Systems and Methods for Generating a Viewer-Specific Visitor History for a Location

• US 20150172411A1
• Filed: 11/25/2013
• Published: 06/18/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 11/25/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Maier, Zachary Paul, Lopyrev, Mikhail, Korn, Jeffrey, Weissman, David, Lakshmanan, Radhika, Frankel, Richard Oliver, DeCarlo, Doug, Kodysh, Julia, Ye, Catherine
• Granted Patent: US 9,883,004 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/023 using mutual or relative location information between multiple location based services [LBS] targets or of distance thresholds
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/029 Location-based management or tracking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/21 for social networking applications

Abstract

Systems and methods for generating a viewer-specific visitor history for a location are provided. In particular, a visitor history for a particular viewer and location can indicate a total number of users who have visited the location and can specifically identify one or more of a set of users using a facepile. The set of specifically identified users can be those users that have an associative link with the viewer and that are also associated with at least one location signal for the given location and for which the particular viewer is a permitted viewer. Thus, location signals having varying scopes of visibility information can be aggregated across a plurality of different web-services to provide a single, unified visitor history for a particular location and viewer, all while respecting user-specified visibility information.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for providing a viewer-specific visitor history for a particular location, the method comprising:

obtaining, by one or more computing devices, a plurality of location signals from a plurality of different web-services;

determining, by the one or more computing devices, a user, a location, and visibility information for each of the plurality of location signals, wherein the visibility information for each of the plurality of location signals defines a set of permitted viewers;

receiving, by the one or more computing devices, a request for the viewer-specific visitor history for a particular viewer and the particular location;

determining, by the one or more computing devices, a number of users that have visited the particular location based on the plurality of location signals;

identifying a subset of the number of users, wherein the subset comprises those users associated with at least one location signal for which the particular viewer is a permitted viewer and that is associated with the particular location; and

providing, by the one or more computing devices, the viewer-specific visitor history for display to the particular viewer, wherein the viewer-specific visitor history identifies one or more of the subset of the number of users.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the viewer-specific visitor history comprises a facepile, and wherein the facepile comprises one or more images respectively associated with the one or more of the subset of the number of users.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of location signals comprise one or more user-provided reviews and one or more check-ins.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of different web-services comprise a plurality of different third-party web-services that use location-associated data.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the subset of the number of users comprises only users that have an associative link with the particular viewer and that are associated with at least one location signal associated with the particular location and for which the particular viewer is a permitted viewer.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 5, wherein the associative link comprises the user being followed by the particular viewer in one or more social networking websites.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein determining, by the one or more computing devices, visibility information for each of the plurality of location signals comprises:

determining, by the one or more computing devices, whether the user associated with the location signal specified a particular scope of visibility; and

when it is determined that the user associated with the location signal did not specify a particular scope of visibility, obtaining, by the one or more computing devices, a default visibility setting associated with the web-service from which the location signal was obtained and associating, by the one or more computing devices, the default visibility setting with the location signal.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein determining, by the one or more computing devices, the number of users that have visited the particular location based on the plurality of location signals comprises:

identifying, by the one or more computing devices, all of the location signals associated with the particular location; and

identifying, by the one or more computing devices, all of the users associated with the identified location signals associated with the particular location.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein identifying the subset of the number of users comprises:

determining, by the one or more computing devices for each of the number of users, whether the particular viewer is a permitted viewer for at least one location signal associated with such user and the particular location;

for each user for which it is determined that the particular viewer is a permitted viewer for at least one location signal associated with such user and the particular location, adding, by the one or more computing devices, such user to the subset of the number of users; and

for each user for which it is determined that the particular viewer is not a permitted viewer for at least one location signal associated with such user and the particular location, incrementing, by the one or more computing devices, an anonymous visitor count.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein providing, by the one or more computing devices, the viewer-specific visitor history for display to the particular viewer comprises:

determining, by the one or more computing devices, whether one or more location signals exist that indicates that the particular viewer has potentially visited the particular location; and

when it is determined that one or more location signals exist that indicates that the particular viewer has potentially visited the particular location, providing, by the one or more computing devices, an opportunity within the viewer-specific visitor history for the particular viewer to confirm that the particular viewer has visited the particular location.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising, after providing the viewer-specific visitor history for display to the particular viewer:

receiving, by the one or more computing devices, viewer input data indicating that the particular viewer has selected one of the one or more users identified by the viewer-specific visitor history; and

providing, by the one or more computing devices, a summary of at least one of the location signals associated with the selected user and the particular location in response to the viewer input data.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising, after providing the viewer-specific visitor history for display to the particular viewer:

receiving, by the one or more computing devices, viewer input data indicating that the particular viewer has indicated that the particular viewer has visited the particular location; and

adjusting, by the one or more computing devices, the viewer-specific visitor history in response to the viewer input data so that the particular viewer is specifically identified as having visited the particular location.

13. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising, after providing the viewer-specific visitor history for display to the particular viewer:

receiving, by the one or more computing devices, viewer input data indicating that the particular viewer has selected a visitor count included in the viewer-specific visitor history, wherein the visitor count provides an indication of the number of users that have visited the particular location; and

providing, by the one or more computing devices, a summary of the number of users that have visited the particular location in response to the viewer input data.

14. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the visibility information for each of the location signals comprises one or more access control list tags.

15. A computing system for generating a viewer-specific visitor history for a location, the computing system comprising:

at least one processor; and

a non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the computing system to perform operations, the operations comprising;

respectively generating, by the computing system, a plurality of database entries for a plurality of location signals respectively obtained from a plurality of web-services, wherein each database entry for each location signal specifies a user, a location, and visibility information;

receiving, by the computing system, a request for the viewer-specific visitor history, wherein the request specifies a viewer and a particular location;

identifying, by the computing system, a set of database entries, wherein the set of database entries comprises all of the plurality of database entries that specify the particular location;

identifying, by the computing system, a set of users, wherein the set of users comprises each user that has an associative link with the viewer and that is specified by at least one of the set of database entries that the viewer is permitted to view according to the respective visibility information; and

generating, by the computing system, the viewer-specific visitor history for the particular location, wherein the viewer-specific visitor history identifies one or more of the set of users.

16. The computing system of claim 15, wherein the viewer-specific visitor history further provides an additional visitor count, wherein the additional visitor count comprises a number of unique users specified by at least one of the set of database entries but not identified by the viewer-specific visitor history.

17. The computing system of claim 15, wherein the non-transitory computer-readable medium stores further instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the computing system to perform further operations, the further operations comprising:

receiving, by the computing system, viewer input data indicating that the viewer has indicated through interaction with the viewer-specific visitor history that the viewer has visited the particular location; and

generating, by the computing system, an additional database entry in response to the viewer input data, wherein the additional database entry specifies the viewer and the particular location.

18. A computer-implemented method for providing a viewer-specific visitor history for an identified location, the method comprising:

determining, by one or more computing devices, a user, a location, and visibility information for each of a plurality of location signals respectively associated with a plurality of web-services, wherein the visibility information for each location signal defines one or more users who are permitted to view such location signal;

receiving, by the one or more computing devices, a request for the viewer-specific visitor history for an identified viewer and the identified location;

identifying, by the one or more computing devices, a subset of the plurality of location signals, the subset comprising all of the plurality of location signals that are associated with the identified location;

identifying, by the one or more computing devices, a set of users associated with the subset of the plurality of location signals; and

generating, by the one or more computing devices, the viewer-specific visitor history based on the set of users and the visibility information respectively associated with each of the subset of the plurality of location signals.

19. The computer-implemented method of claim 18, wherein generating, by the one or more computing devices, the viewer-specific visitor history based on the set of users and the visibility information respectively associated with the set of users comprises generating, by the one or more computing devices, the viewer-specific visitor history by performing operations for each user in the set of users, the operations comprising:

determining, by the one or more computing devices based on the respective visibility information, whether the viewer is permitted to view at least one location signal associated with the user and the identified location;

when it is determined that the viewer is permitted to view at least one location signal associated with the user and the identified location, determining, by the one or more computing devices, whether an associative link exists between the viewer and the user;

when it is determined that an associative link exists between the viewer and the user, adding, by the one or more computing devices, the user to a list of users available for specific identification by the viewer-specific visitor history; and

when it is either determined that the viewer is not permitted to view at least one location signal associated with the user and the identified location or it is determined that an associative link does not exist between the viewer and the user, incrementing, by the one or more computing devices, an anonymous visitor count.

20. The computer-implemented method of claim 19, further comprising providing, by the one or more computing devices, the viewer-specific visitor history for display to the identified viewer, wherein the viewer-specific visitor history comprises a plurality of interactive features that permit the identified viewer to explore the list of users available for specific identification.