Patent Publication Number: US-2015089661-A1

Title: Protecting brand-associated content of communications in a social networking environment

Description:
PRIORITY DATA 
     This patent document claims priority to co-pending and commonly assigned U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61/882,947, titled “Protected Conversation Builder”, by John Taschek, filed on Sep. 26, 2013 (Attorney Docket No. 1248PROV), which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety and for all purposes. 
    
    
     COPYRIGHT NOTICE 
     A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure as it appears in the United States Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever. 
     TECHNICAL FIELD 
     This patent document generally relates to protecting information associated with a brand. More specifically, this patent document discloses techniques for protecting brand-associated content of communications published in a social networking environment. 
     BACKGROUND 
     “Cloud computing” services provide shared resources, applications, and information to computers and other devices upon request. In cloud computing environments, services can be provided by one or more servers accessible over the Internet rather than installing software locally on in-house computer systems. By way of example, social networking services can be provided in a cloud computing context. As such, social networking communications can be published in a cloud computing environment. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
       The included drawings are for illustrative purposes and serve only to provide examples of possible structures and operations for the disclosed inventive systems, apparatus, methods and computer program products for protecting brand-associated content of communications in a social networking environment. These drawings in no way limit any changes in form and detail that may be made by one skilled in the art without departing from the spirit and scope of the disclosed implementations. 
         FIG. 1  shows a flowchart of an example of a computer implemented method  100  for protecting brand-associated content of communications in a social networking environment, performed in accordance with some implementations. 
         FIG. 2  shows an example of a presentation of a social network feed in the form of a graphical user interface (GUI) as displayed on a computing device, in accordance with some implementations. 
         FIG. 3  shows a presentation of posts of a social network feed as displayed on a computing device, in accordance with some implementations. 
         FIG. 4A  shows a presentation of a social networking post including edited content as displayed on a computing device, in accordance with some implementations. 
         FIG. 4B  shows a presentation of an error message as displayed on a computing device, in accordance with some implementations. 
         FIG. 5A  shows a block diagram of an example of an environment  10  in which an on-demand database service can be used in accordance with some implementations. 
         FIG. 5B  shows a block diagram of an example of some implementations of elements of  FIG. 5A  and various possible interconnections between these elements. 
         FIG. 6A  shows a system diagram of an example of architectural components of an on-demand database service environment  900 , in accordance with some implementations. 
         FIG. 6B  shows a system diagram further illustrating an example of architectural components of an on-demand database service environment, in accordance with some implementations. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
     Examples of systems, apparatus, methods and computer-readable storage media according to the disclosed implementations are described in this section. These examples are being provided solely to add context and aid in the understanding of the disclosed implementations. It will thus be apparent to one skilled in the art that implementations may be practiced without some or all of these specific details. In other instances, certain operations have not been described in detail to avoid unnecessarily obscuring implementations. Other applications are possible, such that the following examples should not be taken as definitive or limiting either in scope or setting. 
     In the following detailed description, references are made to the accompanying drawings, which form a part of the description and in which are shown, by way of illustration, specific implementations. Although these implementations are described in sufficient detail to enable one skilled in the art to practice the disclosed implementations, it is understood that these examples are not limiting, such that other implementations may be used and changes may be made without departing from their spirit and scope. For example, the operations of methods shown and described herein are not necessarily performed in the order indicated. It should also be understood that the methods may include more or fewer operations than are indicated. In some implementations, operations described herein as separate operations may be combined. Conversely, what may be described herein as a single operation may be implemented in multiple operations. 
     Some implementations of the disclosed systems, apparatus, methods and computer program products are configured to protect brand-associated content of communications in a social networking environment. As used herein, the term “brand” can refer to the name of a business entity such as an organization, product, or service. Another example of a business entity is a person doing business, in which case “brand” can refer to a personal label such as the person&#39;s name, job title, role or a badge indicating expertise in an aspect of business. Some non-limiting examples of brands are provided below. In an online social network setting, brands of businesses and people can be vulnerable to attack and disparagement. 
     In a conventional social networking system such as Twitter®, Facebook® or Yammer®, a user can easily mislead other users and tarnish a brand&#39;s reputation by commenting on, sharing, retweeting, reposting, or otherwise republishing a feed item such as a post mentioning the brand and editing the item&#39;s content. By way of illustration, Orlando&#39;s, a small but popular vegetarian-friendly restaurant, has published an advertisement as a post to a Facebook® feed viewable by various users, some of whom follow Orlando&#39;s. Oliver, a troublemaker, edits and reposts the content of the advertisement. In particular, Oliver adds a note in his repost stating that “Orlando&#39;s famous ranch dressing contains rendered pork lard,” even though in reality the dressing is entirely vegetarian. This misinformation could potentially alienate Orlando&#39;s large vegetarian customer base and, ultimately, devastate Orlando&#39;s business. Some of the disclosed techniques can be implemented to protect the content of Orlando&#39;s original post and hamper Oliver&#39;s ability to spread misinformation. 
     For instance, a communication such as a social networking post can be protected by embedding metadata within the communication&#39;s content. Such metadata could include specific information uniquely identifying a brand, referred to herein as a brand identifier. For instance, a unique string such as 183745 could be assigned to Orlando&#39;s Restaurant as a brand identifier, while other various entities are identified by different strings. In some implementations, metadata can be formatted as an image, which is placed within the content of a post. When the post is graphically displayed in a user interface, such an image can be obscured to users viewing the post, as explained in more detail below. By way of example, the string 183745 identifying Orlando&#39;s Restaurant can be embedded as Extensible Metadata Platform (XMP) metadata in a Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) image file. Along these lines, a visible watermark image that is destroyed when tampered with, such as a logo identifying the Orlando&#39;s brand, can be included in Orlando&#39;s posts. Also or alternatively, a text checksum value can be generated for, and embedded in, each of Orlando&#39;s posts. Examples of techniques for embedding and interpreting metadata as well as characteristics of such metadata can vary greatly across implementations and are described in further detail below. 
     Using some of the disclosed techniques, Orlando&#39;s restaurant can in some ways control its brand reputation by placing metadata in posts published by or on behalf of Orlando&#39;s. In some implementations, if Oliver edits the content of Orlando&#39;s original post, Oliver can be prevented from publishing the edited post to social network feeds. Also or alternatively, an indication of tampering such as an animated red flag or text such as “warning: the following post has been edited” can be automatically added to the content of Oliver&#39;s edited version of Orlando&#39;s post when the edited post is published to a feed. 
     The disclosed techniques can be used to protect or authenticate a wide range of brand-affiliated content, since the type of brand can vary greatly across implementations. By way of illustration, Celia is both a sales agent and employee of the month at Touchstone Insurance, a corporation selling insurance. Celia has several personal brands in the form of her name, her job title as a sales agent, her role or position in an organizational hierarchy, and her badge(s), one of which is employee of the month. Touchstone Insurance also is a brand in the form of the name of the corporation. Confusingly for Rosalind, a Touchstone customer, Touchstone has thousands of sales agents each with their own set of brands, some of which are different from Celia&#39;s brands. Making matters worse, Rosalind often cannot tell the difference between a junk solicitation or scam and a legitimate communication from an actual agent, especially if the agent is not someone with whom Rosalind is familiar. Rosalind&#39;s confusion can be addressed if Touchstone Insurance were to embed metadata with brand identifiers in all of its communications from its employees such as Celia and other sales agents. The brand identifiers can be configured to indicate to customers that senders of the communications have brand equity or expertise within Touchstone. For instance, if Rosalind receives a communication from Celia, Rosalind can confirm Celia&#39;s expertise because the embedded metadata can be processed to authenticate Celia&#39;s status both as an agent at Touchstone and as employee of the month. 
