Twitter Patents

Twitter is a global communications platform that allows people to create, distribute and discover content 140 characters at a time. The company generates the majority of its revenues from third party advertising through Promoted Tweets, Promoted Accounts and Promoted Trends.

Twitter Patents by Type

  • Twitter Patents Granted: Twitter patents that have been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
  • Twitter Patent Applications: Twitter patent applications that are pending before the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
  • Patent number: 9680390
    Abstract: A multi-source power supply for supplying power that includes a first rectifier configured to convert a first AC power signal from a first source to a first DC power signal, a second rectifier configured to convert a second AC power signal from a second source to a second DC power signal and a common bus operatively connected to the first rectifier and the second rectifier and configured to combine a the DC power signals into a combined DC power signal, where the common bus distributes the combined DC power signal to at least one server.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 14, 2014
    Date of Patent: June 13, 2017
    Assignee: Twitter, Inc.
    Inventors: Jeffrey Rose, Paul Thies, Jennifer Fraser
  • Patent number: 9654461
    Abstract: Disclosed is a system for delegating authentication of an untrusted application executing on a client device. For delegated authentication, an untrusted application relies on a trusted application executing in the same environment for authentication purposes. The delegated authentication process avoids requiring the user of the untrusted application to provide authentication credentials. The disclosed system for delegating authentication enables any trusted application executing in the same computing environment to authenticate the untrusted application.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 29, 2015
    Date of Patent: May 16, 2017
    Assignee: Twitter, Inc.
    Inventors: Jeffrey Seibert, Jr., Michael Ducker
  • Patent number: 9632765
    Abstract: A system and method including: receiving an initial application package including at least one binary file of an application; generating an application token, wherein the application token is operable to identify a context; and assembling a customized application package including the initial application package and the application token, wherein: the customized application package and the initial application package share a common hash value according to a predefined hashing algorithm, and the application can be configured based on the application token.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 26, 2015
    Date of Patent: April 25, 2017
    Assignee: Twitter, Inc.
    Inventors: Andrea S. Falcone, Peter W. Hopkins, Sanford W. Phillips
  • Patent number: 9628404
    Abstract: Embodiments are provided for enabling dynamic reallocation of resources in a multi-tenant distributed database. According to certain aspects, a management services module allocates multiple portions of computer resources for respective operation of multiple services by multiple customers. A quality of service (QoS) controller detects that one of the services is attempting to exceed its allocated portion of resources, and identifies an available portion of another allocated portion of resources. In response, the QoS controller causes the management services module to dynamically allocate the available portion to the detected service so that the detected service is able to operate without error or delay.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 3, 2015
    Date of Patent: April 18, 2017
    Assignee: TWITTER, INC.
    Inventors: Christopher Goffinet, Peter Schuller, Boaz Avital, Armond Bigian, Spencer G. Fang, Anthony Asta
  • Patent number: 9614808
    Abstract: A system and method for managing and displaying data messages includes a computing device configured to receive stream data, assign data messages of the stream data to one or more display columns of a graphical user interface, and display the data messages in the assigned columns. The stream data may be embodied as short data messages such as text messages having predetermined maximum character length. The data messages may be assigned to the display columns based on meta-data associated with the data messages such as the author of the data message, the source of the data message, and/or the type of the data message.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 19, 2015
    Date of Patent: April 4, 2017
    Assignee: Twitter, Inc.
    Inventor: Iain Gregory Dodsworth
  • Patent number: 9599985
    Abstract: An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) carries a camera, sends data from the camera, and receives commands. The UAV is connected to a messaging platform. Pictures or video clips received from the UAV are selected and placed in messages broadcast by an account associated with the UAV. Video footage from the camera is live-streamed in a card-type message. Account holders of the messaging platform may control the UAV with commands embedded in messages and directed towards an account associated with the UAV. Controllable elements of the UAV include UAV location, camera orientation, camera subject, UAV-mounted lighting, a UAV-mounted display, a UAV-mounted projector, UAV-mounted speakers, and a detachable payload. UAV control may be determined through democratic means. Some UAV functionality may be triggered through aggregated engagements on the messaging platform. The UAV may include a display screen and/or a microphone to provide for telepresence or interview functionality.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 12, 2015
    Date of Patent: March 21, 2017
    Assignee: Twitter, Inc.
