RELEVANCY RANKING FOR MAP-RELATED SEARCH

• US 20110218992A1
• Filed: 03/05/2010
• Published: 09/08/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 03/05/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Richard, Chad, Waldman, Jaron
• Granted Patent: US 8,838,586 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/724
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3617 using user history, behaviour, conditions or preferences, e.g. predicted or inferred from previous use or current movement
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3679 Retrieval, searching and output of POI information, e.g. hotels, restaurants, shops, filling stations, parking facilities G01C21/3611 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising

Abstract

The following relates to ranking search results consisting of locations or recommending locations to visit based on recorded data representing visits by a plurality of users to the locations represented as search results or recommended locations to visit. The data representing users'"'"' visits can be recorded by receiving data anonymously reported by handheld communication devices carried by the plurality of users. A handheld communication device, which is carried by a user, can report to the system the user'"'"'s present location optionally associated with a time stamp. The handheld communication device can report either a single location coordinate or a collection of coordinates gathered over time.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

processing a search request for a class of locations to identify potential search results; and

ranking the potential search results based upon aggregated visitor-location data.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the search results are ranked based on assumptions derived from the visitor-location data, the assumptions being relevant to the ranking of the search results.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the assumption is that users that visit a location for at least a determined period of time like the location.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the assumption is that a user that is within an office building is at work.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein the assumption is that a user within a residential address is at home.

6. The method of claim 2, wherein the assumption is that a location that is not known to be crowded will provide faster service than a location that is known to be crowded.

7. A method comprising:

receiving data describing global positioning system (GPS) coordinates reported from a plurality of handheld communication devices, each handheld communication device associated with an anonymous user;

correlating each of the GPS coordinates, described by the received data, with locations identified by map data describing their perimeters;

determining if a user associated with one of the handheld devices remained within the location correlated to the GPS coordinates reported by the handheld communication device for longer than a duration determined to indicate that the user visited the location;

recording the visit of longer than the determined period of time by the user as visitor-location data; and

aggregating the visitor-location data collected from the plurality of handheld devices.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising

ranking search results based upon the aggregated visitor-location data.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein the aggregated visitor-location data is stored in a location-popularity index.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the location-popularity index includes categories of data, the data associated with the categories being used to rank the search results.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the categories are one or more of duration of stay, time of day during visit, previous location of user before the visit, distance traveled to visit, and whether the user searched for the location before visiting.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the location-popularity index includes values assigned to each location for each category described in the location-popularity index.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the assigned value is a weighed value used in ranking search results for one or more locations described in the location-popularity index.

14. A product comprising:

a machine-readable medium; and

machine-executable instructions for causing a computer to perform the method comprising

processing a search request for a class of locations to identify search results; and

ranking the search results based upon values recorded in a location-popularity index.

15. The product of claim 14, wherein the location-popularity index comprises data derived from aggregated data from a plurality of users'"'"' position data that is reported by the handheld communication devices carried by each of the users, and correlated to locations.

16. The product of claim 15, wherein the location-popularity index includes data describing categories, the data associated with the categories being used to rank the search results.

17. The product of claim 16, wherein the categories are selected from the group consisting of:

period of time of stay, time of day during visit, previous location of user before the visit, distance traveled to visit, and whether the user searched for the location before visiting.

18. The product of claim 17, wherein the location-popularity index includes values assigned to each location for each category described in the location-popularity index.

19. The product of claim 18, wherein the assigned value is a weighted value used in ranking search results for one or more locations described in the location-popularity index.

20. A system, comprising:

a plurality of handheld communication devices each configured to report position data representing a user'"'"'s position as determined by global positioning system location coordinates, each user being associated with one of the plurality of handheld communication devices;

a first server configured to receive position data and to correlate the positions to locations, the server further configured to aggregate the correlations made from the position data describing the plurality of users'"'"' positions to the locations and store the aggregated data in a location-popularity index; and

a second server configured to rank search results returned responsive to a query for a location based on data stored in the location-popularity index.

21. The system of claim 20, wherein the location-popularity index includes data describing categories, based on assumptions derived from the aggregated visitor-location data.

22. The system of claim 21, wherein the location-popularity index includes a value assigned for each location described in the location-popularity index, the value representing a relative score for that location and used to rank the search results.