User behavior-driven background cache refreshing

• US 8,898,133 B2
• Filed: 12/20/2011
• Issued: 11/25/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 12/20/2011
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: R2 Solutions LLC (Acacia Research Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Yahoo! Inc. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Silberstein, Adam, Machanavajjhala, Ashwin
• Primary Examiner(s): Uddin, Mohammed R
• Application Number:
  US13/332,340
• Publication Number:
  US 20130159274A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,071 Days
• Field of Search: 707/706, 707/708, 707/721, 707/999.003, 711/106
• US Class Current: 707/706
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9574 of access to content, e.g. by caching
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/53 using third party service providers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/567 Integrating service provisioning from a plurality of service providers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/5682 Policies or rules for updating, deleting or replacing the stored data

Abstract

Methods and system for providing social feeds from a plurality of third party sites to a user at a host site includes retrieving one or more access logs capturing online behavior of the user. The access logs are analyzed to determine the user'"'"'s interactive behavioral pattern related to social feeds from each of the plurality of third party sites. A refresh schedule for the user is computed to refresh cache entries of social feeds at the host site based on the analysis of the user'"'"'s online behavior at the social feeds. Cache entries of social feeds for the user are refreshed at the host site from the one or more of the plurality of third party sites at an allotted time specified by the refresh schedule.

Claims

1. A method for providing social feeds from a plurality of third party sites to a user at a host site, comprising:

retrieving one or more access logs of the user, the access logs capturing the user'"'"'s online behavior;

analyzing information related to the social feeds from the plurality of third party sites within the access logs of the user;

computing a refresh schedule for the user to refresh cache entries of social feeds at the host site based on the analysis, the analysis identifying an access pattern established by the user for each of the social feeds, the refresh schedule predicting a likelihood of receiving a subsequent request from the user for one or more of the social feeds from the plurality of third party sites, the refresh schedule generating a signature for the user, the signature defining a refresh granularity to schedule refreshing of the cache entries, specific refresh granularities being set for each of the social feeds based on the refresh schedule predicting; and

refreshing cache entries of social feeds from the one or more of the plurality of third party sites at the host site for the user, at a time specified in the refresh schedule so as to increase freshness of social feeds for the user in anticipation of receiving the user'"'"'s subsequent request for the one or more social feeds, the time specified in the refresh schedule for each of the social feeds is prior to time of predicted receipt of the subsequent request of the respective social feeds such that the cache entries are refreshed in time of the predicted receipt of the subsequent request,

wherein refreshing cache entries further includes prioritizing the cache entries based on the online behavior of the user such that the cache entries are refreshed in an order reflected by the prioritized cache entries, and

wherein operations of the method are performed by a processor.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein analyzing further includes,

determining the user'"'"'s online behavior from the access logs to identify interactive behavioral pattern of the user related to social feeds from each of the plurality of third party sites.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the signature encodes access history of the user based on the online behavior of the user in relation to each of the social feeds from the access logs.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the signature generated for refreshing the cache entries reflects different refresh schedule for refreshing social feeds from different third party sites.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein computing a refresh schedule further includes,

parsing the signature of the user to determine the desired refresh schedule;

creating an execute bucket for the time; and

adding an entry of the refresh schedule of the user in to the execute bucket for the time, the execute bucket including entries of refresh schedules of a plurality of users with the refresh schedule matching the refresh schedule of the user.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein refreshing the cache entries further includes,

prioritizing the refresh schedule entries within the execute bucket based on the online behavior of the respective users;

and

refreshing the cache entries of the users in the execute bucket in an order reflected by the prioritized refresh schedule entries.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein refreshing the cache entries further includes,

when the refreshing is unable to complete all refresh schedules within the execute bucket at the time,

moving the one or more refresh schedule entries left behind in the execute bucket to a second execute bucket that is scheduled for executing refresh at a subsequent time slot following the time, wherein the one or more refresh schedule entries discarded are of lower priority.

8. The method of claim 5, wherein refreshing the cache entries further includes,

discarding one or more refresh schedule entries left behind in the execute bucket when the refreshing is unable to complete all refresh schedules within the execute bucket at the time, wherein the one or more refresh schedule entries discarded are of lower priority.

9. The method of claim 5, wherein refreshing the cache entries further includes,

presenting the social feeds from the cache entries to the user upon request;

and

refreshing the cache entries of the social feeds of the user in the background upon presentation of the social feeds.

10. The method of claim 1, further includes,

continuing to monitor the user'"'"'s online behavior to one or more of the social feeds using the access logs;

and

refining the refresh schedule for the user based on the continued monitoring of the user'"'"'s online behavior.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the refresh schedule of the user is adjusted based on constraints of the one or more third party sites.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein analyzing further includes,

determining one or more attributes of the user from information provided in the access logs;

classifying the user into a logical category associated with a plurality of users based on a match of the one or more attributes of the user with one or more attributes of the plurality of users.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein computing a refresh schedule for the user further includes,

assigning a refresh schedule related to the logical category of the plurality of users whose attributes match the attributes of the user.

