Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Haifeng Ji

Yang Zhou

Samir Mavji Shah

Mitul Tiwari

Theodore H Hwa

Joonhyung Lim

Lili Wu

Brad Christopher Ciraulo

Michael Maczka

Damien Albert Louis Coullon

Manas S Khadilkar

Reza Arbabi

Myunghwan Kim

Muhammad Aatif Awan

Cory Scott

Peter B Rusev

Shruti Bhosale

Andrew P Hill

Erica M Lockheimer

The disclosed embodiments provide a system for propensity-based SMS (Short Message Service) invitation filtering. During operation, the system collects multiple contact numbers associated with multiple invitation requests into a total set of contact numbers. Then, for one or more of the contact numbers, the system determines a propensity for a person associated with the contact number to click on a link in an electronic invitation sent to the contact number and subsequently create an account. Clicking on the link may connect the person to a user community that he or she has been invited to join. Once the propensity has been determined, the system ranks the contact numbers in the total set of contact numbers according to the propensities. Finally, for each contact number in the total set of contact numbers that is ranked above a specified threshold, the system processes an invitation for the contact number.

Propensity-based SMS invitation filtering

A system and method for identifying potential member and guest contacts while protecting member data privacy at a social networking system are disclosed. A system stores contact information for a plurality of members of a social networking system. The system receives a list of contacts of the first member. For a contact, the system accesses contact information of the contact, compares the contact information in the contact to contact information for the plurality of members, and in accordance with a determination that the contact information in the contact matches the contact information of a member of the social networking system, generates a score that the contact is not associated with malicious activity. In accordance with a determination that the generated score exceeds a predetermined score threshold, the system categorizes the contact as a suggested member connection. The system transmits member referral data to the client device for presentation.

Member privacy protection

This disclosure relates to systems and methods for expanding a social network. A method includes retrieving contact lists from a plurality of devices, generating a list of associations between identifiers in a first communication channel and identifiers in a second communication channel, removing, from the list of associations, one or more associations that include identifiers that do not represent contacts that are not members of the online social networking service, and transmitting an invitation to join the online social networking service to the second identifiers on the second communication channel for associations that remain in the list of associations.

Expanding a social network

When a user of a social network accepts an invitation message to connect with another user of the social network, a system may use a history of user activity to determine where the user is subsequently directed within the social-network website. In particular, based on the history of user activity associated with an in-network page with recommendations for possible connections for the user within the network of users, the system may determine whether or not there have been too many impressions of the in-network page. If not, the system may present the in-network page with a recommendation for a possible in-network connection for the user within the network of users. Then, if the system receives a user selection of the possible in-network connection, the system may provide an invitation message inviting the possible in-network connection to connect with the user by activating a link in the invitation message.

User-specific and user-activity-based routing within a website

Growing community of inventors

San Jose, CA, United States of America

Haifeng Ji