Social-driven precaching of accessible objects

• US 9,628,582 B2
• Filed: 04/14/2016
• Issued: 04/18/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 12/10/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Inventors: Hu, Hao, Zhu, Jiang, Lee, Kevin, Bonomi, Flavio
• Primary Examiner(s): NANO, SARGON N
• Application Number:
  US15/099,570
• Publication Number:
  US 20160234335A1
• Time in Patent Office: 369 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9574 of access to content, e.g. by caching
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/101 Collaborative creation, e.g. joint development of products or services
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/16 Threshold monitoring
• 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: H04L 67/5681 Pre-fetching or pre-delivering data based on network characteristics
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/5682 Policies or rules for updating, deleting or replacing the stored data

Abstract

A precaching system identifies an object, such as a media file, that a user accesses and then analyzes a social graph of the user to identify social graph contacts that may be interested in the object. Based on the content of the object—and the interests and connections of contacts in the social graph—the precaching system determines whether a particular contact in the user'"'"'s social graph is likely also to access the object. For example, the precaching system may determine a hit score corresponding to the object and a likelihood that the particular contact in the social graph will access the object. If the precaching system determines that the likelihood that the particular contact will access the object meets or exceeds a threshold probability level for precaching the object, the precaching system precaches the object near the contact in anticipation that the contact will access the object.

Claims

1. A method to precache objects, comprising:

identifying, by one or more computing devices, a particular object previously accessed by a user computing device of a user;

determining, by the one or more computing devices and for a computing device of a social graph contact of the user, a probability that the computing device of the social graph contact will access the particular object, the probability determined based at least in part on a strength of connection between the social graph contact and the user within the social graph;

determining, by the one or more computing devices, that the probability that the computing device of the social graph contact will access the particular object meets or exceeds a threshold probability for precaching accessible objects;

in response to determining that the probability that the computing device of the social graph contact will access the particular object meets or exceeds the threshold probability;

determining, by the one or more computing devices, one or more access point locations near the computing device of the social graph contact;

identifying, by the one or more computing devices, a precaching location to cache the particular object based on the determined one or more access point locations near the computing device of the social graph contact; and

precaching, by the one or more computing devices, the particular object at the identified precaching location.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining, by the one or more computing devices, that the particular object has previously been precached at a first location near the computing device of the social graph contact;

identifying, by the one or more computing devices, a centralized location to precache the particular object, wherein the centralized precaching location is located near both the first location and the identified precaching location to precache the particular object; and

precaching, by the one or more computing devices, the particular object at the centralized location.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the centralized location is the same location as either the first location or the identified precaching location to precache the particular object.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the centralized location is different from both the first location and the identified precaching location to precache the particular object.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the probability that the computing device of the social graph contact will access the particular object is determined based at least in part on a content of the object and a determined interest of the social graph contact in the content of the object.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying the precaching location to precache the particular object near the computing device of the social graph contact comprises:

determining, by the one or more computing devices, one or more access point locations near the computing device of the social graph contact; and

identifying, by the one or more computing devices, the precaching location to cache the particular object based on the determined one or more access point locations near the computing device of the social graph contact.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the one or more access point locations near the computing device of the social graph contact comprise an access point that the computing device of the social graph contact has previously accessed.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the probability that the computing device of the social graph contact will access the particular object is further based at least in part on a hit score associated with one or more users accessing the particular object.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the hit score corresponds to a popularity of the object among multiple users, social graph contacts of the multiple users, or combinations thereof.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining, by the one or more computing devices, the threshold probability for precaching accessible objects, wherein the threshold probability corresponds to a likelihood that one or more contacts in a user'"'"'s social graph will access an object.

11. A computer program product, comprising:

a tangible, non-transitory, computer-readable media having computer-executable program instructions embodied thereon that when executed by a computer cause the computer to precache objects, the computer-executable program instructions comprising;

computer-executable program instructions to identify a particular object previously accessed by a user computing device of a user;

computer-executable program instructions to determine one or more content categories associated with the identified object;

computer-executable program instructions to determine one or more interests of a social graph contact of the user;

computer-executable program instructions to determine, for a computing device of the social graph contact of the user, a probability that the computing device of the social graph contact will access the particular object, the probability determined based at least in part on a correspondence of one or more particular determined interests of the social graph contact corresponds to one or more particular content categories of the object;

computer-executable program instructions to determine that the probability that the computing device of the social graph contact will access the particular object meets or exceeds the threshold probability for precaching accessible objects; and

in response to determining that the probability that the computing device of the contact will access the particular object meets or exceeds the threshold probability;

computer-executable program instructions to determine one or more access point locations near the computing device of the social graph contact; and

computer-executable program instructions to identify a precaching location to cache the particular object based on the determined one or more access point locations for the computing device of the social graph contact;

computer-executable program instructions to precache the particular object at the identified precaching location.

12. The computer program product of claim 11, further comprising:

computer-executable program instructions to determine that the particular object has previously been precached at a first location;

computer-executable program instructions to determine a centralized location to precache the particular object, wherein the centralized precaching location is located near both the first location and an identified precaching location to precache the particular object; and

computer-executable program instructions to precache the particular object at the centralized location.

13. The computer program product of claim 12, wherein the centralized location is either the same location as the first location, the same location as the identified precaching location to precache the particular object, or a location that is different from both the first location and the identified location to precache the particular object.

14. The computer program product of claim 11, wherein the probability that the computing device of the social graph contact will access the particular object is determined based at least in part on the content of the object and a determined interest of the social graph contact in the content of the object.

15. The computer program product of claim 11, wherein the probability that the computing device of the social graph contact will access the particular object is based at least in part on a hit score associated with one or more users accessing the particular object, wherein the hit score corresponds to a popularity of the object among multiple users, social graph contacts of the multiple users, or combinations thereof.

16. The computer program product of claim 11, further comprising computer-executable program instructions to determine the threshold probability for precaching accessible objects, wherein the threshold probability corresponds to a likelihood that one or more contacts in a user'"'"'s social graph will access an object.

17. A system to precache objects, comprising:

a storage device; and

a processor communicatively coupled to the storage device, wherein the processor executes application code instructions that are stored in the storage device to cause the system to;

identify a first object associated with a first user computing device of a first user;

identify a second object, wherein the second object has been previously precached by the processor;

determine one or more content categories associated with the determined first object;

determine one or more interests of a first social graph contact of the first user;

determine, for the computing device of the first social graph contact of the first user, a first probability that the computing device of the first social graph contact will access the first object, the first probability determined based at least in part on;

a correspondence of one or more particular determined interests of the first social graph contact to one or more particulars content categories of the first object;

a strength of connection between the first social graph contact and the first user within the social graph;

determine, for the precached second object, a second probability that the computing device of the first social graph contact will access the second object, wherein the second probability is based at least in part on a second content of the second object;

determine that the first probability for accessing the first object is greater than the second probability for accessing the second object; and

,

in response to determining that the first probability is greater than the second probability;

determine one or more access point locations for the computing device of the first social graph contact;

identify a first precaching location to precache the first object; and

precache the first object at the identified first precaching location.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the processor is further configured to execute computer-readable program instructions stored on the storage device to cause the system to precache the second object at a second geographic location that is separate from the first geographic location.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein the first probability and the second probability are further based at least in part on a hit score associated with one or more users accessing the first object or the second object, respectively.

20. The system of claim 17, wherein the second object is associated with a second user and the second computing device is a device of a contact in a social graph of the second user.