US 8,527,496 B2 · Real time content searching in social network

Abstract

Indexing and retrieving real time content in a social networking system is disclosed. A user-term index includes user-term partitions, each user-term partition comprising temporal databases. As a post is received from a user, a user identifier, a post identifier, and a post is extracted. An object store communicatively coupled to a temporal database for recently received content is queried to determine whether terms in the post has already been stored. A term identifier is stored in the user-term index with the user and post identifiers. A forward index stores the post by post identifier. Responsive to a search query, the user-term index is searched by the user's connections and the terms. A real time search engine compiles the results of the user-term index query and retrieves the stored posts from the forward index. The search results may then be ranked and cached before presentation to the searching user.

Claims16

Dependent claims

A method comprising:

receiving a query comprising a term from a user;
determining a user identifier of the user and a term identifier associated with the term;
gathering post identifiers and user identifiers that are associated with the term identifier in a user-term index comprising time-ordered database shards of records, where the user-term index is organized by a plurality of user identifiers associated with a plurality of users of a social networking system and a plurality of term identifiers associated with a plurality of terms used by the plurality of users;
retrieving posts from an index based upon the gathered post identifiers for presentation to the user;
determining user identifiers of connections of the user;
and
selecting partitions that are associated with the user identifiers of the connections of the user from among a plurality of partitions of the user-term index,
wherein gathering post identifiers comprises gathering post identifiers that are associated with the term identifier in the selected partitions of the user-term index.

5 more elements

A system for retrieving information in a social networking system, the system comprising:

a server configured to receive a query comprising a term from a user;
a real time search engine, communicatively coupled to the server, comprising an aggregator module configured to determine a user identifier of the user and a term identifier associated with the term;
an index configured to store posts based upon post identifiers;
and
a user-term index comprising time-ordered database shards of records, the user-term index organized by a plurality of user identifiers associated with a plurality of users of the social networking system and a plurality of term identifiers associated with a plurality of terms used by the plurality of users,
wherein the aggregator module is further configured to:
gather post identifiers and user identifiers that are associated the term identifier in the user-term index,
retrieve posts from the index based upon the gathered post identifiers for presentation to the user,
determine user identifiers of connections of the user, and
select partitions that are associated with the user identifiers of the connections of the user from among a plurality of partitions of the user-term index, wherein aggregator module gathers post identifiers that are associated with the term identifier in the selected partitions of the user-term index.

7 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Real time content searching in social network

Life of this patent

Real time content searching in social network

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims16