Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for identifying entities using search results. One of the methods includes determining that a search query includes a respective text reference to each of one or more predetermined attributes, wherein each attribute is associated with an entity type; obtaining search results for the search query from a search engine, each search result identifying a respective resource; for each of a plurality of the obtained search results, determining an initial score for each of a plurality of entities of the entity type based on occurrences of names of the entity in the resource identified by the search result; generating a final score for each of the entities based on the initial scores; and selecting one or more names of entities of the entity type to include in a response to the search query based on the final scores.

Abstract: Methods and apparatus are described for optimally allocating an online advertising budget for a search engine marketing (SEM) campaign among a fixed set of keywords.

Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for identifying entities using search results. One of the methods includes the actions of determining that a first search query includes a respective text reference to each of one or more predetermined attributes, wherein each attribute is associated with a first entity type; for each of a plurality of entities of the first entity type, generating a combined search query that includes the first search query and a name of the entity; obtaining search results for each of the plurality of entities using the combined search query for each respective entity; and using the obtained search results to generate combined search results to include in a response to the first search query.

Abstract: A method and apparatus are provided for detecting and explaining bursty stream events in targeted groups. In one example, the method includes receiving validated bursty events, finding explanatory data sources having relevant bursty events that are relevant to the validated bursty events, wherein the explanatory sources explain the presence of the validated bursty events, correlating the validated bursty events to the relevant bursty events of the explanatory data sources to obtain burst results, and sending the burst results to a burst database that is accessible to an end user.

Abstract: A system and method for generating a stream of content includes a content stream module that generates a model based on user input and/or prior activities using heterogeneous data sources. The heterogeneous data sources include search, entertainment, social activity and activity on third-party sites. The content stream module retrieves candidate content items that have interests that are similar to the user. The candidate content items are compared to the model and scored based upon interestingness of the content item to the user. The content stream module generates the stream of content from the candidate content items.

Abstract: A system and method for generating a stream of content includes a content stream module that generates a model based on user input and/or prior activities using heterogeneous data sources. The heterogeneous data sources include search, entertainment, social activity and activity on third-party sites. The content stream module retrieves candidate content items that have interests that are similar to the user. The candidate content items are compared to the model and scored based upon interestingness of the content item to the user. The content stream module generates the stream of content from the candidate content items.

Abstract: Methods and apparatus are described for optimally allocating an online advertising budget for a search engine marketing (SEM) campaign among a fixed set of keywords.

Abstract: An improved system and method for web destination profiling for online population-targeted advertising is provided. A web destination profiler may be provided for generating web destination profiles. Traffic may be analyzed at a particular web destination in order to understand the population visiting the web destination. The analysis of user traffic, including differentiated clickstream data, may be applied for determining known characteristics of a web destination profile. Moreover, unknown characteristics of a web destination profile may be determined using a variety of techniques including inferring characteristics by modeling traffic flow through other web destinations, estimating characteristics from other web destination profiles by predicting traffic flow through other web destinations, propagating characteristics to a web destination profile by smoothing a joint distribution of characteristics of other web destination profiles, and so forth.

Abstract: A method and apparatus are provided for detecting and explaining bursty stream events in targeted groups. In one example, the method includes receiving validated bursty events, finding explanatory data sources having relevant bursty events that are relevant to the validated bursty events, wherein the explanatory sources explain the presence of the validated bursty events, correlating the validated bursty events to the relevant bursty events of the explanatory data sources to obtain burst results, and sending the burst results to a burst database that is accessible to an end user.

Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for identifying entities using search results. One of the methods includes the actions of determining that a first search query includes a respective text reference to each of one or more predetermined attributes, wherein each attribute is associated with a first entity type; generating a second search query including the first search query and one or more terms that refer to the first entity type; and evaluating search results obtained for the second search query to select one or more names of entities of the first entity type to include in a response to the first search query.

