FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention generally relates to social network data or content analysis and more particularly, to systems and methods for generating sticker collections for a social networking application.
BACKGROUND 5
Most of the mobile applications, and more particularly, social networking applications, facilitate expression of user’s emotions in one form or the other. A critical aspect of a user’s satisfaction with respect to any social networking application depends on how such forms of expressions are provided to the user and how efficiently and easily can the user share or express his emotions using 10 the social networking application. Forms of expressions provided by and shared on, social networking applications include stickers, emoticons, emojis, gifs, animations, etc.
Recently, sticker content has gained vast popularity among the users since stickers are a rich form of visually expressing the emotions of a user, and go well 15 beyond emoticons and text messages. Typically, stickers are bundled together as ‘packs’ or ‘sets’ and such packs are made available on a ‘shop’ inside the social networking application, such that a user is required to download a sticker pack from the shop in order to be able to access and share stickers belonging to said pack. Such downloaded sticker packs are then added to a ‘palette’ inside the 20 social networking application, wherein said palette is an interface that allows users to access and share stickers with other users.
Figure 1A and 1B illustrate a user interface of a social networking application in a client device, wherein the user interface 100 displays a sticker shop 102 to the users. In the sticker shop 102, various sticker packs 104 such as ‘Kiss of Love’, 25 ‘Fun with emojis’, ‘Love story’, ‘College talks’ etc. are shown to the user. A user of the social networking application can click on the button 106 indicating the
3
value of the sticker pack, i.e. ‘free’ or ‘buy’. In case a user has already downloaded a sticker pack on his social networking application, such as the sticker pack of ‘Indian festivals’ in Fig. 1A, the button 106 shows ‘update’ if any new stickers are available for such pack since the last download of this sticker pack. 5
Figure 1B illustrates a user interface of the social networking application at the client device wherein the sticker packs 104 downloaded by the user from the sticker shop 102 are displayed to the user in the palette 108 of the social networking application, wherein each sticker pack 104 has multiple stickers 112 relating to the sticker pack 104. For instance, as shown in Fig. 1B, the palette 108 10 shows the sticker ‘Happy Diwali’, ‘Laxmi’ Puja’, etc. in the ‘Diwali’ sticker pack 104.
A sticker pack usually comprises of a set of stickers created by a particular sticker artist or agency, and those stickers are related to a particular character, theme, style, or content. However, organizing stickers in the form of sticker packs 15 possesses a number of limitations. Firstly, users are required to access the sticker shop 102 to become aware about the new stickers or stickers packs that have been added to the sticker shop 102. This restrains the user from knowing about the recently launched stickers or sticker packs since browsing the sticker shop 102 is not a part of the regular use of the social networking application. Further, 20 users are unable to know which stickers are being used by other users of the social networking application. Furthermore, for users who frequently download and use sticker packs, the palette 108 for such users contains multiple sticker packs for the same theme or emotion and therefore, becomes too cluttered or clumsy, which makes it difficult for the user to find a relevant sticker that he/she 25 wishes to share with other users. As shown in Figure 1B, the palette 108 has multiple packs for love theme (104E, 104F). Also, in the sticker shop 102, each user of the social networking application is provided the same set of sticker
4
packs 104 in same order, and therefore, the user has to browse through a long list of sticker packs 104 to arrive at the pack that is relevant for or is of interest to the user.
In view of the above and other drawbacks and limitations of the prior art systems, it is essential to develop a system and method for providing sticker 5 content to the users in a more efficient manner. The above-mentioned information in the background section is only intended to enhance the understanding of the reader with respect to the field to which the present invention pertains. Therefore, unless explicitly stated otherwise, any of the features or aspects discussed above should not be construed as prior art merely 10 because of its inclusion in this section.
SUMMARY
This section is provided to introduce certain objects and aspects of the present disclosure in a simplified form that are further described below in the detailed description. This summary is not intended to identify the key features or the 15 scope of the claimed subject matter.
In view of the drawbacks and limitations of the prior art systems, one object of the present invention is to provide systems and methods for generating customised sticker collections and providing the same to users without the need of users having to explicitly download such sticker content. Another object of the 20 present invention is to provide systems and methods for generating customised sticker collection containing stickers that are being used by other users of the social networking application. Yet another object of the invention is to provide systems and methods for generating customised sticker collections and providing the same to the users such that they are easily accessible to the user. Yet 25 another object of the invention is to provide systems and methods for generating customised sticker collections that are dynamically updated. Yet
5
another object of the invention is to provide systems and methods for generating customised sticker collections and providing the same to the users without the users having to explicitly search for such relevant and/or popular sticker content. Another object of the invention is to generate customised sticker collections such that the stickers are organised in an easy and convenient 5 manner in the social networking application of the user.
