Patent ID: 8650198

Claim:
A system for use in determining an influence of sentiment of an author of a post in an online information flow network on the posts of one or more other authors in the network, the system comprising: a processor; and a memory logically connected to the processor and comprising a set of computer readable instructions executable by the processor to: receive information related to a plurality of online posts, wherein each of the online posts is associated with at least one author; obtain, from the information, a listing of online posts that refer to one or more other online posts, wherein any online post that refers to another online post comprises a “secondary post” and wherein any online post that is referred to by another online post comprises a “primary post”; build an information flow network that includes a plurality of information flow links that connect and represent information flows from primary posts to secondary posts; first determine a sentiment of each of a primary post and one or more secondary posts of the primary post; second determine a sentiment influence of the at least one author of the primary post in the information flow network using the sentiment of the primary post and the sentiments of the one or more secondary posts by: determining a first average sentiment of the one or more secondary posts; determining a second average sentiment of other posts in the information flow network initiated by the at least one author of the primary post; and determining a quotient of the first average sentiment and the second average sentiment to obtain the sentiment influence of the at least one author of the primary post in the information flow network; and present, on a display, a graphical representation of the sentiment influence of the at least one author of the primary post in the information flow network.