Patent ID: 8583634

Claim:
A method of determining social rank, relevance and attention comprising: determining a plurality of persons who communicate with a user; determining a Communications Rank (CommRank) for each of two or more persons in the determined plurality of persons, each determined CommRank taking into account a damping factor of prestige of persons who communicate with the user, a total number of persons communicating with the user, a rank of a collection of linked communications to and from the user, and a proportional distribution of prestige between the user and the collection of linked communications to and from the user, wherein a CommRank is determined in accordance with the formula: CRw ( ui )=(1− d )/ N+d* SUM CRw ( uj )× p ( uj, ui ), wherein ui=a recipient user, uj=a collection of linked communications to and from persons for ui, d=a damping factor of prestige linked people, N=a total number of people communicated with (to and from), and p=a proportional distribution of prestige between uj and ui; prioritizing a plurality of incoming communications originated by the two or more persons according to determined CommRanks for the two or more persons; and selecting an optimum communication mode to communicate with a person originating an incoming communication, in the plurality of incoming communications, based on a determined CommRank for the person.