Method for relevant content discovery

Abstract

A method including: retrieving information, associated with an account identifier, from a social network; generating a user profile from the retrieved information, wherein the user profile includes user interests; retrieving content from the social network; extracting content parameters from each piece of retrieved content, the content parameters including a content location and a content time; evaluating relevance of the content by a degree of similarity between the user profile and the content; in response to receiving a device location and a filtering time, filtering the content by the device location and the filtering time; and sending the filtered content to a user device.

We claim: 
     
         1 . A method comprising:
 retrieving information stored by a first account of a social network, the social network comprising a plurality of accounts storing a plurality of posts;   generating a user profile comprising user interests extracted from the retrieved information;   retrieving posts from the social network;   extracting post parameters, comprising a post time and a post location, from each retrieved post;   evaluating a relevance of each post by a degree of similarity between the generated user profile and the retrieved post; and   in response to receiving a device location and a filtering time:
 filtering the retrieved posts based on the respective relevance, the device location, and the filtering time; and 
 sending the filtered post to a user device. 
   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein retrieving posts comprises retrieving posts from a plurality of social networks. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the retrieved information comprises public information associated with the first account, wherein the user interests comprise interests extracted from the public information. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 3 , further comprising receiving access permissions to the first account, wherein retrieving information stored in the first account comprises retrieving private information accessed through the received access permissions, wherein the user interests comprise interests extracted from the private information. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein retrieving posts from the social network comprises retrieving posts authored by accounts of social network connections of the first account. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 5 , wherein retrieving posts authored by accounts of social network connections comprises retrieving posts associated with a plurality of locations. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 5 , wherein retrieving posts authored by accounts of social network connections comprises retrieving posts generated within a time range. 
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 5 , wherein retrieving posts authored by accounts of social network connections comprises retrieving posts associated with the device location. 
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising: identifying a second account from each of the retrieved posts; retrieving a second set of information stored by the second account from the social network; and generating a connection profile from the second set of information. 
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 9 , wherein evaluating the relevance of each retrieved post further comprises evaluating the relevance of the post according to a measured similarity between the user profile and the respective connection profile. 
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 9 , wherein evaluating the relevance of each post further comprises evaluating the relevance of the post based on a degree of connection separation between the first account and the respective second account. 
     
     
         12 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein filtering the posts comprises selecting a post according to a proximity of the post location to the device location. 
     
     
         13 . The method of  claim 12 , wherein extracting a post location from a post comprises extracting a geotagged location of the post as the post location. 
     
     
         14 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein filtering the retrieved posts comprises selecting a post according to a proximity of the respective post time to the filtering time. 
     
     
         15 . The method of  claim 14 , wherein the post time is the time at which the post was posted to the social network. 
     
     
         16 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein sending the filtered post to a user device comprises sending an identifier representative of the filtered post and display instructions associated with the identifier. 
     
     
         17 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising displaying an icon representative of the filtered post at the user device. 
     
     
         18 . The method of  claim 17 , further comprising:
 identifying an author account from the filtered post; and   referencing a graphical image associated with the author account, wherein the icon comprises the referenced graphical image.   
     
     
         19 . The method of  claim 18 , wherein the filtered post is displayed on a map representative of a geographical location. 
     
     
         20 . The method of  claim 17 , wherein sending the filtered post to the user device comprises sending multiple filtered posts to the user device, the method further comprising displaying the filtered posts with a first and a second relevance indicator, comprising:
 scoring each of the filtered posts based on the respective relevance of each post;   displaying posts having a score exceeding a predetermined threshold with the first relevance indicator; and   displaying posts having a score below the predetermined threshold with the second relevance indicator.   
     
     
         21 . The method of  claim 20 , wherein the first relevance indicator comprises a unique graphical icon representative of the respective post, and the second relevance indicator comprises a non-unique icon. 
     
     
         22 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising displaying an alert when the filtered post satisfies a rarity condition. 
     
     
         23 . The method of  claim 22 , wherein extracting post parameters from each post further comprises identifying an author account from each retrieved post, wherein the alert condition is satisfied when the combination of post parameters for a post occurs less frequently than a predetermined frequency threshold. 
     
     
         24 . The method of  claim 23 , wherein the alert condition is satisfied when the author account historically authors posts in a location disparate from the device location. 
     
     
         25 . A method of location-based user discovery comprising:
 receiving an account identifier for a social network;   receiving, from the social network, content associated with social network connections associated with the account identifier;   extracting content parameters for each piece of content, the content parameters comprising content location and content time; and   in response to receiving a device location and a filtering time:
 selecting content having:
 an associated content location satisfying a location condition; and 
 an associated content time satisfying a time condition; and 
 
 sending references for the selected content to a user device. 
   
     
     
         26 . The method of  claim 25 , wherein the references comprise references to connection accounts associated with the selected content. 
     
     
         27 . The method of  claim 25 , wherein selecting content comprises:
 ranking the content according to proximity between the content location and the device location; and   ranking the content according to proximity between the content time and the filtering time;   
       wherein satisfying a location condition comprises having a rank beyond a location threshold, and satisfying a time condition comprises having a rank beyond a time threshold. 
     
     
         28 . The method of  claim 25 , further comprising:
 receiving a second account identifier for the social network;   retrieving, from the social network, a second content set associated with social network connections of the second account;   extracting content parameters for each piece of content of the second content set, the content parameters comprising content location and content time;   selecting, from the second content set, content having:
 an associated content location satisfying the location condition; and 
 an associated content time satisfying the time condition; and 
   sending references to connection accounts associated with the selected content of the second content set.