    Inventors: Ya-Ting Wang, Wayne Robins
  • Publication number: 20170052835
    Abstract: A computing system including a first and a second application. The first application includes a first local software development kit (SDK) platform instance, and the first local SDK platform instance includes a first non-core SDK module instance, an application discovery module, and an inter-application communication module. The second application includes a second local SDK platform instance. The first non-core SDK module instance is configured to is a request to the application discovery module. Upon receipt of the request, the discovery module is configured to determine that the second local SDK platform instance includes a second non-core SDK module instance that is configured to service the request. The first local SDK platform instance, based on the determination, is configured to generate a deep link associated with the second application based on data collected by the first local SDK platform instance and provide the deep link to the first non-core SDK module.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 29, 2015
    Publication date: February 23, 2017
    Applicant: Twitter, Inc.
    Inventors: Sean Cook, Jeffrey H. Seibert, Jr., Alex Roetter, Kevin Weil, Akash Garg, Jeremy Gordon, Christian Oestlien
  • Patent number: 9577966
    Abstract: An example system for device-independent point to multipoint communication is configured to receive a message addressed to one or more destination users, the message type being, for example, Short Message Service (SMS), Instant Messaging (IM), E-mail, web form input, or Application Program Interface (API) function call. The system also is configured to determine information about the destination users, the information comprising preferred devices and interfaces for receiving messages, the information further including message receiving preferences. The system applies rules to the message based on destination user information to determine the message endpoints, the message endpoints being, for example, Short Message Service (SMS), Instant Messaging (IM), E-mail, web page output, or Application Program Interface (API) function call. The system translates the message based on the destination user information and message endpoints and transmits the message to each endpoint of the message.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 12, 2015
    Date of Patent: February 21, 2017
    Assignee: Twitter, Inc.
    Inventors: Jack Dorsey, Christopher Isaac Stone
  • Patent number: 9565057
    Abstract: A system and method for utilizing an attribute data container, e.g., a font file, to store a device identifier is provided. During a mobile configuration procedure, an analytic processing server generates a unique identifier to be used in identifying a particular end user device. This unique identifier is embedded into an attribute data container that is then stored on the end-user device. An application, executing on the end-user device, may load the attribute data container to determine the unique identifier associated with the end user device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 6, 2014
    Date of Patent: February 7, 2017
    Assignee: Twitter, Inc.
    Inventor: Peter W. Hopkins
  • Patent number: 9565245
    Abstract: Time-based media is distributed and promoted in a social networking environment. Accounts of a social networking system author social media content items (SMCIs) from which a social networking system infers relevance of content to users of those accounts. Content distributors submit time-based media content to the social networking system, which creates distributor SMCIs containing the time-based media content. Accounts are identified to receive distributor SMCIs based on SMCIs previously authored by those accounts as well as identifying information and the subject of the SMCI. Content promoters may add promotional material to distributor SMCIs, which the social networking service sends to additional accounts.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 12, 2014
    Date of Patent: February 7, 2017
    Assignee: Twitter, Inc.
    Inventors: Glenn Brown, Mike Park, Jé Carr
  • Patent number: 9553841
    Abstract: A messaging platform forms an interactive message with one or more components and broadcasts the interactive message to client devices associated with accounts. The interactive message has a plurality of states that update based on event data received from a content source. While the event is in progress, the messaging platform receives event data relating to the event and transitions to an updated state based on the received event data. When the interactive message transitions to the updated state, the messaging platform updates the interactive message broadcast to the client devices. The interactive message may include interactive components that accounts may use to perform various interactions with the event, the content source, or each other.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 27, 2014
    Date of Patent: January 24, 2017
    Assignee: Twitter, Inc.
    Inventors: James Leslie Skinner, James R. Buckhouse
  • Patent number: 9553922
    Abstract: A social networking system aggregates content related to the media events that have aired or are currently airing from a variety of sources, such as the entity broadcasting the media event and users that author content items referencing the media events. The social networking system generates multiple event interfaces that allow users of the social networking system to consume content, both user authored content and content curated from external sources, related to a media event. The interfaces include both content items that have a high correlation with the media events and visual representations of the user response to media event. Further, the interfaces include interface elements that allow users to easily navigate and interact with the information being presented as well as provide additional content related to the media events.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 1, 2014
    Date of Patent: January 24, 2017
    Assignee: Twitter, Inc.
