Abstract: Disclosed is a system for recommending content of a predefined category to an account holder, detecting spam applications, or account holders based on the account holder application graphs. The system receives information corresponding to applications executing on the client device of the account holders and generates an application graph for each account holder that includes a list of predefined application categories that are preferred by the account holder. For each predefined category, a list of account holders preferring content relevant to that category is predicted based on the set of generated application graphs. Some application graphs may be detected as spam application graphs by comparing the generated application graphs with a set of predefined spam application graphs. Alternatively, if the generated application graph does not match the predefined spam application graphs, they are compared to a set of application graphs from a database to find similar application graphs.

Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for information retrieval. One of the methods includes receiving a search query from a user device at a messaging system; determining one or more relevant messages responsive to the search query, the determining comprising: processing the search query using a first stage of a ranking system, the first stage using a first set of features to identify a first set of relevant message, processing the search query using a second stage of the ranking system, the second stage using a second set of features and the first set of relevant messages to determine a second set of relevant messages, and ranking the second set of relevant messages according to respective scores; and providing one or more results to the user device for display as search results.

Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for providing to user devices identifiers of edge servers from which to obtain content. One example system includes a traffic control service. The traffic control service is configured to receive polling requests from user devices. In response to a particular polling request, the traffic control service obtains aggregated data about the user devices and edge servers. The traffic control service selects, based on the aggregated data, a best edge server for the user device that sent the particular polling request. The traffic control service sends an identifier of the selected best edge server to the user device.

Abstract: A system and method for feature switching in software applications. A feature switching action (FSA) is received and at least one user device is identified based on the received FSA. At least one feature switching instruction (FSI) is generated based on the received FSA and the FSI is sent to at least one of the identified user devices. A feature switching instruction response (FSIR) is received from each user device that received a FSI and a feature switching action response (FSAR) is generated based on the received FSIRs.

Abstract: A real-time messaging platform and method are disclosed which suggests messages and accounts from the real-time messaging platform.

Abstract: In general, embodiments of the invention relate to servicing fill request using ad networks and demand-side partners.

Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for data retention and modification. One of the methods includes dividing partitions into a set of generations according to a retention policy; accumulating modification and deletion events that define changes to be applied to data of the distributed dataset; and when a triggering event occurs for a triggered generation in the set of generations, rolling an oldest partition out of the triggered generation, the rolling comprising: if the oldest partition has reached the end of a retention period for the dataset, marking the oldest partition for deletion in the triggered generation; otherwise: creating a new partition corresponding to the data of the oldest partition, wherein the data is cleaned using a scrubbing process; adding the new partition to a next generation in the set of generations; and marking the oldest partition for deletion in the triggered generation.

Abstract: A system and method for event-based content presentation, including: receiving a content presentation request to present a content item at an event where presentation of the content item can be captured. The content presentation request can include an event identifier identifying the event at which the content item is to be presented, and can further identify the content item to be displayed. The submitted content item can be presented on a content presentation device located at the event. Presentation of the content item can be captured and the resulting captured content presentation can be stored, broadcasted on a messaging platform, provided to the requesting user, etc.

Abstract: A method for establishing a trust association includes receiving, by a server, a request to associate a web source with an account, the request having a link to the web source, and accessing, by the server, the web source in response to the request to associate. The method further includes locating, by the server and within the web source, a tag associated with the account, creating, by the server and in response to locating the tag within the web source, a trust association between the account and the web source, and providing, by the server, an indicating of the trust association for display in a user interface of a client device.

Abstract: A real-time messaging platform and method is disclosed which classifies messages in accordance with a combination of user engagement events as modified to reflect the temporal structure of the user engagement events. A message can be assigned a metric based, for example, on a weighted combination of user engagement rates, decayed with time to reflect an intuition that recent interactions by one or more users with the message will have a greater impact than older interactions with the message. Different types of interaction by one or more users with the message can be assigned different weights when the different engagement events are combined and, also, can be assigned different temporal characteristics.

