System and apparatus for effective coordination and scheduling of accesses to rate limited online sites to obtain data for use in assessing social metrics based on domain tailored evaluation of social media exposure

Abstract

Embodiments described herein can be employed in a social media analytics platform to monitor which data has been acquired for entities from online sites at which entities may maintain an account, including social media platforms by continually moderating, coordinating or scheduling requests for data retrieval across the online sites to substantially maximize the data pulled from each site, and the freshness of that data, given any imposed rate limits associated with those online sites without slowing or idling the social media analytics platform. This results in increased efficiencies in time and expense and a simultaneous reduction in the number of errors received from the online sites, as the analytics platform can spread out requests over time and fully utilize parallel update processes in a way that respects the rate limiting while still improving freshness of data given that rate limiting.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This application claims a benefit of priority under 35 U.S.C. 119(e) to U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61 / 883,801, filed Sep. 27, 2013, entitled “Social Media Engagement, Influence and Sponsorability System and Method” by Savelli et. al, which is hereby fully incorporated by reference herein.TECHNICAL FIELD[0002]This disclosure relates to obtaining and using data from disparate social media and other online sites utilizing the varied interfaces employed by those online sites subject to rate limiting defined by those sites by coordinating and scheduling accesses to those online sites in accordance with such rate limiting.BACKGROUND[0003]Endorsement or sponsorship deals with various entities (e.g., athletes, celebrities, politicians, teams, other brands, leagues, etc.) are powerful marketing tools utilized by many brands. It is difficult, however, to quantify the potential efficacy of a marketing association (e.g., endorsement or s...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0010]As may be imagined in a system with thousands, if not hundreds of thousands or millions of entities, the rate limits imposed by the various online sites can create processing bottlenecks when accessing social media or other data. Additionally, these rate limits may cause data associated with various entities to become stale, thus tempering the efficacy or usefulness of such data. To limit the effect of the rate limits and to effectively deal with the different rate limits that may be imposed by different sites while minimizing the impact on the freshness of the data used by a social media analytics platform, embodiments described herein can monitor which data has been acquired for each entity and continually moderate and coordinate data retrieval across the social media platforms or search sites and entities, maximizing the data pulled from each site given the imposed rate limits without slowing or idling the social media analytics platform, while simultaneously limiting the number of errors received from the online sites. For example, if the number of requests using twitter's API has reached or exceeded a capacity or rate limit for a given timeframe, the data from another online site may be gathered until a request rate for twitter falls below the threshold rate limit imposed by twitter. This results in increased efficiencies in time and expense. The analytics platform can spread out requests over time and fully utilize parallel update processes in a way that respects the rate limiting while still achieving near real-time tracking of systems. Moreover, by applying these rate limiting techniques maximum use can be made of the free access granted by such online sites, allowing operators of social media analytics platform to avoid being charged a fee for accessing such data or obtaining a higher rate limit with respect to a particular online site.

[0011]Embodiments described herein can thus be employed in a social media analytics platform to monitor which data has been acquired for entities from online sites at which entities may maintain an account, including social media platforms by continually moderating, coordinating or scheduling requests for data retrieval across the online sites to substantially maximize the data pulled from each site, and the freshness of that data, given any imposed rate limits associated with those online sites without slowing or idling the social media analytics platform. This results in increased efficiencies in time and expense and a simultaneous reduction in the number of errors received from the online sites, as the analytics platform can spread out requests over time and fully utilize parallel update processes in a way that respects the rate limiting while still improving freshness of data given that rate limiting.

[0012]As such, embodiments described herein can be designed to operate in an asynchronous manner. This allows the rate of change for the overall measurement of the social media indexes for an entity to be much higher than the rate limits of the source channels would normally allow. An entity's accounts can be abstracted from the entity itself and the retrieval of each account treated as a discrete atomic operation. This methodology can give updating processes a defined unit of work to do and allows for robust fault-tolerance when online sites encounter issues or downtime. If any errors are encountered during such an update process, errors along with the corresponding account identifier can be placed into a resolution process that may involves a human in the loop before these accounts are again attempted to be utilized by the social media analytics platform, ensuring such errors are not repeated.

[0013]Embodiments described herein may thus be used in conjunction with a social media analytics platform to assist companies or individuals in obtaining and aggregating social content and other content from a variety of sources to, for example, better understand an entity's social media exposure or presence. An entity may be configured with respect to the platform and a number of social media accounts, and other data such as aliases or search terms associated with the entity. Data is collected at certain intervals from the various online sites, including social media sites, using the various disparate and proprietary interfaces and data models provided by the sites and the configurations for the social media accounts associated with an entity. Using this data obtained from these online sites then, (e.g., social media sites or other online source such as a search engine or the like) one or more scores can be calculated or update based on the data, where the score(s) may serve to quantify a facet of the entity's social media exposure and may serve to be domain specific to the entity. The scores for each of the indices for an entity can thus serve to quantify facets of an entity's social media exposure.

[0014]Calculating scores for facets of an entity's social media exposure in a domain specific manner and normalizing such scores facilitates the comparing and contrasting of entities to one another within and across both facets and domains. Moreover, in addition to calculating domain specific scores for particular facets of social media exposure an aggregate score that can rank all entities within the database with a single score or ranking (e.g., for a particular facet or an overall score) can also be determined. Such an overall score may allow entities to be compared across domains.

[0015]Embodiments of such a social media analytics platform may therefore provide a whole host of advantages. While all data obtained from the online sites by the social media analytics platform, or determined therefrom, can be sortable and searchable, the platform can also be configured to allow a user to conduct searches of entities (such as athletes, teams and leagues to use sports as an example) within or across domains based on their rankings in a particular facet (e.g., reach, engagement and conversation) of social media exposure. This can enable brands to make better decisions on which entities they choose for product endorsements and also creates a social media gauge for analyzing the value of a social media footprint. The platform can also provide metrics on social media content such as tracking top social media posts among all athletes (or other entities) as well as for each individual.

Problems solved by technology

As may be imagined in a system with thousands, if not hundreds of thousands or millions of entities, the rate limits imposed by the various online sites can create processing bottlenecks when accessing social media or other data.

Additionally, these rate limits may cause data associated with various entities to become stale, thus tempering the efficacy or usefulness of such data.

This results in increased efficiencies in time and expense.

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