Displaying aggregated social networking system user information via a map interface

• US 9,766,783 B2
• Filed: 09/20/2012
• Issued: 09/19/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 09/20/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Inventors: Watson, Thomas Andrew, McCord, Jonathan, Shaffer, Justin Alexander, Bayer, Ross David
• Primary Examiner(s): Hong, Stephen
• Assistant Examiner(s): SHEFFIELD, HOPE CORNELL
• Application Number:
  US13/623,483
• Publication Number:
  US 20140082505A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,825 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0484 for the control of specific functions or operations, e.g. selecting or manipulating an object, an image or a displayed text element, setting a parameter value or selecting a range
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking

Abstract

A map interface presents a geographic map with markers identifying geographic locations associated with content items. When the geographic distance between two or more content items is less than a threshold distance, multiple content items are grouped to create an aggregated content item. Based on the geographic locations associated with the grouped content items, a geographic location is associated with the aggregated content item. A single marker identifies the geographic location for the aggregated content item on the geographic map. When a user viewing the map interface accesses the single marker, content selected from the content items combined to generated the aggregated content item is presented as well as the geographic location associated with the aggregated content item.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

aggregating, by a social networking system, a plurality of content items to generate an aggregated content item for presenting via a map interface to a viewing user, each of the plurality of content items associated with a user of the social networking system connected to the viewing user via the social networking system, each of the plurality of content items associated with a geographic location;

determining an aggregated geographic location based on the plurality of content items, the aggregated geographic location determined as an aggregated value based on the geographic locations associated with each of the plurality of content items;

generating a map interface for presenting to a viewing user, the map interface identifying the aggregated geographic location associated with the aggregated content item on a geographic map;

selecting a representative content item from the aggregated content item for generating an information display for presentation in association with the aggregated geographic location, the selecting comprising;

retrieving two or more content items included in the aggregated content item;

for each of the retrieved two or more content items, determining a measure of affinity of the viewing user towards another user of the social networking system associated with each of the two or more content items;

ranking the retrieved two or more content items based on one or more criteria, the one or more criteria comprising, for each of the two or more content items, the determined measure of affinity of the viewing user toward the other user associated with each of the two or more content items; and

selecting the representative content item from the retrieved two or more content items based at least in part on the ranking;

generating the information display associated with the aggregated content item, the information display based on the representative content item; and

sending the information display for presentation to the viewing user in association with the aggregated geographic location.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the aggregated content item comprises

content items for which the viewing user has the highest determined affinities.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein ranking the retrieved two or more content items based on one or more criteria comprises:

determining a time associated with each of the retrieved two or more content items; and

selecting the two or more content items based at least in part on the determined times.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein aggregating the plurality of content items comprises:

selecting the plurality of content items to include a specified amount of content items having a particular content type.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the aggregated geographic location associated with the aggregated content item is based at least in part on a zoom level used to present the map interface to the viewing user.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the aggregated geographic location associated with the aggregated content item includes a level of information proportional to the zoom level.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the representative content item is a first representative content item, the method further comprising:

responsive to the social networking system receiving a more recent interaction from another user associated with the content items of the aggregated content item, determining a second representative content item for the information display; and

modifying the information display associated with the aggregated content item to comprise information based on the second representative item.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the measure of affinity is an affinity score representing a closeness of the viewing user towards another user.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the information display comprises a plurality of representative content items.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein each content item has a content type and the plurality of representative content items is selected so as to diversify the content types of content items included in the information display, the diversifying causing the plurality of representative content items to include at least a first content item of a first content type and a second content item of a second content type.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein diversifying of the content types of content items included in the information display comprises positively biasing content items of content types determined to be underrepresented in a ranked list of content items.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein diversifying of the content types of content items included in the information display comprises negatively biasing content items of content types determined to be overrepresented in a ranked list of content items.

13. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

determining the aggregate value based on the plurality of representative content items for including in the information display.

14. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving, from the viewing user, a change in a preference associated with another user associated with a content item from the aggregated content item; and

modifying the representative content item associated with the aggregated content item for the information display in accordance with the change in preference.

15. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving, from the viewing user, a filtering criteria for identifying a set of users of the social networking system; and

wherein the generated map interface comprises one or more aggregated geographic locations, each of the one or more aggregated geographic location associated with a user from the set of users.

20. The method of claim 1, wherein the aggregated geographic location for the aggregated content item is determined as a weighted average of the geographic locations of the content items associated with the aggregated content item, wherein the weighted average weighs a geographic location based on an affinity of the viewing user with the content item associated with the geographic location.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein the aggregated geographic location for the aggregated content item is determined as the weighted average of the geographic locations of the content items associated with the aggregated content item, wherein a weight associated with a geographic location of a content item is based at least in part on a time associated with the content item.

16. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing instructions for:

aggregating, by a social networking system, a plurality of content items to generate an aggregated content item for presenting via a map interface to a viewing user, each of the plurality of content items associated with a user of the social networking system connected to the viewing user via the social networking system, each of the plurality of content items associated with a geographic location;

determining an aggregated geographic location based on the plurality of content items, the aggregated geographic location determined as an aggregated value based on the locations associated with each of the plurality of content items;

generating a map interface for presenting to a viewing user, the map interface identifying the aggregated geographic location associated with the aggregated content item on a geographic map;

selecting a representative content item from the aggregated content item for generating an information display for presentation in association with the aggregated geographic location, the selecting comprising;

retrieving two or more content items included in the aggregated content item;

for each of the two or more content items, determining a measure of affinity of the viewing user towards another user of the social networking system associated with each of the two or more content items;

ranking the retrieved two or more content items based on one or more criteria, the one or more criteria comprising, for each of the two or more content items, the determined measure of affinity of the viewing user toward the other user associated with each of the two or more content items; and

selecting the representative content item from the retrieved two or more content items based at least in part on the ranking;

generating the information display associated with the aggregated content item, the information display based on the representative content item; and

sending the information display for presentation to the viewing user in association with the aggregated geographic location.

17. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein the representative content item is a first representative content item, the non-transitory computer readable storage medium further storing instructions for:

responsive to the social networking system receiving a more recent interaction from another user associated with the content items of the aggregated content item, determining a second representative content item for the information display; and

modifying the information display associated with the aggregated content item to comprise information based on the second representative item.

18. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein the information display comprises a plurality of representative content items, and wherein each content item has a content type and the plurality of representative content items is selected so as to diversify the content types of content items included in the information display, the diversifying causing the plurality of representative content items to include at least a first content item of a first content type and a second content item of a second content type.

19. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 18, wherein diversifying of the content types of content items included in the information display comprises one or more of:

positively biasing content items of content types determined to be underrepresented in a ranked list of content items; and

negatively biasing content items of content types determined to be overrepresented in a ranked list of content items.

22. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein the aggregated geographic location for the aggregated content item is determined as a weighted average of the geographic locations of the content items associated with the aggregated content item, wherein the weighted average weighs a geographic location based on an affinity of the viewing user with the content item associated with the geographic location.

23. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 22, wherein the aggregated geographic location for the aggregated content item is determined as the weighted average of the geographic locations of the content items associated with the aggregated content item, wherein a weight associated with a geographic location of a content item is based at least in part on a time associated with the content item.