Location-based recommendations

For recommendations around someone’s current location, Meta’s patent describes finding pages and other social-network items connected to people in nearby geographic areas.1 The Meta patent describes estimating how likely the person is to connect with those items using information about the person and each item, engagement with the item, and demographic information about relevant geographic areas.1 Meta’s patented method uses those estimates to order and combine the items into one set from which recommendations can be selected.1 The Meta patent also describes supporting people with little or no history of interacting with the social network.1

For location-based event recommendations, Meta’s patent describes looking across groups of socially connected map areas rather than only someone’s immediate area.3 Meta’s event patent groups these areas using information about where past attendees came from and which events they attended together.3 When someone requests recommendations, Meta’s patented method uses their location to identify the relevant group of areas and suggest events within that larger region.3

Moving from suggestions around a person’s current location to places they might visit, Meta’s travel-recommendation patents describe predicting destinations from activity and profile information.24 Meta’s February 2021 patent describes tailoring route and travel information to preferences such as frequently visited routes or points of interest, including for people who have not settled on a destination.4 Meta’s July 2021 patent describes using collections of routes from travel providers and tailoring the resulting content to a person’s level or timing of interest in a trip.2 The July Meta patent also describes selecting destination photos or videos supplied by people connected to the person in the online system.2

Rather than recommending a destination to visit, Meta’s patent on place suggestions describes identifying locations to attach to a post by interpreting its draft words or prewritten content.5 The Meta patent describes refining those suggestions with the device’s location, information about the person’s location, their location history, the time the post is being composed and feedback about places.5 Meta’s patented method then presents suggested locations for the person to choose from and publish with the post, reducing the effort of adding a location manually.5