Patent ID: 7644088

Claim:
A method of providing information items, the method comprising: providing a plurality of entities, each entity having a entity type; providing a plurality of relationships among the entities, each relationship of the plurality of relationships having a relationship type and a relationship direction; constructing an entity-relationship network comprising the entities and the relationships; receiving a plurality of information items; facilitating association of each information item with at least one corresponding entity; receiving, by a computer, a request for information items associated with a selected one of the plurality of entities, the request including a first degree of separation and a maximum degree of separation; identifying a first subset of the plurality of entities by traversing the entity-relationship network by (i) starting at the selected entity and following relationships associated therewith to identify entities having a direct relationship with the selected entity, (ii) following relationships associated with entities having a direct relationship with the selected entity to identify additional entities having an indirect relationship with the selected entity, and (iii) repeating step (ii) by replacing the entities having a direct relationship with the selected entity with entities having an indirect relationship with the selected entity, until the first degree of separation from the selected entity is reached, thereby determining the first subset based on the selected entity and the relationship types and relationship directions of the entity-relationship network; identifying a second subset of the plurality of entities by traversing the entity-relationship network by (x) starting at the first subset of the plurality of entities and following relationships associated therewith having a minimum strength indicator to identify entities having a direct relationship of a specified strength with each of the entities in the first subset of the plurality of entities, (y) following the relationships associated with the entities having a direct relationship of a specified strength with the entities of the first subset to identify additional entities having an indirect relationship with the selected entity, and (z) repeating step (y) by replacing the entities of the first subset with entities having an indirect relationship of a specified strength with the selected entity, until the maximum degree of separation from the selected entity is reached, thereby determining the second subset based on the selected entity, the relationship types, the relationship directions and the relationship strengths of the entity-relationship network; and providing the information items associated with both the first and second subsets of the plurality of entities.