Methods and systems for conceptually organizing and presenting information

• US 20050125374A1
• Filed: 05/24/2004
• Published: 06/09/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 12/08/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: IAC Search & Media Incorporated (Match Group, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: IAC Search & Media Incorporated (Match Group, Inc.)
• Inventors: Curtis, Andy, Gerasoulis, Apostolos, Levin, Alan
• Granted Patent: US 7,181,447 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• 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 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99935 Query augmenting and refining, e.g. inexact access
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99936 Pattern matching access
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99943 Generating database or data structure, e.g. via user interface

Abstract

Methods and systems for conceptually organizing and presenting information. A correlation of multiple users'"'"' responses to the organization and presentation of information is used to determine an optimal organization and presentation of the information. For one embodiment of the invention, in the context of search engine result optimization, the user activity and/or user information of multiple users, during a search session, is correlated with queries to effect an evolving association between queries and the organization and presentation of documents. Systems in accordance with such embodiments employ the ability to store users'"'"' activity over the entire search session, thus making possible the correlation of a number of different types of user activity and user information. The use of correlated user input allows such systems to provide relevant search results without the limitations imposed by the key-word-based systems of the prior art.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

presenting a set of conceptually related information to a plurality of users;

receiving one or more responses from each of two or more users, the responses in regard to a presentation of the conceptually related information;

correlating the responses from two or more users; and

modifying the presentation of the conceptually related information based upon correlated responses.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the set of conceptually related information comprises one or more distinctly formulated gathering pages having varying presentation.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the one or more responses comprise selected and non-selected portions of the set of conceptually related information.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein modifying the presentation of the conceptually related information based upon correlated responses includes reformulating one or more of the gathering pages.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the responses received from each of the two or more users are search engine activity information of each respective user.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein modifying the presentation of the conceptually related information includes associating particular information with a corresponding user query.

7. The method of claim 5 wherein the search activity information includes all of the information of a user search engine session.

8. The method of claim 5 wherein the responses received from each of the two or more users are selected from the group of search engine activity information consisting of query-to-pick information, pick-to-query information, pick-to-pick information, query-to-query information, and combinations thereof.

9. A system comprising:

a server digital processing system (DPS) to communicate a set of conceptually related information to a plurality of client DPSs, receive one or more user responses from each of two or more users, the responses in regard to a presentation of the conceptually related information, correlate the responses from two or more users, and modify the presentation of the conceptually related information based upon correlated responses; and

one or more client DPSs to present the conceptually related information to a plurality of users and communicate the user responses to the server DPS.

10. The system of claim 9 wherein the set of conceptually related information comprises one or more distinctly formulated gathering pages having varying presentation.

11. The system of claim 10 wherein the one or more responses comprise selected and non-selected portions of the set of conceptually related information.

12. The system of claim 11 wherein modifying the presentation of the conceptually related information based upon correlated responses includes reformulating one or more of the gathering pages.

13. The system of claim 9 wherein the responses received from each of the two or more users are search engine activity information of each respective user.

14. The system of claim 13 wherein modifying the presentation of the conceptually related information includes associating particular information with a corresponding user query.

15. The system of claim 13 wherein the search activity information includes all of the information of a user search engine session.

16. The system of claim 13 wherein the responses received from each of the two or more users are selected from the group of search engine activity information consisting of query-to-pick information, pick-to-query information, pick-to-pick information, query-to-query information, and combinations thereof.

17. A machine-readable medium that provides executable instructions which, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform a method comprising:

presenting a set of conceptually related information to a plurality of users;

receiving one or more responses from each of two or more users, the responses in regard to a presentation of the conceptually related information;

correlating the responses from two or more users; and

modifying the presentation of the conceptually related information based upon correlated responses.

18. The machine-readable medium of claim 17 wherein the set of conceptually related information comprises one or more distinctly formulated gathering pages having varying presentation.

19. The machine-readable medium of claim 18 wherein the one or more responses comprise selected and non-selected portions of the set of conceptually related information.

20. The machine-readable medium of claim 19 wherein modifying the presentation of the conceptually related information based upon correlated responses includes reformulating one or more of the gathering pages.

21. The machine-readable medium of claim 17 wherein the responses received from each of the two or more users are search engine activity information of each respective user.

22. The machine-readable medium of claim 21 wherein modifying the presentation of the conceptually related information includes associating particular information with a corresponding user query.

23. The machine-readable medium of claim 21 wherein the search activity information includes all of the information of a user search engine session.

24. The machine-readable medium of claim 21 wherein the responses received from each of the two or more users are selected from the group of search engine activity information consisting of query-to-pick information, pick-to-query information, pick-to-pick information, query-to-query information, and combinations thereof.