Sponsored Stories and News Stories within a Newsfeed of a Social Networking System

• US 20120203847A1
• Filed: 04/13/2012
• Published: 08/09/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 11/05/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Adam D'Angelo, Andrew G. Bosworth, Chamath M. Palihapitiya, Justin M. Rosenstein, Mark E. Zuckerberg, Matthew R. Cohler, Robert Kang-Xing Jin, Timothy A. Kendall, Yishan Wong, Yun-Fang Juan
• Inventors: Kendall, Timothy A., Cohler, Matthew R., Zuckerberg, Mark E., Juan, Yun-Fang, Jin, Robert Kang-Xing, Rosenstein, Justin M., Bosworth, Andrew G., Wong, Yishan, D'Angelo, Adam, Palihapitiya, Chamath M.
• Granted Patent: US 10,068,258 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/206
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0215 Including financial accounts
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0254 based on statistics
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0255 based on user history
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0269 based on user profile or attribute
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0275 Auctions
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1859 adapted to provide push services, e.g. data channels
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• 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: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/029 Location-based management or tracking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/20 Services signaling; Auxiliary data signalling, i.e. transmitting data via a non-traffic channel
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/21 for social networking applications

Abstract

A social networking system generates socially-relevant stories for a user based on actions taken by other users to whom the user is connected. The social networking system may receive a request for a sponsored story for a viewing user and may select information about one or more actions performed by one or more users to whom the viewing user is connected to identify one of a plurality of candidate information for a sponsored story based on one or more criteria (e.g., affinity of the viewing user for the candidates, expected value for the candidates, etc.). The social networking system may also generate the sponsored story and generate a feed comprising the sponsored story and news stories (e.g., non-sponsored stories) about one or more users of the social networking system with whom the viewing user is connected. This feed may be provided for display to the viewing user.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:

logging information related to actions performed by users of a social networking system;

receiving a request for a sponsored story, the sponsored story comprising a message provided to a viewing user of the social networking system including information related to an action performed by one or more users with whom the viewing user is connected in the social networking system;

selecting information about one or more actions performed by the one or more users with whom the viewing user is connected in the social networking system to identify one of a plurality of candidate information for a sponsored story based on one or more criteria;

generating the sponsored story for providing to the viewing user;

generating a feed that comprises the generated sponsored story and a plurality of news stories about one or more users of the social networking system with whom the viewing user is connected in the social networking system; and

providing the feed for display to the viewing user.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the generated sponsored story includes information about a purchase an item by the one or more users with whom the viewing user is connected in the social networking system.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the generated sponsored story includes information about a location of the one or more users with whom the viewing user is connected in the social networking system

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the generated sponsored story includes information about program material on a television system accessed by the one or more users with whom the viewing user is connected in the social networking system.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein selecting information about one or more actions to identify one of a plurality of candidate information for a sponsored story based on one or more criteria comprises selecting based on an affinity of the viewing user for each of the plurality of candidate information for the sponsored story.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein selecting based on affinity comprises:

determining an affinity score between the viewing user and each of the at least a plurality of the candidate information; and

selecting the candidate information having the highest affinity score.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein selecting information about one or more actions to identify one of a plurality of candidate information for a sponsored story based on one or more criteria comprises selecting based on an expected value for each of the plurality of candidate information for the sponsored story.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the candidate information for the sponsored story with the highest expected value is selected.

9. The method of claim 7, further comprising receiving a bid from an advertiser for placement of a sponsored story, wherein the expected value is computed as a function of a per-click bid price for a sponsored story including the candidate information weighted by an estimated probability that the sponsored story will be clicked by the viewing user.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the estimated probability is computed as a weighted function of an affinity of the viewing user for the one or more users with whom the viewing user is connected or for content in the sponsored story.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the request for the sponsored story comprises a price associated with the request indicating an amount that an advertiser is willing to pay for providing of the sponsored story to the viewing user.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein logging information related to actions performed by users of a social networking system comprises logging information received from an external site related to actions performed by users of a social networking system on the external site.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of news stories comprise information about actions taken by the one or more users, the actions contained in an action log.

