Systems and methods for identifying and analyzing internet users

• US 9,336,281 B2
• Filed: 10/26/2015
• Issued: 05/10/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 02/21/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Wiland, Inc.
• Original Assignee: SpotRight, Inc. (Wiland, Inc.)
• Inventors: Angulo, David, Ripple, Lanier, Halko, Nathan
• Primary Examiner(s): Casanova, Jorge A
• Application Number:
  US14/922,835
• Publication Number:
  US 20160042373A1
• Time in Patent Office: 197 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24578 using ranking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/248 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9566 URL specific, e.g. using aliases, detecting broken or misspelled links
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/205 Parsing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0201 Market modelling; Market analysis; Collecting market data
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0204 Market segmentation
• 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 67/306 User profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34

Abstract

This disclosure describes systems, methods, and apparatus for generating reports enhancing an understanding of Internet users based on their generated content and actions taken by others in response to the generated content.

Claims

1. A server system comprising:

a network interface that receives product, service, or customer data from a client, receives a query from the client, and returns a report of social profiles to the client;

a memory storing a searchable social profile datastore having one or more social profiles;

a processor running an API, a crawler module, a parser, an analysis module, and a scoring module,

the API receives the product, service, or customer data from the client via the network interface, receives a query from the client via the network interface, and returns a report of social profiles to the client in response to the query via the network interface,

the crawler module collects content and raw data from the Internet based on the product, service, or customer data,

the parser parses the content and raw data into terms,

the analysis module computes two or more of the following for each term;

a reach value, a relevance value, and an impact value, and

the scoring module;

computes scores for one or more social profiles for each term based on the two or more of the reach value, the relevance value, and the impact value; and

adds to or updates the one or more social profiles with the scores,

wherein the reach value represents a number of relationships between a user and other users as well as a quality of those relationships, and

wherein the impact value represents a number and quality of actions taken in response to a user'"'"'s publication of content on the Internet.

2. The server system of claim 1, wherein the relationships are identified based on (1) explicit links between users and (2) user actions that imply relationships.

3. The server system of claim 1, wherein the crawler module creates a node for every URL crawled.

4. The server system of claim 1, wherein the analysis module comprises one or more of:

a compute reach module; and

a compute impact module.

5. The server system of claim 4, wherein the analysis module further comprises a graph builder module that maps relationships between social profiles in the searchable social profile datastore.

6. The server system of claim 5, wherein the graph builder module creates and updates a graph datastore.

7. The server system of claim 6, wherein the compute reach module computes reach values based on quantitative analysis of the graph datastore.

8. The server system of claim 6, wherein the graph datastore includes nodes representing users, and includes edges between the nodes, where the edges represent relationships between the users, and wherein the edges are weighted based on a quality of each relationship.

9. The server system of claim 8, wherein the graph builder module is further configured to merge nodes deemed to represent the same user by searching for edges that are common to at least two different nodes and further considering the weight of each of these edges.

10. The server system of claim 4, wherein the one or more of the reach and impact values as determined by the analysis module are used to calculate scores in the scoring module and the scores are assigned to social profiles in the searchable social profile datastore.

11. The server system of claim 1, wherein the query includes one or more contexts describing one or more terms, and the report includes one or more social profiles having highest scores in the one or more contexts.

12. The server system of claim 1, further comprising a profile enrichment module running on the processor, the profile enrichment module assigns actual user names to the one or more social profiles in the searchable profile datastore.

13. The server system of claim 12, wherein a weight assigned to an edge is greater for an edge generated based on an explicit link between users than an edge generated based on user actions that imply a relationship between users.

14. A server system comprising:

a network interface that receives product, service, or customer data from a client, receives a query from the client, and returns a report of social profiles to the client;

a memory storing a searchable social profile datastore having one or more social profiles;

a processor running an API, a crawler module, a parser, an analysis module, and a scoring module,

the API receives the product, service, or customer data from the client via the network interface, receives a query from the client via the network interface, and returns a report of social profiles to the client in response to the query via the interface,

the crawler module collects content and raw data from the Internet based on the product, service, or customer data,

the parser parses the content and raw data into terms,

the analysis module computes the following for each term;

a reach value and a relevance value, and

the scoring module;

computes scores for one or more social profiles for each term based on the reach value and the relevance value; and

adds to or updates the one or more social profiles with the scores,

wherein the relevance value represents a quantity of content generated over a period of time that is germane to one of the terms and how relevant the content is to the one of the terms,

a graph datastore residing on the memory, wherein the graph datastore includes nodes representing users, and includes edges between the nodes, where the edges represent relationships between the users, and wherein the edges are weighted based on a quality of each relationship.

15. The server system of claim 14, wherein the reach value represents a number of relationships between a user and other users as well as a quality of those relationships.

16. The server system of claim 15, wherein the relationships are identified based on (1) explicit links between users and (2) user actions that imply relationships.

17. A server system comprising:

a network interface that receives product, service, or customer data from a client, receives a query from the client, and returns a report of social profiles to the client;

a memory storing a searchable social profile datastore having one or more social profiles;

a processor running an API, a crawler module, a parser, an analysis module, and a scoring module,

the API receives the product, service, or customer data from the client via the network interface, receives a query from the client via the network interface, and returns a report of social profiles to the client in response to the query via the interface,

the crawler module collects content and raw data from the Internet based on the product, service, or customer data,

the parser parses the content and raw data into terms,

the analysis module comprises a graph builder module that creates and updates a graph datastore, maps relationships between social profiles in the graph datastore using nodes representing users and edges between nodes representing relationships between the users, and wherein the edges are weighted based on a quality of each relationship, and computes two or more of the following for each term based on quantitative analysis of the graph datastore;

a reach value, a relevance value, and an impact value, and

the scoring module computes scores for one or more social profiles for each term based on two or more of the reach value, the relevance value, and the impact value, and adds to or updates the one or more social profiles with the scores.

18. The server system of claim 17, wherein the graph builder module is further configured to merge nodes deemed to represent the same user by searching for edges that are common to at least two different nodes and further considering the weight of each of these edges.

19. The server system of claim 18, wherein:

the relevance value represents a quantity of content generated over a period of time that is germane to one of the terms and how relevant the content is to the one of the terms;

the reach value represents a number of relationships between a user and other users as well as a quality of those relationships; and

the impact value represents a number and quality of actions taken in response to a user'"'"'s publication of content on the Internet.

20. The server system of claim 19, wherein the relationships are identified based on (1) explicit links between users and (2) user actions that imply relationships.