| Yahoo! Inc. Patent applications |
| Patent application number | Title | Published |
|---|
| 20120036148 | SOCIALIZING VIA SEARCH - Implementations of methods, apparatuses, or systems are disclosed to facilitate search related communications. | 02-09-2012 |
| 20120036122 | CONTEXTUAL INDEXING OF SEARCH RESULTS - Briefly, embodiments of a method or a system of contextual indexing of search results is disclosed. | 02-09-2012 |
| 20120036023 | SYSTEM FOR CONDUCTING DEMAND-SIDE, REAL-TIME BIDDING IN AN ADVERTISING EXCHANGE - A method for conducting demand-side, real-time bidding includes: constructing an exchange graph (G) of nodes representing publishers and third-party advertisers that provide third-party ads, the graph including directed edges connected between the nodes that represent bilateral business agreements; receiving an opportunity for displaying an ad to a user that is associated with a publisher node; exploring the graph to identify third-party ads reachable from the publisher node through a valid path of the exchange graph with which corresponding third-party advertisers are thereby eligible to bid on the opportunity; retrieving statistics from the memory associated with historical selectivity of demand predicates for the third-party ads; and initiating, before beginning graph exploration on at least some paths to the third-party ads, a call out for bids from at least some of the third-party advertisers for the corresponding third-party ads that are unlikely to be discarded during the graph exploration based on the historical selectively of the demand predicates corresponding thereto, thereby reducing latency in time to execute an auction to fill the opportunity. | 02-09-2012 |
| 20120030711 | METHOD OR SYSTEM TO PREDICT MEDIA CONTENT PREFERENCES - Briefly, embodiments of a method or system of predicting media content preferences are disclosed. | 02-02-2012 |
| 20120030629 | VISUAL BROWSING SYSTEM AND METHOD - A visual browsing method allows a user to look at an item closely by hovering over, instead of clicking on, an icon representing the item. The method also enables the user to browse items in different levels of a multiple level category without waiting for web pages to be loaded, to know where he/she has been in the multiple level category, and to back up if he/she likes. The method makes the browsing process faster and easier. | 02-02-2012 |
| 20120030588 | PROVIDING SOCIAL LIKENESS WITHIN A MESSAGING CONTEXT - Embodiments are directed towards providing a likeness application that may be integrated into one or more different messaging applications to provide a user with an indication of how much the user may be liked by their messaging contacts. Such application is directed towards providing a level of fun to a first user through a dynamically calculated social networking indicator. In one embodiment, the first user may communicate with one or more other users over a network using the messaging application modified with the likeness application. The other users may also communicate with each other over the network using the modified messaging application. Then, at various times or conditions, the likeness application may display to the first user a relative percentage indicating how much the first user is being ‘liked’ by one or more other users. | 02-02-2012 |
| 20120030215 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR TELEVISION SEARCH ASSISTANT - A television guide search query is received from a user. A plurality of suggested search terms are selected. Each of the plurality of suggested search terms is assigned to, and is ranked within, one of a plurality of categories A number of suggested search terms to be returned to the user, n | 02-02-2012 |
| 20120030186 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR RECONSTRUCTING A SEARCH QUERY - Methods and systems for reconstructing a full query based on a partial query are disclosed. Existing interfaces for search engines may be rigid and require users to submit full queries to perform searched. The methods and systems described herein may solve these problems by allowing a flexible way for users to submit a partial query and reconstruct a full query based on the partial query. A search may then be performed using the reconstructed query. | 02-02-2012 |
| 20120030185 | SPONSORED SEARCH RESULTS RE-RANKING BASED ON LINKING ASSOCIATIONS - A computer-implemented system and methods of re-ranking sponsored search results by a search engine in response to a search query include: retrieving one or more organic search results and a plurality of sponsored search results (“search results”), along with their respective rankings, associated with a search query; determining a degree of association between each sponsored search result and the other search results through analyzing web links between the plurality of sponsored search results, the one or more organic search results, and other web documents to or from which the search results are at least indirectly linked; re-ranking the plurality of sponsored search results based on the degree of association between each respective sponsored search result and the other search results; and storing in memory the plurality of re-ranked sponsored search results in relation to the search query. | 02-02-2012 |
| 20120030152 | RANKING ENTITY FACETS USING USER-CLICK FEEDBACK - Example methods, apparatuses, or articles of manufacture are disclosed that may be implemented using one or more computing devices to facilitate or otherwise support one or more processes or operations associated with ranking entity facets using user-click feedback. | 02-02-2012 |
| 20120030035 | PAY-PER-ACTION SYSTEM FOR SELLING ADVERTISEMENTS - A system is disclosed for a pay-per-action (PPA) advertising model. An advertiser reports actions and pays an advertising provider for each action that is reported. The payment may be based on the rate at which the actions are reported. The action rate may be updated based on each reported action, which may modify the payment for that action and may modify the payment for previous actions. A one-time premium may be charged to advertisers and a minimum action rate may be established to encourage advertisers to accurately report actions. | 02-02-2012 |
| 20120030021 | SELECTING ADVERTISEMENTS USING SAME SESSION QUERIES - Techniques are described herein for selecting an advertisement using same session queries. Each occurrence of a query is referred to as a query instance. When a query instance is received from a user, that query instance and other query instances that were received from the user prior to that query instance (i.e., historical query instances) are taken into consideration to select an advertisement to be provided to the user. The query instance in response to which the advertisement is to be provided and the historical query instances that are received at respective time instances that do not precede a threshold time instance are referred to collectively as a session of the user. Accordingly, the session of the user may be described generally as a collection of query instances that are most recently received from the user. | 02-02-2012 |
| 20120030011 | Systems and Methods for Estimating a Conversion Rate for a Digital Advertisement Based on Dwell Times Associated with the Digital Advertisement - The present disclosure is directed to systems and methods for estimating a conversion rate associated with a digital ad. Generally, an ad provider and/or an ad campaign management system detects an action of a user associated with a digital ad. The ad provider and/or ad campaign management system detects a subsequent action of the user after detecting the action of the user associated with the digital ad and determines an amount of time between the action of the user associated with the digital ad and the subsequent action of the user. The ad provider and/or ad campaign management system then estimates a conversion rate associated with the digital ad based on the determined amount of time. In some implementations, a model is utilized to estimate a conversion rate associated with a digital ad based on dwell times even when the ad provider and/or ad campaign management system has little or no conversion data associated with the digital ad. | 02-02-2012 |
| 20120030010 | SOCIAL IMPACT ON ADVERTISING - Techniques are provided that relate to social and communications impact relating to advertising. Techniques are provided that include tracking information relating to an online advertisement served to a user, communications between the ser and one or more other users in the user's social network relating to the advertisement or a subject of the advertisement, and online or offline behavior of the other users in connection with one or more objectives of the online advertisement. The tracked information is used in assessing the impact of the advertising on the other users, which assessment can be used in advertisement campaign optimization. | 02-02-2012 |
| 20120030007 | ONLINE ADVERTISEMENT PROFILES - Techniques are provided in which information is obtained regarding a set of one or more online advertisements. Information is also obtained relating to performance of advertisements of the set, including information regarding locations of user recipients of the advertisements and information regarding times of serving or receipt of the advertisements. Using the obtained information, an advertisement profile is built, relating to the set of advertisements, providing an indication of varying advertisement performance in connection with differing times of serving or receipt, and differing locations of user recipients. The advertisement profile may be used in selection or ranking of advertisements. | 02-02-2012 |
| 20120030005 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR PROVIDING ADVERTISEMENTS - An example of a method includes electronically blending an advertisement into a web page based on physical attributes of the web page and providing the web page with the advertisement. | 02-02-2012 |
| 20120023457 | PRESENTATION OF ADVERTISEMENTS BASED ON USER INTERACTIVITY WITH A WEB PAGE - Methods and systems for presenting advertisements based on user interactivity with a web page are provided. According to embodiments of the invention, a web page is rendered on a client device. Gesture interactivity with the web page is monitored on the client device. A trigger is executed which defines an interactive event. When the interactive event occurs, as determined based on the monitored gesture interactivity with the web page, secondary content, such as an advertisement, is downloaded and displayed on the client device. | 01-26-2012 |
| 20120023114 | UNIVERSAL DEVICE IDENTIFIER FOR GLOBALLY IDENTIFYING AND BINDING DISPARATE DEVICE IDENTIFIERS TO THE SAME MOBILE DEVICE - Embodiments of the invention are directed to determining a universal device identifier (UDID) for a client device, based on multiple service-dependent identifiers (SDIDs) used by client applications, websites, or other services to identify the client device. SDID types are prioritized with pre-assigned weights. A received SDID causes a single database read to access all other SDIDs, and any existing UDID(s) associated with the client device. A final UDID is created or selected based on the SDID weights. The database is updated in a sequence that enables self recovery of a prior UDID in case of database error during update. First, any non-selected UDID records are updated with the final UDID. Next, lower weighted SDID records are updated. The final UDID record is updated. The highest weighted SDID record is updated last, to preserve the prior UDID as long as possible in case of update error, which aborts the remaining update. | 01-26-2012 |
| 20120022937 | ADVERTISEMENT BRAND ENGAGEMENT VALUE - The present invention provides techniques associated with online advertisement brand engagement value, which can be of critical importance to brand advertisers. Techniques are also included involving use of brand engagement value across various online and offline advertising media and venues. Techniques are provided in which experiments are conducted, such as eyeball-tracking experiments, which include measurements to determine brand engagement value of particular online advertisement impressions. Information from the experiments is utilized in making determinations of brand engagement value, or anticipated brand engagement value, of online advertisement impressions for which brand engagement value has not been measured. | 01-26-2012 |
| 20120020522 | MOBILE IMAGING DEVICE AS NAVIGATOR - Embodiments of the invention are directed to obtaining information based on directional orientation of a mobile imaging device, such as a camera phone. Visual information is gathered by the camera and used to determine a directional orientation of the camera, to search for content based on the direction, to manipulate 3D virtual images of a surrounding area, and to otherwise use the directional information. Direction and motion can be determined by analyzing a sequence of images. Distance from a current location, inputted search parameters, and other criteria can be used to expand or filter content that is tagged with such criteria. Search results with distance indicators can be overlaid on a map or a camera feed. Various content can be displayed for a current direction, or desired content, such as a business location, can be displayed only when the camera is oriented toward the desired content. | 01-26-2012 |
| 20120016877 | CLUSTERING OF SEARCH RESULTS - One particular embodiment clusters a plurality of documents using one or more clustering algorithms to obtain one or more first sets of clusters, wherein: each first set of clusters results from clustering the documents using one of the clustering algorithms; and with respect to each first set of clusters, each of the documents belongs to one of the clusters from the first set of clusters; accesses a search query; identifies a search result in response to the search query, wherein the search result comprises two or more of the documents; and clusters the search result to obtain a second set of clusters, wherein each document of the search result belongs to one of the clusters from the second set of clusters. | 01-19-2012 |
| 20120016729 | TARGETED DISTRIBUTION OF ELECTRONIC COUPONS - A system, method and computer program product is described that matches commercial incentives to consumers based on targeting data associated with the commercial incentive and user data associated with consumers in a manner that advantageously allows for highly-targeted delivery of commercial incentives to the consumers that are most likely to use them. Because both the targeting data and the user data may include spatial, temporal, social and topical data, matching may be performed based on any or all of these data types, as well as based on any combination of these data types. | 01-19-2012 |
| 20120016642 | CONTEXTUAL-BANDIT APPROACH TO PERSONALIZED NEWS ARTICLE RECOMMENDATION - Methods and apparatus for performing computer-implemented personalized recommendations are disclosed. User information pertaining to a plurality of features of a plurality of users may be obtained. In addition, item information pertaining to a plurality of features of the plurality of items may be obtained. A plurality of sets of coefficients of a linear model may be obtained based at least in part on the user information and/or the item information such that each of the plurality of sets of coefficients corresponds to a different one of a plurality of items, where each of the plurality of sets of coefficients includes a plurality of coefficients, each of the plurality of coefficients corresponding to one of the plurality of features. In addition, at least one of the plurality of coefficients may be shared among the plurality of sets of coefficients for the plurality of items. Each of a plurality of scores for a user may be calculated using the linear model based at least in part upon a corresponding one of the plurality of sets of coefficients associated with a corresponding one of the plurality of items, where each of the plurality of scores indicates a level of interest in a corresponding one of a plurality of items. A plurality of confidence intervals may be ascertained, each of the plurality of confidence intervals indicating a range representing a level of confidence in a corresponding one of the plurality of scores associated with a corresponding one of the plurality of items. One of the plurality of items for which a sum of a corresponding one of the plurality of scores and a corresponding one of the plurality of confidence intervals is highest may be recommended. | 01-19-2012 |
| 20120015668 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PROXIMITY AREA NETWORKING FOR SELECTION OF MESSAGING - Embodiments of the present invention include improved communication system and methods. In one embodiment, the present invention includes a wireless communication method comprising, on a first wireless device, receiving one or more wireless device identifications associated with one or more other wireless devices, and transmitting at least one of the one or more wireless device identifications from the first wireless device to a remote computer system, and on the remote computer system, receiving the at least one wireless device identification, and accessing information associated with the at least one wireless device identification. Embodiments of the present invention may be used for electronic dating, social networking and other communication applications. | 01-19-2012 |
| 20120011129 | FACETED EXPLORATION OF MEDIA COLLECTIONS - Exemplary methods and apparatuses are disclosed that may be used to provide or otherwise support extraction of objects and facets from one or more extraction corpora and ranking of said facets using multiple ranking corpora. | 01-12-2012 |
| 20120011112 | RANKING SPECIALIZATION FOR A SEARCH - Example methods, apparatuses, and articles of manufacture are disclosed that may be used to provide or otherwise support one or more ranking specialization techniques for use with search engine information management systems. | 01-12-2012 |
| 20120010997 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR DERIVING INCOME FROM URL BASED CONTEXT QUERIES - A system and method for deriving income from URL based context queries. A URL based user context query is received over a network from a user, wherein the user context comprises at least one user context criteria. A query is formulated based on the context criteria so as to search for user profile data, social network data, spatial data, temporal data, topical data and context query bid data that is available via the network and relates to the context so as to identify entries in a context query bid database that relate to user context criteria. A dynamic webpage is generated having content relating to the query and advertisements associated with the selected bid are inserted into the webpage. The dynamic webpage is transmitted to the user. The advertiser associated with the selected bid is charged a fee when a user interface event relating to the dynamic webpage occurs. | 01-12-2012 |
| 20120010942 | ONLINE ADVERTISING MARKETPLACE DATA PROVIDER ASSESSMENT AND RECOMMENDATION - The present invention provides techniques for use in assessing the value of information-related services of particular data providers to an online advertising marketplace participant, such as an advertiser, publisher, market-maker, or another data provider, in connection with activities relating to buying, selling or pricing of marketplace properties. Furthermore, a recommendation may be provided to the marketplace participant as to the value or desirability of the services of particular data providers. Techniques are provided in which actual or hypothetical impact of use of information of the particular data providers is assessed. | 01-12-2012 |
| 20120010941 | EMAIL BASED SOCIAL ADVERTISEMENTS - The present invention provides techniques for use in advertising in connection with email. Techniques are provided in which a user allows placement of advertisements in the user's outgoing emails, or outgoing emails to users in a social network of the user, for which the user is provided some benefit. The benefit is based at least in part on performance of the advertisements. The user provides input with regard to one or more parameters relating to the advertisements. For example, the user may select a category or a particular product associated with the advertisements. | 01-12-2012 |
