Patent ID: 8091032

Claim:
A method of providing recommendations for content to a user of a social network service, said method comprising: monitoring activity by other users within one of more social networks to which the user belongs by obtaining data received by the user from one or more websites associated with the one or more social networks; determining a plurality of content items associated with the activity by the other users; assigning weights to the plurality of content items, wherein content items associated with users closely associated with the user in the one or more social networks are accorded greater weight than content items associated with users less closely associated with the user in the one or more social networks, and wherein a proximity of association between two users in the one or more social networks is determined, at least in part, based on a history of content sharing activity between the two users; filtering the plurality of content items based on the weights assigned to the plurality of content items; selecting at least one content item for recommendation from among the plurality of content items based on the filtering; and providing at least one recommendation to the user related to the content item selected for recommendation.