A Method And A Server For Routing Between Devices
Of A Computer Based Social Network
Field of the invention
The invention relates to a method and a server for
routing between devices of a computer based social
network .
Background
In computer based social networks multiple devices,
e.g. servers and clients act together to allow users to
access items of interest like texts, images, video or
audio via the computer based social network. The items
are for example either stored on a data base of the
computer based social network or made available in real
time via the computer based social network.
To access content a user may use the client, e.g. a
mobile phone with a web browser, to request content of
interest from a server or from another client used by
another user of the computer based social network. The
content of interest may be sent to the requesting client
after it is determined by the server or by the other
client. To that end messages are for example exchanged
between the affected devices using for example routing
protocols and routing tables.
Summary
The main idea of the invention regards routing between
devices of a computer based social network, wherein upon
receipt of a request message from a first device
associated with a user, a second message is sent to
another device, wherein the other device is selected from
a plurality of predetermined devices depending on the
result of an evaluation of at least one trust value
associated with the user, a category of content of the
computer based social network and another user of the
computer based social network.
Advantageously the trust value of the user towards the
other user is evaluated in the category by assigning the
trust value a value proportional to the amount of ratings
of the other user for items in the category and at least
one other rating by the other user for at least one other
item in at least one other category.
Advantageously the trust values are evaluated by
setting an equal value, in particular One, to the trust
values of the user towards the other user if the user and
the other user have a social link and if the user and the
other user have rated an item in the same category.
Advantageously a value higher than a predetermined
threshold is assigned to the trust value of the user
towards the other user for a category when the user and
the other user have assigned a respective predetermined
amount of ratings to items in the category.
Advantageously a predetermined value is assigned to the
trust value if the amount of ratings assigned by the
other user to items in the category exceeds a
predetermined threshold.
Advantageously evaluating comprises of comparing trust
values, and from the plurality of predetermined devices
the device being associated with the other user having a
trust value indicating the highest trust of all other
users is selected.
Further developments of the invention can be gathered
from dependent claims and the following description.
Brief description of the figures
In the following the invention will be explained
further making reference to the attached drawings.
Fig. 1 schematically shows part of a computer network.
Fig. 2 schematically shows a flow chart.
Description of the embodiments
Figure 1 shows a first part of a computer network 100.
The computer network 100 comprises a server 101. The
server comprises a sender /receiver 102 and a processor
103. Furthermore the server 101 comprises storage, not
depicted in figure 1 , and is adapted to access a data
base 104. The data base 104 may be integrated into the
server 101.
The computer network 100 comprises 1 or more clients
110 usable by several users ul, ... uM. The number of users
M or clients 110 is not limited according to the example.
One client 110 used by a user u l is described as
example. The other clients have the same functionality.
The client 110 is for example a device like a smart phone
or a personal computer comprising a graphical user
interface and input means like a touch screen or a
keyboard to be used as output and input device. A web
browser installed on the client 110 may be used for
example to access the computer based social network.
The client 110 is connectable at least temporarily to
the server 101 via the computer network 100.
The connection is for example via local area network
(LAN), wireless local area network (WLAN, 802.11 h ) or
wide area network (WAN) . The connection is for example
according to the well known internet protocol (IP), user
datagram protocol (UDP) , transmission control protocol
(TCP) or stream control transmission protocol (SCTP).
Signaling is for example according to the well known
Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), Representational
State Transfer (REST) or session initiation protocol
(SIP) or Internet Protocol Multimedia Subsystem (IMS).
Addressing may be done using the well known uniform
resource locators (URL), uniform resource identifiers
(URI), names or namespaces of extensible markup language
(XML Version 1.0, Third Edition, W3C Recommendation 8
December 2009) .
The connection can but must not be directly between the
client 110 and the server 101. The typical use is on wide
area networks with multiple intermediate devices.
Instead of a single server 101 distributed servers may
be used as well, e.g. a computing cloud.
The data base 104 comprises content of the computer
based social network, e.g. items that can be divided into
different categories. For example digital representations
of books are stored as items. Furthermore the data base
104 is adapted to store information about ratings of
users of the computer based social network for the items.