    Inventors: Brian Guarraci, Lillian M. Carrasquillo, Esteban Kozak, Pradhuman D. Jhala, Satanjeev Banerjee, Nicolas T. Takayama, Justin J. Trobec, Zhanna Shamis, Aaron M. Kelley, Kevin Ullmann
  • Patent number: 9542300
    Abstract: A system and method for tracking callback functions for error identification is provided. Prior to a function calling a callback function, it records information relating to the back trace of function(s) that called the callback in a set of state information. In the event of an error condition, the state information may be examined to provide additional information for debugging purposes.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 14, 2014
    Date of Patent: January 10, 2017
    Assignee: Twitter, Inc.
    Inventor: Matthew Massicotte
  • Patent number: 9536223
    Abstract: A user can designate a dataset and one or more n-grams in a graphical user interface displayed by a client computing device (“the client”). The client can send the designations to a server computing device (“the server”). The server can execute a query over the dataset based on the n-grams, and return statistics indicating occurrences of the n-grams in the dataset. The client can generate a graphical representation corresponding to the statistics. The user can select a portion of the graphical representation, which the client sends to the server. The server can respond with excerpts of documents corresponding to the selected portion and other n-grams within the documents. The client can then display a list of the excerpts and a list of other n-grams. The user can then perform further actions on the lists such as viewing the underlying documents or adding n-grams to the search query.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 24, 2012
    Date of Patent: January 3, 2017
    Assignee: Twitter, Inc.
    Inventors: Noah Pepper, Homer Strong, Jesse Smith, Daniel Lidral-Porter, Devin Chalmers
  • Patent number: 9524321
    Abstract: A real-time messaging platform and method is disclosed which classifies messages in accordance with a combination of user engagement events as modified to reflect the temporal structure of the user engagement events. A message can be assigned a metric based, for example, on a weighted combination of user engagement rates, decayed with time to reflect an intuition that recent interactions by one or more users with the message will have a greater impact than older interactions with the message. Different types of interaction by one or more users with the message can be assigned different weights when the different engagement events are combined and, also, can be assigned different temporal characteristics.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 16, 2016
    Date of Patent: December 20, 2016
    Assignee: Twitter, Inc.
    Inventors: Ashish Goel, Srinivasan Rajgopal, Utkarsh Srivastava, Anamitra Banerji
  • Patent number: 9509643
    Abstract: A system, method, and computer-readable medium for identifying relevant content from a messaging platform. The method can include: identifying a context account; identifying a set of initial accounts of the messaging platform; selecting a set of relevant accounts from among the set of initial accounts; selecting a set of messages authored by the set of relevant accounts based at least on a recency of each of the set of messages; and providing the set of messages in response to a request.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 12, 2013
    Date of Patent: November 29, 2016
    Assignee: Twitter, Inc.
    Inventors: Krishna Gade, Daniel Loreto, Francesco G. Callari, Julian M. Marinus, Yu-shuang Li
  • Patent number: 9483529
    Abstract: A method for message selection, including: receiving a request for unviewed messages, the request identifying a context account, ranking the set of unviewed messages according to ranking criteria, where the ranking criteria is used to rank each of the set of unviewed messages based on an engagement history between the context account and an authoring account of the unviewed messages; generating, based on ranking the set of unviewed messages, a result set identifying a subset of the set of unviewed messages, and providing the result set in response to the request.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 14, 2014
    Date of Patent: November 1, 2016
    Assignee: Twitter, Inc.
    Inventors: Mircea-Bogdan Pasoi, Cristian-George Strat, Mihai Claudiu Toader
  • Patent number: 9462439
    Abstract: An aspect of the present invention enables users to avail specialized services using missed calls. In one embodiment, a missed call server on receiving an indication that a missed call has been placed by a user to a phone number, determines the specialized service corresponding to the phone number, and then sends a data to the service provider offering the determined service. The service provider then delivers the specialized service (sought to be availed) to the user. One of the specialized services is the delivery of content to the user. Thus, a user is enabled to access different contents by placing missed calls to the appropriate phone numbers.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 27, 2015
    Date of Patent: October 4, 2016
    Assignee: TWITTER, INC.
    Inventors: Sanjay Swamy, Valerie Rozycki Wagoner, Amiya Pathak
  • Patent number: 9454771
    Abstract: A real-time messaging platform allows advertiser accounts to pay to insert candidate messages into the message streams requested by account holders. To accommodate multiple advertisers, the messaging platform controls an auction process that determines which candidate messages are selected for inclusion in a requested account holder's message stream. Selection is based on a bid for the candidate message, the message stream that is requested, and a variety of other factors that vary depending upon the implementation. The process for selection of candidate messages generally includes the following steps, though any given step may be omitted or combined into another step in a different implementation: targeting, filtering, prediction, ranking, and selection.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 16, 2015
    Date of Patent: September 27, 2016
    Assignee: Twitter, Inc.
