Calculating unique social networking system users performing an action on a social networking system object

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016307279-A1
Application number	US-201615192844-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Jun 24, 2016
Priority date	Sep 26, 2012
Publication date	Oct 20, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

A social networking system generates one or more metrics describing user interactions with objects to describe the popularity of the objects among users. Data describing actions performed by social networking system users on objects stored by the social networking system to identify an action, the user performing the action and the object on which the action was performed. Stored actions performed on a selected object are retrieved and a subset of the actions is generated by sampling the stored actions at a sampling rate. A number of unique users included in the subset is determined and used along with the sampling rate to determine the number of unique users included in the retrieved actions, which is used to derive a metric describing user interaction with the selected object.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A computer implemented method comprising:
storing action data in an online system, the action data describing actions performed by users of the online system, each action associated with a user identifier and an object identifier; retrieving a selected object identifier associated with a selected object; determining a total number of unique identifiers of users who have performed actions associated with the selected object and have communicated to at least one additional user about the actions performed, the unique identifiers uniquely identifying users interacting with the selected object; generating a metric associated with the selected object identifier based on the number of unique identifiers of users determined, the metric indicating the total number of unique users who have communicated about the selected object over a period of time; storing the metric and an association between the metric and the selected object identifier; and reporting the metric to a user viewing information about the selected object.

2 . The computer implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the selected object is a page maintained by the online system.

3 . The computer implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the selected object is selected from a group consisting of: an application maintained by the online system, a video included in the online system, a post of content to a page maintained by the online system and an image maintained by the online system.

4 . The computer implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the total number of unique identifiers of users who have performed actions associated with the selected object is determined by:
retrieving action data associated with the selected object identifier and including actions associated with one or more specified action types.

5 . The computer implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the total number of unique identifiers of users who have performed actions associated with the selected object is determined by:
retrieving action data associated with the selected object identifier and including actions associated with times within a specified time range.

6 . The computer implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the total number of unique identifiers of users who have performed actions associated with the selected object is determined by:
retrieving action data associated with the selected object identifier and sampling the retrieved action data at a sampling rate to generate a subset of action data associated with the selected object identifier.

7 . The computer implemented method of claim 6 , wherein the sampling rate is inversely proportional to a number of actions identified by the retrieved action data associated with the selected action identifier.

8 . The computer implemented method of claim 6 , wherein determining the total number of unique identifiers comprises:
determining the number of unique identifiers in the subset of action data; and calculating the number of unique identifiers associated with the selected object by multiplying the number of unique identifiers by the sampling rate.

9 . The computer implemented method of claim 8 , wherein generating the metric associated with the selected object identifier comprises:
determining a number of unique identifiers from the sampled action data.

10 . The computer implemented method of claim 9 , wherein the metric generated from the sampled action data is generated in less time due to sampling that it would take for a metric to be generated based on the retrieved action data without the sampling.

11 . The computer implemented method of claim 1 , wherein generating the metric associated with the selected object identifier comprises determining the number of unique identifiers associated with actions, wherein the actions include at least one of: actions performed within a specified time range, actions having one or more specified types, and actions associated with users connected to a user accessing the selected object.

12 . The computer implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the metric associated with the selected object identifier is generated in near real time.

13 . The computer implemented method of claim 1 , wherein generating the metric associated with the selected object identifier comprises:
generating the metric every time an action associated with the object identifier occurs.

14 . A computer implemented method comprising:
storing objects in an online system, each object associated with an object identifier and including content and associated with a topic describing the content; storing action data in the online system, the action data describing actions performed by users of the online system, each action associated with a user identifier and an object identifier; receiving a specified topic; determining object identifiers associated with the selected topic; determining a total number of unique identifiers of users who have performed actions associated with the selected object and have communicated to at least one additional user about the actions performed, the unique user identifiers uniquely identifying users interacting with the selected object; generating a metric associated with the specified topic based on the number of unique identifiers of users determined, the metric indicating the total number of unique users who have communicated about the selected object over a period of time storing the metric and an association between the metric and the specified topic; and reporting the metric to a user viewing information about the selected object.

15 . The computer implemented method of claim 14 , wherein the object identifiers associated with the selected topic are associated with one or more selected from a group consisting of: an application maintained by the online system, a video included in the online system, a post of content to a page maintained by the online system and an image maintained by the online system.

16 . The computer implemented method of claim 14 , wherein the total number of unique identifiers of users who have performed actions associated with the selected object is determined by retrieving action data associated with each of the object identifiers and including actions associated with at least one of: one or more specified action types and times within a specified time range.

17 . The computer implemented method of claim 14 , wherein the total number of unique identifiers of users who have performed actions associated with the selected object is determined by:
retrieving action data associated with the selected object identifier and sampling the retrieved action data at a sampling rate to generate a subset of action data associated with the selected object identifier.

18 . The computer implemented method of claim 17 , wherein the sampling rate is inversely proportional to a number of actions identified by the retrieved action data associated with the selected action identifier.

19 . The computer implemented method of claim 17 , wherein determining the total number of unique identifiers comprises:
determining the number of unique identifiers in the subset of action data; and calculating the number of unique identifiers associated with the selected object by multiplying the number of unique identifiers by the sampling rate.

20 . The computer implemented method of claim 14 , wherein generating the metric associated with the specified topic comprises determining the number of unique identifiers associated with

Assignees

• Facebook Inc

Inventors

• Liyanage Janaka
• Gross-Baser David

Classifications

• G06Q10/40 Primary

  Business processes related to social networking or social networking services · CPC title

• H04L51/32

  Electricity · mapped topic

• G06Q50/01 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06Q30/02 Primary

  Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising · CPC title

• H04L51/52

  for supporting social networking services · CPC title