Multi-account management method and system for social network

Abstract

The invention provides a multi-account management method and system for a social network, and the method comprises the steps: recording user information and network activity data, which are associated with each account in a plurality of accounts created by a same user on a same social network, in a sub-database corresponding to each account, wherein the user can log in the social network by using any one account in the plurality of accounts created by the user; marking a plurality of accounts created by the same user as associated accounts; carrying out fusion processing on data from each sub-database of each account marked as the associated account; returning the data subjected to data fusion processing to each sub-database; and for each account, based on the returned data subjected to data fusion processing, executing a network operation associated with each account.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] The present invention relates to the field of the Internet, and more particularly, to a multi-account management method and system for social networks. Background Art

[0002] The emergence and rise of social networking sites have greatly changed people's lifestyles. People are keen on establishing friendship relationships with others on social networking sites, building their own social networks, and sharing all aspects of their lives with others. More and more websites have also introduced social attributes, encouraging users to add friends, set up home pages, and post updates within the site. At the same time, it is also common to encourage or support binding the accounts of the website with the user's mobile phone numbers or accounts on other social networks, and adding friends in the user's mobile phone address book or on other social networks as friends on this website in this way.

[0003] At first, such functions were welcomed and actively used by users. However, in recent years, more and more users have paid more attention to personal privacy protection. Many users hope to separate work from life and do not want some content in their shared lives to be seen by their work friends. In addition, the increasingly powerful big data technology and artificial intelligence technology record and analyze people's every move on the Internet, forming user portraits, which further arouses people's concerns about personal privacy.

[0004] For this reason, many users have to register different social accounts and sometimes even have to use different mobile phone numbers for account registration and binding. For users, on the one hand, this increases the inconvenience in use and additional economic costs. For example, users have to use additional mobile phone numbers, purchase mobile phones that support dual SIM cards or even additional mobile phones, frequently switch login accounts, use dual apps, etc. On the other hand, different accounts are completely independent, which means that all information cannot be shared between different accounts, which is not always what users expect. Therefore, there is a hope for an improved solution for managing multiple accounts on social networks. Summary of the Invention

[0005] The present invention content is provided to introduce some concepts in a simplified form that will be further described in the following detailed implementation manners. The present invention content is not intended to identify the key features or essential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended to be used to help determine the scope of the claimed subject matter.

[0006] To address the difficulties and deficiencies faced in the prior art, the present invention aims to provide an improved multi-account management solution for social networks. This solution supports creating associations between multiple individual accounts, thereby allowing for sharing of some data by linking multiple associated accounts while maintaining the social independence and privacy of individual accounts. This further provides convenience to users in situations where social independence and privacy are not affected, and allows users to customize the balance between the two according to their needs.

[0007] According to one aspect of the present invention, there is provided a multi-account management method for a social network. The multi-account management method includes: recording user information and network activity data associated with each of multiple accounts created by the same user on the same social network in a sub-database corresponding to each account, where the user can log in to the social network using any one of the multiple accounts created by the user; marking multiple accounts created by the same user as associated accounts; performing a fusion process on the data from each sub-database of the accounts marked as associated accounts, where the fusion process includes superimposing at least some of the overlapping parts in the data of different sub-databases to generate updated data for the overlapping parts, and configuring attributes indicating the account-specific usage permissions of the data; returning the data after the data fusion process to each sub-database; and for each account, performing network operations associated with each account based on the returned data after the data fusion process.

[0008] According to a further embodiment of the present invention, the multiple accounts further include: a first account created by the user with a first user information dataset, and a second account created by the user with a second user information dataset, where at least some of the user information in the first user information dataset is different from that in the second user information dataset.

[0009] According to a further embodiment of the present invention, the user network activities include one or more of the following: posting, forwarding, liking, commenting, collecting, following, subscribing, adding friends, marking preferences, setting user preferences, online shopping, web browsing, reading books, media playing, and travel footprints.

[0010] According to a further embodiment of the present invention, the network operations include one or more of the following: generating or updating a public homepage associated with each account; generating or updating a user profile associated with each account; and pushing personalized content for each account.

[0011] According to a further embodiment of the present invention, the configuration of the attributes indicating the account-specific usage permissions of the data is based on pre-configured rules or user preferences or both.

[0012] According to a further embodiment of the present invention, the multi-account management method further includes at least one of the following: providing a user preference option in the user setting interface for whether to allow all or specific content in the user information and network activities associated with the current account to be shared and used by other accounts of the user; and providing a user preference option in the user setting interface for whether to accept personalized content push generated based on the user information and network activities associated with other accounts of the user.

