Application store tastemaker recommendations

• US 9,953,084 B2
• Filed: 04/23/2013
• Issued: 04/24/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 11/04/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Futty, Joseph, Dyor, Matthew Graham, Lange, Danny, Abel, Miller T.
• Primary Examiner(s): Shui, Ming
• Application Number:
  US13/868,862
• Publication Number:
  US 20130238592A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,827 Days
• Field of Search: 705 261- 272
• 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 16/9536 Search customisation based on social or collaborative filtering
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0282 Rating or review of business operators or products
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0629 for generating comparisons

Abstract

An application store tastemaker recommendation service determines experts within a user'"'"'s social network(s), receives recommendations from the experts, filters and/or ranks mobile application query results based at least in part on the recommendations. Additionally, the service may further determine the experts based on data compiled about previous actions, reviews, comments, etc., of the experts. Further, the service may provide recommendations to the user to aid in selecting mobile applications for purchase, and may provide an avenue for completing such purchases.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method implemented by one or more computing devices, the method comprising:

receiving a search query, comprising one or more search criteria, from a user to search for one or more applications available from an application store, the one or more search criteria specifying to exclude at least one application that at least one social acquaintances in a social graph of the user has uninstalled;

searching for one or more applications available from the application store based on at least the one or more search criteria;

obtaining information of the one or more applications available from the application store based at least in part on information associated with the social graph of the user, the one or more applications excluding at least one application that at least one of the social acquaintances in the social graph of the user has uninstalled; and

providing the information of the one or more applications to a computing device of the user for presentation.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising sending a poll to ask the social acquaintances of the user for help regarding the search query.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 2, further comprising ranking or filtering the query results based on feedback of one or more of the social acquaintance of the user with respect to the poll.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising receiving a selection of a size of the query results from the user to indicate an associated search for the one or more applications is completed when a number of the query results reaches the size.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the social acquaintances of the user comprise one or more users whose contact information is stored within one or more of the following:

a digital contact collection, an email collection and a social networking website collection of the user.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the social graph stores application information where at least one of the social acquaintances in the social graph of the user has uninstalled the respective application.

7. A system comprising:

memory and one or more processors;

a search engine, stored in the memory and executable on the one or more processors, configured to receive a search query, comprising one or more search criteria, where the one or more search criteria specifies excluding at least one application that at least one social acquaintance in a social graph of a user has uninstalled;

an application store crawler, stored in the memory and executable on the one or more processors, configured to crawl an application store and identify one or more applications based at least on the one or more search criteria;

a social network graph, stored in the memory and executable on the one or more processors, configured to create a social network graph comprising social acquaintances of a user, the social network graph storing at least information about what applications that the social acquaintances have uninstalled; and

an application filter, stored in the memory and executable on the one or more processors, configured to filter at least one application that at least one of the social acquaintances in the social graph of the user has uninstalled.

8. The system of claim 7, further comprising a polling service, stored in the memory and executable on the one or more processors, configured to create user polls for asking people in the social graph questions about the application, send the user polls to the people in the social graph, receive answered polls comprising answers, and store the received polls and the answers in the memory.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the polling service further configured to make the received polls and the answers publicly available.

10. The system of claim 7, further comprising a review service, stored in the memory and executable on the one or more processors, configured to crawl the social graph for reviews of the application in the application store.

11. The system of claim 7, wherein the application store is a local application store stored in the memory and executable on the one or more processors.

12. The system of claim 11, further comprising an application purchaser, stored in the memory and executable on the one or more processors, configured to sell an application from the local application store to the user.

13. The system of claim 7, further comprising:

a tastemaker identifier, stored in the memory and executable on the one or more processors, configured to determine which of the social acquaintances in the social network graph are tastemakers regarding the application.

14. The system of claim 7, wherein the social network graph is further configured to crawl on or more of the following to determine the social acquaintances of the user:

a social network website, an email application, an instant messaging application, a subscriber identity module (SIM) card, an organization chart, a contact collection, and a graphable social interaction dialogue of the user.

15. The system of claim 14, further comprising a social acquaintance crawler, stored in the memory and executable on the one or more processors, configured to crawl an application store account associated with the determined social acquaintances of the user.

16. The system of claim 14, wherein the social network graph is further configured to create the social graph based at least in part on which determined social acquaintances have installed an application found in the results of the search query.

17. The system of claim 7, wherein the data collected from the social network graph comprises on of the following:

a review of an application, an answer to a poll question, whether an application has been uninstalled, whether an acquaintance followed a review of another, and feedback from an acquaintance about the system.

18. One or more computer-readable storage media storing computer-executable instructions that, when executed by a processor, configure the processor to perform acts comprising:

receiving a request for information associated with a computing application from a user at an application store that is configured to provide a plurality of applications for use on a device of the user, the request comprising one or more search criteria specifying to exclude an application that any social acquaintances of the user has uninstalled;

discovering an available application at the application store based at least in part on the requested information; and

displaying information associated with the available application that excludes one or more applications based in part on the one or more search criteria to exclude one or more applications that any of the social acquaintances of the user has uninstalled.