US 7,844,604 B2Granted

Automatically generating user-customized notifications of changes in a social network system

AssigneeYahoo! Inc.

InventorsAndrew Baio, Gordon Luk, Leonard H. Lin

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Abstract

Techniques are described herein for notifying a member of a social network system of those changes, within the social network system, that are of most interest to the member. In one embodiment, change records are generated for changes in the social network system. The change records are stored in an activities log. To notify a particular user of changes that would be of interest to the user, a subset of the change records contained in the activities log is selected based on user-specific selection criteria. Once the subset of change records has been selected, a set of notification records is generated based on the subset of change records. To reduce the possibility of information overload, the subset of change records is consolidated by removing duplicates and merging related notifications. The consolidated list of user-specific notifications may then be sent to the user. A variety of mechanisms may be used to send the notifications to the user, including streaming the notifications to a user (e.g. via an RSS feed), placing the notifications in a web page that is sent to the user, and sending the user an email that lists the notifications.

A method comprising:

storing, for a user, first data that indicates events of interest to the user, wherein the events of interest that are indicated by the first data are events that are of interest to the user independent of who is involved in any changes related to the events;
storing, for the user, second data that indicates people of interest to the user, wherein the people of interest that are indicated by the second data are people that are of interest to the user independent of events that are related to changes that the people make;
wherein the events of interest to the user are events for which changes can occur both relative to any one of a plurality of people of interest to the user and relative to people that are not of interest to the user;
wherein the people of interest to the user are people that may make changes both relative to events of interest to the user and relative to events that are not of interest to the user;
when a change related to an event occurs, storing a change record that records said change in an activities log that includes a plurality of change records;
while inspecting change records in the activity log, reading the change record that records the change related to the event;
in response to reading the change record that records the change, determining whether the change is of interest to the user by determining
(a) whether the event is indicated in the first data and
(b) whether the change relates to a person indicated in the second data;
in response to determining that the event is indicated in the first data and the change relates to a person indicated in the second data, including a notification about the change in a change listing that is provided to the user;
and
in response to determining that the event is indicated in the first data and the change relates to none of the people indicated in the second data, excluding the event from the change listing that is provided to the user;
sending the change listing to the user;
wherein the method is performed by one or more computing devices comprising one or more processors.

11 more elements

Abstract

Claims28