[0013] According to a further embodiment of the present invention, the multi-account management method further includes: in response to detecting a demand for inputting specific user information triggered in the user interface, displaying corresponding user information from other accounts different from the account currently logged in by the user as input candidates; and in response to the user's selection of the candidate user information, filling the selected user information into the current user interface.

[0014] According to a further embodiment of the present invention, the multi-account management method further includes: providing a notification about messages from other associated accounts in the user interface of the currently logged-in account; and in response to an instruction from the user to view or reply to a message from other associated accounts, providing viewing or replying to the message in the user interface of the currently logged-in account, or switching the login to the account to which the message belongs.

[0015] According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a multi-account management system for a social network, the multi-account management system including: a data recording module configured to record user information and network activity data associated with each of multiple accounts created by the same user on the same social network in a sub-database corresponding to each account, where the user can log in to the social network using any one of the multiple accounts created by the user; an account association module configured to: mark multiple accounts as associated accounts; perform a fusion process on data from each sub-database of the accounts marked as associated accounts, where the fusion process includes superimposing at least some of the overlapping parts in the data of different sub-databases to generate updated data for the overlapping part, and configuring attributes indicating the usage permissions of each data that vary depending on the account; and returning the data after the data fusion process to each sub-database; and a network operation execution module configured to, for each account, perform network operations associated with each account based on the returned data after the data fusion process.

[0016] According to still another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a computer-readable storage medium having computer-readable instructions stored thereon, where the computer-readable instructions, when executed by a processor, implement the multi-account management method for a social network as described in the present invention.

[0017] Compared with the prior art, the multi-account management solution for social networks provided by the present invention has at least the following advantages:

[0018] 1. It provides a solution that can effectively manage multiple accounts of users, achieving a balance between the independence of a single account and the convenience across accounts;

[0019] 2. The independence of data between accounts allows users to adjust by themselves to meet the personalized needs of different users; and

[0020] 3. Through account association, it is possible to receive / view / reply to messages and notifications of other associated accounts in the logged-in account, which can significantly reduce the necessity and frequency of users switching between different accounts for logging in.

[0021] These and other features and advantages will become apparent by reading the following detailed description and referring to the associated drawings. It should be understood that the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are illustrative only and do not form a limitation on the aspects claimed. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0022] In order to understand the manner in which the above-described features of the present invention are used, the above briefly summarized content can be described in more detail with reference to the various embodiments, some of which are shown in the drawings. However, it should be noted that the drawings only show some typical aspects of the present invention and should not be considered as limiting its scope, as the description may allow other equally effective aspects.

[0023] Figure 1 is an exemplary flowchart of a multi-account management method for social networks according to an embodiment of the present invention.

[0024] Figure 2 shows a schematic diagram of performing data fusion processing on a split database according to an embodiment of the present invention.

[0025] Figure 3 is an exemplary structural diagram of a multi-account management system for social networks according to an embodiment of the present invention. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE EMBODIMENTS

[0026] The present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings, and the features of the present invention will be further manifested in the following detailed description. In the following detailed description, many specific details are set forth to provide a thorough understanding of the described exemplary embodiments. However, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that some or all of these specific details may not be required to practice the described embodiments. In other exemplary embodiments, well-known structures or processing steps are not described in detail to avoid unnecessarily obscuring the concepts of the present disclosure.

[0027] In this specification, unless otherwise specified, the term "A or B" used in this specification refers to "A and B" and "A or B", rather than excluding A and B.

[0028] As mentioned in the background art section, current social networking sites / applications and various websites / applications with social attributes have caused many users to worry about personal privacy. Some social networking sites / applications allow users to group their friends in their accounts. When users post personal dynamic information, they can set the visible range of the information to make it visible to specific friends. However, both the grouping setting of friends and the setting of the visible range are very cumbersome, and it is very easy to misoperate and cause the posted content to be mispresented to friends who are not expected to see the content.

[0029] For this reason, users have to register different accounts to use. For example, one account is used for work, such as only adding friends at work, including colleagues, customers, etc., and another account is used for life, such as only adding friends in life, including relatives, classmates, friends, etc. It can be imagined that if users also want more segmented social circles, they may need to register more accounts, which is obviously very troublesome and impractical. As mentioned before, the use of multiple accounts also causes inconvenience in use and additional economic, time, and resource costs. For example, users have to frequently switch login accounts, use dual apps, use additional mobile phone numbers, purchase mobile devices that support dual SIM cards, or even additional mobile devices, etc.

[0030] In addition, the inconveniences of using multiple independent accounts also include: users have to perform some repetitive operations, such as setting user personal preferences / settings for each account; data that has nothing to do with personal privacy or information posting or display cannot be transferred between accounts. In other words, in order to protect users' privacy needs, too much convenience of network operations may be sacrificed, and a better solution is needed to balance the two.

