Interface and system for providing persistent contextual relevance for commerce activities in a networked environment

• US 20020103789A1
• Filed: 01/26/2001
• Published: 08/01/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 01/26/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Schuetze, Hinrich, Turnbull, Donald R.
• Granted Patent: US 7,089,237 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/3
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9536 Search customisation based on social or collaborative filtering
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9538 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99935 Query augmenting and refining, e.g. inexact access

Abstract

A search and recommendation system employs the preferences and profiles of individual users and groups within a community of users, as well as information derived from categorically organized content pointers, to augment electronic commerce related searches, re-rank search results, and provide recommendations for commerce related objects based on an initial subject-matter query and an interaction history of a user. The search and recommendation system operates in the context of a content pointer manager, which stores individual users'"'"' content pointers (some of which may be published or shared for group use) on a centralized content pointer database connected to a network. The shared content pointer manager is implemented as a distributed program, portions of which operate on users'"'"' terminals and other portions of which operate on the centralized content pointer database. A user'"'"'s content pointers are organized in accordance with a local topical categorical hierarchy. The hierarchical organization is used to define a relevance context within which returned objects are evaluated and ordered.

Claims

1. A method for interacting with an information repository, the repository characterized as an object space, a user accessing said object space through a network interface, the method comprising the steps of:

establishing a relevance interface, the interface adaptively defining a collection of content pointers, each content pointer corresponding to an object within the space, the collection organized as a grouping of sets of indicia, the relevance interface overlaying and cooperating with said network interface;

generating at least one subject keyword;

searching the object space with said network interface, in accordance with the keyword query;

retrieving objects from the object space, each retrieved object associated with the query keyword; and

organizing retrieved objects in accordance with a context derived from the relevance interface, retrieved objects displayed to a user over the network interface in a ranking order corresponding to said context derived organization.

2. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

interacting with at least one of the retrieved objects;

maintaining an historical record of object interaction by a user;

enabling storage or selection of preferred objects by a user; and

wherein the context is derived from the historical record.

3. The method according to claim 2, wherein the network interface comprises an network browser application configured to display content defining an information object, the relevance interface automatically generating the at least one subject keyword from a context derived from content of a displayed information object.

4. The method according to claim 2, the network interface comprising a network browser application configured to display content defining an information object, wherein maintaining an historical record further comprises analyzing user behavior with respect to displayed information object and, wherein the context is derived from said user behavior.

5. The method according to claim 4, wherein the user behavior is selected from the group consisting of a user dwell time at a particular information object, a number of repeat visits to a particular information object, and a number of purchases made from a particular Web site.

6. The method according to claim 5, further comprising:

establishing a catalog of relevant information object collections;

automatically populating the catalog with relevant information object collections; and

wherein the catalog being established and populated by the relevance interface in accordance with said user behavior.

7. The method according to claim 6, wherein the catalog comprises a listing of object space domains.

30. The method according to claim 4, wherein the user behavior is selected from the group consisting of a user dwell time at a particular information object, a number of repeat visits to a particular information object, a time of day, a time of year, a system used to access an information object, and a number of purchases made from a particular Web domain.

31. The method according to claim 30, further comprising:

establishing a catalog of relevant information object collections;

automatically populating the catalog with relevant information object collections; and

wherein the catalog being established and populated by the relevance interface in accordance with said user behavior.

8. A method for interacting with an information repository, the repository characterized as an object space, a user accessing said object space through a network interface, the method comprising the steps of:

establishing a relevance interface, the interface adaptively defining a collection of content pointers, each content pointer corresponding to an object within the space, the collection organized as a grouping of sets of indicia, the relevance interface overlaying and cooperating with said network interface;

accessing a particular object within the object space with said network interface;

requesting a relevance search from the relevance interface;

wherein the relevance interface evaluates a first context indicia of the particular object accessed and automatically retrieves an additional set of objects from the object space, each retrieved object associated with the context indicia; and

wherein the relevance interface organizes said retrieved objects in accordance with a second context derived from the collection of content pointers.

9. The method according to claim 8, wherein the object space is a wide area network and wherein the particular object accessed is characterized as a domain within said network.

10. The method according to claim 9, wherein the network domain comprises an organized collection of content objects, the additional set of objects automatically retrieved by the interface corresponding to content objects associated with the context indicia.

11. The method according to claim 10, wherein the network interface comprises a network browser application program, the accessing step further comprising:

browsing the wide area network with the browser application program; and

entering a network domain.

12. The method according to claim 11, the step of evaluating a first content indicia further comprising:

reading content from the entered network domain; and

ordering the read content so as to establish a keyword context collection, the collection defining the first content indicia.

