Abstract: Method, apparatus, and articles of manufacture for presenting a decision user interface to a first member of a social network service, receiving information identifying a set of interests of the first member entered at the decision user interface, searching at least one of the group consisting or profiles of members of the social network service and user decision interfaces presented to members of the social network service and, responsive to searching, providing information relating to the set of interests to the first member. The set of interests may include a field of study or an organization or an academic degree.

Abstract: Methods and systems of managing settings are described. According to various embodiments, a settings page corresponding to a user's settings on an online service may be caused to be displayed on a device. The settings page may comprise selectable category setting options for a setting category. The setting category may have a plurality of subcategories, and each subcategory may have its own selectable subcategory setting options. Each one of the category setting options may correspond to its own distinct configuration of subcategory setting options for its subcategories. A user input indicating a selection of one of the category setting options for the setting category may be received. The configuration of subcategory setting options corresponding to the selected one of the category setting options for the setting category may be applied to the user's settings on the online service.

Abstract: 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.

Abstract: The disclosed embodiments relate to a system for presenting navigation options to a user of a mobile application. During operation, the system receives usage data comprising a record of actions performed while the user was interacting with the mobile application. Next, the system analyzes the usage data to identify areas of interest within the mobile application that the user is likely to access. The system then constructs a set of personalized navigation options for the user based on the identified areas of interest, and possibly other areas of the application based on promotional considerations. Finally, the system outputs the set of personalized navigation options to be presented to the user through a navigation pane in the mobile application, wherein the navigation pane includes shortcuts to the set of personalized navigation options.

Abstract: In order to obtain comments about video content (such as a posted video), a subset of users of a social network may be dynamically identified. This subset of users may be relevant to or may have expertise about the video content. For example, the subset of users may be identified based on their user or member profiles and characteristics of the video content. Then, requests may be iteratively provided to the subset of the users to encourage them to comment on the video content, as well as previous comments from the subset of the users. After editing the comments (which may include reordering the comments that are received at different times), the edited comments may be subsequently presented to the users of the social network.

Abstract: During a user-interface technique, a user interface that includes information associated with a set of presentations is displayed on an electronic device. In this user interface, the presentations are arranged in different categories along a vertical direction of the user interface in an order that is determined based on presentation preferences of a user of the electronic device and/or presentation activities of a group of individuals associated with the user. Furthermore, thumbnails or tiles associated with pages of individual presentations in the set of presentations are arranged along a horizontal direction of the user interface. Subsequently, in response to the user input, the displayed user interface is modified. For example, if the user input specifies a vertical displacement, the set of presentations is displaced along the vertical direction. Alternatively, if the user input specifies a horizontal displacement, the thumbnails for a given presentation are displaced along the horizontal direction.

Abstract: Techniques for inferring a professional reputation for a member of an online social networking service are described. A recommendation graph is generated from professional recommendations submitted by members of the online social networking service for other members of the online social networking service. Using the generated recommendation graph, a reputation model is trained to learn a respective importance for each respective feature of a set of features of electronic profiles on the online social networking service. A professional reputation of a member of the online social networking service is estimated by applying the trained reputation model to a feature vector of the electronic profile of the member, producing a score representing the professional reputation of the member.

Abstract: Techniques for training a tokenizer (or word segmenter) are provided. In one technique, a tokenizer tokenizes a token string to identify individual tokens or words. A language model is generated based on the identified tokens or words. A vocabulary about an entity, such as a person or company, is identified. The vocabulary may be online data that refers to the entity, such as a news article or a profile page of a member of a social network. Some of the tokens in the vocabulary may be weighted higher than others. The language model accepts the weighted vocabulary as input and generates pseudo sentences. Alternatively, regular expressions are used to generate the pseudo sentences. The pseudo sentences are used to train the tokenizer.

Abstract: As part of a query-processing technique, in response to receiving queries for information stored in a distributed storage system and associated query-processing information identifying sets of predefined operations to perform on one or more databases in the distributed storage system, the distributed storage system accesses sets of predefined operations. Then, for the sets of predefined operations on the one or more databases, the distributed storage system uses one or more adaptors for multiple storage subsystems in the distributed storage system and one or more indexes corresponding to collections of information in the one or more databases. Moreover, the distributed storage system executes the sets of predefined operations on the multiple storage subsystems to obtain results for the queries. The sets of predefined operations may be defined by different users, so that the distributed storage system can be adapted to these users' needs.