Abstract: A method involving obtaining a first plurality of topic groups (TGs), each having a membership of accounts, identifying a first plurality of accounts as authorities for an expertise topic, obtaining a second plurality of TGs with a number of accounts as members, wherein the first plurality of TGs comprises the second plurality of TGs, identifying a first frequent account which is a member in at least one of the second plurality of TGs, adding the first frequent account to the authorities of the expertise topic to obtain a second plurality of accounts as the authorities of the expertise topic, determining a third plurality of TGs in which a second number of accounts from the second plurality of accounts are members, determining that another frequent account is a member in one of the third plurality of TGs, and obtaining a ranking of accounts that are an authority on the expertise topic.

Abstract: A method, system, and non-transitory computer readable medium for identifying a relevant conversation. The method can include: identifying a conversation graph including identifiers of messages posted by a set of authoring accounts; identifying a relevance score for each authoring account; applying, by a computer processor, a first relevance filter to the conversation graph in order to modify the set of relevance scores; applying, by the computer processor and after applying the first relevance filter, a second relevance filter to the conversation graph in order to further modify the set of relevance scores; selecting, based on the set of relevance scores and after applying the second relevance filter, a subset of messages of the conversation graph for inclusion in the relevant conversation; and providing at least a portion of the relevant conversation to a client device.

Abstract: A real-time messaging platform allows advertiser accounts to pay to insert candidate messages into the message streams requested by account holders. To accommodate multiple advertisers, the messaging platform controls an auction process that determines which candidate messages are selected for inclusion in a requested account holder's message stream. Selection is based on a bid for the candidate message, the message stream that is requested, and a variety of other factors that vary depending upon the implementation. The process for selection of candidate messages generally includes the following steps, though any given step may be omitted or combined into another step in a different implementation: targeting, filtering, prediction, ranking, and selection.

Abstract: According to an aspect, a method for ranking messages of conversation graphs in a messaging platform using predictive outcomes includes receiving, over a network, a conversation view request to retrieve messages of a conversation graph stored on a messaging platform, and determining, by the messaging platform, a plurality of predictive outcomes for each of a plurality of messages of the conversation graph using predictive models. The plurality of predictive outcomes includes a reciprocal engagement probability. The method includes ranking, by the messaging platform, the plurality of messages based on the predictive outcomes, and transmitting, by the messaging platform, over the network, at least a subset of the plurality of messages to be rendered on a client application according to the rank.

Abstract: Behavioral analysis of a mobile application is performed to determine whether the application is malicious. During analysis, various user interactions are simulated in an emulated environment to activate many possible resulting behaviors of an application. The behaviors are classified as hard or soft signals. A probability of the application being malicious is determined through combining soft signals, and the application is classified as malicious or non-malicious. Users of the application, the developer of the application, or a distributor of the application are notified of the application classification to enable responsive action.

Abstract: A method for processing ads involves traversing an ad view hierarchy to obtain ad view information for a device, providing the ad view information to an ad server, sending, by the device, an ad request to the ad server, receiving, in response to the ad request, an ad. and displaying the ad on the device.

Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for performing computing and storage tasks in distributed systems. One of the methods includes obtaining multiple resource use information items associated with performance of a group of tasks on a distributed computing framework having multiple clusters; for each task of the group of tasks having a corresponding task type, determining a measure of operational load of performing the task on the distributed computing framework based on the selected resource use information items associated with the task and one or more unit measures associated with the task; combining each measure of operational load to compute a combined measure of operational load for performing the group of tasks on the distributed computing framework; identifying one or more properties of the group of tasks that indicate a need to adjust the combined measure; and adjusting the combined measure of operational load.

Abstract: Techniques of playing back a looping video file involve providing multiple video codecs for decoding a video file. Each video codec performs its own decoding operation on the looping video file, resulting in multiple buffers of video frames and a buffer of audio frames. Then, as the GPU renders the ending video frames from a first buffer, it begins rendering the beginning video frames from a second buffer. In this way, the beginning of a next video cycle is already rendered for viewing by the time a current video cycle is ending.

