Patent ID: 8296660

Claim:
A method for personalizing content for a particular user, in a computer system comprising a user interface configured to display content items, the method comprising: identifying, in the computer system one or more features of a short term profile of a user that are not included in a long term profile of the user, the long term profile of the user being based on a first, longer history of user inputs received from the user via a social network over a plurality of social networking sessions, the short term profile of the user being based on a second, shorter history of user input received from the user via the social network during a single social networking session; using the one or more features of the user's short term profile to identify a third party profile having features that match the one or more features of the user's short term profile, the third party profile being a long term profile based on a history of user inputs received from a third party via the social network over a plurality of social networking sessions; determining whether the third party is logged in to the social network; enabling the user to communicate with the third party if the third party is logged in to the social network; accessing the identified third party profile; and providing one or more content items included in the third party profile to the user, the one or more content items having associated features that match the one or more features of the user's short term profile.