Selection and presentation of unviewed messages

• US 9,483,529 B1
• Filed: 02/14/2014
• Issued: 11/01/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 02/14/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Twitter Inc (X Holdings Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Twitter Inc (X Holdings Corp.)
• Inventors: Pasoi, Mircea-Bogdan, Strat, Cristian-George, Toader, Mihai Claudiu
• Primary Examiner(s): Tran, Anh Tai
• Application Number:
  US14/181,543
• Time in Patent Office: 991 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24578 using ranking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0485 Scrolling or panning
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/226 Delivery according to priorities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/52 for supporting social networking services

Abstract

A method for message selection, including: receiving a request for unviewed messages, the request identifying a context account, ranking the set of unviewed messages according to ranking criteria, where the ranking criteria is used to rank each of the set of unviewed messages based on an engagement history between the context account and an authoring account of the unviewed messages; generating, based on ranking the set of unviewed messages, a result set identifying a subset of the set of unviewed messages, and providing the result set in response to the request.

Claims

1. A method for message selection, comprising:

receiving a request for unviewed messages of a message timeline of a context account;

in response to the request, selecting a plurality of unviewed messages of the message timeline;

ranking the plurality of unviewed messages according to ranking criteria, wherein the ranking includes computing measures of engagement, and wherein the ranking also includes computing logical distances between the context account and the authoring accounts of the unviewed messages in a connection graph;

generating, based on ranking the plurality of unviewed messages, a result set identifying a subset of the plurality of unviewed messages; and

providing the result set in response to the request.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein ranking the subset of the plurality of unviewed messages according to ranking criteria further comprises:

identifying an amount of related messages of the subset of the plurality of unviewed messages from a first account associated with the context account; and

ranking, based on the amount of related messages, the related messages from the subset of the plurality of unviewed messages.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein ranking the subset of the plurality of unviewed messages according to ranking criteria further comprises:

identifying an amount of the related messages between the first account and a second account; and

ranking the related messages, based on the amount of the related messages between the first account and the second account.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein ranking the subset of the plurality of unviewed messages according to ranking criteria further comprises:

identifying a second subset of the plurality of unviewed messages authored by the first account; and

ranking the set of unviewed messages, wherein the second subset of the plurality of unviewed messages are weighted according to the ranking criteria based on being authored by the first account.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein ranking the subset of the plurality of unviewed messages according to ranking criteria further comprises:

identifying a second subset of the plurality of unviewed messages authored by a preferred account associated with the context account; and

ranking the set of unviewed messages, wherein the second subset of the plurality of unviewed messages is favorably weighted according to the ranking criteria based on being authored by the preferred account.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein ranking the subset of the plurality of unviewed messages according to ranking criteria further comprises:

identifying a plurality of affiliated accounts;

identifying, among the plurality of unviewed messages, a set of affiliated messages authored by the plurality of affiliated accounts; and

ranking the set of affiliated messages based on a level of affiliation.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein ranking the subset of the plurality of unviewed messages according to ranking criteria, further comprises:

identifying, for each of the plurality of unviewed messages, an engagement frequency between the authoring account of the unviewed messages and the context account; and

ranking the unviewed messages according to the engagement frequency.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein ranking the subset of the plurality of unviewed messages according to ranking criteria further comprises:

ranking the plurality of unviewed messages according to a global signal.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the global signal is one selected from a group consisting of an unviewed message share amount, an amount of preferred accounts and preferred messages associated with the context account, an amount of unviewed URL messages comprising a uniform resource locator (URL), and an engagement value associated with the URL.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein ranking the plurality of unviewed messages further comprises weighting a ranking score associated with each unviewed message based on at least one weighting criterion.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the weighting the weighting criterion requires identifying a number of shares of each of the plurality of unviewed messages by the context account.

12. A system for message selection, comprising:

a computer processor;

a selection repository comprising a plurality of unviewed messages associated with a message stream of a context account; and

a selection engine executing on the computer processor and configured to;

receive a request for unviewed messages of the message stream of the context account;

in response to the request, select a plurality of unviewed messages of the message stream;

rank the plurality of unviewed messages according to ranking criteria, wherein the ranking includes computing measures of engagement, and wherein the ranking also includes computing logical distances between the context account and the authoring accounts of the unviewed messages in a connection graph;

generate, based on ranking the plurality of unviewed messages, a result set identifying a subset of the plurality of unviewed messages; and

provide the result set in response to the request.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the selection engine is further configured to enable the computer processor to:

identify an amount of related messages of the subset of the plurality of unviewed messages from a first account associated with the context account; and

rank, based on the amount of related messages, the related messages from the subset of the plurality of unviewed messages.

