# US 10,122,791 B2 · Social circles in social networks

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- Number: US 10,122,791 B2
- Document ID: US10122791B2
- Status: Granted
- Kind: B2
- Application number: 15/961,313
- Filed: 2018-04-24
- Published: 2018-08-30
- Granted: 2018-11-06
- Earliest claimed: 2010-11-01
- Assignees: Google Inc.
- Applicants: Google LLC
- Inventors: Joseph R. Smarr; Paul Adams; Shimrit Ben-Yair; Jonathan Terleski; Mandy R. Sladden
- Web page: https://patentgrep.com/patent/US10122791B2

## CPC

- G06Q 10/10: Office automation; Time management
- G06F 3/048: Interaction techniques based on graphical user interfaces [GUI]
- G06F 3/04817: using icons (graphical or visual programming using iconic symbols G06F8/34)
- G06Q 10/40: Business processes related to social networking or social networking services
- H04L 51/214: using selective forwarding
- H04L 51/52: for supporting social networking services
- H04L 65/403: Arrangements for multi-party communication, e.g. for conferences (data switching systems for conference H04L12/18; arrangements for connecting several subscribers to a common circuit, i.e. affording conference facilities H04M3/56; television conferencing systems H04N7/15)
- H04L 67/10: in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network (software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46)
- H04L 67/1044: {Group management mechanisms (management of multicast group membership H04L12/185; reconfiguring of node membership in a computing system to eliminate errors G06F11/1425)}
- H04W 4/21: for social networking applications
- G06Q: INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
- G06F: ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING (computer systems based on specific computational models G06N)
- H04L: TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION (arrangements common to telegraphic and telephonic communication H04M)
- H04W: WIRELESS COMMUNICATION NETWORKS (broadcast communication H04H; communication systems using wireless links for non-selective communication, e.g. wireless extensions H04M1/72)

## Abstract

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for transmitting contact data for displaying representations of contacts for display to a user, the contacts being contacts of the user within a computer-implemented social networking service, generating a first social circle of the user, the first social circle comprising a first subset of contacts of the user within the social networking service and defining a first distribution for digital content, generating a second social circle of the user, the second social circle comprising a second subset of contacts of the user within the social networking service and defining a second distribution for digital content, and, in response to user input, providing the first social circle and the second social circle for selection by the user to define a distribution of digital content, the distribution comprising at least one of the first distribution and the second distribution.

## Claims

### Claim 1

A system comprising:
a server computing device comprising one or more processors; and
a non-transitory computer-readable medium coupled to the server computing device and having instructions stored thereon that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the server to perform server-side operations for distributing digital content across a network, the server-side operations comprising:
receiving, from a client computing device, information descriptive of a selection by a user of a first group of one or more social networking contacts of the user;
receiving, from the client computing device, information descriptive of a selection by the user of a group type for the first group;
populating, based on the received information descriptive of the selection of the group type for the first group, a shared social circle with the first group of social networking contacts;
determining whether or not the selected group type is a shared private social circle type;
if the selected group type is a shared private circle type, then:
classifying the shared social circle as a shared private social circle; and
processing the populated shared social circle to provide an access control list which specifies that contacts in the first group of social networking contacts are granted access to a collection of one or more digital content items of digital content shared by contacts in the first group and distributed for display to contacts in the first group across the network, and the access control list specifies that contacts not in the first group of social networking contacts are not granted permission to access the digital content item collection;
determining whether or not the selected group type is a shared public social circle type; and
if the selected group type is a shared public circle type, then:
classifying the shared social circle as a shared public social circle; and
processing the populated shared social circle to provide an access control list which specifies that contacts in the first group of social networking contacts and contacts outside the first group of contacts are granted access to a collection of one or more digital content items of digital content shared by contacts in the first group and distributed for display across the network, and the access control list specifies that contacts in the first group of social networking contacts are granted permission to contribute to the collection, and the access control list specifies that contacts not in the first group of social networking contacts are not granted permission to contribute to the collection;
wherein the shared public social circle type and the shared private social circle type are mutually exclusive.

### Claim 2 (depends on 1)

The system of claim 1, wherein the access control list specifies that contacts in the first group of social networking contacts are granted permission to contribute to the collection, wherein contributions to the collection are distributed for display to the first group.

### Claim 3 (depends on 1)

The system of claim 1, wherein the access control list specifies that only the first group of social networking contacts are granted access to the collection.

