Capturing structured data about previous events from users of a social networking system

• US 8,887,035 B2
• Filed: 09/21/2011
• Issued: 11/11/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 09/21/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Inventors: McDonald, Paul M., Case, Ryan, Felton, Nicholas, Hamlin, Drew W., Huang, Jeff, Lessin, Samuel, Mack, Ryan David, Piantino, Serkan, Wiseman, Josh, Yung, Raylene Kay, Zuckerberg, Mark E.
• Primary Examiner(s): Hong, Stephen
• Assistant Examiner(s): LUDWIG, MATTHEW J
• Application Number:
  US13/239,349
• Publication Number:
  US 20130073976A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,147 Days
• Field of Search: 715/201, 715/203, 715/243, 715/204
• US Class Current: 715/203
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/29 Geographical information databases
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/447 Temporal browsing, e.g. timeline
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9577 Optimising the visualization of content, e.g. distillation of HTML documents
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0484 for the control of specific functions or operations, e.g. selecting or manipulating an object, an image or a displayed text element, setting a parameter value or selecting a range
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/00 Administration; Management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34

Abstract

The invention provides a display interface in a social networking system that enables the presentation of information related to a user in a timeline or map view. The system accesses information about a user of a social networking system, including both data about the user and social network activities related to the user. The system then selects one or more of these pieces of data and/or activities from a certain time period and gathers them into timeline units based on their relatedness and their relevance to users. These timeline units are ranked by relevance to the user, and are used to generate a timeline or map view for the user containing visual representations of the timeline units organized by location or time. The timeline or map view is then provided to other users of the social networking system that wish to view information about the user.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

accessing a social graph, wherein the social group comprises a plurality of nodes representing the user and a plurality of other objects in a social networking system, the social graph further comprising a plurality of connections among the nodes;

sending an add event menu to a client device operated by a user in the social graph of the social networking system, the add event menu configured to enable the user to select an event type from a list of event types;

receiving, from the client device operated by the user, a user selection of an event type;

selecting an event data entry interface based on the event type selected by the user;

sending the event data entry interface to the client device for display to the user, the event data entry interface adapted to request and capture structured data for an event of the selected event type, the structured data identifying a representative node of the plurality of nodes of the social graph;

receiving, from the client device operated by the user, structured data comprising the user input into the event data entry interface;

generating a new timeline unit associated with the user based on the received structured data; and

storing the structured data into the social graph in the social networking system by saving a connection from the node representing the user to the representative node, where the connection is of a type based on the event type.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the add event menu further comprises event options that allow the user to select at least one event type from a group consisting of:

starting a job, buying a house, getting a new roommate, buying a car, graduating, military service, medical procedure, learning a language, and traveling.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the add event menu further comprises an event option that allows the user to provide data for a custom event.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the event data entry interface further comprises a means for requesting and capturing an event date.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the generated timeline unit is associated with a time corresponding to the event date, and the structured data is used to generate the timeline unit.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the generated timeline unit is displayed in a timeline interface at a location on a timeline that corresponds to the event date.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the user does not provide all the information requested by the event data entry interface, and the displayed timeline unit includes a data inquiry interface that prompts the user for the missing data.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

generating a timeline interface comprising the generated timeline unit and a plurality of additional timeline units, the additional timeline units generated based on one or more logged actions of the user observed by the social networking system.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

ranking the additional timeline units; and

selecting, by the social networking system, a subset of the ranked additional timeline units, where the generated timeline interface comprises the selected subset of the ranked additional timeline units.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the generated timeline unit is generated based on the connection created from the received structured data.

11. A method comprising:

accessing a social graph, wherein the social graph comprises a plurality of nodes representing the user and a plurality of other objects in a social networking system, the social graph further comprising a plurality of connections among the nodes;

sending, to a client device operated by a user, a timeline interface including a timeline comprising timeline units generated from narrative data associated with the user, and an add event menu, the add event menu configured to enable the user to select an event type;

receiving a user selection of an event type from the client device operated by the user;

selecting an event data entry interface based on the event type selected by the user;

sending the event data entry interface to the client device for display to the user, the event data entry interface adapted to request and capture structured data for an event of the selected event type, the structured data identifying a representative node of the plurality of nodes of the social graph;

receiving, from the client device operated by the user, structured data comprising the user input into the event data entry interface;

generating a new timeline unit associated with the user based on the received structured data;

sending the new timeline unit to the client device operated by the user for display to the user in the timeline interface; and

storing the structured data into the social graph in the social networking system by saving a connection from the node representing the user to the representative node, where the connection is of a type based on the event type.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the event data entry interface further comprises a means for requesting and capturing an event date.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the generated timeline unit is associated with a time corresponding to the event date.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein the generated timeline unit is displayed in the timeline interface at a location on the timeline that corresponds to the event date.

15. The method of claim 11, wherein the add event menu further comprises event options that allow the user to select at least one event type from a group consisting of:

starting a job, buying a house, getting a new roommate, buying a car, graduating, military service, medical procedure, learning a language, and traveling.

16. The method of claim 11, wherein the add event menu further comprises an event option that allows the user to provide data for a custom event.

17. A method comprising:

accessing a social graph, wherein the social group comprises a plurality of nodes representing the user and a plurality of other objects in a social networking system, the social graph further comprising a plurality of connections among the nodes;

sending a timeline interface to a subject user, the timeline interface comprising visual representations of a plurality of timeline units organized by time periods, each timeline unit based on narrative data about the subject user;

sending an add event menu to a client device operated by the subject user in the social graph of the social networking system, the add event menu configured to enable the subject user to select an event type from a list of event types, wherein the add event menu is displayed to the subject user in connection with the timeline interface;

receiving a selection of an event type from the client device operated by the subject user;

selecting an event data entry interface based on the event type selected by the user;

sending the event data entry interface to the client device for display to the user, the event data entry interface adapted to request and capture structured data for an event of the selected event type, the structured data identifying a representative node of the plurality of nodes of the social graph;

receiving, from the client device operated by the subject user, structured data comprising the subject user input into the event data entry interface;

generating a new timeline unit associated with the subject user based on the received structured data;

sending the new timeline unit to a client device operated by a viewing user for display in the timeline interface; and

storing the structured data into the social graph in the social networking system by saving a connection from the node representing the user to the representative node, where the connection is of a type based on the event type.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the event data entry interface further comprises a means for requesting and capturing an event date.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the generated timeline unit is associated with a time corresponding to the event date.

20. The method of claim 18, wherein the generated timeline unit is displayed in the timeline interface at a location on a timeline that corresponds to the event date.

21. The method of claim 17, wherein the add event menu further comprises event options that allow the subject user to select at least one event type from a group consisting of:

starting a job, buying a house, getting a new roommate, buying a car, graduating, military service, medical procedure, learning a language, and travelling.

22. The method of claim 17, wherein the add event menu further comprises an event option that allows the user to provide data for a custom event.

23. The method of claim 17, further comprising:

before sending the new timeline unit to the client device operated by the viewing user, checking the subject user'"'"'s privacy settings to determine if the viewing user has permission to view narrative data in the new timeline unit; and

sending the new timeline unit only if the viewing user has permission to view the narrative data.