Abstract: A social networking website logs information about actions taken by members of the website. For a particular member of the website, the website generates socially relevant ads for the member based on the actions logged for other members on the website to whom the member is connected (i.e., the member's online friends). The advertiser associated with the social ad may compensate the social networking website for publishing the ad on the website. When presenting a member with a social ad, the website may optimize advertising revenue by selecting an ad from the received ads that will maximize the expected value of the social ad. The expected value may be computed according to a function that includes the member's affinity for the ad content and the bid amount. The technique is also applied for providing socially relevant information off the social networking website.

Abstract: A system and method for auction based polling is provided. Parameters related to a poll are received from a first user. Parameters related to a poll are received from a first user. A query is associated with the poll. A priority of the poll is determined based on the parameters. The poll is distributed to one or more second users according to the priority. Results to the poll are gathered. The results are reported to the first user.