USER-SPECIFIED DISTRIBUTION OF STORIES DESCRIBING USER ACTIONS IN A SOCIAL NETWORKING SYSTEM
Granted: December 25, 2014
Application Number:
20140379483
A social networking system receives a sponsored story request identifying a story describing an action performed by a social networking system user and generates a sponsored story accordingly. The sponsored story request may also include a bid amount and other information for generating a sponsored story from the sponsored story request. When an action is included in a sponsored story presented to a social networking system user, the social networking system notifies the user associated…
VIEW-BASED PLACEMENT OF ADVERTISEMENTS IN SCROLLABLE ADVERTISEMENT UNITS
Granted: December 11, 2014
Application Number:
20140365320
An online system selects advertisements for inclusion in a scrollable advertisement unit that includes a display area and multiple advertisements, each associated with a position in the scrollable advertisement unit. Positions in the scrollable advertisement unit are ranked based on a measure of predicted performance of an advertisement in each position. Advertisements are ranked based on a probability of being viewed by a user if associated with a particular position in the scrollable…
VIEW-BASED PRICING OF ADVERTISEMENTS IN SCROLLABLE ADVERTISEMENT UNITS
Granted: December 11, 2014
Application Number:
20140365318
An online system determines the pricing of an advertisement included in a scrollable advertisement unit including multiple advertisements and a display area presenting one or more advertisements. When an advertisement is included in a scrollable advertisement unit, a price for presentation of the advertisement is determined based on bid amounts of advertisements evaluated for inclusion in the scrollable advertisement unit and a scaling factor. The scaling factor is based on the…
TECHNIQUES FOR RENDERING AND CACHING GRAPHICS ASSETS
Granted: December 4, 2014
Application Number:
20140354657
Various embodiments are generally directed to techniques for downloading graphics assets of a software application in a form in which they are rendered as needed on a computing device based on its characteristics and then stored therein for later use. A computer-implemented method includes determining whether a requested graphics asset is stored in a storage of a computing device, retrieving the graphics asset from the storage when the graphics asset is stored in the storage, rendering…
Periodic Ambient Waveform Analysis for Enhanced Social Functions
Granted: December 4, 2014
Application Number:
20140358555
In particular embodiments, one or more computer-readable non-transitory storage media embody software that is operable when executed to receive an audio waveform fingerprint and a client-determined location from a client device. The received audio waveform fingerprint may be compared to a database of stored audio waveform fingerprints, each stored audio waveform fingerprint associated with an object in an object database. One or more matching audio waveform fingerprints may be found from…
Database Sharding with Update Layer
Granted: November 27, 2014
Application Number:
20140351203
In one embodiment, a method includes receiving an update of activity associated with one or more content objects associated with a search term. The search term is associated with a number of content objects exceeding a pre-determined threshold number. The content objects associated with the search term are indexed on a list of one or more index servers. The list includes identifier information corresponding to the content objects. The method also includes modifying the list of one or…
Database Sharding with Incorporated Updates
Granted: November 27, 2014
Application Number:
20140351204
In one embodiment, a method includes receiving an update of activity associated with one or more content objects associated with a search term. The content objects associated with the search term are indexed on a list of one or more index servers or a term server. The list of the term server include identifier information of one or more content object types. The list of the index servers include identifier information of a single content object type. The method also includes determining…
Contextual Alternate Text for Images
Granted: November 27, 2014
Application Number:
20140351687
In one embodiment, one or more server computing devices receive from a client computing device associate with a user a request for a structured document including an image; the server computing devices access a data store for data associated with the image; the server computing devices construct based at least in part on at least some of the data associated with the image a text string corresponding to the image in the structured document; the text string is configured to be audibly read…
User-Based Interactive Elements For Content Sharing
Granted: November 27, 2014
Application Number:
20140351717
In one embodiment, a method includes providing for display to a user of a computing device a first user interface of a first application. The device provides for display in connection with the first user interface multiple interactive elements that each correspond to a node of a social graph associated with a social-networking system. The device receives user input selecting one of the interactive elements and in response to the user input provides for presentation to the user a second…
HYBRID, OFFLINE/ONLINE SPEECH TRANSLATION SYSTEM
Granted: November 13, 2014
Application Number:
20140337007
A hybrid speech translation system whereby a wireless-enabled client computing device can, in an offline mode, translate input speech utterances from one language to another locally, and also, in an online mode when there is wireless network connectivity, have a remote computer perform the translation and transmit it back to the client computing device via the wireless network for audible outputting by client computing device. The user of the client computing device can transition…