In view of these and other objects, one aspect of the invention relates to a method for generating a customized sticker collection based on at least one sticker from at least one sticker pack pre-configured in a server, where the method begins with processing the stickers to assign at least one tag to said 10 sticker based on at least one pre-determined parameter. This tag is either a pre-existing tag or a dynamically created tag. The pre-determined parameter is based on at least usage and/or context. Subsequently, based on the assigned tags, the process automatically classifies the sticker into at least one sticker collection, said collection being a pre-existing collection or a dynamically created collection. 15 Next, the stickers in the sticker collection are dynamically ranked based on a popularity score of said sticker.
Another aspect of the invention relates to a system comprising a processing unit, a sticker collection creation unit coupled to the processing unit, and a sticker collection updation unit coupled to said sticker collection creation unit and the 20 processing unit. The sticker collection creation unit is configured to collect at least one sticker from at least one sticker pack pre-configured in a server and process the collected sticker to assign at least one tag to the same based on at least one pre-determined parameter. This tag is either a pre-existing tag or a dynamically created tag. The pre-determined parameter is based on at least 25 usage and/or context. The sticker collection creation unit is also configured to automatically classify, based on the assigned tags, the sticker into at least one sticker collection, said collection being a pre-existing collection or a dynamically
6
created collection. The sticker collection updation unit is configured to dynamically rank stickers in the sticker collection based on a popularity score of the sticker.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS
The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated herein, and constitute a 5 part of this disclosure, illustrate exemplary embodiments of the disclosed methods and systems in which like reference numerals refer to the same parts throughout the different drawings. Components in the drawings are not necessarily to scale, emphasis instead being placed upon clearly illustrating the principles of the present disclosure. Some drawings may indicate the 10 components using block diagrams and may not represent the internal circuitry of each component. It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that disclosure of such drawings includes disclosure of electrical components or circuitry commonly used to implement such components. The connections between the sub-components of a component have not been shown in the drawings for the 15 sake of clarity, therefore, all sub-components shall be assumed to be connected to each other unless explicitly otherwise stated in the disclosure herein.
Figure 1A and 1B illustrates a user interface of a prior art system for providing sticker content to users.
Figure 2 illustrates a general overview of the system for generating customized 20 sticker collections in accordance with exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure.
Figure 3 illustrates a block diagram of an exemplary server component of the system for generating customized sticker collection in accordance with exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure. 25
7
Figure 4 illustrates a block diagram of an exemplary client component of the system for generating customized sticker collection in accordance with exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure.
Figure 5 illustrates a method for generating customized sticker collection in accordance with exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure. 5
Figure 6 illustrates a method for dynamic updation of sticker collections in accordance with exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure.
Figure 7 illustrates an exemplary list of stickers collected in accordance with exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure.
Figure 8 illustrates an exemplary new sticker received at the system of the 10 present invention.
Figure 9 illustrates an exemplary list of stickers assigned a tag in accordance with exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure.
Figure 10 illustrates an exemplary list of stickers classified into sticker collections in accordance with exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure. 15
Figures 11A and 11B illustrate exemplary sticker packs 1 and 2 respectively.
Figure 12 illustrates an exemplary sticker collection formed in accordance with exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure.
The foregoing shall be more apparent and clear from the following more detailed explanation of the invention and the afore-mentioned drawings. 20
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
In the following description, for the purposes of explanation, various specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of embodiments of the present invention. It will be apparent, however, that
8
embodiments of the present invention may be practiced without these specific details or with additional details that may be obvious to a person skilled in the art. Several features described hereafter can each be used independently of one another or with any combination of other features. An individual feature may not address any of the problems discussed above or might address only some of 5 the problems discussed above. Some of the problems discussed above might not be fully addressed by any of the features described herein.
As used herein, a “social networking application” refers to a mobile or web application used for the purpose of social networking wherein users can interact with each other by means of text, audio, video or a combination thereof. In a 10 preferred embodiment, the social networking application is an instant messaging application. The social networking application provides many other features such as viewing and sharing content, read news, play games, shop, make payments, and any other features as may be obvious to a person skilled in the art.
As used herein, a “sticker” may denote a graphic image used on a social 15 networking application or a social network service, for expressing an emotion or an action through animations, emojis, cartoons, text and a combination thereof. Stickers may be used during chats (including one-to-one and group chats), while sharing content such as images, video etc. on the social networking application, etc. 20
As used herein, a “sticker pack” may denote a group of stickers created by a particular artist or agency, wherein the stickers in a pack usually have a common theme, emotion, etc. And as used herein, a “sticker collection” may denote a collection of stickers from one or more sticker packs, such that the stickers in a collection are related to each other by way of a common theme, type, emotion, 25 festival, etc. For instance, there may be multiple sticker packs available on social networking applications, for different themes such as love, anger, festivals, etc. For example, there may be packs such as ‘Kiss of love’, ‘Love story’, ‘Family love’
9
for the theme love, wherein each pack is developed by a particular artist or agency. Stickers from all of these stickers packs are collected and processed by the present invention to create a sticker collection called ‘Love’. The process of generation of a sticker collection from various packs has been described in the subsequent paragraphs. 5
As used herein, client device refers to any electrical, electronic, electromechanical and computing device. Client devices may include but is not limited to a mobile phone, a smartphone, laptop, personal digital assistant, tablet computer, general purpose computer, or any other computing device as may be obvious to a person skilled in the art. 10
As used herein, a “processing unit” includes one or more processors, wherein processor refers to any logic circuitry for processing instructions. A processor may be a general purpose processor, a special purpose processor, a conventional processor, a digital signal processor, a plurality of microprocessors, one or more microprocessors in association with a DSP core, a controller, a microcontroller, 15 Application Specific Integrated Circuits, Field Programmable Gate Array circuits, any other type of integrated circuits, etc. The processor may perform signal coding data processing, input/output processing, and/or any other functionality that enables the working of the system according to the present disclosure.
As used herein, “connect”, “configure”, “couple” and its cognate terms, such as 20 “connects”, “connected”, “configured” and “coupled” may include a physical connection (such as a wired/wireless connection), a logical connection (such as through logical gates of semiconducting device), other suitable connections, or a combination of such connections, as may be obvious to a skilled person.
As used herein, “send”, “transfer”, “transmit”, and their cognate terms like 25 “sending”, “sent”, “transferring”, “transmitting”, “transferred”, “transmitted”, etc. include sending or transporting data or information including stickers from
10
one unit or component to another unit or component, wherein the content may or may not be modified before or after sending, transferring, transmitting.
Figure 1 illustrates a general overview of the system for generating sticker collection in accordance with exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure. As shown in Fig. 1, the system for present invention is implemented by means of 5 a server component 202 and/or a client component 204, wherein the server component 202 is implemented in a server 206 and the client component 204 is implemented in each of the client devices 208. The server 206 is connected to one or more client devices 208 via a network 210, wherein the network 210 may be a wired network, a wireless network and a combination thereof. The network 10 may be a personal area network, a local area network, a metropolitan area network, a wide area network, the Internet, or a combination thereof. In an embodiment, the server 206 may be a cloud server.
The server component 202 is configured to generate customized sticker collections based on at least one sticker from at least one sticker pack pre-15 configured in the server 206. The generated sticker collections are then recommended to one or more users by transmitting the same to the client component 204 in the client devices 208 via the network 210. The client component 204 is configured to send feedback to the server component 202 such that the sticker collections can be updated based on said feedback. These 20 processes of generation of sticker collections and updation thereof are discussed in greater detail in the ensuing paragraphs with reference to other drawings.
Although only a limited number of client devices 208 are shown in Fig.1, it will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the present disclosure encompasses generating sticker collections and providing the same to multiple client devices 25 simultaneously. Similarly, although only one server component 202 has been shown in Fig.1, multiple server components and multiple servers are encompassed by the present disclosure.
11
In an embodiment, the invention is implemented by means of the server component 202 alone, while in another embodiment, the invention is implemented by means of the client component 204 alone. In yet another embodiment, the invention is implemented partially at the server component 202 and partially at the client component 204. 5
Figure 3 illustrates a block diagram of an exemplary server component 202 of the system for generating sticker collection in accordance with exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure. The server component 202 comprises a sticker collection creation unit 302 coupled to a sticker collection updation unit 304, a collections database 306 and a processing unit 308. 10
The sticker collection creation unit 302 is configured to collect at least one sticker from at least one sticker pack pre-configured in the server 206, wherein the collection of stickers is performed by the sticker collection creation unit 302 automatically and periodically. In an embodiment, the period of collection is pre-defined, while in another embodiment, said period is configurable. The sticker 15 and the sticker packs may be stored in server component 202 itself or may be stored in another storage unit in the server 206. The sticker collection creation unit 302 is configured to store the collected stickers in the collections database 306. In an embodiment, the sticker collection creation unit 302 is configured to store the collected stickers in a separate data repository (not shown in the Fig. 1) 20 in the server component 202.
The sticker collection creation unit 302 is further configured to process the collected at least one sticker to assign at least one tag to said sticker based on at least one pre-determined parameter. The tag is either a pre-existing tag or a dynamically created tag. The invention encompasses a tag that represents a 25 mood or sentiment (such as angry, happy, sad, etc.), theme (Bollywood, Hollywood, etc.), festival (Diwali, Eid, Christmas, etc.), an art form (such as a movie, a dance form, etc.), etc. The invention encompasses a sticker collection
12
creation unit 302 further configured to determine a confidence score for each sticker-assigned tag combination, wherein the confidence score indicates the probability that the sticker has been correctly tagged. For instance, a ‘Good morning’ sticker and a ‘Congratulations’ sticker may be assigned a tag ‘greeting’ by the sticker collection creation unit 302. In this example, the ‘Good morning’ 5 sticker - ‘greeting’ tag combination has a higher confidence score than the ‘Congratulations’ sticker - ‘greeting’ tag combination.
