# US 2021/0334259 A1 · Automated social message stream population > Agents: this data is available as JSON from the patentgrep API and MCP server — see https://patentgrep.com/llms.txt - Number: US 2021/0334259 A1 - Document ID: US20210334259A1 - Status: Published application - Kind: A1 - Application number: 17/368,687 - Filed: 2021-07-06 - Published: 2021-10-28 - Earliest claimed: 2014-10-30 - Assignees: Twitter, Inc. - Applicants: Twitter, Inc. - Inventors: Michael Ben Fleischman; Matthew Miller; Richard Douglas Whitcomb, JR.; Mark Watabe; Anthony Sciola - Web page: https://patentgrep.com/patent/US20210334259A1 ## CPC - H04L 51/52: for supporting social networking services - G06F 3/0482: Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus - G06F 16/23: Updating - G06Q 10/10: Office automation; Time management - H04L 51/02: using automatic reactions or user delegation, e.g. automatic replies or chatbot-generated messages - H04L 51/216: Handling conversation history, e.g. grouping of messages in sessions or threads - G06Q 10/42: Determination of affinities or common interests between users - G06Q 10/48: using social graphs - H04L 51/18: Commands or executable codes - H04L: TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION (arrangements common to telegraphic and telephonic communication H04M) - G06F: ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING (computer systems based on specific computational models G06N) - 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 ## Abstract A messaging system automatically populates a stream of messages using only a seed selected by the requesting account holder. In one embodiment, the seed includes the streams of one or more of the “top” accounts of the messaging system . Here, “top” is according to any one of a number of different metrics stored in the messaging system. With knowledge of the seed, the messaging system automatically populates a stream for the requesting account holder, without requiring any other input. As a result, an account holder is provided with a fully functioning stream with very little effort or knowledge required on their part. ## Claims ### Claim at position 1 1-20. (canceled) ### Claim 21 A method performed by a messaging system for automatically populating a stream of messages for a user, the method comprising: providing, by the messaging system and to a client device, for presentation to and selection by a user of the client device, multiple system-selected accounts, the multiple system-selected accounts being accounts selected by the messaging system, wherein the accounts of the messaging system include first accounts, and the system-selected accounts are selected from among the first accounts; receiving, by the messaging system, a request for content from the user of the client device, the request specifying two or more user-selected accounts, a user-selected account being an account selected by the user from among the multiple system-selected accounts provided by the messaging system to the client device; obtaining, for each of the two or more user-selected accounts, a respective feature vector, each respective feature vector representing those first accounts to which the user-selected account is interesting, wherein the respective feature vector is a vector of real numbers; generating, by the messaging system, a seed vector, comprising combining the respective feature vectors for each of the two or more user-selected accounts; determining, for each first account, a respective measure of relevance of the first account to the user based on a measure of similarity between a respective feature vector for the first account and the seed vector; providing, by the messaging system and to the client device, a message response to the request, wherein the message response includes messages authored by first accounts in a ranked order according to a ranking score of each message, wherein the ranking score of each message is computed as a function of at least the determined measure of relevance of the first account that authored the message; receiving, by the messaging system from the client device, an indication of affinity received from the user, the indication representing affinities of the user, the affinities being that the user has affinity for some of the messages in the response or is not interested in other messages in the response; and storing the indication of affinity received from the user and using the affinities in future relevance determinations by the messaging system. ### Claim 22 (depends on 21) The method of claim 21, wherein using the affinities in future relevance determinations comprises: aggregating, by a ranking module of the messaging system, indications of affinity received from one or more users, the aggregating being by first accounts; and adjusting the relevance for each first account according the affinities aggregated for the first account, wherein the ranking module tallies each affinity as either a positive or negative value and weights the first account based on the tally, and updating a likelihood that messages from the first account will appear in a stream of messages. ### Claim 23 (depends on 21) The method of claim 21, wherein the affinities are provided by the user on an authoring account or per-message basis. ### Claim 24 (depends on 21) The method of claim 21, wherein combining the respective feature vectors comprises summing the respective feature vectors. ### Claim 25 (depends on 21) The method of claim 21, wherein each of the first accounts is a top account, wherein top accounts are accounts that are top when measured by numbers of followers or when measured by numbers of engagements on messages by the accounts. ### Claim 26 (depends on 21) The method of claim 21, wherein each of the respective feature vectors is a vector of real numbers having as many elements as the number of first accounts; and the measure of similarity between two feature vectors is computed from a dot product between the two feature vectors. ### Claim 27 A system comprising: one or more computers and one or more storage devices on which are stored instructions that are operable, when executed by the one or more computers, to cause the one or more computers to perform operations performed by a messaging system for automatically populating a stream of messages for a user, the operations comprising: providing, by the messaging system and to a client device, for presentation to and selection by a user of the client device, multiple system-selected accounts, the multiple system-selected accounts being accounts selected by the messaging system, wherein the accounts of the messaging system include first accounts, and the system-selected accounts are selected from among the first accounts; receiving, by the messaging system, a request for content from the user of the client device, the request specifying two or more user-selected accounts, a user-selected account being an account selected by the user from among the multiple system-selected accounts provided by the messaging system to the client device; obtaining, for each of the two or more user-selected accounts, a respective feature vector, each respective