| 20120010939 | SOCIAL NETWORK BASED ONLINE ADVERTISING - Techniques are provided in which review, comment, or purchase information is obtained, associated with a first user and relating to a product or service, product or service type, or brand. A second user is identified who is in an explicit or implicit social network of the first user. An online advertisement is generated, targeted to a second user and relating to the first product or service, product or service type, or brand. The online advertisement is generated utilizing the review, comment, or purchase information, which may serve as a trusted implicit or explicit recommendation regarding a subject of the advertisement. | 01-12-2012 |
| 20120010928 | SOCIAL AGGREGATION TARGETING AND COMMUNICATIONS - The present invention provides techniques for utilizing opportunities presented by events and social gatherings, such as online advertisement targeting and communications-related opportunities. Techniques are provided in which information is obtained that provides an indication that a set of users, including mobile electronic device users, are in a specified area, and indicating that at least some of the set of users are at a particular event or gathering. A virtual user grouping may be formed, and users of the set are targeted, such as with online advertisements, based at least in part on the particular event or gathering. | 01-12-2012 |
| 20120005626 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR PERFORMING A WEB SEARCH VIA A CLIENT-SIDE MODULE - Disclosed is a method and system for providing to a user rapid access to search resources while interacting with electronic documents by providing for recognition of user initiated search triggers that result in searches being performed with minimal user input or page navigation. A method and system for performing a web search includes detecting, by a client-side module, a user-initiated search interface trigger occurring during display of the web page, the search interface trigger not associated with an input focus of the web page or an input focus of a browser, detecting, by the client-side module, a user-initiated search execution trigger after the detecting of the search interface trigger, and transmitting, by the client-side module to a search entity, in response to the detecting of the search execution trigger, a request for search results related to content associated with the search interface trigger. | 01-05-2012 |
| 20120005583 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR PERFORMING A WEB SEARCH - Disclosed is a method and system for providing to a user rapid access to search resources while interacting with electronic documents by providing for recognition of user initiated search triggers that result in searches being performed with minimal user input or page navigation. The method and system includes generating, by a server computer, a web page, injecting code into the web page, and transmitting the web page to a client computer. The code, when executed on the client computer, detects a search interface trigger occurring during display of the web page, the search interface trigger not associated with an input focus of the web page or of a browser on the client computer, detects a search execution trigger after the detecting of the search interface trigger, and transmits, to a search entity, a request for search results related to content associated with the search interface trigger. | 01-05-2012 |
| 20120005207 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR WEB EXTRACTION - A method includes generating, a plurality of sets of pairs of records from a set of records, for each attribute-position pair in the set of records. Each attribute-position pair being indicative of a position of an attribute in a record. Further, the method includes forming, electronically, a plurality of groups, each group comprising two attribute-position pairs having different attributes. Further, the method also includes determining, electronically for each group, number of pairs of records that are common in the two attribute-position pairs of that group. Furthermore, the method includes extracting results based on a first group of the plurality of groups if the number of pairs of records that are common in the two attribute-position pairs of the first group is greater than a second threshold, is highest among the plurality of groups, and no group having three or more attribute-position pairs with different attributes is possible. | 01-05-2012 |
| 20120005204 | SYSTEM FOR DETERMINING AND OPTIMIZING FOR RELEVANCE IN MATCH-MAKING SYSTEMS - Disclosed are methods and apparatus for automatically determining the relevance of matches between entities. A set of one or more indicators of relevance for each of a plurality of matches may be detected, where each of the plurality of matches exists between a first entity and a different one of a plurality of entities. Each set of one or more indicators of relevance indicates a degree of two-way interest for a corresponding one of the plurality of matches, the degree of two-way interest indicating both a degree of interest of the first entity in the corresponding one of the plurality of entities and a degree of interest of the corresponding one of the plurality of entities in the first entity. A probability of relevance of each of the plurality of matches may be determined based at least in part upon a corresponding set of one or more indicators of relevance. Each of the plurality of matches may be ranked based at least in part on the corresponding probability of relevance. A ranking function may be trained based upon the probability of relevance of each of the plurality of matches. The ranking function may subsequently be applied to identify and rank matches (e.g., in the absence of indicators of relevance). | 01-05-2012 |
| 20120005029 | SYSTEM FOR HANDLING MULTIPLE PRIORITIES IN AD EXCHANGE AUCTION - A method for handling priorities in an ad exchange auction includes: constructing an exchange graph including nodes representing publishers and advertisers and directed edges that represent bilateral business agreements connecting the nodes; receiving an opportunity for displaying an ad to a user from a publisher; receiving ads from which to choose to fill the opportunity, the ads including respective advertiser priorities (A) and bid amounts; receiving a publisher priority (P) the ads as assigned by the publisher; constructing a priority triple (P,A,M) for each of at least some of the plurality of ads, the triple including the publisher priority (P), the advertiser priority (A), and a money payable to the publisher (M); comparing the P, the A, and the M of respective priority triples for the ads according to at least one scoping rule and at least one precedence rule, to determine the ad with which to fill the opportunity; and delivering the ad determined to have the highest priority to a web page of the publisher. | 01-05-2012 |
| 20120005021 | SELECTING ADVERTISEMENTS USING USER SEARCH HISTORY SEGMENTATION - Techniques are described herein for selecting an advertisement using user search history segmentation. Instances of queries that are provided by a user are referred to collectively as the search history of the user. The search history is segmented into sessions that correspond to respective tasks of the user. Each of the sessions includes a respective subset of the query instances that are included in the user's search history. A weight is assigned to each session based on attribute(s) of the respective session. A session that includes a first subset of the query instances is selected based on the weight that is assigned to that session. Features are extracted from query instances that are included in the first subset. Weights are assigned to the extracted features based on attribute(s) of the first subset. An advertisement is selected to be provided to the user based on the extracted features and corresponding weights. | 01-05-2012 |
| 20120005017 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR PROVIDING ADVERTISEMENTS - An example of a method includes receiving an input. The input includes at least one of a network bandwidth associated with an electronic device, a memory bandwidth associated with the electronic device, and a central processing unit (CPU) bandwidth associated with the electronic device. The method also includes determining, electronically, one or more advertisements based on at least one of the network bandwidth, the memory bandwidth, and the CPU bandwidth. In addition, the method includes providing, electronically, the one or more advertisements. | 01-05-2012 |
| 20120004981 | ADVERTISEMENT AND CAMPAIGN EVALUATION WITH BUCKET TESTING IN GUARANTEED DELIVERY OF ONLINE ADVERTISING - Techniques are provided relating to conducting bucket testing, relating to advertisement performance or advertisement campaign performance, in connection with guaranteed delivery online advertising associated with an online advertising marketplace. Techniques are provided in which advertising supply, demand, or both are partitioned into buckets. Differing allocation policies are established for each of the buckets. Following serving of advertisements in accordance with the operating policies, difference is measured, between the buckets, and the difference is used to evaluate differing advertisement performance or differing advertisement campaign performance between the buckets. | 01-05-2012 |
| 20120004980 | INVENTORY MANAGEMENT AND SERVING WITH BUCKET TESTING IN GUARANTEED DELIVERY OF ONLINE ADVERTISING - Techniques are provided to facilitate bucket testing in connection with guaranteed delivery online advertising associated with an online advertising marketplace. Operating policies are established for each of the buckets, in which the operating policies for each of the buckets differ. Bucket controller programming logic is used in implementation of the operating policies. Allocation and serving of advertisements is facilitated in accordance with the operating policies. | 01-05-2012 |
| 20120004979 | INTRASTRUCTURE FOR BUCKET TESTING IN GUARANTEED DELIVERY OF ONLINE ADVERTISING - Techniques are provided relating to conducting bucket testing in connection with guaranteed delivery online advertising associated with an online advertising marketplace. Techniques are provided in which advertising supply, demand, or both are partitioned into buckets. Operating policies are established for each of the buckets, in which the operating policies for each of the buckets differ. Following serving of advertisements in accordance with the operating policies, difference is measured in at least one outcome, between buckets. | 01-05-2012 |
| 20120004957 | FORECASTING SUPPLY FOR ADVERTISEMENTS ACCORDING TO A NON-PARAMETRIC SUPPLY MODEL - Methods, systems, and apparatuses for generating supply forecasts for advertisement impressions are provided. Supply forecasts for future advertisement inventory are enabled to be determined that match attribute values received from a requester in a query or “contract.” Such supply forecasts may be determined based on cumulative or non-cumulative supply forecast values, and may be determined based on time series of supply forecast values for individual impressions or for blocks of impressions. | 01-05-2012 |
| 20110313841 | TARGETED DISTRIBUTION OF ELECTRONIC COUPONS - A system, method and computer program product is described that matches commercial incentives to consumers based on targeting data associated with the commercial incentive and user data associated with consumers in a manner that advantageously allows for highly-targeted delivery of commercial incentives to the consumers that are most likely to use them. Because both the targeting data and the user data may include spatial, temporal, social and topical data, matching may be performed based on any or all of these data types, as well as based on any combination of these data types. | 12-22-2011 |
| 20110313829 | DYNAMIC AUGMENTATION OF ELECTRONIC COUPONS - A commercial incentive engine and network is described that advantageously allows content and/or terms associated with a commercial incentive that has already been distributed to a consumer over a network to be dynamically augmented. The dynamic augmentation may occur responsive to one or more of revisions to the content and/or terms input by an advertiser, responsive to business information provided by an advertiser, or responsive to spatial, temporal, social and topical data associated with the consumer. An alternate implementation also advantageously allows the content and/or terms associated with a commercial incentive to be dynamically determined prior to distribution of the commercial incentive to a consumer over a network. | 12-22-2011 |
| 20110307579 | ACCELERATED AND REPRODUCIBLE DOMAIN VISITOR TARGETING - A device, system, and method are directed towards managing and tracking of cross-domain user activities through use of a beacon. As a user of a client device requests content from different domain services managed by a common entity, they may receive a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) to a beacon in at least one of the different domains. In one embodiment, the beacon is a single pixel image. The client device may also receive a Match-ID. A beacon server in one of the other domains may receive the request for the beacon, and store in a domain log the Match-ID, and other information about the client device, which domain service provided the URL, and/or other related user activities. The different domain logs may then be employed for use in searching for matching Match-IDs, joining common user or client device activities, and for tracking other cross-domain user activities. | 12-15-2011 |
| 20110306427 | Method and System for Drafting One or More Players in a Fantasy Sport - Methods, systems and computer readable mediums are provided for drafting one or more players in a fantasy sport. In one method, a list of available players available for drafting to a user's fantasy team is retrieved from a data store. Each available player has an associated ranking. A first candidate player and a second candidate player are identified from the available players based, at least in part, upon a first and a second drafting criterion, respectively. A weighted ranking is computed for at least one of the first and the second candidate player using at least one weighting factor corresponding to the first and the second drafting criterion. One of the first and the second candidate player is selected as a drafted player based upon the weighted ranking. | 12-15-2011 |
| 20110302263 | SOCIAL NAMESPACE ADDRESSING FOR NON-UNIQUE IDENTIFIERS - A device, system, and method are directed towards enabling a user to disambiguate an identity of a member included in a user's social network (USN), and towards enabling an operation to be performed based on information about the member. The USN is determined. The NID of the member is received. If the NID is non-unique within the USN, member distinctions are determined for members in the USN who are associated with the same NID. The member distinctions are sent to the user. The user makes a selection of one of the members associated with one of the member distinctions. Based on the selection, information about the selected member is received. The operation is enabled to be performed based on the information about the selected member. The operation may include addressing the selected member, enabling a communication between the user and the selected member, or the like. | 12-08-2011 |
| 20110302148 | System and Method for Indexing Food Providers and Use of the Index in Search Engines - Methods, systems and computer readable mediums are provided for indexing network resources. One method includes accessing, using one or more computer systems, a data store of menu items. The method further includes accessing identification information associated with one or more food providers from one or more data sources. One or more network resources are crawled based on the identification information to search for one or more menu items in the data store of menu items associated with corresponding ones of the food providers. Using the one or more computing systems, an index feed is generated, the index feed comprising the identification information of one or more of the food providers, and one or more menu items associated with the identification information of corresponding food providers based on the crawl and search. | 12-08-2011 |
| 20110302147 | METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR COMPUTING GRAPH SIMILARITY VIA SEQUENCE SIMILARITY - This disclosure describes systems and methods for identifying and correcting anomalies in web graphs. A web graph is transformed into a sequence of tokens via a walk algorithm. The sequence is fingerprinted to form a set of shingles. The singles are compared to shingles for other web graphs in order to determine similarity between web graphs. Actions are then carried out to remove anomalous web graphs and modify parameters governing web mapping in order to decrease the likelihood of future anomalous web graphs being built. | 12-08-2011 |
| 20110302128 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR DISAMBIGUATING NON-UNIQUE IDENTIFIERS USING INFORMATION OBTAINED FROM DISPARATE COMMUNICATION CHANNELS - The disclosure describes systems and methods for disambiguating a non-unique identifiers of real world entities (RWEs) detected by a computing network by dynamically identifying relationships between RWEs known to the network. The relationships are determined based on social, spatial, temporal and logical information known about the RWEs based on the RWEs previous interactions with the network. These relationships are then used to generate a probability for each RWE that the non-unique identifier identifies that RWE. Based on the probabilities an RWE is selected and the proper network identifier may be used in place of the non-unique identifier. | 12-08-2011 |
| 20110302034 | System and Method for Associating a Geographical Location with an Internet Protocol Addresss - The present application is directed to systems and methods for associating a geographic location with an IP address. Generally, an IP address associated with each of a plurality of browser cookies is determined, where each of the plurality of browser cookies indicate a geographic location such as a home address or business address of a user. A geo tag is associated with each of the plurality of browser cookies and a subset of the plurality of browser cookies including browser cookies associated with a first IP address is identified. The subset of the plurality of browser cookies is clustered into a spatial cluster including browser cookies associated with geo tags located within a defined distance of a geo tag of at least one other browser cookie of the cluster. A geographic location associated with a geographic center of the cluster is then associated with the first IP address. | 12-08-2011 |
| 20110295877 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR ONLINE HANDWRITING RECOGNITION IN WEB QUERIES - A graphic representation resulting from a user interacting with a user interface operating on a user device is received over a network. The graphic representation corresponds to a portion of a desired graphic character of a graphic character set (e.g. Chinese). The graphic representation is analyzed to select a plurality of graphic characters of the graphic character set that are a probable match of the graphic representation. The plurality of probable graphic characters are transmitted back to the user. A selection of one of the plurality of probable graphic characters is received over the network. A plurality of suggested search terms are identified to the user. Each suggested search term comprises at least one graphic character from the graphic character set. One of the plurality of suggested search terms is selected to be used to conduct an Internet search. An Internet search is then conducted using the selected search term. | 12-01-2011 |
