Social Graph Nodes for External Web Content Interaction Tracking

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Solution Overview

Problem

Social networking systems lack the ability to effectively track and utilize user interactions with web content external to their platforms, limiting web content providers' access to demographic and behavioral data about their consumers.

Innovation Solution

A mechanism is introduced to create nodes in the social graph for external web content, allowing social networking systems to associate and track user interactions with web content by incorporating tags in markup language documents, enabling analytics and demographic data collection.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Loss of information

If web content providers use independent web analytics providers to gather consumer information, then they can obtain some demographic data, but the information is limited and cannot leverage social networking relationships

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvedemographic and behavioral dataVSAvoidability to exploit social relationships

Core Design Contradiction:

Loss of informationVSAdaptability or versatility

Solution Approach 1:

The patent introduces a social networking system as an intermediary between web content providers and users. This intermediary captures and processes user interactions with external web content, converting them into structured social graph data that can be analyzed for demographic and behavioral insights while preserving social relationship context.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

Solution Approach 2:

The social networking system performs multiple functions: it serves as a platform for user communication, a data collection mechanism for web content analytics, and a relationship mapping system. This multi-functionality allows web content providers to access comprehensive user information without needing separate specialized systems.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #6Universality (Multi-functionality)

2Measurement precision

If the social networking system tracks user interactions with external web content, then web content providers can access comprehensive demographic data, but the system complexity increases significantly

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvetracking accuracy of user interactionsVSAvoidsystem architecture complexity

Core Design Contradiction:

Measurement precisionVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The web content provider is given the capability to self-register their web content with the social networking system by incorporating specific tags into their web pages. This self-service approach eliminates the need for complex manual configuration and reduces the burden on the social networking system to manage and verify each web content source.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #25Self-service

Solution Approach 2:

The system performs preliminary actions by pre-processing and storing user interaction data as it occurs naturally within the social networking environment. This preliminary data collection and structuring eliminates the need for complex real-time analysis systems when web content providers need analytics.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

3Productivity

If web content is tied to users of the social networking system, then interactions can be tracked effectively, but this requires significant changes to external web content infrastructure

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveinteraction tracking efficiencyVSAvoidimplementation difficulty for web content providers

Core Design Contradiction:

ProductivityVSEase of manufacture

Solution Approach 1:

The patent changes the parameter of web content identification from requiring complex user authentication and account systems to using simple HTML tags with unique identifiers. This parameter change makes it trivial for web content providers to implement tracking while maintaining high productivity in data collection.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #35Parameter changes

4Loss of information

If the social networking system maintains comprehensive logs of all user actions, then historical data can be associated with web content nodes, but data storage and processing requirements increase

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvehistorical interaction dataVSAvoiddata storage volume

Core Design Contradiction:

Loss of informationVSQuantity of substance

Solution Approach 1:

The system extracts only the relevant interaction data needed for web content analytics from the broader user activity logs. By taking out only the specific data points associated with tracked web content nodes, the system preserves historical information while avoiding unnecessary storage of unrelated user activities.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #2Taking out (Extraction)

Data Source

PatentUS9497154B2Measuring social network-based interaction with web content external to a social networking system

Publication Date: 2016.11.15 META PLATFORMS INC

AI summary

A social networking system includes a mechanism for generating nodes in the social graph corresponding to web content external to the social networking system. These nodes allow the social networking system to track user interactions within the social networking system about web content external to the social networking system. The web content markup language document(s) include one or more tags, which contain information for defining the node in the social networking system. Users may then interact with the node, and these interactions are tracked by the social networking system. From this, the social networking system generates analytics, which include historical data and user demographic and behavioral information, and which can be provided to the web content provider via the social networking system. A user interface within the social networking system can be used to provide access to the analytics.