Timothy A Julien

US Patent:

20140067901, Mar 6, 2014

Filed:

Aug 23, 2013

Appl. No.:

13/974708

Inventors:

Blake Shaw - New York NY, US
Andrew Hogue - Ho Ho Kus NJ, US
Daniel Salinas - San Francisco CA, US
Rongjing Xiang - Union City CA, US
Tianhui Li - Brooklyn NY, US
Anoop Ranganath - New York NY, US
Siddhartha Sinha - Brooklyn NY, US
Jon Shea - Brooklyn NY, US
Jackson Davis - San Francisco CA, US
Noah Weiss - New York NY, US
Jason Liszka - New York NY, US
Timothy Julien - New York NY, US
Mark Wyszomierski - Manhasset NY, US
Dennis Crowley - New York NY, US
Patrick Hayes - New York NY, US
Geoffroy Bablon - New York NY, US
Siobhan Quinn - San Francisco CA, US

International Classification:

H04L 29/08

US Classification:

709201

Abstract:

Systems and methods are provided that presents interesting local content to users at times when the content is most actionable and engaging without the user explicitly entering a search term or expressing intent. In one implementation, the system uses contextual signals about a user to rank local content. Signals may include, for example, who they (one or more users) are, what kinds of places they like, where they are, how familiar they are with the area, the time of day, where the user's friends have been nearby, among other information related to the one or more users. A system may be provided that uses contextual rules and machine learning to target content to users. The system learns which of these contextual signals are most important and alters its ranking function to optimize user engagement in terms of conversions.