U.S. patent application number 16/938065 was filed with the patent office on 2020-11-12 for document and content feed.
This patent application is currently assigned to MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY LICENSING, LLC. The applicant listed for this patent is MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY LICENSING, LLC. Invention is credited to Torbjorn Helvik, Johan Idivuoma, Bjornstein Lilleby, Joshua Stickler, Vidar Vikjord.
Application Number | 20200358864 16/938065 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 1000004976604 |
Filed Date | 2020-11-12 |
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United States Patent
Application |
20200358864 |
Kind Code |
A1 |
Helvik; Torbjorn ; et
al. |
November 12, 2020 |
DOCUMENT AND CONTENT FEED
Abstract
An information feed is provided that surfaces information items
that are determined to be interesting or relevant to a user. The
information feed may be updated with new information items each
time the feed is accessed by the user. Information not surfaced to
the user in the feed may be accessed by the user via one or more
other means, but only those items having a sufficient importance to
the user are surfaced in the feed. Items in the feed are sorted by
order of importance or relevance to the user. When new items are
added to the feed, they are sorted relative to each other, but are
displayed separately from previous groupings of items added to the
feed. Items may be reposted to different positions in the feed, and
items may be manually removed from the feed if desired.
Inventors: |
Helvik; Torbjorn; (Oslo,
NO) ; Idivuoma; Johan; (Tromso, NO) ; Vikjord;
Vidar; (Tromso, NO) ; Stickler; Joshua; (Oslo,
NO) ; Lilleby; Bjornstein; (Tromso, NO) |
|
Applicant: |
Name |
City |
State |
Country |
Type |
MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY LICENSING, LLC |
Redmond |
WA |
US |
|
|
Assignee: |
MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY LICENSING,
LLC
Redmond
WA
|
Family ID: |
1000004976604 |
Appl. No.: |
16/938065 |
Filed: |
July 24, 2020 |
Related U.S. Patent Documents
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Application
Number |
Filing Date |
Patent Number |
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14194700 |
Mar 1, 2014 |
10757201 |
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16938065 |
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Current U.S.
Class: |
1/1 |
Current CPC
Class: |
H04L 67/22 20130101;
G06F 16/24578 20190101; G06Q 10/10 20130101 |
International
Class: |
H04L 29/08 20060101
H04L029/08; G06F 16/2457 20060101 G06F016/2457; G06Q 10/10 20060101
G06Q010/10 |
Claims
1. A method of generating and updating an information feed of a
user, comprising: in response to detecting an access to the
information feed, generating a first instance of the information
feed populated with a first set of information items to provide for
display to the user, the first set of information items including
at least a subset of a plurality of information items received from
one or more information sources, the subset selected and displayed
based on a ranked relevance of the plurality of information items
to the user; receiving one or more new information items from the
one or more information sources; determining a relevance of the one
or more new information items to the user; ranking the one or more
new information items based on the relevance determination; storing
the ranked new information items as new feed candidates in an
index, wherein the new feed candidates are stored in the index
according to the ranking; until a subsequent access to the
information feed or a refresh of the first instance of the
information feed is detected, iteratively determining an updated
relevance of the new feed candidates, re-ranking the new feed
candidates based on the updated relevance determination, and
updating the index based on the re-ranking; and in response to
detecting one of the subsequent access to the information feed or
the refresh of the first instance of the information feed,
generating a second instance of the information feed populated with
a second set of information items to provide for display to the
user, the second set of information items comprising at least a
subset of the new feed candidates retrieved from the index, wherein
the subset of the new feed candidates is selected and displayed
based on a most recent iteration of re-ranking.
2. The method of claim 1, further comprising: receiving, from the
one or more information sources, new activity data associated with
one or more existing information items from the plurality of
information items that are not included in the subset of the
plurality of information items; determining an updated relevance of
the one or more existing information items to the user based on the
new activity data; re-ranking the one or more existing information
items based on the updated relevance determination; and storing the
re-ranked one or more existing information items as part of the new
feed candidates in the index according to the re-ranking.
3. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the relevance of the
one or more new information items to the user further comprises
determining the relevance of the one or more new information items
to the user relative to the relevance of the plurality of
information items to the user.
4. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the relevance of an
information item to the user comprises analyzing attributes of the
information item and one or more relationships between persons,
including the user, associated with the information item to
generate a score based on one or more factors, wherein a ranking of
the information item is based on the generated score.
5. The method of claim 4, wherein the one or more factors include
one or more of: an author of the information item and a
relationship of the author to the user; one or more persons who
have viewed the information item, a relationship of the one or more
persons to the user, a number of views by the one or more persons,
and a frequency of views by the one or more persons; whether a
person shared the information item with the user and a relationship
of the person to the user; one or more topics included in the
information item; and one or more social interactions with the
information item.
6. The method of claim 4, wherein scores generated for the subset
of the plurality of information items in the first set of
information items and the subset of the new feed candidates in the
second set of information items meet a threshold score.
7. The method of claim 1, wherein generating the first instance of
the information feed comprises arranging the subset of the
plurality of information items in the first set of information
items in a first order based on the ranked relevance of the
plurality of information items to the user.
8. The method of claim 7, wherein the second set of information
items further comprises at least a portion of the first set of
information items, and generating the second instance of the
information feed comprises arranging the subset of the new feed
candidates in a second order based on the most recent iteration of
re-ranking while maintaining the first set of information items in
the first order.
9. The method of claim 8, further comprising in response to one or
more of receiving the one or more new information items and
receiving new activity data associated with one or more of the
plurality of information items, determining an updated relevance of
the plurality of information items, including the subset of the
plurality of information items in the first set of information
items, and re-ranking the plurality of information items based on
the updated relevance.
10. The method of claim 9, further comprising maintaining the
arrangement of the subset of the plurality of information items in
the first set of information items in the first order in the second
instance of the information feed, regardless of the updated
relevance and re-ranking being inconsistent with a basis for the
arrangement of the first set of information items in the first
order.
11. The method of claim 9, further comprising updating the
arrangement of the first set of information items by re-ordering
one or more of the subset of the plurality of information items
based on the updated relevance and re-ranking.
12. The method of claim 9, further comprising, based on the updated
relevance and re-ranking, adding an information item from the
plurality of information items that was not included in the first
set of information items populating the first instance of the
information feed to the second set of information items populating
the second instance of the information feed.
13. The method of claim 1, further comprising removing an
information item from one or more of the first set of information
items and the second set of information items in response to
receiving a removal command from the user.
