Facebook, Inc.

Emily Clark White

Bo Hu

Kelly B Winters

Evan Sharp

Koun Han

A social networking system suggests deals relevant to a user. The deals are selected for suggestion based on social information associated with the user. Social information used for selecting candidate deals for a user includes information describing other users connected to the user and their associations with the candidate deals or with related deals, for example, deals from the same provider. Associations of connections of the user with the candidate deals may be determined based on actions associated with the candidate deals performed by the connections. The actions performed by the connections may be weighted based on types of the actions to determine a measure of relevance of the candidate deal for the user. Candidate deals are selected from a set of deals by applying deal targeting criteria received from deal providers. The deal targeting criteria specify attributes describing users to be targeted for a particular deal.

Presenting deals to a user of social networking system

A social networking system acts as a platform for distributing deals from one or more deal providers. The users of the social networking system can interact with information describing the deals via a dashboard user interface provided by the social networking system. When users purchase deals on the social networking system's platform, the social networking system receives a portion of the deal price called the platform share and compensates the users for purchasing deals via the social networking system. The compensation may be funded from the revenue received by the social networking system for the purchases (the platform share). The compensation provided to a user may depend on social information associated with the user, such as the number of the user's connections also participating in the deal.

Platform for distributing deals via a social networking system

Social networking systems allow deal providers to provide social deals that require participation by users connected via the social networking system for activation. A social deal is activated for a user based on actions performed by other users connected to the user. The actions performed by a participant of the social deal include actions related to the social deal as well as actions related to objects associated with the social deal, for example, purchasing an item, associated, checking in to a location associated with the social deal, or recommending the social deal. The social networking system may suggest potential participants in the social deal for a user. The deal may be activated by performing actions of one or more type. A threshold number of actions of each type may be required for activating the deal.

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Palo Alto, CA, United States of America

Emily Clark White