Google Inc.

Other

Frances Bordwell Haugen

Daniel Mark Crichton

Gregory Matthew Marra

Kathryn Rose Vanderwater

Alexander Ketner Unger

Sean Liu

Viresh Ratnakar

Ashok Chhabedia Popat

Doug Sherrets

Abhishek Bapna

Weipeng Paul Yan

Gunes Erkan

Max Ventilla

Osman Ahmed Osman

Benjamin A Staffin

Sagar Kamdar

Rishi Khaitan

Christopher J Marra

Madelaine Boyd

Inferring membership in a group may include receiving one or more queries from a user, where the one or more queries have a feature that is independent of a subject matter of the one or more queries and that distinguishes the one or more queries from other queries received from the use. Inferring membership may include identifying the feature; and, in response to identifying the feature, making an inference that the user is a member of a group based on the subject matter of the one or more queries, where the group has one or more characteristics associated therewith. Inferring membership may further include attributing the one or more characteristics to the user based on the inference; and selecting the user for distribution of electronic content based on the one or more characteristics.

Inferring membership in a group

Techniques include: receiving a search query; identifying content responsive to the search query; identifying one or more members of a social networking service that have an association with identified content; and outputting, to a computing device, data corresponding to the one or more members, where data corresponding to the one or more members is for generating display areas, and where the display areas are for obtaining information about corresponding members and for display along with search results.

Generating search results for people

In one aspect, a method includes identifying one or more contacts associated with a user at one or more social networking services, identifying one or more social content items associated with the one or more contacts, generating one or more of candidate suggestions from the one or more social content items, the one or more candidate suggestions including n-grams generated from the one or more social content items, wherein each n-gram comprises a string of characters, ranking the one or more candidate suggestions according to one or more significance criteria and selecting one or more suggestions of the plurality of candidate suggestions according to the ranking. Other aspects can be embodied in corresponding systems and apparatus, including computer program products. These and other aspects can include one or more of the following features.

Providing suggestions to a user based on social activity patterns

Methods for ranking users based on contextual factors are provided. An example method may include receiving an online question by an asking user. The method may further include identifying one or more topics of the received online question. The method may further include identifying a set of candidate answering users from a plurality of users based on an expertise level of each user of the plurality of users, wherein the expertise level is related to the identified one or more topics of the received online question. In addition, the method may include ranking the set of candidate answering users based on a commonality of one or more contextual factors between the asking user and the set of candidate answering users, wherein the one or more contextual factors are distinct from the identified one or more topics. Systems and computer-readable media for ranking users based on contextual factors are also described.

Ranking users based on contextual factors

Systems and methods of evaluating content in a computer networked environment are provided. The data processing system can provide a first link to content for display on a first web page and a second link to the content for display on a second web page. The first and second links have first and second thumbnails associated with the content, respectively. The system determines at least one of a first number of views and a first number of conversions of the first link and at least one of a second number of views and a second number of conversions of the second link. The system can determine a quality metric of the first thumbnail and a quality metric of the second thumbnail, and can select one of the first thumbnail and the second thumbnail for display on a web page based on the quality metrics.

Evaluating content in a computer networked environment

Techniques for inferring membership in a group may include receiving one or more queries from a user, where the one or more queries have a feature that is independent of a subject matter of the one or more queries and that distinguishes the one or more queries from other queries received from the use. The techniques may include identifying the feature; and, in response to identifying the feature, making an inference that the user is a member of a group based on the subject matter of the one or more queries, where the group has one or more characteristics associated therewith. The techniques may further include attributing the one or more characteristics to the user based on the inference; and selecting the user for distribution of electronic content based on the one or more characteristics.

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for searching using social network data. Techniques include: receiving a request for search results; in response to the request, obtaining search results using one or more social engagement signals to identify content deemed to have entertainment value, where the one or more social engagement signals are unspecified in the request; and providing the search results to a computing device.

Determining content of interest based on social network interactions and information

A system obtains a document that is responsive to a user query. The system determines an interest of the user based on stored data associated with the user, and determines that a portion of the document relates to the interest of the user. The system generates a first snippet for the document based on the portion of the document that relates to the interest of the user, and provides the first snippet for the document as part of a result list.

Automatic generation of snippets based on context and user interest

Systems and methods of evaluating content in a computer networked environment are provided. The data processing system can provide a first link to content for display on a first web page and a second link to the content for display on a second web page. The first and second links have first and second snippets associated with the content, respectively. The system determines at least one of a first number of views and a first number of conversions of the first link and at least one of a second number of views and a second number of conversions of the second link. The system determines a quality metric of the first snippet and a quality metric of the second snippet. The system selects one of the first snippet and the second snippet based on the quality metric of the first snippet and the quality metric of the second snippet.

Example techniques for suggesting a tag to promote a discussion topic may include the following operations: receiving text into a display field; performing a search to identify a topic relating to the text, where the topic is among plural topics being discussed on a social networking service; identifying a title of a discussion on the social network service that relates to the identified topic; ranking the title among other titles of discussion topics based, at least in part, on a number of members of the social networking service that are participating in the discussion; and suggesting, based on the ranking, a text entry for the display field that promotes posting to the discussion identified by the title.

Suggesting a tag to promote a discussion topic

Techniques include receiving a search query; determining a topic related to the search query; identifying, within a specific time following receipt of the search query, one or more members of a social network who are available to interact and who are members of a group relating to the topic; and outputting, for use in augmenting a graphical user interface, data corresponding to information about the one or more members. The data can include data for a link to the group on the social network.

Suggesting interaction among members of a social network

A method performed by one or more processing devices includes receiving information specifying one or more attributes of a story; identifying, from a social graph, items of data with attributes matching at least one of the one or more attributes of the story, and connections to an item of data representing a user for whom the story is generated; identifying content items associated with the identified items of data; generating, based on the identified content items, data for a graphical user interface that when rendered by a device used by the user, includes: a visual representation of the story.

Generating a filtered view of a content stream

Methods relating to canonical content items are provided. An example method may include receiving an online question by an asking user. The method may further include identifying one or more topics of the received online question. The method may further include matching at least one canonical content item from a plurality of canonical content items to the received online question based on the identified one or more topics, wherein each canonical content item of the plurality of canonical content items is associated with a model explanation of a topic. In addition, the method may include providing the matched at least one canonical content item to the asking user. Systems and computer-readable media are also described.

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Mountain View, CA, United States of America

Frances Bordwell Haugen