[0031] For this reason, the present invention provides a multi-account management solution for a social network. This solution meets the needs of users to set multiple accounts and manages these accounts in an associated manner, so that it can not only facilitate users to use different accounts according to their needs, but also, depending on the user's authorization and the needs of different application scenarios, share data between different accounts to provide the convenience of network use, thereby improving the user experience.

[0032] Figure 1 is an example flowchart of a multi-account management method 100 for a social network according to an embodiment of the present invention. As Figure 1As shown in [Figure 0], method 100 begins at step 102, where user information and network activity data associated with each of multiple accounts created by the same user on the same social network are recorded in a sub-database corresponding to each account, where the user can log in to the social network using any one of the multiple accounts they created.

[0033] In various embodiments of the present invention, "social network" generally refers to any social website, social media, social application, and any website, media, or application with social attributes based on the Internet or mobile Internet. In this document, "social network", "social media", "social website", "social application", "website, media, or application with social attributes" can be used interchangeably. As a non-limiting example, social networks may include Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Weibo, WeChat, Douyin, Douban, Dianping, and so on. The common feature of such social networks is that they allow users to establish social network relationships with other users on the social network, such as by adding friends, following, subscribing, etc., and will automatically generate a personal homepage that displays the user's basic information, dynamics, network activities, etc. for other users to view.

[0034] To distinguish different social circles or for any other purpose, a user may create multiple different accounts on a social network, each account being functionally independent, such as being able to log in and be used normally. For example, a user may create a first account dedicated to adding work-related friends and at the same time create a second account dedicated to adding friends in life. As needed, the user may create more accounts. These accounts may each have their own personal homepage, which presents some user information bound to the account, such as user nickname, avatar, gender, region, occupation, educational background, and also displays the network activities of the account. For example, depending on the type of social network, the content displayed on the personal homepage may include, but is not limited to, posts / media works published by the user, comments / likes / forwards left, subscriptions, follows, likes, preferences, access history, reading history, movie and TV drama viewing history, travel footprints, and so on.

[0035] When creating each account, users are required to provide some basic user information and some additional information. Basic user information usually includes: username, user nickname, real name, mobile phone, email, gender, nationality, region, date of birth, occupation, etc. Some of these basic user information may be required when creating an account, such as the username / mobile phone / email used for account login. In addition, due to legal requirements or the real social attributes of some websites themselves, more and more websites require users to provide their real names, identity IDs, etc. Additional information is usually optional, such as the user's hobbies, preferences for books / music / movies, interested sections, etc. Therefore, when a user creates multiple accounts on the same social network, when creating each account, the user can provide the corresponding user information for binding to the account as needed. For example, assume that the user wants to create two accounts: the first account and the second account. The user can enter the first user information dataset when creating the first account and enter the second user information dataset when creating the second account. At least a part of the user information in the first user information dataset and the second user information dataset can be different. For example, the user can provide different information in any information field other than the one that requires the use of real information. Of course, the user can also provide the same information in any information field that the user deems unimportant, such as gender, nationality, hobbies, etc.

[0036] After the user logs in to any one of their multiple associated accounts, all the user's network activities are bound to and recorded with the logged-in account, the same as in the prior art. For example, the user's network activities that can be recorded may include but are not limited to: posting, forwarding, liking, commenting, collecting, following, subscribing, adding friends, marking preferences, setting user preferences, online shopping, web browsing, book reading, media playing, travel footprints, etc.

[0037] Thus, each account has user information data and network activity record data associated with the account. These data can form a database (or dataset) associated with each account. To distinguish it from the global database maintained by the social network for all accounts, the database associated with a single account is referred to as a "sub-database" or "child database" here.

[0038] In step 104, multiple accounts created by the same user are marked as associated accounts. For a website, different accounts are usually regarded as independent accounts with no association with each other. Different from the prior art, in the embodiments of the present invention, multiple accounts created by the same user can be associated with each other. The association between multiple accounts can be carried out in any common association manner, such as by setting one or more specific association account marks or fields. Through this mark or field, the system can know whether each account has an associated account and the specific account ID.

[0039] According to an embodiment of the present invention, the association between accounts can be carried out through guidance when the user creates an account. For example, when the user is in the unlogged state and initiates account creation, the user can be asked whether there is an existing account on the website, and the user can be prompted that the website supports creating associated accounts. If the user has an existing account, the user can be prompted to first log in to the existing account and then create a new account, and when the new account creation is completed, the newly created account can be associated with the currently logged-in account. If the user has never created an account on this website, when the first account creation is completed, the user can be prompted whether to create a new associated account. Additionally or alternatively, the website can also provide a separate account association operation. For example, upon the user's initiated account association request, the currently logged-in account of the user can be associated with other accounts specified by the user. This process can further require account verification, such as the user being required to provide the username and password for logging in to the account to be associated, and optionally, further verification mechanisms such as a secure email or mobile phone text message are required.