    Inventors: Parag Agrawal, Utkarsh Srivastava, Kumar Chellapilla, Qicheng Ma
  • Patent number: 9449050
    Abstract: A method, system, and non-transitory computer readable medium for identifying a relevant conversation. The method can include: identifying a conversation graph including identifiers of messages posted by a set of authoring accounts; identifying a relevance score for each authoring account; applying, by a computer processor, a first relevance filter to the conversation graph in order to modify the set of relevance scores; applying, by the computer processor and after applying the first relevance filter, a second relevance filter to the conversation graph in order to further modify the set of relevance scores; selecting, based on the set of relevance scores and after applying the second relevance filter, a subset of messages of the conversation graph for inclusion in the relevant conversation; and providing at least a portion of the relevant conversation to a client device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 19, 2013
    Date of Patent: September 20, 2016
    Assignee: Twitter, Inc.
    Inventors: Marcel Molina, Ross Cohen, Kyle Maxwell, Stuart Hood, Cara Meverden, Coleen Baik
  • Patent number: 9424359
    Abstract: A method and system for facilitating typeahead. The method can include: identifying a set of topics and/or connected accounts; storing, based on one or more signals associated with a user account, a portion of the topics and/or connected accounts in a cache; and using the cache to provide typeahead suggestions to a client in response to a request associated with the user account.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 17, 2014
    Date of Patent: August 23, 2016
    Assignee: Twitter, Inc.
    Inventors: Babak Ghassemi Hamadani, Timothy Trueman, Krishna Gade, Yu-shuang Li, Pankaj Gupta, Pradhuman Jhala
  • Patent number: 9426620
    Abstract: A method and system for dynamic geohash-based geofencing within a geographic area including obtaining metadata including a campaign identifier and geometric data, generating a geometry using the geometric data, mapping the geometry to a geohash grid to obtain a first geohash set having a first geohash in the geohash grid, storing the first geohash and the campaign identifier in an entry in a geohash index, obtaining a user position within the geographic area from a mobile device, generating a user geohash using the user position, matching the user geohash to the entry in the geohash index, obtaining the campaign identifier from the entry in the geohash index, and providing content corresponding to the campaign identifier to the mobile device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 14, 2014
    Date of Patent: August 23, 2016
    Assignee: Twitter, Inc.
    Inventors: Sen Xu, Krishna Kamath
  • Patent number: 9424172
    Abstract: A method for testing web services includes obtaining, by a new version of a service deployed on a network framework, a request and an old response to the request generated by an old version of the service, generating, by the new version of the service, a new response to the request, and generating, by a comparison tool built into the network framework and accessible to the new version of the service, a comparison of the old response and the new response.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 13, 2014
    Date of Patent: August 23, 2016
    Assignee: Twitter, Inc.
    Inventor: David Helder
  • Patent number: 9417947
    Abstract: A system and method for robust storage of error event information is provided. Binary image information is stored in a compressed data structure in a read only portion of memory. In the event of an error condition, state information is written to a file in a series of carriage return delineated lines.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 14, 2014
    Date of Patent: August 16, 2016
    Assignee: TWITTER, INC.
    Inventor: Matthew Massicotte
  • Patent number: 9418117
    Abstract: A method, system, and non-transitory computer readable medium for displaying relevant messages of a conversation graph. A reverse chronological stream of messages broadcasted to a recipient account of a messaging platform is received. The set of authoring accounts having a predefined graph relationship with the recipient account. Among the stream of messages, a message determined to be a part of a relevant conversation is identified. Additional content associated with the conversation is then inserted into the stream. A client displaying the stream displays the conversation related content with one or more display elements depicting relationships among messages of the conversation.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 6, 2013
    Date of Patent: August 16, 2016
    Assignee: Twitter, Inc.
