Sending Notifications to Members of Social Group in a Social Networking System
Granted: June 19, 2014
Application Number:
20140172996
A social networking system notifies its users of different events and actions taking place inside the social networking system. To present notifications that are most likely to be of interest to the user, the social networking system observes the interactions of the user with notifications presented to the user and suggests an option to opt-out of notifications associated with a source based on the observed interactions. The option to opt-out of notifications associated with the source…
Suggesting Opt-out of Notifications to Users of a Social Networking System
Granted: June 19, 2014
Application Number:
20140172995
A social networking system notifies its users of different events and actions taking place inside the social networking system. To present notifications that are most likely to be of interest to the user, the social networking system observes the interactions of the user with notifications presented to the user and suggests an option to opt-out of notifications associated with a source based on the observed interactions. The option to opt-out of notifications associated with the source…
ARRANGING STORIES ON NEWSFEEDS BASED ON EXPECTED VALUE SCORING ON A SOCIAL NETWORKING SYSTEM
Granted: June 19, 2014
Application Number:
20140172875
A social networking system generates a newsfeed for a user to view when accessing the social networking system. Candidate stories associated with users of the social networking system are selected and an expected value score for each candidate story is determined. An expected value score is based on the probability of a user performing various types of interactions with a candidate story and a numerical value for each type of interaction. The numerical value for a type of interaction…
FORMATION OF TOPIC PROFILES FOR PREDICTION OF TOPIC INTEREST GROUPS
Granted: June 19, 2014
Application Number:
20140172857
An analysis system analyzes known user affinities to identify particular objects that serve as useful predictors of whether a given user will have an affinity for a given topic, even if the user has not previously expressly specified an affinity for that topic. Specifically, both the topic group of users associated with a given topic and the category group of users associated with the topic's more general category are identified. For each of a set of objects, degrees of divergence…
SYSTEM AND METHOD OF DETECTING CACHE INCONSISTENCIES
Granted: June 12, 2014
Application Number:
20140164700
A system and method of detecting cache inconsistencies among distributed data centers is described. Key-based sampling captures a complete history of a key for comparing cache values across data centers. In one phase of a cache inconsistency detection algorithm, a log of operations performed on a sampled key is compared in reverse chronological order for inconsistent cache values. In another phase, a log of operations performed on a candidate key having inconsistent cache values as…
Tracking Changes to User Content in an Online Social Network
Granted: June 12, 2014
Application Number:
20140164521
In one embodiment, a method includes receiving, at a social-networking system, a query for content that has been changed, added to, or updated on the social-networking system by a first user of the social-networking system, wherein the query is received from a third-party system that is separate from and external to the social-networking system; determining, by the social-networking system, whether content associated with the first user has been changed, added to, or updated on the…
SELECTION AND PRESENTATION OF NEWS STORIES IDENTIFYING EXTERNAL CONTENT TO SOCIAL NETWORKING SYSTEM USERS
Granted: June 12, 2014
Application Number:
20140164365
Social networking system users generate news stories including a link to news content external to the social networking system. The news stories may be filtered based on filter criteria allowing a viewing user to more easily identify news stories of interest. For example, the news stories may be filtered to identify news stories associated with a user connected to the viewing user, to identify news stories associated with a news source, to identify news stories associated with a key…
PRICING SYSTEM FOR ON-LINE ADVERTISEMENTS
Granted: June 12, 2014
Application Number:
20140164137
Based on a request for an advertisement, a social networking system retrieves information about a user and identifies candidate advertisement (“ad”) objects having targeting criteria satisfied by the information about the user. The social networking system selects a candidate ad object based on associated bid prices and sends a description of the selected candidate ad object to an external system including a bid price for the candidate ad object. Based on bid prices of advertisements…
SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR DIGITAL VIDEO STABILIZATION VIA CONSTRAINT-BASED ROTATION SMOOTHING
Granted: June 12, 2014
Application Number:
20140160309
Systems and methods for digital video stabilization via constraint-based rotation smoothing are provided. Digital video data including a set of image frames having associated time stamps and a set of camera orientation data having associated time stamps may be provided. A smoothed set of camera orientation data may be generated by minimizing a rate of rotation between successive image frames while minimizing an amount of empty regions in a resulting set of smoothed image frames…
APPARATUS, METHOD, AND RECORDING MEDIUM FOR CREATING CONTENT-DOCUMENT REPRODUCTION DATA
Granted: June 5, 2014
Application Number:
20140157094
In the slideshow which reproduces a content associated with comment information, the reproduction timing of the content can be controlled according to the reproduction timing of the comment information. In a reproduction table, the following are associated with each other: reproduction order; image-document combinations indicated by an image (or the identification information of the image, such as a JPEG file name) and a document (or the identification information of the document, such…
METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR IMPLEMENTING AN ARRAY USING DIFFERENT DATA STRUCTURES
Granted: June 5, 2014
Application Number:
20140156708
Disclosed are a method and system for implementing an array data type of a programming language using various data structures. The disclosed method includes a plurality of implementations in which the array data type may be implemented. The implementations provide an efficient way to retrieve elements from the array, especially in the order they are inserted into the array. The data structures also minimize the computing resources required to manage and access the array. The disclosed…
QUERYING FEATURES BASED ON USER ACTIONS IN ONLINE SYSTEMS
Granted: June 5, 2014
Application Number:
20140156637
Online systems, for example, social networking systems store features describing relations between entities represented in the online system. The information describing the features is represented as a graph. The online system maintains a cumulative feature graph and an incremental feature graph. Feature values based on recent user actions are stored in the incremental graph and feature values based on previous actions are stored in the cumulative graph. Periodically, the information…
CUSTOMIZED PREDICTORS FOR USER ACTIONS IN AN ONLINE SYSTEM
Granted: June 5, 2014
Application Number:
20140156566
Online systems generate predictors for predicting actions of users of the online system. The online system receives requests to generate predictor models for predicting whether a user is likely to take an action of a particular action type. The request specifies the type of action and criteria for identifying a successful instance of the action type and a failure instance of the action type. The online system collects data including successful and failure instances of the action type.…
Generating Advertising Metrics Using Location Information
Granted: June 5, 2014
Application Number:
20140156387
A social networking system generates advertising metrics based on location information. Advertisers provide the social networking system with location information identifying geographic locations of physical sites and/or offline advertisements. Location information received by the social networking system for its users is compared to the location information provided by the advertiser to identify users visiting a physical site or exposed to an offline advertisement. Hence, user…
DYNAMIC EXPRESSIONS FOR REPRESENTING FEATURES IN AN ONLINE SYSTEM
Granted: June 5, 2014
Application Number:
20140156360
Online systems, for example, social networking systems evaluate expressions based on features describing relations between entities represented in the online system. These expressions are represented using an expression language. The expression language allows features to be specified as functions of attributes from user accounts. The expressions support use of variables to represent computations, for example, sub-expressions. The expressions are dynamic, since expressions can be…
Selectively Steer Light from Display
Granted: June 5, 2014
Application Number:
20140152534
In one embodiment, a computing device dynamically determines a current viewing direction with respect to a display of the computing device; the computing device also dynamically directs at least some light emitted by at least a portion of the display toward the current viewing direction.
THIRD-PARTY COMMUNICATIONS TO SOCIAL NETWORKING SYSTEM USERS USING USER DESCRIPTORS
Granted: May 29, 2014
Application Number:
20140149502
Based on information used by the external system to identify a target user, the external system generates a target user hash identifier that is communicated to the social networking system along with a message. Using information from user profiles maintained by the social networking system, the social networking system generates hash identifiers for its users and compares the target user hash identifier to the generated hash identifiers hash identifiers for social networking system users…
TRANSMISSION OF NOTIFICATIONS TO MULTIPLE DEVICES ASSOCIATED WITH A USER
Granted: May 29, 2014
Application Number:
20140149538
A notification system provides notifications to a user associated with multiple user devices. The notification system selects a user device to receive a notification based on user behavior, such as user interactions with the notification system via the user device or acknowledgments of notifications received from user devices. The notification is sent to the selected user device, and the notification system waits for an acknowledgment from the selected notification system for an…
Indentifying and Providing Physical Social Actions to a Social Networking System
Granted: May 29, 2014
Application Number:
20140149514
Physical social actions are conveniently detected, characterized, and provided to a social networking system. This improves the user experience of the social networking system by more thoroughly recording the social actions of users occurring outside a social graph. This has the effect of extending an open social graph, which typically refers to social actions taken outside the social networking system but within a computer network, to physical social actions. By providing characterized…
DETERMINING OBJECT RELEVANCE IN A SOCIAL NETWORKING SYSTEM
Granted: May 29, 2014
Application Number:
20140149504
An influence metric describing the influence of a social networking system object on social networking system users is determined based on affinities between the users and the object. For example, affinities between the associated users and the object are combined to determine the influence metric. Content may be selected for presentation to users based in part on influence metrics of the content. Additionally, influence metrics of objects associated with a user may be combined to…
