Ranking location query results based on social networking

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9262540-B2
Application number	US-201213544314-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jul 9, 2012
Priority date	Jul 9, 2012
Publication date	Feb 16, 2016
Grant date	Feb 16, 2016

Abstract

A location query engine in a social networking system provides users with a subset of candidate locations based on location query received from a user. The social networking system identifies candidate locations from stored location data that has one or more attributes matching at least one attribute of the location query. The candidate locations are ranked based on social data determined from a user profile associated with the user, and the subset of candidate locations is selected from the ranking and provided to the user. Examples of social data used for ranking the candidate locations include locations associated with other users connected to the user, locations associated with objects connected to the user and locations previously associated with the user.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A computer implemented method comprising:
receiving, from a user of a social networking system, a content item to be posted on the social networking system by the user;
receiving, at the social networking system from the user, a location query for a location associated with the content item to include by the user in the post with the content item, the location queried for being different from a current location of the user, the location query having one or more attributes;
accessing a user profile associated with the user in the social networking system, the user profile describing characteristics of the user and other users of the social networking system connected to the user;
accessing location data stored by the social networking system, the location data identifying a plurality of locations;
comparing the one or more attributes of the location query to one or more attributes of each of the plurality of locations;
selecting candidate locations from the plurality of locations, each candidate location having at least one attribute matching an attribute of the location query;
ranking the selected candidate locations based on data from the user profile associated with the user;
selecting a subset of the selected candidate locations for presentation to the user based on the ranking from which the user can select a location to include in the post with the content item, the subset including different types of locations such that the user is presented with a diversity of locations; and
presenting the subset of the selected candidate locations to the user for selection of the location to include in the post with the content item.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein an attribute of the location query and an attribute of the location comprise a name.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein selecting candidate locations from the locations comprises:
comparing the name of the location query with portions of names associated with locations; and
selecting a location associated with a name having at least a subset of the name matching the name of the location query.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein comparing the one or more attributes of the location query to one or more attributes of each of the plurality of locations comprises:
determining a distance between one or more locations and a current location associated with the user.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein selecting candidate locations from the locations comprises:
selecting one or more locations based on the distance.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein selecting candidate locations comprises:
determining, from the user profile, a location associated with the user;
determining a set of distances from the location associated with the user;
associating a group with each in the set of distances from the location associated with the user;
determining a distance between each candidate location and the location associated with the user;
including a candidate location in a group based on a distance between the candidate location and the location associated with the user; and
selecting a plurality of candidate locations, the plurality of candidate locations including locations associated with a plurality of groups.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein the set of distances comprises at least a first radius corresponding to a first group and a second radius corresponding to a second group, the second radius being larger than the first radius, and wherein including a candidate location in a group based on a distance between the candidate location and the location associated with the user comprises:
including the candidate location in the first group if the distance between the candidate location and the location associated with the user does not exceed the first radius; and
including the candidate location in the second group if the distance between the candidate location and the location associated with the user is greater than the first radius but does not exceed the second radius.

8. The method of claim 6 , where the location associated with the user is the user's hometown.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein ranking the selected candidate locations based on data from the user profile associated with the user comprises:
determining, from the user profile, a location associated with the user;
determining a distance between each of the selected candidate locations and the location associated with the user;
ranking the selected candidate locations based on the distances.

10. The method of claim 9 , wherein the location associated with the user comprises at least one of a group consisting of: a hometown of the user, a current location of the user and a check-in location of the user.

11. The method of claim 1 , wherein ranking the selected candidate locations based on data from the user profile associated with the user comprises:
comparing information associated with each of the selected candidate locations with data in the user profile; and
ranking the selected candidate locations based on the comparison.

12. The method of claim 1 , wherein ranking the selected candidate locations based on data from the user profile associated with the user comprises:
identifying, from the user profile, other users connected to the user;
determining locations associated with the users connected to the user;
comparing each of the selected candidate locations to the locations associated with the users connected to the user; and
ranking the selected candidate locations based on the comparison.

13. The method of claim 1 , wherein ranking the selected candidate locations based on data from the user profile associated with the user comprises:
identifying, from the user profile, objects maintained by the social networking system that are connected to the user;
determining locations associated with the identified objects;
comparing each of the selected candidate locations to the locations associated with the identified objects; and
ranking the selected candidate locations based on the comparison.

14. The method of claim 1 , wherein ranking the selected candidate locations based on data from the user profile associated with the user comprises:
identifying, from the user profile, one or more of: at least one location previously associated with the user, at least one location associated with content in which the user is tagged and at least one location associated with an object in the social networking system in which the user expressed an interest;
comparing each of the selected candidate locations to the identified locations; and
ranking the selected candidate locations based on the comparison.

15. The method of claim 1 , wherein ranking the selected candidate locations based on data from the user profile associated with the user comprises:
determining, from the user profile, a frequency of interaction between the user and each of the selected candidate locations; and
ranking the selected candidate locations based on the frequencies of interaction.

16. The method of claim 1 , wherein ranking the selected candidate locations based on data from the user profile associated with the user comprises:
identifying, from the user profile, other users connected to the user;
determining a frequency of interaction between the users connected to the user and each of the selected candidate locations;
determining, from the user profile, a frequency of interaction between the user and each of the selected candidate locations; and
ranking the selected candidate locations based on the frequencies of interaction between the

Assignees

• Sankar Sriram
• Narayanan Srinivas P
• Facebook Inc

Inventors

• Sankar Sriram
• Narayanan Srinivas P

Classifications

• G06Q10/40 Primary

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

• G06F16/24578 Primary

  using ranking · CPC title

• G06Q50/01

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F17/3087 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic

• H04L67/52

  specially adapted for the location of the user terminal · CPC title