Selection for a mobile device using weighted virtual titles

• US 7,693,907 B1
• Filed: 01/22/2009
• Issued: 04/06/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 01/22/2009
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: R2 Solutions LLC (Acacia Research Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Yahoo! Inc. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Kim, Hyunwook, Lee, Younghyun
• Primary Examiner(s): Truong; Cam Y T
• Application Number:
  US12/358,183
• Time in Patent Office: 439 Days
• Field of Search: 707/104.1
• US Class Current: 707/749
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2458 Special types of queries, e.g. statistical queries, fuzzy queries or distributed queries

Abstract

Embodiments are directed towards selecting news formatted for a mobile device that is similar to currently popular desktop formatted news. Words are extracted from the desktop news and weighted based on various criteria. A comparison is then performed between the weighted words and available mobile news to identify similar mobile news. If an insufficient amount of mobile news is identified, then a revised similarity comparison is performed by modifying the keyword list using a virtual title weighted and/or sorted based in part on relevancy to the currently popular desktop formatted news. The resulting news articles formatted for mobile computing devices are then made available using a push and/or pull mechanism, instead of making available one of the news articles formatted for non-mobile computing devices.

Claims

1. A network device to manage communications over a network, comprising:

a memory;

a transceiver to send and receive data over a network; and

a processor that is operative to perform actions, comprising;

identifying keywords from a plurality of news articles formatted for non-mobile computing devices, wherein the news articles are further identified as currently popular news articles and wherein the plurality of currently popular news articles is further based on selecting each news article of the plurality of news articles formatted for non-mobile computing devices as a subset of news articles from another plurality of news articles;

comparing the identified keywords with accessible news articles formatted for mobile computing devices;

based on the comparison, selecting news articles formatted for mobile computing devices for which a similarity value exceeds a similarity threshold value at least until a cardinality of selected news articles formatted for mobile computing devices is at or above a defined value;

if the cardinality of selected news articles formatted for mobile computing devices is less than the defined value, then;

concatenating titles from the accessible news articles to generate a virtual title;

extracting keywords from the virtual title;

weighting the extracted keywords from the virtual title based at least on characteristics of the plurality of news articles formatted for non-mobile computing devices; and

employing the weighted keywords from the virtual title to perform a similarity comparison with the accessible news articles to select additional news articles formatted for mobile computing devices for which another similarity value exceeds the similarity threshold value; and

enabling a mobile computing device to access the selected news articles formatted for mobile computing devices, instead of one or a plurality of news articles formatted for non-mobile computing devices.

2. The network device of claim 1, wherein identifying the keywords further comprises:

extracting the keywords from each title in the plurality of news articles; and

weighting the extracted keywords based on at least one of a time, a geographic region relevancy, a frequency of occurrence, or a political relevancy factor.

3. The network device of claim 1, wherein identifying the keywords further comprises sorting the keywords based on a frequency of occurrence of the keyword in a title.

4. The network device of claim 1, wherein comparing the identified keywords with accessible news articles, further comprises:

performing a comparison of each identified keyword with words within each title of the accessible news articles formatted for mobile computing devices;

performing a comparison of each identified keyword with words within each body of the accessible news articles formatted for mobile computing devices; and

performing a comparison of each identified keyword with words within meta-data associated with each of the accessible news articles formatted for mobile computing devices; and

based on the comparisons, generating the similarity value for each accessible news article formatted for mobile computing devices.

5. The network device of claim 1, wherein selecting each news article of the plurality of news articles further comprises:

selecting each news article based on at least one of a publication date of the news article, whether the news article is identified as a most read news article, whether the news article is identified as a most emailed news article, or based on a rating from a reader.

6. The network device of claim 1, wherein the comparison includes comparing to the identified keywords at least one of a title of a news article formatted for mobile devices, a body of a news article formatted for mobile devices, or meta-data associated with a news article formatted for mobile devices.