     Embedding metadata in social networking communications to identify brands can also be useful in managing database records in a database system. For instance, records of posts or reposts containing embedded metadata can be identified in and organized using one or more database tables. By way of illustration, Audrey, a marketing manager, is evaluating the “all the world is a stage” marketing campaign to promote her theater company&#39;s recent outdoor productions throughout the Forest of Arden. Metadata can be embedded in all posts, using a variety of phrases, related to the “all the world is a stage” marketing campaign. Each time the metadata identifying the “all the world is a stage” marketing campaign appears in a post, a record of the post can be stored in a database. Audrey can then evaluate the campaign&#39;s effectiveness at a granular level by examining the database records to determine the effectiveness of each of the variety of phrases used in the campaign. 
     Some but not all of the techniques described or referenced herein are implemented as part of or in conjunction with a social networking system. Social networking systems have become a popular way to facilitate communication among people, any of whom can be recognized as users of a social networking system. One example of a social networking system is Chatter®, provided by salesforce.com, inc. of San Francisco, Calif. salesforce.com, inc. is a provider of social networking services, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) services and other database management services, any of which can be accessed and used in conjunction with the techniques disclosed herein in some implementations. These various services can be provided in a cloud computing environment, for example, in the context of a multi-tenant database system. Thus, the disclosed techniques can be implemented without having to install software locally, that is, on computing devices of users interacting with services available through the cloud. While the disclosed implementations are often described with reference to Chatter®, those skilled in the art should understand that the disclosed techniques are neither limited to Chatter® nor to any other services and systems provided by salesforce.com, inc. and can be implemented in the context of various other database systems and/or social networking systems such as Facebook®, LinkedIn®, Twitter®, Google+®, Yammer® and Jive® by way of example only. 
     Some social networking systems can be implemented in various settings, including organizations. For instance, a social networking system can be implemented to connect users within an enterprise such as a company or business partnership, or a group of users within such an organization. For instance, Chatter® can be used by employee users in a division of a business organization to share data, communicate, and collaborate with each other for various social purposes often involving the business of the organization. In the example of a multi-tenant database system, each organization or group within the organization can be a respective tenant of the system, as described in greater detail below. 
     In some social networking systems, users can access one or more social network feeds, which include information updates presented as items or entries in the feed. Such a feed item can include a single information update or a collection of individual information updates. A feed item can include various types of data including character-based data, audio data, image data and/or video data. A social network feed can be displayed in a graphical user interface (GUI) on a display device such as the display of a computing device as described below. The information updates can include various social network data from various sources and can be stored in an on-demand database service environment. In some implementations, the disclosed methods, apparatus, systems, and computer-readable storage media may be configured or designed for use in a multi-tenant database environment. 
     In some implementations, a social networking system may allow a user to follow data objects in the form of CRM records such as cases, accounts, or opportunities, in addition to following individual users and groups of users. The “following” of a record stored in a database, as described in greater detail below, allows a user to track the progress of that record when the user is subscribed to the record. Updates to the record, also referred to herein as changes to the record, are one type of information update that can occur and be noted on a social network feed such as a record feed or a news feed of a user subscribed to the record. Examples of record updates include field changes in the record, updates to the status of a record, as well as the creation of the record itself. Some records are publicly accessible, such that any user can follow the record, while other records are private, for which appropriate security clearance/permissions are a prerequisite to a user following the record. 
     Information updates can include various types of updates, which may or may not be linked with a particular record. For example, information updates can be social media communications submitted by a user or can otherwise be generated in response to user actions or in response to events. Examples of social media communications include: posts, comments, indications of a user&#39;s personal preferences such as “likes” and “dislikes”, updates to a user&#39;s status, uploaded files, and user-submitted hyperlinks to social network data or other network data such as various documents and/or web pages on the Internet. Posts can include alpha-numeric or other character-based user inputs such as words, phrases, statements, questions, emotional expressions, and/or symbols. Comments generally refer to responses to posts or to other information updates, such as words, phrases, statements, answers, questions, and reactionary emotional expressions and/or symbols. Multimedia data can be included in, linked with, or attached to a post or comment. For example, a post can include textual statements in combination with a JPEG image or animated image. A like or dislike can be submitted in response to a particular post or comment. Examples of uploaded files include presentations, documents, multimedia files, and the like. 
     Users can follow a record by subscribing to the record, as mentioned above. Users can also follow other entities such as other types of data objects, other users, and groups of users. Feed tracked updates regarding such entities are one type of information update that can be received and included in the user&#39;s news feed. Any number of users can follow a particular entity and thus view information updates pertaining to that entity on the users&#39; respective news feeds. In some social networks, users may follow each other by establishing connections with each other, sometimes referred to as “friending” one another. By establishing such a connection, one user may be able to see information generated by, generated about, or otherwise associated with another user. For instance, a first user may be able to see information posted by a second user to the second user&#39;s personal social network page. One implementation of such a personal social network page is a user&#39;s profile page, for example, in the form of a web page representing the user&#39;s profile. In one example, when the first user is following the second user, the first user&#39;s news feed can receive a post from the second user submitted to the second user&#39;s profile feed. A user&#39;s profile feed is also referred to herein as the user&#39;s “wall,” which is one example of a social network feed displayed on the user&#39;s profile page. 
     In some implementations, a social network feed may be specific to a group of users of a social networking system. For instance, a group of users may publish a news feed. Members of the group may view and post to this group feed in accordance with a permissions configuration for the feed and the group. Information updates in a group context can also include changes to group status information. 
     In some implementations, when data such as posts or comments input from one or more users are submitted to a social network feed for a particular user, group, object, or other construct within a social networking system, an email notification or other type of network communication may be transmitted to all users following the user, group, or object in addition to the inclusion of the data as a feed item in one or more feeds, such as a user&#39;s profile feed, a news feed, or a record feed. In some social networking systems, the occurrence of such a notification is limited to the first instance of a published input, which may form part of a larger conversation. For instance, a notification may be transmitted for an initial post, but not for comments on the post. In some other implementations, a separate notification is transmitted for each such information update. 
     The term “multi-tenant database system” generally refers to those systems in which various elements of hardware and/or software of a database system may be shared by one or more customers. For example, a given application server may simultaneously process requests for a great number of customers, and a given database table may store rows of data such as feed items for a potentially much greater number of customers. 
     An example of a “user profile” or “user&#39;s profile” is a database object or set of objects configured to store and maintain data about a given user of a social networking system and/or database system. The data can include general information, such as name, title, phone number, a photo, a biographical summary, and a status, e.g., text describing what the user is currently doing. As mentioned below, the data can include social media communications created by other users. Where there are multiple tenants, a user is typically associated with a particular tenant. For example, a user could be a salesperson of a company, which is a tenant of the database system that provides a database service. 
     The term “record” generally refers to a data entity having fields with values and stored in database system. An example of a record is an instance of a data object created by a user of the database service, for example, in the form of a CRM record about a particular (actual or potential) business relationship or project. The record can have a data structure defined by the database service (a standard object) or defined by a user (custom object). For example, a record can be for a business partner or potential business partner (e.g., a client, vendor, distributor, etc.) of the user, and can include information describing an entire company, subsidiaries, or contacts at the company. As another example, a record can be a project that the user is working on, such as an opportunity (e.g., a possible sale) with an existing partner, or a project that the user is trying to get. In one implementation of a multi-tenant database system, each record for the tenants has a unique identifier stored in a common table. A record has data fields that are defined by the structure of the object (e.g., fields of certain data types and purposes). A record can also have custom fields defined by a user. A field can be another record or include links thereto, thereby providing a parent-child relationship between the records. 