14. The system of claim 12, wherein the selection engine is further configured to enable the computer processor to:

identify a second subset of the plurality of unviewed messages authored by a preferred account associated with the context account; and

rank the set of unviewed messages, wherein the second subset of the plurality of unviewed messages is favorably weighted according to the ranking criteria based on being authored by the preferred account.

15. The system of claim 12, wherein the selection engine is further configured to enable the computer processor to:

identify, for each of the plurality of unviewed messages, an engagement frequency between the authoring account of the unviewed messages and the context account; and

rank the unviewed messages according to the engagement frequency.

16. A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising a plurality of instructions for message selection in a messaging platform, the plurality of instructions configured to execute on at least one computer processor to enable the computer processor to:

receive a request for unviewed messages of a message timeline of a context account;

in response to the request, select a plurality of unviewed messages of the message timeline;

rank the plurality of unviewed messages according to a set of ranking criteria, wherein the ranking includes computing measures of engagement, and wherein the ranking also includes computing logical distances between the context account and the authoring accounts of the unviewed messages in a connection graph;

generate, based on ranking the plurality of unviewed messages, a result set identifying a subset of the plurality of unviewed messages; and

provide the result set to in response to the request.

17. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein the plurality of instructions are configured to execute on the at least one computer processor to enable the at least one computer processor to:

identify an amount of related messages of the subset of the plurality of unviewed messages from a first account associated with the context account; and

rank, based on the amount of related messages, the related messages from the subset of the plurality of unviewed messages.

18. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein the plurality of instructions are configured to execute on the at least one computer processor to enable the at least one computer processor to:

identify a second subset of the plurality of unviewed messages authored by a preferred account associated with the context account; and

rank the set of unviewed messages, wherein the second subset of the plurality of unviewed messages is favorably weighted according to the ranking criteria based on being authored by the preferred account.

19. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein the plurality of instructions are configured to execute on the at least one computer processor to enable the at least one computer processor to:

identify, for each of the plurality of unviewed messages, an engagement frequency between the authoring account of the unviewed messages and the context account; and

rank the unviewed messages according to the engagement frequency.

20. A method for displaying a plurality of unviewed messages, comprising:

receiving a plurality of unviewed messages for a context account and, based on engagement history between an authoring account and the context account, a subset of the plurality of unviewed messages according to ranking criteria; and

displaying the plurality of unviewed messages and the subset of the plurality of unviewed messages, wherein;

the plurality of unviewed messages are displayed in reverse chronological order, and

the subset of the plurality of unviewed messages are displayed in an area corresponding to a gap of inactivity of the plurality of unviewed messages.

21. The method of claim 20, further comprising:

providing the subset of the plurality of unviewed messages for display in a first section, wherein the first section is configured to provide the subset of the plurality of unviewed messages in a horizontal arrangement operable to be scrolled horizontally.

22. The method of claim 21, further comprising providing a second section adjacent to the first section, wherein the second section is configured to vertically arrange and vertically scroll objects.

23. The method of claim 20, further comprising providing a first section adjacent to a second section, wherein the first section is operable to scroll the plurality of unviewed messages in a first scrolling direction and wherein the second section is operable to scroll the subset of the plurality of unviewed messages in a second scrolling direction orthogonal to the first scrolling direction.

24. The method of claim 20, further comprising:

displaying the subset of the plurality of unviewed messages concurrently with a user interface element indicating an existence of additional messages in the plurality of unviewed messages;

receiving a selection of the user interface element; and

providing for display, in response to the selection, at least one additional message from the plurality of unviewed messages.

25. A system for displaying a plurality of unviewed messages, comprising:

a computer processor;

a user interface generation module executing on the computer processor and configured to;

receive a plurality of unviewed messages for a context account and, based on engagement history between an authoring account and the context account, a subset of the plurality of unviewed messages according to ranking criteria; and

display the plurality of unviewed messages and the subset of the plurality of unviewed messages, wherein;

the plurality of unviewed messages are displayed in reverse chronological order, and

the subset of the plurality of unviewed messages are displayed in an area corresponding to a gap of inactivity of the plurality of unviewed messages.

26. The system of claim 25, wherein the user interface generation module is further configured to:

provide the subset of the plurality of unviewed messages for display in a first section, wherein the first section is configured to provide the subset of the plurality of unviewed messages in a horizontal arrangement operable to be scrolled horizontally.

27. The system of claim 25, wherein the user interface generation module is further configured to:

provide the subset of the plurality of unviewed messages for display in a first section adjacent to a second section, wherein the first section is operable to scroll the plurality of unviewed messages in a first scrolling direction and wherein the second section is operable to scroll the subset of the plurality of unviewed messages in a second scrolling direction orthogonal to the first scrolling direction.