Content surfacing based on geo-social factors

• US 9,300,741 B2
• Filed: 03/20/2014
• Issued: 03/29/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 10/17/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Inventors: Garcia, David Harry, Odio, Samuel
• Primary Examiner(s): NGUYEN, KHAI MINH
• Application Number:
  US14/221,123
• Publication Number:
  US 20140207866A1
• Time in Patent Office: 740 Days
• Field of Search: 455/456.1, 455/456.3, 455/550.1, 701/446, 701/408, 701/409
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3484 Personalized, e.g. from learned user behaviour or user-defined profiles
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/023 using mutual or relative location information between multiple location based services [LBS] targets or of distance thresholds
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/029 Location-based management or tracking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/21 for social networking applications

Abstract

In one embodiment, a geo-social networking system determines a user'"'"'s current location, calculates a novelty score for the location representing the user'"'"'s degree of familiarity, and surfaces content within a geographic and temporal radius based on the novelty score for display to the user.

Claims

1. A method comprising, by one or more processors of a social-networking system:

accessing, by one or more of the processors, social-networking information of a user from a data store of the social-networking system;

receiving, from a client system of the user, a location associated with the user; and

calculating, by one or more of the processors, a novelty score of the location for the user, wherein the novelty score is inversely related to an estimate of a familiarity of the user with the location, the estimated familiarity being based on the accessed social-networking information of the user.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising, by one or more computing devices, surfacing one or more pieces of content to the user based at least in part on the novelty score.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising, by one or more computing devices, ranking the pieces of content based at least in part on one or more of:

one or more distances between the location and one or more locations associated with one or more of the pieces of content;

one or more engagement levels associated with one or more of the pieces of content;

or

one or more social coefficients between the user and one or more other users of the social-networking system associated with one or more of the pieces of content.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein surfacing the pieces of content to the user comprises delivering the pieces of content in the form of:

one or more news feeds;

one or more photo slideshows configured to replace one or more default screens of a mobile computing device of the user;

or

one or more maps comprising one or more pins designating one or more locations associated with one or more of the pieces of content.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the location associated with the user is a current location of the user.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the location associated with the user is a predicted future location of the user.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the location is determined based at least in part on one or more of:

one or more events associated with the user;

one or more photographs uploaded to the social-networking system by the user;

one or more photographs uploaded to the social-networking system that are associated with one or more tags associated with the user;

or

Global Positioning System (GPS) data from a mobile computing device of the user.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the social-networking information of the user comprises information associated with one or more of:

demographics;

communication channels;

personal interests;

social-graphs;

locations;

photographs;

videos;

stories;

reviews;

news entries;

links;

events;

audio;

deals;

promotions;

ads;

activities;

calendars;

events;

privacy settings;

check-ins;

Global Positioning System (GPS) data;

tags;

comments;

time stamps;

time data;

or

data associated with social-networking services.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the estimate of the familiarity of the user with the location is based at least in part on one or more of:

a distance between the location and a location previously associated with the user;

an amount of time the user has previously spent at the location;

or

the social-networking information.

10. The method of claim 2, wherein calculating a novelty score of the location for the user comprises determining one or more of:

a geographic area associated with the location;

or

a temporal radius associated with the location; and

wherein surfacing one or more pieces of content to the user comprises retrieving one or more of the pieces of information based at least in part on one or more of the geographic area or the temporal radius.

11. One or more computer-readable non-transitory storage media embodying software that is operable when executed to:

access, by one or more processors of a social-networking system, social-networking information of a user from a data store of the social-networking system;

receive, from a client system of the user, a location associated with the user; and

calculate, by one or more of the processors, a novelty score of the location for the user, wherein the novelty score is inversely related to an estimate of a familiarity of the user with the location, the estimated familiarity being based on the accessed social-networking information of the user.

12. The media of claim 11, wherein the software is further operable when executed to surface one or more pieces of content to the user based at least in part on the novelty score.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the software is further operable when executed to rank the pieces of content based at least in part on one or more of:

one or more distances between the location and one or more locations associated with one or more of the pieces of content;

one or more engagement levels associated with one or more of the pieces of content;

or

one or more social coefficients between the user and one or more users of the social-networking system associated with one or more of the pieces of content.

14. The media of claim 12, wherein the software is further operable when surfacing the pieces of content to the user to deliver the pieces of content in the form of:

one or more news feeds;

one or more photo slideshows configured to replace one or more default screens of a mobile computing device of the user;

or

one or more maps comprising one or more pins designating one or more locations respectively associated with one or more of the pieces of content.

15. The media of claim 11, wherein the location associated with the user is a current location of the user.

16. The media of claim 11, wherein the location associated with the user is a predicted future location of the user.

17. The media of claim 11, wherein the location is determined based at least in part on:

one or more events associated with the user;

one or more photographs uploaded to the social-networking system by the user;

one or more photographs uploaded to the social-networking system that are associated with one or more tags associated with the user;

or

Global Positioning System (GPS) data from a mobile computing device of the user.

18. The media of claim 11, wherein the estimate of the familiarity of the user with the location is based at least in part on one or more of:

a distance between the location and a location previously associated with the user;

an amount of time the user has previously spent at the location;

or

the social-networking information.

19. The media of claim 12, wherein the software is further operable when calculating a novelty score of the location for the user to determine one or more of:

a geographic area associated with the location;

or

a temporal radius associated with the location; and

wherein the software is further operable when surfacing one or more pieces of content to the user to retrieve one or more of the pieces of information based at least in part on one or more of the geographic area or the temporal radius.

20. A system comprising:

one or more processors of a social-networking system; and

a memory coupled to the processors comprising instructions executable by the processors, the processors being operable when executing the instructions to;

access, by one or more of the processors, social-networking information of a user from a data store of the social-networking system;

receive, from a client system of the user, a location associated with the user; and

calculate, by one or more of the processors, a novelty score of the location for the user, wherein the novelty score is inversely related to an estimate of a familiarity of the user with the location, the estimated familiarity being based on the accessed social-networking information of the user.