Abstract: Methods and systems for generating, identifying, and displaying message threads on a social messaging platform. One of the methods includes receiving a first and second messages posted to a social messaging platform by a user account; determining whether the second message is a reply to the first message posted by the user account; in response, determining if the first message is part of an existing message thread; in response to determining that the first message is not part of an existing thread, assigning a new thread identifier to both the first message and the second message, the thread identifier associating both messages with a new thread; in response to determining that the first message is part of an existing thread, assigning an existing thread identifier obtained from the first message to the second message.

Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for limiting load on host servers that implement a social messaging platform. An example user device sends, to a platform comprising a plurality of host servers, a first request. The request is directed to a first endpoint. The user device receives, in response to the first request, a first error that indicates that the first request was not processed. The user device determines a back off time and places subsequent requests to the platform that are initiated before the back off time elapses and that are directed to the first endpoint in a back off queue in an order in which the subsequent requests are initiated. The user device sends, to the platform, the requests in the back off queue after the back off time has elapsed, until the back off queue is empty.

Abstract: A system and method for performing regression testing on source code provides a data sample to one or more candidate instances executing a candidate version of source code for a code base and provides the data sample to plurality of baseline instances executing a baseline version of the source code. The baseline version of the source code and the candidate version of the source code differ. The regression testing system and method obtains candidate outputs from the one or more candidate instances and obtains baseline outputs from the plurality of baseline instances based on the provided data sample. One or more faults in the candidate version of the source code can be determined by comparing the candidate outputs the baseline outputs. A filter for excluding one or more data fields from the comparison can be generated based on a comparison between baseline outputs from one of the plurality of baseline instances and baseline outputs from another of the plurality of baseline instances.

Abstract: Systems and methods provide live broadcasts with real-time feedback from viewers using mobile computing devices. An example method includes providing a live feed broadcast from a source mobile device to a plurality of viewing devices, receiving, during the live feed broadcast, an engagement from one of the plurality of viewing devices, and associating the engagement with a particular time in the live feed broadcast. The method also includes providing an indication of the engagement to the source mobile device, wherein the source mobile device displays a graphic representation of the engagement during the live feed broadcast and adding the indication of the engagement to the live feed so that a graphic representation is displayed during the live feed at the particular time to users of the plurality of viewing devices. The viewing user may each have a graph relationship with a user of the source mobile device.

Abstract: A method for purchasing processing requests on a messaging platform including obtaining a broadcast message from a first client associated with a first social networking account, making a first determination that the broadcast message includes a reference to an item, making a second determination, based at least in part of a perceived inventory count for item that a vendor associated with the messaging platform is able to supply the item, based on the second determination, generating a new broadcast message that includes a buy-now card associated with the item, transmitting the new broadcast message to a second client associated with a second social networking account, receiving, after transmitting the new broadcast message, a purchase request for the second client, wherein the purchase request specifies the item, and processing, by the messaging platform, the purchase request.

Abstract: A system and method for feature switching in software applications. A feature switching action (FSA) is received and at least one user device is identified based on the received FSA. At least one feature switching instruction (FSI) is generated based on the received FSA and the FSI is sent to at least one of the identified user devices. A feature switching instruction response (FSIR) is received from each user device that received a FSI and a feature switching action response (FSAR) is generated based on the received FSIRs.

Abstract: In some implementations, a system may include a video broadcasting service, implemented on a server, configured to enable a mobile computing device to broadcast a live feed media stream of an event, over a network, to a plurality of viewing devices. The video broadcasting service is configured to receive the live feed media stream, over the network, from the mobile computing device, where the live feed media stream originates from an external device having a camera configured as a video source for the live feed media stream. The external device may be communicatively coupled to the mobile computing device. The video broadcasting service is configured to provide the live feed media stream, over the network, to the plurality of viewing devices.