[0040] As described previously, one of the differences between the present invention and the prior art is that it supports creating associated accounts, so it is different from the situation where it is usually not allowed to use a username / mobile phone / email that has been bound to an existing account when creating a new account. According to an embodiment of the present invention, when it is detected that the username / mobile phone / email used by the user to create a new account is the same as the username / mobile phone / email bound to the existing account, the process of creating an associated account can be triggered. For example, when the same information is detected to be filled in, the user can be prompted that the username / mobile phone / email has been bound to another account, and whether the user wishes to create an associated account. It can be understood that if the user chooses not to create an associated account, the user is required to change to another username / mobile phone / email to register a new account. In other words, only associated accounts are allowed to use the same username / mobile phone / email.

[0041] Through the above process, the website can mark multiple accounts that the user wishes to associate according to the user's operations, so that subsequent operations different from non-associated accounts or independent accounts can be performed on these associated accounts and additional functions can be provided.

[0042] In step 106, data fusion processing is performed on the data of each sub-database from each account marked as an associated account. The fusion processing includes superimposing at least some of the overlapping parts in the data of different sub-databases to generate updated data for the overlapping part, and configuring attributes indicating the usage permissions of the data that vary according to the account. Due to the account association of the present invention, more effective utilization of the data between different accounts will be achieved.

[0043] Figure 2 Shows a schematic diagram of performing data fusion processing on a sub-database according to an embodiment of the present invention. AsFigure 2 As shown, user A has registered multiple associated accounts, including the first account, the second account, and the third account. It can be understood that there may be more associated accounts. Correspondingly, each account has a sub-database that correspondingly records user information and network activities. The data in these sub-databases can be provided as input to a data processing unit, also referred to as an association processor, or for example, the account association module 304 described below in conjunction with Figure 3 is described.

[0044] On the same social network, the database structures of the sub-databases corresponding to different accounts are basically the same. For example, each sub-database may have the same field settings, but the specific values of the fields vary from account to account, thus reflecting the user information and network activities recorded in each account. Therefore, there may be overlapping parts between the data of different sub-databases. For example, if there are valid data values under the same field in two sub-databases, then these two data values overlap. As an example, each sub-database may record music playback record data for that account. For example, the first account played music A 10 times in total, and the second account played music A 15 times in total. This type of data belongs to the overlapping data between sub-databases and can therefore be fused by, for example, superposition. In this example, since the first account and the second account are marked as associated accounts, through the fusion process, this data can be updated to a total of 25 times of playing music A. Similarly, the playback progress of media, the reading progress of books, the purchase records of goods, the goods added to the shopping cart and their quantities, etc., all belong to the overlapping data between sub-databases and can be used to generate updated data through superposition.

[0045] In contrast, there is also non-overlapping data between sub-databases. For example, for the same field, only one of the two sub-databases has a valid value under that field. As an example, although each account's sub-database has fields corresponding to real name, real mobile phone number, real contact address, or other real user information, the user only provided relevant information during the registration process of the first account. Therefore, in the sub-database of the second account, there are no valid values in these fields. In this case, these data do not constitute an overlap. During the data fusion process, the data in the first account can be directly copied to the corresponding fields in the sub-database of the second account. Of course, whether to perform the copy operation can be configured by the user or requires user authorization. Whether different data belongs to overlapping data mainly depends on the nature of the fields and can therefore be specified based on predefined rules. Additionally or alternatively, it can also be specified by the user.

[0046] Regardless of whether the data is overlapping data, when performing data fusion of sub-databases, the usage permissions of the data after fusion can be further configured. These usage permissions are for accounts. For example, it can be configured that the data can only be used by the first account and the second account, but cannot be used by the third account that is also associated with the same user. According to an embodiment of the present invention, the configuration of the attributes of the usage permissions can be based on pre-configured rules and / or based on user preferences. For example, as one of the preset rules, data that can reflect the user's online activities in aspects of leisure, entertainment, and life hobbies can be configured not to be used by accounts that can be used for work. On the other hand, as needed, options can be provided for users to specifically set which data can be used for which accounts.