14. A system for generating and updating an information feed of a
user, comprising: a processor; and a memory storing instructions
that, when executed by the processor, cause the system to: in
response to detecting an access to the information feed, generate a
first instance of the information feed populated with a first set
of information items to provide for display to the user, the first
set of information items including at least a subset of a plurality
of information items received from one or more information sources,
the subset selected and displayed based on a ranked relevance of
the plurality of information items to the user; receive one or more
new information items from the one or more information sources;
determine a relevance of the one or more new information items to
the user; rank the one or more new information items based on the
relevance determination; store the ranked new information items as
new feed candidates in an index, wherein the new feed candidates
are stored in the index according to the ranking; until a
subsequent access to the information feed or a refresh of the first
instance of the information feed is detected, iteratively determine
an updated relevance of the new feed candidates, re-rank the new
feed candidates based on the updated relevance determination, and
update the index based on the re-ranking; and in response to
detecting one of the subsequent access to the information feed or
the refresh of the first instance of the information feed, generate
a second instance of the information feed populated with a second
set of information items to provide for display to the user, the
second set of information items comprising at least a subset of the
new feed candidates retrieved from the index, wherein the subset of
the new feed candidates is selected and displayed based on a most
recent iteration of re-ranking.
15. The system of claim 14, wherein the information feed is
accessed and displayed through one of a plurality of
applications.
16. The system of claim 14, wherein the index points to respective
storage locations of each of the one or more new information items
such that when the second instance is generated, the one or more
new information items can be retrieved from the respective storage
locations to populate the second instance.
17. The system of claim 14, wherein the system is further caused to
monitor activity data associated with the plurality of information
items and the one or more new information items at regular
intervals.
18. The system of claim 17, wherein the system is further caused to
determine an updated relevance of an information item from one of
the plurality of information items or the one or more new
information items in response to detecting new activity data
associated with the information item.
19. Computer storage media including instructions for generating
and updating an information feed of a user, which when executed by
a processor are operable to: in response to detecting an access to
the information feed, generate a first instance of the information
feed populated with a first set of information items to provide for
display to the user, the first set of information items including
at least a subset of a plurality of information items received from
one or more information sources, the subset of the plurality of
information items selected and displayed based on a ranked
relevance of the plurality of information items to the user;
receive one or more new information items from the one or more
information sources; determine a relevance of the one or more new
information items to the user; rank the one or more new information
items based on the relevance determination; store the ranked new
information items as new feed candidates in an index, wherein the
new feed candidates are stored in the index according to the
ranking; until a subsequent access to the information feed or a
refresh of the first instance of the information feed is detected,
iteratively determine an updated relevance of the new feed
candidates, re-rank the new feed candidates based on the updated
relevance determination, and update the index based on the
re-ranking; and in response to detecting one of the subsequent
access to the information feed or the refresh of the first instance
of the information feed, generate a second instance of the
information feed populated with a second set of information items
to provide for display to the user, the second set of information
items comprising at least a subset of the new feed candidates
retrieved from the index, wherein the subset of the new feed
candidates is selected and displayed based on a most recent
iteration of re-ranking.
20. The computer storage media of claim 19, wherein the
instructions when executed by the processor are further operable to
aggregate the plurality of information items, including activity
data for the plurality of information items, from the one or more
information sources, the one or more information sources including
one or more of local storage, remote storage, and a social
networking service.
Description
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION
[0001] This application is a continuation of U.S. patent
application Ser. No. 14/194,700, filed Mar. 1, 2014, now U.S. Pat.
No. ______, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its
entirety herein.
BACKGROUND
[0002] Information workers/users have become accustomed to
generating, editing and receiving large numbers of electronic
documents and other information (e.g., electronic communications,
images, data, etc.). In a given enterprise situation, for example,
a company, school, social network, etc., a given information
worker/user may encounter hundreds (or more) of documents or other
content items, each with varying degrees of relevance or importance
to the information worker. For example, the information worker may
generate a document for a rush work project that may be of the
highest relevance at the time of the project. For another example,
the information worker may receive a document generated by his/her
manager that similarly is of very high relevance to the information
worker. On the other hand, he/she may receive a document or may
have access to a document or other information via his/her
enterprise dealing with a project he/she is no longer involved
with, and thus, the document may be of low relevance or importance
to the information worker. The typical information worker/user
needs to know about those documents or other content or information
items that are relevant, important or interesting to him/her, but
he/she does not necessarily need to have all documents and/or other
content items surfaced to him/her regardless of their relevance.
Thus, a need exists for methods, systems, and articles of
manufacture for surfacing documents and other information to a
given user that might be important to the user without surfacing to
the user documents or other information that are not particularly
interesting or relevant to the user. It is with respect to these
and other considerations that the present invention has been
made.
SUMMARY
[0003] 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.
[0004] Embodiments of the present invention solve the above and
other problems by providing a document and content feed that
surfaces to a user documents and other information items that are
determined to be interesting or relevant to the user. Surfaced
documents and other information may be displayed in an information
feed that may be updated each time the feed is accessed by the
user. Information not surfaced to the user in the feed may be
accessed by the user via one or more other means, but only those
items having a sufficient relevance to the user are surfaced in the
feed.
[0005] According to embodiments, each user in a given enterprise
has his/her own information feed. The feed is a sequence of items
like documents, electronic mail items, images, other communications
items and the like that are determined to be of sufficient interest
or relevance to the user. The user may access the information feed
through different front end applications operable for accessing the
feed and for displaying its information to the user. When a user
accesses his/her feed, a set of new items may be added to the feed
based on their determined interest or relevance to the user. Such
new items include information that an underlying ranking algorithm
determines currently are the most interesting or relevant to the
user and that are not currently included in the user's information
feed. The new items that are added to the information feed are
sorted in the feed based on a determined probability that they are
interesting or relevant to the user.
[0006] When an item has been added to the information feed and is
seen by the user, it will stay in the user's information feed at
the same position in a persistent manner unless manually removed by
the user. According to one embodiment, information items contained
in the feed may be reposted to a different ordering position in the
feed if their importance/relevance to the user changes
significantly. That is, an item that is reposted may be moved to a
different location in the feed as required based on a newly
determined interest or relevance to the user.
[0007] 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.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0008] The accompanying drawings which are incorporated in and
constitute a part of this disclosure, illustrate various
embodiments of the present invention.
[0009] FIG. 1 illustrates an information feed showing a number of
information items surfaced to a user.
[0010] FIG. 2 illustrates a system for surfacing information to a
user in an information feed.
[0011] FIG. 3 illustrates one system for determining interest or
relevance of an information item for surfacing the information item
in an information feed.
[0012] FIG. 4 illustrates a system for gathering and aggregating
information across a variety of information sources that may be
surfaced in an information feed.
[0013] FIGS. 5A through 5F illustrate information items of varying
relevance to a user surfaced in an information feed for the
user.
[0014] FIG. 6 is a flow chart illustrating a method for surfacing
information to a user in an information feed.