Abstract: A messaging platform is configured to exchange social media messages, over a network, among a plurality of user devices each of which is executing a social media messaging application. The messaging platform is configured to provide, over the network, a moment of an event discussed by the social media messages for selection on a user interface of the social media messaging application. The moment is a collection of items that relate to the event, where the collection of items includes one or more selected messages that have been exchanged on the messaging platform that relate to the event. The collection of items can include text, video, and/or images of the event. When selected, the moment provides a display of the collection of items such that a user can view each item of the moment.

Abstract: A method and system for identifying relevant messages in a conversation graph includes identifying a context message within the conversation graph. The context message is marked as relevant and additional messages are marked as relevant based on various criteria. A plurality of authors of messages marked as relevant is identified and a plurality of unmarked messages authored by the plurality of authors is marked as relevant. In addition, a plurality of parent messages of messages marked as relevant are identified and marked as relevant. A list comprising messages marked as relevant is then provided to a user. Multiple steps can be repeated until convergence after which the list can be provided to the user.

Abstract: Systems and methods are described that include providing, on a touchscreen display of an electronic device, a stream of content items, at least some of which are associated with a corresponding display anchor. Inputs are detected at the touchscreen display and the inputs are associated with a scroll speed. The scroll speed may be based on a detected distance between the inputs on the touchscreen and an elapsed time between at least two of the inputs. In response to determining a lack of input for a predefined time period, a display anchor can be determined and selected. The display anchor may correspond to a content item to be used as a pause location for the stream. The scrolling of the stream of content items can be paused at the pause location to use the selected display anchor to display the content item in a top viewable portion of the display.

Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for visibility filtering. One of the methods includes receiving a request for particular data on a social messaging platform; passing the request to one or more services, wherein each service is configured to call to data sources or to additional services to collect the particular data according to a request path defined for a type of request; performing visibility filtering at each service upon obtaining responses to calls made by that service, wherein performing visibility filtering at a service comprises calling a local visibility library that evaluates one or more rules with respect to the obtained response data, and wherein the results of the visibility filtering are passed upstream along the request path until a last service obtains all filtered response data; and assembling a final response to the request based on the filtered response data.

Abstract: A system for real-time search, including: a set of partitions, each including a set of segments, each segment corresponding to a time slice of messages posted to the messaging platform, and a real-time search engine configured to receive a search term in parallel with other partitions in the set of partitions, and search at least one of the set of segments in reverse chronological order of the corresponding time slice to identify document identifiers of messages containing the search term; and a search fanout module configured to: receive a search query including the search term; send the search term to each of the set of partitions for parallel searching; and return, in response to the search query, at least one of the identified document identifiers of messages containing the search term.

Abstract: A real time messaging platform identifies an audio snippet of a time-based media (TBM) event. The messaging platform maintains a real time repository of concurrently broadcasting TBM events as well as a historical repository of previously broadcast TBM events. These repositories contain acoustic fingerprints of their respective TBM events. The messaging platform matches an acoustic fingerprint of the audio snippet with one of the stored acoustic fingerprints to identify the TBM event in the recorded snippet. To identify the TBM event, the messaging platform matches multiple overlapping reference audio segments of the reference audio stream with multiple test audio segments of the audio snippet. This allows the platform to account for time delays between the test and reference audio segments that would otherwise hinder the matching process.

Abstract: This description relates to techniques for authenticating an application through generation of a dynamic application-specific token. A client application executing on a client device receives a request from a server for a token. The client application accesses a resource file or portion thereof that is accessible to both the client application and authenticator and is known to be accessible to the client application by the authenticator in response to the request for the token and extracts a copy of the resource file or the portion. A token is generated based on the extracted copy and additional information factors if any, some of which may be random or pseudo-random. The token is transmitted to the server for authentication.

Abstract: A method for conversion attribution. The method includes obtaining a first identifier associated with a first device, obtaining a second identifier associated with a second device, bridging the first identifier and the second identifier based on a determination, made by a probabilistic classifier, that the first identifier and the second identifier are associated with a common user, and attributing, using the bridge, a conversion on a website accessed using the second device.