The server 101 is adapted to store this information and
representations of users ul, uM of the computer based
social network for example as data sets in the data base
104 .
The data set for example comprises
- a user name,
- credentials for identification or authentication,
e.g. user name and password,
- information about social links to other users
- information about ratings of the user for items.
This list is not exhaustive, other information may be
stored as well. The items are differentiated according to
categories as will be described below.
Access to the computer based social network is for
example granted to the user u l after successful
identification and authentication against the
authentication information stored in the data set of user
u l . Identification or authentication processes like user
name and password request processed for example using
Digest Access Authentication or Public-key cryptography,
are well known to the person skilled in the art and not
explained in detail.
The social links represent a relationship of the users
amongst each other. A social link from one user to
another user is for example stored whenever a
relationship between the two has been confirmed by both.
The information about the social links is for example
stored for a user u l as a list of other users u2, uM
selected by the user u l from all users of the computer
based social network upon confirmation by the respective
other user u2, uM. Users linked by a social link are
referred to as friend below.
The server 101 and the client 110 act together to allow
users ul, uM to access content of the computer based
social network, e.g. items like digital representations
of books, texts, images, video or audio, via the computer
network 100. Information between the server 101, the data
base 104 or the client 110 is exchanged in the example
according to the hyper text transfer protocol well known
as HTTP. Furthermore the server 101 and the client 110
act together to perform authentication or identification
of the users ul, uM.
The content contribution of the users ul, ... uM is for
example either stored on the data base 104 or made
available in real time via 1 of the clients 110 currently
connected to the computer network 100. In the latter case
the content contribution is stored on the data base 104.
The information about the content contribution that is
stored in the data set is for example a link to the
stored content contribution in the data base 104.
According to the example, to access content, the users
ul, uM use one of the clients 110, e.g. the smart
phone with the web browser, to send a request for content
of interest in a first message to the server 101. This is
explained below referencing user u l . The user u l receives
the requested content of interest in a second message via
the requesting client 110.
To that end messages are for example exchanged between
the affected devices according to the hyper text transfer
protocol well known as HTTP.
The request may be entered by the users ul, uM via a
the web browser. The response may be displayed via the
web browser as well. The request and response may for
example be structured and displayed using hypertext mark
up language version 5 , well known as HTML5.
The client 110 is adapted to process the user input and
determine the first message and send it to the server
101. The first message comprises of an identifier of the
client 110 sending the request, information about the
user u l entering the request and information about the
content of interest. The content of interest may be
described as a text string, e.g. a question or a search
term.
The receiver 102 is adapted to receive the first
message and the sender 102 is adapted to send a second
message. The second message comprises of information
about the content of interest and information about the
requestor. The information about the requestor for
example is the information about the user u l or the
identifier of the client 110 that sent the first message.
For routing between the devices an evaluation to select
the recipient of the second message is performed. The
server 101 is adapted to upon receipt of the first
message select another device to that the second message
is to be sent depending on the result of the evaluation.
The selection depending on the result of the evaluation
is described below.
According to the example categories cl, cN of items
are used to combine items regarding specific interests.
The items are for example categorized into N categories
(cl, c2, ... cN) . The number of categories N is not
limited according to the example. Exemplary categories
are: "video & DVD", "books", "Music", "Video Games",
"Toys", "Online Stores & Services", "Software",
"Destinations", "Cars", "Kid's TV Shows".
This may be done by automatically analyzing the content
of the data base 104. This way finding content of
interest or information about such content of interest is
simplified to finding content of the same category.
Furthermore the computer based social network, is
divided into several sub-networks, referred to as
inferred circles of trust, each of which concerns a
single category c of all categories cl, c2, ... cN. The
client 110 may be part of one or multiple sub-networks.
Inferring circles of trust is explained for an
exemplary category c and referencing user u l and uM.
For the user u l for each category c a circle of trust
is inferred depending on the information about social
links of user u l to other users u2, uM and the
information about content items rated by the users ul,
uM in the category c . The latter is an additional
condition besides the fact that there exists a social
link between the users: both users have to have rated
items in category c ; then they are in the circle of trust
concerning category c . This way user u l trust a friend
only concerning certain categories but not regarding
others. For instance, the circle of friends concerning
"cars" may differ significantly from the circle regarding
"kids' TV shows".