[0047] In step 108, as Figure 2 shown, the data after data fusion processing is returned to each sub-database. The data returned to each sub-database can replace the corresponding original data. As another embodiment, the data returned to each sub-database can also perform corresponding operations based on the usage permission attributes configured in the fusion processing. For example, when the usage permission attribute indicates that the data can be used for the account corresponding to the current sub-database, the fusion data can replace the original data. Conversely, if the usage permission attribute indicates that the data cannot be used for the account corresponding to the current sub-database, the original data can be retained.

[0048] In step 110, for each account, based on the returned data after data fusion processing, network operations associated with each account are performed. In this step, the social network can perform various network operations in the same way as existing ones. In other words, the social network does not need to distinguish whether the account is an associated account or a non-associated account. The difference between the two types of accounts can be naturally reflected by the data in the sub-database used in the network operation. The sub-database of a non-associated account only contains the data of the current account itself, so there is no difference from existing accounts. In contrast, the sub-database of an associated account can contain data fused with other associated accounts. Therefore, after the same network operation, the presented results can correspondingly reflect some information in other associated accounts. As a non-limiting example, the network operations can include but are not limited to:

[0049] 1. Generate or update the public homepage associated with each account. The public homepage, also known as the personal homepage, refers to the overview page automatically generated by each website for each account based on the user information and activity history of that account. The purpose of this overview page is to display the user's information and hobbies to other users. Therefore, it usually includes information that can reflect these contents, such as user information like the user's gender, age, region, constellation, occupation, hobbies, etc., as well as the user's network activity history such as the posts / works published by the user, other users / media / official accounts followed / subscribed to, the posts / works collected, personal dynamics, travel footprints, reading / play history, etc.

[0050] 2. Generate or update the user portrait associated with each account. The user portrait is a technology that has been widely used in recent years with the development of big data technology. By analyzing the characteristics of the user's information and activities, it tries to describe which one or more of the multiple user clusters in the large user group the user belongs to. This process usually also includes steps such as the analysis, statistics, and clustering of the characteristics of the information and activities of a large number of users collected. In addition, more and more machine learning technologies are also incorporated.

[0051] 3. Push personalized content for each account. The push of personalized content is widely used in many websites and applications. The content pushed can include but is not limited to news, articles, audio, video, books, applications, friends, bloggers, official accounts, restaurants, products, etc. These contents are obtained through the analysis of user information and / or historical activities. For example, when a user follows some bloggers or official accounts, similar bloggers or official accounts can be recommended to the user. The pushed content can also be obtained based on the user portrait. For example, the content liked by other users belonging to the same portrait category as the user can be recommended to the user.

[0052] It can be understood that the above are only some examples of network operations that can be performed based on the user information and network activities associated with the account. It should be noted that such network operations are all performed based on the user information and network activities recorded in the underlying sub-database of each account. Therefore, it can be imagined that if a user registers multiple accounts with different user information and logs in to each account for use, without account association, the public homepages, user portraits, and the pushed personalized content corresponding to these accounts may all be different.

[0053] As an example, imagine a middle-aged male user who is a lawyer. He creates a first account for work based on his real identity information and a second account for daily life, and these two accounts are also associated when created. The friends added and the content followed by the user using the first account are all related to work, such as legal media, official websites / WeChat official accounts / WeChat public accounts of judicial organs, legal friends, clients, etc. The articles published, browsed, and books read are also work-related content. In terms of user information, the user inputs real city, contact information, contact address, law firm name, educational background, work experience, and so on. In contrast, the friends added and the content followed by the user using the second account are all about life, or basically unrelated to work. For example, he loves sports, travel, photography, and self-driving tours, so he follows many bloggers related to these aspects and posts a lot of photos and travelogues during his self-driving tours. Among these two accounts, there may be some common user information. For example, the user uses the same age, gender, and city in both accounts, but there are significant differences in terms of friends, following, browsing, and posted content. Therefore, the first network operations performed respectively based on the user information and historical activities associated with these two accounts themselves may be very different. For example, the public home pages of the two accounts will obviously be significantly different. If user portraits are generated for the two accounts, the user portrait of the first account shows that the user is a lawyer in Beijing, while the user portrait of the second account shows that the user is a sports, travel, photography, and self-driving tour enthusiast in Beijing. When pushing content, the first account may often receive judicial-related news, books, conference invitations, etc., while the second account often receives articles, product advertisements, etc. related to sports, travel, photography, and self-driving tours.

[0054] In contrast, if the user associates these two accounts, the sub-databases of the two accounts are fused. Therefore, the same network operation will not only be associated with the currently logged-in account, but may reflect multiple associated accounts. More precisely, the presented content will be associated with the user as a whole rather than a single account.

