Patent Application
20150248480
In an enterprise, various pieces of content may be scattered around the enterprise. For example, documents may be stored in various repositories, may be shared between individuals, and may be interacted with by various individuals via a variety of workloads. Some content items may be interesting to or relevant to a particular user; however, he/she may not be aware of why the content may be interesting to him/her or that he/she may have a personal connection to it.
A content item may have been viewed, edited, commented on, etc. by people with whom the user has a relationship. A traditional document browsing or search experience may provide regular metadata such as a content item's title, location, file size, summary, etc., but may not provide insights as to why the content item may matter to him/her. It is with respect to these and other considerations that the present invention has been made.
This summary is provided to introduce a selection of concepts in a simplified form that are further described below in the detailed description. This summary is not intended to identify key features or essential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended as an aid in determining the scope of the claimed subject matter.
Embodiments of the present invention solve the above and other problems by providing a personalized view of insights into social activity surrounding a content item that may indicate to a user why a given piece of content may be interesting to him/her. A user's activities, as well as the activities of others (e.g., colleagues of the user) may be shown, including such items as a total number of views, comments, followers, and likes associated with the content item. The insights view may be personalized based on the user's relationships with other users in association with the content item. The user's relationships with others in association with the content item may be represented in an enterprise graph. Thus, the user may learn through the personalized view who among his/her relationships have commented, edited, shared, followed, or liked the content item, as well as, how many of the user's colleagues have viewed the content item. In addition, through a search function that may be applied to the personalized view, a user may learn about related content items based on the social insights. For example, a user may find all content that is trending among his/her colleagues by selecting a tag associated with a given content item that causes a search for related content items.
The details of one or more embodiments are set forth in the accompanying drawings and description below. Other features and advantages will be apparent from a reading of the following detailed description and a review of the associated drawings. It is to be understood that the following detailed description is explanatory only and is not restrictive of the invention as claimed.
The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute a part of this disclosure, illustrate various embodiments of the present invention. In the drawings:
The following detailed description refers to the accompanying drawings. Wherever possible, the same reference numbers are used in the drawing and the following description to refer to the same or similar elements. While embodiments of the invention may be described, modifications, adaptations, and other implementations are possible. For example, substitutions, additions, or modifications may be made to the elements illustrated in the drawings, and the methods described herein may be modified by substituting, reordering, or adding stages to the disclosed methods. Accordingly, the following detailed description does not limit the invention, but instead, the proper scope of the invention is defined by the appended claims.
As briefly described above, embodiments of the present invention are directed to a personalized view of insights into social activity surrounding a content item that may indicate to a user why a given piece of content may be interesting to the user. A user's activities, as well as the activities of others (e.g., colleagues of the user) may be shown, including such items as a total number of views, comments, followers, and likes associated with the content item. The insights view may be personalized based on the user's relationships with other users in association with the content item. Through a search function that may be applied to the personalized view, a user may learn about related content items based on the social insights. The insights view may be displayed in a user interface, and a user may take action on content items in the displayed view without context switch.
Referring now to the drawings, in which like numerals represent like elements, various embodiments will be described.
Activity data 106 may comprise various types of information such as, but not limited to, presence data, interaction data, data associated with communication with another person (e.g., emailing, messaging, conferencing, etc.), data associated with an individual's activity stream (e.g., authoring or modifying a document, liking, commenting, following, or sharing a document, following a person, commenting on a feed, etc.), trending data, group membership (e.g., inclusion in a distribution list, attendee in a meeting invitation, etc.). Organizational relationship data 105 may comprise various types of information such as, but not limited to, data associated with a project structure or organizational structure (e.g., who an individual works with, works for, is a peer to, directs, manages, is managed by, etc.).
As mentioned above, the organizational relationship data 105 and activity data 106 may be stored in a graph 114. Activities and people relationships may be stored as edges 112A-B (collectively 112), and individuals 102 interacted with and content items 103 that are acted upon may be stored as nodes 110A-C (collectively 110). For example, a node 110 may include an individual 102 (nodes 110A and 110C), a group of individuals, a content item 103 such as a document (node 1106), an email or other communication type, a webpage, etc.
An edge 112 may include various types of actions (i.e., activity edge 1126) (e.g., like, comment, follow, share, authoring, modifying, communication, participation, etc.) and relationships (i.e., relationship edge 112A). Consider for example that an individual 102 “likes” a certain document (i.e., selects a “like” option associated with the document). The individual and the document (content item 103) may be stored as nodes 110 and the “like” selection may be stored as an edge 112.