    Inventors: Marcel Molina, Ross Cohen, Kyle Maxwell, Stuart Hood, Cara Meverden, Coleen Baik, Arya Asemanfar, Erin Moore
  • Patent number: 9405453
    Abstract: Methods, computer readable media, and apparatuses for providing enhanced user interface mechanics are presented. In one arrangement, a scrollable list of content items may be displayed. Input associated with a scroll command may be received. Then, based on the scroll command, a scrollable refresh trigger may be displayed. Subsequently, the scrollable list of content items may be refreshed in response to determining, based on the scroll command, that the scrollable refresh trigger has been activated. In at least one instance, it may be determined that the scrollable refresh trigger has been activated in response to determining that the scroll command was completed while the scrollable refresh trigger was fully displayed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 19, 2013
    Date of Patent: August 2, 2016
    Assignee: Twitter, Inc.
    Inventor: Loren Brichter
  • Patent number: 9377832
    Abstract: A server rack comprises a battery string connected to a controller and rectifier, server slots, a server load located in a first server slot of the server slots, a second server load stored in a second server slot of the server slots, a first AC power supply circuit supplying power to the first server load, a second AC power supply circuit supplying power to the second server load, a first DC power supply circuit supplying power to the first server load, a second DC power supply circuit supplying power to the second server load, a DC power distribution circuit connecting the rectifier to the first DC power supply circuit and the second DC power supply circuit, and an AC power distribution circuit connecting an incoming AC power supply to the first AC power supply circuit and the second AC power supply circuit.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 15, 2013
    Date of Patent: June 28, 2016
    Assignee: Twitter, Inc.
    Inventor: Ali Heydari Monfared
  • Patent number: 9361322
    Abstract: A real-time messaging platform allows advertiser accounts to pay to insert candidate messages into the message streams requested by account holders. To accommodate multiple advertisers, the messaging platform controls an auction process that determines which candidate messages are selected for inclusion in a requested account holder's message stream. Selection is based on a bid for the candidate message, the message stream that is requested, and a variety of other factors that vary depending upon the implementation. The process for selection of candidate messages generally includes the following steps, though any given step may be omitted or combined into another step in a different implementation: targeting, filtering, prediction, ranking, and selection.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 14, 2014
    Date of Patent: June 7, 2016
    Assignee: Twitter, Inc.
    Inventors: Chinmoy Dutta, Junjun Li, Vibhor Rastogi, Wanchen Lu, Sandeep Pandey, Utkarsh Srivastava
  • Patent number: 9356806
    Abstract: A system and a method are disclosed for recommending electronic messages in a message sharing system. Users can post messages to the message sharing system. These messages from posting users are received by the system and sent to receiving users that have subscribed to the posting users. The receiving users interact with the messages in various ways, such as by sharing the messages with other users. Interaction information is received for each of the electronic messages. The interaction information includes an indication of the number of interactions with the electronic message by receiving users. A score is determined for each electronic message based on the interaction information. Electronic messages are selected for being recommended to a user or a group of users based on the scores. The recommendations are then sent to the users, enabling users to better focus their attention on messages that are likely to be interesting.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 6, 2010
    Date of Patent: May 31, 2016
    Assignee: Twitter, Inc.
    Inventors: Abdur Chowdhury, Ashish Goel, Ram Ravichandran
  • Patent number: 9356946
    Abstract: Behavioral analysis of a mobile webpage is performed to determine whether the webpage is malicious. During analysis, the webpage is visited by an emulated mobile device to cause behaviors to occur which may be malicious. The behaviors occurring after accessing the webpage are stored. The behaviors are classified as hard or soft signals. A probability of the webpage being malicious is determined through combining soft signals, and the webpage is classified as malicious or non-malicious. Users of the webpage, the developer of the webpage, or a distributor of the webpage are notified of the webpage classification to enable responsive action.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 29, 2014
    Date of Patent: May 31, 2016
    Assignee: Twitter, Inc.
    Inventors: Neilkumar Murli Daswani, Ameet Ranadive, Shariq Rizvi, Michael Gagnon, Tufan Demir, Gerald E. Eisenhaur
  • Patent number: 9342250
    Abstract: A system and method for data storage. The method can include: identifying, by a computer processor, a cluster map representing a set of storage resources; for each storage resource of the set of storage resources: traversing, by the computer processor, the cluster map to map the storage resource to a candidate resource set including at least one other storage resource of the set of storage resources; identifying a first data object associated with a storage request; identifying a first candidate resource set based on the first data object; and selecting a first final resource set based at least on the first candidate resource set, where the first data object is sent to storage resources of the first final resource set for storage.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 3, 2015
    Date of Patent: May 17, 2016
    Assignee: Twitter, Inc.