Rate in this context may refer to any kind of user
feedback, explicit feedback like ratings they assign to
items, but also implicit feedback like purchasing a book,
clicking on a link, playing a video or song.
For instance, a user may be an expert in jazz music if
he purchased a certain number of jazz songs, or played
them online. Hence buying or playing the jazz songs is
rating them.
Below rating is used as general term for all these
kinds of feedback of users towards items. A rating may be
a decimal number value matching the amount of "like"
clicks or times the item is bought or played online.
Other types of rating may be used, like 1 star to 5 stars
or the like.
Definition (Inferred Circle): According to the example
user u l is in the inferred circle of trust of a user uM
for the single category c if and only if the following
two conditions hold:
• user u l is a friend of user uM, i.e. has a social
link with user uM. This may be represented by assigning a
value higher than a predetermined threshold, e.g. 1 , to
the trust value S(c,ul;uM) of the user u l for the single
category c , and
• user u l and user uM both have some expertise in the
category c . Expertise may be represented by the number of
ratings the user u l and the other user uM submitted for
items in the category c . This means testing if the number
of ratings for items in the category c that has been
received, in particular from the user u l or the other
user uM, exceeds a predetermined threshold, e.g. 0 .
Otherwise, user u l is not in the inferred circle of
trust of uM concerning the single category c .
Category specific social trust information is for
example stored as trust value S(c,ul;uM) for the category
c . Any other form of storing this information may be used
as well.
This means for example for the user u l assigning to the
user u l for the categories cl, c2, ... cN trust values
S (c l,u l;uM) , S (cN, u l;uM) . The trust values are for
example initialized by the value 1 to resemble equal
trust for all users in all categories.
The trust values between users in the same inferred
circle of trust, based on category c , may be captured and
stored for later use in a social trust matrix S . The
social trust matrix S defines the trust relationship for
each category and combination of users.
For example the value of the element of the social
trust matrix S for a single category c between the user
u l and uM is S(c,ul;uM) = 0 if user uM is not in the
inferred circle of trust and S(c,ul;uM) > 0 if user uM is
in the inferred circle of trust for that category c . For
a user u l the trust values for all categories cl, c2, ...
cN are for example stored as part of the data set of the
user u l .
In the following three examples of defining the values
S (c l,u l;uM) , S(cN,uM;ul) are described. For example
the value S(c,ul;uM) is set to a value higher than the
predetermined threshold, e.g. 0 , when user uM is in the
inferred circle of trust of user u l regarding category c
and to 0 if the user uM is not in the inferred circle of
trust of user u l for the category c . The predetermined
threshold may be 1 , or negative values may be used as
well .
Equal Trust: In a first example an equal value, in
particular 1 , is set to all trust values S (c l,u l;uM) ,
S(cN,ul;uM) of all other users uM that are in the circle
of trust of the user u l for the respective category cl,...,
cN.
This is the simplest variant of defining trust values
S (c l,u l;uM) , S (cN, u l;uM) , e.g. greater than 0 , within
inferred circles of trust regarding item category. This
means that each user u2, uM that is rated by the user
u l to be in the inferred circle of trust of user u l gets
assigned the same trust value. The rating in this case is
for example the decision by the user u l to establish a
social link with the other user uM having rated items in
the same category as the user u l .
This means that the trust values S (c l,u l;uM) ,
S(cN,ul;uM) are evaluated by setting an equal value, in
particular One, to the trust values S (c l,u l;uM) ,
S(cN,ul;uM) of the user u l towards the other user uM if
the user u l and the user uM have a social link and if the
user u l and the other user uM have a rated item in the
same category c
Expertise-based Trust: A second example is explained in
two variants of assigning different trust values to users
within the inferred circle of trust. The goal is to
assign a higher trust value or weight to the users that
are experts in the trust circle for the category c .
In the second variant directed trust relationships are
considered to define the inferred trust circle.
Undirected/mutual trust relationships (e.g., friendship)
can be viewed as a special case of directed trust. The
fact that user u l trusts the other user uM in this
context is described as a directed link from user u l to
the other user uM. Another directed link from the other
user uM back to user u l may exist. In that case the user
uM trusts user u l . In computer based social networks
trust may be expressed by following another user.