     The terms “social network feed” and “feed” are used interchangeably herein and generally refer to a combination (e.g., a list) of feed items or entries with various types of information and data. Such feed items can be stored and maintained in one or more database tables, e.g., as rows in the table(s), that can be accessed to retrieve relevant information to be presented as part of a displayed feed. The term “feed item” (or feed element) generally refers to an item of information, which can be presented in the feed such as a post submitted by a user. Feed items of information about a user can be presented in a user&#39;s profile feed of the database, while feed items of information about a record can be presented in a record feed in the database, by way of example. A profile feed and a record feed are examples of different types of social network feeds. A second user following a first user and a record can receive the feed items associated with the first user and the record for display in the second user&#39;s news feed, which is another type of social network feed. In some implementations, the feed items from any number of followed users and records can be combined into a single social network feed of a particular user. 
     As examples, a feed item can be a social media communication, such as a user-generated post of text data, and a feed tracked update to a record or profile, such as a change to a field of the record. Feed tracked updates are described in greater detail below. A feed can be a combination of social media communications and feed tracked updates. Social media communications include text created by a user, and may include other data as well. Examples of social media communications include posts, user status updates, and comments. Social media communications can be created for a user&#39;s profile or for a record. Posts can be created by various users, potentially any user, although some restrictions can be applied. As an example, posts can be made to a wall section of a user&#39;s profile page (which can include a number of recent posts) or a section of a record that includes multiple posts. The posts can be organized in chronological order when displayed in a GUI, for instance, on the user&#39;s profile page, as part of the user&#39;s profile feed. In contrast to a post, a user status update changes a status of a user and can be made by that user or an administrator. A record can also have a status, the update of which can be provided by an owner of the record or other users having suitable write access permissions to the record. The owner can be a single user, multiple users, or a group. 
     In some implementations, a comment can be made on any feed item. In some implementations, comments are organized as a list explicitly tied to a particular feed tracked update, post, or status update. In some implementations, comments may not be listed in the first layer (in a hierarchal sense) of feed items, but listed as a second layer branching from a particular first layer feed item. 
     A “feed tracked update,” also referred to herein as a “feed update,” is one type of information update and generally refers to data representing an event. A feed tracked update can include text generated by the database system in response to the event, to be provided as one or more feed items for possible inclusion in one or more feeds. In one implementation, the data can initially be stored, and then the database system can later use the data to create text for describing the event. Both the data and/or the text can be a feed tracked update, as used herein. In various implementations, an event can be an update of a record and/or can be triggered by a specific action by a user. Which actions trigger an event can be configurable. Which events have feed tracked updates created and which feed updates are sent to which users can also be configurable. Social media communications and other types of feed updates can be stored as a field or child object of the record. For example, the feed can be stored as a child object of the record. 
     A “group” is generally a collection of users. In some implementations, the group may be defined as users with a same or similar attribute, or by membership. In some implementations, a “group feed”, also referred to herein as a “group news feed”, includes one or more feed items about any user in the group. In some implementations, the group feed also includes information updates and other feed items that are about the group as a whole, the group&#39;s purpose, the group&#39;s description, and group records and other objects stored in association with the group. Threads of information updates including group record updates and social media communications, such as posts, comments, likes, etc., can define group conversations and change over time. 
     An “entity feed” or “record feed” generally refers to a feed of feed items about a particular record in the database. Such feed items can include feed tracked updates about changes to the record and posts made by users about the record. An entity feed can be composed of any type of feed item. Such a feed can be displayed on a page such as a web page associated with the record, e.g., a home page of the record. As used herein, a “profile feed” or “user&#39;s profile feed” generally refers to a feed of feed items about a particular user. In one example, the feed items for a profile feed include posts and comments that other users make about or send to the particular user, and status updates made by the particular user. Such a profile feed can be displayed on a page associated with the particular user. In another example, feed items in a profile feed could include posts made by the particular user and feed tracked updates initiated based on actions of the particular user. 
       FIG. 1  shows a flowchart of an example of a computer implemented method  100  for protecting brand-associated content of communications in a social networking environment, performed in accordance with some implementations.  FIG. 1  is described with reference to  FIGS. 2 and 3 .  FIG. 2  shows an example of a presentation of a social network feed in the form of a graphical user interface (GUI) as displayed on a computing device, in accordance with some implementations.  FIG. 3  shows a presentation of posts of a social network feed as displayed on a computing device, in accordance with some implementations. 
     In  FIG. 1 , at  104 , a first communication in the form of a post  200  including first content  300  is sent from a user&#39;s computing device such as a smartphone or tablet to one or more servers of a social networking system. For example, an employee of Orlando&#39;s restaurant can author post  200  to mention Orlando&#39;s and submit the post to one or more feeds. As shown in  FIG. 3 , content  300  of post  200  contains an advertisement for Orlando&#39;s Restaurant telling users that Orlando&#39;s has “a great lunch special this week for all of our vegetarian customers! All you can eat salad with our famous ranch dressing for only $3.99!!” 
     In this example, content  300  identifies the brand “Orlando&#39;s”  304 , which is the name of a business organization. In other examples, the brand could be a product name such as Orlando&#39;s famous ranch dressing. In some implementations, a brand might be a service name such as Charles the Wrestler&#39;s premium Tae Kwon Do lessons, a job title such as Vice President of Marketing, or a badge, which could indicate expertise in a particular area. A brand could even be a personal role such as “Queen of Sales”, which could describe the saleswoman who has had the highest number of sales in a given year. 
     In  FIG. 2 , when a server receives post  200 , the server can publish post  200  to a social network feed  204  or delay publishing post  200  until processing post  200  to embed or analyzed metadata embedded in post  200 , as further described below. 
     Returning to  FIG. 1 , at  108 , metadata  308  of  FIG. 3  can be embedded in first content  300 . In some implementations, Orlando&#39;s might be relying upon a server to embed metadata  308 . For example, Orlando&#39;s might have signed up for a cloud-based service, such as Chatter® provided by Salesforce.com®. In this scenario, Orlando&#39;s might pay a fee in order to have metadata  308  automatically inserted in any content submitted to Chatter® by Orlando&#39;s. Metadata  308  can be embedded in content  300  in a wide variety of ways. For example, as shown in  FIG. 3 , metadata  308  includes an alphanumeric string encoded as Extensible Metadata Platform (XMP) metadata in a Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) image file. 
     Also or alternatively, first content  300  can include contextual information such as a location from which first content  300  was posted. By way of example, location services such as Near Field Communications (NFC) or iBeacons® can be used to determine the location of a user&#39;s computing device when post  200  is sent from the computing device at  104 . A map system such as Google Maps® can then be used to determine that post  200  was sent from Orlando&#39;s Restaurant in the Forest of Arden. Information identifying that post  200  was sent from Orlando&#39;s Restaurant can then be included in first content  300 . 
     Alternatively, at  108 , metadata can be identified as being embedded in content  300 . By way of example, metadata  308  may have already been embedded in post  200  by an employee of Orlando&#39;s before post  200  is received by a server. In this scenario, since metadata  308  has already been embedded in post  200  at the time that post  200  is received by a server, metadata  308  can be identified in the content of post  200 . 
