Ranking social network objects

A computer program product for ranking a plurality of communities, each community belonging to one of a plurality of different community types, the computer program product comprising code encoded on a non-transitory computer-readable medium for performing the steps of:

• receiving ranking data about the communities, the ranking data comprising data about events performed in the communities relating to members and posts in the communities;
• determining a score for each of the communities based on types of relationships in the community and a recency of the events related to the communities, wherein the recency is calculated by applying a scale factor based on each event occurring within a predetermined time period from when the score is determined and applying an exponential time decay function to the ranking data in order to calculate the score for the community;
• determining a relative ranking for each of the communities based on the respective community's score;
• storing the score and the relative ranking of each of the communities;
• identifying communities with the score exceeding a predetermined threshold;
• and
• generating code for, when executed, displaying the communities with the score exceeding the predetermined threshold in a visually distinguishable way on a webpage associated with the social network.

A system comprising:

• a processor;
• a memory storing instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the system to:
• store ranking data about the communities, the ranking data comprising data about events performed in the communities relating to members and posts in the communities;
• determine a score for each of the communities based on types of relationships in the community and a recency of the events related to the communities, wherein the recency is calculated by applying a scale factor based on each event occurring within a predetermined time period from when the score is determined and applying an exponential time decay function to the ranking data in order to calculate the score for the community;
• determine a relative ranking for each of the communities based on the respective community's score;
• store the score and the relative ranking of each of the communities;
• identify communities with the score exceeding a predetermined threshold;
• and
• generate code for, when executed, displaying the communities with the score exceeding the predetermined threshold in a visually distinguishable way on a webpage associated with the social network.