Patent ID: 8260882

Claim:
A method performed by a network device for sharing information over a network, comprising: receiving a request to share content; enabling, sharing over the network, of the content between an originating sharing member and a plurality of members of a social network by forwarding a sharing message from a client device associated with the originating sharing member to another client device associated with at least one of a receiving member of the plurality of members of the social network; determining whether the content is a multimedia object; employing at least the determination that the content is the multimedia object to retrieve a relevance measure based on an identity of the multimedia object; and employing at least the determination that the content is the multimedia object to provide a combination relevance measure that is a combination of the relevance measure and an updated hop distance for the shared multimedia object in real-time, the updated hop distance indicating a level of interest in the shared multimedia object by the plurality of members of the social network; wherein the updated hop distance is based in part on a number of client devices in a sequence of client devices for which the sharing message is forwarded beyond a client device receiving the sharing message from an originating sharing member.