Apparatus and method for content annotation and conditional annotation retrieval in a search context

• US 20080005064A1
• Filed: 06/28/2005
• Published: 01/03/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 06/28/2005
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Oath Inc. (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Yahoo! Inc. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Sarukkai, Ramesh R.
• Application Number:
  US11/169,864
• Publication Number:
  US 20080005064A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/3
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/957 Browsing optimisation, e.g. caching or content distillation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/169 Annotation, e.g. comment data or footnotes

Abstract

Computer systems and methods incorporate user annotations (metadata) regarding various pages or sites, including annotations by a querying user and by members of a trust network defined for the querying user into search and browsing of a corpus such as the World Wide Web. A trust network is defined for each user, and annotations by any member of the querying user'"'"'s trust network are made visible to the querying user during search and/or browsing of the corpus if the querying user and trust network members use similar queries to identify documents in the corpus. Users can also limit searches to content annotated by members of their trust networks or by members of a community selected by the user.

Claims

1. A method for responding to a user query, the method comprising:

receiving a query submitted by a querying one of a plurality of users via a client system of the querying user;

searching a corpus indexing a plurality of documents to identify one or more hits, wherein each hit is a document indexed in the corpus and determined to be relevant to the query;

accessing a set of annotations created by the plurality of users, each annotation being associated with i) a subject one of the documents indexed in the corpus, ii) a creating one of the plurality of users, iii) a set of queries used to access the subject document by the plurality of users, and vi) members of a trust network for the querying user, the trust network having as members a subset of the plurality of users including at least one user other than the querying user, each annotation including user-specific metadata related to the subject document;

identifying, as an annotated hit, each of the hits that is the subject document of at least one matching annotation, wherein the creating user of each matching annotation is one of the members of the trust network;

identifying, as a similar query in the set of queries, each query used by the members of the trust network to identify the hits;

generating a search report including a listing of the hits, wherein for each annotated hit for which a member of the trust network and the user used a similar query to identify the annotated hit, the search report includes information about at least one of the matching annotations; and

transmitting the search report to the client system of the querying user.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising building a trust network for the querying user, the trust network having as members the subset of the plurality of users including at least one user other than the querying user.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein queries are similar if the queries include the same or similar query strings, the same or similar subject matter, are similarly categorized, and/or are derivatives of one another, and/or include synonyms.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein if a select query in the set of queries is used by a member of the trust network to identify at least one of the hits, and the select query and the query submitted by the querying user are not similar, then information for the annotation of this member for the at least one hit is not included in the search report.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the querying user is one of the members of the trust network.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the search report includes a visual highlight element applied to each hit that is an annotated hit.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein the user-specific metadata included in the annotations includes a rating, the method further comprising:

for each annotated hit, extracting a rating from each matching annotation and computing an average rating,

wherein the visual highlight element applied to each annotated hit depends on the average rating.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the user-specific metadata included in the annotations includes a rating, the method further comprising:

for each annotated hit, extracting a rating from each matching annotation and computing an average rating,

wherein generating the search report includes determining an order for the listing of the hits based at least in part on the average ratings of the annotated hits.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein generating the search report further includes:

for each annotated hit, providing in the search report a control element operable by the user to request a display of the user-specific metadata of at least one of the matching annotations.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein generating the search report further includes:

for each annotated hit in the search report, providing in the search report information extracted from at least one of the matching annotations.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein generating the search report further includes:

generating a separate listing including only annotated hits.

12. The method of claim 1 wherein the user-specific metadata includes an item of information explicitly input by the user.

13. The method of claim 12 wherein the item of information is a rating of the associated document.

14. The method of claim 12 further comprising determining a rating of the associated document from the item of information via text recognition of the user-specific metadata.

