Aggregating social networking system user information for display via stories

• US 9,609,073 B2
• Filed: 06/27/2013
• Issued: 03/28/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 09/21/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Inventors: Yung, Raylene Kay, Schafer, Daniel, Zhang, Li, Piantino, Serkan, Gubin, Maxim
• Primary Examiner(s): Hong, Stephen
• Assistant Examiner(s): Vaughn, Gregory J
• Application Number:
  US13/928,744
• Publication Number:
  US 20130290430A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,370 Days
• Field of Search: 715/200, 715/201, 715/203
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24578 using ranking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/248 Presentation of query results
• 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: G06F 16/9538 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/958 Organisation or management of web site content, e.g. publishing, maintaining pages or automatic linking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/103 Formatting, i.e. changing of presentation of documents automatic justification G06F40/189; automatic line break hyphenation G06F40/191
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/106 Display of layout of documents; Previewing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34

Abstract

To generate stories for presentation to social networking system users, one or more story generation engines receives a set of actions of social networking system users. Various story generation engines output stories of different types that collect particular types of actions and arrange the actions in a specified format for presentation. The story generators may avoid selecting the same actions for different stories. Stories generated by the various story generators may be ranked and the ranking used to select stories for presentation to one or more social networking system users.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

logging actions taken by users of a social networking system;

determining one or more story generators based on a view requested by a client device of a viewing user of the social networking system;

accessing a plurality of logged actions of the viewing user or one or more other users connected to the viewing user in the social networking system;

selecting one or more of the logged actions based on a relevance of each of the logged actions to the viewing user;

generating a plurality of candidate stories from the logged actions using the one or more story generators, each of the plurality of candidate stories being associated with a story type of a plurality of story types, where two or more candidate stories of the plurality of candidate stories are associated with a same logged action;

generating an affinity for each of the plurality of candidate stories, wherein each affinity comprises a measure of the relevance of a candidate story of the plurality of candidate stories to the viewing user;

generating a ranking of the plurality of candidate stories based on the affinity generated for each the plurality of stories;

identifying the two or more candidate stories that are associated with the same logged action;

responsive to the identifying, updating the ranking by removing a subset of the two or more candidate stories from the ranking;

selecting one or more of the plurality of candidate stories as selected stories for the view requested by the client device of the viewing user based on the updated ranking; and

sending the requested view comprising displayable representations of the selected stories to the client device for display to the viewing user.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein selecting the one or more of the plurality of candidate stories based on the updated ranking comprises:

removing one or more logged actions included in a story.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein updating the ranking further comprises:

removing candidate stories associated with logged actions previously viewed by the viewing user.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein updating the ranking further comprises:

removing candidate stories associated with logged actions that the viewing user does not have permission to view.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein updating the ranking further comprises:

removing candidate stories associated with logged actions having one or more types not associated with the requested view.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein each candidate story comprises story metadata and one or more references to one or more logged actions, the story metadata comprising information describing visual presentation of a displayable representation of a candidate story.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein selecting one or more of the plurality of candidate stories based on the ranking comprises:

modifying the ranking by increasing a position in the ranking of a candidate story having a story type associated with less than a threshold number of stories having at least a threshold position in the ranking;

selecting one or more of the candidate stories based on the modified ranking.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein selecting one or more of the plurality of candidate stories based on the ranking comprises:

modifying the ranking by decreasing a position in the ranking of a candidate story having a story type associated with at least a threshold number of stories having at least a threshold position in the ranking;

selecting one or more of the candidate stories based on the modified ranking.

9. A method comprising:

accessing a plurality of logged actions related to a viewing user of a social networking system, the plurality of logged actions comprising logged actions of the viewing user or one or more other users connected to the viewing user in the social networking system;

selecting one or more of the logged actions from the plurality of logged actions based at least in part on a relevance of each of the logged actions to the viewing user;

generating a plurality of candidate stories from the logged actions based on a view requested by the viewing user, each of the plurality of candidate stories being associated with a story type of plurality of story types, two or more stories of the plurality of candidate stories associated with a same logged action;

selecting one or more of the generated candidate stories based on the viewing user;

identifying the two or more candidate stories associated with the same logged action;

responsive to the identifying, removing a subset of the two or more candidate stories from the plurality of candidate stories; and

sending displayable representations of the candidate stories to a client device for display to the viewing user.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein selecting logged actions from the plurality of logged actions based at least in part on the relevance of each of the logged actions to the viewing user comprises:

determining a type of logged action associated with the requested view;

identifying logged actions having the type of logged action associated with the requested view; and

selecting the logged actions from the identified logged actions based at least in part on the relevance of the identified logged actions to the viewing user.

11. A method comprising:

accessing a plurality of logged actions related to a subject user of a social networking system, the plurality of logged actions comprising logged actions of the viewing user or one or more other users connected to the viewing user in the social networking system;

determining one or more story generators based on a view requested by a client device of a viewing user of a social networking system;

selecting one or more of the logged actions of the plurality of logged actions based on a relevance of each of the logged actions to the subject user;

generating a plurality of candidate stories from the selected logged actions using the one or more story generators, each of the plurality of candidate stories being associated with a story type of plurality of story types, two or more candidate stories of the plurality of candidate stories associated with a same logged action;

generating an affinity for each of the plurality of candidate stories, wherein each affinity comprises a measure of the relevance of a candidate story of the plurality of candidate stories to the subject user;

generating a ranking of the plurality of candidate stories based on the affinity generated for each the plurality of candidate stories;

identifying the two or more candidate stories associated with the same logged action;

responsive to the identifying, removing a subset of the two or more candidate stories from the plurality of stories;

selecting one or more of the plurality of candidate stories as selected stories for the view requested by the client device of the viewing user based on the updated ranking; and

sending the requested view comprising displayable representations of the selected one or more of the ranked stories to a client device for display to the viewing user.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein selecting the one or more of the plurality of candidate stories based at least in part on the updated ranking comprises:

removing one or more logged actions included in a candidate story from an candidate story.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein updating the ranking further comprises:

removing candidate stories associated with logged actions previously viewed by the viewing user.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein updating the ranking further comprises:

removing candidate stories associated with logged actions that the viewing user does not have permission to view.

15. The method of claim 11, wherein updating the ranking further comprises:

removing candidate stories associated with logged actions having one or more types not associated with the requested view.

16. The method of claim 11, wherein selecting one or more of the plurality of candidate stories based at least in part on the ranking comprises:

modifying the ranking by increasing a position in the ranking of a candidate story having a story type associated with less than a threshold number of stories having at least a threshold position in the ranking;

selecting one or more of the candidate stories based on the modified ranking.

17. The method of claim 11, wherein selecting one or more of the plurality of candidate stories based at least in part on the ranking comprises:

modifying the ranking by decreasing a position in the ranking of a candidate story having a story type associated with at least a threshold number of stories having at least a threshold position in the ranking;

selecting one or more of the candidate stories based on the modified ranking.