### Claim 4 (depends on 1)

The system of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise:
receiving, from a second client computing device and a second user, information descriptive of a request for membership in the shared social circle;
transmitting, to the client computing device, information descriptive of a notification of the request;
receiving, from client computing device, information descriptive of an approval indication by the user;
populating, based on the received information descriptive of the approval, the shared social circle with a social networking contact representative of the second user; and
processing the populated shared social circle to modify the access control list to specify that the second user is granted access to the collection.

### Claim 5 (depends on 1)

The system of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise:
receiving, from a second client computing device and a second user, information descriptive of a request for membership in the shared social circle;
transmitting, to the client computing device, information descriptive of a notification of the request;
receiving, from the client computing device, information descriptive of an approval indication by the user;
populating, based on the received information descriptive of the approval, the shared social circle with a social networking contact representative of the second user; and
processing the populated shared social circle to modify the access control list to specify that the second user is granted access to the collection.

### Claim 6 (depends on 1)

The system of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise transmitting an indication to each contact of the first group, the indication informing each contact of membership in the shared social circle.

### Claim 7 (depends on 1)

The system of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise transmitting an indication to each contact of the first group, the indication informing each contact of identities of each of the contacts in the first group.

### Claim 8 (depends on 7)

The system of claim 7, wherein the indication informs each contact in the first group of a name of the shared social circle.

### Claim 9 (depends on 1)

The system of claim 1, wherein the shared social circle is a topic-based social circle.

### Claim 10

A non-transitory computer storage medium encoded with a computer program, the program comprising instructions that when executed by data processing apparatus cause the data processing apparatus to perform operations comprising:
serving one or more web page documents to a client computing device operated by a user, each document containing instructions for a browser application to perform client-side operations, comprising:
receiving, from a client computing device, information descriptive of a selection by a user of a first group of one or more social networking contacts of the user;
receiving, from the client computing device, information descriptive of a selection by the user of a group type for the first group, wherein the selected group type is either a shared private social circle type or a shared public social circle type;
populating, based on the received information descriptive of the selection of the group type for the first group, a shared social circle with the first group of social networking contacts;
if the selected group type is a shared private circle type, then:
classifying the shared social circle as a shared private social circle; and
processing the populated shared social circle to provide an access control list which specifies that contacts in the first group of social networking contacts are granted access to a collection of one or more digital content items of digital content shared by contacts in the first group and distributed for display to contacts in the first group across the network, and the access control list specifies that contacts not in the first group of social networking contacts are not granted permission to access the digital content item collection; and
if the selected group type is a shared public circle type, then:
classifying the shared social circle as a shared public social circle; and
processing the populated shared social circle to provide an access control list which specifies that contacts in the first group of social networking contacts and contacts outside the first group of contacts are granted access to a collection of one or more digital content items of digital content shared by contacts in the first group and distributed for display across the network, and the access control list specifies that contacts in the first group of social networking contacts are granted permission to contribute to the collection, and the access control list specifies that contacts not in the first group of social networking contacts are not granted permission to contribute to the digital content item collection;
wherein the shared public social circle type and the shared private social circle type are mutually exclusive.

### Claim 11 (depends on 10)

The non-transitory computer storage medium of claim 10, wherein the access control list specifies that contacts in the first group of social networking contacts are granted permission to contribute to the collection, wherein contributions to the collection are distributed for display to the first group.

### Claim 12 (depends on 10)

The non-transitory computer storage medium of claim 10, wherein the access control list specifies that only the first group of social networking contacts are granted access to the collection.

### Claim 13 (depends on 10)

The non-transitory computer storage medium of claim 10, wherein the operations further comprise:
receiving, from a second client computing device and a second user, information descriptive of a request for membership in the shared social circle;
transmitting, to the client computing device, information descriptive of a notification of the request;
receiving, from client computing device, information descriptive of an approval indication by the user;
populating, based on the received information descriptive of the approval, the shared social circle with a social networking contact representative of the second user; and
processing the populated shared social circle to modify the access control list to specify that the second user is granted access to collection.

