Creating a customized news collection based on social networking information

Abstract

A system and machine-implemented method for generating a customized news collection based on social groups, the method comprising receiving an indication of one or more social groups associated with a user, wherein each of the one or more social groups is associated with the user's account in a social networking service, determining, one or more contacts associated with each of the identified one or more social groups at a social networking service, selecting a set of news items including one or more news items associated with the one or more identified contacts and generating a news collection including a number of the one or more news items of the set of news items for provision to a user.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A method executed on one or more computing devices for generating a customized news collection based on social groups, the method comprising:
 receiving an indication of one or more social groups associated with a user, wherein each of the one or more social groups is associated with the user's account in a social networking service;   determining, using the one or more computing devices, one or more contacts associated with each of the identified one or more social groups at the social networking service;   selecting a set of news items including one or more news items associated with the one or more identified contacts; and   generating a news collection including a number of the one or more news items of the set of news items for provision to a user.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 receiving a request from the user to view a customized news collection, the request including an indication of the one or more social groups.   
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 determining additional selection criteria, wherein the set of news items is further identified based one the additional selection criteria.   
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 3 , wherein the selection criteria includes one or more news item characteristics including at least one of a topic, category, news source, author, time or date. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 3 , wherein the additional criteria is specified by the user. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 3 , wherein the additional criteria is determined based on user profile information. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 3 , wherein the one or more social groups are identified based on user profile information of the user. 
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 sorting the identified set of news items according to one or more sorting criteria; and   generating the news collection in response to the sorting.   
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 8 , wherein the sorting criteria include one or more priorities assigned to one or more news characteristics associated with a news item, and
 wherein the sorting process comprises:   determining a priority assigned to one or more news characteristics associated with each of the one or more news items of the set of news items; and   ranking the one or more news items of the set of news items according to the priorities.   
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 9 , wherein the one or more priorities are assigned by the user. 
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 9 , wherein the priorities are assigned based on the user's interaction with news items. 
     
     
         12 . The method of  claim 9 , further comprising:
 providing the news collection for display to the user; and   receiving an indication of user activity with response to one or more news items of the news collection.   
     
     
         13 . The method of  claim 12 , further comprising:
 updating at least one of the selection criteria or the sorting criteria in response to receiving the indication; and   generating an updated news collection according to the updated criteria.   
     
     
         14 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the determining the one or more contacts comprises:
 sending a request for contacts associated with each of the one or more selected social groups to the social networking service associated with the social group; and   receiving the one or more contacts associated with each of the one or more selected social groups.   
     
     
         15 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the one or more news items associated with a the one or more identified contacts comprise at least a news item that at least one of the one or more identified contacts has taken an action towards or a news article that is determined to be important based on characteristics of a news item that at least one of the one or more identified contacts has taken an action towards. 
     
     
         16 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the action comprises one or more of opening the news item, reading the news item, endorsing the news item, recommending the news item, or sharing the news item. 
     
     
         17 . A system for generating a customized news collection based on social groups, the system comprising:
 one or more processors; and   a machine-readable medium comprising instructions stored therein, which when executed by the processors, cause the processors to perform operations comprising:
 receiving an indication of one or more selection criteria, the one or more selection criteria including one or more social groups associated with the user, wherein each of the one or more social groups is associated with a user account of the user maintained at the social networking service; 
 selecting a set of news items according to the selection criteria, wherein the selection comprises:
 determining one or more contacts associated with each of the identified one or more social groups at a social networking service; and 
 selecting one or more news items associated with the one or more identified contacts; and 
 
 generating a news collection including a number of news items of the set of news items for provision to a user. 
   
     
     
         18 . The system of  claim 17 , the operations further comprising:
 sorting the set of news items according to one or more sorting criteria; and   generating the news collection in response to the sorting.   
     
     
         19 . The system of  claim 17 , wherein the one or more selection criteria further comprise one or more news item characteristics, and
 wherein selecting the set of news items further comprises selecting one or more news items having the one or more news item characteristics.   
     
     
         20 . A machine-readable medium comprising instructions stored therein, which when executed by a machine, cause the machine to perform operations comprising:
 receiving a request from a user to view a news collection;   determining one or more social groups based on the request, wherein each of the one or more social groups is associated with a user account of the user in a social networking service;   determining one or more contacts associated with each of the identified one or more social groups at a social networking service;   selecting a set of news items including one or more news items associated with the one or more identified contacts, wherein the one or more news items associated with a the one or more identified contacts comprise at least a news item that at least one of the one or more identified contacts has taken an action towards or a news article that is determined to be important based on characteristics of a news item that at least one of the one or more identified contacts has taken an action towards; and   generating a news collection including a number of news items of the set of news items for provision to a user.