Patent ID: 8244848

Claim:
A system comprising: one or more computing systems that collectively implement a social networking environment, the one or more computing systems being operable to access one or more data stores storing information comprising: a plurality of nodes including: a first set of user nodes that each correspond to a respective user of the social networking environment; and a second set of concept nodes that each correspond to a respective concept; and a plurality of edges that each define a connection between a corresponding pair of nodes from the plurality of nodes, each of the plurality of edges being of one of one or more edge types, the plurality of edge types including: a first set of edges, each edge from the first set of edges defining a connection between a corresponding pair of user nodes from the first set of user nodes and representing a social relationship between the users corresponding to the respective pair of user nodes; a second set of edges, each edge from the second set of edges defining a connection between a user node from the first set of user nodes and a concept node from the second set of concept nodes and representing an interest of the user of the respective user node with respect to the corresponding concept node; and a third set of edges, each edge from the third set of edges defining a connection between a pair of concept nodes from the second set of concept nodes and representing a conceptual, informational, or categorical relationship between the concepts corresponding to the respective pair of concept nodes.