     The dotted line surrounding metadata  308  in  FIG. 3  would not appear in the user interface when content  300  is rendered on a display device. Rather, the dotted line illustrates that metadata  308  would be obscured when rendered on a display device. Such image-obscuring can be accomplished in a number of fashions. For example, an image can be formatted to be the same color or pattern as the background of a region of a user interface in which content  300  is displayed. In  FIG. 3 , both the background of post  200  and the image containing metadata  308  are white. Also or alternatively, an image can be obscured if the image is so small that it is invisible to a human user when rendered on a computing device. For example, a healthy human eye cannot generally resolve images with a width less than approximately 0.05 mm at a distance of 15 cm, whereas the width of a pixel on a 640 dots per inch (DPI) display is approximately 0.04 mm. 
     Embedded metadata  308  can contain a wide variety of information including a brand identifier  310  for Orlando&#39;s Restaurant. Several other non-limiting examples of information that might be contained in metadata  308  are described below. For instance, embedded metadata  308  might include a reference to content  300 , post  200 , or both. In some scenarios, such as when a communication is part of a conversation in a feed, embedded metadata  308  could include a reference to the conversation. Additionally, in some situations, when for example a post is part of an ongoing editing process, embedded metadata  308  can include an identification of a version of the first content, a history of edits to the first content, or both. Also or alternatively, embedded metadata  308  can include programmable logic that identifies the first content and prevents it from being edited. 
     Returning to  FIG. 1 , at  112 , a second communication in the form of a post  208  shown in  FIG. 3  includes second content  312 . In this example, Oliver de Boys has copied content  300  into post  208  and submitted post  208  to a server to be published on one or more feeds, for instance, as a republication of post  208 . In  FIG. 2 , when a server receives post  208 , the server can publish post  208  to a social network feed  204  or delay publishing post  208  until processing post  208  to interpret metadata  308  embedded in post  208 , as further described below. 
     In some implementations, content  312  of post  208  includes an edited version  316  of content  300  of post  200 . In the example of  FIG. 3 , content of a post such as post  200  can be easily edited by Oliver before being republished in response to Oliver clicking or tapping republish button  320 . That is, the republish button  320  enables an editable version of content  300  to be displayed for a user to modify content  300  before it is published to a feed. By the same token, because content  312  was originally generated to include content  300 , content  312  also contains embedded metadata  308 . 
     Returning to  FIG. 1 , at  116 , embedded metadata  308  in content  312  of post  208  is interpreted. In some implementations, embedded metadata  308  might be encoded, and interpreting the embedded metadata  308  could include decoding the metadata. For example, when content  312  is rendered, embedded metadata  308  can be decoded by way of a hexadecimal algorithm provided at a server of the social networking system. In some implementations, the encoding and decoding process could be dynamic with a continuously changing hexadecimal algorithm. Alternatively, the algorithm can remain constant. 
     One skilled in the art will appreciate that existing techniques, such as public key cryptography, could serve as or be combined with some of the disclosed encoding/decoding techniques for extra security. For example, a public key to decode embedded metadata  308  could be provided to social networking users, while a private key to encode metadata  308  could be provided exclusively to a business, such as Orlando&#39;s Restaurant. Thus, any social networking user could view content posted by Orlando&#39;s Restaurant, but only Orlando&#39;s Restaurant would be able to generate official and original content containing metadata  308 . 
     Returning to  FIG. 1 , at  120 , it is determined that the interpreted metadata identifies content  300  as being attributed to brand  304 . For example, metadata  308  contains a brand identifier  310  for Orlando&#39;s Restaurant as mentioned above. Therefore, by comparing brand identifier  310  with a list of brand identifiers maintained in a database, first content  300  can be linked with Orlando&#39;s Restaurant. 
     In  FIG. 1 , at  124 , second content  312  is compared with first content  300 , using standard text comparison techniques, to determine that content  312  is different from content  300 . In the example of  FIG. 3 , when comparing content  312  with content  300 , any differences between the content can be identified. For example, textual information  324  of content  312  not included in content  300  can be identified. In this example, Oliver edited content  300  by clicking or tapping republish button  320  to add data  324 , namely “*Our ranch dressing contains rendered pork lard.” Oliver also edited content  300  to replace “lunch”  328  with the word “dinner”  324 . Also or alternatively, a tool such as WordNet® can be used to determine whether content  300  and content  312  have similar meanings even if content  300  and content  312  are phrased differently. 
     In  FIG. 1 , at  128 , when any differences are detected at  124 , data is generated indicating that content  312  is different from content  300 . In some implementations, such data can be stored in a database. For example, as part of the “all the world is a stage” marketing campaign described above, marketing manager Audrey might post an advertisement for the “all the world is a stage” campaign on her theater company&#39;s feed in a social networking platform. The advertisement might contain embedded metadata identifying the “all the world is a stage” campaign. Audrey can then send a request for data from her computing device to a server of the social networking platform. Any social network communications containing the embedded metadata identifying the “all the world is a stage” campaign can be identified, no matter how the phrasing of each communications varies. Information identifying these social network communications can be sent to Audrey&#39;s computing device. Audrey can then see how often and in what context the advertisement has been reposted and she can determine whether the “all the world is a stage” campaign has been successful. She can examine granular details surrounding different components of the campaign, tracking the flow of her advertisements through social media. For instance, differently phrased posts that relate to the “all the world is a stage” campaign can each contain embedded metadata identifying the campaign. Thus, Audrey can make minor changes and add nuances to social media advertisements for the campaign and track the effectiveness of each change. 
     Data generated at  128  of  FIG. 1  could also be used in a variety of manners to protect content  300 .  FIG. 4A  shows a presentation of a social networking post including edited content as displayed on a computing device, in accordance with some implementations. In the example of  FIG. 4A , once the data generated at  108  of  FIG. 1  is sent to a user&#39;s device, the device can process the generated data to display a presentation  400  indicating that second content  312  is different from first content  300 . While the precise contours of presentation  400  can vary across implementations, in one example presentation  400  includes a textual warning  404 , namely “!!!WARNING THE FOLLOWING CONTENT HAS BEEN EDITED!!!” indicating that first content  300  and second content  312  are different. Also or alternatively, presentation  400  can include a graphic  408  in the form of a large “X” across the edited content indicating that the content is suspect. 
     In some implementations, in response to detecting any modifications to brand-associated content or even a keystroke in which a user attempts to modify content, a user can be prevented from publishing any such modified content. For example,  FIG. 4B  shows a presentation of an error message as displayed on a computing device, in accordance with some implementations. In this example, embedded metadata  308  includes programmable logic that identifies first content  300  and prevents it from being edited. If an authoring engine has the ability to detect when a key stroke is pressed, a trigger can fire when a keystroke has been pressed to prevent first content  300  from being edited. Otherwise, any number of changes accepted by the authoring system can be parsed and compared to the source text of first content  300 . In this scenario, error message  412  might be rendered on a user device if the user attempts to publish an edited version of content  300 . 
     In some other implementations, the disclosed techniques can be used to trigger an offer or coupon for a wide variety of products or services. By way of example, Aliena is an avid Ganymede Cola drinker and a loyal Ganymede customer. Metadata embedded in Ganymede&#39;s social networking posts contains a brand identifier as well as an offer or coupon such that the offer coupon is generated for a user who shares or republishes content including the embedded metadata. If Aliena reposts or shares a Ganymede advertisement containing such metadata, an electronic offer or coupon can be emailed to Aliena&#39;s email account. This may incentivize users to share content and increase brand exposure for Ganymede Cola. 