13. The method according to claim 12, further comprising:

searching the indicia groupings of the collection of content pointers;

comparing each grouping indicia to the keyword context collection;

assigning an index to each grouping indicia that matches a keyword context from the collection; and

accessing individual ones of pages of the network domain in accordance with said assigned index, the accessed pages having content corresponding to a keyword context matching a grouping indicia of the collection of content pointers.

14. The method according to claim 13, wherein the requesting step is performed by a user making a single functional action.

15. The method according to claim 14, wherein the network domain comprises an electronic commerce site, the site further including a plurality of content pages organized in accordance with a product hierarchy and, wherein the collection of content pointers comprises a hierarchical organization of user defined recommended content sites, the relevance interface extracting particular ones of content pages from an accessed domain in accordance with a relevance model based upon a user'"'"'s hierarchical organization of recommended content sites.

16. The method according to claim 15 further comprising the step of displaying only those content pages which are extracted in accordance with the relevance model.

18. The method according to claim 17, further comprising:

evaluating a context indicia of each object accessed; and

wherein the relevance interface displays the context relevant hierarchy to a user in accordance with a ranking order determined by a user profile.

19. The method according to claim 18, wherein the user profile comprises a relevance model, the relevance model adaptively redefining the context relevant hierarchy in accordance with objects accessed by a user.

20. The method according to claim 19, wherein the information repository comprises a plurality of network domains, each including a plurality of content pages organized in accordance with a product hierarchy and, wherein the collection of content pointers comprises a hierarchical organization of user defined recommended content sites, the relevance interface assigning particular ones of content pages from an accessed domain to the collection of content pointers in accordance with a user'"'"'s hierarchical organization of recommended content sites.

21. The method according to claim 20, the relevance model adaptively redefining the context relevant hierarchy in accordance with a user'"'"'s browsing interaction metric.

22. The method according to claim 21, wherein the user'"'"'s browsing interaction metric is selected from the group consisting of a user dwell time at a particular page, a number of repeat visits to a particular page, a time of day at which a user visits a page, a time of year, a system type used to access a page, and a number of purchases made from a particular domain.

24. The method according to claim 23, wherein the collection of content pointers is adaptively defined in accordance with the context relevant organization.

25. The method according to claim 24, wherein the information repository comprises a plurality of network domains, each including a plurality of content pages organized in accordance with a product hierarchy and, wherein the context relevant organization comprises a hierarchical organization of user defined recommended content sites, the relevance interface assigning particular ones of accessed objects to the collection of content pointers.

26. The method according to claim 25, further comprising:

generating at least one subject keyword;

searching the plurality of network domains with said network interface, in accordance with the keyword query;

retrieving content page pointers from the network domains, each retrieved content page pointer associated with the query keyword; and

organizing retrieved content page pointers in accordance with a context derived from the context relevant organization, retrieved content page pointers displayed to a user over the network interface in a ranking order corresponding to said context relevant organization.

27. The method according to claim 26, further comprising:

interacting with at least one of the retrieved content page pointers in accordance with a browsing interaction behavior metric;

maintaining a record of browsing interaction behavior metrics by a user;

enabling storage or selection of preferred objects by a user; and

wherein the context is derived from the record of browsing interaction behavior metrics.

28. The method according to claim 27, wherein the network interface comprises an Internet browser application configured to display content defining an information object, the relevance interface automatically generating the at least one subject keyword from a context derived from content of a displayed information object.

29. The method according to claim 28, wherein maintaining a record of browsing interaction behavior metrics further comprises analyzing user behavior with respect to displayed information objects and, wherein the context is derived from said user behavior.

17. A method for interacting with an information repository, the repository characterized as an object space, a user accessing said object space through a network interface, the method comprising the steps of:

establishing a relevance interface, the interface adaptively defining a collection of content pointers, each content pointer corresponding to an object within the space, the collection organized as a context relevant hierarchy, the relevance interface overlaying and cooperating with said network interface;

browsing through a plurality of objects within the object space with said relevance interface;

accessing particular ones of said objects; and

assigning each such accessed object to a position within the context relevant hierarchy.

23. A method for interacting with an information repository, the repository characterized as an object space, a user accessing said object space through a network interface, the method comprising the steps of:

establishing a relevance interface, the interface adaptively defining a collection of content pointers, each content pointer corresponding to an object within the space, the relevance interface overlaying and cooperating with said network interface;

defining a context relevant organization, the context relevant organization structured to contain a set of objects, the objects categorized in accordance with a user defined relevance metric;

browsing through a plurality of objects within the object space with said relevance interface;

evaluating a context indicia of each object accessed;

assigning each such accessed object to a position within the context relevant organization; and

wherein the relevance interface adaptively rearranges the position of accessed objects in the context relevant organization in accordance with a user'"'"'s browsing interaction behavior metric.