feature vector representing those first accounts to which the user-selected account is interesting, wherein the respective feature vector is a vector of real numbers; generating, by the messaging system, a seed vector, comprising combining the respective feature vectors for each of the two or more user-selected accounts; determining, for each first account, a respective measure of relevance of the first account to the user based on a measure of similarity between a respective feature vector for the first account and the seed vector; providing, by the messaging system and to the client device, a message response to the request, wherein the message response includes messages authored by first accounts in a ranked order according to a ranking score of each message, wherein the ranking score of each message is computed as a function of at least the determined measure of relevance of the first account that authored the message; receiving, by the messaging system from the client device, an indication of affinity received from the user, the indication representing affinities of the user, the affinities being that the user has affinity for some of the messages in the response or is not interested in other messages in the response; and storing the indication of affinity received from the user and using the affinities in future relevance determinations by the messaging system. ### Claim 28 (depends on 27) The system of claim 27, wherein using the affinities in future relevance determinations comprises: aggregating, by a ranking module of the messaging system, indications of affinity received from one or more users, the aggregating being by first accounts; and adjusting the relevance for each first account according the affinities aggregated for the first account, wherein the ranking module tallies each affinity as either a positive or negative value and weights the first account based on the tally, and updating a likelihood that messages from the first account will appear in a stream of messages. ### Claim 29 (depends on 27) The system of claim 27, wherein the affinities are provided by the user on an authoring account or per-message basis. ### Claim 30 (depends on 27) The system of claim 27, wherein combining the respective feature vectors comprises summing the respective feature vectors. ### Claim 31 (depends on 27) The system of claim 27, wherein each of the first accounts is a top account, wherein top accounts are accounts that are top when measured by numbers of followers or when measured by numbers of engagements on messages by the accounts. ### Claim 32 (depends on 27) The system of claim 27, wherein each of the respective feature vectors is a vector of real numbers having as many elements as the number of first accounts; and the measure of similarity between two feature vectors is computed from a dot product between the two feature vectors. ### Claim 33 One or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media encoded with instructions that, when executed by one or more computers, cause the one or more computers to perform operations comprising: one or more computers and one or more storage devices on which are stored instructions that are operable, when executed by the one or more computers, to cause the one or more computers to perform operations performed by a messaging system for automatically populating a stream of messages for a user, the operations comprising: providing, by the messaging system and to a client device, for presentation to and selection by a user of the client device, multiple system-selected accounts, the multiple system-selected accounts being accounts selected by the messaging system, wherein the accounts of the messaging system include first accounts, and the system-selected accounts are selected from among the first accounts; receiving, by the messaging system, a request for content from the user of the client device, the request specifying two or more user-selected accounts, a user-selected account being an account selected by the user from among the multiple system-selected accounts provided by the messaging system to the client device; obtaining, for each of the two or more user-selected accounts, a respective feature vector, each respective feature vector representing those first accounts to which the user-selected account is interesting, wherein the respective feature vector is a vector of real numbers; generating, by the messaging system, a seed vector, comprising combining the respective feature vectors for each of the two or more user-selected accounts; determining, for each first account, a respective measure of relevance of the first account to the user based on a measure of similarity between a respective feature vector for the first account and the seed vector; providing, by the messaging system and to the client device, a message response to the request, wherein the message response includes messages authored by first accounts in a ranked order according to a ranking score of each message, wherein the ranking score of each message is computed as a function of at least the determined measure of relevance of the first account that authored the message; receiving, by the messaging system from the client device, an indication of affinity received from the user, the indication representing affinities of the user, the affinities being that the user has affinity for some of the messages in the response or is not interested in other messages in the response; and storing the indication of affinity received from the user and using the affinities in future relevance determinations by the messaging system. ### Claim 34 (depends on 33) The computer-readable media of claim 33, wherein using the affinities in future relevance determinations comprises: aggregating, by a ranking module of the messaging system, indications of affinity received from one or more users, the aggregating being by first accounts; and adjusting the relevance for each first account according the affinities aggregated for the first account, wherein the ranking module tallies each affinity as either a positive or negative value and weights the first account based on the tally, and updating a likelihood that messages from the first account will appear in a stream of messages. ### Claim 35 (depends on 33) The computer-readable media of claim 33, wherein the affinities are provided by the user on an authoring account or per-message basis. ### Claim 36 (depends on 33) The computer-readable media of claim 33, wherein combining the respective feature vectors comprises summing the respective feature vectors. ### Claim 37 (depends on 33) The computer-readable media of claim 33, wherein each of the first accounts is a top account, wherein top accounts are accounts that are top when measured by numbers of followers or when measured by numbers of engagements on messages by the accounts. ### Claim 38 (depends on 33) The computer-readable media of claim 33, wherein each of the respective feature vectors is a vector of real numbers having as many elements as the number of first accounts; and the measure of similarity between two feature vectors is computed from a dot product between the two vectors.