Well while looking for some code, for a project that is NOT my day job, but seems to be turning into one…’web design/programming for hire’ hey when a hobby pays, life is good! If only my flying habit were so accommodating, but I’ll keep trying on that one anyway.
I digress and two phone calls later, state what I came here for – Facebook’s patent!
Okay so here is the skinny; Facebook Wins Patent For Click-Behavior Based Search Engine Algorithm by the United States Patent & Trademark office. The approved patent application titled “Ranking search results based on the frequency of clicks on the search results by members of a social network who are within a predetermined degree of separation“ was filed by Facebook back in 2004, before you or I ever heard of them!
and the nuts and bolts of it are Kevin Freakin Bacon! Yep you heard that right
It says a connection can be between “registered users who are related within two or more degrees of separation to the registered user within the online social network”. This leaves the degrees of separation up to Facebook, meaning results could be based on clicks by your friends, friends of friends, or every registered Facebook user. Searching for humorous content with results ranked by what your friends clicked could produce a more valuable experience than rankings based on clicks from across the web.
and you thought it was just a drinking game, Facebook may prove like Google you can make $$ on it