Method and apparatus for tailoring content of information delivered over the internet

• US 20020130902A1
• Filed: 03/16/2001
• Published: 09/19/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 03/16/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: eBay Inc.
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Shaouy, William Philip, Trevathan, Matthew Bunkley
• Granted Patent: US 7,735,013 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/745
• 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

Abstract

A method is described for tailoring information to characteristics of a user of an application program such as a web browser. An arbiter receives a request object from the application program. The request object contains profile elements that convey characteristics of the user. The profile elements are analyzed by the arbiter, and, based on the outcome of the analysis, the arbiter selects a personalization engine from a plurality of personalization engines. The request object is passed to the selected personalization engine, which accesses a content database to retrieve a personalized content object comprising information tailored to the user. The personalized content object is sent to the application program, which interprets it for the user. Various embodiments include an expert-system arbiter, and an arbiter comprising computer code that is provided according to conventional object-oriented analysis and design methods executing on a programmable processor. The plurality of personalization engines may include a rule-based engine, a collaborative-filtering engine, or a predictive-modeling engine.

Claims

1. A method for tailoring information to characteristics of an information user, comprising the acts of:

a) passing a request object containing at least one profile element to an arbiter;

b) selecting a personalization engine from a plurality of personalization engines by the arbiter;

c) accessing a content database to retrieve a personalized content object identified by the personalization engine selected by the arbiter.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising the act of passing the personalized content object to an application program.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the application program is a web browser.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising the act of sending the request object over a communication network.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the communication network is the Internet.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising the acts of:

d) accessing a profile database that stores profile elements associated with the request object;

e) retrieving from the profile database at least one profile element associated with the request object; and

f) including in the request object the at least one profile element retrieved from the profile database.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of personalization engines comprises at least two personalization engines selected from the group consisting of a rule-based personalization engine, a predictive-modeling personalization engine, and a collaborative filtering personalization engine.

8. Apparatus for tailoring information to characteristics of an information user, the apparatus comprising:

a) an arbiter for accepting and analyzing a request object; and

b) a plurality of personalization engines for selecting at least one personalized content object from a content database;

wherein the arbiter selects a personalization engine from the plurality of personalization engines, and the selected personalization engine selects the at least one personalization content object from the content database.

9. The apparatus of claim 8, further comprising output logic for passing the at least one personalization content object to an application program over a communication network.

10. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the communication network is the Internet.

11. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the application program is a web browser.