[0015] FIG. 7 is a block diagram illustrating example physical
components of a computing device with which embodiments of the
invention may be practiced.
[0016] FIGS. 8A and 8B are simplified block diagrams illustrating
components of a mobile computing device with which embodiments of
the invention may be practiced.
[0017] FIG. 9 is a simplified block diagram of a distributed
computing system in which embodiments of the invention may be
practiced.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
[0018] 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.
[0019] FIG. 1 illustrates an information feed showing a number of
information items surfaced to a user. As illustrated in FIG. 1, a
number of documents or other information items 110, 115, 120, 125,
130, 135 are displayed in an information feed 105 on the display
surface of a computing device 100. According to embodiments, while
a number of documents are illustrated in FIG. 1, items that may be
displayed in the information feed may include any electronic item
of sufficient interest or relevance to the user, for example,
documents, images, photographs, electronic mail messages, text
messages, telephone call messages, and the like. The computing
device 100 illustrated in FIG. 1 is a tablet-style computing
device, but as should be appreciated, the information feed 105 may
be displayed on a display surface of any suitable computing device
such as a desktop computer, laptop computer, tablet-style computer,
handheld computing device, mobile telephone, and the like.
[0020] The information items illustrated in the information feed
105 are graphical representations of information items determined
to be interesting or relevant to the user. As should be
appreciated, and as described below, the information feed 105 may
include many different information items that are updated each time
the user accesses the information feed 105. According to
embodiments, while new information items may be added to the
information feed 105, those items presently contained in the
information feed 105 are persisted in the feed indefinitely unless
they are manually removed by the user at a subsequent time. The
individual documents or other information items displayed in the
feed 105 are displayed according to an order of interest,
importance or relevance to the user. As new information items are
added to the information feed, the new information items may be
added to the front or top of the information feed, and the new
information items may be displayed in the feed relative to each
other according to the interest, importance or relevance to the
user. According to embodiments, individual information items may be
reposted to different positions in the ordering of displayed
information items, and according to one embodiment, individual
information items may be manually removed from the information feed
by the user, if desired.
[0021] The information feed may be provided by a software
application containing sufficient computer executable instructions
for generating the information feed and for displaying the
information items making up the information feed, as illustrated in
FIG. 1. The information feed 105 may be accessed from a variety of
different access points. For example, the information feed
application may operate as a stand alone application, or may
operate as a module of any of a variety of other applications, for
example, word processing applications, spreadsheet applications,
slide presentation applications, notes taking applications, desktop
publishing applications, and the like for allowing a user to access
and display his/her information feed, as desired. For example, if a
user is operating a word processing application, the information
feed application may operate as a module of the word processing
application to allow the user to launch the information feed 105 in
a display presentation provided by the word processing application
for allowing the user to review those information items that have
been added to his/her information feed.
[0022] FIG. 2 illustrates a system 200 for surfacing information to
a user in an information feed. Information items making up the
information feed 105 for a given user may come from a variety of
sources 205, 210, 215. Such information sources may include client
side information storage, remote storage (e.g. a remote server,
local or remote databases, local or remote shared resources
repositories, and the like). For example, a first source 205 may be
a local client side memory containing documents, images, data
files, communications items, such as electronic mail items, text
messages, telephone messages, and the like. Similarly, the source
205 may represent a remote cloud-based storage medium that may be
accessed by one or more client applications. As should be
appreciated, each information type, for example, documents, may be
stored in association with applications responsible for generating
the information types, for example, word processing applications,
spreadsheet applications, slide presentation applications,
spreadsheet applications, and the like. Communications messages,
for example, electronic mail messages may be associated with an
electronic mail application, or an Internet-based mail service.
[0023] The second source 210 may be illustrative of a variety of
other information sources that may contain information that may be
placed in an information feed 105 such as social networking sites.
For example, the source 210 may be a remotely based server system
containing information of interest or relevant to a given user
maintained for a social networking service accessed by the user.
The third source 215 may be illustrative of any other information
source from which information items as described herein may be
collected and analyzed for their interest or relevance to a given
user and for potential surfacing to the user in an information feed
105. As should be appreciated, the information sources 205, 210,
215 are for purposes of illustration only and are not limiting of
the vast numbers of local and networked information sources from
which documents and other content and information items may be
retrieved for analysis and for inclusion in an information feed
105, as described herein.
[0024] As will be described in further detail below with reference
to FIG. 4, information from the various sources may be retrieved
and aggregated for ultimate analysis at the analysis processing
engine (APE) 220, as illustrated in FIG. 2. That is, after
information is retrieved and aggregated from the various
information sources, the information may be passed to the analysis
processing engine 220 for a determination of the importance or
relevance of each information item to a given user for possible
inclusion in the user's individualized information feed 105. That
is, as will be described below, each information feed 105 is
analyzed with respect to each individual user so that the
information items surfaced to the user in his/her personalized
information feed 105 will be those items that are determined to be
interesting, important or relevant to the individual user. A more
detailed discussion of the analysis of individual information items
for possible inclusion in the information feed 105 is provided
below with reference to FIG. 3.
[0025] Referring still to FIG. 2, information items analyzed by the
APE 220 that are determined to be relevant to a particular user may
be built into an infeed graph 225. Nodes 227, 230, 235, 240 of the
infeed graph may represent different persons/users and may
represent relations between the users in the form of edges where
the edges may be representative of documents or other information
items that form relationships between the users. For example, if a
given document is created by one user, and is edited by another
user, then two nodes of the infeed graph may represent the two
users, and the document that is generated by a first user and is
edited by a second user may be represented by an edge between the
two user nodes with which relevance of the document to each user
may be determined. As will be described in detail below, such
relationships between users and information items may be used for
determining the relevance of a given document or information item
to a particular user. For example, if a user receives a document
that was generated by the user's manager, the relationship between
the user and his manager may be used for determining that the
document generated by the manager for review by his/her direct
report may be used for determining that the document is of high
relevance to the direct report and is a good candidate for
inclusion in an information feed 105 for the direct report.
[0026] Referring still to FIG. 2, after an infeed graph is
generated for a particular user by analysis of various documents
and other information sources, the infeed graph may be stored in a
graph index 245 from which documents having sufficiently high
rankings/scores as feed candidates may be pulled for generating an
information feed 105. As should be appreciated, the graph index 245
may be illustrative of an index that points to storage locations
where each item that will populate the feed 105 are located, or the
graph index 245 may be illustrative of a storage location at which
each item that will populate the feed 105 may be stored after being
identified for inclusion in the feed 105.
