Personalizing an online service based on data collected for a user of a computing device

• US 9,501,561 B2
• Filed: 11/25/2013
• Issued: 11/22/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 06/02/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Yahoo! Inc. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Rubin, Mark, Hein, Brian
• Primary Examiner(s): MORRISON, JAY A
• Application Number:
  US14/089,485
• Publication Number:
  US 20140089304A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,093 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24578 using ranking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/335 Filtering based on additional data, e.g. user or group profiles filtering in web context G06F16/9535, G06F16/9536
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9536 Search customisation based on social or collaborative filtering
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0277 Online advertisement
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles

Abstract

An Internet or other online service is personalized or customized based on data collected for a user of a computing device. In one embodiment, a method includes: storing a plurality of person profiles for persons associated with communications received by a user of a computing device; receiving data associated with an online service; and filtering, using at least one processor, the data based on the plurality of person profiles, wherein the filtered data is for display to the user on the computing device.

Claims

1. A system, comprising:

at least one processor; and

memory storing instructions configured to instruct the at least one processor to;

store a plurality of person profiles for persons associated with communications received by a user of a computing device, wherein each of the persons associated with the communications received by the user is a sender to the user of one of the communications;

determine a set of persons of the person profiles that are active on an online service;

filter the set of persons to provide a plurality of highly-ranked persons, wherein the filtering uses a relevancy ranking for each of the plurality of person profiles, and the highly-ranked persons are selected from persons that the user is not explicitly following on the online service;

select first messages from the plurality of highly-ranked persons, wherein the first messages are for presentation to the user on the computing device;

cause presentation of a stream of messages to the user, the stream comprising the first messages and second messages from persons other than the highly-ranked persons; and

cause presentation to the user of an indication for each message in the stream of messages whether the user is explicitly following, on the online service, a person that sent the respective message.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the instructions are further configured to instruct the at least one processor to collect communications data associated with the computing device.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the system further comprises a display, and wherein the instructions are further configured to instruct the at least one processor to present, using the display, the stream of messages.

4. The system of claim 1, further comprising a database storing the plurality of person profiles.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the instructions are further configured to instruct the at least one processor to provide an option to the user in which the user may select to view the stream or the first messages without the second messages.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the option to the user is an affordance on a web page that is presented to the user.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the instructions are further configured to instruct the at least one processor to provide an option for presentation to the user for each of the first messages so that the user can select the respective option to begin explicitly following the respective highly-ranked person that sent the message.

8. A method, comprising:

storing a plurality of person profiles for persons associated with communications received by a user of a computing device, wherein each of the persons associated with the communications received by the user is a sender to the user of one of the communications;

determining, by at least one processor, an implicit social graph of the user using data from the person profiles;

determining a set of persons of the person profiles associated with an online service;

filtering, based on the implicit social graph, the set of persons to provide a filtered plurality of persons;

selecting first messages for presentation to the user on the computing device, wherein each first message is from one of the filtered plurality of persons;

selecting second messages for presentation to the user on the computing device, wherein each second message is from a person that the user is explicitly following on the online service; and

cause presentation to the user of an indication for each of the first messages whether the user is explicitly following, on the online service, a person that sent the respective message.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the implicit social graph is updated on a dynamic basis.

10. The method of claim 8, further comprising combining the first messages and second messages for presentation to the user at the same time on the computing device.

11. The method of claim 8, wherein each of the first messages is an email.

12. The method of claim 8, further comprising providing an option for presentation to the user on the computing device in which the user can select, for display, at least one of the first messages and the second messages.

13. The method of claim 8, further comprising collecting location information from communications data for the user, wherein the determining the implicit social graph of the user further uses the location information.

14. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing computer-readable instructions, which when executed, cause a system to:

store a plurality of person profiles for persons associated with communications received by a user of a computing device, wherein each of the persons associated with the communications received by the user is a sender to the user of one of the communications;

determine, using at least one processor, an implicit social graph of the user;

determine a set of persons of the person profiles associated with an online service;

filter, based on the implicit social graph, the set of persons to provide a filtered plurality of persons;

select first messages for presentation to the user on the computing device, wherein each first message is from one of the filtered plurality of persons; and

cause presentation to the user of an indication for each of the first messages whether the user is explicitly following, on the online service, a person that sent the respective message.

15. The storage medium of claim 14, wherein the computer-readable instructions further cause the system to select second messages for presentation to the user on the computing device, wherein each second message is from a person that the user is explicitly following on the online service.

16. The storage medium of claim 15, wherein the computer-readable instructions further cause the system to rank each of the plurality of person profiles, and select the first messages from those persons of the person profiles having at least a predetermined threshold rank.