14. The method of claim 1, further comprising selecting a subset of the plurality of new stories generated for inclusion in the feed, the subset selected based on affinity of the viewing user for the one or more users associated with each of the news stories, for a type of action included in each of the news stories, or for a type of object included in each of the news stories.

15. A computer-implemented system comprising:

an action logger for logging information related to actions performed by users of a social networking system;

an advertisement request database for storing a plurality of requests for sponsored stories;

an advertising server configured for;

receiving a request for a sponsored story, the sponsored story comprising a message provided to a viewing user of the social networking system including information related to an action performed by one or more users with whom the viewing user is connected in the social networking system;

selecting information about one or more actions performed by the one or more users with whom the viewing user is connected in the social networking system to identify one of a plurality of candidate information for a sponsored story based on one or more criteria;

a feed generator configured for;

generating the sponsored story for providing to the viewing user;

generating a feed that comprises the generated sponsored story and a plurality of news stories about one or more users of the social networking system with whom the viewing user is connected in the social networking system; and

a web server configured for providing the feed for display to the viewing user.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the generated sponsored story includes information about a purchase of an item by the one or more users with whom the viewing user is connected in the social networking system, a location of the one or more users, or program material on a television system accessed by the one or more users.

17. The system of claim 15, wherein the one or more criteria comprise an affinity of the viewing user for each of the plurality of candidate information or an expected value of each of the plurality of candidate information.

18. The system of claim 15, wherein the advertising server is configured for determining the affinity based on one or more express interests of the viewing user provided directly or indirectly by the viewing user on the social networking system or based on one or more implied interests of the viewing user determined through actions taken by the viewing user on the social networking system.

19. The system of claim 15, wherein the advertising server is configured for receiving a bid from an advertiser for placement of a sponsored story, wherein the bid by the advertiser accelerates providing of the sponsored story to the viewing user or maximizes a chance that the sponsored story will be provided to the viewing user.

20. The system of claim 15, further comprising an action log for storing the information related to actions performed by users of a social networking system, wherein one or more of the logged actions are included in the generated sponsored story or the news stories.

21. The system of claim 15, wherein the feed generator is configured for selecting news stories for the feed from the plurality of news stories based on an affinity of the viewing user for each of the plurality of news stories.

22. The system of claim 15, wherein the action described in the generated sponsored story comprises an action taken external to the social networking system.

23. A computer-readable storage medium storing executable computer program instructions comprising instructions for performing the steps comprising:

logging information related to actions performed by users of a social networking system;

receiving a request for a sponsored story, the sponsored story comprising a message provided to a viewing user of the social networking system including information related to an action performed by one or more users with whom the viewing user is connected in the social networking system;

selecting information about one or more actions performed by the one or more users with whom the viewing user is connected in the social networking system to identify one of a plurality of candidate information for a sponsored story based on one or more criteria;

generating the sponsored story for providing to the viewing user;

generating a feed that comprises the generated sponsored story and a plurality of news stories about one or more users of the social networking system with whom the viewing user is connected in the social networking system; and

providing the feed for display to the viewing user.

24. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 23, wherein the generated sponsored story includes information about a purchase of an item by the one or more users with whom the viewing user is connected in the social networking system, a location of the one or more users, or program material on a television system accessed by the one or more users.

25. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 23, wherein the one or more criteria comprise an affinity of the viewing user for each of the plurality of candidate information or an expected value of each of the plurality of candidate information.

26. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 23, further comprising:

receiving a request for a set of news stories for the viewing user; and

obtaining a listing of any actions contained in an action log that are related to the viewing user, the actions being related if they relate to a user to whom the viewing user has a connection or an object to which the viewing user is connected.