At first an expertise level is assigned to the users
for each category. This is explained for the user u l as
an example.
The expertise level may be computed from the number of
ratings of the user u l for items in the category c as
described below. The numbers of ratings the user u l
assigned to items in the category c is for example used
as an approximation to the level of expertise. The idea
is that an expert in category c may have rated more items
in that category than users who are not experts in that
category c . The expertise level of the user u l is for
example stored for each category cl, cN in the data
set for the user u l as information about the ratings for
items.
As example two variants for calculating the expertise
level and trust value of user u l are described for the
category c and the relationship between user u l and uM:
• According to the first variant the expertise level
for user u l in category c is equal to the number of
ratings that user u l assigned to items in category c . For
example the expertise level is 0 in case no rating has
been assigned by user u l . For example the amount of
ratings for items in category c is counted and, if more
than 0 ratings have been assigned by the user u l the
expertise level is set to a value above a predetermined
threshold, e.g. 0 . The expertise level is set for example
proportional to the number of rating counts. The
expertise level is mapped to the trust values S(c,uM;ul)
to result in the trust values S(c,uM;ul) being 0 in case
the user u l is not in the circle of trust of user uM and
in the trust value S(c,uM;ul) being 0 in case user u l has
no ratings assigned in the category c .
• According to the second variant, the expertise level
of user u l in category c is the product of two
components .
The first component is determined as the number of
ratings that user u l assigned to items in category c as
described above.
The second component is a voting value assigned to the
user u l depending on the number of ratings made by
members of the circle of trust of user u l for items in
the category c .
The voting value for user u l is determined from the
amount of ratings the other users u2,..., uM that trust
user u l assigned to items in the category c . For user uM
as example the voting value for category c is the number
of ratings of user uM for items in category c divided by
the sum of the ratings for items in all categories cl,
cN. For example if user uM has only ratings for items in
category c , the voting value equals 1 for this category
c . The voting value is for example less than 1 in case
the user uM has several ratings for items in categories
cl, cN but not all of them in category c . The voting
value is for example 0 in case the user uM has no rating
for items in category c . The individual voting values of
all other users u2, uM are calculated this way for all
other users having the respective directed social link or
a mutual social link with user u l . Then the individual
voting values for these users are summed up to the
overall voting value for user u l in category c .
The product of the two components is calculated
afterwards as the expertise level.
This means that if most users that trust user u l gave
lots of ratings for items in category c it is a good
indication that user u l is an expert in category c . The
expertise level is then mapped to the trust value
S(c,uM;ul) to result in trust values S(c,uM;ul) being
either 0 in case the user u l is not in the inferred
circle of trust of user uM or in case the expertise level
of user u l is 0 . In any other case the result is for
example the product of the values of the first and second
component, i.e. the expertise level.
This means generally for both variants assigning a
predetermined value to the trust value S(c,ul;uM) of the
user u l towards the other user uM for a category c if the
amount of ratings assigned by the other user uM to items
in the category c exceeds a predetermined threshold, e.g.
0 ..
Trust Splitting: In a third example the trust value
S(cl,ul;uM) of the user u l towards the other user uM in a
category c l is evaluated by assigning the trust value
(S (c l,u l;uM) ) a value proportional to the amount of
ratings of the other user uM for items in the category c l
and at least one other rating by the other user (uM) for
at least one other item in at least one other category
c2,...cN.
This is referred to as trust splitting and is explained
using user ul, user uM, category cl, category c2 and the
trust values S(cl,ul;uM) and S(c2,ul;uM) as example:
User uM is in the trust circle of user u l and user uM
assigned ratings already to items in category c l and c2 .
Assume the number of ratings of user uM for items in
category c l and c2 are 9 and 1 respectively. This means
that the other user uM assigned 10 ratings in total. Then
the trust values S(cl,ul;uM) and S(c2,ul;uM) of user u l
towards the other user uM are calculated depending on the
distribution of the 10 ratings of user uM in the
categories c l and c2 . This results in the example to
trust splitting with values of S(cl,ul;uM) and
S(c2,ul;uM) to be 9/10=0.9 and 1/10=0.1 respectively.
