Method and Apparatus for Determining a Group Preference in a Social Network

• US 20090132652A1
• Filed: 11/19/2007
• Published: 05/21/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 11/19/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google Technology Holdings LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Motorola Mobility LLC (Lenovo Group Ltd.)
• Inventors: Tirpak, Thomas Michael, Krahenbuhl, John, Athale, Anant
• Granted Patent: US 8,620,996 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/204
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/00 Administration; Management
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/105 of operating discs
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 20/10 Arrangements for replacing or switching information during the broadcast or the distribution
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 20/103 Transmitter-side switching
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/06 Arrangements for scheduling broadcast services or broadcast-related services
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/46 for recognising users' preferences
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1859 adapted to provide push services, e.g. data channels
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4661 Deriving a combined profile for a plurality of end-users of the same client, e.g. for family members within a home user profiles in network data switching protocols H04L67/306

Abstract

A method (100) of electronically determining a group preference in a social network from multiple individual preferences of members of the social network is provided. One embodiment of the method (100) uses a combination of an individual'"'"'s importance to a social network and a social network'"'"'s importance to the individual as weighting factors when combining the individual preferences to generate a shared set of preferences. This group preference may be used to select content for broadcast to the network, including audio content and video content. A social network group preference determination apparatus (401) can determine the individual'"'"'s importance to the social network by interrogating or monitoring the communication activity of portable electronic communication devices (402) belonging to the members of the social network.

Claims

1. A method of electronically determining a group preference in a social network from a plurality of individual preferences of members of the social network, the method comprising the steps of:

obtaining individual preferences from the members;

determining an individual importance for each of the members to the social network;

weighting each of the individual preferences with a corresponding individual importance; and

generating the group preference from weighted individual preferences.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising the steps of:

determining a network importance of the social network to each of the members; and

weighting each of the individual preferences with a corresponding network importance.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising the step of selecting and broadcasting content based upon the group preference.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the content is one of video content, audio content, sensory content, or combinations thereof.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of determining the individual importance comprises one of determining a betweenness of one or more members to other members of the social network;

determining a closeness of the one or more members to the other members;

determining a centrality degree of the one or more members relative to the other members;

determining a flow betweenness centrality between the one or more members with the other members;

determining an eigenvector centrality of the one or more members relative to the other members;

determining a centralization of the one or more members;

determining a clustering coefficient of the one or more members;

determining a cohesion of the one or more members with the other members;

determining a density corresponding to the one or more members relative to the social network;

determining a path length of the one or more members with the other members;

determining a radiality corresponding to the one or more members relative to the social network;

determining a reach of the one or more members to the other members;

determining a structural cohesion of the one or more members with the other members;

determining a structural equivalence of the one or more members with the other members;

determining structural or static holes in the social network;

or combinations thereof.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of determining the individual importance comprises retrieving predetermined importance data from a memory to determine each member'"'"'s individual importance.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of determining the individual importance comprises monitoring electronic communications of one or more members of the social network with other members of the social network.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising the steps of determining a relative network importance of the social network to other social networks and weighting each of the weighted individual preferences with the relative network importance.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of determining the individual importance comprises determining a member'"'"'s geographic location relative to the social network.

10. The method of claim 2, wherein the step of determining the individual preferences comprises interrogating a plurality of electronic devices belonging to the members of the social network to obtain the individual preferences.

12. The portable electronic communication device of claim 10, further comprising:

a memory having social network importance information stored therein;

a social network identification module configured to determine when the portable electronic communication device is within the social network; and

a social network importance determination module configured to determine an importance of the social network to an individual based upon the social network importance information.

14. The portable electronic communication device of claim 12, wherein the individual content preference indicia comprises one of musical content preferences or video content preferences.

16. The social network group preference determination apparatus of claim 14, further comprising a social network importance determination module configured to determine an importance of the social network to one or more members of the social network by one of electronically interrogating the portable electronic communication devices or by referencing predetermined social network importance data corresponding to the members of the social network;

wherein the analysis module is further configured to weight the individual content preferences with the importance of the social network to the one or more members of the social network.

17. The social network group preference determination apparatus of claim 14, further comprising a content selection module configured to receive the weighted preferences and to determine a group content selection from the weighted preferences.

18. The social network group preference determination apparatus of claim 16, further comprising a broadcast apparatus configured to broadcast the group content selection to the social network.

19. The social network group preference determination apparatus of claim 14, further comprising a relative network importance determination module configured to determine a relative importance of the social network to other social networks.

20. The social network group preference determination apparatus of claim 14, wherein the individual importance determination module comprises one of a peer-to-peer communication device or a network server interaction device.

11. A portable electronic communication device for use in electronically determining a group preference from a plurality of individual preferences, comprising:

a preference module comprising individual content preference information;

a social network relevance module comprising information relating to an individual'"'"'s importance relative to a social network; and

an electronic communication module configured to transmit both the individual content preference information and the information relating to the individual'"'"'s importance relative to the social network to a remote social network group preference determination apparatus.

13. The portable electronic communication device of claim 11, wherein the electronic communication module is further configured to transmit the importance of the social network to the remote social network group preference determination apparatus.

15. A social network group preference determination apparatus, comprising:

an interrogation module configured to determine individual content preference information corresponding to members of a social network by electronically communicating with portable electronic communication devices belonging to the members of the social network;

an individual importance determination module configured to determine an individual'"'"'s importance to the social network by one of monitoring electronic communication activity of the portable electronic communication devices or by referencing predetermined individual importance data corresponding to the members of the social network;

an analysis module configured to weight individual content preferences with the individual'"'"'s importance to the social network; and

an electronic delivery module configured to electronically transmit the individual content preferences weighted with the individual'"'"'s importance to the social network as weighted preferences.