| 20110295776 | RESEARCH MISSION IDENTIFICATION - A system and method is described herein that automatically determines if a user of a search engine is conducting a research mission and then provides one or more research tools, one or more specialized searches, one or more directed ads, and/or one or more marketplace events responsive to determining that the research mission is being conducted. The automatic provision of various events and/or tools responsive to determination of the research mission can advantageously improve the experience of the user conducting the research mission. | 12-01-2011 |
| 20110295682 | OPTIMIZED SEARCH RESULT COLUMNS ON SEARCH RESULTS PAGES - Computer-implemented system and methods are disclosed for optimizing the relative positions of sponsored and organic search results on a search results page displayed to a user, including calculating, by a search engine, a degree of commerciality of a search query; receiving the search query from a user by the search engine; and delivering, by the search engine to a browser of a user, a plurality of sponsored search results in at least two columns and a plurality of organic search results in at least a third column of one or more search results pages, wherein a layout of the at least three columns depends on the degree of commerciality of the search query. | 12-01-2011 |
| 20110295593 | AUTOMATED MESSAGE ATTACHMENT LABELING USING FEATURE SELECTION IN MESSAGE CONTENT - Embodiments are directed towards an automated machine learning framework to extract keywords within a message that are relevant to an attachment to the message. The machine learning model finds a set of relevant sentences within the message determined to be relevant to the one or more attachments based on identification of one or more sentence level features within a given sentence. The sentence level features include, for example, anchor features, noisy sentence features, short message features, threading features, anaphora detections, and lexicon features. From the set of relevant sentences, useful keywords may be extracted using a sequence of heuristics to convert the sentence set into the set of useful keywords. The set of useful keywords may then be associated to at least one attachment such that the keywords may subsequently be used to perform various indexing, searching, sorting, and to provide further context to the attachment. | 12-01-2011 |
| 20110289080 | Search Results Summarized with Tokens - In one embodiment, a first computing device accesses a first search query issued by a user and one or more first documents identified in response to the first search query; determines a first set of tokens for each of the first documents; and transmits the first documents and their associated first sets of tokens to a second computing device associated with the user for display to the user, wherein: each of the first documents is displayed together with its associated first set of tokens; and the tokens of each of the first sets of tokens are visually distinguished based on the concepts they represent and their levels of relevance with respect to the first document associated with the first set of tokens. | 11-24-2011 |
| 20110288764 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR PROVIDING DRIVING DIRECTIONS - An example of a method includes determining, electronically, a source location and a destination location in response to an input received through one of a first short message service (SMS) and a general packet radio service (GPRS). The method also includes determining, electronically, a first milestone between the source location and the destination location. Further, the method includes sending directions to reach the first milestone from the source location through a second SMS and an identifier associated with the first milestone. Furthermore, the method includes detecting when to send directions to reach one of a second milestone and the destination location from the first milestone. In addition, the method includes sending directions to reach one of the second milestone and the destination location through a third SMS based on detecting. | 11-24-2011 |
| 20110282902 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR A SEARCH-ENABLED REMOTE CONTROL DEVICE - A search-enabled remote control device to facilitate viewers' ability to search through programming and/or content options and view results. In one embodiment, a viewer is able to use a traditional remote control interface to navigate through menus or selections and to display search results on screen. In another embodiment, a viewer's watching behavior and/or searching habits are tracked by the search-enabled remote control and used to develop a viewer profile, which may in turn be used to target advertisements, information and/or future programming options. | 11-17-2011 |
| 20110282891 | Methods And Apparatuses For Providing A Search Crowd Capability - Exemplary methods and apparatuses are provided which may be implemented using one or more computing devices within a networked computing environment to identify certain shared search interests and to provide additional search capabilities based thereon to a plurality of users in a social search manner. For example, a “search crowd” capability and information may be provided based on a plurality of related search queries received from two or more users. A number of determining factors may be considered to identify, establish, maintain, and/or otherwise manage a search crowd and related information. | 11-17-2011 |
| 20110282874 | EFFICIENT LEXICAL TRENDING TOPIC DETECTION OVER STREAMS OF DATA USING A MODIFIED SEQUITUR ALGORITHM - Embodiments are directed towards a Modified Sequitur algorithm (MSA) using pipelining and indexed arrays to identify trending topics within a plurality of documents having user generated content (UGC). The documents are parallelized and distributed across a plurality of network devices, which place at least some of the received documents into a buffer for which the MSA may then be applied to the documents within the buffer to identify n-grams or phrases within the documents' contents. The identified phrases are further analyzed to remove extraneous co-occurrences of phrases, and/or words based on a part of speech analysis. A weighting of the remaining phrases is used to identify trending topic phrases. Links to content in the plurality of UGC documents that is associated with the trending topic phrases may then be displayed to a client device. | 11-17-2011 |
| 20110282823 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR ANNOTATING AND RANKING REVIEWS WITH INFERRED ANALYTICS - The present invention is directed towards methods and computer readable media for annotating and ranking user reviews on social review systems with inferred analytics. A reference framework is provided by creating context according to previous activity, bias, or background information of a given reviewer. The method of the present invention comprises receiving a first query identifying a given content item, generating a collection of content items based on one or more identical objective attributes associated with the given content item, identifying one or more subjective attributes associated with a given item in the collection of items, and providing a reference framework to interpret the subjective attributes associated with each item in the collection. | 11-17-2011 |
| 20110282732 | UNDERSTANDING AUDIENCE INTERESTS - The present invention provides techniques for use in providing advertisers and other entities with information relating to target audiences. Techniques are provided in which, in reply to an advertiser query, the advertiser is provided with, in connection with a specified target audience, topics of interest, levels of interest per topic, and a level or levels of engagement with the advertiser. Other information may also be provided, including topic of interest trending information, as well as topics of interest that best differentiate between the target audience and a specified comparison audience. | 11-17-2011 |
| 20110276921 | SELECTING CONTENT BASED ON INTEREST TAGS THAT ARE INCLUDED IN AN INTEREST CLOUD - Techniques are described herein for selecting content based on interest tags that are included in an interest cloud. An interest cloud is a tag cloud that includes interest tags, which correspond to respective interests of a user. An interest of a user is subject matter that is deemed to have a greater importance than other subject matter to the user based on information that pertains to the user. For example, an interest of a user may be derived from information in the user's emails, vitality streams, Web browsing history, etc. In another example, a user may designate subject matter as being an interest of the user. For instance, if a user adds an interest tag to an interest cloud, subject matter that corresponds to the interest tag is said to be an interest of the user. | 11-10-2011 |
| 20110276411 | METHOD FOR OPTIMUM PLACEMENT OF ADVERTISEMENTS ON A WEB PAGE - A method and system for placement of graphical objects on a page to optimize the occurrence of an event associated with such objects. The graphical objects might include, for instance, advertisements on a webpage, and the event would include a user clicking on that ad. The page includes positions for receipt of the object material. Data regarding the past performance of the objects is stored and updated as new data is received. A user requests a page from a server associated with system. The server uses the performance data to derive a prioritized arrangement of the objects on the page. The server performs a calculation regarding the likelihood that an event will occur for a given object, as displayed to a particular user. The objects are arranged according to this calculation and returned to the user on the requested page. The likelihood can also be multiplied by a weighting factor and the objects arranged according to this product. | 11-10-2011 |
| 20110276391 | EXPANSION OF TERM SETS FOR USE IN ADVERTISEMENT SELECTION - Techniques are provided for use in online advertisement selection in response to a search query. Techniques are provided in which historical online advertising information is obtained. Segmentation is performed of advertisements and queries and used in generating segment pairs, and an associated advertisement performance is determined for each pair. Segmentation is also performed of a particular query and a candidate advertisement for selection to be served in response, and using the resulting segments, pairs are identified and used in adding to a term set associated with the candidate advertisement, which term set is used in assessing the advertisement for selection. | 11-10-2011 |
| 20110276389 | BID LANDSCAPE TOOL - Techniques are provided that can be used in advertising campaign management in connection with auction-based online advertising. A tool is provided, for use by advertisers or advertising campaign managers, for being provided with, in connection with specified parameters, an indication of a competitive bid and a non-competitive bid. The tool may also provide an actual, estimated, or projected bid, which may be associated with an advertising campaign or a portion thereof, for comparison with the competitive bid and the non-competitive bid. The tool may allow assessment of a competitive bid landscape and help allow determination of an optimal bid. | 11-10-2011 |
| 20110271202 | NOTIFICATIONS FOR MULTIPLE POINTS OF PRESENCE - A server application for an instant messaging service opens a first connection with a first client application executing on a device, after receiving a login from the first client application. Next the server application opens a second connection with a second client application, after receiving the same login from the second client application. Then the server application receives an instant message associated with the login and determines whether the first client application is in a network idle state following a period of idle time. If the first client application is in the network idle state, the server application causes a notification as to the receipt of the instant message to be displayed on a user interface for the second client application. The displayed notification might also be accompanied by an aural notification or a haptic alert. | 11-03-2011 |
| 20110271145 | EFFICIENT FAILURE DETECTION FOR LONG RUNNING DATA TRANSFER JOBS - Disclosed are methods and apparatus for error handling within jobs that utilize a plurality of tasks for data transfer of individual data records to a storage destination. For each task, one or more failed records may be logged to a file for later insertion. If a high percentage of a task's output (e.g., writes to another data storage system) is determined to be failing, the task short-circuits itself. Each task is also configured to perform checkpoint logging as the task completes work. If the entire job later short-circuits and is to be restarted, the restarted job only repeats a minimal amount of previously completed work for the tasks which have not already completed their data insertions. Together, these techniques can ensure that in the face of periodic failures, the job completes long-running job in a minimal time with minimal effects. | 11-03-2011 |
| 20110270965 | Methods for Web Site Analysis - A specification of a target web site is received. A number of field web sites related to the target web site are identified. Data values are acquired for a set of metrics for the target and each field web site. These data values are processed to evaluate a standing of the target web site relative to the field web sites, while maintaining anonymity of the field web sites. An average web site is determined by respectively averaging data values for the field web sites. A bounding web site is characterized by the best data values from among all field web sites. Target web site data values are compared to average and/or bounding web site data values at a given time. Variations in differences between target web site data values and corresponding average and/or bounding web site data values over time determines improvement and/or success of the target web site. | 11-03-2011 |
| 20110270934 | STATE TRANSFER FOR INSTANT MESSAGING SYSTEM WITH MULTIPLE POINTS OF PRESENCE - A server application for an instant messaging service opens a first connection with a first client application executing on a device, after receiving a login from the first client application. Next the server application opens a second connection with a second client application, after receiving the same login from the second client application. Then the server application transfers state from the first client application to the second client application without terminating the first connection, where state includes an instant message which is associated with the login and where the instant message was received between the time the first connection was opened and the time the second connection was opened. State can also include other unread instant messages, as well as window positions and configurations for a user interface supported by both client applications. | 11-03-2011 |
| 20110265173 | MOBILE AUTHENTICATION FRAMEWORK - Disclosed are apparatus and methods for associating a mobile device with a web service or a user account. A unique code is displayed on the mobile device. The unique code is associated with a user account or web service to be utilized with the mobile device. Instructions for a user to enter the unique code in an authentication process via an authentication portal of a management device are also displayed. After it is determined that a user has performed the authentication process, any user identification, which has been associated with the unique code, is then obtained from the management device. The obtained user identification is then stored for use by the mobile device. After user identification has been obtained and stored, the stored user identification is used for the mobile device to participate in an authentication process for authorizing the mobile device to utilize a web service or user account associated with the user identification. The authentication process is participated in by the mobile device without requiring input from the user during such authentication process. | 10-27-2011 |
| 20110264651 | LARGE SCALE ENTITY-SPECIFIC RESOURCE CLASSIFICATION - A system and method is described for large scale entity-specific classification of each entity-specific set of candidates in a collection of candidates for each specific entity in a collection of entities. The collection of entities may comprise a specific category or domain of entities (e.g. schools, restaurants, manufacturers, products, events, people). Candidates may comprise webpages or other resources with resource identifiers. Entity specific sets of candidates may be found by leveraging search engine query results and user interaction therewith for queries based on entity-specific attributes. The relationship(s) or class(es) for which candidate resources are being classified relative to a specific entity may comprise an authoritative, official home page (OHP), or other class (e.g. fan page, review, aggregator) relative to a specific entity. A feature generator generates entity-specific features for candidates. In accordance with its features, one or more classifiers rank each candidate for a specific class for a specific entity. | 10-27-2011 |
| 20110264648 | SELECTIVELY ADDING SOCIAL DIMENSION TO WEB SEARCHES - Embodiments are directed towards managing a display of search results by employing a query-classification for a search query to selectively display trust search results that are displayed distinct from non-trust search results. A search query is classified into a query-class. A search is then performed over non-trust sources, and selectively over trust data sources to obtain non-trust and trust search results, respectively. The trust search results are rank ordered based on various categories of search criteria, including, for example, explicit and implicit relationships. Based on the query-class, a different number of trust search results may be displayed. Further, a position for which the trust search results may be displayed may be based on the query-class. Moreover, the non-trust search results displayed distinct or separate from the trust search results to readily distinguish a type of source of the search results. | 10-27-2011 |
| 20110264647 | QUERY PROCESSING FOR WEB SEARCH - A computer-implemented method for processing user entered query data to improve results of a search of pages using a database, when searching the internet, is disclosed. The method includes receiving the user entered query data and parsing each word of the query data and segmenting words using probability to determine a likelihood that the word is for a particular name. And, associating the particular names with a name tag to create one or more tagged name terms. Then, normalizing each of the tagged name terms and the normalizing including boosting information if found in the database and determining proximity between selected ones of the tagged name terms. The method then generates an optimized search query that incorporates normalized terms and operators. The optimized search query being applied to the internet to enable search results to be produced and displayed to the user in response to the entered query data. | 10-27-2011 |
| 20110264531 | WATCHING A USER'S ONLINE WORLD - The present invention provides methods and systems for use in assessing sentiment of users associated with one or more Web-based activities or communications of a user, which can include messaging associated with one or more social networking applications. Furthermore, information or services are provided to the user, or another user, in connection with the assessed sentiment. For example, a user may be alerted, or action may be taken, if unforeseen or negative sentiment reaches or exceeds a designated threshold. | 10-27-2011 |
