System and method for detecting geo-locations in social media

A method of determining locations for social media postings, the method comprising:

• retrieving, by communicating with at least one application programming interface (API) of a social media system over one or more first communication networks, at least one social media posting;
• determining at least one location mention in the at least one social media posting;
• determining at least one location based on the at least one location mention;
• determining a primary location from the at least one location;
• storing, in at least one database on a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium, at least one set of geo-coordinates for the primary location in at least one posting object for the at least one social media posting;
• and
• outputting, by communicating with a user system over one or more second communication networks, the at least one social media posting with the stored at least one set of geo-coordinates for display on the user system;
• wherein the identifying at least one location mention from the at least one social media posting includes:
• building a knowledge base (KB) having a list of associations between location mentions and aliases using co-occurrence information;
• determining an alias using the KB;
• periodically updating the KB;
• removing terms of the KB based on a minimum threshold of co-occurrence;
• and
• determining a rank reciprocity of terms of the KB based on a frequency of their co-occurrence.

A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium including programming instructions, which when executed by at least one processor perform a method of determining locations for social media postings, the method comprising:

• retrieving, by communicating with at least one application programming interface (API) of a social media system over one or more first communication networks, at least one social media posting;
• determining at least one location mention in text of the at least one social media posting;
• expanding the at least one location mention to include at least one alias based on an association between the at least one location mention and the at least one alias in a knowledge-base (KB), the KB including associations between location mentions and aliases, an association between a particular location mention and a corresponding alias in the KB being based on a number of times the particular location mention and the corresponding alias co-occur in social media postings;
• determining at least one location for each at least one location mention;
• determining a primary location for each at least one location mention from the at least one location;
• storing, in at least one database on the non-transitory machine-readable storage medium, at least one set of geo-coordinates for the primary location in at least one posting object for the at least one social media posting;
• and
• outputting, by communicating with a user system over one or more second communication networks, the at least one social media posting with the stored at least one set of geo-coordinates for display on the user system.

A system for determining locations for social media postings, the system comprising:

• at least one processor;
• and
• a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium including programming instructions, which, when executed by at least one processor, perform a method of determining locations for social media postings, the method comprising:
• retrieving, by communicating with at least one application programming interface (API) of a social media system, at least one social media posting;
• determining at least one location mention in text of the at least one social media posting;
• expanding the at least one location mention to include at least one alias based on an association between the at least one location mention and the at least one alias in a knowledge-base (KB), the KB including associations between location mentions and aliases, an association between a particular location mention and a corresponding alias in the KB being based on a number of times the particular location mention and the corresponding alias co-occur in social media postings;
• determining at least one location for each at least one location mention;
• determining a primary location for each at least one location mention from the at least one location;
• storing, in at least one database on the non-transitory machine-readable storage medium, at least one set of geo-coordinates for the primary location in at least one posting object for the at least one social media posting;
• and
• outputting, by communicating with a user system over one or more second communication networks, the at least one social media posting with the stored at least one set of geo-coordinates for display on the user system.