Social search engine

Abstract

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for a social search engine. In one aspect, a method includes receiving a question from an asker in which the question is associated with one or more topics; selecting candidate answerers based at least partly on each answerer's respective relationship to the asker; sending the question successively to groups of one or more candidate answerers according to the ranking until an answer is received from a particular one of the candidate answerers; and sending to the asker the received answer and information that identifies the particular answerer.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This application claims the benefit under 35 U.S.C. §119(e) of U.S. Patent Application No. 61 / 256,324, entitled “REAL TIME, INTERACTIVE ANSWERS IN A SOCIAL NETWORK ENVIRONMENT,” filed Oct. 30, 2009, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.[0002]This application claims the benefit under 35 U.S.C. §119(e) of U.S. Patent Application No. 61 / 256,325, entitled “METHOD FOR GENERATING AFFILIATE REVENUE IN AN ONLINE MESSAGING SERVICE,” filed Oct. 30, 2009, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.BACKGROUND[0003]This specification describes technologies relating to question and answer services.[0004]Traditionally, the basic paradigm in information retrieval has been the library. While this paradigm has worked well in several contexts, it ignores an age-old model for knowledge acquisition, which we shall call “the village paradigm”. In a village, knowledge dissemination is achieved socially—information is passed f...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0006]For situations in which the systems discussed here collect personal information about users, the users may be provided with an opportunity to opt in / out of programs or features that may collect personal information (e.g., information about a user's preferences or a user's current location). A user may also be informed of the accompanying limitations on the functionality of a service that may result from limiting access to such personal information. In addition, certain data may be anonymized in one or more ways before it is stored or used, so that personally identifiable information is removed. For example, a user's identity may be anonymized so that the no personally identifiable information can be determined for the user, or a user's geographic location may be generalized where location information is obtained (such as to a city, zip code, or state level), so that a particular location of a user cannot be determined. In addition, some users may not want to be associated with a certain topic for which they provide answers. In these cases, the users' privacy can be protected by providing minimal or no information that would identify the users. Moreover, users can control how much identifying information is provided with their answers.

Problems solved by technology

A user may also be informed of the accompanying limitations on the functionality of a service that may result from limiting access to such personal information.

In addition, some users may not want to be associated with a certain topic for which they provide answers.

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