| 20110264525 | SEARCHING A USER'S ONLINE WORLD - The present invention provides methods and systems for use in searching a user's online world, across independently provided applications including Web-based and desktop applications, which can include Web sites. Techniques are provided in which information is collected and indexed relating to activities and communications of a user, and of other users in association with activities and communications of the user, across independent Web-based applications. A graphical user interface is provided to allow user searching in association with the collected and indexed information. Search results are provided using a graphical user interface that can include Web results, personal results, and desktop results. | 10-27-2011 |
| 20110264516 | LIMITING LATENCY DUE TO EXCESSIVE DEMAND IN AD EXCHANGE - A method is disclosed for limiting latency in filling a display opportunity in an ad exchange including: constructing an exchange graph comprising nodes representing a plurality of publishers and advertisers, the exchange graph also including a plurality of directed edges that represent bilateral business agreements connecting the nodes; receiving an opportunity for displaying an ad to a user, wherein the opportunity is associated with a publisher node; receiving ads from the advertisers from which to choose to fill the opportunity; determining whether a threshold total number of ads (T) is surpassed by the received ads; and randomly downsampling the number of ads from each of at least some of the advertisers when the threshold total number of ads (T) is surpassed by the received ads to reduce the total number of ads to a target number of ads (S) that reduces overall latency in determining which of sampled ads will fill the opportunity. | 10-27-2011 |
| 20110264511 | ONLINE SERVING THRESHOLD AND DELIVERY POLICY ADJUSTMENT - The present invention provides techniques for use in association with online advertising, relating to use of serving thresholds, associated with predicted click through rates, and delivery policies, associated with advertising inventory serving and distribution. An offline-trained machine learning-based model may be utilized in advertising serving decision-making in connection with serving opportunities. However, serving thresholds and delivery policies, for use in association with the model in serving decision-making, may be adjusted online, such as in real-time or near real-time, based on information obtained online affecting factors such as predicted click through rates and advertising inventory distribution. | 10-27-2011 |
| 20110264510 | METHOD FOR OPTIMUM PLACEMENT OF ADVERTISEMENTS ON A WEBPAGE - A method and system for placement of graphical objects on a page to optimize the occurrence of an event associated with such objects. The graphical objects might include, for instance, advertisements on a webpage, and the event would include a user clicking on that ad. The page includes positions for receipt of the object material. Data regarding the past performance of the objects is stored and updated as new data is received. A user requests a page from a server associated with system. The server uses the performance data to derive a prioritized arrangement of the objects on the page. The server performs a calculation regarding the likelihood that an event will occur for a given object, as displayed to a particular user. The objects are arranged according to this calculation and returned to the user on the requested page. The likelihood can also be multiplied by a weighting factor and the objects arranged according to this product. | 10-27-2011 |
| 20110264509 | METHOD FOR OPTIMUM PLACEMENT OF ADVERTISEMENTS ON A WEBPAGE - A method and system for placement of graphical objects on a page to optimize the occurrence of an event associated with such objects. The graphical objects might include, for instance, advertisements on a webpage, and the event would include a user clicking on that ad. The page includes positions for receipt of the object material. Data regarding the past performance of the objects is stored and updated as new data is received. A user requests a page from a server associated with system. The server uses the performance data to derive a prioritized arrangement of the objects on the page. The server performs a calculation regarding the likelihood that an event will occur for a given object, as displayed to a particular user. The objects are arranged according to this calculation and returned to the user on the requested page. The likelihood can also be multiplied by a weighting factor and the objects arranged according to this product. | 10-27-2011 |
| 20110258177 | SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR PROVIDING A MICRODOCUMENT FRAMEWORK FOR STORAGE, RETRIEVAL, AND AGGREGATION - The present invention is directed towards systems and methods for providing a microdocument framework. The method and system includes receiving a plurality microdocuments and detecting content data for each of the plurality of microdocuments. The method and system further includes indexing at least a portion of the plurality of microdocuments based on the detected content and performing a searching operation using the content data associated with the microdocument data to determine a microdocument set. Thereupon, the method and system performs at least processing one operation on the microdocument set. | 10-20-2011 |
| 20110258034 | HIERARCHICALLY-STRUCTURED INDEXING AND RETRIEVAL - Novel and efficient methods are described for indexing advertisements (“ads”) and other resources that are defined and organized in accordance with a hierarchical schema. In accordance with at least one embodiment, an ad corpus is transformed into a collection of hierarchically structured textual documents. An indexing technique that exploits the hierarchical structure is then applied to construct a compact yet effective ad index that can be used for performing advanced match or other ad retrieval functions. Various retrieval methods are also described herein that are capable of exploiting the hierarchical structure of the ad corpus to retrieve more relevant ads than those yielded by conventional methods. | 10-20-2011 |
| 20110252427 | MODELING AND SCHEDULING ASYNCHRONOUS INCREMENTAL WORKFLOWS - Disclosed are methods and apparatus for scheduling an asynchronous workflow having a plurality of processing paths. In one embodiment, one or more predefined constraint metrics that constrain temporal asynchrony for one or more portions of the workflow may be received or provided. Input data is periodically received or intermediate or output data is generated for one or more of the processing paths of the workflow, via one or more operators, based on a scheduler process. One or more of the processing paths for generating the intermediate or output data are dynamically selected based on received input data or generated intermediate or output data and the one or more constraint metrics. The selected one or more processing paths of the workflow are then executed so that each selected processing path generates intermediate or output data for the workflow. | 10-13-2011 |
| 20110252343 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR PERFORMING BI-DIRECTIONAL SEARCH - When a user enters a primary search query into a primary search query input area to perform a first search of the primary search query, disclosed is a method and system for automatically entering the primary search query into a secondary search query input area to perform a second search of the primary search query. When the user enters a secondary search query into the secondary search query input area to perform a first search of the secondary search query, the method and system automatically enters the secondary search query into the primary search query input area to perform a second search of the secondary search query. | 10-13-2011 |
| 20110252342 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR ACTION SUGGESTION USING BROWSER HISTORY - Disclosed is a method and system for displaying one or more actions associated with a domain. A server computer receives over a network from a client-side module executing on a computing device a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) associated with a web page to which a user has navigated via a browser executing on the computing device. The server computer determines that the web page is part of a domain that the user has navigated to more than a predetermined number of times within a given period of time. The server computer determines a category associated with the web page and determines one or more actions associated with the domain. The server computer transmits to the computing device for display in the browser a link, the link representing an action associated with the domain and with the category associated with the web page. | 10-13-2011 |
| 20110252331 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR SOCIALIZING EVENTS - An example of a method includes determining, electronically, a social network associated with a user in response to the user visiting a web page. Further, the method includes determining, electronically, a first buddy of the user on the social network. Furthermore, the method includes identifying, electronically, a first event from events associated with the first buddy which matches an event associated with the web page. In addition, the method includes displaying the first event and information associated with the first buddy on the web page. | 10-13-2011 |
| 20110252329 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR TOPICAL BROWSER HISTORY - Disclosed is a method and system for displaying topical history of a user's browsing experience. A browser executing on a computing device navigates to a web page. A client-side module executing on the computing device obtains a set of topics associated with the web page. The client-side module determines other topics related to the set of topics associated with the web page. The client-side module determines web pages associated with the other topics that the browser has previously navigated to within a predetermined past period of time. The browser displays in a first content area the web page, and the browser displays in a second content area the set of topics associated with the web page, the other topics related to the set of topics, and links to the web pages associated with the other topics. | 10-13-2011 |
| 20110252098 | CREATING RICH EXPERIENCES IN MAIL THROUGH ATTACHMENTS - The disclosed embodiments provide for an email and messenging system that allows a user composing a message to select an application which will appear next to the composition screen at both the sending and receiving computer. The application is specified as an attachment at the sending client and when received at a receiving client of a user with an enhanced or compliant mail/messenging account the application will be executed at the receiving client, thus customizing the functionality of the receiving client computer and the mail experience between sender and receiver. An unapproved application sent as an attachment will not be executed and/or alter the receiving client interface. Similarly, the application will simply appear as a standard attachment at a non enhanced recipient client/account. | 10-13-2011 |
| 20110252064 | Incorporating Geographical Locations in a Search Process - In one embodiment, accessing a search query and a document identified in response to the search query; extracting a first geographical location from the search query or from information associated with a user issuing the search query or a device used by the user to issue the search query; determining a first minimum bounding region enclosing the first geographical location; computing a threshold for the first geographical location; extracting one or more second geographical locations from the document; for one of the second geographical locations, determining a second minimum bounding region enclosing the one second geographical location; computing a distance between the first minimum bounding region and the second minimum bounding region; and if the distance is greater than the threshold, then discarding the document by not including the document in a search result identified in response to the search query. | 10-13-2011 |
| 20110252060 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR TOPIC-BASED BROWSING - Disclosed is a method and system for navigating, by a browser executing on the computing device, to a web page; transmitting by a client-side module executing on the computing device to a server computer over a network a request to the server computer for topics associated with the web page; receiving, by the computing device, a set of (one or more) topics associated with the web page from the server computer; displaying by the browser in a first content area the web page; and displaying by the browser in a second content area the received set of topics associated with the web page. | 10-13-2011 |
| 20110252045 | LARGE SCALE CONCEPT DISCOVERY FOR WEBPAGE AUGMENTATION USING SEARCH ENGINE INDEXERS - Disclosed is a method and system for retrieving data; extracting information from the data; learning to disambiguate the extracted information such that a particular sense of each phrase within the extracted information is determined; generating a disambiguation classifier from the learning to disambiguate step, the disambiguation classifier configured to determine a sense of a phrase within a document; learning to select a portion of the information as being relevant to a theme of the data; generating a selection classifier from the learning to select step, the selection classifier configured to select a topic in a document that is relevant to a theme of the document; and using the disambiguation classifier and the selection classifier by an indexing computer to determine a set of topics from a web document retrieved by the indexing computer. | 10-13-2011 |
| 20110252041 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR DETERMINING RELEVANT TEXT IN A WEB PAGE - Disclosed is a method and computing device that receives a web page and locates text elements in the web page, where each text element includes a set of one or more characters or symbols. For each text element found, the computing device assigns a weight value to the each text element. The computing device then stores the text from the each text element in a relevant text storage if the weight value for the each text element is above a threshold weight or similar in layout or content to elements above the threshold weight. | 10-13-2011 |
| 20110252013 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR SELECTING SEARCH RESULTS FACETS - The present invention is directed towards systems and methods for providing a plurality of facets in response to a search query. The method according to one embodiment of the present invention comprises receiving a search query from a user and retrieving a search result set. The method then identifies an optimum number of facets and selects a plurality of facets with a maximum incremental value. Finally, the method provides the search result set and the selected facets to a user. | 10-13-2011 |
| 20110251878 | SYSTEM FOR PROCESSING LARGE AMOUNTS OF DATA - A system for processing data includes a first data pipeline. The first data pipeline includes a processor to process a first set of data stored in a tangible memory. The system also includes a second data pipeline to process a second set of data. A mapping processor matches the first set of data to the second set of data to produce a third set of data. | 10-13-2011 |
| 20110247044 | SIGNAL-DRIVEN INTERACTIVE TELEVISION - A method for displaying supplemental content with a content stream on a display is provided. A content stream for a program is received, and a portion of the received content stream is sampled. The sampled portion is analyzed to determine a media identifier for the content stream, the media identifier being transmitted to a content server. Supplemental content is retrieved from the content server using the media identifier. And the content stream is rendered on the display with the supplemental content. The supplemental content provides access to an interactive feature, the interactive feature providing internet communication during the receipt of the content stream. | 10-06-2011 |
| 20110247031 | Methods and Systems for Application Rendering and Management on Internet Television Enabled Displays - Computer implemented methods for managing communication between a display device and a remote server or services is provided. A remote server provides access to widget applications that are to be used on the display device. The method includes receiving a request from the display device, and the request includes data that identifies attributes of the display device. Then, examining the data to authorize access a specific application widget gallery. The specific widget gallery includes widget applications that have passing filter parameters for the request. Then, returning to the display device data for populating attributes or widget application data for rendering on the display device. Furthermore, the methods and systems for providing access to, installing, administering and rendering web-based applications (e.g., widgets) on a display device, which connects to a server, are provided. The server is defined by a system infrastructure of software, hardware and storage that can be distributed, load balanced and securely accessed over the internet from any connected location on the globe. A display device, as used herein, is generally a system, with integrated hardware and software that will enable access to the internet, browsing and connections to remote processing servers and storage. The display device, in one example, is a television set, with integrated hardware, memory and software, which can connect to the Internet. | 10-06-2011 |
| 20110246457 | RANKING OF SEARCH RESULTS BASED ON MICROBLOG DATA - An information retrieval system is described herein that monitors a microblog data stream that includes microblog posts to discover and index fresh resources for searching by a search engine. The information retrieval system also uses data from the microblog data stream as well as data obtained from a microblog subscription system to compute novel and effective features for ranking fresh resources which would otherwise have impoverished representations. An embodiment of the present invention advantageously enables a search engine to produce a fresher set of resources and to rank such resources for both relevancy and freshness in a more accurate manner. | 10-06-2011 |
| 20110246295 | FAST NETWORKED BASED ADVERTISEMENT SELECTION - A system for serving advertisements determines the frequency of occurrence for each parameter of a plurality of parameters associated with a plurality of search queries. The plurality of parameters are associated with one or more advertisements. The system stores at least some parameters to a first storage based on the frequency of occurrence of the parameters. The system stores the other parameters to a second storage that has a higher latency than the first storage. When serving advertisements, the system ranks advertisements for delivery based on the parameters stored in the first storage device and the second storage. | 10-06-2011 |
| 20110246286 | CLICK PROBABILITY WITH MISSING FEATURES IN SPONSORED SEARCH - Sponsored search advertising utilizes a click probability as one factor in selecting and ranking advertisements that are displayed with search results. The probability of click may also be referred to as a predicted click-through rate (“CTR”) that may be multiplied by an advertiser's bid for a particular advertisement to rank the display of advertisements. An accurate prediction of the click probability improves the potential revenue that is generated by advertisements in a pay per click system. Other advertising systems may benefit from an accurate and reliable estimate for an advertisement's probability of click in different environments and scenarios. | 10-06-2011 |