     Systems, apparatus, and methods are described below for implementing database systems and enterprise level social and business information networking systems in conjunction with the disclosed techniques. Such implementations can provide more efficient use of a database system. For instance, a user of a database system may not easily know when important information in the database has changed, e.g., about a project or client. Such implementations can provide feed tracked updates about such changes and other events, thereby keeping users informed. 
     By way of example, a user can update a record in the form of a CRM object, e.g., an opportunity such as a possible sale of 1000 computers. Once the record update has been made, a feed tracked update about the record update can then automatically be provided, e.g., in a feed, to anyone subscribing to the opportunity or to the user. Thus, the user does not need to contact a manager regarding the change in the opportunity, since the feed tracked update about the update is sent via a feed to the manager&#39;s feed page or other page. 
       FIG. 5A  shows a block diagram of an example of an environment  10  in which an on-demand database service exists and can be used in accordance with some implementations. Environment  10  may include user systems  12 , network  14 , database system  16 , processor system  17 , application platform  18 , network interface  20 , tenant data storage  22 , system data storage  24 , program code  26 , and process space  28 . In other implementations, environment  10  may not have all of these components and/or may have other components instead of, or in addition to, those listed above. 
     A user system  12  may be implemented as any computing device(s) or other data processing apparatus such as a machine or system used by a user to access a database system  16 . For example, any of user systems  12  can be a handheld and/or portable computing device such as a mobile phone, a smartphone, a laptop computer, or a tablet. Other examples of a user system include computing devices such as a work station and/or a network of computing devices. As illustrated in  FIG. 5A  (and in more detail in  FIG. 5B ) user systems  12  might interact via a network  14  with an on-demand database service, which is implemented in the example of  FIG. 5A  as database system  16 . 
     An on-demand database service, implemented using system  16  by way of example, is a service that is made available to users who do not need to necessarily be concerned with building and/or maintaining the database system. Instead, the database system may be available for their use when the users need the database system, i.e., on the demand of the users. Some on-demand database services may store information from one or more tenants into tables of a common database image to form a multi-tenant database system (MTS). A database image may include one or more database objects. A relational database management system (RDBMS) or the equivalent may execute storage and retrieval of information against the database object(s). Application platform  18  may be a framework that allows the applications of system  16  to run, such as the hardware and/or software, e.g., the operating system. In some implementations, application platform  18  enables creation, managing and executing one or more applications developed by the provider of the on-demand database service, users accessing the on-demand database service via user systems  12 , or third party application developers accessing the on-demand database service via user systems  12 . 
     The users of user systems  12  may differ in their respective capacities, and the capacity of a particular user system  12  might be entirely determined by permissions (permission levels) for the current user. For example, when a salesperson is using a particular user system  12  to interact with system  16 , the user system has the capacities allotted to that salesperson. However, while an administrator is using that user system to interact with system  16 , that user system has the capacities allotted to that administrator. In systems with a hierarchical role model, users at one permission level may have access to applications, data, and database information accessible by a lower permission level user, but may not have access to certain applications, database information, and data accessible by a user at a higher permission level. Thus, different users will have different capabilities with regard to accessing and modifying application and database information, depending on a user&#39;s security or permission level, also called authorization. 
     Network  14  is any network or combination of networks of devices that communicate with one another. For example, network  14  can be any one or any combination of a LAN (local area network), WAN (wide area network), telephone network, wireless network, point-to-point network, star network, token ring network, hub network, or other appropriate configuration. Network  14  can include a TCP/IP (Transfer Control Protocol and Internet Protocol) network, such as the global internetwork of networks often referred to as the Internet. The Internet will be used in many of the examples herein. However, it should be understood that the networks that the present implementations might use are not so limited. 
     User systems  12  might communicate with system  16  using TCP/IP and, at a higher network level, use other common Internet protocols to communicate, such as HTTP, FTP, AFS, WAP, etc. In an example where HTTP is used, user system  12  might include an HTTP client commonly referred to as a “browser” for sending and receiving HTTP signals to and from an HTTP server at system  16 . Such an HTTP server might be implemented as the sole network interface  20  between system  16  and network  14 , but other techniques might be used as well or instead. In some implementations, the network interface  20  between system  16  and network  14  includes load sharing functionality, such as round-robin HTTP request distributors to balance loads and distribute incoming HTTP requests evenly over a plurality of servers. At least for users accessing system  16 , each of the plurality of servers has access to the MTS&#39; data; however, other alternative configurations may be used instead. 
     In one implementation, system  16 , shown in  FIG. 5A , implements a web-based CRM system. For example, in one implementation, system  16  includes application servers configured to implement and execute CRM software applications as well as provide related data, code, forms, web pages and other information to and from user systems  12  and to store to, and retrieve from, a database system related data, objects, and Webpage content. With a multi-tenant system, data for multiple tenants may be stored in the same physical database object in tenant data storage  22 , however, tenant data typically is arranged in the storage medium(s) of tenant data storage  22  so that data of one tenant is kept logically separate from that of other tenants so that one tenant does not have access to another tenant&#39;s data, unless such data is expressly shared. In certain implementations, system  16  implements applications other than, or in addition to, a CRM application. For example, system  16  may provide tenant access to multiple hosted (standard and custom) applications, including a CRM application. User (or third party developer) applications, which may or may not include CRM, may be supported by the application platform  18 , which manages creation, storage of the applications into one or more database objects and executing of the applications in a virtual machine in the process space of the system  16 . 
     One arrangement for elements of system  16  is shown in  FIGS. 8A and 8B , including a network interface  20 , application platform  18 , tenant data storage  22  for tenant data  23 , system data storage  24  for system data  25  accessible to system  16  and possibly multiple tenants, program code  26  for implementing various functions of system  16 , and a process space  28  for executing MTS system processes and tenant-specific processes, such as running applications as part of an application hosting service. Additional processes that may execute on system  16  include database indexing processes. 
     Several elements in the system shown in  FIG. 5A  include conventional, well-known elements that are explained only briefly here. For example, each user system  12  could include a desktop personal computer, workstation, laptop, PDA, cell phone, or any wireless access protocol (WAP) enabled device or any other computing device capable of interfacing directly or indirectly to the Internet or other network connection. The term “computing device” is also referred to herein simply as a “computer”. User system  12  typically runs an HTTP client, e.g., a browsing program, such as Microsoft&#39;s Internet Explorer browser, Netscape&#39;s Navigator browser, Opera&#39;s browser, or a WAP-enabled browser in the case of a cell phone, PDA or other wireless device, or the like, allowing a user (e.g., subscriber of the multi-tenant database system) of user system  12  to access, process and view information, pages and applications available to it from system  16  over network  14 . Each user system  12  also typically includes one or more user input devices, such as a keyboard, a mouse, trackball, touch pad, touch screen, pen or the like, for interacting with a GUI provided by the browser on a display (e.g., a monitor screen, LCD display, OLED display, etc.) of the computing device in conjunction with pages, forms, applications and other information provided by system  16  or other systems or servers. Thus, “display device” as used herein can refer to a display of a computer system such as a monitor or touch-screen display, and can refer to any computing device having display capabilities such as a desktop computer, laptop, tablet, smartphone, a television set-top box, or wearable device such Google Glass® or other human body-mounted display apparatus. For example, the display device can be used to access data and applications hosted by system  16 , and to perform searches on stored data, and otherwise allow a user to interact with various GUI pages that may be presented to a user. As discussed above, implementations are suitable for use with the Internet, although other networks can be used instead of or in addition to the Internet, such as an intranet, an extranet, a virtual private network (VPN), a non-TCP/IP based network, any LAN or WAN or the like. 