A relationship edge 112A may include explicit relationships and/or implicit relationships. Explicit relationships may include relationships defined according to an organization structure and data (i.e., organizational relationship data 105). For example, an explicit relationship may include an individual's manager, peers, directs, etc. An explicit relationship may be stored as a relationship edge 112A such as a manager edge, peer edge, directs edge, etc. Implicit relationships may include relationships determined according to activity in one or more workloads (i.e., activity data 106 from one or more information sources 104). For example, an implicit relationship may include an individual 102 following another individual on an enterprise social network service (information source 104), being included on a distribution list with another individual, is a co-author of a document with another individual, emailing (or other type of communication) with another individual, group memberships, commenting on another individual's feed, etc. According to an embodiment, an implicit relationship may be stored as a relationship edge 112A in the graph 114.
The system 100 may comprise an analytics engine 115 operable to calculate and apply weights on edges 112 according to what activity is performed (e.g., a like, comment, share, follow, email, etc.) and the relationship between a first individual 102 and the individual(s) 102 performing the activity. Weights may also be based on how recently an activity was performed. A weight on a relationship edge 112A may be based on implicit or explicit signals generated through activity on the plurality of workloads, such as an amount and type of activity an individual 102 has with another person, a number of times an individual 102 interacts with a content item 103, the type of interaction, etc. For example, if an individual 102 communicates via email with a first information worker (IW) daily, and is frequently an attendee of meetings that the first IW is also an attendee of, the weight of a relationship edge 112A between the individual 102 and the first IW may be higher than the weight of a relationship edge 112A between the individual 102 and a second IW whom the individual 102 emails less frequently and who share a common “like” of a document on a social network site. A weight on an activity edge 112B may also be based on a type of activity. For example, an “edit” or “share” operation may be considered to be more important than a “like” operation, and thus may have a higher weighting than the “like” operation. An individual's relationship edges 112A and activity edges 112B may be ranked according to their calculated weights.
Content items 103 may be presented to a user 122, wherein the user 122 may be an individual 102 represented by a node 110 in the graph 114. One or more content items 103 may be presented to the user 122 in a variety of contexts. For example, a content item 103 may be shared with or referenced in an email to the user 122, the user 122 may browse a collection of content items 103 stored in a folder, document library, or other repository, etc. When a content item 103 is presented to a user 122, a personalized view of social activity insights 116 surrounding the content item 103 may also be presented. Embodiments may provide for gathering global activity for a content item 103 and for determining what activities to highlight to a given user 122 according to the activity and according to which individual(s) 102 interacted with the content item 103 and his/her/their relationship with the user 122.
The personalized view of social activity insights 116 may highlight activity associated with individuals 102 with whom the user 122 has a connection, and may indicate to the user 122 why the particular content item 103 may be of interest or relevant to him/her. The highlighted activity may include such information as a total number of views, comments, followers, and likes. The insights may be personalized based on the user's 122 relationships edges 112A in the graph 114. A determination may be made as to which individuals 102 may be of significance to the user 122, and the interactions (e.g., views, comments, edits, likes, etc.) those individuals 102 have had with the content item 103 may be displayed, According to embodiments, selectable tags may be automatically provided with the content item 103. The tags may help a user 122 to better conceptualize the content item 103 that is presented, and may also provide a means to retrieve similar content items 103 as will be described in further detail with reference to
Content items 103 and a personalized view of social activity insights 116 surrounding the content items 103 may be presented to a user 122 via a client application 120 on a computing device 118. The computing device 118 may be one of a variety of suitable computing devices described below with reference to
The application 120 illustrated in association with computing device 118 is illustrative of any application having sufficient computer executable instructions for enabling embodiments of the present invention as described herein. The application 120 may include a thick client application, which may be stored locally on the computing device 118, or may include a thin client application (i.e., web application) that may reside on a remote server and accessible over a network, such as the Internet or an intranet. A thin client application may be hosted in a browser-controlled environment or coded in a browser-supported language and reliant on a common web browser to render the application executable on a computing device 118.
When an indication of a request to display a content item 103 and social activity insights 116 surrounding the content item 103 is received, the graph 114 may be queried for the particular content item's node 1106, and a request may be made for all activity edges 112B associated with the content item's node 1106 and the nodes 110 to which the activity edges 112B connect (i.e., individuals 102 who have acted on the content item 103). According to an embodiment, a request may also be made for the node 110 associated with the user 122 to whom the content item 103 and social activity insights 116 surrounding the content item 103 will be displayed. Additionally, a query may be made for the user's 122 relationship edges 112A and the nodes 110 to which the relationship edges 112A connect (i.e., individuals who are connected to the user 122 via the relationship edges 112A). An intersection or overlap between the activity edges 112B connected to the content item 103 and the user's 122 relationship edges 112A may be highlighted to the user 122.
