Patent ID: 8739016

Claim:
A method comprising: crawling a network of unstructured information data sources by a system to obtain crawled information; filtering the crawled information according to an ontology data model to create ontology data structures; storing the ontology data structures on a server; providing a social graph, wherein the social graph comprises: a plurality of nodes of a first type, referred to as system-provided nodes, wherein each system-provided node represents an entity and includes the crawled information gathered by the system from the crawling the network of unstructured information data sources by the system; a plurality of nodes of a second type, different from the first type of node and referred to as ghost nodes, wherein each ghost node represents an entity created for a user and includes user information specified by the user of the system; a plurality of edges of a first type, referred to as system-provided edges, wherein each system-provided edge represents a relationship between two different system-provided nodes of the social graph and includes a relationship type determined by the system from the crawled information; and a plurality of edges of a second type, different from the first type of edge and referred to as ghost edges, wherein each ghost edge represents a relationship between a system-provided node and ghost node of the social graph, and information on the relationship is specified by a user of the system; in the social graph, providing a first system-provided node and a second system-provided node; altering the social graph based on the ontology data structures comprising creating a first system-provided edge coupling the first system-provided node to the second system-provided node to represent a relationship specified by a first ontology data structure of the ontology data structures; and providing a graphical user interface through which users, each being represented by a ghost node in the social graph, can access the first and second system-provided nodes in the social graph along with a visual indication of the relationship specified by the first ontology data structure.