    Inventors: Peter Schuller, Christopher Goffinet, Sangjin Lee, Meher Anand, Edward Ceasar, Armond Bigian
  • Patent number: 9344387
    Abstract: A system and method for message analysis, including: receiving, from a client device, a reporting request identifying a first broadcasted message authored by a context account of a messaging platform; identifying, by a computer processor, engagement data corresponding to engagement with the first broadcasted message by a set of engaging accounts of the messaging platform that engaged with the first broadcasted message; generating, using the engagement data and by the computer processor, propagation data representing propagation of the first broadcasted message in a connection graph of the messaging platform; and providing the propagation data for the client device in response to the reporting request, where the client device is operable to display a visual representation of the propagation data.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 8, 2014
    Date of Patent: May 17, 2016
    Assignee: Twitter, Inc.
    Inventors: Aditya Krishna Naganath, Erik Steven Froese
  • Patent number: 9319359
    Abstract: A real-time messaging platform and method are disclosed which can be used to promote content in the messaging platform. In one embodiment, the promotion system is disclosed which performs initial candidate selection so as to narrow down the set of candidate promotions before applying more expensive processing. The candidate selection takes advantage of the connection graph information associated with accounts in the messaging platform to identify targeted accounts. In another embodiment, the promotion system uses a prediction model to predict a user's engagement with the promotion and utilizes the prediction to assist in ranking the candidate promotions. Promotions can be assigned metrics based, for example, on a weighted combination of user engagement rates, decayed with time to reflect an intuition that recent interactions by one or more users with the promotion will have a greater impact than older interactions with the promotion.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 14, 2014
    Date of Patent: April 19, 2016
    Assignee: Twitter, Inc.
    Inventors: Utkarsh Srivastava, Ashish Goel, Srinivasan Rajgopal, Anamitra Banerji
  • Patent number: 9313152
    Abstract: A real-time messaging platform and method are disclosed which suggests messages and accounts from the real-time messaging platform.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 11, 2013
    Date of Patent: April 12, 2016
    Assignee: Twitter, Inc.
    Inventors: Gilad Mishne, Pradhuman Jhala, Anand Madhavan, Florian Thomas Leibert
  • Patent number: 9298812
    Abstract: A real-time messaging platform and method is disclosed which classifies messages in accordance with a combination of user engagement events as modified to reflect the temporal structure of the user engagement events. A message can be assigned a metric based, for example, on a weighted combination of user engagement rates, decayed with time to reflect an intuition that recent interactions by one or more users with the message will have a greater impact than older interactions with the message. Different types of interaction by one or more users with the message can be assigned different weights when the different engagement events are combined and, also, can be assigned different temporal characteristics.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 26, 2013
    Date of Patent: March 29, 2016
    Assignee: Twitter, Inc.
    Inventors: Ashish Goel, Srinivasan Rajgopal, Utkarsh Srivastava, Anamitra Banerji
  • Patent number: 9274894
    Abstract: A system and method for providing a watchdog timer to enable collection of crash data is provided. Upon execution of certain operations, a source thread of an application initiates a watchdog thread that periodically sample state of data relating to the application. Should the operation not complete within a watchdog timeout period, the watchdog thread invokes a crash function to collect additional state data. At least a portion of the state data is stored for later analysis and debugging.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 9, 2013
    Date of Patent: March 1, 2016
    Assignee: TWITTER, INC.
    Inventors: Ryan Perry, Jeffrey Hall Seibert, Jr., Zhen Ma, Matt Massicotte
  • Publication number: 20150378584
    Abstract: A method and system for media selection and sharing is disclosed. According to one embodiment, media content is received from a media source and is stored in a buffer for a first time period. A second time period within the first time period is determined for creating a media clip from the media content stored in the buffer. A media clip is generated as determined by the second time period. A user provides an input, and the user's input is associated with the media clip to take one or more effects on the media clip. The media clip enhanced with the one more effects is transmitted over a network to share with other users.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 4, 2015
    Publication date: December 31, 2015
    Applicant: Twitter, Inc.
    Inventors: Michael George Folgner, Ryan Brice Cunningham, Stephen Benjamin Weibel, Lamthuy Tran Nguyen
  • Patent number: 9198321
    Abstract: An apparatus including: a server component bracket having: a first set of holes configured to secure a set of grommets gripping a server component; a set of connectors; and a plunger comprising a pin and configured to generate an audio verification of successful installation of the server component bracket; and a server chassis bracket having: a set of sidewalls; a second set of holes configured to secure the set of connectors of the server component bracket; a side rail configured to guide the set of connectors into the second set of holes; and an aperture configured to secure the pin of the plunger following successful installation of the server component bracket into the server chassis bracket.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 11, 2014
    Date of Patent: November 24, 2015
    Assignee: Twitter, Inc.
