Tagging users of a social networking system in content outside of social networking system domain

• US 9,380,087 B2
• Filed: 04/28/2015
• Issued: 06/28/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 08/04/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Inventors: Carduner, Paul Franois, Odio, Samuel Raymond
• Primary Examiner(s): HOANG, HIEU T
• Application Number:
  US14/698,818
• Publication Number:
  US 20150237088A1
• Time in Patent Office: 427 Days
• Field of Search: 709204-207, 709/248, 709/249
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/52 for supporting social networking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/403 Arrangements for multi-party communication, e.g. for conferences data switching systems for conference H04L12/18; arrangements for connecting several subscribers to a common circuit, i.e. affording conference facilities H04M3/56; television conferencing systems H04N7/15
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46

Abstract

Users of a social networking system can tag other users in content items that are provided outside of the social networking system, such as pictures that are viewable on a website that is external to the social networking system. To enable a user to tag another user in a content item, an external system provides a user interface that enables the user to tag another user, optionally define a portion of the content item in which the tagged user appears, and provide an identity of the tagged user. The external system communicates with the social networking system to provide the tagging information to the social networking system. The tagging information is received by the social networking system, which imports the content item and displays the content item with the tagging information to other users in the social networking system.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

providing, by a social networking system to a user device, a user interface comprising user interface elements for receiving tagging information associated with a content item hosted by a system external to the social networking system and the user device, the tagging information identifying one or more tagged users of the social networking system, and the tagging information identifying the content item at the system external to the social networking system;

receiving the tagging information from the user interface;

identifying a tagged user of the social networking system based on the tagging information; and

storing the tagging information in connection with the content item in the social networking system.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising storing within the social networking system a copy of the content item at the system external to the social networking system.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising storing within the social networking system a reference to the content item at the system external to the social networking system.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the content item comprises one of an image, a video, an application, a game, or an article.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising communicating the identification of the tagged users by one or more of publishing the identification in a feed story about one or more of the tagged users or displaying the identification in a display of the content item within the social networking system.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving an identity of a tagging user from the user device.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating a privacy setting enabling a user to specify other users allowed to view the received tagging information within the social networking system.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the user interface is implemented by iframe code provided by the social networking system.

9. A computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having instructions encoded thereon that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to:

provide, by a social networking system to a user device, a user interface comprising user interface elements for receiving tagging information associated with a content item hosted by a system external to the social networking system and the user device, the tagging information identifying one or more tagged users of the social networking system, and the tagging information identifying the content item at the system external to the social networking system;

receive the tagging information from the user interface;

identifying a tagged user of the social networking system based on the tagging information; and

store the tagging information in connection with the content item in the social networking system.

10. The computer program product of claim 9, further comprising instructions that cause the processor to store within the social networking system a copy of the content item hosted by the system external to the social networking system.

11. The computer program product of claim 9, further comprising instructions that cause the processor to store within the social networking system a reference to the content item hosted by the system external to the social networking system.

12. The computer program product of claim 9, wherein the content item comprises one of an image, a video, an application, a game, or an article.

13. The computer program product of claim 9, further comprising instructions that cause the processor to communicate the identification of the tagged users by one or more of publishing the identification in a feed story about one or more of the tagged users or displaying the identification in a display of the content item within the social networking system.

14. The computer program product of claim 9, further comprising instructions that cause the processor to receive an identity of a tagging user from a computing device.

15. The computer program product of claim 9, further comprising instructions that cause the processor to generate a privacy setting enabling a user to specify other users allowed to view the received tagging information within the social networking system.

16. The computer program product of claim 9, wherein the tagging information is obtained by an application programming interface of the social-networking system in communication with the third-party system.

17. The computer program product of claim 9, wherein the system external to the social networking system is a website.

18. The computer program product of claim 9, wherein the tagging information associates a tagged user with an instance of the content item.

19. The computer program product of claim 9, wherein the user interface comprises elements for interacting with content items provided by the social networking system.