Personalizing an online service based on data collected for a user of a computing device

• US 9,569,529 B2
• Filed: 11/19/2013
• Issued: 02/14/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 06/02/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Yahoo! Inc. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Rubin, Mark, Hein, Brian
• Primary Examiner(s): MORRISON, JAY A
• Application Number:
  US14/084,299
• Publication Number:
  US 20140081964A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,183 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24578 using ranking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/335 Filtering based on additional data, e.g. user or group profiles filtering in web context G06F16/9535, G06F16/9536
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9536 Search customisation based on social or collaborative filtering
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0277 Online advertisement
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles

Abstract

An Internet or other online service is personalized or customized based on data collected for a user of a computing device. In one embodiment, a method includes: storing a plurality of person profiles for persons associated with communications received by a user of a computing device; receiving data associated with an online service; and filtering, using at least one processor, the data based on the plurality of person profiles, wherein the filtered data is for display to the user on the computing device.

Claims

1. A system, comprising:

at least one processor; and

memory storing instructions configured to instruct the at least one processor to;

store a plurality of person profiles for persons associated with communications received by a user of a computing device, wherein each of the persons associated with the communications received by the user is a sender to the user of one of the communications;

determine a set of persons of the person profiles that are active on an online service;

filter the set of persons to provide a plurality of highly-ranked persons, wherein the filtering uses a relevancy ranking for each of the plurality of person profiles;

create a list using the plurality of highly-ranked persons, wherein the list is for presentation to the user on the computing device;

combine, for presentation to the user, a stream of messages for the user on the online service and the list, wherein the list comprises messages from the highly-ranked persons; and

replace a respective user identifier, used by the online service, for each of the plurality of highly-ranked persons with a name obtained from the corresponding profile of the plurality of person profiles when presenting a message from the respective highly-ranked person to the user.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the instructions are further configured to instruct the at least one processor to collect communications associated with the computing device.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the system further comprises a display, and wherein the instructions are further configured to instruct the at least one processor to present, using the display, the list to the user.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the list further comprises data for each of the highly-ranked persons, and wherein the data is selected from the plurality of person profiles.

5. The system of claim 1, further comprising a database storing the plurality of person profiles.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the instructions are further configured to instruct the at least one processor to provide an option to the user in which the user may select to view the stream of messages or the messages of the list.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the option to the user is an affordance on a web page that is presented to the user.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the stream of messages is a home stream of the user on the online service.

9. A method, comprising:

storing a plurality of person profiles for persons associated with communications received by a user of a computing device, wherein each of the persons associated with the communications received by the user is a sender to the user of one of the communications;

ranking the plurality of person profiles;

determining new persons from the plurality of person profiles that are able to be followed on an online service;

suggesting, to the user, the new persons for following when using the online service;

receiving a feed from the online service, the feed comprising a respective message from each of the new persons;

filtering messages in the feed, for display to the user, based on the ranking; and

replacing a respective user identifier, used by the online service, for each of the new persons with a name obtained from the corresponding profile of the plurality of person profiles when presenting a message from the respective new person to the user.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising adding the user as a new user of the online service including using the new persons as initial persons for the user to follow on the online service.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the determining of new persons that are able to be followed comprises selecting the new persons from persons that are top-ranked contacts of the user.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein the determining new persons that are able to be followed comprises using message addresses and online service identifiers to determine persons that are active on the online service.

13. The method of claim 9, further comprising receiving a selection by the user of a maximum number of messages that the user is to receive in the filtered feed for any given predetermined time period.

14. The method of claim 9, wherein a server includes the at least one processor, and the method further comprises sending the filtered data to the computing device for display.

15. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing computer-readable instructions, which when executed, cause a system to:

store a plurality of person profiles for persons associated with communications received by a user of a computing device, wherein each of the persons associated with the communications received by the user is a sender to the user of one of the communications;

rank, by at least one processor, the plurality of person profiles;

determine new persons of the plurality of person profiles that are able to be followed on an online service;

provide a feed to the user including messages of the new persons as if the user were following the new persons on the online service, the messages selected based on the ranking; and

replace a respective user identifier, used by the online service, for each of the new persons with a name obtained from the corresponding profile of the plurality of person profiles when presenting a message from the new person to the user.

16. The storage medium of claim 15, wherein the instructions further cause the system to select a subset of the new persons based on the ranking, and to provide the feed to the user using messages of the subset of the new persons without messages from other of the new persons.

17. The storage medium of claim 15, wherein the instructions further cause the system to store data associated with prior activities of the user on the computing device, and wherein the feed is further customized based on the stored data.