PROXIMITY SYNCHRONIZATION OF AUDIO CONTENT AMONG MULTIPLE PLAYBACK AND STORAGE DEVICES
Granted: November 6, 2014
Application Number:
20140329456
A wireless communication system and in particular to a wireless communication system for digital audio players that provides for increased functionality, such as communication, interaction and synchronization between a computing platform and various mobile, portable or fixed digital audio players, as well as providing a communication link between the various digital audio players themselves. The computing platform may act, for example, through a wireless network or wireless communication…
OPTIMIZING INTERMEDIATE REPRESENTATION OF SCRIPT CODE FOR FAST PATH EXECUTION
Granted: November 6, 2014
Application Number:
20140331201
Disclosed here are methods, systems, paradigms and structures for optimizing intermediate representation (IR) of a script code for fast path execution. A fast path is typically a path that handles most commonly occurring tasks more efficiently than less commonly occurring ones which are handled by slow paths. The less commonly occurring tasks may include uncommon cases, error handling, and other anomalies. The IR includes checkpoints which evaluate to two possible values resulting in…
Obtaining Metrics for Online Advertising Using Multiple Sources of User Data
Granted: October 9, 2014
Application Number:
20140304061
A system for obtaining metrics for online advertising uses multiple sources of user data, including panel data, social networking system data, and user data from other online service providers. An advertising impression system notifies each data source when an advertising impression occurs for an advertising campaign. The user data sources identify users corresponding to the impression by referencing a look-up table that matches a user ID at the advertising impression system with the…
Interactive Elements in a User Interface
Granted: October 2, 2014
Application Number:
20140298191
In particular embodiments, a computing device provides for presentation to a user a first user interface, the first user interface including a plurality of interactive elements. The computing device receives first user input selecting one of the interactive elements. In response to the first user input, the computing device provides for presentation to the user an animation associated with the selected one of the interactive elements. The computing device receives second user input…
Interactive Elements in a User Interface
Granted: October 2, 2014
Application Number:
20140298220
In particular embodiments, a computing device provides for presentation to a user a user interface, the user interface including a plurality of related interactive elements. The computing device may receive touch gesture input from the user selecting one of the plurality of related interactive elements. The touch gesture input may have a duration of at least a pre-determined amount of time. The computing device, in response to the touch gesture input, may rearrange the plurality of…
Obtaining Metrics for Online Advertising Using Multiple Sources of User Data
Granted: October 2, 2014
Application Number:
20140297404
A system for obtaining metrics for online advertising uses multiple sources of user data, including panel data, social networking system data, and user data from other online service providers. To avoid data leakage that could occur if the different providers were to share their user data, an advertising server accesses user data from the various sources and applies rules for obtaining the advertising metrics from the various user data sources. The rules may determine what data to use…
Authorization and Authentication Based on an Individual's Social Network
Granted: September 25, 2014
Application Number:
20140289815
In particular embodiments, a method includes receiving a request for a first user to access a loan from a lender, the request identifying a user identifier (ID) of the first user; determining whether the first user is authorized to access the loan based at least in part on a gray list comprising user IDs of the users who are not authorized to access loans, wherein the gray list is based on a black list; and permitting the loan to be accessed by the first user if the first user is…
CACHE MANAGEMENT IN A MULTI-THREADED ENVIRONMENT
Granted: September 25, 2014
Application Number:
20140289734
Disclosed here are methods, systems, paradigms and structures for deleting shared resources from a cache in a multi-threaded system. The shared resources can be used by a plurality of requests belonging to multiple threads executing in the system. When requests, such as requests for executing script code, and work items, such as work items for deleting a shared resource, are created, a global sequence number is assigned to each of them. The sequence number indicates the order in which…
Location Aware Deals
Granted: September 25, 2014
Application Number:
20140289028
In one embodiment, a request is received from a first user to create a location-triggered benefit that may be redeemed by a second user at a vendor and associated with a condition. The first user is not the vendor, and the condition may require that the second user go to a particular location. A record of the location-triggered benefit may be created in a database. Information may be received that the second user has satisfied the condition, and in response, the second user may be…
DETERMINING EFFECTIVENESS OF PROMOTING STORIES WITHIN A SOCIAL NETWORKING SYSTEM
Granted: September 18, 2014
Application Number:
20140279069
A social networking system provides stories about objects in the social networking system to a viewing user. To increase the likelihood that a story will also be provided to other users, the social networking system allows the viewing user to promote the story. When a user promotes a story, the social networking system may monitor the effectiveness of the promotion. For example, the social networking system generates a ghost story corresponding to a promoted story and not associated with…