     According to one implementation, each user system  12  and all of its components are operator configurable using applications, such as a browser, including computer code run using a central processing unit such as an Intel Pentium® processor or the like. Similarly, system  16  (and additional instances of an MTS, where more than one is present) and all of its components might be operator configurable using application(s) including computer code to run using processor system  17 , which may be implemented to include a central processing unit, which may include an Intel Pentium® processor or the like, and/or multiple processor units. Non-transitory computer-readable media can have instructions stored thereon/in, that can be executed by or used to program a computing device to perform any of the methods of the implementations described herein. Computer program code  26  implementing instructions for operating and configuring system  16  to intercommunicate and to process web pages, applications and other data and media content as described herein is preferably downloadable and stored on a hard disk, but the entire program code, or portions thereof, may also be stored in any other volatile or non-volatile memory medium or device as is well known, such as a ROM or RAM, or provided on any media capable of storing program code, such as any type of rotating media including floppy disks, optical discs, digital versatile disk (DVD), compact disk (CD), microdrive, and magneto-optical disks, and magnetic or optical cards, nanosystems (including molecular memory ICs), or any other type of computer-readable medium or device suitable for storing instructions and/or data. Additionally, the entire program code, or portions thereof, may be transmitted and downloaded from a software source over a transmission medium, e.g., over the Internet, or from another server, as is well known, or transmitted over any other conventional network connection as is well known (e.g., extranet, VPN, LAN, etc.) using any communication medium and protocols (e.g., TCP/IP, HTTP, HTTPS, Ethernet, etc.) as are well known. It will also be appreciated that computer code for the disclosed implementations can be realized in any programming language that can be executed on a client system and/or server or server system such as, for example, C, C++, HTML, any other markup language, Java™, JavaScript, ActiveX, any other scripting language, such as VBScript, and many other programming languages as are well known may be used. (Java™ is a trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc.). 
     According to some implementations, each system  16  is configured to provide web pages, forms, applications, data and media content to user (client) systems  12  to support the access by user systems  12  as tenants of system  16 . As such, system  16  provides security mechanisms to keep each tenant&#39;s data separate unless the data is shared. If more than one MTS is used, they may be located in close proximity to one another (e.g., in a server farm located in a single building or campus), or they may be distributed at locations remote from one another (e.g., one or more servers located in city A and one or more servers located in city B). As used herein, each MTS could include one or more logically and/or physically connected servers distributed locally or across one or more geographic locations. Additionally, the term “server” is meant to refer to one type of computing device such as a system including processing hardware and process space(s), an associated storage medium such as a memory device or database, and, in some instances, a database application (e.g., OODBMS or RDBMS) as is well known in the art. It should also be understood that “server system” and “server” are often used interchangeably herein. Similarly, the database objects described herein can be implemented as single databases, a distributed database, a collection of distributed databases, a database with redundant online or offline backups or other redundancies, etc., and might include a distributed database or storage network and associated processing intelligence. 
       FIG. 5B  shows a block diagram of an example of some implementations of elements of  FIG. 5A  and various possible interconnections between these elements. That is,  FIG. 5B  also illustrates environment  10 . However, in  FIG. 5B  elements of system  16  and various interconnections in some implementations are further illustrated.  FIG. 5B  shows that user system  12  may include processor system  12 A, memory system  12 B, input system  12 C, and output system  12 D.  FIG. 5B  shows network  14  and system  16 .  FIG. 5B  also shows that system  16  may include tenant data storage  22 , tenant data  23 , system data storage  24 , system data  25 , User Interface (UI)  30 , Application Program Interface (API)  32 , PL/SOQL  34 , save routines  36 , application setup mechanism  38 , application servers  50   1 - 50   N , system process space  52 , tenant process spaces  54 , tenant management process space  60 , tenant storage space  62 , user storage  64 , and application metadata  66 . In other implementations, environment  10  may not have the same elements as those listed above and/or may have other elements instead of, or in addition to, those listed above. 
     User system  12 , network  14 , system  16 , tenant data storage  22 , and system data storage  24  were discussed above in  FIG. 5A . Regarding user system  12 , processor system  12 A may be any combination of one or more processors. Memory system  12 B may be any combination of one or more memory devices, short term, and/or long term memory. Input system  12 C may be any combination of input devices, such as one or more keyboards, mice, trackballs, scanners, cameras, and/or interfaces to networks. Output system  12 D may be any combination of output devices, such as one or more monitors, printers, and/or interfaces to networks. As shown by  FIG. 5B , system  16  may include a network interface  20  (of  FIG. 5A ) implemented as a set of application servers  50 , an application platform  18 , tenant data storage  22 , and system data storage  24 . Also shown is system process space  52 , including individual tenant process spaces  54  and a tenant management process space  60 . Each application server  50  may be configured to communicate with tenant data storage  22  and the tenant data  23  therein, and system data storage  24  and the system data  25  therein to serve requests of user systems  12 . The tenant data  23  might be divided into individual tenant storage spaces  62 , which can be either a physical arrangement and/or a logical arrangement of data. Within each tenant storage space  62 , user storage  64  and application metadata  66  might be similarly allocated for each user. For example, a copy of a user&#39;s most recently used (MRU) items might be stored to user storage  64 . Similarly, a copy of MRU items for an entire organization that is a tenant might be stored to tenant storage space  62 . A UI  30  provides a user interface and an API  32  provides an application programmer interface to system  16  resident processes to users and/or developers at user systems  12 . The tenant data and the system data may be stored in various databases, such as one or more Oracle® databases. 
     Application platform  18  includes an application setup mechanism  38  that supports application developers&#39; creation and management of applications, which may be saved as metadata into tenant data storage  22  by save routines  36  for execution by subscribers as one or more tenant process spaces  54  managed by tenant management process  60  for example. Invocations to such applications may be coded using PL/SOQL  34  that provides a programming language style interface extension to API  32 . A detailed description of some PL/SOQL language implementations is discussed in commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 7,730,478, titled METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR ALLOWING ACCESS TO DEVELOPED APPLICATIONS VIA A MULTI-TENANT ON-DEMAND DATABASE SERVICE, by Craig Weissman, issued on Jun. 1, 2010, and hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety and for all purposes. Invocations to applications may be detected by one or more system processes, which manage retrieving application metadata  66  for the subscriber making the invocation and executing the metadata as an application in a virtual machine. 
     Each application server  50  may be communicably coupled to database systems, e.g., having access to system data  25  and tenant data  23 , via a different network connection. For example, one application server  50   1  might be coupled via the network  14  (e.g., the Internet), another application server  50   N-1  might be coupled via a direct network link, and another application server  50   N  might be coupled by yet a different network connection. Transfer Control Protocol and Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) are typical protocols for communicating between application servers  50  and the database system. However, it will be apparent to one skilled in the art that other transport protocols may be used to optimize the system depending on the network interconnect used. 
     In certain implementations, each application server  50  is configured to handle requests for any user associated with any organization that is a tenant. Because it is desirable to be able to add and remove application servers from the server pool at any time for any reason, there is preferably no server affinity for a user and/or organization to a specific application server  50 . In one implementation, therefore, an interface system implementing a load balancing function (e.g., an F5 Big-IP load balancer) is communicably coupled between the application servers  50  and the user systems  12  to distribute requests to the application servers  50 . In one implementation, the load balancer uses a least connections algorithm to route user requests to the application servers  50 . Other examples of load balancing algorithms, such as round robin and observed response time, also can be used. For example, in certain implementations, three consecutive requests from the same user could hit three different application servers  50 , and three requests from different users could hit the same application server  50 . In this manner, by way of example, system  16  is multi-tenant, wherein system  16  handles storage of, and access to, different objects, data and applications across disparate users and organizations. 