7. A processor readable storage medium that includes data and instructions, wherein the execution of the instructions on a computing device provides for managing access to news articles for a mobile device by enabling actions, comprising:

selecting a subset of news articles from a plurality of news articles formatted for non-mobile devices based on determining if each of the plurality of news articles formatted for non-mobile devices satisfies a currently popular news criteria;

generating a list of weighted keywords from titles of each of the subset of news articles;

identifying a plurality of news articles that are formatted for mobile devices;

performing a similarity comparison between elements of each of the plurality of news articles formatted for mobile devices with each weighted keyword;

selecting, based on the similarity comparison exceeding a similarity threshold value, a set of news articles formatted for mobile devices at least until a cardinality of selected news articles formatted for mobile computing devices is at or above a defined value;

otherwise, if the cardinality of selected news articles formatted for mobile computing devices is less than the defined value, then;

concatenating titles from the accessible news articles to generate a extracting keywords from the virtual title;

weighting the extracted keywords from the virtual title based at least on characteristics of the plurality of news articles formatted for non-mobile computing devices;

employing the weighted keywords from the virtual title to perform a similarity comparison with the accessible news articles to select additional news articles formatted for mobile computing devices for which another similarity value exceeds the similarity threshold value; and

enabling the mobile device to access the selected set of news articles formatted for the mobile device.

8. The processor readable storage medium of claim 7, wherein execution of the instructions enable actions, comprises:

examining the selected set of news articles from the similarity comparisons to delete news articles that are determined to be similar to each other.

9. The processor readable storage medium of claim 7, wherein generating the list of weighted keywords further comprises employing weightings to the keywords based on at least a determined relevancy factor.

10. The processor readable storage medium of claim 7, wherein the currently popular news criteria includes at least one of whether a news article is identified as a most frequently read, is identified as a most frequently mailed, identified by a manual selection, or identified by community comments.

11. The processor readable storage medium of claim 7, wherein the elements associated with the similarity comparison includes at least one of a title of a news article formatted for mobile devices, a body of the news article formatted for mobile devices, or meta-data associated with the news article formatted for mobile devices.

12. The processor readable storage medium of claim 7, wherein generating the list of weighted keywords further comprises:

extracting the keywords from each title in the plurality of news articles; and

weighting the extracted keywords based on at least one of a time, a geographic region relevancy, a frequency of occurrence, or a political relevancy factor.

13. A network device for enabling access to news articles by a mobile device over a network, comprising:

a memory;

a processor that executes components that perform actions, including;

a component that is configured to identify;

a plurality of news articles formatted for use by non-mobile computing devices; and

a plurality of news articles formatted for use by mobile computing devices; and

a mobile news selection component configured to perform actions, including;

selecting a subset of news articles from the plurality of news articles formatted for non-mobile computing devices based on determining if a news article satisfies a currently popular news criteria;

generating a list of weighted keywords from titles for each of the subset of news articles;

performing a similarity comparison between elements of each of the plurality of news articles formatted for mobile computing devices with each weighted keyword;

selecting, based on the similarity comparison exceeding a similarly threshold value, a set of news articles formatted for mobile computing devices;

determining a cardinality of the selected set of news articles;

if the cardinality of the selected set of news articles is below a defined value, then;

generating another list of weighted keywords based on a combination of titles related to the plurality of news articles for mobile computing devices, and

employing the other list of weighted keywords to perform another similarity comparison of the plurality of news articles for mobile computing devices to select additional news articles formatted for mobile computing devices, and

pushing the selected set of news articles and the additional selected news articles formatted for mobile computing devices to the mobile device; and

if the cardinality of the selected set of news articles is at or above the defined value, pushing the selected set of news articles formatted for mobile computing devices to the mobile device.

14. The network device of claim 13, wherein pushing the selected set of news articles further comprises employing an Rich Site Summary (RSS) feed.

15. The network device of claim 13, wherein generating the list of weighted keywords further comprises:

weighting the keywords based on at least one of a time, a geographic region relevancy, or a political relevancy factor.

16. The network device of claim 13, wherein the currently popular news criteria includes at least one of whether the news article is identified as a most frequently read, is identified as a most frequently mailed, identified by a manual selection, or identified by community comments.

17. The network device of claim 13, wherein the elements associated with the similarity comparison include at least one of a title of a news article formatted for mobile computing devices, a body of the news article formatted for mobile computing devices, or meta-data associated with the news article formatted for mobile computing devices.

18. The network device of claim 13, wherein generating the list of weighted keywords further comprises:

extracting the keywords from each title in the subset of news articles; and

weighting the extracted keywords based on at least one of a time, a geographic region relevancy, a frequency of occurrence, or a political relevancy factor.