14. A method for providing social feeds from a plurality of third party sites to a user at a host site, comprising:

detecting the user'"'"'s online activity related to the social feeds provided for the user at the host site, the online activity identifying the interactive behavioral pattern of the user in relation to the social feeds from the plurality of third party sites;

generating a refresh schedule for the user to refresh cache entries of social feeds at the host site based on the user'"'"'s online activity, wherein the refresh schedule spans multiple refresh cycles, the refresh schedule predicting a likelihood of receiving a subsequent request from the user for one or more of the social feeds from the plurality of third party sites, the refresh schedule capturing refresh requirements for each of the plurality of third party sites, the refresh requirements for each of the plurality of third party sites being set to a refresh granularity; and

refreshing the cache entries of social feeds for the user at the host site from the one or more of the plurality of third party sites at a time specified in the refresh schedule so as to increase a freshness of the social feeds for the user prior to receiving the user'"'"'s request for the social feed, the time specified in the refresh schedule for receiving the social feed from each third party site is defined to be prior to time of predicted receipt of the subsequent request for the social feed such that the cache entries are refreshed in time of predicted receipt of the subsequent request for the social feed, wherein the refreshing of the cache entries further includes prioritizing the cache entries based on the interactive behavioral pattern of the user such that the cache entries are refreshed in an order reflected by the prioritized cache entries, and

wherein operations of the method are performed by a processor.

15. The method of claim 14, further includes,

monitoring the user'"'"'s online activity with relation to each of the social feeds;

and

when the online activity of the user in relation to one or more of the social feeds changes,

refining the refresh schedule of the one or more social feeds for the user to accommodate a change in the interaction by the user at the one or more of the social feeds.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein when the online activity of the user in relation to one or more of the social feeds remains unchanged,

updating the refresh schedule of the one or more social feeds to include additional refresh cycles based on an analysis of the corresponding one or more social feeds, the analysis determining presence of updates to the corresponding one or more social feeds for the user.

17. A system for providing social feeds from a plurality of third party sites to a user at a host site, comprising:

a server equipped with a search engine and a refresh algorithm, the search engine configured to query one or more third party sites and receive one or more social feeds from the one or more third party sites;

the refresh algorithm executed by a processor of the server, the refresh algorithm includes a schedule builder and a schedule executor, the schedule builder configured to,

retrieve one or more access logs of the user, wherein the access logs capture the user'"'"'s online behavior;

analyze the information within the access logs of the user related to the social feeds from the plurality of third party sites;

compute a refresh schedule for the user to refresh cache entries of social feeds at the host site based on the analysis, the analysis identifying an access pattern established by the user for each of the social feeds, the refresh schedule predicting a likelihood of receiving a subsequent request from the user for one or more of the social feeds from the one or more of the plurality of third party sites;

generate a signature for the user using the refresh schedule, the signature defining a refresh granularity to schedule refreshing of the cache entries, specific refresh granularities being set for each of the social feeds based on the refresh schedule prediction; and

the schedule executor configured to refresh the cache entries of social feeds for the user at the host site from the one or more of the plurality of third party sites at a time specified in the refresh schedule so as to increase freshness of social feeds for the user prior to receiving the user'"'"'s subsequent request for the social feed, the time specified in the refresh schedule for each of the social feeds is prior to time of predicted receipt of the subsequent request of the respective social feeds such that the cache entries are refreshed in time of the predicted receipt of the subsequent request, wherein the schedule executor is further configured to prioritize the cache entries based on the online behavior of the user such that the cache entries are refreshed in an order reflected by the prioritized cache entries.

18. The system of claim 17, further includes memory configured to:

a. store signatures of a plurality of users, wherein the signature generated by the schedule builder encodes access history of the user in relation to the social feeds;

b. store a plurality of execute buckets generated by the schedule builder to run at a specific allotted time, wherein each of the execute buckets including entries associated with the refresh schedule of a plurality of users; and

c. third party site cache to store cache entries for the social feeds for the user received from one or more of the third party sites.

19. The system of claim 17, wherein the schedule builder includes predictor logic to analyze the online activity of the plurality of users and predict when each of the plurality of users will generate a subsequent request for the social feeds from one or more of the third party sites, the schedule builder is further configured to generate priority metadata for each user based on the online activity of the user in relation to the social feeds.

20. The system of claim 17, wherein the schedule executor includes a timer module to keep track of time for refreshing cache entries of social feeds for the user.