     As an example of storage, one tenant might be a company that employs a sales force where each salesperson uses system  16  to manage their sales process. Thus, a user might maintain contact data, leads data, customer follow-up data, performance data, goals and progress data, etc., all applicable to that user&#39;s personal sales process (e.g., in tenant data storage  22 ). In an example of a MTS arrangement, since all of the data and the applications to access, view, modify, report, transmit, calculate, etc., can be maintained and accessed by a user system having nothing more than network access, the user can manage his or her sales efforts and cycles from any of many different user systems. For example, if a salesperson is visiting a customer and the customer has Internet access in their lobby, the salesperson can obtain critical updates as to that customer while waiting for the customer to arrive in the lobby. 
     While each user&#39;s data might be separate from other users&#39; data regardless of the employers of each user, some data might be organization-wide data shared or accessible by a plurality of users or all of the users for a given organization that is a tenant. Thus, there might be some data structures managed by system  16  that are allocated at the tenant level while other data structures might be managed at the user level. Because an MTS might support multiple tenants including possible competitors, the MTS should have security protocols that keep data, applications, and application use separate. Also, because many tenants may opt for access to an MTS rather than maintain their own system, redundancy, up-time, and backup are additional functions that may be implemented in the MTS. In addition to user-specific data and tenant-specific data, system  16  might also maintain system level data usable by multiple tenants or other data. Such system level data might include industry reports, news, postings, and the like that are sharable among tenants. 
     In certain implementations, user systems  12  (which may be client systems) communicate with application servers  50  to request and update system-level and tenant-level data from system  16  that may involve sending one or more queries to tenant data storage  22  and/or system data storage  24 . System  16  (e.g., an application server  50  in system  16 ) automatically generates one or more SQL statements (e.g., one or more SQL queries) that are designed to access the desired information. System data storage  24  may generate query plans to access the requested data from the database. 
     Each database can generally be viewed as a collection of objects, such as a set of logical tables, containing data fitted into predefined categories. A “table” is one representation of a data object, and may be used herein to simplify the conceptual description of objects and custom objects according to some implementations. It should be understood that “table” and “object” may be used interchangeably herein. Each table generally contains one or more data categories logically arranged as columns or fields in a viewable schema. Each row or record of a table contains an instance of data for each category defined by the fields. For example, a CRM database may include a table that describes a customer with fields for basic contact information such as name, address, phone number, fax number, etc. Another table might describe a purchase order, including fields for information such as customer, product, sale price, date, etc. In some multi-tenant database systems, standard entity tables might be provided for use by all tenants. For CRM database applications, such standard entities might include tables for case, account, contact, lead, and opportunity data objects, each containing pre-defined fields. It should be understood that the word “entity” may also be used interchangeably herein with “object” and “table”. 
     In some multi-tenant database systems, tenants may be allowed to create and store custom objects, or they may be allowed to customize standard entities or objects, for example by creating custom fields for standard objects, including custom index fields. Commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 7,779,039, titled CUSTOM ENTITIES AND FIELDS IN A MULTI-TENANT DATABASE SYSTEM, by Weissman et al., issued on Aug. 17, 2010, and hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety and for all purposes, teaches systems and methods for creating custom objects as well as customizing standard objects in a multi-tenant database system. In certain implementations, for example, all custom entity data rows are stored in a single multi-tenant physical table, which may contain multiple logical tables per organization. It is transparent to customers that their multiple “tables” are in fact stored in one large table or that their data may be stored in the same table as the data of other customers. 
       FIG. 6A  shows a system diagram of an example of architectural components of an on-demand database service environment  900 , in accordance with some implementations. A client machine located in the cloud  904 , generally referring to one or more networks in combination, as described herein, may communicate with the on-demand database service environment via one or more edge routers  908  and  912 . A client machine can be any of the examples of user systems  12  described above. The edge routers may communicate with one or more core switches  920  and  924  via firewall  916 . The core switches may communicate with a load balancer  928 , which may distribute server load over different pods, such as the pods  940  and  944 . The pods  940  and  944 , which may each include one or more servers and/or other computing resources, may perform data processing and other operations used to provide on-demand services. Communication with the pods may be conducted via pod switches  932  and  936 . Components of the on-demand database service environment may communicate with a database storage  956  via a database firewall  948  and a database switch  952 . 
     As shown in  FIGS. 6A and 6B , accessing an on-demand database service environment may involve communications transmitted among a variety of different hardware and/or software components. Further, the on-demand database service environment  900  is a simplified representation of an actual on-demand database service environment. For example, while only one or two devices of each type are shown in  FIGS. 6A and 6B , some implementations of an on-demand database service environment may include anywhere from one to many devices of each type. Also, the on-demand database service environment need not include each device shown in  FIGS. 6A and 6B , or may include additional devices not shown in  FIGS. 6A and 6B . 
     Moreover, one or more of the devices in the on-demand database service environment  900  may be implemented on the same physical device or on different hardware. Some devices may be implemented using hardware or a combination of hardware and software. Thus, terms such as “data processing apparatus,” “machine,” “server” and “device” as used herein are not limited to a single hardware device, but rather include any hardware and software configured to provide the described functionality. 
     The cloud  904  is intended to refer to a data network or combination of data networks, often including the Internet. Client machines located in the cloud  904  may communicate with the on-demand database service environment to access services provided by the on-demand database service environment. For example, client machines may access the on-demand database service environment to retrieve, store, edit, and/or process information. 
     In some implementations, the edge routers  908  and  912  route packets between the cloud  904  and other components of the on-demand database service environment  900 . The edge routers  908  and  912  may employ the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). The BGP is the core routing protocol of the Internet. The edge routers  908  and  912  may maintain a table of IP networks or ‘prefixes’, which designate network reachability among autonomous systems on the Internet. 
     In one or more implementations, the firewall  916  may protect the inner components of the on-demand database service environment  900  from Internet traffic. The firewall  916  may block, permit, or deny access to the inner components of the on-demand database service environment  900  based upon a set of rules and other criteria. The firewall  916  may act as one or more of a packet filter, an application gateway, a stateful filter, a proxy server, or any other type of firewall. 
     In some implementations, the core switches  920  and  924  are high-capacity switches that transfer packets within the on-demand database service environment  900 . The core switches  920  and  924  may be configured as network bridges that quickly route data between different components within the on-demand database service environment. In some implementations, the use of two or more core switches  920  and  924  may provide redundancy and/or reduced latency. 
     In some implementations, the pods  940  and  944  may perform the core data processing and service functions provided by the on-demand database service environment. Each pod may include various types of hardware and/or software computing resources. An example of the pod architecture is discussed in greater detail with reference to  FIG. 6B . 
     In some implementations, communication between the pods  940  and  944  may be conducted via the pod switches  932  and  936 . The pod switches  932  and  936  may facilitate communication between the pods  940  and  944  and client machines located in the cloud  904 , for example via core switches  920  and  924 . Also, the pod switches  932  and  936  may facilitate communication between the pods  940  and  944  and the database storage  956 . 