    Inventor: Ali Heydari
  • Patent number: 9166935
    Abstract: A system and method for managing and displaying data messages includes a computing device configured to receive stream data, assign data messages of the stream data to one or more display columns of a graphical user interface, and display the data messages in the assigned columns. The stream data may be embodied as short data messages such as text messages having predetermined maximum character length. The data messages may be assigned to the display columns based on meta-data associated with the data messages such as the author of the data message, the source of the data message, and/or the type of the data message.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 11, 2013
    Date of Patent: October 20, 2015
    Assignee: Twitter, Inc.
    Inventor: Iain Gregory Dodsworth
  • Patent number: 9143468
    Abstract: A method and system for identifying relevant messages in a conversation graph includes identifying a context message within the conversation graph. The context message is marked as relevant and additional messages are marked as relevant based on various criteria. A plurality of authors of messages marked as relevant is identified and a plurality of unmarked messages authored by the plurality of authors is marked as relevant. In addition, a plurality of parent messages of messages marked as relevant are identified and marked as relevant. A list comprising messages marked as relevant is then provided to a user. Multiple steps can be repeated until convergence after which the list can be provided to the user.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 8, 2013
    Date of Patent: September 22, 2015
    Assignee: Twitter, Inc.
    Inventors: Ross Cohen, Kyle Maxwell, Stuart Hood, Cara Meverden, Coleen Baik, Marcel Molina
  • Patent number: 9117227
    Abstract: A real-time messaging platform allows advertiser accounts to pay to insert candidate messages into the message streams requested by account holders. To accommodate multiple advertisers, the messaging platform controls an auction process that determines which candidate messages are selected for inclusion in a requested account holder's message stream. Selection is based on a bid for the candidate message, the message stream that is requested, and a variety of other factors that vary depending upon the implementation. The process for selection of candidate messages generally includes the following steps, though any given step may be omitted or combined into another step in a different implementation: targeting, filtering, prediction, ranking, and selection.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 14, 2014
    Date of Patent: August 25, 2015
    Assignee: TWITTER, INC.
    Inventors: Parag Agrawal, Utkarsh Srivastava, Kumar Chellapilla, Qicheng Ma
  • Publication number: 20150227624
    Abstract: A system for real-time search, including: a set of partitions, each including a set of segments, each segment corresponding to a time slice of messages posted to the messaging platform, and a real-time search engine configured to receive a search term in parallel with other partitions in the set of partitions, and search at least one of the set of segments in reverse chronological order of the corresponding time slice to identify document identifiers of messages containing the search term; and a search fanout module configured to: receive a search query including the search term; send the search term to each of the set of partitions for parallel searching; and return, in response to the search query, at least one of the identified document identifiers of messages containing the search term.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 16, 2013
    Publication date: August 13, 2015
    Applicant: Twitter, Inc.
    Inventors: Michael Busch, Samuel Luckenbill, Brian A. Larson, Patrick J. Lok, Krishna Gade, Francesco G. Callari, Ugo Di Girolamo
  • Patent number: 9088532
    Abstract: A system (and method) for device-independent point to multipoint communication is disclosed. The system is configured to receive a message addressed to one or more destination users, the message type being, for example, Short Message Service (SMS), Instant Messaging (IM), E-mail, web form input, or Application Program Interface (API) function call. The system also is configured to determine information about the destination users, the information comprising preferred devices and interfaces for receiving messages, the information further comprising message receiving preferences. The system applies rules to the message based on destination user information to determine the message endpoints, the message endpoints being, for example, Short Message Service (SMS), Instant Messaging (IM), E-mail, web page output, or Application Program Interface (API) function call.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 18, 2013
    Date of Patent: July 21, 2015
    Assignee: Twitter, Inc.
    Inventors: Jack Dorsey, Christopher Isaac Stone
  • Patent number: 9043397
    Abstract: A method for providing suggestions from a messaging platform. The method includes: identifying, by a computer processor, a set of website-account pairs, wherein each of the set of website-account pairs represents an account of the messaging platform and a website; for each website-account pair of the set of website-account pairs: selecting, by the computer processor, connected accounts having a graph relationship with the account of the website-account pair, and creating an association between at least a subset of the connected accounts and the website of the website-account pair; receiving a set of websites associated with a user, wherein at least one of the set of websites is referenced by a first association of the created associations; and providing, by the computer processor, one or more account suggestions for the user based at least on the first association.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 2, 2012
    Date of Patent: May 26, 2015
    Assignee: Twitter, Inc.
