Generating application recommendations based on user installed applications

• US 8,484,636 B2
• Filed: 06/22/2012
• Issued: 07/09/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 05/09/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Mehta, Bhaskar, Mahaniok, Ihar, Hernadvolgyi, Istvan T.
• Primary Examiner(s): Zhen, Wei
• Assistant Examiner(s): Ung, Larry
• Application Number:
  US13/530,204
• Publication Number:
  US 20120291022A1
• Time in Patent Office: 382 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 717/176
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/60 Software deployment
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0255 based on user history
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0631 Item recommendations

Abstract

Methods, systems and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for receiving an application installation log, the application installation log including per-user installation data indicating when each of a plurality of applications available through an application marketplace was installed on a plurality of computing devices, determining an overall score corresponding to a first application and a second application, the score indicating a degree of overlap in installation periods of the first application and the second application on the plurality of computing devices, determining that the overall score is greater than or equal to a threshold score, generating an index, the index associating the second application as an application of interest in view of the first application, and storing the index in computer-readable memory.

Claims

1. A system, comprising:

one or more computers; and

a computer-readable storage device coupled to the one or more computers having instructions stored thereon which, when executed by the one or more computers, cause the one or more computers to perform operations comprising;

receiving an application installation log, the application installation log comprising per-user installation data indicating when each of a plurality of applications available through an application marketplace was installed on each computing device of a plurality of computing devices;

for each application pair of the plurality of applications, each application pair including a first application and a second application;

identifying a first installation period associated with the first application on the plurality of computing devices and a second installation period associated with the second application on the plurality of computing devices;

determining a degree of overlap between the first installation period and the second installation period;

determining an overall score corresponding to the application pair based on the degree of overlap;

comparing the overall score with a threshold score;

adding the application pair to an index when the overall score is greater than or equal to the threshold score, the index associating the second application as an application of interest in view of the first application;

storing the index in computer-readable storage device;

receiving a user selection of a particular application of the plurality of applications;

retrieving one or more applications of interest based on the particular application using the index; and

providing the one or more applications of interest for display.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein determining the overall score comprises:

calculating a total user score across a plurality of users; and

calculating the overall score based on the total user score.

5. The system of claim 2, wherein determining the overall score further comprises:

determining a group of users that installed both the first application and the second application;

for each user in the group of users, calculating a per-user score to provide a plurality of per-user scores; and

calculating the total user score as a sum of the plurality of per-user scores.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein each per-user score is determined based on first timestamps associated with the first application and second timestamps associated with the second application.

7. The system of claim 5, wherein calculating a per-user score to provide a plurality of per-user scores comprises:

determining, for a particular user, that an installation period of the second application is less than a threshold installation period; and

setting the per-user score for the particular user to zero in response to determining that the installation period of the second application is less than the threshold installation period.

8. The system of claim 5, wherein calculating a per-user score to provide a plurality of per-user scores comprises:

determining, for a particular user, that the second application was installed within a threshold period after installation of the first application; and

in response to determining that the second application was installed within the threshold period after installation of the first application, calculating the per-user score for the particular user based on respective install timestamps of the first and second applications.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the per-user score for the particular user is calculated further based on an uninstall timestamp of the first application.

10. The system of claim 8, wherein calculating a per-user score to provide a plurality of per-user scores further comprises:

determining that the second application was installed before the first application was uninstalled;

determining that the second application was installed after the first application was installed; and

in response to determining that the second application was installed before the first application was uninstalled and determining that the second application was installed after the first application was installed, incrementing the per-user score for the particular user.

11. The system of claim 5, wherein calculating a per-user score to provide a plurality of per-user scores comprises:

determining, for a particular user, that the second application was not installed within a threshold period after installation of the first application;

determining, for the particular user, that a difference between an installation time of the first application and an installation time of the second application is less than a threshold difference; and

in response to determining that the second application was not installed within a threshold period after installation of the first application and determining that the difference between an installation time of the first application and an installation time of the second application is less than the threshold difference, setting the per-user score for the particular user to one.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise:

determining a second overall score corresponding to the first application and a third application, the second overall score indicating a degree of overlap in installation periods of the first application and the third application on a plurality of computing devices; and

determining that the second overall score is less than a threshold score, wherein the third application is absent from the index as an application of interest in view of the first application in response to determining that the second overall score is less than the threshold score.

13. The system of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise:

receiving a search query;

generating search results based on the search query, the search results corresponding to the plurality of applications; and

transmitting the search results for display to a user.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the operations further comprise:

receiving user input, the user input indicating a selection of a search result from the search results, the search result corresponding to an application of the plurality of applications;

in response to receiving the user input, accessing the index to identify at least one application of interest that is deemed to be potentially of interest to users in view of the application; and

transmitting information corresponding to the application and the at least one application of interest for display to the user.

3. The system of 2, wherein the operations further comprise calculating a probability based on the total user score and a popularity of the second application, wherein the overall score is calculated based on the probability.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the popularity of the second application is determined based on a number of installations of the second application on the plurality of computing devices.

15. A computer-readable hardware storage device encoded with a computer program, the program comprising instructions that when executed by one or more computers cause the one or more computers to perform operations comprising:

receiving a user selection of a particular application of a plurality of applications;

retrieving one or more applications of interest based on the particular application using an index, the index associating, for each first application and second application of an application pair of the plurality of applications, the second application as an application of interest in view of the first application when an overall score corresponding to the application pair is greater than or equal to a threshold score, the overall score indicating a degree of overlap between a first installation period associated with the first application on a plurality of computing devices and a second installation period associated with the second application on the plurality of computing devices; and

providing the one or more applications of interest for display.

16. A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving a user selection of a particular application of a plurality of applications;

retrieving one or more applications of interest based on the particular application using an index, the index associating, for each first application and second application of an application pair of the plurality of applications, the second application as an application of interest in view of the first application when an overall score corresponding to the application pair is greater than or equal to a threshold score, the overall score indicating a degree of overlap between a first installation period associated with the first application on a plurality of computing devices and a second installation period associated with the second application on the plurality of computing devices; and

providing the one or more applications of interest for display.

17. The computer-implemented method of claim 16, wherein the overall score is based on a total user score across a plurality of users.

18. The computer-implemented method of claim 17, wherein the overall score is based on a probability that is based on the total user score and a popularity of the second application.

19. The computer-implemented method of claim 18, wherein the popularity of the second application is based on a number of installations of the second application on the plurality of computing devices.

20. The computer-implemented method of claim 17, further comprising:

determining a group of users that installed both the first application and the second application;

for each user in the group of users, calculating a per-user score to provide a plurality of per-user scores; and

calculating the total user score as a sum of the plurality of per-user scores.