In case the sticker collection creation unit 302 is unable to identify any pre-existing tag for a sticker or if the tag assigned by the sticker collection creation unit 302 has a low confidence score, the sticker collection creation unit 302 is 10 also configured to dynamically create a new tag for the sticker. For instance, if there is a spiderman sticker, and there is no pre-existing tag for ‘spiderman’, the collection creation unit 302 is configured to create a new tag named ‘spiderman’ and assign this tag to the sticker.
The pre-determined parameter based on which a tag is assigned to a sticker, is 15 based on at least one of a usage, a context and a combination thereof. As used herein, “usage” of a sticker refers to the frequency of use or the popularity of a sticker, including the number of times a sticker is viewed, shared, recommended by the system or a user, liked, etc. For instance, if an “Ola” sticker has been extensively used by a large number of the users of the social networking 20 application, then a ‘favorite’ and/or ‘trendy’ tag may be assigned to the “Ola” sticker.
Further, as used herein, “context” of a sticker refers to conversational context, i.e. in what context has a user used the sticker in a conversation with another user, the sticker has been used in reply or as follow-up to which other stickers, 25 etc. Context may also refer to mood or sentiment of the user, the location of the client device; day/ time data; weather data; social networking app usage data (when and how much does a user use a particular social networking application
13
and what does he/she use it for); client device data (list of installed apps, web history, etc.); and a combination thereof. For instance, the “what’s up” sticker is most frequently used to start a conversation, and thus, the sticker collection creation unit 302 may assign a ‘conversation starter’ tag to this sticker. Similarly, the “Go to hell” sticker is most frequently used by users to express anger or 5 hatred in a conversation, and thus, the sticker collection creation unit 302 may assign a ‘Angry’ or ‘hate’ tag to this sticker.
The sticker collection creation unit 302 is also configured to automatically classify the at least one sticker based on the assigned tags into the at least one sticker collection, said at least one sticker collection being one of a pre-existing 10 collection and a dynamically created collection. Pre-existing sticker collections may represent a mood (such as angry, happy, excited, sad, etc.), a sentiment or feeling (such as love, hatred, jealousy, etc.), an art form (such as a movie like Spiderman, Superman, etc., or a dance form such as ballet, kathak etc.).
The sticker collection updation unit 304 coupled to said sticker collection 15 creation unit 302 and the processing unit 308, is configured to dynamically rank said at least one sticker in the at least one sticker collection based on a popularity score of said at least one sticker. As used herein, the “popularity score” of a sticker refers to a score indicating the popularity of a sticker calculated based on the number of times a sticker is viewed, shared, liked, 20 recommended by the system or a user, recommended by the system and used by the user, etc. The stickers in the sticker collection generated by the sticker collection creation unit 302 are ranked according to popularity by the sticker collection updation unit 304.
The collections database 306 is configured to store the sticker collections created 25 by the sticker collection creation unit 302 and the ranked sticker collections created by the sticker collection updation unit 304. The invention encompasses storing at the collections database 306, a unique identifier for each generated
14
sticker collection and other metadata associated with the sticker collections. The collections database 306 is also configured to store the stickers collected by the sticker collection creation unit 302 from the sticker pack/s. The collections database 306 may store stickers in the form of tables, schemas, or other elements as may be obvious to a person skilled in the art. 5
The recommendation unit 310 also coupled to the processing unit 308, is configured to recommend the generated sticker collection/s to a user of the social networking application based on at least one user specific parameter, wherein the user specific parameter may include but is not limited to user context (for instance, in what context does the user uses stickers), user 10 preferences (for instance, does the user prefer to use a particular kind of stickers), collections usage history (what sticker collections the user has used previously), what sticker collections other similar users have used, the current state, mood, location, etc. of the user, the time/day (for instance, the user may use more stickers at night than in the morning or more on weekends than on 15 weekdays), etc.
The processing unit 308 is configured to receive feedback from the transceiver unit (not shown in the figure) of the client device and provide the same to the collection updation unit 304. As used herein, “feedback” refers to user feedback, i.e. the user’s reaction to a particular sticker or sticker collection, whether the 20 user liked or shared the sticker or the sticker collection, whether the user used any of the stickers in the sticker collection, etc.
The sticker collection updation unit 304 is further configured to update one or more sticker collections stored in the collections database 306 for which a feedback has been received from the processing unit 308. This update is based 25 on the feedback of the users. For instance, if the feedback for a particular recommended sticker collection is negative, i.e. the user/s have not used the recommended sticker collection, or if user/s have indicated that the
15
recommended sticker collection is inappropriate, etc., then this sticker collection is updated by the sticker collection updated unit 304 by either removing the collection or modifying the collection to add and/or remove certain stickers in said collection. The sticker collection updation unit 304 provides this updated sticker collection/s to the processing unit 308 which further transmits the 5 updated collections to the client devices 204 via the transmitter unit. Thus, the updated sticker collections are shared with all the users that have said collection stored on their client device and also to the users to whom said sticker collections are recommended by the system.