    Inventors: Ram Ravichandran, Othman Laraki, Florian Leibert
  • Patent number: 9003086
    Abstract: A system and method for data storage. The method can include: identifying, by a computer processor, a cluster map representing a set of storage resources; for each storage resource of the set of storage resources: traversing, by the computer processor, the cluster map to map the storage resource to a candidate resource set including at least one other storage resource of the set of storage resources; identifying a first data object associated with a storage request; identifying a first candidate resource set based on the first data object; and selecting a first final resource set based at least on the first candidate resource set, where the first data object is sent to storage resources of the first final resource set for storage.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 17, 2013
    Date of Patent: April 7, 2015
    Assignee: Twitter, Inc.
    Inventors: Peter Schuller, Christopher Goffinet, Sangjin Lee, Meher Anand, Edward Ceasar, Armond Bigian
  • Patent number: 8953329
    Abstract: A server chassis bracket (SCB), including: a first set of holes configured to secure a first set of grommets gripping a first server component; a second set of holes configured to secure a second set of grommets gripping a second server component; a first shared guide configured to: guide a first grommet of the first set of grommets towards a first hole of the first set of holes; and guide a second grommet of the second set of grommets towards a second hole of the second set of holes; and a latch covering a portion of the first shared guide, including a tail, and configured to: generate a first audio verification of a successful installation of the first server component into the server chassis bracket; and generate a second audio verification of a successful installation of the second server component into the server chassis bracket.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 11, 2013
    Date of Patent: February 10, 2015
    Assignee: Twitter, Inc.
    Inventor: Ali Heydari
  • Patent number: 8862591
    Abstract: An example system and method elicits reviews and opinions from users via an online system or a web crawl. Opinions on topics are processed in real time to determine orientation. Each topic is analyzed sentence by sentence to find a central tendency of user orientation toward a given topic. Automatic topic orientation is used to provide a common comparable rating value between reviewers and potentially other systems on similar topics. Facets of the topics are extracted via a submission/acquisition process to determine the key variables of interest for users.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 22, 2007
    Date of Patent: October 14, 2014
    Assignee: Twitter, Inc.
    Inventors: Abdur Chowdhury, Gregory Scott Pass, Ajaipal Singh Virdy, Ophir Frieder
  • Publication number: 20140280318
    Abstract: A method and system generates a model of a geographic area for use in identifying locations of the geographic area. A set of variably sized tiles is defined for each of a set of overlapping geometries in the geographic area. Each of the variably sized tiles is defined by a geohash, where the size of the tile is dependent on a granularity of the geohash. A geocode trie structure representing the variably sized tiles can be constructed and used to map one or more provided location coordinates to at least one of the geometries represented by the tiles.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 14, 2014
    Publication date: September 18, 2014
    Applicant: Twitter, Inc.
    Inventors: Jonathan D. Simms, Dale Harrison, Raghav Chandra, Guy Dickinson
  • Patent number: 8806646
    Abstract: Behavioral analysis of a mobile webpage is performed to determine whether the webpage is malicious. During analysis, the webpage is visited by an emulated mobile device to cause behaviors to occur which may be malicious. The behaviors occurring after accessing the webpage are stored. The behaviors are classified as hard or soft signals. A probability of the webpage being malicious is determined through combining soft signals, and the webpage is classified as malicious or non-malicious. Users of the webpage, the developer of the webpage, or a distributor of the webpage are notified of the webpage classification to enable responsive action.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 27, 2012
    Date of Patent: August 12, 2014
    Assignee: Twitter, Inc.
    Inventors: Neilkumar Daswani, Ameet Ranadive, Shariq Rizvi, Michael Gagnon, Tufan Demir, Gerry Eisenhaur
  • Patent number: D780785
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 27, 2015
    Date of Patent: March 7, 2017
    Assignee: Twitter, Inc.
    Inventors: Tyler Jan Hansen, Kayvon B. Beykpour, Joseph Harold Bernstein, Aaron William Wasserman, Nils Victor Rocine, Alexander Kayvon Khoshnevissan, Geraint John Davies