Referring now to
Additional non-personalized information may be provided including properties 210 such as information about who authored the content item 103, a number of views, likes, followers, comments, etc. Each of the properties 210 may be selectable. When selected, additional information may be provided such as specific individuals 102 who viewed, liked, followed, or commented on the content item 103. Selection on an individual 102, for example, the individual 102 who authored the content item 103, may provide additional information about the individual, or may provide connectivity to communication with the selected individual 102. Additionally, embodiments may provide for enabling the user 122 to contribute to activity, for example, to like, follow, share, or comment on the content item 103. According to an embodiment, connectivity may be provided within the insights UI 202 without switching context.
As described above, personalized social activity insights, such as highlighted information 212 may be displayed in the insights UI 202 as illustrated in
According to embodiments, search queries may be surfaced as one or more tags 214 on the content item 103. According to an embodiment, a tag 214 may be generated by a user 122 to affinitize a content item 103 with a topic (e.g., John tags a document with “Ergonomics”) or for personal utility (e.g., John tags a document to “read this later”). According to another embodiment, tags 214 may be automatically suggested to a given user 122, and may provide personalized information that may be useful to the user 122. For example, tags 214 may provide information such as if a content item 103 has been presented to the user 122, shared with the user 122 (e.g., via email, via a file hosting service, etc.), trending around the user 122, trending around other individuals 102, worked on by the user 122, viewed by the user 122, followed by the user 122, contributed to by the user 122, modified by the user 122, viewed by, worked on, commented on, followed by, or modified by an individual 102 with whom the user 122 has an implicit or explicit relationship, etc. The one or more tags 214 may be selectable. Selection of a tag 214 may initiate a search query for additional content items 103 matching the selected tag 214. For example, if a user 122 selects a “trending around me” tag 214, a search query may be performed for other content items 103 may be trending around the user 122. The results may be displayed in a user interface. According to one embodiment, all search results may be presented. According to another embodiment, a top n results may be displayed, wherein the top n results may be content items 103 with the highest ranking edges 112 as determined according to such factors as the type of activity performed (e.g., viewing, following, commenting on, liking, etc.), how close of a relationship the user 122 has with individual(s) 102 performing the activity, how recently the activity was performed, etc. The n may be a predetermined number or a selectable number.
As described above, one or more content items 103 may be presented to a user 122 in a variety of contexts such as a document being linked or referenced in an email to the user 122.
Also as described above, a listing or compilation of content items 103 may be presented to a user 122 when browsing a collection of content items 103 stored in a folder, document library, or other repository, etc.
The method 300 may proceed to OPERATION 315, where weights may be calculated based on implicit and explicit signals generated through activity on the plurality of workloads, and the relationship data 105 and activity data 106 may be stored in a graph 114 with their calculated weights as edges 112. That is, relationship data 105 and the activity data 106 may be analyzed, weights may be calculated according to explicit relationships and amount, type, and recency of activities/interactions with other people, and relationships may be established between each individual 102 and the people with whom the individual has interacted and people with whom the individual is associated according to an organization or project structure. Additionally, relationships may be established between the individual 102 and content items 103 (e.g., documents, emails, webpages, etc.) upon which an activity was performed by the individual 102 or by other people with whom the individual 102 is associated implicitly and/or explicitly.
The method 300 may proceed to OPERATION 320, where an indication to display one or more content items 103 to a user 122 is received, wherein the user 122 is an individual 102 represented in the graph 114. For example, one or more content items 103 may be shared with the user 122, the user 122 may select to view a listing or collection of content items 103 stored in one or more folders, document libraries, or other repositories, etc.
At OPERATION 325, the graph 114 may be queried for activity edges 112B and relationship edges 112A associated with the user 122 and for activity data associated with the one or more content items 103 persisted as edges 112 in the graph 114.
At OPERATION 330, a determination may be made as to which social activity insights 116 associated with the one or more content items 103 to display to the specific user 122. As described above, activity edges 112 connected to the one or more content items' nodes 110 may be weighted and ranked according to the user's relationships in the graph 114. The determination may be made as to which social activity insights 116 have the highest rankings.