Abstract: In general, techniques are described to determine engagement scores representative of a level of engagement in a digital domain for a particular sub-category within the common category of entities on a social media platform. In accordance with these techniques, a computing system is configured to receive, from one or more client devices, messages composed by one or more users of the one or more client devices. Each of the messages includes a respective identifier, and each respective identifier is associated with a common category of entities. The computing system is further configured to determine, based on the messages, an engagement score that represents a level of engagement for a particular sub-category within the common category of entities. The computing system is further configured to output, for display at a display device operatively connected to the computing system, a visual representation of the engagement score.

Abstract: A technique for tracking conversion of an online offer includes tracking online and/or offline transactions. A customer accepts an offer provided by a merchant and submits his or her account information so that he or she may receive a reward for satisfying criteria associated with the offer. Transactions of the merchant are then monitored at the payment processor level to determine whether the customer satisfies the purchase criteria. Therefore, online and offline conversion can both be tracked. Further, the merchant is able to determine the overall effectiveness of advertising campaigns by analyzing the number of offers that are both accepted and satisfied.

Abstract: Embodiments are provided for managing shared states of objects associated with a distributed database. According to certain aspects, a reactor machine interfaces with a coordination service that is in communication with the distributed database to coordinate the shared states of the objects. The coordination service notifies the reactor machine when a shared state of an object has changed and, in response, the reactor machine determines a desired state of the object by executing a reactor function. The reactor machine provides the desired state of the object to the coordination service, and the coordination service updates the shared state of the object to reflect the desired state of the object. Accordingly, the logic of the reactor machine is de-coupled from the complexities of the coordination service.

Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for data stream processing. One method performed by a stream manager in a group of containers including streaming processes and stream managers includes receiving a first data streaming object of the data streaming objects from a first component in the group of containers; determining whether to process the first data streaming object; in response to determining to process the first data streaming object processing the first data streaming object and routing the first data streaming object; and in response to determining not to process the first data streaming object, routing the first data streaming object.

Abstract: In one general aspect, a method can include receiving a video loop portion included in a video file and receiving an audio loop portion included in an audio file. The method can include analyzing at least a portion of the audio file based on a musical characteristic and identifying a plurality of segment locations within the audio file based on the analyzing where the plurality of segment locations define a plurality of audio segments of the audio file. The method can also include modifying the video loop portion based on one of the plurality of segment locations in the audio file.

Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage medium, for indexing data in information retrieval systems. In one aspect, a system includes computer readable storage media, where the non-transitory computer readable storage media include postings lists for a term, where each posting list includes postings blocks, position blocks, and metadata blocks. Each postings block includes document identifiers and respective indications of frequency of the term in each document. Each position block includes position indications for the term in the documents of a corresponding postings block. Each metadata block includes an indication of the size of the document identifiers in the associated postings block, an indication of the size of the indications of frequency of terms in the associated postings block, an indication of a number of postings in the associated postings block, and an indication of position information for postings in the associated postings block.

Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for delivering event content. One of the methods includes initiating, for one or more client devices, a subscription to a topic; receiving an event relevant to a topic; determining a number of channel servers that correspond to the topic, wherein each channel server is associated with one or more client devices; determining that the number of channel servers that correspond to the topic is greater than a threshold number of channel servers; writing the received event from the event processor to an event fan-out queue, in response to the determination that the number of channel servers that correspond to the topic is greater than the threshold number of channel servers; reading the received event from the event fan-out queue; and sending the received event to the one or more client devices associated with each respective channel server.

Abstract: A real-time messaging platform and method are disclosed which can be used to promote content in the messaging platform. In one embodiment, the promotion system is disclosed which performs initial candidate selection so as to narrow down the set of candidate promotions before applying more expensive processing. The candidate selection takes advantage of the connection graph information associated with accounts in the messaging platform to identify targeted accounts. In another embodiment, the promotion system uses a prediction model to predict a user's engagement with the promotion and utilizes the prediction to assist in ranking the candidate promotions. Promotions can be assigned metrics based, for example, on a weighted combination of user engagement rates, decayed with time to reflect an intuition that recent interactions by one or more users with the promotion will have a greater impact than older interactions with the promotion.