| 20110238493 | EFFICIENT AD SELECTION IN AD EXCHANGE WITH INTERMEDIARIES - A method is disclosed for optimizing ad selection in an exchange having intermediate ad-networks including: constructing an exchange graph having nodes representing publishers, advertisers, and intermediate ad-network entities, and including directed edges that represent bilateral business agreements connecting the nodes; receiving an opportunity for displaying an ad to a user that is associated with a publisher node and includes properties that are targetable by supply predicates, wherein a supply predicate is a function whose inputs include properties of the user; receiving ads that are available for display to the user associated with respective advertiser nodes and that include properties that are targetable by demand predicates, wherein a demand predicate is a function whose inputs include properties of one or more of the plurality of ads; computing a thinned graph by enforcing the supply predicates in the nodes and edges of the graph; and producing a list of ads and corresponding paths that exist through the thinned graph to the opportunity that satisfy the plurality of demand predicates. | 09-29-2011 |
| 20110231780 | REAL TIME EXPERT DIALOG SERVICE - Methods and systems provide for establishment of online dialogs between a person and a user of an online community where those people are not necessarily familiar with each others areas of expertise or interests. The methods and systems can categorize a dialog topic received from the person, and determine, from categorization of users, a selection of users of a system to receive the dialog topic. That selection can be further narrowed according to user availability and/or ranking determinations, as well as an initial subject matter test posed to the selection of users. Judging the acceptability of the users' responses can help determine subject matter expertise in an area relevant to the proposed topic. | 09-22-2011 |
| 20110231390 | SESSION BASED CLICK FEATURES FOR RECENCY RANKING - In one embodiment, access one or more query-resource pairs, wherein for each one of the query-resource pairs comprising one of one or more search queries and one of one or more network resources, the one search query is recency-sensitive with respect to a particular time period, and the one network resource is identified for the one search query, and a resource-view count and a resource-click count associated with each one of the query-resource pairs; and construct one or more first click features using the resource-view counts and the resource-click counts associated with the query-resource pairs. To construct one of the first click features in connection with one of the query-resource pairs comprises determine a only-resource-click count associated with the one query-resource pair; and calculate a ratio between the only-resource-click count and the resource-view count associated with the one query-resource pair as the one first click feature. | 09-22-2011 |
| 20110231387 | ENGAGING CONTENT PROVISION - A model is created and from seed trivia facts will create a database of pruned and ranked trivia facts and associated trigger terms. Search, email, or other information provider systems are configured to detect usage of the trigger terms and provide relevant trivia facts in response to the usage. | 09-22-2011 |
| 20110231380 | SESSION BASED CLICK FEATURES FOR RECENCY RANKING - In one embodiment, access one or more query chains, wherein each one of the query chains comprises two or more search queries, {q | 09-22-2011 |
| 20110231248 | IMPRESSION-TREND TECHNIQUES FOR PROVIDING A DISPLAY ADVERTISING SUPPLY FORECAST - Techniques are described herein for using an impression-trend technique to provide a display advertising supply forecast. A display advertising supply forecast is an estimate of a number of impressions, which are to occur in a future time period, that have specified attribute values. For example, the specified attribute values may be descriptive of impressions with respect to which an advertiser wishes to place ads. An impression-trend technique is a forecasting technique that uses trends regarding past impressions to forecast a number of future impressions that have specified attribute values. The past impressions include attribute values that are related to the specified attribute values. | 09-22-2011 |
| 20110231246 | ONLINE AND OFFLINE ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN OPTIMIZATION - Techniques are provided relating to advertising campaign optimization. Information is obtained relating to online and offline behavior of a set of individuals in association with a brand associated an advertising campaign. Based at least in part on the information, one or more metrics are determined reflecting an association between online advertising and offline behavior relating to the brand, or vice versa. Optimization is performed for at least one parameter of an online advertising campaign or an offline advertising campaign based at least in part on at least one of the one or more metrics. The campaign could also be a combined offline/online campaign. | 09-22-2011 |
| 20110231245 | OFFLINE METRICS IN ADVERTISEMENT CAMPAIGN TUNING - Techniques are provided relating to optimization of an online advertising campaign. Information is obtained relating to online advertising, associated with a brand associated with an online advertising campaign, directed to each of a set of individuals. Information is also obtained relating to offline behavior of the individuals in association with the brand. One or more metrics are determined that are associated with a relationship between the online advertising and the offline behavior. Optimization of at least one parameter of the online advertising campaign is performed based at least in part on at least one of the one or more metrics. | 09-22-2011 |
| 20110231244 | TOP CUSTOMER TARGETING - Techniques are provided for targeting of online advertisements. Methods are provided in which information including a top set of customers of an advertiser is obtained. Information is obtained relating to online and offline behavior of the top customers in association with one or more brands of the advertiser. For a particular top customer, based at least in part on behavior information relating to the particular top customer in association with the one or more brands, the particular top customer is targeted with an online advertisement. | 09-22-2011 |
| 20110231243 | CUSTOMER STATE-BASED TARGETING - Techniques are provided for targeting of online advertisements. Methods are provided which include classifying an individual into a state, of a set of possible states, relative to relationship with regard to an offering or brand. The classification may be based on offline and online information. The states may relate to a degree of favorability with which the individual is disposed with regard to the offering or brand. The individual is targeted with an online advertisement based at least in part on the state into which the individual is classified. | 09-22-2011 |
| 20110231241 | REAL-TIME PERSONALIZATION OF SPONSORED SEARCH BASED ON PREDICTED CLICK PROPENSITY - Embodiments are directed towards employing long and short term historical user click propensity behaviors to adapt or filter a number of advertisements displayed and their location on a search results' page. A network device tracks a user's short and long term historical click behaviors. For a given search query for the user, a variety of candidate advertisements are selected. A normalized click-through rate (COEC) is estimated for each advertisement. The COEC and the user's short and long term click behavior, represented by User Click Propensity (UCP), is used to generate a User effective Cost Per Thousand (UeCPM) value. Candidate advertisements are filtered based on a minimum threshold value for UeCPMs. Page placement for the remaining advertisements is determined based on a user expected revenue for an advertisement determined from the UCP. Advertisements having a user expected revenue above another threshold are placed in a north page location. | 09-22-2011 |
| 20110225229 | DISTRIBUTED PUBLISH/SUBSCRIBE SYSTEM - In one embodiment, a first one of a plurality of message processors receives a request with respect to a topic, and determines whether the first message processor itself is currently responsible for the topic. If so, then the first message processor services the request. If not, then the first message processor determines whether any of the other ones of the message processors is currently responsible for the topic. If so, then the request is redirected to another message processor to be serviced. If not, then the first message processor selects one of the message processors to be responsible for the topic and to service the request. | 09-15-2011 |
| 20110225173 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR DETERMINING SIMILARITY SCORE - A method includes generating, electronically, one or more matching patterns for one or more pairs of attribute values. Each pair includes two attribute values. The two attribute values include a first attribute value from a first record and a second attribute value from a second record. The first attribute value and the second attribute value satisfy a first criterion. Further, the method includes identifying, electronically, matching segment between the first attribute value and the second attribute value of a first pair. The method also includes repeating identifying for each pair. Moreover, the method includes computing a similarity score for the first pair using one of the first pair and the matching segment based on the one or more matching patterns and matching segments of the one or more pairs satisfying a second criterion. The method also includes repeating computing for each pair. | 09-15-2011 |
| 20110225145 | METHODS, SYSTEMS, AND/OR APPARATUSES FOR USE IN SEARCHING FOR INFORMATION USING COMPUTER PLATFORMS - Embodiments of methods, systems or apparatuses relating to data processing and more particularly to methods, systems, and/or apparatuses for use in searching for information are disclosed. | 09-15-2011 |
| 20110225140 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR DETERMINING AUTHORITY RANKING FOR CONTEMPORANEOUS CONTENT - The present invention provides a method and system for weighting contemporaneous content including, in response to a user content request, determining a plurality of contemporaneous content items relating to the user content request, the contemporaneous content items including ultra-fresh content items having been only recently generated. In the method and system, for each of the contemporaneous content items, identifying one or more authors of the content items and determining an expertise level for the one or more authors and determining an expert weighting for each of the content items based on the expertise level for the corresponding one or more authors. The method and system further includes ranking the contemporaneous content items in response to the user content request based on the expert weighting and presenting at least a portion of the contemporaneous content items in response to the user content request. | 09-15-2011 |
| 20110225134 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR ENHANCED FIND-IN-PAGE FUNCTIONS IN A WEB BROWSER - A system and method for an enhanced find-in-page query function in a web browser. A find-in-page query is received for at least one webpage displayed on a computing device, wherein the query comprises a search string. Metadata relating to data objects displayed on the webpage is collected from the HTML code comprising the webpage, from the source of the of the plurality of objects, and from at least one search engine. At least one of the plurality of data objects matching the find-in-page query is identified wherein the search string is matched to metadata, wherein metadata relating to the matching data objects comprises the search string. The display of the matching data objects on the webpage is then altered, using the computing device, whereby the user is able to identify the data objects which match the find-in-page query. | 09-15-2011 |
| 20110225121 | SYSTEM FOR MAINTAINING A DISTRIBUTED DATABASE USING CONSTRAINTS - A method and system for maintaining a database with a plurality of replicas that are geographically distributed. A plurality of tables are stored in the database, each table includes a plurality of records. The location where each record is stored being controlled based on a constraint property included in the record. | 09-15-2011 |
| 20110225120 | SYSTEM FOR MAINTAINING A DISTRIBUTED DATABASE USING LEASES - A system and method for maintaining a database with a plurality of replicas that are geographically distributed. A plurality of tables are stored in a first replica, each table including a plurality of records. The system identifying if the record is a stub and requesting a lease from a second replica designated as master for the record if the record is a stub. The system receiving a copy of the record from the second replica and storing data fields of the record in the first replica after receiving the lease. | 09-15-2011 |
| 20110225049 | EMOTICLIPS - Techniques are provided which include generating, providing or obtaining emoticlips. An emoticlip, which may be customizable or personalizable, can include a rich media segment designed at least to facilitate communication of an emotional state or an emotional experience. Particular emoticlips can be associated with emotional states of a set of emotional states. User association with, use of, or interaction with an emoticlip, as well as an emotional state associated with the emoticlip, can be used in classifying the user in an emotional state, or in targeting the user with an online advertisement or content, or both. | 09-15-2011 |
| 20110225048 | GENERATING A USER PROFILE BASED ON SELF DISCLOSED PUBLIC STATUS INFORMATION - A method, device and/or medium for generating a user profile based on an online user's self disclosed public status information. An indication may be received of updates self-published by the user at one or more sites. At least one context regarding the user may then be determined based on the published updates, and the context(s) may be employed to infer at least one attribute of the user. A profile of the user may then be determined based at least on the inferred attribute(s). The determined profile may be employed to enable an advertisement to be provided to the user. In this way, a heuristic may be provided for predicting advertising content that may be of interest to the user based on self-published information about the user. Thus, relevant advertisements may be more accurately targeted to those users who may be most interested in their content. | 09-15-2011 |
| 20110225043 | EMOTIONAL TARGETING - Methods and systems are provided for emotional targeting of online users, including targeting of advertisements and content. Techniques are provided in which, based at least in part on online user behavior, a user is classified into one of a set of emotional states. Advertisements or content are targeted to the user based on at least in part on an emotional state of the user, or a forecasted, predicted, or likely emotional state of the user at a particular time or during a particular period of time. | 09-15-2011 |
| 20110225042 | MAXIMUM LIKELIHOOD ESTIMATION UNDER A COVARIANCE CONSTRAINT FOR PREDICTIVE MODELING - Embodiments employ a maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) under a covariance matrix floor constraint to predict missing data from observed data. An MLE solution is obtained for approximately Gaussian distributions under the constraint that the covariance matrix is greater than or equal to a positive-definite matrix. In one embodiment, an offline model estimation is performed using an expectation-maximization (EM) approach to estimate various statistical parameters based on observed data. Then, in an online approach, parameters for various missing CTR data may be predicted based on the offline estimated statistical parameters. A non-limiting, non-exhaustive example using the constrained MLE approach is described for predicting missing click-through rate data useable in selecting an advertisement to display with a search query result. | 09-15-2011 |
| 20110225038 | System and Method for Efficiently Evaluating Complex Boolean Expressions - An improved system and method for efficiently evaluating complex Boolean expressions is provided. Leaf nodes of Boolean expression trees for objects represented by Boolean expressions of attribute-value pairs may be assigned a positional identifier that indicates the position of a node in the Boolean expression tree. The positional identifiers of each object may be indexed by attribute-value pairs of the leaf nodes of the Boolean expression trees in an inverted index. Given an input set of attribute-value pairs, a list of positional identifiers for leaf nodes of virtual Boolean expression trees may be found in the index matching the attribute-value pairs of the input set. The list of positional identifiers of leaf nodes may be sorted in order by positional identifier for each contract. An expression evaluator may then verify whether a virtual Boolean expression tree for each contract is satisfied by the list of positional identifiers. | 09-15-2011 |
| 20110225021 | EMOTIONAL MAPPING - Methods and systems are provided for emotional mapping, such as of online users, based at least in part on online activities of users. Techniques are provided in which information including a set of emotional states is generated or obtained, such as a hierarchical network of emotional states representing a spectrum of human emotions. Information regarding user online activities and content choices of a user is obtained. Based at least in part on this information, the user is classified into an emotional state of the set of emotional states, and advertisements or content may be targeted to the user accordingly. | 09-15-2011 |
| 20110223571 | EMOTIONAL WEB - Methods and systems are provided for association of various online elements with emotional states. A set of emotional states may be generated or obtained, and particular online elements may be assigned to particular emotional states of the set, such as with emotional states that are reflected or represented by or in the online elements. Online elements can be of various types, such as, for example, Web sites, blogs, articles, online events, online activities, online messaging, etc. User association or interaction with online emotional state-associated online elements can be used in classifying users into particular emotional states. | 09-15-2011 |
| 20110219036 | SOCIAL NETWORK SITE INCLUDING CONTACT-BASED RECOMMENDATION FUNCTIONALITY - Particular embodiments of the present invention are related to a social network site with enhanced user interaction functionality. In particular implementations, a method includes accessing a list of contacts that are connected to an owner of a personal page of a social network; identifying one or more contact pairs from the list, wherein the contacts in each contact pair are not connected to each other; computing an affinity score for each identified contact pair; randomly selecting one or more of the contact pairs based on corresponding affinity scores; providing a friend connector user interface module to the owner of the personal page, wherein the friend connector user interface prompts the owner to invite the contacts of the selected contact pair to establish a connection association relative to the social network; and conditionally transmitting an invitation to the contacts of the contact pair based on one or more actions of the owner relative to the friend connector interface. | 09-08-2011 |
| 20110218991 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR AUTOMATIC DETECTION OF NEEDY QUERIES - The present invention relates to methods, systems, and computer readable media comprising instructions for identifying needy queries for which additional responsive content is needed. The method of the present invention comprises receiving a query comprising one or more terms and retrieving one or more content items identified as responsive to the query, the one or more content items ranked according to one or more ranking techniques. A score is generated for the one or more ranked content items identified as responsive to the query. A determination is thereafter made as to whether the query is needy based upon a comparison of the one or more scores associated with the one or more content items identified as responsive to the query and a needy query score threshold. | 09-08-2011 |