Abstract: An improved system and method for web destination profiling for online population-targeted advertising is provided. A web destination profiler may be provided for generating web destination profiles. Traffic may be analyzed at a particular web destination in order to understand the population visiting the web destination. The analysis of user traffic, including differentiated clickstream data, may be applied for determining known characteristics of a web destination profile. Moreover, unknown characteristics of a web destination profile may be determined using a variety of techniques including inferring characteristics by modeling traffic flow through other web destinations, estimating characteristics from other web destination profiles by predicting traffic flow through other web destinations, propagating characteristics to a web destination profile by smoothing a joint distribution of characteristics of other web destination profiles, and so forth.

Abstract: A method is provided to associate reviews that have unknown correspondences to tangible entities to structured objects that have known correspondences to tangible entities comprising: transforming a respective review and text from a respective structured object to a collection of words that intersect the respective review and text from the respective structured object; determining a measure of a likelihood of a match as a function of respective probabilities of occurrences of respective words of such intersecting collection within generic review text and respective probabilities of occurrences of respective words of such intersecting collection within structured object text.

Abstract: An improved system and method is provided for searching a collection of objects that may be located in hierarchies of auxiliary information for retrieval of response objects. A framework to perform a generalization search in hierarchies may be used to generalize a search by moving up to a higher level in a hierarchy of taxonomies or to specialize a search by moving down to a lower level in the hierarchy of taxonomies. Once the system may decide to enumerate response objects at a particular level of generalization, a budgeted generalization search may be used for enumerating a set of response objects within a budgeted cost.

Abstract: A method for creating informational guides includes receiving a guide specification and a guide content for a plurality of guides; publishing the plurality of guides to a Web-based network for access to users of the network; serving advertising to the plurality of published guides; and rewarding owners of the plurality of published guides by providing compensation thereto based on revenue from the served advertising.

Abstract: A method and system are provided for a web browser toolbar signature. In one example, the method includes receiving a submission of user content from a source webpage, receiving a producer identity of a producer who submitted the user content, receiving identifying information about the destination webpage, coding signed content using the user content and the producer identity, wherein the signed content includes a signature, and submitting the signed content to a server hosting the destination webpage.

Abstract: Disclosed are methods and apparatus for matching sets of text to objects are disclosed. In accordance with one embodiment, a set of text is obtained. For instance, the set of text may include a review. A numerical value is determined for each of a plurality of objects, where the numerical value indicates a likelihood that the corresponding one of the plurality of objects is a subject of the set of text. Each of the plurality of objects has an object type defined by a set of one or more attributes, each of the set of one or more attributes having associated therewith a corresponding set of one or more parameters, wherein the numerical value is determined using the set of text and a value of each of the set of one or more parameters for each of the set of one or more attributes. One of the plurality of objects that is most likely to be the subject of the set of text is identified based upon the numerical value that has been determined for each of the plurality of objects.

Abstract: The present invention, in an example embodiment, provides a special-purpose formal language and translator for the parallel processing of large databases in a distributed system. The special-purpose language has features of both a declarative programming language and a procedural programming language and supports the co-grouping of tables, each with an arbitrary alignment function, and the specification of procedural operations to be performed on the resulting co-groups. The language's translator translates a program in the language into optimized structured calls to an application programming interface for implementations of functionality related to the parallel processing of tasks over a distributed system. In an example embodiment, the application programming interface includes interfaces for MapReduce functionality, whose implementations are supplemented by the embodiment.

Abstract: A system and method are provided to accessing a set of web pages within a context. The set of web pages may be represented using a graph comprising a set of nodes and a set of edges. First and second probability distributions may be generated over a set of nodes of the graph using a first algorithm to indicate a measure of closeness among the set of web pages. A characterization may be determined with respect to context for a web page from a second subset of web pages based on the first and second probability distributions. An indication of the characterization of the web page from the second subset of web pages may be outputted.

Abstract: A method is provided to associate reviews that have unknown correspondences to tangible entities to structured objects that have known correspondences to tangible entities comprising: transforming a respective review and text from a respective structured object to a collection of words that intersect the respective review and text from the respective structured object; determining a measure of a likelihood of a match as a function of respective probabilities of occurrences of respective words of such intersecting collection within generic review text and respective probabilities of occurrences of respective words of such intersecting collection within structured object text.

Abstract: A variety of techniques are described by which keyword sets and target audience profiles may be generalized in a systematic and effective way with reference to relationships between keywords, profiles, and the data of an underlying user population.