The method 300 may proceed to OPERATION 335, where a personalized view of the one or more content items 103 and including the determined social activity insights 116 associated with the one or more content items 103 may be generated and displayed in one or more insights UIs 202. As described above, the insights UI 202 may comprise a visualization 204 of the content item 103, other data such as the title 206 of the content item 103, a summary 208 of the content item 103, various properties 210 such as the author of the content item 103 and global activity (e.g., views, comments, likes, favorites, follows, etc.), and social activity insights 116 personalized to the user 122 displayed as highlighted information 212 and search query tags 214.
The method 300 may proceed to either OPERATION 340 or 350. At OPERATION 340, an indication of a selection of a tag 214 may be received, as illustrated in
At OPERATION 350, an indication of a selection to perform an action may be received. For example, the user 102 may select to contribute to activity associated with the content item 103 (e.g., share, follow, like, view, or modify the content item 103, provide a comment, etc.). At OPERATION 355, connectivity may be provided enabling the user 122 to act on the content item 103. According to one embodiment, connectivity may be provided without switching context. For example, the user 122 may be able to view, like, follow, or share the content item 103 within the insights UI 202. According to another embodiment, connectivity may be provided by opening an appropriate application for a selected functionality. For example, if the user 122 selects to view the content item 103, the content item 103 may be opened in an appropriate application for the selected document (e.g., an instance of a spreadsheet document may be opened in spreadsheet application). The method may end at OPERATION 395.
While the invention has been described in the general context of program modules that execute in conjunction with an application program that runs on an operating system on a computer, those skilled in the art will recognize that the invention may also be implemented in combination with other program modules. Generally, program modules include routines, programs, components, data structures, and other types of structures that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types.
The embodiments and functionalities described herein may operate via a multitude of computing systems including, without limitation, desktop computer systems, wired and wireless computing systems, mobile computing systems (e.g., mobile telephones, netbooks, tablet or slate type computers, notebook computers, and laptop computers), hand-held devices, multiprocessor systems, microprocessor-based or programmable consumer electronics, minicomputers, and mainframe computers.
In addition, the embodiments and functionalities described herein may operate over distributed systems (e.g., cloud-based computing systems), where application functionality, memory, data storage and retrieval and various processing functions may be operated remotely from each other over a distributed computing network, such as the Internet or an intranet. User interfaces and information of various types may be displayed via on-board computing device displays or via remote display units associated with one or more computing devices. For example user interfaces and information of various types may be displayed and interacted with on a wall surface onto which user interfaces and information of various types are projected. Interaction with the multitude of computing systems with which embodiments of the invention may be practiced include, keystroke entry, touch screen entry, voice or other audio entry, gesture entry where an associated computing device is equipped with detection (e.g., camera) functionality for capturing and interpreting user gestures for controlling the functionality of the computing device, and the like.
As stated above, a number of program modules and data files may be stored in the system memory 404. While executing on the processing unit 402, the program modules 406 may perform processes including, but not limited to, one or more of the stages of the method 300 illustrated in
Furthermore, embodiments of the invention may be practiced in an electrical circuit comprising discrete electronic elements, packaged or integrated electronic chips containing logic gates, a circuit utilizing a microprocessor, or on a single chip containing electronic elements or microprocessors. For example, embodiments of the invention may be practiced via a system-on-a-chip (SOC) where each or many of the components illustrated in
The computing device 400 may also have one or more input device(s) 412 such as a keyboard, a mouse, a pen, a sound input device, a touch input device, etc. The output device(s) 414 such as a display, speakers, a printer, etc. may also be included. The aforementioned devices are examples and others may be used. The computing device 400 may include one or more communication connections 416 allowing communications with other computing devices 418. Examples of suitable communication connections 416 include, but are not limited to, RF transmitter, receiver, and/or transceiver circuitry; universal serial bus (USB), parallel, and/or serial ports.
The term computer readable media as used herein may include computer storage media. Computer storage media may include volatile and nonvolatile, removable and non-removable media implemented in any method or technology for storage of information, such as computer readable instructions, data structures, or program modules. The system memory 404, the removable storage device 409, and the non-removable storage device 410 are all computer storage media examples (i.e., memory storage.) Computer storage media may include RAM, ROM, electrically erasable read-only memory (EEPROM), flash memory or other memory technology, CD-ROM, digital versatile disks (DVD) or other optical storage, magnetic cassettes, magnetic tape, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices, or any other article of manufacture which can be used to store information and which can be accessed by the computing device 400. Any such computer storage media may be part of the computing device 400. Computer storage media does not include a carrier wave or other propagated or modulated data signal.