15. The method of claim 12 wherein the item of information is a keyword describing the associated document.

16. The method of claim 12 wherein the item of information is a label selected from a predefined vocabulary.

17. The method of claim 12 wherein the item of information is a description of the associated document.

18. A computer system for responding to user queries from a plurality of users, the system comprising:

an index data store configured to store a searchable representation of a plurality of documents belonging to a corpus;

a personalization data store configured to store annotations, each annotation being associated with i) a subject one of the documents in the corpus, ii) a creating one of the plurality of users;

iii) a set of queries used to access the subject document by the plurality of users, each annotation including user-specific metadata related to the subject document; and

a search server communicably coupled to the index data store and the personalization data store,

the search server including;

input control logic configured to receive a query from a querying one of the plurality of users;

search control logic configured to search the index data store to identify one or more hits, wherein each hit is a document in the corpus that is determined to be relevant to the received query;

trust network control logic configured to build a trust network for the querying user, the trust network having as members a subset of the plurality of users including at least one user other than the querying user;

personalization control logic configured to identify, as an annotated hit, each of the hits that is the subject document of at least one matching annotation, wherein the creating user of each matching annotation is one of the members of the trust network, and identify, as a similar query in the set of queries, each query used by the members of the trust network to identify the hits; and

reporting control logic configured to generate a search report including a listing of the hits, the search report further including, for each annotated hit for which the members of the trust network and the user used a similar query to identify this annotated hit, information about at least one of the matching annotations, the reporting control logic being further configured to transmit the search report to the client system of the querying user.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein the user is a human.

20. The system of claim 18, wherein the user is computer.

21. A group searching method comprising:

receiving a query selection of a query included in a set of queries used by members of a trust network to identify a document in a document corpus, the query being selected by a querying one of a plurality of users via a client system of the querying user;

searching a corpus to identify one or more documents included in the corpus and determined to be relevant to the query;

accessing a set of annotations created by the plurality of users, each annotation being associated with i) a subject one of the documents in the corpus, ii) a creating one of the plurality of users, iii) a set of queries used to identify the subject document by the plurality of users, and vi) members of a trust network for which the querying user is a member, the trust network having as members a subset of the plurality of users including at least one user other than the querying user, each annotation including user-specific metadata related to the subject document;

identifying, as an annotated hit, each of the hits that is the subject document of at least one matching annotation, wherein the creating user of each matching annotation is one of the members of the trust network;

identifying, as a similar query in the set of queries, each query used by the members of the trust network to identify each annotated hit;

generating a search report including a listing of the hits, wherein for each annotated hit for which the members of the trust network and the user used a similar query to identify this annotated hit, the search report includes information about at least one of the matching annotations; and

transmitting the search report to the client system of the querying user.

22. A group searching method comprising:

issuing from a first user system of a first user an invitation to a second user system of a second user to join a group search;

receiving at the first user system an acceptance to join the group search;

issuing via the first user system a query to a document corpus;

searching the document corpus to identify one or more documents included in the corpus and determined to be relevant to the query;

accessing a set of annotations created by the second users, each annotation being associated with a subject one of the documents determined to be relevant to the query and a set of queries by the first user or the second user to identify the subject document, each annotation including user-specific metadata related to the subject document;

identifying, as an annotated hit, each of the hits that is the subject document of at least one matching annotation;

identifying, as a similar query in the set of queries, each query used by the second user to identify each annotated hit;

generating a search report including a listing of the hits, wherein for each annotated hit that is annotated by second user and for which the second user and the first user used a similar query to identify this annotated hit, the search report includes information about at least one of the matching annotations; and

transmitting the search report to the client system of the querying user.

23. The method of claim 22 further comprising forming a trust relationship between the first user and the second user if the second user is not in a trust relationship with the first user and the second user accepts the invitation to join the group search.

24. The method of claim 23 further comprising dissolving the trust relationship subsequent to group searching.

25. The method of claim 22 wherein the receiving step includes receiving the query selection from a wireless-enabled device, and the hits included in the search report only include annotated hits annotated by the second user and/or the first user.

26. The method of claim 25 wherein the wireless-enabled device is a WAP-enabled device.