Abstract: Aspects of the present invention are directed to the stacking of visual items, and their subsequent expansion, or unstacking Upon selection of a stack, that stack expands into the individual visual items making up that stack. Further aspects of the present invention are directed to expanding a stack in different ways depending upon the circumstances. Further aspects of the present invention are directed to providing a hot area associated with, and potentially disposed around, a stack. Selection by the user of the hot area results in selection of the associated stack. The stack may itself be considered a single item that is itself selectable. After the stack is expanded, then the individual visual items making up the original stack are each individually selectable. However, when stacked, the individual items may not be selectable except as a complete stack.

Abstract: In this invention, systems and methods for providing keywords for advertising are provided. After a user searches for another user in a social network, the webpage or blog of the queried user is retrieved, and keywords are extracted from this webpage. The keywords may be extracted from the user's profile on the social network (e.g., favorite sports, music artists, etc.), or keywords may be extracted from the text of the webpage (e.g., comments that comprise the blog entries). Once extracted, these keywords may then be used by an advertising system to provide targeted advertisements to the user.

Abstract: Aspects of the present invention are directed to the stacking of visual items, and their subsequent expansion, or unstacking Upon selection of a stack, that stack expands into the individual visual items making up that stack. Further aspects of the present invention are directed to expanding a stack in different ways depending upon the circumstances. Further aspects of the present invention are directed to providing a hot area associated with, and potentially disposed around, a stack. Selection by the user of the hot area results in selection of the associated stack. The stack may itself be considered a single item that is itself selectable. After the stack is expanded, then the individual visual items making up the original stack are each individually selectable. However, when stacked, the individual items may not be selectable except as a complete stack.

Abstract: Aspects of the present invention are directed to the stacking of visual items, and their subsequent expansion, or unstacking. Upon selection of a stack, that stack expands into the individual visual items making up that stack. Further aspects of the present invention are directed to expanding a stack in different ways depending upon the circumstances. Further aspects of the present invention are directed to providing a hot area associated with, and potentially disposed around, a stack. Selection by the user of the hot area results in selection of the associated stack. The stack may itself be considered a single item that is itself selectable. After the stack is expanded, then the individual visual items making up the original stack are each individually selectable. However, when stacked, the individual items may not be selectable except as a complete stack.

Abstract: Relevance of advertisements provided in response to a query is improved based on locations associated with the query and the advertisement. A confidence level can optionally be determined for associated locations. The associated locations can be used to calculate a geographic distance between a query location and an advertisement location. A relevance can be determined for the advertisements based in part on the calculated geographic distances. The associated locations can also be compared to determine stacking and barrier relationships between locations.

Abstract: In this invention, systems and methods for providing keywords for advertising are provided. After a user searches for another user in a social network, the webpage or blog of the queried user is retrieved, and keywords are extracted from this webpage. The keywords may be extracted from the user's profile on the social network (e.g., favorite sports, music artists, etc.), or keywords may be extracted from the text of the webpage (e.g., comments that comprise the blog entries). Once extracted, these keywords may then be used by an advertising system to provide targeted advertisements to the user.

Abstract: A system and related techniques to collect and manage a set of incoming message notification objects, such as instant message notifications, email notifications, download notifications, transaction notifications and others and present those objects to the user with an icon, tile or other representation on a dynamically scaled timeline. According to embodiments, the dynamically scaled timeline may present the most recently received object farthest to the right on a notifications bar or facility and slide objects to the left to represent passage of time as those objects age. Instead of presenting those objects on a linear scale, according to the invention, the time intervals in which objects may be presented may be scaled to cause the oldest message objects to be presented on a relatively compressed dimension. The most recently received messages may be presented on wider intervals, to permit the user to perceive differences in arrival of items more clearly.