Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Jose D Saura

Daniel Buchmueller

Min Liu

Gilad Oren

Meir Ben Itay

Shiv Nandan Singh

Social relationships are detected between a plurality of users. A set of user activity logs is input, where these logs originate from one or more network services and cover a prescribed period of time. Each of the logs originates from a particular one of the services and includes a structured data stream that records each interaction that each of one or more of the users has with the particular one of the services. This structured data stream includes a timestamp specifying when this interaction occurred, and a public network identifier specifying a network address from which this interaction occurred. The set of user activity logs is then analyzed to detect a prescribed kind of social relationship between the users. A data structure is then generated that identifies the users between whom the prescribed kind of social relationship is detected, and the data structure is output.

Detecting social relationships from user activity logs

One or more techniques and/or systems are provided for promoting a service using a gifting model. For example, a gifting model, for a service (e.g., a multimedia content service that provides movies, music, apps, etc.), may specify what types of online users are eligible to be promoters and/or what online promotional gifts are available for promoters to gift to online recipient users. In an example, one or more online promotional gifts (e.g., a television show, a song, etc.) of the multimedia content service are exposed to an online user. A gift request is received from the online user. The gift request may specify an online recipient user and a selected online promotional gift (e.g., an action movie). The online promotional gift is provided to the online recipient user. In this way, online users may promote a service by providing promotional gifts, such as for free, to online recipient users.

Efficient promotion model

Systems, methods, and computer-readable media for responding to a search query with search results ranked according to interest circles of a plurality of computer users are presented. Interest circles are formed from a computer user's navigation data, including the computer user's navigation history. A search query is received from a requesting computer user. The search query is directed to a query topic or set of query topics. A set of search results responsive to the search query are obtained. A plurality of computer users, each of the plurality of computer users having an established interest circle corresponding to the query topic, is identified. The set of search results are then ordered according to the interest circles of the identified plurality of computer users. Thereafter, the higher ordered search results are returned to the requesting computer user in response to the search query.

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Kent, WA, United States of America

Jose D Saura