Granted Patent B2

US 9,032,000 · App. 13/840,173 · Granted May 12, 2015

Inventors: Luke Barrington (San Diego, CA); Nathan Ricklin (San Diego, CA); Shay Har-Noy (San Diego, CA)

Assignee: Digital Globe Inc.

G06F17/30864

Abstract

Claims (26)

1. A system for geolocation of social media posts, comprising:

a social search engine stored and operating on a network-attached computer;

a geolocation software module stored and operating on a network-attached computer; and

a network-attached database comprising at least a media storage and a metadata storage;

wherein the social search engine retrieves a plurality of social media content postings and stores them in the database; and

wherein the geolocation software module carries out the following steps to geolocate a first social media content posting:

(a) extracting any metadata present in or associated with the social media content posting;

(b) extracting any embedded location data in or associated with the social media content posting;

(c) identifying an author of the social media content posting;

(d) determining if the metadata storage contains location-related data about the author, if one was identified;

(e) determining if location data pertaining to a physical location of the author at the time of posting of the social media content posting is available;

(f) identifying any known place names present in or associated with the social media content posting;

(g) if a plurality of locations is obtained as a result of steps (a)-(f) that comprises more than one potential location, disambiguating, using a relevancy software module, the plurality of locations to determine a most likely location; and

(h) geotagging the social media content posting and storing the resulting geotagged social media content posting in the metadata storage.

2. A method for geolocation of social media posts, comprising the steps of:

(a) retrieving, using a social search engine stored and operating on a network-attached computer, a plurality of social media content postings;

(b) storing the plurality of social media content postings in a network-attached database comprising at least a media storage and a metadata storage;

(c) geolocating, using a geolocation software module stored and operating on a network-attached computer, a first social media content posting by:

(i) extracting any metadata present in or associated with the social media content posting;

(ii) extracting any embedded location data in or associated with the social media content posting;

(iii) identifying an author of the social media content posting;

(iv) determining if the metadata storage contains location-related data about the author, if one was identified;

(v) determining if location data pertaining to a physical location of the author at the time of posting of the social media content posting is available;

(vi) identifying any known place names present in or associated with the social media content posting; and

(vii) if a plurality of locations is obtained as a result of steps (i)-(vi) that comprises more than one potential location, disambiguating, using a relevancy software module, the plurality of locations to determine a most likely location; and

(d) geotagging the social media content posting and storing the resulting geotagged social media content posting in the metadata storage.

Assignments (21)

Continuity (2)