Social Network Tagging via External Web Clipper Bridge
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Solution Overview
Problem
Social networking systems lack the ability to tag users in digital content hosted outside their domain, making it cumbersome for users to link external content to their profiles, as existing methods require manual upload and tagging within the system.
Innovation Solution
A user interface is provided to tag social networking system users in content hosted by third-party websites, allowing the system to associate the tagged content with the user's profile, enabling notifications and richer social feeds by integrating external content.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If users manually upload and tag content within the social networking system, then tagging functionality is available, but the process becomes cumbersome and time-consuming
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an intermediary mechanism (web clipper tool or browser extension) that acts as a bridge between external web browsers and the social networking system. This intermediary automatically captures content from external websites and transmits it to the social networking system with pre-associated user identity information, eliminating the need for manual upload and tagging while resolving the contradiction between ease of operation and time consumption
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary actions by automatically capturing content and pre-associating it with user profiles before the user even initiates a tagging action. The web clipper tool pre-processes external content and prepares it for integration into the social networking system, so when users want to share content, the heavy lifting of capture, format conversion, and initial tagging has already been completed, significantly reducing both operational complexity and time required
2Adaptability or versatility
If the social networking system only tags content within its domain, then system control is maintained, but external content cannot be associated with user profiles
Solution Approach 1:
The patent employs an intermediary component (web clipper or browser extension) that handles the complexity of external content integration. This intermediary sits between the external web environment and the social networking system, managing the transmission and integration of external content while keeping the core social networking system architecture relatively simple and maintainable, thus resolving the contradiction between adaptability and system complexity
Solution Approach 2:
The system creates copies of external content metadata and associations rather than requiring full integration of external website infrastructure. By copying content information, links, and tagging data from external sources and storing them within the social networking system's database, the system achieves versatility in handling external content without the complexity of maintaining direct connections to numerous external platforms
Data Source
AI summary
Users of a social networking system can tag other users in content items that are provided outside of the social networking system, such as pictures that are viewable on a website that is external to the social networking system. To enable a user to tag another user in a content item, an external system provides a user interface that enables the user to tag another user, optionally define a portion of the content item in which the tagged user appears, and provide an identity of the tagged user. The external system communicates with the social networking system to provide the tagging information to the social networking system. The tagging information is received by the social networking system, which imports the content item and displays the content item with the tagging information to other users in the social networking system.