| 20110218971 | System, Method And Computer Program Product For Managing Caches - Methods, systems and computer program products are provided for managing at least one cache for a database. In one method, an operation record is inserted in an operations log for each write operation to the database. The operation record includes a Log Sequence Number (LSN). At least one cache is updated using operation records in the operations log. To update a cache, unapplied operations in the operations log for the cache are identified using an applied LSN associated with the cache. The applied LSN denotes an LSN of a last operation applied to the cache. The unapplied operations are then applied to the cache and the applied LSN is updated with an LSN corresponding to the last unapplied operation of the unapplied operations that were applied to the cache during updating the cache. | 09-08-2011 |
| 20110218037 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR IMPROVING PERSONALIZED SEARCH RESULTS THROUGH GAME INTERACTION DATA - The present invention is directed towards systems and methods for using gaming operations to determine personalized content. The system and method includes presenting an interactive game to a user, wherein the user is associated with a user profile and while the user interacts with the interactive game, monitoring user interactions relating to the interactive game. The system and method further includes determining user profile information based on the user interactions, the user interactions including user activities associated with the interactive game and updating the associated user profile with the determined user profile information. Therefore, in response to a user content request, the system and method adjusts content presented to the user, wherein the filtering is based on the user profile information including user profile information from the user interaction with the interactive game. | 09-08-2011 |
| 20110213894 | MECHANISM FOR SUPPORTING USER CONTENT FEEDS - In one embodiment, for each one of one or more content producers, access a content-producing rate at which the content producer produces one or more items of content; and for each one of one or more content consumers, access a content-consuming rate at which the content consumer consumes one or more items of content. For each one of a plurality of consumer-producer pairs, wherein the consumer-producer pair comprises one of the content consumers and one of the content producers, and the content consumer follows the content producer, select between a push strategy and a pull strategy for delivering one or more items of content from the content producer to the content consumer based on the content-consuming rate of the content consumer and the content-producing rate of the content producer. | 09-01-2011 |
| 20110213805 | SEARCH SYSTEMS AND METHODS WITH INTEGRATION OF USER ANNOTATIONS - Computer systems and methods allow users to annotate content items found in a corpus such as the World Wide Web. Annotations, which can include any descriptive and/or evaluative metadata related to a document, are collected from a user and stored in association with that user. Users are able to annotate and view their annotations for any document they encounter while interacting with the corpus, including hits returned in a search of the corpus. Users are also able to search their annotations or to limit searches to documents they have annotated. Metadata from annotations can also be aggregated across users and aggregated metadata applied in generating search results. | 09-01-2011 |
| 20110211814 | SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR INDEXING AND SEARCHING DIGITAL VIDEO CONTENT - The present invention relates to systems and methods for indexing digital video content maintained on a storage media item. The method of the present invention comprises extracting caption and subtitle content from one or more video object (“VOB”) files maintained on the storage media item. The extracted caption and subtitle content are segmented into one or more segments and video and audio content corresponding to the one or more segments are extracted. Descriptions of the video and audio content corresponding to the segmented caption and subtitle content are generated. The captions, subtitles, descriptions, and corresponding video and audio content associated with the one or more segments of the one or more VOB files are indexed. | 09-01-2011 |
| 20110209007 | COMPOSITION MODEL FOR CLOUD-HOSTED SERVING APPLICATIONS - Methods and apparatus for executing an application are disclosed. In accordance with one embodiment, a request is received. One or more of a plurality of module types are instantiated such that a plurality of module objects are generated. A query plan linking the plurality of module objects is executed such that a response to the request is generated. The response is then returned. | 08-25-2011 |
| 20110208749 | Identifying Top Content Contributors In Online Social Networks - One particular embodiment accesses a plurality of user profiles corresponding to a plurality of users and a plurality of content objects; ranks the users in descending order based on a number of content objects each of the users has contributed to the social network; represents in log space ranks of the users versus in log space numbers of content objects contributed by the users; determines a threshold rank based on an increasing rate of the ranks of the users, a decreasing rate of the numbers of content objects, and a predetermined value in the log space; and identifies from among the users, those users ranked at and above the threshold rank as high-volume content contributors for the social network. The users belong to a social network; and each of the users has contributed at least one of the content objects to the social network. | 08-25-2011 |
| 20110208708 | Systems and Methods for Finding Keyword Relationships Using Wisdoms from Multiple Sources - Systems and methods for finding related terms based on three different sources are disclosed. Generally, a first plurality of distances is determined based on one or more received terms and a first plurality of terms derived from an algorithmic search list. A second plurality of distances is determined based on the one or more received terms and a second plurality of terms derived from a sponsored search list. A third plurality of distances is determined based on the one or more received terms and a third plurality of terms derived from search logs. The first, second, and third pluralities of distances are combined to derive a fourth plurality of distances. Finally, a plurality of related terms related to the one or more received terms is generated based on the fourth plurality of distances. | 08-25-2011 |
| 20110208707 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR ENHANCED FIND-IN-PAGE FUNCTIONS IN A WEB BROWSER - A system and method for an enhanced find-in-page query function in a web browser. A find-in-page query is received for at least one webpage displayed on a computing device, wherein the query comprises a search string. Metadata relating to data objects displayed on the webpage is collected from the HTML code comprising the webpage, from the source of the of the plurality of objects, and from at least one search engine. At least one of the plurality of data objects matching the find-in-page query is identified wherein the search string is matched to metadata, wherein metadata relating to the matching data objects comprises the search string. The display of the matching data objects on the webpage is then altered, using the computing device, whereby the user is able to identify the data objects which match the find-in-page query. | 08-25-2011 |
| 20110208597 | NETWORKED BASED MODULARIZED ADVERTISEMENTS - A system for serving localized advertisements generates browser code operable by a browser to cause the browser to display a web page of information that includes an advertisement. The displayed advertisement includes a graphical indicator that indicates that the advertisement is associated with an interface for conveying additional information associated with the advertisement. The advertisement and the additional information are submitted during an advertisement submission time. The browser code is also operable by the browser to cause the browser to detect a selection of the graphical indicator and display the interface along with the information displayed on the web page in response to the selection of the graphical indicator. | 08-25-2011 |
| 20110208579 | SYSTEM FOR GENERATING ADVERTISEMENTS - A system for generating advertisements includes a communication interface to obtain a user entry for creating an advertisement. A data memory is coupled with the communication interface. The data memory stores the user entry. A processor is coupled with the data memory. In accordance with the user entry, the processor generates an advertisement, where the advertisement is made available for immediate display to a public. | 08-25-2011 |
| 20110208575 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR GENERATING INTERACTIVE ADVERTISEMENTS - A system and method for generating a plurality of interactive advertisements are provided. The system includes an advertisement generator operable to generate online advertisements displaying coupon offers. An ad server is provided for rendering the advertisements to users. Each advertisement includes an interactive button operable to display a printable copy of the advertised coupon to the user. The coupon includes a unique identifier visibly embedded therein, wherein the unique identifier enables the user to redeem the coupon. | 08-25-2011 |
| 20110202881 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR REWARDING A USER FOR SHARING ACTIVITY INFORMATION WITH A THIRD PARTY - The present invention provides a method and system for receiving a user privacy preference that indicates an amount of activity information that the user is willing to share in response to a reward, a value of the reward related to a degree of the user privacy preference. The method and system includes setting a privacy setting for the user based on the received user privacy preference. The method and system further includes tracking web browsing activity of the user during one or more web-browsing sessions based on the privacy setting to generate user activity information. The method and system further includes sending the user activity information and providing a reward to the user based on the user activity information sent. | 08-18-2011 |
| 20110202821 | BIDDED MARKETPLACE FOR APPLICATIONS - Methods and systems for presenting application modules on a graphical display page are provided. In accordance with one embodiment, content to be displayed on a graphical display page is determined. Then, content features which describe the content that is to be displayed on the graphical display page, and user features which describe characteristics of users are determined. For each application in the plurality of application modules, the probability that specific users will select the application module when displayed on the graphical display page with the determined content is determined based on the content features and the user features. For each application module in the plurality of application modules, an overall score is determined based on the determined probability that the user will select the application module and a commercial value to be paid by a publisher of the application module when it is selected. The recommended application modules are determined to be those application modules in the plurality of application modules which have the highest overall score and which satisfy a set of constraints. Representations of the recommended application modules are displayed on the graphical display page. | 08-18-2011 |
| 20110202537 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR USING TOPIC MESSAGES TO UNDERSTAND MEDIA RELATING TO AN EVENT - A system and method for using topic messages to understand media relating to an event. An event (such as a live event or broadcast event), is selected where at least a portion of the content of the event is stored as at least one media object, such as, for example a video or audio recording in digital format. A plurality of topic messages relating to the broadcast event is retrieved over a network and are analyzed to identify a plurality of content segments within the event. The topic messages are further analyzed to identify at least one key actor related to the event. Segment and key actor data relating to the event is stored to a computer readable medium in association with the media objects, whereby the segment data identifies the plurality of content segments within the media objects and the key actor data identifies key actors in the event. | 08-18-2011 |
| 20110202520 | NAVIGATION ASSISTANCE FOR SEARCH ENGINES - Search assistance is provided to users that submit search queries to search engines. In one implementation, a partial search query input by a user to a search engine is received. The partial search query is predicted to be a navigational query. A web address is selected based on the predicted navigational query. A search assistance list that includes the selected web address is generated. The search assistance list is displayed to the user in response to the received partial search query. In another implementation, a plurality of suggested search queries is determined for the received partial search query. A suggested search query of the plurality of suggested search queries having a highest relevance to the user is determined. A search assistance list is generated and displayed to the user. The suggested search query having the highest relevance to the user is prominently displayed in the search assistance list. | 08-18-2011 |
| 20110202514 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PRESENTING GEOLOCATED RELEVANCE-BASED CONTENT - The present invention provides for a computerized method and system for presenting geolocated relevance-based content including determining a geographic location of a mobile processing device and identifying a plurality of search queries associated with the geographic location of the mobile processing device. The computerized method and system further includes generating at least one search result responsive to at least one of the plurality of queries associated with the geographic location of the mobile processing device. Therefore, in the method and system, the mobile processing device is presented with one or more search results based on the geographic location of the mobile processing device. | 08-18-2011 |
| 20110202513 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR DETERMINING AN AUTHORITY RANK FOR REAL TIME SEARCHING - The present invention is directed towards a method and system for processing a real time increase in search requests for a common event. The method and system includes detecting an activity spike in user search request activity based on monitoring of user search requests over a defined period of time and determining source locations associated with the activity spike based on user search result activities. The method and system further includes associating the source locations with the user search request and thereupon applying a machine-learning model to determine a plurality of common features operative to cause the activity spike, including determining associations between the source locations and the activity spike. | 08-18-2011 |
| 20110202267 | Constructing Travel Itineraries from Tagged Geo-Temporal Photographs - One embodiment accesses two or more photos taken by one or more travelers at one or more destinations and one or more points-of-interest located within the destinations; constructs one or more photo streams for each unique traveler-destination combination, wherein each one of the photo streams comprises two or more of the photos taken by the corresponding traveler at the corresponding destination; maps each one of the photos to one of the points-of-interest; constructs one or more timed paths for each unique traveler-destination combination based on the photo streams and the mapping between the photos and the points-of-interest, wherein each one of the timed paths comprises one or more of the points-of-interest located within the corresponding destination and visited by the corresponding travel; and constructs an itinerary based on a start point-of-interest, an end point-of-interest, a time constraint, and the timed paths. | 08-18-2011 |
| 20110197268 | CAPTCHAS THAT INCLUDE OVERLAPPED CHARACTERS, PROJECTIONS ON VIRTUAL 3D SURFACES, AND/OR VIRTUAL 3D OBJECTS - Techniques are described herein for generating CAPTCHAs that include overlapped characters, projections on virtual three-dimensional (3D) surfaces, and/or virtual 3D objects. A CAPTCHA is a type of challenge-response test that a content provider may present to users for authorizing the users to access content that the content provider hosts. For example, when a user attempts to access content, a CAPTCHA may be generated in accordance with one or more of the techniques described herein and provided to the user. The user may be asked to identify characters that overlap in the CAPTCHA, characters that are projected on a virtual 3D surface, and/or a designated virtual 3D object, so that the user may be authorized to access the content. The user may enter the characters and/or select the designated virtual 3D object that is identified in the CAPTCHA using an input device, such as a keyboard, touch screen, pointing device, etc. | 08-11-2011 |
| 20110197133 | METHODS AND APPARATUSES FOR IDENTIFYING AND MONITORING INFORMATION IN ELECTRONIC DOCUMENTS OVER A NETWORK - Exemplary methods and apparatuses are provided which may be implemented using one or more computing devices to allow for certain information within an electronic document to be easily identified and monitored in an efficient manner. | 08-11-2011 |
| 20110196866 | SMALL TABLE: MULTITENANCY FOR LOTS OF SMALL TABLES ON A CLOUD DATABASE - Methods and apparatus are described for partitioning native tables in a database cluster into logical tables. Each logical table is mapped into a unique portion of the native table by an intermediary server. Clients access a logical table as an ordinary, full-fledged database table through the intermediary server, which translates queries on the logical table into queries on the corresponding portion of the native table. The mapping may use the application name, logical table name, and a version number to create a native table key for each key in the logical table. A data structure storing these mappings may be stored at the intermediary server or in a native table in the database. This approach affords clients quick and flexible access to the database with better data integrity and security than native tables allow. | 08-11-2011 |
| 20110196860 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR RATING USER GENERATED CONTENT IN SEARCH RESULTS - Generally, a method and apparatus provides for rating user generated content (UGC) with respect to search engine results. The method and apparatus includes recognizing a UGC data field collected from a web document located at a web location. The method and apparatus calculates: a document goodness factor for the web document; an author rank for an author of the UGC data field; and a location rank for web location. The method and apparatus thereby generates a rating factor for the UGC field based on the document goodness factor, the author rank and the location rank. The method and apparatus also outputs a search result that includes the UGC data field positioned in the search results based on the rating factor. | 08-11-2011 |
| 20110196741 | ONLINE AND OFFLINE INTEGRATED PROFILE IN ADVERTISEMENT TARGETING - The present invention provides techniques for generation and use of an online and offline integrated profile for a person, for use in advertisement targeting. The integrated profile may be generated based at least in part on obtained historical offline and online consumer-related behavior information relating to the person. Online or offline advertisements are then targeted to the person based at least in part on the profile. Use and association of online and offline unique identifiers for the person can allow sharing of targeting information between online and offline entities while maintaining a degree of privacy with regard to the person. | 08-11-2011 |
