the search request, wherein the one or more result entities provide the plurality of search results and the plurality of search results are identified based on the search request;

for the plurality of search results provided by the result entities, determining, from the network, a set of relationships connecting the search user entity to the one or more result entities along one or more paths;

determine, based on the set of relationships connecting the search user entity to the one or more result entities, relevance values for the plurality of search results, wherein the relevance values are determined based on both;

individual similarity components that express relative similarity of individual entities along the one or more paths, and

individual trust components that express relative trust among individual entities along the one or more paths; and

rank the plurality of search results based on the relevance values for the plurality of search results;

a user interface generator configured to present, to the search user, individual search results from the plurality of search results according to the ranking; and

a hardware computer processor configured to execute at least the search manager.

17. A method performed by at least one hardware computer processor, the method comprising:

receiving a search request from a search user;

performing an analysis of the search request to determine a category for the search request;

determining a weighting scheme based on the category, wherein;

the weighting scheme assigns a first numerical value to trust components of relationships among entities,

the weighting scheme assigns a second numerical value that is different than the first numerical value to similarity components of the relationships among the entities, and

the entities include a search user entity and one or more result entities, the search user entity representing the search user;

applying the weighting scheme to the trust components and the similarity components, wherein the applying comprises;

applying the first numerical value to the trust components of the relationships, and

applying the second numerical value that is different than the first numerical value to the similarity components of the relationships;

searching the entities to identify a plurality of search results based on the search request, the plurality of search results being provided by the one or more result entities;

determining a set of relationships connecting the search user entity and the one or more result entities along one or more paths;

determining, based on the set of relationships connecting the search user entity and the one or more result entities, relevance values for the plurality of search results, wherein the relevance values are determined based on both;

individual similarity components along the one or more paths weighted by the first numerical value, and

individual trust components along the one or more paths weighted by the second numerical value that is different than the first numerical value;

ranking the plurality of search results based on the relevance values; and

presenting individual search results from the plurality of search results according to the ranking.

18. The method of claim 17 further comprising:

capturing a user selection, the user selection identifying at least one individual search result; and

adjusting at least one of the relationships based on the user selection to create at least one updated relationship.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the searching comprises crawling a network comprising the entities.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein an individual path connects the search user entity to an individual result entity indirectly via another entity.