Patent ID: 8489596

Claim:
A method of profiling a user of a mobile computing device, the method comprising: obtaining a location history of a user, the location history being based on signals from a mobile computing device of the user; obtaining a location-attribute score of a location identified in, or inferred from, the location history; determining, with a computer, a user-attribute score based on the location-attribute score; storing the user-attribute score in a user-profile datastore; and wherein, obtaining a location history of a user comprises: obtaining a plurality of pairs of geolocations and times at which the user was at the geolocation, the geolocation being determined based on a wireless environment of a hand-held computing device; obtaining a location-attribute score of a location comprises: mapping a location in the location history to a tile in a geographic information system (GIS), the tile being a quantization of a geographic area described by the GIS and including the location; and retrieving a list of tile-attribute scores for the tile from the GIS, the tile-attribute scores each describing a potential activity of a user while in the tile and a statistical likelihood that a user is engaging in the activity based on behavior of other users while in the tile; determining a user-attribute score comprises: for each tile-attribute score in the list of retrieved attribute scores, updating an average of scores for the respective attribute for the user based on scores of tiles corresponding to previous locations of the user; and storing the user-attribute score comprises: storing the updated averages for each attribute in a profile of the user in the user-profile datastore, wherein the user-profile datastore is operative to receive a request for attributes of a user from an advertiser, retrieve attributes of the user from a responsive user profile, and identify attributes of the responsive user to the advertiser to assist the advertiser with the selection of advertisements for the responsive user.