[0027] As should be appreciated, the process of retrieving
information from various information sources, analysis of the
information, building an infeed graph for a particular user, and
storing the graph in the graph index 245 is an iterative process
that is updated as new information sources become available. That
is, as will be described below, when an individual user accesses
his/her information feed 105 his information feed 105 will be
comprised of those documents or other information items having
sufficient ranking for inclusion in the feed 105 at the time of
access to the feed. Upon a subsequent access to the information
feed, documents or other information items that have been
subsequently added to the infeed graph through analysis of
additional documents or other information may be added to the feed
105.
[0028] Referring still to FIG. 2, the feed application 255 is an
application operable for extracting the documents or other
information items from the graph index 245 for generating the
information feed 105 and for displaying the documents or other
information items comprising the present instance of the
information feed 105 in a user interface, as illustrated above with
reference to FIG. 1. The feed access applications 250, 260 are
illustrative of one or more applications that may be operable for
accessing the functionality of the feed application 255. As
described above with reference to FIG. 1, functionality for
accessing the feed application 255 may be operated as a software
module of other applications, for example, word processing
applications, spreadsheet applications, slide presentation
applications, and the like such that a user may access and display
his/her information feed 105 from any of these types of software
applications. Alternatively, the feed application 255 may operate
as a stand alone application for creating and displaying a given
information feed 105.
[0029] According to embodiments, the components of the system 200
illustrated in FIG. 2 for generating and displaying an information
feed 105 may operate as a collection of software modules and data
sources operating at a single client side computing device, or
components of the system 200 may operate at locations remote to
each other such that the system 200 is operated over a distributed
computing network, such as the Internet. For example, the
information sources 205, 210, 215 may be maintained at various
local or remote memory storage areas, the APE 220 may operate at a
location remote from the graph index 245, and the feed application
255 and the various feed access applications 250, 260 may operate
as client side applications or as remotely housed applications
accessible at a client computing device.
[0030] As described above with reference to FIGS. 1 and 2,
documents and other information items that may be included in a
particular user's information feed 105 are analyzed to determine
their importance or relevance to a particular user. As will be
described below, each document or other information item, when
analyzed, is provided with a ranking or score, for example, on a
scale of zero to one, and the ranking or score is used for deciding
the top X number of documents or other information items that may
be used for generating a given instance of the information feed
105. According to one embodiment, all items having a score at or
above a given threshold (e.g., a threshold score of 0.7) may be
added to the feed 105. As will be described below with reference to
FIGS. 5A through 5F, when the information feed 105 is generated,
the documents or other information items contained in the
information feed may be ordered based on the rankings or scores
determined for each document or information item. For example, a
document receiving a score/ranking of 0.90 may be ordered first, a
document receiving a score/ranking of 0.80 may be ordered second, a
document receiving a score/ranking of 0.70 may be ordered next, and
so on. The number of documents or other information items that may
be included in an initial instance of the information feed 105 may
be a top X scored or ranked items, for example, the top ten scored
or ranked items. As will be described below, each time a user
accesses his/her information feed, a next top X number of newly
analyzed documents or information items may be added to the
information feed based on their scores or rankings.
[0031] As described above, information items that may be analyzed
for possible inclusion in an information feed 105 may include
documents, images, electronic communications, datasets, and the
like. When analyzing an individual information item for ranking or
scoring the individual information item for possible inclusion in
the information feed, various attributes of an information item and
relationships between people associated with the information item
may be used for determining a particular ranking or score for the
information item. Factors that may be used for ranking or scoring
an individual item may include whether the document is generated by
the user for which the information feed is being created. Other
factors include whether the document has been viewed by colleagues
of the user for which the information feed is being generated and
which colleagues have viewed the document. For example,
scoring/ranking may be different depending on whether a colleague
is the user's manager, direct report, peer, or is unrelated to the
user according to any particular enterprise structure.
[0032] Other scoring/ranking factors include a number of times the
given information item has been viewed by one or more persons, and
the frequency of viewings of the information item. Other factors
include whether the information item has been sent to the user for
which the feed is being generated and, if so, by whom. Other
factors include an analysis of topics included in a given
information item. For example, text strings from a document or
other information item may be extracted and may be compared against
text strings contained in other documents or information items
already contained in the information feed 105 for the user, or
contained in or associated with other documents that have been
previously ranked or scored sufficiently for inclusion in an
information feed 105. Additional information that may be utilized
for determining a scoring or ranking for a given information item
may include social interaction with the information item. For
example, information showing that a given information item has been
commented on, liked, viewed, or otherwise utilized in a social
network may be utilized in determining a scoring or ranking for a
given information item.
[0033] According to an embodiment, back-end or client side ranking
modules may at frequent, regular intervals monitor activities in a
given enterprise including a monitoring of various information
items generated, received by or sent from the enterprise for
determining a set of information items that should be added to the
information feed 105 of a given user when the user next accesses
the information feed. Referring now to FIG. 3, one embodiment of a
back-end or client side ranking module or system 300 is
illustrated. The system 300 is illustrated as operating as a part
of the analysis processing engine 220, illustrated in FIG. 2. As
should be appreciated, however, the ranking system 300 may be
operated remotely from the APE 220, and the results of the system
300 may be passed to or commanded by the APE 220, as required.
[0034] Referring still to FIG. 3, the PIMC module 310 is
illustrative of those documents or information items that are
"popular in my circle" (PIMC). According to embodiments, the module
310 is a ranking module which estimates importance of documents or
other information items based on how popular each document or
information item is among the colleagues of the user or other
persons associated with the user in any other manner. For example,
a document from the user's manager may receive a higher
score/ranking than a document from the user's direct report or
peer.
[0035] The vanity module 315 is a ranking module which estimates
the importance of the user's own documents or information items
based on the number of recent views, edits or other interactions of
the user with a given document or information item. For example, a
document the user views every day, for example, a department
spreadsheet may receive a higher ranking than a document the user
views once per quarter.
[0036] The other module 320 is a ranking module which estimates the
importance of each document or information item based on some other
factor, for example, whether the document or information item is
part of a collaborative work group with which the user is
associated and/or statistical information associated with the
document or other information item, for example, how often the
document is viewed, or otherwise utilized by members of the user's
collaborative work group. As should be appreciated, any number of
ranking modules may be utilized for assisting in the generation of
a ranking or scoring for a given document or information item, as
described herein.
[0037] Referring still to FIG. 3, after each of the ranking modules
310, 315, 320 provide a ranking or scoring for each document or
other information item, the rankings or scorings of each of those
modules with respect to each document or other information item may
be passed to a feed manager which may generate an overall ranking
or score for each document or information item that may be placed
in an infeed graph 225 and that may be ultimately stored in the
graph index 245 for retrieval and population into an information
feed 105. For example, the feed manager may simply average the
scores or rankings provided by each of the ranking modules 310,
315, 320, or the feed manager may be tuned to place more emphasis
on the ranking/score of any individual ranking module. For example,
a given composite ranking or score for a document or other
information item may be comprised of 50% of the score from the
module 310, 25% of the score from the module 315 and 25% of the
score from the module 320.
