MACHINE-MODERATED MOBILE SOCIAL NETWORKING FOR MANAGING QUERIES

• US 20090125499A1
• Filed: 11/09/2007
• Published: 05/14/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 11/09/2007
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Stifelman, Lisa J., Cross, Karen M.
• Application Number:
  US11/938,125
• Publication Number:
  US 20090125499A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/1824 implemented using Network-attached Storage [NAS] architecture distributed or networked storage systems G06F3/067; protocols for distributed storage of data in a network H04L67/1097
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/52 for supporting social networking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/62 Establishing a time schedule for servicing the requests
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/63 Routing a service request depending on the request content or context
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/029 Location-based management or tracking services

Abstract

Systems and methods of a machine-moderated mobile social networking for managing queries are disclosed here. In one aspect, embodiments of the present disclosure include a method, which may be implemented on a system, of receiving queries from a mobile device and intelligently distributing the queries among users that are deemed suitable to provide useful insight to the queries. The queries are typically questions asked by potential patrons regarding specific venues, patrons looking for specific businesses and/or events that fit their specific criteria, by way of example but not limitation, geography, locale, type of cuisine, ambience, music, etc. In most instances, a consumer can send the query from a portable device (e.g., cell phone, Blackberry, telephone, iPhone, Treo, etc.) in various formats (e.g., SMS text, voice call, USSD message, IM, and/or email, etc.) to a predetermined phone number and/or other types of address identifiers.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

receiving a request from a requesting user to provide a response to a query,

extracting at least one search parameter from the query;

identifying a suitable set of users from a plurality of users to generate a personalized response to the query, the suitable set of users to be determined based on an indication of correlation between user data of the suitable set of users and one or more of the at least one search parameter;

providing at least one user of the suitable set of users with access to the query, the at least one user to be selected from the suitable set of users to conform with user specified criteria identified from the user data of the suitable set of users;

in response to receiving at least one personalized response to the query from the at least one user of the set of users, generating one or more enhanced responses by enhancing the one or more of at least one personalized response with relevant business data;

providing the one or more enhanced responses to the requesting user.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the request from the requesting user is generated from a portable device.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one search parameter is identifiable via detection of an indication of one or more of a location, a business listing, a time, and a type of business

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the indication of correlation is identifiable based on a keyword match between metadata of the user data and the one or more of the at least one search parameter.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein a user of the suitable set of users is deemed suitable based on one or more of proximity to a geographical region to which the query is relevant and specialized knowledge for a type of business for which the query is relevant.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising identifying the relevant business data based on identifying a reference to one or more of a business listing and an event in the at least one personalized response.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising identifying the relevant business data based on identifying a reference to one or more of a business listing and an event in the at least one personalized response;

wherein the relevant business data comprises relevant business data of one or more of the business listing and the event, the relevant business data to include at least one of, an address, contact information, and hours of operation.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising, recording quantitative data related to responsiveness of the plurality of users when presented with access to queries.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising, recording quantitative data related to responsiveness of the plurality of users when presented with access to queries;

wherein the quantitative data comprises one or more of, average time to respond, rate of response, and total number of responses.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising, a method of a peer review system, the peer review method comprising:

determining that the requesting user has accessed the one or more enhanced responses;

optionally requesting permission from the requesting user to solicit information about the one or more enhanced responses that the requesting user has accessed;

prompting the requesting user for at least one of a rating and a comment regarding the one or more enhanced responses provided in response to the query.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising, receiving the at least one of the rating and the comment from a particular user of the plurality of users;

wherein the particular user of the plurality of users provides the at least one of the rating and the comment upon reviewing a particular personalized response of a plurality personalized responses submitted by another user of the plurality of users.

12. The method of claim 10, further comprising, compiling a review database of ratings and comments associated with the plurality of users.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising, identifying the suitable set of users based on information deduced from, one or more of the recorded quantitative data and the review database.

14. A system, comprising:

a communications module to communicate with one or more user devices;

wherein, in operation, the communications module to process a user query received from the one or more user devices;

a user database to store user data;

a listings database to store at least one of business listing data and events listing data;

a keyword extraction module to extract a set of search parameters from the user query;

a query distribution module communicatively coupled with the keyword extraction module, the user database, and the content database, the query distribution module to identify a suitable set of users from a plurality of users to generate a human response to the user query;

wherein, in operation, the query distribution module communicates with the communications module to distribute the user query to at least one user of the suitable set of users;

a response processing module communicatively coupled with the listings database to retrieve relevant business data from the listings database;

wherein, in operation, the response processing module generates one or more enhanced responses by enhancing one or more of the human responses provided by one or more of the at least one user of the suitable set of users by assimilating the human responses with the relevant business data.

15. The system of claim 14, further comprising a query processing module communicatively coupled to the communications module and the keyword extraction module;

wherein, when in operation, the query processing module identifies the set of search parameters from the user query via one or more of voice recognition and text recognition to process the user query received from the one or more user devices.

16. The system of claim 14, further comprising a speech and text converting module to perform one or more of a converting speech to text and text to speech.

17. A method, comprising:

receiving a query from a requesting user,

extracting at least one search parameter from the query;

comparing the at least one search parameter with user metadata of a plurality of users;

identifying a set of users of the plurality of users deemed suitable to generate a personalized response to the query;

wherein the set of users are identified based on an indication of correlation between the user metadata of the set of users and one or more of the at least one search parameter.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the at least one search parameter is identifiable via detection of an indication of one or more of a location, a business listing, a time, and a type of business in the query.

19. The method of claim 17, wherein the indication of correlation is identifiable based on a keyword match between the user metadata and the one or more of the at least one search parameter.

20. The method of claim 17, wherein a user of the set of users is deemed suitable based on one or more of proximity to a geographical region to which the query is relevant and specialized knowledge for a type of business for which the query is relevant.