| 20110196736 | KEYWORD BID OPTIMIZATION UNDER COST PER CLICK CONSTRAINTS - The present invention provides methods and systems for determining optimized bidding on keywords in a sponsored search advertising keyword auction. Methods and systems are provided in which information is obtained including forecasting information and cost per click constraint information. The forecasting information includes forecasted cost versus clicks information and forecasted cost-per-click versus clicks information. Based at least in part on the forecasting information, an optimized set of keyword bids is determined, consistent with the one or more cost-per-click constraints, including iteratively determining an optimized keyword bid with a highest forecasted ratio of clicks to cost. | 08-11-2011 |
| 20110196722 | MARKETPLACE FOR CAPTCHA DEVELOPERS - Techniques are described herein for providing a marketplace for CAPTCHA developers. A CAPTCHA is a type of challenge-response test that a content provider may present to users for authorizing the users to access content that is hosted by the content provider. CAPTCHA developers may propose CAPTCHAs for testing in the marketplace. A server is configured to provide instances of proposed CAPTCHAs to users along with instances of reference CAPTCHAs that have known difficulties to determine the relative difficulties of the proposed CAPTCHAs for the users. The server may determine a reward to be provided to a developer of a proposed CAPTCHA based on a difficulty that the predetermined automated systems encounter when they attempt to solve the proposed CAPTCHA and an ease with which the users solve the proposed CAPTCHA. The server may determine rewards to be provided to developers of predetermined automated systems that solve the proposed CAPTCHAs. | 08-11-2011 |
| 20110196715 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR FINANCIAL ANALYSIS AND BRAND INDEX IN BRAND VALUATION - A brand name is used to generate a domain name portfolio comprising at least one brand domain name comprising the brand name and a top-level domain name, and at least one qualified brand domain name comprising the brand name, at least one qualifying term, and a top level domain name. Network traffic is tracked for each of the domain names in the domain name portfolio over an analysis period. A role of brand index is determined, wherein the role of brand index is determined using the ratio of network traffic for the brand domain name to a total of the network traffic for all domain names in the domain name portfolio. Additionally, revenue generated by websites linked to each of the domain names in the domain name portfolio is tracked over the analysis period. Brand earnings are then calculated the revenue generated by websites. | 08-11-2011 |
| 20110193795 | HAPTIC SEARCH FEATURE FOR TOUCH SCREENS - A search method includes steps of: receiving information required to render a first map of a geographical area on a touch screen display; delivering the map for presentation on a first visual area rendered on the touch screen display; receiving from a user of the touch screen display a selection of a target search area within the geographical area, wherein the user desires to restrict a search for items of interest to said target search area, wherein said selection of the target search area is produced by the user drawing a shape encompassing at least a portion of the target search area over the first map presented on the touch screen display. | 08-11-2011 |
| 20110191853 | SECURITY TECHNIQUES FOR USE IN MALICIOUS ADVERTISEMENT MANAGEMENT - The present invention provides methods and systems for use in malicious advertisement management. Methods and systems are provided in which, after an advertisement is determined not to present a security threat, whether initially or after removal any such threat, then a first modification is performed to code associated with the advertisement which may introduce a security coding. Further modification, which may breach the security coding, may indicate that the advertisement is more likely to present a security threat than if the further modification had not occurred. | 08-04-2011 |
| 20110191714 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR BACKEND ADVERTISMENT CONVERSION - A system for backend conversion attribution of an advertisement served to a user device. The advertisement server provides an advertisement to the user device. The advertisement server receives user information from the user device. The advertisement server stores attributable event information and the user information into an attributable event record in a data store. Based on a user event, a conversion server receives conversion information and the user information from the user device. The conversion server stores the conversion information and the user information into a conversion record in the data store. An attribution server matches the attributable event record with the conversion record. | 08-04-2011 |
| 20110191316 | SMART WIDGETS - According to some example embodiments, a method includes based, at least in part, on one or more signals representative of user-defined content, assessing the user-defined content and storing one or more signals representative of a result of the assessment of the user-defined content. The method further includes selecting one or more widgets for presentation in combination with other content associated with the user-defined content, the selecting being based at least in part on the assessment of the user-defined content. | 08-04-2011 |
| 20110191315 | METHOD FOR REDUCING NORTH AD IMPACT IN SEARCH ADVERTISING - A method for reducing ad impact on users in a search results page includes receiving a request to deliver ads in response to a search query for display on a search results page; receiving relevance scores for a plurality of ranked web results that are to be served to the search results page; ranking a plurality of ads identified as relevant to the search query according to a position-normalized, click-through-rate metric and bid values, wherein a predetermined number of the top-ranked ads are placeable in a plurality of North ad slots; incrementally and additively placing the placeable ads sequentially according to rank (k) in their respective North ad slots until a utility score generated by a utility function for a current iteration of ads fails to exceed a threshold value; and delivering to the search results page the ads placed in the North ad slots. | 08-04-2011 |
| 20110191313 | Ranking for Informational and Unpopular Search Queries by Cumulating Click Relevance - One embodiment accesses a search query and one or more sets of clicked network resources corresponding to the search query; determines a classifier model that represents the sets of clicked network resources that each satisfy the information need of one of the users and one or more subsets of the sets of clicked network resources that each do not satisfy the information need of one of the users; computes a probability value for each clicked network resource from each of the sets of clicked network resources using the classier model, wherein the probability value represents a likelihood that, after clicking on the corresponding network resource, the particular one of the users conducting the corresponding particular one of the search sessions ends the search session; and forms a set of features comprising the probability values computed for network resources from the search sessions. | 08-04-2011 |
| 20110191191 | PLACEHOLDER BIDS IN ONLINE ADVERTISING - Some embodiments of the invention provide techniques for placing “placeholder” bids in an auction associated with online advertising marketplace. Placeholder bids can include bids that are not actually entered or placed in the auction or marketplace. Rather, placeholder bids can include hypothetical bids. Impacts of placeholder bids, should the placeholder bids have been entered or placed as actual bids, can be assessed. An assessment can include assessing an impact on auction and marketplace parameters, an impact on bid or campaign performance, and an impact on downstream parameters such as user behavior, such as associated conversions or purchasing. | 08-04-2011 |
| 20110191185 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR TARGETING USERS FOR CONTENT DELIVERY - Methods, systems and computer program products are provided for targeting users for content provision. In one method, the method receives at a server, one or more content objects and one or more ZIP+4 codes as targeting parameters for the one or more content objects. The method retrieves personal information of a plurality of users. The method then identifies one or more of the plurality of users located in geographic areas corresponding to the one or more ZIP+4 codes based, at least in part, on the personal information. Subsequently, the method targets a content object of the one or more content objects to the one or more of the plurality of users based on the identified geographic areas of the users and the ZIP+4 codes associated with corresponding ones of the one or more content objects. | 08-04-2011 |
| 20110191171 | SEARCH ENGINE OUTPUT-ASSOCIATED BIDDING IN ONLINE ADVERTISING - Methods and systems are provided for search engine output-associated bidding in online advertising. Techniques are provided in which an advertiser may specify, as part of a bid, one or more requirements relating to search engine output. The one or more requirements may need to be met for an advertisement to be served in connection with the bid. | 08-04-2011 |
| 20110191170 | SIMILARITY FUNCTION IN ONLINE ADVERTISING BID OPTIMIZATION - The present invention provides methods and systems for use in bid optimization in connection with advertisement serving impression opportunities available in an auction-based online advertising exchange. Methods are presented in which, based in part on historical advertisement performance information, a Kalman filter-based model is used in forecasting performance of a set of possible advertisement impressions served over a future period of time. Forecasted performance information is used in determining an optimized bid in connection with an available opportunity. A similarity function, including non-linearly determined feature weighting, can be used in determining most similar forecasted impressions to the available opportunity. | 08-04-2011 |
| 20110191169 | KALMAN FILTER MODELING IN ONLINE ADVERTISING BID OPTIMIZATION - The present invention provides methods and systems for use in bid optimization in connection with advertisement serving impression opportunities available in an auction-based online advertising exchange. Methods are presented in which, based in part on historical advertisement performance information, a Kalman filter-based model is used in forecasting performance of a set of possible advertisement impressions served over a future period of time. Forecasted performance information is used in determining an optimized bid in connection with an available opportunity. | 08-04-2011 |
| 20110191168 | MULTIPLE CASCADING AUCTIONS IN SEARCH ADVERTISING - A method for executing multiple, cascading ad auctions, including receiving a request to deliver ads in response to a search query for display on a search results page having a plurality of ad sections; executing at least first and second sequential auctions for the plurality of ad sections by: ranking the ads in the first auction and identifying which of the ads placeable in the North section to deliver according to a first utility function that considers a relevance of the search results page with the ads placed; ranking a remainder of the ads not identified for delivery to the North section in the second auction and identifying which of the remainder of the ranked ads to deliver to a second section based on a second utility function; and delivering the ads identified by the first utility function for display in the North section and the ads identified by the second utility function for display in the second section. | 08-04-2011 |
| 20110191167 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR EXPLORING NEW SPONSORED SEARCH LISTINGS OF UNCERTAIN QUALITY - According to some example embodiments, a method includes calculating learning values associated with a plurality of listings, at least one of said learning values associated with one of said listings representing a value based, at least in part, on a probability distribution of selections of said listing. The method further includes applying said learning values to ranking scores associated with said listings to provide an updated ranking, and electronically auctioning advertising inventory to purchasers associated with said listings based, at least in part, on said updated ranking. | 08-04-2011 |
| 20110188770 | AUTOMATIC SUPER-RESOLUTION TRANSFORMATION FOR IMAGES - Disclosed are methods and apparatus for improving images. At an image management system for storing a plurality of images from a plurality of users via a computer network, a new image is received and stored. So as to generate a new improved image, each patch of the new image is changed into an improved image patch based on selecting one or more selected mappings for converting one or more low-quality patches into one or more high-quality patches. The one or more selected mappings are determined from the images stored by the image management system. The new improved image is provided to the user. | 08-04-2011 |
| 20110185024 | EMBEDDABLE METADATA IN ELECTRONIC MAIL MESSAGES - Disclosed are apparatus and methods for annotating an electronic mail message and processing the annotated electronic mail message. More particularly, an electronic mail message may be generated and annotated such that the electronic mail message includes metadata identifying data provided in the electronic mail message. The electronic mail message may then be transmitted. When the annotated electronic mail message is received, at least a portion of the metadata may be obtained from the electronic mail message. At least a portion of the data in the electronic mail message may be identified using at least a portion of the metadata. At least a portion of the identified data in the electronic mail message may then be processed. | 07-28-2011 |
| 20110185020 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR SOCIAL NETWORKING - Methods, systems and computer program products are provided for social networking. In one method, a network builder receives a digital object from the user. The digital object contains information associated with the user. The network builder extracts the information associated with the user from the digital object. The network builder further access the strength of relationships between the user and a plurality of other users, each associated with one or more social networks. The relationships strength is extracted based at least in part on the extracted information. The network builder then adds the user to one or more social networks based on the information associated with the user and the strength of the relationships between the user and the plurality of other users. | 07-28-2011 |
| 20110184981 | Personalize Search Results for Search Queries with General Implicit Local Intent - One particular embodiment accesses a first set of search queries comprising one or more first search queries; extracts one or more features based on the first set of search queries, trains a search-query classifier using the features; accesses a second search query provided by a user; determines whether the second search query has implicit and general local intent using the search-query classifier; if the second search query has implicit and general local intent, then determines a location associated with the user; and identifies a search result in response to the second search query based at least in part on the location associated with the user; and presents the search result to the user. | 07-28-2011 |
| 20110184958 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR FINDING RELATIVE SCORE AND ENHANCING ONE OR MORE SCORES ASSOCIATED WITH DATA OBJECTS - Methods, systems and computer program products are provided for computing relative score and enhancing one or more scores associated with data objects. In one method, the method receives, at a computing system, one or more data objects from a user. The method further extracts one or more internal and external parameters based on the one or more data objects. Subsequently, the method compares data objects of the user with corresponding data objects of one or more competing users, based at least in part on the one or more extracted parameters and the requirement included in the data object of the user. Further, in some embodiments, the data objects and requirements of the user are also compared with the corresponding data objects and requirements of one or more complementary users, based at least in part on the one or more extracted parameters. The method further computes one or more scores associated with the data objects based at least in part on the at least one of the comparison of the one or more data objects of the user with the corresponding data objects of one or more competing users and/or the one or more extracted parameters. The method may also provide feedback to the user, where the feedback is directed to enhance the one or more computed scores associated with the data objects. | 07-28-2011 |
| 20110184940 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR DETECTING CHANGES IN THE RELEVANCE OF PAST SEARCH RESULTS - A query is received for a web search from a user, via a network. A search is performed for a first plurality of objects which match the query, whereby a first search result is produced. The first search result is ranked producing a first ranked search result. The occurrence of a trigger event is detected. A search is performed for a second plurality of objects accessible over the network which match the query, whereby a second search result is produced. The second search result is ranked producing a second ranked search result. The first ranked search result is compared with the second ranked search result wherein a delta score is determined for each reference in the second ranked search result. At least one of the references in the second ranked result set having a positive delta score is selected using and transmitted, over the network, to the user. | 07-28-2011 |
| 20110184817 | Sensitivity Categorization of Web Pages - Methods, systems, and computer programs for categorizing the sensitivity of web pages are presented. In one method, a space of sensitive pages is identified based on the sensitivity categorization of a first plurality of web pages and a second plurality of web pages. The first plurality of web pages is obtained by performing search queries using known sensitive words, and the second plurality of web pages includes randomly selected web pages. Additionally, the method identifies a third plurality of web pages that includes web pages on or near the boundary between the space of sensitive pages and the space of non-sensitive pages. The space of sensitive pages is then redefined based on the sensitivity categorization of the first, second, and third pluralities of web pages. Once the space of sensitive pages is defined, the method is used to determine that a given web page is sensitive when the given web page is in the space of sensitive pages. Web pages are included in a marketing operation when the web pages are not sensitive. | 07-28-2011 |
| 20110184808 | TARGETED CONTENT IN PRINT MEDIA - A device for retrieving targeted content associated with a print medium that includes a transceiver that receives identification data indicative of a user of the print medium where the transceiver transmits the identification data to a content server and an output module that provides targeted content received from the content server to a user of the device, where the target content is based on the identification data indicative of the user. | 07-28-2011 |
