Automatically Determining Relationships between Mobile Devices

1 . A method for automatically determining relationships between a plurality of mobile devices, comprising:

determining, for each mobile device in the plurality of mobile devices, characteristics of a user of the mobile device;

determining, based on the characteristics of the users of the mobile devices, a first role of a first user of a first mobile device;

determining, based on the characteristics of the users of the mobile devices, a second role of a second user of a second mobile device;

determining, based on the first role and the second role, a relationship between the first user and the second user; and

determining that a relationship between the first mobile device and the second mobile device is equal to the relationship between the first user and the second user.

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the first mobile device comprises a tablet computer or a smartphone.

3 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising a preliminary step of grouping the plurality of mobile devices.

4 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the users of the plurality of mobile devices belong to a single household or a single workplace.

5 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising determining a first targeted advertising message to send to the first mobile device and a second targeted advertising message to send to the second mobile device based on the relationship between the first mobile device and the second mobile device.

6 . The method of claim 1 , wherein characteristics of a mobile device user include a demographic estimate of that user.

7 . The method of claim 6 , wherein the demographic estimate comprises one or more dimensions of a group containing gender, age, ethnicity, and household income.

8 . The method of claim 6 , wherein the demographic estimate comprises a probability distribution over classes of interest for a dimension.

9 . The method of claim 1 , wherein characteristics of a mobile device user include a behavioral segment determined based on that user's usage of an application or content.

10 . The method of claim 9 , wherein the behavioral segment grades the mobile device based on one or more elements of a group containing recency, frequency, and volume of use of content of a particular type.

11 . The method of claim 1 , wherein determining the characteristics of the user of the mobile device comprises analyzing device-level characteristics of the mobile device.

12 . The method of claim 11 , wherein device-level characteristics of the mobile device comprise one or more elements of a group containing a make of the mobile device, a model of the mobile device, an operating system installed on the mobile device, one or more applications installed on the mobile device, a connection type used by the mobile device, and a connection Internet Protocol (IP) address used by the mobile device.

13 . The method of claim 1 , wherein determining the characteristics of the user of the mobile device comprises analyzing log data regarding application usage or content usage of the mobile device.

14 . The method of claim 13 , wherein log data regarding application usage or content usage of the mobile device comprise one or more elements of a group containing a name of an application, a timestamp, a location of the mobile device, an IP address with which the mobile device communicated, a frequency of user interaction, one or more user actions, one or more search terms entered by the user of the mobile device, a referring uniform resource locator (URL), and content consumed.

15 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the first role comprises Head of Household, Parent, Father, Mother, Child, Son, or Daughter.

16 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the first role comprises Product, Sales, Finance, or Information Technology.

17 . The method of claim 1 , wherein determining, based on the characteristics of the users of the mobile devices, the first role of the first user of the first mobile device comprises:

for each mobile device in the plurality of mobile devices:

comparing an expected user characteristic profile for the first role to the characteristics of the user of the mobile device; and

determining a measure of similarity between the expected user characteristic profile and the characteristics of the user of the mobile device; and

assigning the first role to the user whose characteristics most strongly match the expected user characteristic profile.

18 . The method of claim 17 , wherein the expected user characteristic profile is expressed as a vector, the characteristics of the user of the mobile device are expressed as a vector, and determining the measure of similarity between the expected user characteristic profile and the characteristics of the user of the mobile device comprises calculating a dot product of the expected user characteristic profile vector and the user characteristics vector.

19 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the relationship between the first user and the second user comprises spousal, parental, or sibling.

20 . A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing executable computer program instructions for automatically determining relationships between a plurality of mobile devices, the instructions performing steps comprising:

determining, for each mobile device in the plurality of mobile devices, characteristics of a user of the mobile device;

determining, based on the characteristics of the users of the mobile devices, a first role of a first user of a first mobile device;

determining, based on the characteristics of the users of the mobile devices, a second role of a second user of a second mobile device;

determining, based on the first role and the second role, a relationship between the first user and the second user; and

determining that a relationship between the first mobile device and the second mobile device is equal to the relationship between the first user and the second user.

21 . A system for automatically determining relationships between a plurality of mobile devices, the system comprising:

at least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing executable computer program instructions comprising instructions for:

determining, for each mobile device in the plurality of mobile devices, characteristics of a user of the mobile device;

determining, based on the characteristics of the users of the mobile devices, a first role of a first user of a first mobile device;

determining, based on the characteristics of the users of the mobile devices, a second role of a second user of a second mobile device;

determining, based on the first role and the second role, a relationship between the first user and the second user; and

determining that a relationship between the first mobile device and the second mobile device is equal to the relationship between the first user and the second user; and

a processor for executing the computer program instructions.