Yahoo! Inc.

Excalibur Ip, LLC

Ana-Maria Popescu

Marco Pennacchiotti

Alpa Jain

Meryem Pinar Donmez

Disclosed are methods and apparatus for classifying users. In accordance with one embodiment, a plurality of messages posted by a user via a microblogging service may be obtained. A set of feature values associated with the user may be obtained, each of the set of feature values corresponding to a different one of a set of one or more features. One or more of the set of feature values may be obtained based, at least in part, on content of the plurality of messages posted by the user, messaging behavior of the user via the microblogging service, and/or social connections of the user established via the microblogging service. The user may be classified based upon the set of feature values associated with the user.

Automatic profiling of social media users

A method, device, and computer-readable storage medium storing instructions are provided for detecting controversial events that are reflected in user-generated content items. In a single-step approach, user-generated content items are received and analyzed by a controversial event detection module, which determines the likelihood that sets of content items reflect controversial events. In one example, public posts by users of a social networking service are grouped into snapshots of posts that are associated with an entity and were generated during a window of time. An event detection module may determine the likelihood that snapshots reflect events. In a two-step approach, event snapshots are provided to a controversy detection module, which determines the likelihood that event snapshots are controversial. In a blended approach, snapshots are provided to a controversy detection module, which determines the likelihood that snapshots are controversial events based in part on the event score.

Detecting controversial events

Techniques described herein assist users in satisfying complex information needs represented as long, detailed questions. A generalized search assistance framework for complex information needs is disclosed. Given a detailed question, the techniques enrich the original question with a set of related concepts. The types of questions handled are detailed, complex questions similar to the ones posted in Q&A portals. A generalized search assistance framework enriches complex detailed questions with topically related concepts. A basic pipeline represents an instantiation of such the search assistance framework. Given a detailed question, the pipeline relies on semantic and syntactic relationships in the detailed question in order to construct a set of related queries. The queries are issued to a commercial search engine and the retrieved results are processed by state-of-the-art document understanding techniques in order to retrieve important concepts. A final concept set for enriching the original question is then assembled.

Understanding and addressing complex information needs

Disclosed are methods and apparatus for analyzing and using online short messages from promoting entity accounts (e.g., business or non-profit accounts). In one embodiment, a method of analyzing and using messages sent for a plurality of promoting entity accounts is disclosed. A plurality of models for classifying a plurality of messages based on a plurality of message features are obtained for each message. Each message is sent via a computer network between a selected one of the promoting entity accounts and one or more subscribing users that subscribe to receive messages from such selected promoting entity account, and each model is trained to identify whether a message belongs to a particular class based on a lexicon that was generated for such particular class and a training set of messages that belong to the particular class and message that do not belong to the particular class. A new message is classified based on the models and retaining classification information regarding the new message in a database that is accessible by a user so as to review the classification information on a computer display.

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Mountain View, CA, United States of America

Ana-Maria Popescu