Facebook, Inc.

Sit-Up Limited

John David Egan

Lars Eilstrup Rasmussen

Fabio Lopiano

Blaise Andrew DiPersia

Tarmo Lehtpuu

Ashley Faull

An online system provides a social networking environment for a set of users, such as members of an organization. The online system allows generation of groups of users within the set to allow users to more easily communicate content with other users. When a user creates a new group, the online system identifies multiple categories to the user, and the user selects a category for association with the group. Categories are associated with access rights regulating user access to content associated with the group or users capable of performing various actions with the group. Additionally, a member of the group may invite entities outside of the online system, or outside of the set of users, to join the group. If the entity joins the group, the online system provides content associated with the group to the entity, allowing the entity to receive content from the group.

Determining user access to groups generated in a closed online system based on categories determined for the groups

An online system allows users to join groups and interact with other members of group that they have joined. The online system identifies relationships between users in an organization using information about the users, such as roles and connections from an organizational chart. The online system establishes inferred connections between the users based on information from the organizational chart. The online system then determines whether to make group content visible to a user by applying visibility criteria for a group to the inferred connections between a user and members of the group, if any. Depending on this determination, groups are then made visible to certain users by presenting content associated with the group to the user.

Determining visibility of group content to a user based on inferred connections between users of an online system

The invention is generally but not exclusively concerned with problems associated with production of interactive television, particularly an interactive televised auction, where input must be obtained from a plurality of users and broadcast output must be provided based on live user input. However, solutions provided by aspects of the invention are not limited to such a use and may be more generally applied.

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London, United Kingdom

John David Egan