Patent Document ID: 9984155
Application ID: 13490779

Base Claim:
1. A computer-implemented method executed using one or more processors, the method comprising: receiving a search query from a searching user; identifying a plurality of items of digital content distributed using one or more social networking services, each item in the plurality of items being responsive to the search query; providing a set of items from the plurality of items to be displayed as social search results based on respective item scores, each item score being specific to a respective item and the searching user, and exceeding a threshold item score; and determining that one or more terms provided in the search query is an active keyword, wherein an active keyword is a keyword that has increased in popularity over a pre-defined time period, and, in response: determining, from the set of items, an event underlying the active keyword, the event determined from items that are relevant to the event and referencing the event; determining a time period during which the event occurred; determining times at which each of the items were distributed by the one or more social networking services; assigning, to a first sub-set of items, each item that is determined to: (i) be responsive to the active keyword, (ii) be relevant to the event and referencing the event, and (iii) have been distributed using the one or more social networks at a time within the time period during which the event occurred; assigning to a second sub-set of items, items that are different than items assigned to the first sub-set of items, and that are determined to: (i) be responsive to the active keyword and (ii) have been distributed using the one or more social networks at a time not within the time period during which the event occurred; providing items in the first sub-set of items for display within a set of search results responsive to the search query as social search results in a discussion stream within the set of search results; and providing items in the second sub-set of items for display within the set of search results as social search results outside of the discussion stream within the set of search results.

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Claim 9:
9. The method of claim 1 , wherein determining that one or more terms provided in the search query is an active keyword comprises: comparing each term of the one or more terms to a plurality of active keywords provided in an active keyword database, the plurality of active keywords including the active keyword; and determining that a term of the one or more terms matches the active keyword.