IDENTIFYING PATHS USING SOCIAL NETWORKING DATA AND APPLICATION DATA

摘要

Data from social networking applications and other applications that can be used to communicate are combined for a user to generate a graph of the various relationships that the user has with other users in the social networking applications and other applications. In addition, the behaviors of each user with respect to communicating through the various social networking applications and other applications are monitored to generate task data that describes user preferences for communicating using each social networking application or other application for different tasks. At a later time, when a user is looking to connect with another user for an indicated task such as networking, the graph can be used to recommend paths to other users in the various social networking applications and other applications, and the generated task data can be used to rank the recommended paths based on the indicated task.

主权项

1. A system for combining data from multiple social networks and applications and for responding to queries using the combined data comprising:
at least one computing device adapted to generate a query for a user; and a graph engine adapted to:
receive first social networking data from a first social network, wherein the first social networking data comprises a first plurality of contacts associated with the user and a first communication type of a plurality of communication types;receive second social networking data from a second social network, wherein the second social networking data comprises a second plurality of contacts associated with the user and a second communication type of the plurality of communication types;receive application data from a productivity application, wherein the application data comprises a third plurality of contacts associated with the user and a third communication type of the plurality of communication types.generate a graph from the first social networking data, the second social networking data, and the application data, wherein the graph comprises a plurality of nodes and each node represents one of a contact of the first plurality of contacts, a contact from the second plurality of contacts, a contact from the third plurality of contacts, or the user, and wherein the graph further comprises a plurality of edges, each edge connects two nodes of the plurality of nodes, and each edge represents one of the first communication type, the second communication type, or the third communication type;receive the query from the user;identify at least one node of the graph that is responsive to the query;identify one or more paths in the graph that connect the identified at least one node and the node representing the user, wherein each of the identified one or more paths comprises a sequence of nodes and edges from the graph; andprovide the identified one or more paths to the at least one computing device in response to the query.