### Claim 14 (depends on 10)

The non-transitory computer storage medium of claim 10, wherein the operations further comprise:
receiving, from a second client computing device and a second user, information descriptive of a request for membership in the shared social circle;
transmitting, to the client computing device, information descriptive of a notification of the request;
receiving, from the client computing device, information descriptive of an approval indication by the user;
populating, based on the received information descriptive of the approval, the shared social circle with a social networking contact representative of the second user; and
processing the populated shared social circle to modify the access control list to specify that the second user is granted access to the collection.

### Claim 15 (depends on 10)

The non-transitory computer storage medium of claim 10, wherein the operations further comprise transmitting an indication to each contact of the first group, the indication informing each contact of membership in the shared social circle.

### Claim 16 (depends on 10)

The non-transitory computer storage medium of claim 10, wherein the operations further comprise transmitting an indication to each contact of the first group, the indication informing each contact of identities of each of the contacts in the first group.

### Claim 17 (depends on 16)

The non-transitory computer storage medium of claim 16, wherein the indication informs each contact in the first group of a name of the shared social circle.

### Claim 18 (depends on 10)

The non-transitory computer storage medium of claim 10, wherein the shared social circle is a topic-based social circle.

### Claim 19

A computer-implemented method comprising:
serving one or more web page documents to a client computing device operated by a user, each document containing instructions for a browser application to perform client-side operations, comprising:
receiving, from a client computing device, information descriptive of a selection by the user of a first group of one or more social networking contacts of the user;
receiving, from the client computing device, information descriptive of a selection by the user of the group type for the first group, wherein the selected group type is either a shared private social circle type or a shared public social circle type, but not both;
populating, based on the received information descriptive of the selection of the group type for the first group, a shared social circle with the first group of social networking contacts;
if the selected group type is a shared private circle type, then:
classifying the shared social circle as a shared private social circle; and
processing the populated shared social circle to provide an access control list which specifies that contacts in the first group of social networking contacts are granted access to a collection of one or more digital content items of digital content shared by contacts in the first group and distributed for display to contacts in the first group across the network, and the access control list specifies that contacts not in the first group of social networking contacts are not granted permission to access the digital content item collection; and
if the selected group type is a shared public circle type, then:
classifying the shared social circle as a shared public social circle; and
processing the populated shared social circle to provide an access control list which specifies that contacts in the first group of social networking contacts and contacts outside the first group of contacts are granted access to a collection of one or more digital content items of digital content shared by contacts in the first group and distributed for display across the network, and the access control list specifies that contacts in the first group of social networking contacts are granted permission to contribute to the collection, and the access control list specifies that contacts not in the first group of social networking contacts are not granted permission to contribute to the digital content item collection.

### Claim 20 (depends on 19)

The method of claim 19, wherein the access control list specifies that contacts in the first group of social networking contacts are granted permission to contribute to the collection, wherein contributions to the collection are distributed for display to the first group.

### Claim 21 (depends on 19)

The method of claim 19, wherein the access control list specifies that only the first group of social networking contacts are granted access to the collection.

### Claim 22 (depends on 19)

The method of claim 19, further comprising:
receiving, from a second client computing device and a second user, information descriptive of a request for membership in the shared social circle;
transmitting, to the client computing device, information descriptive of a notification of the request;
receiving, from client computing device, information descriptive of an approval indication by the user;
populating, based on the received information descriptive of the approval, the shared social circle with a social networking contact representative of the second user; and
processing the populated shared social circle to modify the access control list to specify that the second user is granted access to the collection.

### Claim 23 (depends on 19)

The method of claim 19, further comprising:
receiving, from a second client computing device and a second user, information descriptive of a request for membership in the shared social circle;
transmitting, to the client computing device, information descriptive of a notification of the request;
receiving, from the client computing device, information descriptive of an approval indication by the user;
populating, based on the received information descriptive of the approval, the shared social circle with a social networking contact representative of the second user; and
processing the populated shared social circle to modify the access control list to specify that the second user is granted access to the collection.

### Claim 24 (depends on 19)

The method of claim 19, further comprising transmitting an indication to each contact of the first group, the indication informing each contact of membership in the shared social circle.

### Claim 25 (depends on 19)

The method of claim 19, further comprising transmitting an indication to each contact of the first group, the indication informing each contact of identities of each of the contacts in the first group.

### Claim 26 (depends on 25)

The method of claim 25, wherein the indication informs each contact in the first group of a name of the first social circle.

### Claim 27 (depends on 19)

The method of claim 19, wherein the shared social circle is a topic-based social circle.