Temporal User Engagement Indexing for Search Relevance

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Solution Overview

Problem

Existing content indexing systems fail to effectively prioritize and present 'fresh' and 'highly engaging' content to users based on temporal and user engagement features, leading to irrelevant or outdated information being displayed in search results.

Innovation Solution

A system that indexes content using temporal features, user engagement features, and outlier features, assigning an index feature to content based on metrics such as user reactions, social network influence, and time windows, allowing for the identification and ranking of 'fresh' and 'popular' content for inclusion in search results and supplementary suggestions.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If content is indexed using traditional methods without temporal and engagement features, then the indexing system is simple, but the search results contain outdated or irrelevant information

Engineering Contradiction:
Improverelevance of search resultsVSAvoidcomplexity of indexing system
Core Design Contradiction:
ReliabilityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent segments the indexing process by dividing content features into distinct categories: temporal features (time since publication, recency), engagement features (shares, comments, reactions), and traditional relevance features. This segmentation allows the system to independently evaluate and weight each feature type, improving result reliability without overwhelming complexity through modular feature processing

Inventive Principle:
Principle #1Segmentation

Solution Approach 2:

The patent adds new dimensions to the traditional indexing system by incorporating temporal dimensions (when content was published and how recent it is) and engagement dimensions (user interaction metrics). These additional dimensions transform the indexing from a single-factor relevance model to a multi-dimensional evaluation system, significantly improving result quality

Inventive Principle:
Principle #17Another dimension (Dimensionality change)

2Productivity

If content is ranked solely by traditional relevance metrics, then the indexing process is straightforward, but fresh and trending content is not prioritized

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvespeed of content freshnessVSAvoidcomplexity of ranking algorithm
Core Design Contradiction:
ProductivityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent applies preliminary action by pre-calculating and storing temporal features (time stamps, recency scores) and engagement features (share counts, reaction metrics) for each content item during the indexing phase. This preliminary processing of freshness and engagement data allows the ranking algorithm to quickly prioritize trending and fresh content without complex real-time calculations, improving productivity while managing algorithmic complexity

Inventive Principle:
Principle #10Preliminary action

Solution Approach 2:

The patent introduces dynamics into the ranking system by making the importance of different features adjustable over time. The system can dynamically weight engagement features higher during trending periods and temporal features higher for breaking news, allowing the ranking algorithm to adapt to different content types and user needs without fundamental redesign

Inventive Principle:
Principle #15Dynamics

3Measurement precision

If user engagement data is collected and analyzed for all content, then highly engaging content can be identified, but the processing time and computational resources increase

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveaccuracy of engagement measurementVSAvoidtime for data processing
Core Design Contradiction:
Measurement precisionVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The patent extracts only the most critical engagement features (share count, comment count, reaction counts) and temporal features (publication time, recency) from the vast amount of available user interaction data. By selecting and extracting only these key metrics rather than analyzing all possible engagement signals, the system achieves accurate measurement of content quality while minimizing processing time and computational resource requirements

Inventive Principle:
Principle #2Taking out (Extraction)

Data Source

PatentUS9646032B2Temporal user engagement features
Publication Date: 2017.05.09 MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY LICENSING LLC
  • US9646032B2 patent drawing
  • US9646032B2 patent drawing
  • US9646032B2 patent drawing

AI summary

One or more techniques and/or systems are provided for indexing content based upon index features (e.g., temporal features, user engagement features, and/or outlier features), and/or for providing content within a search result interface based upon such index features and/or rankings. For example, user reaction data associated with content (e.g., a microblog message, a social network post, etc.) may be evaluated to generate a user engagement feature that may be constrained to a time window feature (e.g., the number of shares of a message within the first 10 minutes from publication of the message) to create an index feature for indexing the content within a content index. Responsive to the index feature corresponding to a search query, the content may be provided with search results for the search query. For example, the content may correspond to trending or breaking news associated with the search query.