This means that the processor 103 is adapted to
determine the trust value of a user u l towards another
user uM, e.g. (S (c l,u l;uM) , S (cN, u l;uM) ), from at least
one rating of the user ul, or from at least one rating of
at least one other user, e.g. uM, of the computer based
social network. The ratings according to the example are
received via the receiver 102, processed and the result
is stored as the trust value for the user, e.g.
S (cl,ul;uM) S (cN,ul;uM) .
Furthermore the server 101 is operable to upon receipt
of the first message from the device associated with the
user ul, e.g. the client 110 being currently used by user
ul, send the second message to the other device, e.g.
another client 110 or the data base 104, wherein the
other device is selected from the plurality of
predetermined devices, e.g. all clients 110 and the data
base 104, depending on the result of the evaluation of
the at least one trust value S(c,ul;uM) associated with
the user ul, the category c of content of the computer
based social network and the other user uM of the
computer based social network.
For example the server 101 comprises the processor 103
adapted to select the other device, e.g. the data base
104 or the client 110 from a plurality of predetermined
devices, e.g. the data base 104 or the clients 110
depending on the result of the evaluation.
Additionally in each of the examples or variants the
trust values S (c l,u l;uM, S(cN,ul;uM) may be normalized.
For example each element of a row of the trust matrix S
is divided by the sum of all elements of the same row.
This ensures that the weight across all users u2, uM
is normalized to Unity in each circle of trust.
In the following a method for routing based on the
determined category specific social trust information is
explained referencing users ul, u 2 and uM. According to
the example users ul, u 2 and uM have rated already
several times items of the computer based social network.
Rated content or content to rate is accessible via said
data base 104. Furthermore user u 2 has rated the most
items of all users ul,..., uM in the category "Software"
and uM has rated the most items of all users ul,..., uM in
category "cars". Furthermore u l has a social link to u 2
and uM in the computer based social network. This
information is available for example by accessing the
respective data set.
The method starts for example when the first message
comprising the request for an item of interest is
received from the client 110 currently used by user u l .
After the start a step 201 is executed.
In step 201 the social trust matrix S is generated as
described above. Generally this is referred to as
assigning the trust value S(cl,ul;uM) a value. The value
that is assigned depends on the method for calculating
the social trust matrix S . A s described above the value
is assigned for example proportional to the amount of
ratings of the other user uM for items in the category c l
and at least one other rating by the other user uM for at
least one other item in at least one other category
c2,...cN. Or, in another example the value is assigned as
the predetermined value if the amount of ratings assigned
by the other user uM to items in the category c exceeds
the predetermined threshold. In yet another example the
assigned value is higher than the predetermined threshold
when the user u l and the other user uM have assigned a
respective predetermined amount of ratings to items in
the category c .
Alternatively an existing social trust matrix S may be
read from storage.
Afterwards a step 202 is executed.
In the step 202 from the first message the category c
that the request comprised in the first message is
related to is determined from the categories cl, cN.
For example the request contains the word "automobile"
and is therefore related to the category "cars" by a
recommender System. Such Recommender Systems for example
using the K-Nearest Neighbour algorithm are known to the
person skilled in the art and not further explained here.
Afterwards a step 203 is executed.
In step 203 the trust values S(c,ul;u2), S(c,ul;uM)
are looked up in the trust matrix S for the user ul, the
category c and the other users u2, uM. The trust
values are compared and the user having the trust value
indicating the most trust of all users of the inferred
circle of trust is selected. For example user uM has the
most ratings of all users for items in the category
"cars". Hence in the example user uM gets assigned the
trust value S (c ,u l;uM) = 1 . All other users get trust
values according to their individual ratings. For example
user u2 is assigned the trust value S (c ,u l;u2)= 0 because
there is no rating of user u2 in the category "cars". In
the example user uM has the highest trust value of all
users u2, uM and is therefore selected. Preferably
weighted average calculation over the trust values of the
users in the circle of trust is used to select a user ul,
uM. The weight for the users ul, uM is their
respective trust value S (c l,u l;uM, S (cN, u l;uM) .