[0038] As should be appreciated, this example is for purposes of
illustration only as the portions of the given rankings or scores
from any individual module may be modified from time to time in
order to generate an information feed 105 that is most relevant for
a given user or class of users. For example, in a given enterprise,
it may be determined that the scoring associated with the
importance of a document based on its popularity among the
colleagues of a given user is more valuable than the scoring
associated with a document based on its viewing by the user for
which the information feed is being generated.
[0039] According to one embodiment, the system 300 is comprised of
only the PIMC module 310 and the vanity module 315 for providing
scorings or rankings to the feed manager 325 for generating the
infeed graph 225. According to this embodiment, the PIMC analysis
may continue to calculate a top X candidates (e.g., top 100
documents per user). These should be added as edges to the graph
225 and should be given to the Feed Manager as a list of candidates
for the feed 105. The Vanity analysis may look at all documents or
other information items created or modified by the user, and it may
create a list of the items (e.g., list of 5 documents) with a
highest event rate (i.e., access and/or use by the user).
[0040] According to this embodiment, each time the Feed Manager 325
is run, it creates a new "Future" for the user. As described more
below, the "Future" includes one or more information items that may
be added to the information feed 105 when the user next accesses
it. The algorithm below describes how the Feed Manager creates the
"Future" based on the two categories of items that are available
according to this embodiment: PIMC and Vanity. As should be
appreciated, the algorithm set out below is only one example
operation of the Feed Manager and is for purposes of illustration
only.
[0041] First, the Feed Manager creates an initial list of documents
or other information items to post to the feed graph. Next, the
Feed Manager reviews a top X items (e.g., top 40) of the PIMC list
and adds to the list any of these items that are not in the "Past"
("Past" being items already added to the feed 105 previously).
Next, the Feed Manager reviews a top X items (e.g., top 5) of the
Vanity list and adds to the list any of these which are not in the
"Past." If the user does not have as many as the top X Vanity list
items with activity the last X days (e.g., last 14 days), the list
may be reduced accordingly. According to one embodiment, any of the
top 2 items in the Vanity list which is in the "Past," but not in
the top 20 also may be added to the list.
[0042] According to the present example operation, the Feed Manager
may require at least k (with default value of 8) new documents or
other information items per week up to a maximum of D.sub.max (also
with default value of 8) items. To do this, the Feed Manager may
check how long ago the last item was added to the feed. Assuming T
hours since the last item was added, the Feed Manager may calculate
the number
D = min ( T 2 4 * 7 k , D max ) . ##EQU00001##
If the number of documents in the list to post is less than D, the
Feed Manager may traverse the PIMC list beyond position of the top
X items reviewed from the PIMC (e.g., beyond 40 items). It may then
add items not yet in the "Past" until the total count of the post
list reaches D.
[0043] Continuing with the present example, the list of documents
or other items to post to the feed is now ready, and is separated
into two categories: PIMC items and Vanity items. Within each of
the categories, the list is sorted by relevance score. The
following algorithm may be used for merging the category lists.
Assume there are p PIMC items and v Vanity items. Generate a random
variable r between 0 and 1. If r<p/(p+v), post the best PIMC
item on top. Otherwise, post the best Vanity item on top. Update
the values of p and v, create a new random variable, and repeat
until all items are posted. The random variables must be chosen so
that for the same lists of documents, the posting order is the same
each time the Feed Manager runs. For example, this may be obtained
by using an identification number/code (e.g., "docid") for the
first PIMC item as the seed for the random variable.
[0044] According to this embodiment, the PIMC cutoff of X items
(e.g., 40 items) and the Vanity cutoff of X items (e.g., 5 items)
may be modified from time to time to change the nature of the items
being added to the feed 105. Lower numbers may improve precision,
but may result in too few items being added to the feed 105.
Likewise, higher numbers may allow too many items to be added to
the feed, and some of such items may not be particularly
interesting or important to the user for which the feed is being
generated. In addition, more items categories, for example, the
other category/module 320, illustrated in FIG. 3, and a similar
analysis of those items may be performed for considering those
items for inclusion in the feed 105.
[0045] As briefly described above, with reference to FIG. 2, as
information is gathered from the various sources 205, 210, 215 for
presentation to a ranking system 300 as part of the analysis
processing engine 220, the information may be aggregated, and
determinations of such information as the number of viewings of a
given user for a given document or information item, the popularity
of a given document or information item among colleagues of a user,
comments or interactions with a document or information item via
social networks, and the like may be determined. Such information
for each document or information item may be aggregated for use by
the ranking systems 300 as part of the analysis and processing
engine 220, as described above with reference to FIG. 3.
[0046] FIG. 4 is a block diagram illustrating a system architecture
400 for aggregating information items and for providing an activity
stream across multiple information sources that may be built into a
knowledge graph from which information items may be pulled by the
system 300 for analysis and potential inclusion in the feed 105, as
discussed above. According to embodiments, the system 400 may lie
between the information sources 205, 210, 215 and the APE 220 for
gathering information on various information items needed by the
APE for feed analysis and generation. The system architecture 400
includes an aggregator 408 operable to collect activity data 404,
405, 406 for an individual 402 or group of individuals from a
plurality of information sources 205, 210, 215 and store the
activity data in a graph 414. The information sources may include
any number of sources from which items may be pulled as feed
candidates, as described above with reference to FIG. 2.
[0047] Activity data 404, 405, 406 may comprise various types of
information such as, but not limited to, presence data, data
associated with authoring or modification of an information item
(e.g., document), trending data, feedback data (e.g., like,
comment, follow, share, etc.), data associated with organizational
structure (e.g., who an individual works with, works for, interacts
with, is a peer to, directs, manages, is managed by, has in common
with another individual, etc.). As mentioned above, the activity
data may be stored in a graph 414. Actions may be stored as edges
412A-H (collectively 412), and entities that are acted upon may be
stored as nodes 410A-G (collectively 410). For example, a node 410
may include an individual 402 (nodes 410A,B,E,F), a group of
individuals, a document (node 410C), an email or other
communication type (node 410D), a webpage (node 410G), etc. An edge
412 may include various types of actions (e.g., like, comment,
follow, share, authoring, modifying, organizational relationship,
communication, participation, etc.). Consider for example that an
individual 402 "likes" a certain document (i.e., selects a "like"
option associated with the document). The individual and the
document may be stored as nodes 410 and the "like" selection may be
stored as an edge 412.