The sticker collection updation unit 304 is further configured to dynamically 10 update the recommended sticker collection/s based on one of the user specific parameter and a change in said at least one pack. The change in the pack may refer to addition of new stickers to the pack or deletion of the sticker in the pack. For instance, if one or more new ‘Merry Christmas’ stickers are added to the ‘Festivals’ pack, then the sticker collection updation unit 304 is configured to 15 dynamically update the ‘Celebrations’ sticker collection stored in the collections database 306 and/or the client device 204.
In another example, if a user has changed his language preferences to ‘Chinese’ and his location also to ‘China’, then based on these user specific parameters, the sticker collection updation unit 304 updates the ‘Celebrations’ collections for 20 this user such that the updated collection includes greetings for Chinese festivals and in Chinese language.
Figure 4 illustrates a block diagram of an exemplary client component of the system for generating sticker collection in accordance with exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure. The client component 204 comprises of 25 a sticker collection adding unit 402, a client processing unit 404, a client sticker collections updation unit 406, a client collections database 408 and a client recommendation unit 410. The sticker collection adding unit 402 is configured to
16
receive sticker collections from the server component 202, wherein the received collections may be those collections as may be subscribed or requested by the user of the client device, or sticker collections recommended by the server recommendation unit 308. The sticker collection adding unit 402 is further configured to store the received collections in the client collection database 408 5 and provide the received recommended sticker collections to the client recommendation unit 410.
The client recommendation unit 410 is configured to display the recommendations received by the sticker collection adding unit 402 to the user in the palette of the social networking application at the client device 208. In an 10 embodiment, the client recommendation unit 410 is configured to generate recommendations of collections based on the user specific parameters and display the recommended collections on the palette.
The client collection updation unit 406 is configured to update the recommended collections or stickers in the recommended collections stored in 15 the client collections database 408, wherein the updates may occur periodically and may be based on feedback received from the user at the client collection updation unit 406. Based on this feedback, the client collection updation unit 406 is configured to generate a request for updation of the sticker collections and further transmit this request for updation and/or the feedback to the server 20 component 202 via a transceiver unit (not shown in the figure) of the client device 208. The client updation unit 406 is further configured to rank the various sticker collections stored in the client collections database 408 and display the collections in the order of their ranking in the palette.
The client processing unit 404 is configured to retrieve and analyze one or more 25 user specific parameters and provide the same to the recommendation unit 410 and the client collections database 408. The client collections database 408 is configured to store the sticker collections provided by the collections adding unit
17
406. The client collections database 408 is also configured to store the feedback received from the user and data pertaining to the user specific parameters. The invention encompasses storing at the client collections database 406, a unique identifier along with other metadata for each sticker collection.
Method overview 5
Figure 5 illustrates a method for generating sticker collection in accordance with exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure. The process 500 of generating sticker collections begins at step 502, wherein at least one sticker from at least one sticker pack is collected, said sticker packs being pre-configured in the server 206. Collecting stickers includes collecting the metadata associated 10 with said stickers, wherein metadata may include but is not limited to a sticker identifier, the sticker packs to which said sticker belongs along with the sticker pack identifier, sticker name, etc.
Next, at step 504, the collected stickers are processed to assign at least one tag to said at least one sticker based on at least one pre-determined parameter, 15 wherein said at least one tag is one of a pre-existing tag and a dynamically created tag, and said parameter is based on at least one of a usage, a context and a combination thereof. The processing of the stickers includes mining the collected stickers to form one or more clusters, wherein stickers in a cluster are related to each other, i.e. they have at least one thing in common such as a 20 theme, mood, sentiment, etc. This clustering includes analysing the context and usage of the sticker i.e. how users use a particular sticker in the context of different chats or conversations and the text in those chats (including identifying the text in user’s chats/conversations and performing semantic analysis of the same), identifying text contained in the sticker and performing semantic analysis 25 on the same, identifying the sticker packs to which the sticker belongs, analysing the metadata of the sticker, etc. and then representing each sticker in an N-dimensional space. In this representation, the related stickers are closer to each
18
other and form clusters of stickers. These clusters are then automatically labelled by the invention to assign one or more tags to the sticker in a cluster.