Generally this means that evaluating comprises of
comparing trust values (S (c l,u l;u2), S (cN, u l;uM) ), and
from the plurality of predetermined devices (104, 110)
the device being associated with the other user (u2,
uM) having a trust value (S (c l,u l;uM) , S (cN, u l;uM) )
indicating the highest trust of all other users (u2,
uM) is selected. In particular the server 101 is adapted
to perform this comparison. Afterwards a step 204 is
executed.
In step 204 it is determined if the other user uM is
currently connected to the computer network 100.
In case the other user uM is not currently connected to
the computer network 100, e.g. if the server 101
determines from the data set user uM is not logged in a
step 205 is executed. Otherwise, e.g. if the server 101
determines from the data set user uM is logged in, a step
206 is executed.
In step 205 the second message is sent to the data base
104. Afterwards a step 207 is executed.
In step 207 the item is for example determined from
data previously received by the server 101. To that end
the data base 104 is adapted to store items and to
determine from the stored items and the second message
the item of interest. The item of interest is for example
selected as relevant for the user u l if it is within
category c and by user uM. The relevant category c is
determined for example from the information about the
content of interest received in the second message. At
least one item rated by the other user uM is determined
as item of interest to user u l . For example a text rated
by user uM in category "cars" is read from the data base
104 .
Afterwards a step 208 is executed.
In step 208 a response to the second message is sent
either via the sender /receiver 102 of the server 101 or
directly to the client 110 having sent the first message.
The response may comprise the item of interest or
information about the item of interest requested in the
first message.
Afterwards the method ends.
In step 206, i.e. the case that the other user uM is
currently connected to the computer network 100, the
second message is sent to the client 110 the user uM is
currently using to connect to the computer based social
network. Afterwards a step 209 is executed.
In step 209 the request for an item of interest is for
example displayed to the user uM and the user uM is
prompted to enter the item of interest. The request may
be displayed with information about the category c . In
that case the relevant category c is determined for
example from the information about the content of
interest sent in the second message. Afterwards a step
210 is executed.
In step 210 the response to the second message
comprising the item of interest or information about the
item of interest is sent to the client 110 used by the
user u l afterwards.
The response to the second message is sent either via
the server 101 or directly to the client 110 used by the
user u l .
Afterwards the method ends.
The description and drawings merely illustrate the
principles of the invention. It will thus be appreciated
that those skilled in the art will be able to devise
various arrangements that, although not explicitly
described or shown herein, embody the principles of the
invention and are included within its spirit and scope.
Furthermore, all examples recited herein are principally
intended expressly to be only for pedagogical purposes to
aid the reader in understanding the principles of the
invention and the concepts contributed by the inventor (s)
to furthering the art, and are to be construed as being
without limitation to such specifically recited examples
and conditions. Moreover, all statements herein reciting
principles, aspects, and embodiments of the invention, as
well as specific examples thereof, are intended to
encompass equivalents thereof.
The functions of the various elements shown in the
figures, including any functional blocks labeled as
'processors', may be provided through the use of
dedicated hardware as well as hardware capable of
executing software in association with appropriate
software. When provided by a processor, the functions may
be provided by a single dedicated processor, by a single
shared processor, or by a plurality of individual
processors, some of which may be shared. Moreover,
explicit use of the term 'processor' should not be
construed to refer exclusively to hardware capable of
executing software, and may implicitly include, without
limitation, digital signal processor (DSP) hardware,
network processor, application specific integrated
circuit (ASIC) , field programmable gate array (FPGA) ,
read only memory (ROM) for storing software, random
access memory (RAM), and non volatile storage. Other
hardware, conventional and/or custom, may also be
included. Similarly, any switches shown in the figures
are conceptual only. Their function may be carried out
through the operation of program logic, through dedicated
logic, through the interaction of program control and
dedicated logic, or even manually, the particular
technique being selectable by the implementer as more
specifically understood from the context.
It should be appreciated by those skilled in the art
that any block diagrams herein represent conceptual views
of illustrative circuitry embodying the principles of the
invention. Similarly, it will be appreciated that any
flow charts represent various processes which may be
substantially represented in computer readable medium and
so executed by a computer or processor, whether or not
such computer or processor is explicitly shown.