Abstract: Systems and methods for determining items in a target domain to recommend to a user whom has not previously interacted with items in the target domain is described. The method comprises generating an auxiliary domain user embedding based on user affinities for each of a plurality of items in an auxiliary domain and embeddings for each of the plurality of items in the auxiliary domain, providing the auxiliary domain user embedding as input to a neural network configured to output a target domain user embedding, predicting target domain user affinities for items in the target domain based, at least in part, on a similarity measure between the target domain user embedding and an embedding for at least one item in the target domain, and determining a set of items in the target domain to recommend to the user based, at least in part, on the predicted target domain user affinities.

Abstract: A system and a method are disclosed for recommending electronic messages in a message sharing system. Users can post messages to the message sharing system. These messages from posting users are received by the system and sent to receiving users that have subscribed to the posting users. The receiving users interact with the messages in various ways, such as by sharing the messages with other users. Interaction information is received for each of the electronic messages. The interaction information includes an indication of the number of interactions with the electronic message by receiving users. A score is determined for each electronic message based on the interaction information. Electronic messages are selected for being recommended to a user or a group of users based on the scores. The recommendations are then sent to the users, enabling users to better focus their attention on messages that are likely to be interesting.

Abstract: A software developer tool allows for live code updates (LCU) while an application is running using an execution platform. The LCU update service operates by preemptively, automatically rewriting bytecode to introduce a layer of indirection that swaps out the code of a running application to make it easy to dynamically update whenever the code is changed. The indirection includes both new “representation” classes (and constituent fields and methods), and also replacing constructs that are hard-coded into the bytecode with more flexible constructs such as representation object maps and a dynamic global class table. All manner of code modifications are handled including adding, removing and modifying fields and methods of classes, and changing the class hierarchy. This includes arbitrary code changes, ensuring that when a developer changes a class, all objects of or related to that class are instantly updated.

Abstract: A messaging system provides recommendations of content that account holders of the messaging system might be interested in engaging with. In order to determine what to recommend, the messaging system generates a model of account holder engagement behavior organized by type of engagement. The model parameters are trained on differences between expected engagement behavior based on past data and actual engagement behavior, and include a set of common factor matrices that are trained using data from more than on engagement type. As a consequence, engagement behavior of other account holders with respect to other types of engagements different than the one sought to be recommended serves as a partial basis for determining what engagements of the sought-after type are recommended.

Abstract: Embodiments are provided for reducing unwanted messages or spam within a real-time social networking service. According to certain aspects, a synchronous analysis module may operate in coordination with an asynchronous analysis module. Each of the synchronous analysis module and the asynchronous analysis module analyzes an incoming message from a user account to determine whether the incoming message has characteristics of spam, whereby the synchronous analysis is at a lower latency than the asynchronous analysis. The asynchronous analysis is afforded the ability to identify certain spam characteristics that the synchronous analysis may identify during its lower latency analysis.

Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for providing content on a social messaging platform. One of the methods includes providing a plurality of messages of a social messaging platform to a user device, the plurality of messages being part of a conversation; receiving a request associated with one of the plurality of messages, the request including an indication to repost a collection of messages; providing a selection user interface, the selection user interface including the plurality of messages and a respective selection indicator for each message; receiving a user selection of two or more messages; responsive to the user selection, generating a message composition interface, the message composition interface including a representation of the selected messages; and in response to user input, posting the representation of the selected messages as part of a new message of the user on the platform.

Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for generating avatars based on physical sensor measurements. One of the methods includes receiving, by a second user device from a video streaming platform system during a video streaming session between a first user device and the second user device, an updated physical sensor measurement of the first user device. An updated graphical representation of an avatar selected by a first user of the first user device is generated by the second user device based on the updated physical sensor measurement of the first user device. The updated graphical representation of the avatar is presented by the second user device on a display device of the second user device during a video streaming session between the first user device and the second user device.