Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Yahoo! Inc.

Excalibur Ip, LLC

Linkedin Corporation

Mark Hull

F Randall Farmer

Ellen Sue Perelman

Samir Mavji Shah

Lawrence Yuan

Ravi Kiran Holur Vijay

Benjamin T Arai

Utku Irmak

Ji Yan

Pramod Chand Khincha

Roland Schemers

Anand Kishore Bollini

James Andrew Clark

Yuichi Sasaki

Parag Naresh Shah

James Lee Richards

Shaunak Chatterjee

Neal J Sample

Birjodh S Tiwana

Kinjal Basu

Jayant Balasubramanian Sai

Elizabeth Ethel Burstein

Nash Raghavan

Siva Visakan Sooriyan

Sammy Shreibati

Rachel Kumar

Jesse Jyh-Cherng Hsia

Steven Brooks

Haiyang Liu

Christopher J Fong

Ericson DeJesus

Gaganpreet Singh Shah

Vivian Mak Urata

Clayton Schubiner

Wing Lun Ting

Chamila Amithrigala

Jacek Suliga

Michael Joshua Aft

Xin Sun

Hariharan Gopalakrishnan

Haider Sabri

Pradeepta Dash

Described herein is a contextual contact recommendation or suggestion service and system. The service, which, in some embodiments, is integrated with a social networking service and/or an instant messaging service, takes as input a first parameter that identifies a member of the social networking service, and a second parameter that defines a context (e.g., a web page that is being viewed by the member. The service, based in part on the context, computes a ranked list of members to populate a contextual contact list, thereby recommending or suggesting contacts, with whom the member might be interested in initiating, or continuing, a conversation, based on the context of the member's current web browsing session. Optionally, the service may take as input a third parameter, defining a use case, such that the recommendation algorithm can be customized by use case.

Techniques for presenting a contextual contact list

Techniques are provided for sharing data among computing devices. In one technique, a first device broadcasts wireless data and establishes a wireless connection with a second device. The first device receives authorization data and first entity data from the second device. The first device authorizes the second device based on the authorization data. The first device then sends second entity data through the wireless connection to the second computing device. The first device sends the first entity data over a network to a remote server system. The first device receives, from the remote server system, entity data that pertains to an entity that is identified by the first entity data. The first device may then display at least a portion of the entity data on a screen of the first device.

Transmitting data among mobile devices

Techniques for enabling members that have interacted physically to interact thereafter via an online social networking service are described. According to various embodiments, it is determined that a first member and a second member of an online social networking service physically interacted at an interaction location at an interaction time, and a specific time interval commencing at the interaction time is calculated. Thereafter, an ephemeral prompt is displayed to the first member, during the specific time interval, indicating that the first member physically interacted with the second member, and inviting the first member to message the second member via the online social networking service. The ephemeral prompt is prevented from being displayed subsequent to expiration of the specific time interval.

Ephemeral interaction system

A method, apparatus, and system are directed towards seeding a user's contacts for their online social network. The invention is arranged to automatically recommend to the user a set of seed contacts that the user may employ to invite to join their social network. The set of seed contacts may be harvested from the user's existing portal activities, as well as other sources. In one embodiment, the invention analyzes portal activity, such as email exchanges with the user, and the like, to determine a frequency of contact with the user. Other sources may include but not be limited to emails, names within an address book of the user, names within an address book of another person, a buddy list, an instant messaging list, an activity, a mailing list, an online discussion group, a membership in a category, chat group, and the like.

Computerized method and system for establishing a network connection based on a contact list automatically seeded from network behavioral analysis of a user

Social network for providing recommendations for items of interest

Social network for reciprocal data sharing

Social network with multiple logins

Techniques for optimizing a delivery time for the delivery of messages are described. According to various embodiments, a system determines, for each of a plurality of time intervals, a likelihood of a particular member of an online social network service performing a particular member user action on a particular message content item during the corresponding time interval. The plurality of time intervals are then ranked, based on the determined likelihoods corresponding to the plurality of time intervals. Thereafter, a particular time interval is identified from among the plurality of time intervals that is associated with a highest ranking. The particular time interval is then classified as an optimum personalized message delivery time for the particular member.

Personalized delivery time optimization

A communication server, computer-readable storage medium and computer-implemented method for executing commands embedded in messages are provided. The method may include detecting user input of a special character while a user is composing a message and in response to detecting the user input of the special character, presenting a selectable list of command operators to the user. The method may further include causing a command operator to be included in the message in response to user selection of the command operator from the selectable list of command operators. The command operator is operative to execute an action performed by a network-based service executing on an application server. The method may further include identifying, at an outbound communication serer, the command operator included in the message, and transmitting a request to the application server to perform the action corresponding thereto.

Embedding and executing commands in messages

Social network with field level control of data exposure

A system, computer-readable storage medium, and computer-implemented method for assigning a task based on content presented in a data feed are presented. A data feed that includes a set of content items is presented. Each of the content items included in the data feed may include a graphical user interface element capable of invoking task assignment functionality with respect to each content item. A task based on a content item presented in the data feed may be created and assigned to a selected user in response to receiving a selection of the graphical user interface element. The method may further include generating an individual status report for the user that includes every task assigned to the user.

Task management from within a data feed

A communication server, computer-readable storage medium, and computer-implemented method for executing commands embedded in messages are provided. The method may include accessing a message that is being routed through a communication server. The message may include a command operator that is operative to execute an action performed by a network-based service executing on an application server. The method may further include identifying the command operator included in the message, and transmitting a request to the application server to perform the action corresponding thereto.

Executing commands embedded in messages

Techniques for inferring a time zone of a user (e.g., a member of an online social network service) are described. According to various embodiments, it is determined that a particular member of an online social networks service is currently located in a particular country. Responsive to determining that a single time zone is associated with the particular country, it is determined that the particular member is currently located in the single time zone. Responsive to determining that multiple time zones are associated with the particular country, an IP address associated with a user login request is accessed, a geographic location associated with the IP address is identified, and a specific one of the multiple time zones that corresponds to the geographic location is identified. It is determined that the particular member is currently located in the specific time zone.

Member time zone inference

Techniques for optimizing a delivery time for the delivery of messages are described. According to various embodiments, members of an online social network service that are currently located in a particular geographic location (e.g., a particular time zone) are identified. Thereafter, messages (e.g., e-mails) are transmitted to the members at multiple local times (e.g., multiple times of the day). It is then determined that one or more of the messages that were transmitted at a particular local time have received a highest value for a response metric among the messages, the response metric indicating responses by the members to the messages. The particular local time is then classified as an optimum local message delivery time for the particular geographic location.

Delivery time optimization

Growing community of inventors

San Jose, CA, United States of America

Mark Hull