Abstract: A system, method, and apparatus are provided for assigning or allocating multiple content objects, within a content page (e.g., web page) or other content collection (e.g., a set of pages), to different content delivery networks for delivery in response to a content request. The objects are ranked by importance (e.g., importance in rendering or presenting the page), and the networks are ranked by performance (e.g., throughput). In order of importance, the objects are assigned to the best-performing network that is “available.” Some or all networks are initially available, and a given network becomes “unavailable” after it has been assigned its portion of the objects (e.g., based on content, number of objects, amount of data, percentage). If a total accumulated cost of delivering the objects exceeds a target before all objects have been allocated, the allocation process may terminate early and the remaining objects may be assigned to the least-expensive network.

Abstract: Techniques for estimating, in real time, the likelihood that any particular member of a social network service is a third degree connection of another member are described. Consistent with some embodiments, various member profile attributes of a member are used as a sort of proxy for determining the likelihood or probability that the member is a third degree connection of another member. For example, in some instances, the number of first-degree connections a member has is used to derive a probability score indicating the likelihood that the member is a third-degree connection of another member, such as a person performing a people-search. Once derived, the probability score for each member may be used in various applications, such as a people-search engine, to boost or increase a ranking score assigned to each search result and used to order the search results when presented to the user who has performed the search.

Abstract: A fact checking system is able to verify the correctness of information and/or characterize information by comparing the information with one or more sources. The fact checking system automatically monitors, processes, fact checks information and indicates a status of the information. Fact checking results are able to be validated by re-fact checking the fact check results.

Abstract: A system, method, and apparatus are provided for pacing the serving of a sponsored content item. The rate of depletion of the sponsored content item, or the current rate at which it wins auctions to be served in response to compatible content requests is used to forecast the state of the item's periodic budget at the end of a current period. If the budget is not forecast to be depleted close to the end of the period, within a threshold measure of value or time, a new win rate that will accomplish the goal is determined. Based on past performance, which may be represented as a collection of estimated costs per impression (eCPI) or as ratios of the item's eCPI to a winning item's eCPI, a new bid can be determined that is estimated to yield the new win rate.

Abstract: The disclosed embodiments relate to an apparatus or system for tracking and analyzing user interactions with a mobile user interface (UI). During operation, the apparatus collects data while a user interacts with the mobile UI through a touchscreen, wherein the data includes tap-attempt data that specifies coordinates for touchscreen locations that the user has tapped while interacting with the mobile UI. Next, the apparatus compares the tap-attempt data with locations of tappable elements in the mobile UI, wherein each tappable element has an associated tap target size. For each tappable element, the apparatus uses results of the comparison to determine a percentage of tap attempts that have succeeded or failed for the associated tap target size. Finally, the apparatus makes the percentage information available to a UI designer to enable the UI designer to adjust tap target sizes for the mobile UI.

Abstract: In order to expand the audience for an advertising campaign, a system identifies an expanded audience for the advertising campaign based on characteristics of individuals in the expanded audience and a target audience of the advertising campaign. Then, the system compares a historical cumulative advertising performance metric at a current time for the target audience with a current cumulative advertising performance metric at the current time for the target audience in the advertising campaign. Next, the system selectively changes a probability of showing advertisements in the advertising campaign to individuals in the expanded audience based on the comparison. For example, if a current cumulative number of daily advertising impressions at the current time is less than a historical cumulative number of daily advertising impressions at a current time, the system increases the probability.

Abstract: A method for a computer system includes receiving a first user communication, determining a first group of users, determining a target number of users, determining whether the first group of users includes the target number of users, and if not, providing the communication to the first group of users, determining a hierarchal mapping of groups of users in response to user memberships, determining a second group of users from the hierarchal mapping, determining a plurality of social network relationship factors for the second group of users with respect to the first user, and providing the communication to at least a subset of users in the second group of users in response to the first plurality of social network relationship factors.

Abstract: Method and system are provided to determine a member profile associated with a reference to a person in a publication and may be used beneficially to identify members of a social network in news articles. The system may be configured to detect a publication that was shared by a member of an on-line social networking system, determine that the publication includes a name entity, and identify a member profile in the on-line social networking system that represents a member referenced by the name entity. The process of identifying a member profile in the on-line social networking system that represents a member referenced by the name entity may include building a list of candidate profiles from the member profiles of the on-line social networking system and selecting a matching profile from the candidate profiles, utilizing one or more disambiguation techniques.

Abstract: The disclosed embodiments provide a system for performing network A/B testing. During operation, the system obtains a graph of a social network and calculates a set of equally sized clusters of users in the social network by iteratively switching memberships of the nodes among the equally sized clusters to increase a number of edges in each of the equally sized clusters. Next, the system randomly selects a subset of the equally sized clusters for exposure to a treatment version of a message. The system then performs an A/B test by presenting the treatment version to the selected clusters and tracking a response of the selected clusters to the treatment version.

Abstract: 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.