Patent ID: 9729352
Date: 2017-08-08
CPC Classifications: H04L

Claim:
1. A method performed by a system of one or more data processing devices, the method comprising: receiving, at the system, a historical record of message exchange between an individual and members in a social network, wherein for at least one of exchanged messages in the message exchange at least one of a recipient or a sender of the at least one of the exchanged messages in the historical record is not a member in the social network; the system determining, for at least one of the members, whether the individual is likely to want to be associated to the respective member in the social network, each determination considering a number and transactional characteristics of the message exchange between the individual and the respective member in the historical record, wherein determining whether the individual is likely to want to be associated to the respective member comprises determining a percent of the messages that were read by the individual from the messages sent by each of the respective members to the individual, wherein determining whether the individual is likely to want to be associated to the respective member further comprises considering timing of the messages exchanged between the individual and each of the respective members, wherein considering timing of the messages comprises: the system outputting the determinations that the individual is likely to want to be associated to at least one of the respective members in the social network.