[0055] Taking the aforementioned example, the website can obtain the user information and the recorded corresponding network activity history of the associated first and second accounts of the user, and as needed, perform operations based on the combination of the information and activities of these multiple or all associated accounts. For example, in some scenarios, although the user logs in to one of the accounts, the personalized content pushed by the system can be based on the combination of the first account and the second account. For example, the user is currently logged in to the second account, but the website has created a user profile based on the combination of the first account and the second account, and the comprehensive result is that the user is a lawyer in Beijing who loves sports, travel, photography, and self-driving tours. Accordingly, the content pushed to the user can include not only content related to sports, travel, photography, and self-driving tours, but also legal content. As another example, although the user makes a relatively obvious distinction between work and life in the use of the first and second accounts, the user may use certain functions on the website in the same way. For example, regarding the preference for music, no matter which account is used, the user likes to play works of the same genre / artist. In this case, when the user switches between different accounts, the online music pushed by the system is of the type that meets the user's preferences, which will bring convenience and an improved experience to the user.

[0056] According to an embodiment of the present invention, the website may require the user to provide verified real information in at least one account, such as through real-name authentication, mobile phone authentication, etc. Accordingly, in other accounts associated with the real-name authenticated account, it is not necessary to require the user to perform repeated authentication. Compared with the existing method, this can reduce the cumbersome process for the user when creating multiple accounts. In addition, regardless of whether the user provides real information or virtual information for each associated account, since it can be associated with the real-name authenticated account, the account can still be effectively under legal supervision and can also be applied to various real social application scenarios such as making friends, blind dates, business, and human resources described below.

[0057] According to another application scenario of the present invention, on a dating and blind date website, the matching system of the website performs matching based on various aspects of information or user profiles of different users. Therefore, when a user has multiple associated accounts, matching between users is performed based on the comprehensive information obtained from the user's multiple accounts. Compared with the traditional method of performing matching between accounts only based on the information of a single account of the user, obviously more appropriate matching results will be obtained.

[0058] In another scenario of the present invention, on some platform websites that provide business matchmaking or on headhunting / recruitment websites, searches and matches based on more comprehensive information reflecting a user's situation usually yield better results. For example, an automotive company hopes to hire an external patent attorney to commission patent litigation services. Compared with the traditional search and match of candidates based solely on professional resumes and backgrounds, if it is further possible to determine from the information of the candidates' associated accounts that some of the candidates not only meet the requirements in terms of professional resumes and backgrounds, but also like driving, have a high frequency of using cars, and follow a large number of automotive media, then generally such candidates are more familiar with the knowledge background related to cars and may be more suitable for this business. It can be envisioned that if it can be further determined that the candidate himself / herself is also the owner of the cars produced and sold by this automotive company, that might be an even more ideal situation.

[0059] The above describes the multi-account management method for social networks of the present invention. By establishing associations between a user's multiple accounts, it is possible to provide, in addition to the traditional single-account-based network operations and functions, additional cross-account network operations and functions. This, while maintaining the independence and privacy between accounts required by users, adds convenience in the use of multiple accounts for users.

[0060] According to a further embodiment of the present invention, to meet the different needs of different users for the balance between account convenience and independence, additional user settings options can be provided to allow users to select or adjust the degree of information sharing and usage scope between accounts according to their needs and preferences. As an example, user preference options regarding whether to allow all or specific content in the user information and network activities associated with the current account to be shared and used by other accounts of the user can be provided in the user settings interface. The options can be in the form of function switches, that is, there are only two alternative options: "allow" and "not allow". When the user selects "not allow", the multiple associated accounts remain independent, and user information and historical activity data are not shared with other accounts. In this case, the use of each account is just like creating multiple unassociated accounts independently. The difference is that the provision of this option allows the user to enable this function at any time when needed. When the user selects "allow", information sharing is permitted between the multiple associated accounts, and thus convenient functions can be provided in appropriate scenarios, as described in the previous examples. Optionally, the option can also be in the form of a slider, that is, the degree of "allow" is adjusted through the slider. This degree can correspond to the weight when data from different accounts are fused together. Thus, the user can adjust to, for example, the personalized content in each account still being mainly based on the current account, only slightly reflecting the information of other accounts, or treating each account equally, which may result in the personalized content pushed when logging in to different accounts being almost the same.

[0061] On the other hand, users can also be allowed to select the degree and scope of each account's acceptance of information from other accounts according to their needs and preferences. For example, user preference options can be provided in the user settings interface for whether to accept personalized content pushes generated based on user information and network activities associated with the user's other accounts. Similarly, the options can also be in the form of function switches or sliders. If it is a switch type, when "allow" is selected, the pushed content can reflect the information of other accounts, while when "not allow" is selected, the pushed content can completely not reflect the information of other accounts, which can prevent others from inferring the information left by the user in other accounts through the content pushed to the current account. The slider option can be used to adjust the degree of acceptance and use of information and data from other accounts.

