Forming crowds and providing access to crowd data in a mobile environment

摘要

A system and method are provided for forming crowds of users and providing access to corresponding crowd data. In one embodiment, a central system, which includes one or more servers, operates to obtain current locations for users of mobile devices. The central system forms a crowd including a number of users based on the current locations of the number of users. The central system then generates crowd data for the crowd and provides access to the crowd data for the crowd. In one embodiment, the crowd data for the crowd includes an aggregate profile for the crowd. In another embodiment, the crowd data includes data characterizing the crowd. The central system provides access to the crowd data by serving crowd data requests.

主权项

1. A method of operation of a server computer, comprising:
obtaining, by the server computer, current locations of a plurality of users of a plurality of mobile devices each of the plurality of users being a user of a corresponding one of the plurality of mobile devices; forming, by the server computer, a crowd including a number of users from the plurality of users based on the current locations of the number of users, wherein forming the crowd comprises using a spatial crowd formation process based on an optimal inclusion distance that is a function of density of users of the plurality of users within a bounding region for the spatial crowd formation process: generating, by the server computer, crowd data regarding the crowd, the crowd data comprising an aggregate profile for the crowd; and providing, by the server computer, access to the crowd data.