A social networking website logs information about actions taken by members of the website. For a particular member of the website, the website generates socially relevant ads for the member based on the actions logged for other members on the website to whom the member is connected (i.e., the member's online friends). The advertiser associated with the social ad may compensate the social networking website for publishing the ad on the website. When presenting a member with a social ad, the website may optimize advertising revenue by selecting an ad from the received ads that will maximize the expected value of the social ad. The expected value may be computed according to a function that includes the member's affinity for the ad content and the bid amount. The technique is also applied for providing socially relevant information off the social networking website.

Social Advertisements and Other Informational Messages on a Social Networking Website, and Advertising Model for Same

System and method for service based social network

Methods, systems and devices for presenting marketing information to a customer based on proximity to marketing areas. A wireless identity transmitter associated with the customer may periodically transmit wireless broadcast messages that include obscured identifiers. A proximity broadcast receiver within a retail store, such as near a product display or aisle, may receive and relay the broadcast messages to a server which may process the included information. Based on proximity information and other conditions, the server may transmit marketing information relevant to the customer and a proximate marketing area, such as coupons and offers. In an embodiment, the server may store data based on broadcast messages that may indicate foot traffic and other information valuable to merchants. The server may also transmit messages based on stored permissions that indicate whether the customer desires to receive marketing information and whether the server is authorized to provide the customer's identity to merchants.

Retail proximity marketing

A social networking system determines the meaning of an anchor term used in a communication received from a communicating user. Candidate nodes are identified in the dictionary based on the anchor term, where each candidate node represents a possible meaning of the anchor term. The context of the anchor term is determined, and a score is determined for each candidate node based on the determined context. A candidate node is selected that most likely represents the meaning of the anchor term based on the determined candidate node scores. The context of the anchor term may be a social context derived from users connected to the communicating user that use the anchor term in communications. A communicating user may be prompted to identify the meaning of the anchor term explicitly based on the use of the term in communications from other users connected to the communicating user.

Inferring topics from social networking system communications

Methods, apparatuses and systems directed to sponsored story generation from an organic activity stream in a social networking site. A user wishing to promote an entry from an organic activity stream may, using a sponsor user interface, specify the types of stories to promote to a portion of the home page displayed to a member of a social network.

Jared Morgenstern

Papers

Selection and presentation of related social networking system content and advertisements

Context-Based Selection and Presentation of Social Networking System Content and Advertisements

Mixing and Targeting Content Types/Items for Users to Promote Optimization Goals