Systems and methods for collecting user annotations

• US 20050216457A1
• Filed: 03/15/2005
• Published: 09/29/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 03/15/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: R2 Solutions LLC (Acacia Research Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Yahoo! Inc. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Lee, Kevin, Walther, Eckart, Lu, Qi, Diab, Ali, Ku, David, Tam, Chung-Man
• Granted Patent: US 7,599,950 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/338 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/8365 Query optimisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9538 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9558 Details of hyperlinks; Management of linked annotations
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99942 Manipulating data structure, e.g. compression, compaction, compilation
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99943 Generating database or data structure, e.g. via user interface
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99944 Object-oriented database structure
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing

Abstract

Computer systems and methods allow users to annotate content items found in a corpus such as the World Wide Web. Annotations, which can include any descriptive and/or evaluative metadata related to a document, are collected from a user and stored in association with that user. Users are able to annotate and view their annotations for any document they encounter while interacting with the corpus, including hits returned in a search of the corpus. Users are also able to search their annotations or to limit searches to documents they have annotated. Metadata from annotations can also be aggregated across users and aggregated metadata applied in generating search results.

Claims

1. A method for collecting metadata related to documents in a corpus, the method comprising:

providing a user interface with a first control element operable by a user to indicate a desire to annotate a current document;

receiving, via a network, metadata related to the current document from the user;

adding to a data store an annotation including the metadata provided by the user, the annotation being persistently associated with the user and with the current document; and

thereafter, transmitting, via the network, the metadata of the annotation to the user in response to a user request.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the first control element is further operable by the user to submit the metadata.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the first control element is further operable by the user to obtain a form for submitting the metadata.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein providing the user interface includes adding the first control element to a search report generated in response to a query submitted by the user.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein:

the search report includes a listing of hits, each hit being a document from the corpus;

the search report provides a different instance of the first control element corresponding to each hit; and

the hit is identified as the current document in the event that the user operates the corresponding instance of the first control element.

6. The method of claim 4 wherein the search report includes a listing of hits, each hit being a document from the corpus, the method further comprising:

for each of the hits, determining whether the data store includes an annotation associated with the user and the hit;

in the event that the data store includes an annotation associated with the user and the hit, including in the search result page a second control element operable by the user to view the metadata of the annotation; and

in the event that the data store does not include an annotation associated with the user and the hit, including in the search result page an instance of the first control element corresponding to the hit, wherein the hit is identified as the current document in the event that the user operates the corresponding instance of the first control element.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the first control element is provided in a toolbar interface for a document browser configured to display documents from the corpus.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein a document being displayed by the document browser when the user operates the first control element is identified as the current document.

9. The method of claim 7 wherein the first control element is active only when the document browser is displaying a document for which the data store does not include an annotation associated with the displayed document and the user.

10. The method of claim 7 further comprising:

providing a second control element in the toolbar interface, the second control element being operable by the user to request transmission of the metadata for a document being displayed by the document browser,

wherein the second control element is active only when the document browser is displaying a document for which the data store includes an annotation associated with the displayed document and the user.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein the metadata includes a rating of the associated document.

12. The method of claim 11 further comprising:

displaying the rating when the associated document is displayed for the user.

13. The method of claim 11 further comprising:

receiving a query from the user;

generating a search report for the user in response to the query, the search report including a listing of documents in the corpus determined to be relevant to the query; and

including in the search report the rating for each document in the listing for which the data store includes an annotation associated with the document and the user.

14. The method of claim 1 wherein the metadata includes a keyword describing the associated document.

15. The method of claim 14 further comprising:

receiving a query from the user; and

using the keyword to determine whether the associated document is relevant to the query.

16. The method of claim 1 wherein the metadata includes a label describing the associated document, the label being selected by the user from a predefined vocabulary.

17. The method of claim 1 wherein the metadata includes a free-text description of the associated document.

18. The method of claim 17 further comprising;

receiving a query from the user; and

using the free-text description to determine whether the associated document is relevant to the query.

19. The method of claim 1 wherein transmitting the metadata includes providing a second control element operable by the user to edit the metadata, the method further comprising:

receiving edited metadata from the user; and

updating the annotation in the data store using the edited metadata.

20. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

providing a second control element operable by the user to request a display of annotations from the data store; and

in response to operation of the second control element, retrieving the requested annotations from the data store and transmitting the metadata for the retrieved annotations to the user.

21. The method of claim 20 wherein the second control element is provided in a toolbar interface for a document browser configured to display documents from the corpus.

22. The method of claim 1 wherein the corpus is the World Wide Web.

23. The method of claim 1 wherein the user is a computer.

24. The method of claim 1 wherein the user is a human.

25. A computer system for collecting metadata related to documents in a corpus, the computer system comprising:

a personalization data store configured to store a plurality of annotations, each annotation associated with an annotating user and with one of the documents in the corpus, each annotation including metadata relating to the one of the documents; and

an annotation module communicably coupled to the personalization data store, the annotation module including;

input control logic configured to receive metadata from the annotating user and to associate the received metadata with one of the documents in the corpus;

storage control logic configured to store the received metadata in the personalization store as an annotation associated with an identifier of the annotating user and the one of the documents; and

retrieval control logic configured to locate an annotation in the personalization data store by reference to the identifier of the annotating user and the associated one of the documents.