For instance, referring to the table provided in Figure 7. Assuming that the sticker collection creation unit 304 collects the stickers mentioned in the table from various sticker packs. In step 504, these stickers are processed based on the 5 usage and context of these stickers, i.e. it is determined how the sticker is used, by whom and when the sticker is used, how often the sticker is used, in what context the sticker is used, etc. For instance, for the sticker S001, the process determines that this sticker is typically used by a particular subset of users of the social networking application who are in the age group of 14-19, the sticker is 10 used most frequently during the Valentines week, it is used in response to a message containing ‘Happy Valentines Day’, etc. Based on this usage and context information, the S001 sticker is assigned a ‘Love’, ‘Romance’ and ‘Valentines’ tags.
These stickers are represented in an N-dimensional space such that related 15 stickers are located close to each other. In the above example, the stickers S001, S002, S003 and S004 are closely spaced and form one cluster say cluster 1. Similarly, the stickers S005, S006 and S007 form another cluster say cluster 2. The invention includes assigning tags to the stickers in a cluster. For instance, all the stickers in cluster 1 may be assigned tags such as ‘Love’, ‘Romance’, etc. 20 Similarly, all the stickers in cluster 2 may be assigned tags such as ‘Celebrations’, ‘Festivals’, etc.
In an embodiment, a cluster may comprise of sub-clusters. For instance, in the above example, the stickers S005, S006 and S007 may form a cluster, wherein S006 and S007 form a sub-cluster of this cluster. This sub-cluster may then be 25 assigned a tag of ‘Hindu festivals’.
19
The invention also encompasses processing in step 504, wherein processing includes assigning a confidence score to the tag-sticker combinations. For example, the ‘S003-love’ sticker-tag combination may have a higher confidence score as compared to the confidence score of the sticker-tag combination ‘S003-valentines’. 5
In case the process is unable to assign a tag to a particular sticker or if the confidence score of a sticker-tag combination of the sticker is below a pre-determined threshold, then the invention encompasses dynamically creating a new tag for that sticker. Referring to Figure 8, consider the example where a new sticker is collected by the sticker collection creation unit 302 such that this 10 sticker S008 is not related to any other sticker. When this sticker is represented in an N-dimensional space as mentioned above, it is located far away from all other sticker S001-S007. This new sticker S008 does not relate to any of the existing tags (i.e. ‘love’, ‘romance’, ‘celebrations’, ‘festivals’, etc.) and therefore, the invention generates a new tag ‘superman’ for the S008 sticker and assigns 15 the same to this sticker. Any other stickers relating to superman are then assigned this ‘superman’ tag. Thus, the taxonomy of tags is a dynamically updating taxonomy. Thus, after step 504, the invention achieves and stores the data as shown in Figure 9.
Subsequently, at step 506, based on the tags assigned in step 504, the sticker/s 20 are automatically classified into the at least one sticker collection, said at least one sticker collection being one of a pre-existing collection and a dynamically created collection. The invention encompasses classifying or grouping stickers with similar tags into one collection. For instance, all the stickers with the ‘love’ and ‘romance’ tag (sticker S001-S004 in the above example) are grouped into the 25 collection “Express your love”. In case there is no pre-existing collection for a particular sticker or a tag, the invention encompasses dynamically creating a new collection for the same, wherein the metadata of the new sticker is identified
20
and analysed to create a new collection for the same. The invention also encompasses automatically searching the identified metadata on another server device or network or the Web to retrieve more information about said sticker based on which a new collection is created. Figure 10 shows the stickers being classified into three sticker collections, namely “Express your love”, “Festivity” 5 and “Superheroes”, wherein the collections “Express your love”, “Festivity” were pre-existing collections and the collection “Superheroes” is dynamically created by the invention. In an embodiment, dynamically creating a new sticker collection includes checking if the number of stickers in the collections database similar to this new sticker are above a pre-determined threshold. For instance, if 10 there are only 3 Spiderman stickers available in the collections database 306, and the pre-determined threshold for creating a collection is 10, then the invention does not create a new collection for the new Spiderman sticker. This ensures that a large number of collections having only a few stickers are not created since they may be irrelevant for the user. 15
Next, at step 508, the stickers in the sticker collection generated at step 506 are ranked based on a popularity score of the sticker, wherein said score is calculated based on the number of times that sticker is viewed, shared, liked, recommended by the system or a user, recommended by the system and used by the user, etc. The stickers in a collection are ordered in such a manner that 20 the highest ranked stickers, i.e. the most popular stickers of the collection are displayed first. The invention also encompasses dynamically ranking stickers in the sticker collection for a user based on at least one user specific parameter of that user. For instance, if the user has posted or shared a picture expressing happiness over getting a new job, then the analysis of the user specific 25 parameters indicates that user is now in a happy mood. The stickers in the sticker collections that have been previously recommended to the user are then re-arranged such that the happy stickers appear first since the user is most likely to use happy stickers in his/her conversation now.
