USING LOCATION AWARENESS TO DETERMINE AND VERIFY PERSONAL INTERESTS AS INPUT TO MATCHMAKING ALGORITHMS
Publication Date: 2013-Mar-05
Publishing Venue
The IP.com Prior Art Database
Related People
Abstract
People like to meet other people to socialize. To this end, some people use online matchmaking services, such as “OkCupid,” to find new friends or to find a date for a Friday night. Online matchmaking services can match one user to another user using matchmaking algorithms. These matchmaking algorithms use information gained about the users, e.g., from responses to a set of questions, as well personal information entered by the users, such as location, age, sex, religion, etc. One significant problem with such online matchmaking services is that the fields in which users enter personal information are open-entry fields, which enable users to enter personal information that is either exaggerated or misrepresented. Consequently, it is often difficult for users of online matchmaking services to meet other users who truly have shared interests.
Dean K. Jackson
Problem Statement
People like to meet other people to socialize. To this end, some people use online matchmaking services, such as “OkCupid,” to find new friends or to find a date for a Friday night. Online matchmaking services can match one user to another user using matchmaking algorithms. These matchmaking algorithms use information gained about the users, e.g., from responses to a set of questions, as well personal information entered by the users, such as location, age, sex, religion, etc. One significant problem with such online matchmaking services is that the fields in which users enter personal information are open-entry fields, which enable users to enter personal information that is either exaggerated or misrepresented. Consequently, it is often difficult for users of online matchmaking services to meet other users who truly have shared interests.
Summary
Location awareness is used to determine a user’s interests based on the public places the user visits. The user’s thus-determined interests are then used to match the user with other users who attend the same type of events. This improves matchmaking by ensuring that matched users have shared interests.
Example
One technique for using location awareness to determine and verify personal interests includes operations 1-5 described below.
1. Receive information from user to create account. As part of the account creation process, the user can agree to be tracked geographically to better learn the user’s interests based on the public locations the user visits. An example of a suitable graphical user interface (GUI) for receiving the information from the user to create an account is shown below.
2. Receive profile information to be displayed to another user. The profile information to be displayed to another user includes personal information provided by the user as well information gained about the user from, for example, responses to a set of questions. A simplified GUI for receiving personal information from a user is shown below.
3. Receive geolocation information for user since account inception. The geolocation information can be received from an opt-in geolocation service. Alternatively, a check-in service such as Foursquare or Yelp can be used; however, this would require more manual user input to determine the public places that the user has...