[0062] It can be understood that the two options described above are independent of each other. For example, an account can be set to allow information sharing but not accept information, and vice versa. In addition, these options can be either global or specific to certain functions. For example, the sharing of data information between accounts can be limited to online music playback.

[0063] As another beneficial scenario for information sharing between accounts, according to another embodiment of the present invention, convenience can be provided when the user needs to input repetitive content during the use of different accounts. For example, in response to detecting a need to input specific user information triggered in the user interface, the corresponding user information from other accounts different from the account currently logged in by the user can be displayed as input candidates, and in response to the user's selection of the candidate user information, the selected user information can be filled into the current user interface. For example, the user has entered and saved their name, contact number, and work address in the first account, and has entered and saved their home address in the associated second account. When the user uses the second account to shop, if the item is to be delivered to the company, the user does not need to re-enter and save their work address in the second account. The system can retrieve the addresses saved in all the user's associated accounts in the background and pop them up as candidates when the user clicks on the address input box for the user to select. This function can save the trouble of the user repeatedly entering the same content in multiple accounts. Similarly, candidates across accounts can also be provided for various other user information, user preferences, user settings, etc. In yet another embodiment, an option similar to "one-key copy" can also be provided for the user to facilitate the use of existing information in other accounts. Of course, this function can also be restricted by the options for sharing and accepting information between accounts described above. For example, when sharing of account information is not allowed, other accounts will not provide the information of that account as a candidate under any circumstances.

[0064] As another application example of associated accounts, messages and notifications received in one account can also be pushed to other associated accounts of the user. In this case, the user does not need to frequently switch between different accounts just to check if there are important messages missed. When it is found that there are messages in another account that need to be viewed in detail or replied to, the user can choose to log in to that account. As a further optional embodiment, a quick view, jump, or reply function can also be provided for the user within the website. For example, the user can directly view the messages of the second account in the message interface of the first account and reply to the message by clicking "Reply". Since the message itself is from the second account, the reply will also be made in the identity of the second account. Alternatively, when the user clicks "View Details" or "Reply" to the message of the second account, the system will automatically switch to log in to the second account.

[0065] Figure 3 is an example structural diagram of a multi-account management system 300 for a social network according to an embodiment of the present invention. The multi-account management system 300 can be configured to execute the multi-account management method as described above in conjunction with Figure 1 as described. As shown in Figure 3 , the multi-account management system 300 can include a data recording module 302, which can be configured to record user information and network activity data associated with each of multiple accounts created by the same user on the same social network in a sub-database corresponding to each account, where the user can log in to the social network using any one of the multiple accounts created by him / her; an account association module 304, which can be configured to: mark multiple accounts as associated accounts; perform a fusion process on the data from each sub-database of the accounts marked as associated accounts, where the fusion process includes superimposing at least some of the overlapping parts in the data of different sub-databases to generate updated data for the overlapping part, and configuring attributes indicating the account-specific usage permissions of the data; and return the data after the data fusion process to each sub-database; and a network operation execution module 306, which can be configured to perform network operations associated with each account based on the returned data after the data fusion process for each account.

[0066] The multi-account management system 300 can be implemented in the form of hardware, software, or a combination of both. For example, the multi-account management system 300 can be a software program running on a general computing device for implementing website and application services. The general computing device can be, for example, a personal computer, a server, or a mobile computing device, such as a smart phone, a tablet computer, etc. The computing device can further include a processing unit, a storage unit, a communication unit, an input unit, and a display unit.

[0067] The processing unit may include one or more processors, which can be any type of processor, including but not limited to general-purpose processors, digital signal processors (DSPs), central processing units (CPUs), microcontrollers, application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), programmable logic devices, discrete gate or transistor logic components, discrete hardware components, or any combination thereof. In some cases, the processor may be configured to operate the memory array using a memory controller. In other cases, the memory controller may be integrated into the processor. The processor may be configured to execute computer programs stored in the memory to perform various functions.

[0068] The storage unit may include a non-transitory storage device or be connected to a non-transitory storage device, which can be any storage device that is non-transitory and can achieve data storage, including but not limited to disk drives, optical storage devices, solid-state storage, floppy disks, flexible disks, hard disks, magnetic tapes or any other magnetic media, optical disks or any other optical media, ROM (read-only memory), RAM (random access memory), cache memory, and / or any other memory chip or memory cartridge, and / or any other medium from which a computer can read data, instructions, and / or code. The memory unit may store computer-readable or executable software including instructions that, when executed, cause the processing unit to perform the various functions described herein. Additionally, the storage unit may be a distributed storage structure, which may have multiple local and remote storage nodes, and data can be stored locally or at the server as needed, and a data backup function can be provided through the distributed storage structure.

