METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR CREATING CONTEXTUALIZED AUCTION FEEDS

• US 20100094724A1
• Filed: 12/10/2009
• Published: 04/15/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 02/16/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: eBay Inc.
• Original Assignee: Moreover Acquisition Corporation
• Inventors: Pitkow, James Edward
• Granted Patent: US 7,881,983 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/26.1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0641 Shopping interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/08 Auctions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/04 Trading; Exchange, e.g. stocks, commodities, derivatives or currency exchange

Abstract

A method and apparatus is disclosed herein for generating contextualized live auction feeds. The method of generating contextualized live auction feeds comprises receiving context data from a user. The method further comprises utilizing the context data received from the user to search auctions. The method, in one embodiment, includes generating contextualized live auction feeds for an auction based on the context data.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving a unit of context data created from a data interaction between a user and a user interface from the user interface;

using the unit of context data to search a plurality of auction hosts to identify at least one contextual auction;

generating a feed for each at least one contextual auction, wherein each feed is a contextualized auction feed;

providing the contextualized auction feeds as part of an electronic feed list to the user interface;

subsequent to providing the electronic feed list to the user interface, receiving, from the user interface, a selection of at least one of the contextualized auction feeds; and

monitoring the selected contextualized auction feed for updates and automatically updating the selected contextualized auction feed when an update is detected.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the unit of context data is selected from a group consisting of:

single strokes on a keyboard, a word, a plurality of words, or a paragraph of words entered by the user.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the user interface is a web page.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the unit of context data comprises metadata of a webpage.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the selected contextualized auction feed comprises at least one static element and at least one dynamic element, the dynamic element being continually updated.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a restriction request, the restriction request including one or more restriction factors; and

updating the contextualized auction feeds of the electronic feed list based on the restriction request.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving additional context data from the user interface; and

generating additional contextualized auction feeds based on the unit of context data and the additional context data.

8. A method comprising:

generating context data in the form of a plurality of alphanumeric characters created by an interaction of a user with a user interface that includes a data entry application;

using the context data to search at least one auction host to identify at least one contextual auction;

generating a feed for each at least one contextual auction, wherein each feed is a contextualized auction feed;

providing the contextualized auction feeds as part of an electronic feed list to the user interface;

subsequent to providing the electronic feed list to the user interface, receiving, from the user interface, a selection of at least one of the contextualized auction feeds; and

monitoring the selected contextualized auction feed for updates and automatically updating the selected contextualized auction feed when an update is detected;

receiving additional context data from the user interface; and

generating additional contextualized auction feeds based on the context data and the additional context data.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the context data is selected from a group consisting of:

single strokes on a keyboard, a word, a plurality of words, or a paragraph of words entered by the user.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the user interface is a web page.

11. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

receiving a restriction request, the restriction request including one or more restriction factors; and

updating the contextualized auction feeds of the electronic feed list based on the restriction request.

12. An article of manufacture including one or more computer-readable media that contain a program of instructions that when executed by one or more processors in the processing system, causes the one or more processors to perform a method of providing auction information to a user, the programming instructions comprising:

receiving a unit of context data from a user interface;

using the unit of context data to search a plurality of auction hosts to identify at least one contextual auction;

generating a feed for each at least one contextual auction, wherein each feed is a contextualized auction feed;

providing the contextualized auction feeds as part of an feed list to the user interface;

subsequent to providing the feed list to the user interface, receiving, from the user interface, a selection of at least one of the contextualized auction feeds; and

monitoring the selected contextualized auction feed for updates and automatically updating the selected contextualized auction feed when an update is detected.

13. The article of manufacture of claim 12, wherein the unit of context data comprises a plurality of words.

14. The article of manufacture of claim 13, wherein the unit of context data comprises a paragraph of words.

15. The article of manufacture of claim 13, wherein each word is typed into a data entry application included in the user interface.

16. The article of manufacture of claim 15, wherein the user interface is a web page.

17. The article of manufacture of claim 12, wherein the selected contextualized auction feed comprises at least one static element and at least one dynamic element, the dynamic element being continually updated.

18. The article of manufacture of claim 12, further comprising:

receiving a restriction request, the restriction request including one or more restriction factors; and

updating the contextualized auction feeds of the electronic feed list based on the restriction request.

19. The article of manufacture of claim 12, further comprising:

receiving additional context data from the user interface; and

generating additional contextualized auction feeds based on the unit of context data and the additional context data.

20. An apparatus for generating contextualized auction feeds, the apparatus comprising:

a processor and associated computer-readable media that contain a program of instructions which causes the processor to

receive a unit of context data created from a data interaction between a user and a user interface from the user interface;

use the unit of context data to search a plurality of auction hosts to identify at least one contextual auction;

generate a feed for each at least one contextual auction, wherein each feed is a contextualized auction feed;

provide the contextualized auction feeds as part of an electronic feed list to the user interface;

receive, from the user interface, a selection of at least one of the contextualized auction feeds; and

monitor the selected contextualized auction feed for updates and automatically update the selected contextualized auction feed when an update is detected.