Patent ID: 8666989

Claim:
A method of efficiently determining the number of local content items near a geographic location, the method comprising: defining a bounding region around the geographic location; selecting, from a distributed indexed table, one or more discrete local areas at least partially included in the bounding region, where said local areas are selected based on their associated index values; and where the associated index values for physically close local areas are numerically close so that a continuous set of index values in the distributed indexed table is stored on a particular device included distributed storage system; building a data summary for the identified discrete local areas, said building including creating, in a memory portion of the particular device, an array-type data structure having at least two array cells and an membership test condition for each cell, where each array cell is associated with a particular number or numerical range of content items; testing, with at least one processor, the associated index value of each selected discrete local area against each membership test condition to determine a number of content items in the discrete local area; and placing the associated index value of a particular selected local area into a particular array cell responsive to an indication during said testing that the particular selected local area meets the criteria of the membership test condition associated with that array cell, said adding being performed with said processor; where the data summary is represented by the cells of the array-type data structure after said testing; and using the data summary instead of a database query to provide a content server with information about numbers of content items in one or more portions of the bounding region.