[0069] The communication unit can be any type of device or system capable of implementing communication with external devices and / or networks, and may include but not limited to modems, network cards, infrared communication devices, wireless communication devices such as Bluetooth devices, 802.11 devices, WiFi devices, WiMax devices, cellular communication facilities, and / or chip sets, etc. The communication unit can be used to implement communication between the computing device and the server, and to receive data from external data sources.

[0070] The input unit can be any type of device for obtaining user information, including but not limited to mice, keyboards, touchscreens, microphones, etc. The display unit may include any device such as a display that can be used to generate and display the user interface of the social network supporting multi-account management of the present invention and its interaction process.

[0071] The foregoing description includes examples of aspects of the claimed subject matter. Of course, it is not possible to describe every conceivable combination of components or methods for purposes of describing the claimed subject matter, but one of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that many further combinations and permutations of the claimed subject matter are possible. Accordingly, the disclosed subject matter is intended to cover all such alterations, modifications, and variations that fall within the spirit and scope of the appended claims.

Claims

1. A multi-account management method for social networks, characterized in that, The multi-account management method includes: Recording user information and network activity data associated with each of multiple accounts created by the same user on the same social network in a sub-database corresponding to each account, where the user can log in to the social network using any one of the multiple accounts created by the user; Marking multiple accounts created by the same user as associated accounts; Performing a fusion process on data from each sub-database of each account marked as an associated account, where the fusion process includes adding at least some of the overlapping parts in the data of different sub-databases to generate updated data for the overlapping part, and configuring attributes indicating account-specific usage permissions for each data; Returning the data after the data fusion process to each sub-database; and For each account, performing network operations associated with each account based on the returned data after the data fusion process.

2. The multi-account management method according to claim 1, characterized in that, The multiple accounts further include: A first account created by the user with a first user information dataset, and a second account created by the user with a second user information dataset, where at least some of the user information in the first user information dataset is different from that in the second user information dataset.

3. The multi-account management method according to claim 1, characterized in that, The user's network activities include one or more of the following: posting, forwarding, liking, commenting, collecting, following, subscribing, adding friends, marking preferences, setting user preferences, online shopping, web browsing, book reading, media playing, and travel footprints.

4. The multi-account management method according to claim 1, characterized in that, The network operations include one or more of the following: Generating or updating a public homepage associated with each account; Generating or updating a user profile associated with each account; and Pushing personalized content for each account.

5. The multi-account management method according to claim 1, characterized in that, The configuration of the attributes indicating account-specific usage permissions for each data is based on pre-configured rules or user preferences or both.

6. The multi-account management method according to claim 5, characterized in that, The multi-account management method further includes at least one of the following: Providing in the user settings interface user preference options for whether to allow all or specific content in the user information and network activities associated with the current account to be shared and used by the user's other accounts; And Providing in the user settings interface user preference options for whether to accept personalized content pushes based on the user information and network activities associated with the user's other accounts.

7. The multi-account management method according to claim 1, characterized in that, The multi-account management method further includes: In response to detecting a need to input specific user information triggered in the user interface, displaying the corresponding user information from other accounts different from the account currently logged in by the user as input candidates; and In response to the user's selection of the candidate user information, filling the selected user information into the current user interface.

8. The multi-account management method according to claim 1, characterized in that, The multi-account management method further includes: Providing in the user interface of the currently logged-in account a notification about messages from other associated accounts; and In response to an instruction from the user to view or reply to the message from other associated accounts, providing in the user interface of the currently logged-in account the viewing or replying of the message, or switching the login to the account to which the message belongs.

9. A multi-account management system for social networks, characterized in that, The multi-account management system includes: A data recording module configured to record user information and network activity data associated with each of a plurality of accounts created by the same user on the same social network in a sub-database corresponding to each of the accounts, wherein the user can log in to the social network using any one of the plurality of accounts created by the user; An account association module configured to: Mark the plurality of accounts as associated accounts; Perform a fusion process on the data from each sub-database of each account marked as an associated account, wherein the fusion process includes superimposing at least some of the overlapping portions of the data in different sub-databases to generate updated data for the overlapping portions, and configuring attributes indicating account-specific usage permissions for the data; and Return the data after the data fusion process to each sub-database; and A network operation execution module configured to perform network operations associated with each account based on the returned data after the data fusion process for each account.

10. A computer-readable storage medium having computer-readable instructions stored thereon, characterized in that, The computer-readable instructions, when executed by a processor, implement the multi-account management method for a social network according to any one of claims 1-8.

Images