Systems and methods for establishing or maintaining a personalized trusted social network
View Patent ↗Automated systems and methods are provided for establishing or maintaining a personalized trusted social network for a community of users, with little or no input from any given user. To establish the personalized trusted social network, one or more trusted sources are identified for a given user. The identified trusted sources are added to a user profile for the given user. Also, identified are any annotations, bookmarks, or the like that the identified trusted sources have associated with any shared content. These annotations provide access to microcontent items that the identified trusted sources have integrated with the shared content to thereby enhance or enrich its context. One or more profiles are constructed or updated to track the associations between the identified trusted sources and their annotations. The profile information can be applied to enhance and personalize search and browsing experiences for the given user.
1. A computerized method of establishing or maintaining a personalized trusted social network for a primary user, said personalized trusted social network including a plurality of trusted sources sharing content items throughout a communications system, the method comprising:
searching communication exchanges over the communications system for one or more trusted sources having a specified relationship with the primary user, wherein the one or more trusted sources comprises one or more users other than the primary user, and wherein searching for one or more trusted sources having a specified relationship comprises:
identifying one or more online services, wherein the one or more online services provide access to at least one content item that the primary user is a subscriber and to microcontent items appended to the at least one content item by a plurality of users other than a contributing user of the one or more online services;
identifying the contributing user and the plurality of other users that appended microcontent items to the at least one content item that the primary users is a subscriber; and
at least one of constructing and updating a profile for the primary user automatically without input from the primary user, the profile associating the identified contributing user and the plurality of other users that appended microcontent items to the at least one content item that the primary users is a subscriber as trusted sources for the primary user;
identifying an annotated content item from another online service, that includes an annotation provided by a trusted source from the identified one or more trusted sources;
associating the annotation with the selected trusted source; and
implementing the association between the primary user and the identified one or more trusted sources and the association between the annotation and the selected trusted source to establish or maintain the personalized trusted social network, wherein implementing the association comprises;
receiving a search query from the primary user; and
generating a search report in response to the query that includes a link to the at least one annotated content item from another online service and an indication of the trusted source that annotated the annotated content item.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein said searching comprises: parsing an RSS feed to identify the one or more trusted sources.
3. The method of claim 1 , wherein said searching comprises: detecting an owner of a blog to identify the one or more trusted sources.
4. The method of claim 1 , wherein said searching comprises: detecting an individual having contributed to a blog to identify the one or more trusted sources.
5. The method of claim 1 , wherein said identifying an annotated content item comprises: detecting a comment added to a blog by the selected trusted source to identify the annotation.
6. The method of claim 1 , wherein said identifying an annotated content item comprises: detecting a content item linked to a blog by the selected trusted source to identify the annotation.
7. The method of claim 1 , comprising: enabling the primary member to add or delete an association with a trusted source.
8. The method of claim 1 , comprising: enabling the primary member to insert, update, or delete an association with an annotation.
9. A computerized method of establishing or maintaining a personalized trusted social network for a primary user, the method comprising:
monitoring one or more blogs, wherein the one or more blogs provide access to at least one blog entry that the primary user is a subscriber and to microcontent items appended to the at least one blog entry by a plurality of users other than a blogger that contributed the blog entry;
parsing an RSS feed for the blog and identifying therefrom the blogger and identifying the plurality of other users that appended microcontent items to the at least blog entry that the primary users is a subscriber;
associating the blogger and the plurality of other users that appended microcontent items to the at least blog entry with the primary user in a primary user profile automatically without input from the primary user;
identifying microcontent items that the blogger and the plurality of other users that appended microcontent items to the at least blog entry have published to another of the one or more blogs;
associating the microcontent items with the blogger and the plurality of other users; and
providing an annotated search result in response to a query from the primary user, said annotated search result including a reference to at least one of the microcontent items published to another of the one or more blogs and at least one of the blogger and at least one of the plurality of other users that published the at least one of the microcontent items.
10. The method of claim 9 , further comprising: analyzing one or more blogs having the primary user as a member to detect the blog for executing said parsing an RSS feed.