[0048] The APE 220 may view/retrieve enterprise activity for an
individual 402 or group. According to embodiments, a group may be a
formalized set of individuals according to an organizational
hierarchy or project structure, or may be a less formally coupled
set of individuals such as a group of individuals who are common
attendees of a particular meeting, a project group, a group of
individuals who share a common interest in a particular topic, etc.
An individual 402 may be a part of a plurality of groups. As
illustrated in FIG. 4, the APE 220 may request an activity stream
416 for retrieving information items and for categorizing
information items (e.g., PIMC or Vanity) as described above.
According to one embodiment, a request may be triggered by the Feed
Manager 325 in an iterative process for analyzing new candidates
from the various information sources 205, 210, 215 for inclusion in
the feed 105.
[0049] As described above with reference to FIGS. 1 through 4, when
a user accesses the information feed 105 either as a first access
of the information feed 105, or as a subsequent access of the
information feed, the information feed 105 is built by placing
those documents and/or information items in the information feed in
the order of the ranking or scoring that has been applied to each
document. The resulting information feed is stored in the graph
index 245, and is retrieved by the feed application 255 upon
command for presenting the documents in an information feed user
interface, as illustrated in FIG. 1. FIGS. 5A through 5F illustrate
information items of varying importance or relevance to a user
surfaced in an information feed for the user. As described above,
each user has an individual information feed 105, and the
information feed 105 is a stream of information items that has been
important to the user at some point and that has been ranked for
inclusion in the information feed, as described above. The user's
information feed 105 is updated when, and only when, the user opens
or refreshes the feed in a user interface, as illustrated above
with reference to FIG. 1. Once an information item is added to the
user's feed, it stays in the user's feed persistently, unless the
user manually removes the item from the information feed, as
described below. Alternatively, the information feed may have a
fixed upper limit S to its size, so that an item may be removed
from the feed when there are S items before it in the feed. The
feed is ordered, and the order never changes (with some exceptions,
as described below).
[0050] Referring now to FIG. 5A, an instance of an information feed
105 is illustrated containing information items 505, 510, 515, 520,
525. As illustrated, each of the information items are displayed in
the information feed according to a ranking/scoring applied to each
individual item. For example, item A has a score or ranking of 0.9
and thus is in a first position in the information feed, whereas
item E has the lowest score of the grouping of information items
with a score of 0.77 and is placed at the end of the string of
information items. According to one embodiment, the first time a
user opens the information feed illustrated in FIG. 5A, the top X
ranked items (e.g., top ten items) are surfaced in the information
feed and are sorted according to the scoring or ranking, as
illustrated in FIG. 5A.
[0051] Referring now to FIG. 5B, the next time the user opens the
information feed, additional documents or information items 530,
535, 540 are added to the information feed where those additional
information items were analyzed by the APE 220 and received
scorings or rankings sufficiently high enough for inclusion in the
information feed 105. For example, the information item H received
a score of 0.91, the item I received a score of 0.88, and the item
J received a score of 0.81. Thus, the information feed presented to
the user as illustrated in FIG. 5B now contains the new information
items added to the top or front of the feed in importance or
relevance order based on scores or rankings applied to each of the
new items.
[0052] Referring still to FIG. 5B, note that the scores for some of
the information items are different from the scores for the same
items as illustrated in FIG. 5A. That is, item B (510) had a score
of 0.85 in the first instance of the feed illustrated in FIG. 5A,
but has a score of 0.89 in the second instance of the feed
illustrated in FIG. 5B. Likewise, item A (505) had a score of 0.9
in the first instance of the feed but has a score of 0.75 in the
second instance of the feed, illustrated in FIG. 5B. According to
one embodiment, once the documents or other information items are
surfaced in the information feed according to a particular order,
the order is maintained even if the scoring or rankings for
individual items change with each subsequent access to the
information feed. That is, when the second instance of the
information feed is generated as illustrated in FIG. 5B, the scores
of some of the previously surfaced documents or information items
may change when ranked in association with new documents or
information items 530, 535, 540 added to the information feed.
[0053] In order to avoid confusing the user as to the nature of the
documents or other information items contained in his/her
information feed, the displayed ordering of the documents or
information items is maintained with each subsequent instance of
the information feed, with exceptions described below. That is, the
first five documents or information items A-E are maintained in the
same relative order with each instance of the information feed, and
new items, for example, items H, I, J are surfaced in order of
their rankings or scorings, and the orderings of the two sets of
documents or information items relative to each other will be
maintained in subsequent instances of the information feed.
[0054] Referring now to FIG. 5C, each consecutive time the user
opens the information feed, new documents may be added to the feed.
However, the number of documents or information items is not a
fixed number. It depends on the availability of new documents or
other content items for the user and on any personalized settings
applied to the feed by the user, for example, a total number of
documents or information items that may be surfaced in the user's
feed according to the user's desire, or a bottom threshold ranking
or score for a document or content item that may be surfaced in the
information feed, and the like. However, referring to FIG. 5C, as
should be appreciated, even if no new documents or information
items are received by the APE 220, new documents or information
items may nonetheless be added to the information feed by selecting
documents or information items previously analyzed that did not
have sufficient scores or rankings for inclusion in the information
feed but that now may be added if the scoring or ranking for those
documents relative to other documents or information items that
have been added to the information feed changes the determination
of the importance of those documents or information items to the
overall feed.
[0055] Notwithstanding, a lower scoring or ranking boundary may be
applied to prevent including items in the information feed that
clearly are not relevant enough for inclusion in the user's feed.
As illustrated in FIG. 5C, two additional information items 545,
550 have been added in order to provide new information to the
information feed, but as illustrated in FIG. 5C, the scoring or
rankings for the information items may be relatively low compared
to the scorings or rankings of other information items, but are
added to ensure the feed is updated when the user accesses the
feed. As should be appreciated, when the user refreshes the feed
application 255, new documents or information items may be added in
the same way as if the user reopens the application to generate a
new instance of the information feed 105.
[0056] Referring now to FIG. 5D, according to one embodiment, when
a user opens the feed application 255, or refreshes the feed
application 255, information items may be reposted to a different
location in the information feed if the scoring or ranking for one
or more information items has increased or decreased significantly
relative to other items in the information feed or relative to new
items being added to the information feed. As illustrated in FIG.
5D, information item B (510) has received a new scoring or ranking
of 0.93 relative to each of the information items contained in this
instance of the information feed, and therefore, according to this
embodiment, item B may be reposted to the top or front of the
information feed 105 to a new position 555, as illustrated in FIG.
5D. This is an alternative to the previously described embodiment
where each item is displayed in the information feed in the same
position relative to other items. According to this embodiment, if
the scoring or ranking of an individual item grows so significantly
that it should be placed in front of other items, or if its
importance to the user decreases so significantly relative to other
items that it should be moved to a lower position in the
information feed, then such changes may be made.