     In some implementations, the load balancer  928  may distribute workload between the pods  940  and  944 . Balancing the on-demand service requests between the pods may assist in improving the use of resources, increasing throughput, reducing response times, and/or reducing overhead. The load balancer  928  may include multilayer switches to analyze and forward traffic. 
     In some implementations, access to the database storage  956  may be guarded by a database firewall  948 . The database firewall  948  may act as a computer application firewall operating at the database application layer of a protocol stack. The database firewall  948  may protect the database storage  956  from application attacks such as structure query language (SQL) injection, database rootkits, and unauthorized information disclosure. 
     In some implementations, the database firewall  948  may include a host using one or more forms of reverse proxy services to proxy traffic before passing it to a gateway router. The database firewall  948  may inspect the contents of database traffic and block certain content or database requests. The database firewall  948  may work on the SQL application level atop the TCP/IP stack, managing applications&#39; connection to the database or SQL management interfaces as well as intercepting and enforcing packets traveling to or from a database network or application interface. 
     In some implementations, communication with the database storage  956  may be conducted via the database switch  952 . The multi-tenant database storage  956  may include more than one hardware and/or software components for handling database queries. Accordingly, the database switch  952  may direct database queries transmitted by other components of the on-demand database service environment (e.g., the pods  940  and  944 ) to the correct components within the database storage  956 . 
     In some implementations, the database storage  956  is an on-demand database system shared by many different organizations. The on-demand database service may employ a multi-tenant approach, a virtualized approach, or any other type of database approach. On-demand database services are discussed in greater detail with reference to  FIGS. 8A and 8B . 
       FIG. 6B  shows a system diagram further illustrating an example of architectural components of an on-demand database service environment, in accordance with some implementations. The pod  944  may be used to render services to a user of the on-demand database service environment  900 . In some implementations, each pod may include a variety of servers and/or other systems. The pod  944  includes one or more content batch servers  964 , content search servers  968 , query servers  982 , file servers  986 , access control system (ACS) servers  980 , batch servers  984 , and app servers  988 . Also, the pod  944  includes database instances  990 , quick file systems (QFS)  992 , and indexers  994 . In one or more implementations, some or all communication between the servers in the pod  944  may be transmitted via the switch  936 . 
     In some implementations, the app servers  988  may include a hardware and/or software framework dedicated to the execution of procedures (e.g., programs, routines, scripts) for supporting the construction of applications provided by the on-demand database service environment  900  via the pod  944 . In some implementations, the hardware and/or software framework of an app server  988  is configured to execute operations of the services described herein, including performance of one or more of the operations of methods described herein with reference to  FIGS. 1-4B . In alternative implementations, two or more app servers  988  may be included to perform such methods, or one or more other servers described herein can be configured to perform part or all of the disclosed methods. 
     The content batch servers  964  may handle requests internal to the pod. These requests may be long-running and/or not tied to a particular customer. For example, the content batch servers  964  may handle requests related to log mining, cleanup work, and maintenance tasks. 
     The content search servers  968  may provide query and indexer functions. For example, the functions provided by the content search servers  968  may allow users to search through content stored in the on-demand database service environment. 
     The file servers  986  may manage requests for information stored in the file storage  998 . The file storage  998  may store information such as documents, images, and basic large objects (BLOBs). By managing requests for information using the file servers  986 , the image footprint on the database may be reduced. 
     The query servers  982  may be used to retrieve information from one or more file systems. For example, the query system  982  may receive requests for information from the app servers  988  and then transmit information queries to the NFS  996  located outside the pod. 
     The pod  944  may share a database instance  990  configured as a multi-tenant environment in which different organizations share access to the same database. Additionally, services rendered by the pod  944  may call upon various hardware and/or software resources. In some implementations, the ACS servers  980  may control access to data, hardware resources, or software resources. 
     In some implementations, the batch servers  984  may process batch jobs, which are used to run tasks at specified times. Thus, the batch servers  984  may transmit instructions to other servers, such as the app servers  988 , to trigger the batch jobs. 
     In some implementations, the QFS  992  may be an open source file system available from Sun Microsystems® of Santa Clara, Calif. The QFS may serve as a rapid-access file system for storing and accessing information available within the pod  944 . The QFS  992  may support some volume management capabilities, allowing many disks to be grouped together into a file system. File system metadata can be kept on a separate set of disks, which may be useful for streaming applications where long disk seeks cannot be tolerated. Thus, the QFS system may communicate with one or more content search servers  968  and/or indexers  994  to identify, retrieve, move, and/or update data stored in the network file systems  996  and/or other storage systems. 
     In some implementations, one or more query servers  982  may communicate with the NFS  996  to retrieve and/or update information stored outside of the pod  944 . The NFS  996  may allow servers located in the pod  944  to access information to access files over a network in a manner similar to how local storage is accessed. 
     In some implementations, queries from the query servers  922  may be transmitted to the NFS  996  via the load balancer  928 , which may distribute resource requests over various resources available in the on-demand database service environment. The NFS  996  may also communicate with the QFS  992  to update the information stored on the NFS  996  and/or to provide information to the QFS  992  for use by servers located within the pod  944 . 
     In some implementations, the pod may include one or more database instances  990 . The database instance  990  may transmit information to the QFS  992 . When information is transmitted to the QFS, it may be available for use by servers within the pod  944  without using an additional database call. 
     In some implementations, database information may be transmitted to the indexer  994 . Indexer  994  may provide an index of information available in the database  990  and/or QFS  992 . The index information may be provided to file servers  986  and/or the QFS  992 . 
     While some of the disclosed implementations may be described with reference to a system having an application server providing a front end for an on-demand database service capable of supporting multiple tenants, the disclosed implementations are not limited to multi-tenant databases nor deployment on application servers. Some implementations may be practiced using various database architectures such as ORACLE®, DB2® by IBM and the like without departing from the scope of the implementations claimed. 
     It should be understood that some of the disclosed implementations can be embodied in the form of control logic using hardware and/or computer software in a modular or integrated manner. Other ways and/or methods are possible using hardware and a combination of hardware and software. 
     Any of the disclosed implementations may be embodied in various types of hardware, software, firmware, and combinations thereof. For example, some techniques disclosed herein may be implemented, at least in part, by computer-readable media that include program instructions, state information, etc., for performing various services and operations described herein. Examples of program instructions include both machine code, such as produced by a compiler, and files containing higher-level code that may be executed by a computing device such as a server or other data processing apparatus using an interpreter. Examples of computer-readable media include, but are not limited to: magnetic media such as hard disks, floppy disks, and magnetic tape; optical media such as flash memory, compact disk (CD) or digital versatile disk (DVD); magneto-optical media; and hardware devices specially configured to store program instructions, such as read-only memory (“ROM”) devices and random access memory (“RAM”) devices. A computer-readable medium may be any combination of such storage devices. 
     Any of the operations and techniques described in this application may be implemented as software code to be executed by a processor using any suitable computer language such as, for example, Java, C++ or Perl using, for example, object-oriented techniques. The software code may be stored as a series of instructions or commands on a computer-readable medium. Computer-readable media encoded with the software/program code may be packaged with a compatible device or provided separately from other devices (e.g., via Internet download). Any such computer-readable medium may reside on or within a single computing device or an entire computer system, and may be among other computer-readable media within a system or network. A computer system or computing device may include a monitor, printer, or other suitable display for providing any of the results mentioned herein to a user. 
     While various implementations have been described herein, it should be understood that they have been presented by way of example only, and not limitation. Thus, the breadth and scope of the present application should not be limited by any of the implementations described herein, but should be defined only in accordance with the following and later-submitted claims and their equivalents.