32. A method for searching an information repository, the information repository characterized as a topical hierarchical object space, the method comprising the steps of:

establishing a collection of content pointers, the content pointers corresponding to objects contained within the information repository, each contributed by at least one user of a plurality of users, the collection organized in accordance with a topical categorical hierarchy;

searching at least a portion of the collection of shared content pointers in accordance with a keyword query;

augmenting the query with at least one vectorized token derived from the collection;

searching the information repository in accordance with the augmented query keyword; and

matching the augmented query keyword to a content indicia associated with at least one of a group of objects; and

retrieving at least one of said group of objects having a match between their content indicia and the augmented query keyword.

33. The method according to claim 32, further comprising:

accessing the information repository with a network interface application program;

establishing a relevance interface, the relevance interface overlaying and cooperating with the network interface; and

wherein the relevance interface establishes and maintains the collection of content pointers.

34. The method according to claim 33, further comprising:

organizing retrieved objects in accordance with a context derived from the topical categorical hierarchy of the content pointer collection; and

displaying retrieved and organized objects to a user.

35. The method according to claim 34, wherein the object space is a wide area network and wherein retrieved objects are retrieved from domains within said wide area network.

36. The method according to claim 35, wherein the network interface comprises a network browser application program, the accessing step further comprising:

browsing the wide area network with the browser application program; and

entering a network domain.

37. The method according to claim 36, the step of matching a keyword to a content indicia further comprising:

reading content from the entered network domain; and

ordering the read content so as to establish a keyword context collection, the collection defining the content indicia.

38. The method according to claim 37, further comprising:

searching the topical categorical hierarchy of the collection of content pointers;

comparing each object'"'"'s content indicia to a context index of the topical categorical hierarchy;

organizing retrieved objects in accordance with the context index of the topical categorical hierarchy, retrieved objects displayed to a user over the network interface in a ranking order corresponding to said context derived organization.

39. The method according to claim 38, wherein the network domain comprises an electronic commerce site, the site further including a plurality of content pages organized in accordance with a product hierarchy and, wherein the collection of content pointers comprises a hierarchical organization of user defined recommended content sites, the relevance interface extracting particular ones of content pages from an accessed domain in accordance with a relevance model based upon a user'"'"'s hierarchical organization of recommended content sites.

40. A method for generating ordered recommendations of content sources from an information repository comprising the steps of:

establishing a relevance interface, the interface including a collection of content pointers, the content pointers corresponding to objects contained within the information repository, the collection organized in accordance with a topical categorical hierarchy;

generating at least one query keyword;

searching the information repository;

retrieving a group of objects that each includes a content profile matching the query keyword;

identifying a context within the collection; and

ranking the group of content sources based on a computed match between each object'"'"'s content profile and the identified context.

41. The method according to claim 40, further comprising:

establishing a user'"'"'s browsing interaction behavior metric with respect to each of the content pointers of the collection; and

wherein the context is derived from said user'"'"'s browsing interaction behavior metric.

42. The method according to claim 41, further comprising:

maintaining a record of browsing interaction behavior metrics by a user; and

wherein the context is derived from the record of browsing interaction behavior metrics.

43. The method according to claim 42, further comprising:

accessing at least one content source of the group of content sources, thereby performing a browsing interaction behavior;

adding the accessed content source to an appropriate position within the topical categorical hierarchy of the content collection; and

adaptively modifying the context for a subsequent identification step in accordance with the added content source.

44. The method according to claim 43, further comprising the step of providing a network interface, the network interface defining a primary information repository interaction tool, wherein the network interface comprises a network browser application configured to display content defining an information object.

45. The method according to claim 44, wherein maintaining a record of browsing interaction behavior metrics further comprises analyzing user behavior with respect to displayed information objects and, wherein the context is derived from said user behavior.

46. The method according to claim 45, wherein the user behavior is selected from the group consisting of a user dwell time at a particular information object, a number of repeat visits to a particular information object, a time of day, a time of year, a system used to access an information object, and a number of purchases made from a particular Web domain.

48. The method according to claim 47, further comprising:

identifying a context within the collection;

identifying a content profile associated with each data item; and

matching a data item'"'"'s associated content profile to the context.

49. The method according to claim 48, wherein the context is derived from a plurality of contextual tokens of the topical categorical hierarchy, each categorical element of the hierarchy defining a particular contextual token, each data item'"'"'s content profile matched to the plurality of tokens and each data item stored in a respective category having a token match.

50. The method according to claim 49, wherein the context is adaptively modified to account for previously unreceived data items being stored in the collection.

47. A method of structuring a collection of content pointers, wherein each content pointer is associated with a content source, the content pointers organized into a plurality of topical categories, comprising the steps of:

receiving a data item identifying a content source;

determining a category of the collection of shared content pointers in which to store the data item; and

storing the data item as a content pointer in the determined category of the collection.