Communication media may be embodied by computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules, or other data in a modulated data signal, such as a carrier wave or other transport mechanism, and includes any information delivery media. The term “modulated data signal” may describe a signal that has one or more characteristics set or changed in such a manner as to encode information in the signal. By way of example, and not limitation, communication media may include wired media such as a wired network or direct-wired connection, and wireless media such as acoustic, radio frequency (RF), infrared, and other wireless media.
One or more application programs 550 may be loaded into the memory 562 and run on or in association with the operating system 564. Examples of the application programs include phone dialer programs, e-mail programs, personal information management (PIM) programs, word processing programs, spreadsheet programs, Internet browser programs, messaging programs, and so forth. The system 502 also includes a non-volatile storage area 568 within the memory 562. The non-volatile storage area 568 may be used to store persistent information that should not be lost if the system 502 is powered down. The application programs 550 may use and store information in the non-volatile storage area 568, such as e-mail or other messages used by an e-mail application, and the like. A synchronization application (not shown) also resides on the system 502 and is programmed to interact with a corresponding synchronization application resident on a host computer to keep the information stored in the non-volatile storage area 568 synchronized with corresponding information stored at the host computer. As should be appreciated, other applications may be loaded into the memory 562 and run on the mobile computing device 500.
The system 502 has a power supply 570, which may be implemented as one or more batteries. The power supply 570 might further include an external power source, such as an AC adapter or a powered docking cradle that supplements or recharges the batteries.
The system 502 may also include a radio 572 that performs the function of transmitting and receiving radio frequency communications. The radio 572 facilitates wireless connectivity between the system 502 and the “outside world,” via a communications carrier or service provider. Transmissions to and from the radio 572 are conducted under control of the operating system 564. In other words, communications received by the radio 572 may be disseminated to the application programs 150 via the operating system 564, and vice versa.
The visual indicator 520 may be used to provide visual notifications and/or an audio interface 574 may be used for producing audible notifications via the audio transducer 525. In the illustrated embodiment, the visual indicator 520 is a light emitting diode (LED) and the audio transducer 525 is a speaker. These devices may be directly coupled to the power supply 570 so that when activated, they remain on for a duration dictated by the notification mechanism even though the processor 560 and other components might shut down for conserving battery power. The LED may be programmed to remain on indefinitely until the user takes action to indicate the powered-on status of the device. The audio interface 574 is used to provide audible signals to and receive audible signals from the user. For example, in addition to being coupled to the audio transducer 525, the audio interface 574 may also be coupled to a microphone to receive audible input, such as to facilitate a telephone conversation. In accordance with embodiments of the present invention, the microphone may also serve as an audio sensor to facilitate control of notifications, as will be described below. The system 502 may further include a video interface 576 that enables an operation of an on-board camera 530 to record still images, video stream, and the like.
A mobile computing device 500 implementing the system 502 may have additional features or functionality. For example, the mobile computing device 500 may also include additional data storage devices (removable and/or non-removable) such as, magnetic disks, optical disks, or tape. Such additional storage is illustrated in
Data/information generated or captured by the mobile computing device 500 and stored via the system 502 may be stored locally on the mobile computing device 500, as described above, or the data may be stored on any number of storage media that may be accessed by the device via the radio 572 or via a wired connection between the mobile computing device 500 and a separate computing device associated with the mobile computing device 500, for example, a server computer in a distributed computing network, such as the Internet. As should be appreciated such data/information may be accessed via the mobile computing device 500 via the radio 572 or via a distributed computing network. Similarly, such data/information may be readily transferred between computing devices for storage and use according to well-known data/information transfer and storage means, including electronic mail and collaborative data/information sharing systems.
Embodiments of the present invention, for example, are described above with reference to block diagrams and/or operational illustrations of methods, systems, and computer program products according to embodiments of the invention. The functions/acts noted in the blocks may occur out of the order as shown in any flowchart. For example, two blocks shown in succession may in fact be executed substantially concurrently or the blocks may sometimes be executed in the reverse order, depending upon the functionality/acts involved.
The description and illustration of one or more embodiments provided in this application are not intended to limit or restrict the scope of the invention as claimed in any way. The embodiments, examples, and details provided in this application are considered sufficient to convey possession and enable others to make and use the best mode of claimed invention. The claimed invention should not be construed as being limited to any embodiment, example, or detail provided in this application. Regardless of whether shown and described in combination or separately, the various features (both structural and methodological) are intended to be selectively included or omitted to produce an embodiment with a particular set of features. Having been provided with the description and illustration of the present application, one skilled in the art may envision variations, modifications, and alternate embodiments falling within the spirit of the broader aspects of the general inventive concept embodied in this application that do not depart from the broader scope of the claimed invention.
