Patent ID: 8560678

Claim:
A computer-implemented method comprising: maintaining connections between users of a social networking system; identifying a second user that is connected to a first user in the social networking system; identifying an interest common to both the first user and the second user; calculating a relevance score for a third-party content object associated with the common interest, the relevance score describing a measure of likelihood that the first user is interested in the third-party content object associated with the common interest; determining a type of separation between the first user and the second user in the social networking system, the type of separation describing a category of relationship between the first user and the second user represented in the social networking system; calculating a weight to apply to the relevance score for the third-party content object based at least in part on the type of separation between the first user and the second user in the social networking system; applying the calculated weight to the relevance score for the third-party content object; and providing the third-party content object to a user device of the first user based at least in part on the weighted relevance score for the third-party content object.