[0057] Referring now to FIG. 5E, according to another embodiment,
an information item may be manually removed from the information
feed by the user upon command. For example, referring to FIG. 5,
the user may determine that item L (550) is no longer important to
the user notwithstanding a score or ranking applied to the item by
the APE 220, and thus, the user may decide to manually remove that
information item from the information feed. For example, if the
information feed illustrated in FIG. 5E is comprised of documents
that have been generated as part of the user's collaborative work
group, and the document L (550) while receiving a ranking or score
sufficient for inclusion in the information feed is no longer
important to the user because the subject of the document or
information item has been completed or has otherwise been dispensed
with by the user's work group, the user may decide to manually
remove that document or information item from the information feed
in order to make room for additional information items or in order
to remove unnecessary information items from his/her feed.
[0058] Referring now to FIG. 5F, as discussed above, the APE 220
and/or feed application 225 tracks the most recent instance of the
feed that has been seen by the user. According to one embodiment,
documents or information items contained in an instance of the feed
that has been viewed by the user may be referred to as the "Past"
575. However, as described above, the APE 220 is from time to time
scoring documents and information items that are being analyzed for
inclusion in a future instance of the information feed for when the
user next accesses a next instance of the information feed. Those
items that have been placed in the graph index 245 for inclusion in
a future instance of the information feed are referred to as the
"Future" 570. According to one embodiment, as long as documents or
information items are characterized as "Future" documents or
information items that will be surfaced to the user in a future
instance of the information feed, those documents or information
items may be changed, including re-ranking or re-scoring those
items which may result in removing one or more of those items from
the future instance of the information feed 105. Once the user
actually opens a future instance of the feed 105 and views new
documents or information items, those viewed documents or
information items will now be part of the information feed
characterized as the "Past" and will stay in the feed unless
removed as described above.
[0059] Having described an operating environment and various
aspects of embodiments of the invention with respect to FIGS. 1-5,
FIG. 6 is a flow chart illustrating a method for surfacing
information to a user in an information feed. The routine 600
begins at start operation 605 and proceeds to operation 610 where
documents and information items are retrieved from various
information sources 205, 210, 215 by the APE 220 for analysis as
candidates for inclusion in a user's information feed 105. As
described above with reference to FIG. 4, information items
retrieved from the various information sources may first be
analyzed, and an activity stream may be generated for the
information items for assisting in a determination of the
importance or relevance of each item to a given user.
[0060] At operation 615, the ranking or scoring system 300
operating in association with the APE 220 scores or ranks each
document or information item as feed candidates, as described above
with reference to FIG. 3. Documents or information items receiving
a scoring or ranking sufficient for inclusion in an information
feed 105 are placed in an infeed graph and are stored in the graph
index 245 for retrieval by the feed application 255 when a user
first or next accesses his information feed 105. As should be
appreciated, any documents or information items not included in the
infeed graph owing to the lack of a sufficient scoring or ranking
are not discarded but are maintained for subsequent analysis
relative to other items that subsequently may be considered as feed
candidates.
[0061] At operation 620, a user accesses his information feed via
the feed application 255 or via a feed access application 250, 260,
illustrated and described above with reference to FIG. 2. At
operation 625, the documents or other information items grouped
together in the infeed graph 225 are displayed as an information
feed 105 in an information feed user interface in order of the
ranking or scoring applied to each document or information item, as
illustrated in FIG. 1 and FIGS. 5A through 5F. At operation 630,
operations 610 and 615 may be repeated as additional documents and
information items are received by the APE 220 from the sources 205,
210, 215.
[0062] As new items are received and analyzed and scoring or
rankings are applied, new instances of the information feed may be
generated and the new instances of the information feed will be
characterized as "Future" instances of the information feed until
accessed by the user. At operation 635, a subsequent feed access is
received by the user, and at operation 640, the "Future" documents
or information items are displayed in the feed 105 in order of
ranking/scoring, as illustrated and described above with reference
to FIG. 5B.
[0063] At operation 645, reposting of documents or information
items contained in the information feed may be allowed, if one or
more documents or information items receives a new scoring or
ranking relative to other items sufficient for moving the document
or information item to a new location in the information feed 105.
At operation 650, removal of a given document or information item
from the information feed may be enabled, if a user determines that
a given document or information item is no longer important to the
user notwithstanding a scoring or ranking applied to the document
or information item sufficient for maintaining it in the
information feed. At operation 655, changes to items characterized
as "Future" items may be enabled, as illustrated and described
above with reference to FIG. 5F, if scoring or ranking for such
items has changed relative to other items such that maintenance of
those items in the information feed as "Future" items is no longer
warranted. The routine ends at operation 695.
[0064] 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.
[0065] 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.
[0066] 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.
[0067] FIGS. 7-9 and the associated descriptions provide a
discussion of a variety of operating environments in which
embodiments of the invention may be practiced. However, the devices
and systems illustrated and discussed with respect to FIGS. 7-9 are
for purposes of example and illustration and are not limiting of a
vast number of computing device configurations that may be utilized
for practicing embodiments of the invention, described herein.
[0068] FIG. 7 is a block diagram illustrating physical components
(i.e., hardware) of a computing device 700 with which embodiments
of the invention may be practiced. The computing device components
described below may be suitable for the client device 118 described
above. In a basic configuration, the computing device 700 may
include at least one processing unit 702 and a system memory 704.
Depending on the configuration and type of computing device, the
system memory 704 may comprise, but is not limited to, volatile
storage (e.g., random access memory), non-volatile storage (e.g.,
read-only memory), flash memory, or any combination of such
memories. The system memory 704 may include an operating system 705
and one or more program modules 706 suitable for running software
applications 750 such as the Feed Application 255 or client
application 120. The operating system 705, for example, may be
suitable for controlling the operation of the computing device 700.
Furthermore, embodiments of the invention may be practiced in
conjunction with a graphics library, other operating systems, or
any other application program and is not limited to any particular
application or system. This basic configuration is illustrated in
FIG. 7 by those components within a dashed line 708. The computing
device 700 may have additional features or functionality. For
example, the computing device 700 may also include additional data
storage devices (removable and/or non-removable) such as, for
example, magnetic disks, optical disks, or tape. Such additional
storage is illustrated in FIG. 7 by a removable storage device 709
and a non-removable storage device 710.
[0069] As stated above, a number of program modules and data files
may be stored in the system memory 704. While executing on the
processing unit 702, the program modules 706 may perform processes
including, but not limited to, one or more of the stages of the
method 600 illustrated in FIG. 6. Other program modules that may be
used in accordance with embodiments of the present invention and
may include applications such as electronic mail and contacts
applications, word processing applications, spreadsheet
applications, database applications, slide presentation
applications, drawing or computer-aided application programs,
etc.
