Social circles in social networks

An electronic social networking system comprising:none or more computing devices; andone or more computer-readable media coupled to the one or more computing devices and having instructions stored thereon which, when executed by the one or more computing devices, cause the one or more computing devices to perform operations comprising:ntransmitting contact data for displaying graphical representations of people profiles for display to a user, the people profiles being contacts of a user profile of the user within a computer-implemented social networking service;generating a first social circle of the user profile, the first social circle comprising a first subset of people profiles of the user profile within the social networking service and defining a first distribution for a digital content item of the user profile, wherein the digital content item includes information that identifies the user profile to the contacts of the user;generating a second social circle of the user profile, the second social circle comprising a second subset of people profiles of the user profile within the social networking service and defining a second distribution for the digital content item;processing the first social circle to provide a first access control list that specifies which of the first subset of people profiles are granted access to the digital content item;processing the second social circle to provide a second access control list that specifies which of the second subset of people profiles are granted access to the digital content item; andin response to user input, providing the first social circle and the second social circle for selection by the user to define a distribution of the digital content item from the user profile, the distribution comprising at least one of the first distribution based on the first access control list and the second distribution based on the second access control list, wherein the digital content item is distributed from the user profile to each people profile of the first subset of people profiles based on the first access control list and the digital content item is distributed from the user profile to each people profile of the second subset of people profiles based on the second access control list.

A non-transitory computer storage medium encoded with a computer program, the program comprising instructions that when executed by data processing apparatus cause the data processing apparatus to perform operations comprising:ntransmitting contact data for displaying graphical representations of contacts for display to a user, the contacts being contacts of a profile of the user within a computer-implemented social networking service;generating a first social circle of the user, the first social circle comprising a first subset of contacts of the profile within the social networking service and defining a first distribution for a digital content item of the profile;generating a second social circle of the profile, the second social circle comprising a second subset of contacts of the profile within the social networking service and defining a second distribution for the digital content item;processing the first social circle to provide a first access control list that specifies which of the first subset of contacts are granted access to the digital content item;processing the second social circle to provide a second access control list that specifies which of the second subset of contacts are granted access to the digital content item; andin response to user input, providing the first social circle and the second social circle for selection by the user to define a distribution of the digital content item from the profile, the distribution comprising at least one of the first distribution based on the first access control list and the second distribution based on the second access control list, wherein the digital content item is distributed from the profile to each contact the first subset of contacts based on the first access control list and the digital content item is distributed from the profile to each contact of the second subset of contacts based on the second access control list.

A computer-implemented method comprising:ntransmitting contact data for displaying graphical representations of people profiles for display to a user, the people profiles being people profiles of a user profile for the user within a computer-implemented social networking service;generating a first social circle of the user profile, the first social circle comprising a first subset of people profiles of the user profile within the social networking service and defining a first distribution for a digital content item of the user profile, wherein the digital content item includes information that identifies the user profile to the contacts of the user;generating a second social circle of the user profile, the second social circle comprising a second subset of people profiles of the user profile within the social networking service and defining a second distribution for the digital content item;processing the first social circle to provide a first access control list that specifies which of the first subset of people profiles are granted access to the digital content item;processing the second social circle to provide a second access control list that specifies which of the second subset of people profiles are granted access to the digital content item; andin response to user input, providing the first social circle and the second social circle for selection by the user to define a distribution of the digital content item from the user profile, the distribution comprising at least one of the first distribution based on the first access control list and the second distribution based on the second access control list, wherein the digital content item is distributed from the user profile to each people profile of the first subset of people profiles based on the first access control list and the digital content item is distributed from the user profile to each people profile of the second subset of people profiles based on the second access control list.

An electronic social networking system comprising:none or more computing devices; andone or more computer-readable media coupled to the one or more computing devices and having instructions stored thereon which, when executed by the one or more computing devices, cause the one or more computing devices to perform operations comprising:nreceiving first digital content from a first user of a computer-implemented social networking service, the first digital content being associated with a first profile of the first user and including information that identifies the first profile to other profiles, and a distribution, the distribution comprising a second profile of a second user;processing the distribution to provide an access control list that specifies that the second profile is granted access to the first digital content;transmitting, from the first profile and based on the access control list, the first digital content for display to the second user;receiving first user input from the second user, the first user input indicating a command to add the first profile as a contact of the second profile within the computer-implemented social networking service;requesting that the second user identify at least one social circle of the second profile, to which the first profile is to be assigned;receiving second user input from the second user, the second user input indicating an assignment of the first profile as a member of one or more social circles of the second profile;assigning the first profile as a member of each of the one or more social circles of the second profile in response to the second user input; andprocessing the one or more social circles of the second profile to provide one or more access control lists that specify that the first profile is granted access to second digital content received from the second profile, the second digital content associated with a second distribution and including information that identifies the second profile to other profiles.