A person of skill in the art would readily recognize
that steps of various above-described methods can be
performed by programmed computers. Herein, some
embodiments are also intended to cover program storage
devices, e.g., digital data storage media, which are
machine or computer readable and encode machineexecutable
or computer-executable programs of
instructions, wherein said instructions perform some or
all of the steps of said above-described methods. The
program storage devices may be, e.g., digital memories,
magnetic storage media such as a magnetic disks and
magnetic tapes, hard drives, or optically readable
digital data storage media. The embodiments are also
intended to cover computers programmed to perform said
steps of the above-described methods.
Claims
1 . A method for routing between devices of a computer
based social network, wherein upon receipt of a
first message from a device associated with a user,
a second message is sent to another device, wherein
the other device is selected from a plurality of
predetermined devices depending on the result of an
evaluation of at least one trust value associated
with the user, a category of content of the computer
based social network and another user of the
computer based social network.
2 . The method according to claim 1 , comprising
-evaluating the trust value of the user towards the
other user in a category by assigning the trust
value a value proportional to the amount of ratings
of the other user for items in the category and at
least one other rating by the other user for at
least one other item in at least one other category.
3 . The method according to claim 1 , comprising
- evaluating the trust values by setting an equal
value, in particular One, to the trust values of the
user towards the other user if the user u l and the
user have a social link and if the user and the
other user have rated an item in the same category.
4 . The method according to claim 1 , comprising
- evaluating the trust value by assigning a value
higher than a predetermined threshold to the trust
value of the user towards the other user for a
category when the user and the other user have
assigned a respective predetermined amount of
ratings to items in the category.
5 . The method according to claim 4 , comprising
evaluating the trust value of the user towards the
other user in a category by assigning a
predetermined value to the trust value if the amount
of ratings assigned by the other user to items in
the category exceeds a predetermined threshold.
6 . The method according to claim 1 , comprising -
evaluating which comprises comparing trust values,
and from the plurality of predetermined devices the
device being associated with the other user having a
trust value indicating the highest trust of all
other users is selected.
7 . A server for routing between devices of a computer
based social network, operable to upon receipt of a
first message from a device associated with a user,
send a second message to another device, wherein the
other device is selected from a plurality of
predetermined devices depending on the result of an
evaluation of at least one trust value associated
with the user, a category of content of the computer
based social network and another user of the
computer based social network.
8 . The server according to claim 7 comprising
- a receiver adapted to receive the first message
from the device,
- a sender adapted to send the second message to the
other device,
- a processor adapted to select the other device
from a plurality of predetermined devices depending
on the result of the evaluation.
9 . The server according to claim 7 , operable to
-evaluate the trust value of the user towards the
other user in a category by assigning the trust
value a value proportional to the amount of ratings
of the other user in the category and at least one
other rating by the other user for at least one
other item of the other user in at least one other
category .
10. The server according to claim 7 , operable to
- evaluate the trust values by setting an equal
value, in particular One, to the trust values of the
user towards the other user if the user and the user
have a social link and if the user and the other
user have rated an item in the same category.
11. The server (101) according to claim 7 , operable to
evaluate the trust values by assigning a value
higher than a predetermined threshold to the trust
value of the user for a category when the user and
the other user have assigned a respective
predetermined amount of ratings to items in the
category .
12. The server according to claim 7 , operable to
evaluate the trust values by - evaluating the trust
value of the user towards the other user in a
category by assigning a predetermined value to the
trust value if the amount of ratings assigned by the
other user to items in the category exceeds a
predetermined threshold.
13. The server according to claim 7 operable to
evaluate by comparing trust values, and from the
plurality of predetermined devices the device being
associated with the other user having a trust value
indicating the highest trust of all other users is
selected .
14. A computer program for routing in a computer based
social network having a plurality of users, wherein
said computer program, when executed on a computer,
causes the computer to execute the method of claim
1.
15. A computer program product for routing in a
computer based social network having a plurality of
users comprising a computer usable medium having a
computer readable program, wherein said computer
readable program, when executed on a computer,
causes the computer to execute the method of claim
1.