[0070] 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 FIG. 7 may be
integrated onto a single integrated circuit. Such an SOC device may
include one or more processing units, graphics units,
communications units, system virtualization units and various
application functionality all of which are integrated (or "burned")
onto the chip substrate as a single integrated circuit. When
operating via an SOC, the functionality, described herein, with
respect to providing an activity stream across multiple workloads
may be operated via application-specific logic integrated with
other components of the computing device 700 on the single
integrated circuit (chip). Embodiments of the invention may also be
practiced using other technologies capable of performing logical
operations such as, for example, AND, OR, and NOT, including but
not limited to mechanical, optical, fluidic, and quantum
technologies. In addition, embodiments of the invention may be
practiced within a general purpose computer or in any other
circuits or systems.
[0071] The computing device 700 may also have one or more input
device(s) 712 such as a keyboard, a mouse, a pen, a sound input
device, a touch input device, etc. The output device(s) 714 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 700 may include one or more communication
connections 716 allowing communications with other computing
devices 718. Examples of suitable communication connections 716
include, but are not limited to, RF transmitter, receiver, and/or
transceiver circuitry; universal serial bus (USB), parallel, and/or
serial ports.
[0072] 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 704, the removable storage device 709,
and the non-removable storage device 710 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 700.
Any such computer storage media may be part of the computing device
700. Computer storage media does not include a carrier wave or
other propagated or modulated data signal.
[0073] 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.
[0074] FIGS. 8A and 8B illustrate a mobile computing device 800,
for example, a mobile telephone, a smart phone, a tablet personal
computer, a laptop computer, and the like, with which embodiments
of the invention may be practiced. With reference to FIG. 8A, one
embodiment of a mobile computing device 800 for implementing the
embodiments is illustrated. In a basic configuration, the mobile
computing device 800 is a handheld computer having both input
elements and output elements. The mobile computing device 800
typically includes a display 805 and one or more input buttons 810
that allow the user to enter information into the mobile computing
device 800. The display 805 of the mobile computing device 800 may
also function as an input device (e.g., a touch screen display). If
included, an optional side input element 815 allows further user
input. The side input element 815 may be a rotary switch, a button,
or any other type of manual input element. In alternative
embodiments, mobile computing device 800 may incorporate more or
less input elements. For example, the display 805 may not be a
touch screen in some embodiments. In yet another alternative
embodiment, the mobile computing device 800 is a portable phone
system, such as a cellular phone. The mobile computing device 800
may also include an optional keypad 835. Optional keypad 835 may be
a physical keypad or a "soft" keypad generated on the touch screen
display. In various embodiments, the output elements include the
display 805 for showing a graphical user interface (GUI), a visual
indicator 820 (e.g., a light emitting diode), and/or an audio
transducer 825 (e.g., a speaker). In some embodiments, the mobile
computing device 800 incorporates a vibration transducer for
providing the user with tactile feedback. In yet another
embodiment, the mobile computing device 800 incorporates input
and/or output ports, such as an audio input (e.g., a microphone
jack), an audio output (e.g., a headphone jack), and a video output
(e.g., a HDMI port) for sending signals to or receiving signals
from an external device.
[0075] FIG. 8B is a block diagram illustrating the architecture of
one embodiment of a mobile computing device. That is, the mobile
computing device 800 can incorporate a system (i.e., an
architecture) 802 to implement some embodiments. In one embodiment,
the system 802 is implemented as a "smart phone" capable of running
one or more applications (e.g., browser, e-mail, calendaring,
contact managers, messaging clients, games, and media
clients/players). In some embodiments, the system 802 is integrated
as a computing device, such as an integrated personal digital
assistant (PDA) and wireless phone.
[0076] One or more application programs 850 may be loaded into the
memory 862 and run on or in association with the operating system
864. 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 802
also includes a non-volatile storage area 868 within the memory
862. The non-volatile storage area 868 may be used to store
persistent information that should not be lost if the system 802 is
powered down. The application programs 150 may use and store
information in the non-volatile storage area 868, 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
802 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 868
synchronized with corresponding information stored at the host
computer. As should be appreciated, other applications may be
loaded into the memory 862 and run on the mobile computing device
800.
[0077] The system 802 has a power supply 870, which may be
implemented as one or more batteries. The power supply 870 might
further include an external power source, such as an AC adapter or
a powered docking cradle that supplements or recharges the
batteries.
[0078] The system 802 may also include a radio 872 that performs
the function of transmitting and receiving radio frequency
communications. The radio 872 facilitates wireless connectivity
between the system 802 and the "outside world," via a
communications carrier or service provider. Transmissions to and
from the radio 872 are conducted under control of the operating
system 864. In other words, communications received by the radio
872 may be disseminated to the application programs 150 via the
operating system 864, and vice versa.
[0079] The visual indicator 820 may be used to provide visual
notifications and/or an audio interface 874 may be used for
producing audible notifications via the audio transducer 825. In
the illustrated embodiment, the visual indicator 820 is a light
emitting diode (LED) and the audio transducer 825 is a speaker.
These devices may be directly coupled to the power supply 870 so
that when activated, they remain on for a duration dictated by the
notification mechanism even though the processor 860 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 874 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 825, the audio interface 874 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 802 may further include a video
interface 876 that enables an operation of an on-board camera 830
to record still images, video stream, and the like.
[0080] A mobile computing device 800 implementing the system 802
may have additional features or functionality. For example, the
mobile computing device 800 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 FIG. 8B by the non-volatile storage area 868.
[0081] Data/information generated or captured by the mobile
computing device 800 and stored via the system 802 may be stored
locally on the mobile computing device 800, 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 872 or via a wired connection
between the mobile computing device 800 and a separate computing
device associated with the mobile computing device 800, 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 800 via the radio 872
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.
[0082] FIG. 9 illustrates one embodiment of the architecture of a
system for providing an activity stream across multiple workloads,
as described above. Content developed, interacted with, or edited
in association with the feed system 200 may be stored in different
communication channels or other storage types. For example, various
documents may be stored using a directory service 922, a web portal
924, a mailbox service 926, an instant messaging store 928, or a
social networking site 930. The feed application 255 may use any of
these types of systems or the like for providing a user information
feed 105, as described herein. A server 130 may provide the
application 120 to clients 125. As one example, the server 130 may
be a web server providing the application 120 over the web. The
server 130 may provide the application 120 over the web to clients
125 through a network 140. By way of example, the client computing
device 125 may be implemented and embodied in a personal computer
905A, a tablet computing device 905B and/or a mobile computing
device 905C (e.g., a smart phone), or other computing device. Any
of these embodiments of the client computing device may obtain
content from the store 916.
[0083] 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.
[0084] 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.
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