| 20110179359 | SELF-TARGETING LOCAL AD SYSTEM - A system for serving localized advertisements receives data that defines an advertisement from an advertiser and determines a geographic location of the advertiser. The system also receives a request to serve an advertisement from a browser operated by a user and determines a geographic location associated with the user. The system communicates the advertisement to the browser if the geographic location associated with the user matches the geographic location of the advertiser. | 07-21-2011 |
| 20110179019 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR FINDING UNEXPECTED, BUT RELEVANT CONTENT IN AN INFORMATION RETRIEVAL SYSTEM - An improved method for information retrieval in web query and recommendation systems, where items that are likely unfamiliar to the users of the system, but potentially relevant, are recommended. In a recommendation system having ratings by a plurality of users for a plurality of items, items are assigned to one or more data regions based on item attributes or user activity. Source regions are identified for each of the data regions. For a given user, data regions with which both the user and the user's social network are unfamiliar are identified. Within a given data region, the relevance of items to the user within such regions is evaluated using ratings provided by other users who have entered ratings similar to the user in source regions for the data region. Items receiving the highest relevance score are recommended to the user. | 07-21-2011 |
| 20110178871 | IMAGE CONTENT BASED ADVERTISEMENT SYSTEM - A system for serving an advertisement in a networked environment receives data that defines a user selection of an image. The system also selects an advertisement associated with the user selection and communicates the selected advertisement to the user. The data that defines the user selection includes an x selection coordinate, a y selection coordinate, a width, and a height that defines a region of an image. The user selection defines also defines a scene of a video. The system also includes circuitry and logic configured to extract text and to detect objects from an image region defined by the user selection and to select an advertisement associated with any extracted text and/or detected object. | 07-21-2011 |
| 20110173572 | METHOD AND INTERFACE FOR DISPLAYING LOCATIONS ASSOCIATED WITH ANNOTATIONS - Methods, systems and computer program products for displaying geographical locations with the one or more annotations. In a particular embodiment, a language model is used to obtain the probability distribution of the locations over one or more annotations. Further, the system and the method utilizes the probability data obtained from the language model to determine a probability score for each location over the one or more annotations. Subsequently, one or more geographical locations are displayed on a world map, based on the probability score of the geographical locations over the one or more annotations. In one embodiment, geographical locations may be highlighted using a color code on a heat map overlaid on the world map. The color code may represent the ranking of the geographical locations based on the calculated probability score for each identified geographical location. Further, when the user provides one or more additional annotations, the world map may be dynamically updated to display the relevant geographical locations associated with the updated annotations. | 07-14-2011 |
| 20110173522 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR DISPLAYING STATUS OF ELECTRONIC MESSAGES - Methods, systems and computer program products are displaying one or more electronic messages on a user interface. In one method, the method records timestamps of one or more activities of a user in a first user session. Subsequently, the method compares the timestamp of an initialization of a second user session, with the recorded timestamp of the one or more events such as a last logout timestamp and/or a last activity timestamp of the first user session. Further, the method may mark one or more new electronic messages based on the comparison of the timestamps. The method may then display the status of the marked one or more new electronic messages on a user interface based on the markings applied on the one or more new electronics messages received. | 07-14-2011 |
| 20110173217 | LOCALITY-SENSITIVE SEARCH SUGGESTIONS - Techniques are described herein for providing locality-sensitive search suggestions. When users issue search queries, the localities of the users who issue those search queries are associated with the search queries. The users may be grouped into populations, such that each population has a locality that corresponds to the localities of the users in that population. The issuances of the search queries induce a distribution of interest with respect to the issued search queries among the populations. A subset (e.g., one or more) of the issued search queries is suggested to a user who provides a search query (e.g., a preliminary search query or an issued search query), which is deemed to be relevant to the subset of the issued search queries, based on the distribution of interest. | 07-14-2011 |
| 20110173198 | RECOMMENDATIONS BASED ON RELEVANT FRIEND BEHAVIORS - Embodiments are directed towards determining dependent interest affinity values between users to identify users that may mirror interests and thereby have an increased probability of becoming friends. A plurality of tracked online activities are classified into a plurality of interests categories, and used to determine weighted scores for each interest based on a quantity and quality of related activities for the interest. A proportional score for each interest is also determined and used with the weighed scores to generate dependent interest affinities between pairs of users. Interest indices are obtained and rank ordered for a given user and another user based on relevant dependent interest affinities. The resulting interest indices may be filtered based on a variety of criteria. At least some information about the related other users may be displayed to the given user based on the rank ordering, as possible mirrored friends. | 07-14-2011 |
| 20110173197 | METHODS AND APPARATUSES FOR CLUSTERING ELECTRONIC DOCUMENTS BASED ON STRUCTURAL FEATURES AND STATIC CONTENT FEATURES - Exemplary methods and apparatuses are provided which may be implemented using one or more computing devices to allow for super clustering of clusters of electronic documents based, at least in part, on structural and static content features. | 07-14-2011 |
| 20110173190 | METHODS, SYSTEMS AND/OR APPARATUSES FOR IDENTIFYING AND/OR RANKING GRAPHICAL IMAGES - Embodiments of data processing and more specifically of methods, apparatuses and/or systems for use in identifying one or more graphical images and/or ranking or serving graphical images via one or more computing devices are disclosed. | 07-14-2011 |
| 20110173150 | METHODS AND SYSTEM FOR ASSOCIATING LOCATIONS WITH ANNOTATIONS - Methods, systems and computer program products for associating geographical locations with annotations corresponding to content. In one method, a language model is developed. The language model is developed from the location information and the one or more annotations associated with content uploaded by users. The language model is based on the probabilistic distribution of locations over one or more annotations. Further, when a user provides one or more annotations, the system and the method may use the language model to identify one or more locations associated with the one or more annotations provided by the user. The language model predicts one or more geographical locations based on the probabilistic distribution of locations over the annotations. | 07-14-2011 |
| 20110173142 | APPARATUS AND METHODS FOR CLASSIFYING SENDERS OF UNSOLICITED BULK EMAILS - Disclosed are methods and apparatus for facilitating the filtering of unsolicited bulk electronic mail (email) sent from spammers. A plurality of recipient patterns for a plurality of emails from known spammers is logged. A plurality of recipient patterns for a plurality of emails from known non-spammers is also logged. A probabilistic model for predicting whether an unknown sender identity is a spammer is generated or modified based on the logged recipient patterns for the emails from known spammers and known non-spammers. | 07-14-2011 |
| 20110173063 | ADVERTISER VALUE-BASED BID MANAGEMENT IN ONLINE ADVERTISING - The present invention provides methods and systems for use in online advertising campaign management, including bid management in an online advertising auction. Techniques are provided in which a benchmark set of previously served advertisements is identified, and associated performance information is obtained. During an online auction, when an advertisement impression opportunity becomes available, information obtained using a machine learning technique may be utilized in forecasting an advertiser value-based metric associated with the opportunity, using the benchmark set of advertisements and the associated performance. The forecasted advertiser value-based metric can be used in determining bidding and pricing associated with the opportunity. | 07-14-2011 |
| 20110166927 | Dynamic Pricing Model For Online Advertising - The present invention provides methods and systems for use in association with an online advertising auction. Advertiser bid information may be obtained, including a maximum amount per impression and a target click through rate (“CTR”). Following serving, if a delivered CTR is equal to or greater than the target CTR, then pricing per impression is at the maximum amount. If, however, the delivered CTR is less than the target CTR, then pricing per impression is at an amount equal to the maximum amount per impression multiplied by the ratio of the delivered CTR to the target CTR. | 07-07-2011 |
| 20110161311 | SEARCH SUGGESTION CLUSTERING AND PRESENTATION - Disclosed are methods and apparatus for clustering and presenting search suggestions. A segment of text is obtained via a search query section of a user interface, the segment of text being a portion of a search query. A set of suggestions is obtained, each suggestion in the set of suggestions being a suggested search query relating to the segment of text. Two or more groups of suggestions are generated, each of the two or more groups of suggestions including a different subset of the set of suggestions. The two or more groups of suggestions are provided such that each of the two or more groups of suggestions is displayed in a separate partition of a search assistance segment of the user interface. | 06-30-2011 |
| 20110159890 | DETERMINING MOBILE CONTENT FOR A SOCIAL NETWORK BASED ON LOCATION AND TIME - A device, system, and method are directed towards updating location information for a social network. A request for the location information associated with a GPS coordinate is received from a client device associated with a member of the social network. In response to the request, a location name associated with another member of the social network is provided to the client device based on the GPS coordinate. Another location name may be received from the client device. The other location name may be associated with the GPS coordinate and with the member in the social network. Thus, the GPS coordinate and/or member may be associated with a plurality of location names. A location description may also be received and associated with the location name and with the member in the social network. | 06-30-2011 |
| 20110154341 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR A TASK MANAGEMENT LIBRARY TO EXECUTE MAP-REDUCE APPLICATIONS IN A MAP-REDUCE FRAMEWORK - An improved system and method for a task management library to execute map-reduce applications is provided. A map-reduce application may be operably coupled to a task manager library and a map-reduce library on a client device. The task manager library may include a wrapper application programming interface that provides application programming interfaces invoked by a wrapper to parse data input values of the map-reduce application. The task manager library may also include a configurator that extracts data and parameters of the map-reduce application from a configuration file to configure the map-reduce application for execution, a scheduler that determines an execution plan based on input and output data dependencies of mappers and reducers, a launcher that iteratively launches the mappers and reducers according to the execution plan, and a task executor that requests the map-reduce library to invoke execution of mappers on mapper servers and reducers on reducer servers. | 06-23-2011 |
| 20110153833 | RATE PROVISIONER FOR WEB SERVICES - Embodiments of methods, apparatuses, devices and systems associated with web services are disclosed. | 06-23-2011 |
| 20110153603 | TIME SERIES STORAGE FOR LARGE-SCALE MONITORING SYSTEM - Methods and apparatus are described for collecting and storing large volumes of time series data. For example, such data may comprise metrics gathered from one or more large-scale computing clusters over time. Data are gathered from resources which define aspects of interest in the clusters, such as nodes serving web traffic. The time series data are aggregated into sampling intervals, which measure data points from a resource at successive periods of time. These data points are organized in a database according to the resource and sampling interval. Profiles may also be used to further organize data by the types of metrics gathered. Data are kept in the database during a retention period, after which they may be purged. Each sampling interval may define a different retention period, allowing operating records to stretch far back in time while respecting storage constraints. | 06-23-2011 |
| 20110153585 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PROVIDING VECTOR TERMS RELATED TO INSTANT MESSAGING CONVERSATIONS - The method according to one embodiment of the present invention comprises retrieving one or more terms or phrases comprising an instant messaging conversation in which one or more users are participating. One or more term vectors comprising one or more vector terms associated with the one or more retrieved terms or phrases comprising the instant messaging conversation are generated and one or more vector terms are selected from said term vectors. The one or more selected vector terms are displayed to the one or more users participating in the instant messaging conversation. An indication of a user selection of a given displayed vector term is received and one or more content items responsive to the selected vector term are identified. | 06-23-2011 |
| 20110153550 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR DETERMINING AN EVENT OCCURRENCE RATE - Described are a system and method for determined an event occurrence rate. A sample set of content items may be obtained. Each of the content items may be associated with at least one region in a hierarchical data structure. A first impression volume may be determined for the at least one region as a function of a number of impressions registered for the content items associated with the at least one region. A scale factor may be applied to the first impression volume to generate a second impression volume. The scale factor may be selected so that the second impression volume is within a predefined range of a third impression volume. A click-through-rate (CTR) may be estimated as a function of the second impression volume and a number of clicks on the content item. | 06-23-2011 |
| 20110153542 | OPINION AGGREGATION SYSTEM - A system is disclosed for obtaining and aggregating opinions generated by multiple sources with respect to one or more objects. The disclosed system uses observed variables associated with an opinion and a probabilistic model to estimate latent properties of that opinion. With those latent properties, the disclosed system may enable publishers to reliably and comprehensively present object information to interested users. | 06-23-2011 |
| 20110145248 | System and Method to Determine the Validity of an Interaction on a Network - A computer implemented method classifies a user interaction on a network. User interaction data relating to a user interaction on a network is accessed. The user interaction data comprises an aggregate measure data or a unique feature data. The user interaction data is processed to generate a score for the user interaction and determines a classification of the user interaction based on the score. | 06-16-2011 |
| 20110145225 | CUSTOMIZABLE ORDERING OF SEARCH RESULTS AND PREDICTIVE QUERY GENERATION - In a computerized search system, a document corpus is searched according to a query and results of the search are presentable as an ordered search result set comprising one or more search hits, a search hit being a document of the document corpus or reference thereto. Based on content of the search result set, a number of suggested queries and/or parameter options are presented to a querier, thereby allowing the querier to select a suggested query and/or provide values for the parameters and those selections can be used to reorder the hits of the search result set. The particular suggested queries and/or parameters presented depend on the page elements of the search result set's documents and their categorization. The categorization might be done using concept networks. | 06-16-2011 |
| 20110131282 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR AUTOMATICALLY BUILDING UP TOPIC-SPECIFIC MESSAGING IDENTITIES - A method for automating interaction with a messaging system receives a first message from the messaging system, associates the first message with a topic, assigns the first message to an identity associated with the topic, maps content to the first message, creates a second message based on the content, and sends, via the identity, the second message to the messaging system. The first message may be screened for quality and assigned a quality score, and if the quality score does not exceed a predetermined threshold, then the second message will not be sent to the messaging system. | 06-02-2011 |
| 20110131205 | SYSTEM AND METHOD TO IDENTIFY CONTEXT-DEPENDENT TERM IMPORTANCE OF QUERIES FOR PREDICTING RELEVANT SEARCH ADVERTISEMENTS - An improved system and method for identifying context-dependent term importance of queries is provided. A query term importance model is learned using supervised learning of context-dependent term importance for queries and is then applied for advertisement prediction using term importance weights of query terms as query features. For instance, a query term importance model for query rewriting may predict rewritten queries that match a query with term importance weights assigned as query features. Or a query term importance model for advertisement prediction may predict relevant advertisements for a query with term importance weights assigned as query features. In an embodiment, a sponsored advertisement selection engine selects sponsored advertisements scored by a query term importance engine that applies a query term importance model using term importance weights as query features and inverse document frequency weights as advertisement features to assign a relevance score. | 06-02-2011 |
| 20110131157 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PREDICTING CONTEXT-DEPENDENT TERM IMPORTANCE OF SEARCH QUERIES - An improved system and method for identifying context-dependent term importance of queries is provided. A query term importance model is learned using supervised learning of context-dependent term importance for queries and is then applied for advertisement prediction using term importance weights of query terms as query features. For instance, a query term importance model for query rewriting may predict rewritten queries that match a query with term importance weights assigned as query features. Or a query term importance model for advertisement prediction may predict relevant advertisements for a query with term importance weights assigned as query features. In an embodiment, a sponsored advertisement selection engine selects sponsored advertisements scored by a query term importance engine that applies a query term importance model using term importance weights as query features and inverse document frequency weights as advertisement features to assign a relevance score. | 06-02-2011 |