21
The invention encompasses recommending the generated sticker collections to one or more users of the social networking application, wherein recommendations are based on user specific parameters. Recommending includes analysing user specific parameters such as user context, user preferences, collections usage history, collections other similar users have used, 5 the current state, mood, location, etc. of the user, the time/day data, etc., as also mentioned above with reference to Figure 3 and 4. For instance, if the analysis of a user’s chat history indicates that the current mood of the user is “angry”, then sticker collections pertaining to that mood are recommended to this user. Similarly, if analysis of the user’s preferences indicates that they prefer 10 to use loud stickers, then only loud stickers of a particular collection are recommended to the user. In order to determine the collections other similar users have used, the invention also encompasses identifying similar users based on one or more of user preferences (for instance, does the user prefer to use a particular kind of stickers), profile information (such as gender, age group, etc.), 15 collections usage history (i.e. if two users use the same collections), etc. The invention encompasses use of any existing collaborative filtering approaches to determine similarity between users.
The invention also encompasses dynamically updating the recommended sticker collection/s based on one of the user specific parameter and a change in said at 20 least one pack. For instance, if the user specific parameter for a user indicates that they use more greetings stickers at night, then the sticker collections that have been recommended to the user are dynamically updated at night time in the client component 204 of the user’s client device 208 to include more greeting stickers. In another instance, if a particular sticker, say the S001 ‘happy 25 valentines day’ sticker, is removed from the sticker pack, then the ‘express your love’ collection is updated to remove such sticker in the client component 204 of the user’s client device 208.
22
Further, the invention also encompasses ranking the recommended sticker collections based on at least one user specific parameter. This ranking includes analysing the user specific parameters and then based on such analysis ranking the recommended collections inside the palette of the social networking application of the user. For instance, if the user has 3 collections in his palette 5 namely “express your love”, “festivals” and “superman” and the analysis of the user specific parameters indicates that the user has changed his relationship status to ‘engaged’, then the sticker collections in the palette are arranged in the order such that the “express your love” collection appears first.
Furthermore, the invention encompasses maintaining a confidence score for 10 each recommendation of a sticker collection to a user, wherein the confidence score indicates the probability that recommended sticker collection will receive a positive feedback from the user. This feature is further discussed below with reference to Figure 6.
Moreover, in case any of the recommended sticker collections is a paid 15 collection, then the invention also includes displaying, at the user interface of a social networking application, an amount to be paid by the user for the recommended sticker collection and providing access to the one or more stickers in the recommended sticker collection based on receipt of said amount, from the user. 20
This method of recommendation of sticker collections to users is advantageous since the users are not required to explicitly download such sticker content from the sticker shop. Further, users are also recommended sticker collections based on what is trending, i.e. the stickers that are being used by other users of the social networking application. This aids the discovery of new and trending 25 stickers by the users of the social networking application. Since recommendations are also based on based on their user specific parameters, the
23
user no longer has to explicitly search for relevant stickers that are of interest to the users.
Figure 6 illustrates a method for dynamic updation of sticker collections in accordance with exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure. The method begins with step 602, wherein the sticker collections generated by the process 5 explained with reference to Fig. 5 are recommended to users on the social networking application. At step 604, a feedback is received from said users to whom the sticker collection is recommended, wherein feedback includes the user’s reaction to a particular sticker or sticker collection, whether the user liked or shared the sticker or the sticker collection, whether the user used any of the 10 stickers in the sticker collection, etc. Subsequently, at step 606, the sticker collections are dynamically updated at the server component 202 as well as the client component 204 based on said feedback. The invention encompasses dynamically updating the sticker collections based on feedback includes analysis of said feedback to determine whether the feedback is positive or negative, 15 wherein positive feedback indicates that the user likes the sticker collection and negative feedback indicates that the user does not like the sticker collection. Based on the feedback, the invention updates the confidence score of the sticker-tag combination and/or the confidence score of the recommendation of the sticker collection. 20
Figures 11A and 11B illustrate exemplary sticker packs 1 and 2 respectively, wherein each of the sticker packs comprise one or more stickers. For instance, the sticker pack 1 comprises stickers such as “Aaj Dhulayi Hogi”, “Baksish”, “Kantaben”, “Baray”, etc. Similarly, sticker pack comprises of stickers such as “Kidhar Hai”, “Mast”, etc. The invention encompasses collecting the stickers in 25 sticker pack 1 and 2 and processing them to assign at least one tag to said stickers. For instance, the sticker “Baray” is assigned a tag “consent”, and the sticker “Mast” from sticker pack 2 is assigned the tags “consent”, and “good”.
24
Subsequently, the invention assigns the “Baray” sticker and the “Mast” sticker to the same sticker collection, as shown in Figure 12. Thus, the invention encompasses combining similar stickers form different sticker packs and provides the same to the user in one sticker collection.
The various elements of the present invention as discussed above may be 5 present in the form of a hardware or a software or a hardware-software combination for performing functions and/or operations for generating customised sticker collections. The server component 202 and the client component 204 may include a bus or other communication mechanism for communicating information, and a processor coupled with the bus for processing 10 information and data or set of data.
