INTEGRATING AN INTERNET PREFERENCE LEARNING FACILITY INTO THIRD PARTIES

• US 20100312650A1
• Filed: 06/11/2010
• Published: 12/09/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 11/02/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: eBay Inc.
• Original Assignee: eBay Inc.
• Inventors: Gattis, Matthew Rvan, Dixon, Christopher, Pinckney, Thomas
• Granted Patent: US 8,484,142 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/14.66
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 20/00 Machine learning
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0269 based on user profile or attribute

Abstract

In embodiments of the present invention improved capabilities are described for a computer program product embodied in a computer readable medium that, when executing on one or more computers, helps target responses returned to a user through the use of a computer facility by performing the steps of (1) providing a user preference learning API to a third-party website to determine preferences of a user as related to a market of a third-party, wherein the preference learning API is executing as an extension of the computer facility; (2) receiving third-party information related to the market of the third-party; (3) collecting the preferences of the user and storing them as a user preference profile; (4) receiving a query from the user at the third-party website; and (5) using in the user preference learning API the third-party information related to the market of the third-party and the preferences of the user as stored in the user preference profile to provide a response back to the user that relates to the query from the user.

Claims

1. A computer program product embodied in a computer readable medium that, when executing on one or more computers, helps target responses returned to a user through the use of a computer facility by performing the steps of:

providing a user preference learning API to a third-party website to determine preferences of a user as related to a market of a third-party, wherein the preference learning API is executing as an extension of the computer facility;

receiving third-party information related to the market of the third-party;

collecting the preferences of the user and storing them as a user preference profile;

receiving a query from the user at the third-party website; and

using in the user preference learning API the third-party information related to the market of the third-party and the preferences of the user as stored in the user preference profile to provide a response back to the user that relates to the query from the user.

2. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the computing facility is a machine learning facility.

3. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the response is providing an advertisement to the user, wherein the advertisement is based on the preferences of the user as stored in the user preference profile.

4. The computer program product of claim 3, wherein the advertisement is provided by the computer facility.

5. The computer program product of claim 3, wherein the advertisement is provided through the third-party and enabled through preferences provided to the third-party from the computer facility.

6. The computer program product of claim 3, wherein the advertisement is delivered to other users in a user'"'"'s social network.

7. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the response is providing a recommendation of at least one of a product and service related to the market of the third-party.

8. The computer program product of claim 1, further, collecting the preferences of at least a second user to form a user preference profile for the at least second user, determining the second user to be similar to the user based on a comparison of preference profiles.

9. The computer program product of claim 8, wherein the response is providing a recommendation made by the second user.

10. The computer program product of claim 8, wherein the collecting of preferences for the at least second user is taken from an internet based social construct, and the response is providing information to the user that shows the at least second user as a similar person on the construct.

11. The computer program product of claim 10, wherein the internet based social construct is a social network.

12. The computer program product of claim 8, wherein the collecting of preferences for the at least second user includes search result selections, the query is a search request, and the response is a search result ranked according to the search result selections of the at least second user.

13. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the collecting is from at least one of recommendations, purchases, and search result choices made by the user.

14. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the collecting is from sources that reveal location behaviors of the user.

15. The computer program product of claim 14, wherein the source is user location information from at least one of the web services foursquare, yelp, Google, Gowalla, and Facebook.

16. The computer program product of claim 14, wherein the source is user location information from a service provider.

17. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the third-party information consists of at least one of product information from product manufacturers, product information from web merchants, pricing information from other websites, availability information from other websites, pricing information from merchants, availability information from merchants, a review, comments, and ratings.

18. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the determining preferences is through the use of natural language processing.

19. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the API enables the collection of at least one of cost information, product information, personal information, and topical information.

20. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the collecting is from a user'"'"'s interactions as represented in an internet based social interactive construct.

21. The computer program product of claim 20, wherein the Internet based social interactive construct is a social network.

22. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the response can be a list of reviews sorted by a review author'"'"'s similarity to the user reading the reviews.

23. The computer program product of claim 1, further comprising collecting the preferences of the user through third party websites.

24. The computer program product of claim 23, wherein the collecting is through crawling third party websites.