In an embodiment, the techniques described herein are implemented by one or more special-purpose computing devices that may be hard-wired to perform the techniques, or may include digital electronic devices such as one or more application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) or field programmable gate arrays 15 (FPGAs) that are persistently programmed to perform the techniques, or may include one or more general purpose hardware processors programmed to perform the techniques pursuant to program instructions in firmware, memory, other storage, or a combination. Such special-purpose computing devices may also combine custom hard-wired logic, ASICs, or FPGAs with custom 20 programming to accomplish the techniques.
The collections database 306 and the client collections database 408 used for storing various data and contents may include a random-access memory (RAM) or other dynamic storage device, coupled to the bus for storing information and instructions to be executed by the processing unit. The databases may also be 25 used for storing temporary variables or other intermediate information during execution of instructions to be executed by the processing unit. Such instructions, when stored in non-transitory storage media accessible to the
25
processing unit 308, render the computer system into a special-purpose machine that is customized to perform the operations specified in the instructions.
The databases may be stored on a storage device, such as a magnetic disk, optical disk, or solid-state drive. The client device 208 includes a communication interface coupled to the bus. The communication interface provides a two-way 5 data communication coupling to a network link that is connected to a local network. For example, the communication interface may be an integrated service digital network (ISDN) card, cable modem, satellite modem, or a modem to provide a data communication connection to a corresponding type of telephone line. As another example, the communication interface may be a local 10 area network (LAN) card to provide a data communication connection to a compatible LAN. Wireless links may also be implemented. In any such implementation, the communication interface sends and receives electrical, electromagnetic or optical signals that carry digital data streams representing various types of information. 15
While the invention has been explained with reference to certain embodiments and examples, it will be appreciated that various changes can be made to the embodiments without departing from the principles of the present invention, and all such changes and embodiments are encompassed by the present disclosure. 20

We claim:
1. A method for generating at least one customized sticker collection based on at least one sticker from at least one sticker pack pre-configured in a server, the method comprising:
processing the at least one sticker to assign at least one tag to said at 5 least one sticker based on at least one pre-determined parameter, wherein said at least one tag is one of a pre-existing tag and a dynamically created tag, and said parameter is based on at least one of a usage, a context and a combination thereof; and
based on the assigned tags, automatically classifying the at least one 10 sticker into the at least one sticker collection, said at least one sticker collection being one of a pre-existing collection and a dynamically created collection, wherein said at least one sticker in the at least one sticker collection is dynamically ranked, by a sticker collection updation unit, based on a popularity score of said at least one sticker. 15
2. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein processing includes mining the stickers from said at least one sticker pack to create one or more clusters, wherein stickers in each of said one or more clusters are related stickers.
3. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the dynamic creation of the 20 tag is based on the assigning of the pre-existing tag to the at least one sticker.
4. The method as claimed in claim 1, may further comprise recommending said at least one sticker collection to one or more user based on at least one user specific parameter. 25
27
5. The method as claimed in claim 1, may further comprise:
receiving a feedback from the one or more users, in response to the recommended sticker collection; and
dynamically updating said at least one sticker collection based on said feedback for the one or more users. 5
6. The method as claimed in claim 1 may further comprise dynamically updating the recommended at least one sticker collection based on one of the user specific parameter and a change in said at least one pack.
7. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein said at least one sticker in the at least one sticker collection may be dynamically ranked, for the one or 10 more users, based on the at least one user specific parameter.
8. The method as claimed in claim 1, may further comprise ranking said sticker collections based on the at least one user specific parameter.
9. The method as claimed in claim 1, may further comprise:
displaying, at a user interface of a social networking application, an 15 amount to be paid by the user for the recommended sticker collection; and
providing access to the one or more stickers in the recommended sticker collection based on receipt of said amount, from the user.
10. A system comprising: 20
a processing unit (308);
a sticker collection creation unit (302) coupled to the processing unit (308), said sticker collection creation unit (302) configured to
28
collect at least one sticker from at least one sticker pack preconfigured
in a server (206),
process the collected at least one sticker to assign at least one tag
to said at least one sticker based on at least one pre-determined
5 parameter, wherein said at least one tag is one of a pre-existing
tag and a dynamically created tag, and said parameter is based on
at least one of a usage, a context and a combination thereof, and
automatically classify the at least one sticker based on the
assigned tags into the at least one sticker collection, said at least
10 one sticker collection being one of a pre-existing collection and a
dynamically created collection; and
a sticker collection updation unit (304) coupled to said sticker
collection creation unit (32) and the processing unit (308), said sticker
collection updation unit (304) configured to dynamically rank said at
15 least one sticker in the at least one sticker collection based on a
popularity score of said at least one sticker.
11. The system as claimed in claim 10, may further comprise a
recommendation unit (310) coupled to the processing unit (308), said
recommendation unit (310) configured to recommend said at least one
20 sticker collection based on at least one user specific parameter.