Information presentation and management in an online trading environment

• US 7,007,076 B1
• Filed: 02/05/2001
• Issued: 02/28/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 10/23/1998
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: eBay Inc.
• Original Assignee: eBay Inc.
• Inventors: Hess, Martin L., Wilson, Michael K.
• Primary Examiner(s): VU, VIET DUY
• Application Number:
  US09/777,306
• Time in Patent Office: 1,849 Days
• Field of Search: 709/217, 709/219, 705/26, 705/27, 705/37
• US Class Current: 709/219
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0223 User address space allocation, e.g. contiguous or non contiguous base addressing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/51 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/958 Organisation or management of web site content, e.g. publishing, maintaining pages or automatic linking
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/04 Trading; Exchange, e.g. stocks, commodities, derivatives or currency exchange
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99948 Application of database or data structure, e.g. distributed, multimedia, or image

Abstract

A method and apparatus for information presentation and management in an online trading environment are provided. According to one aspect of the present invention, person-to-person commerce over the Internet is facilitated by providing prospective buyers the ability to quickly preview items for sale. Images are harvested from a plurality of sites based upon user-supplied information. The user-supplied information includes descriptions of items for sale and locations from which images that are to be associated with the items can be retrieved. Thumbnail images are created corresponding to the harvested images and are aggregated onto a web page for presentation at a remote site. According to another aspect of the present invention, a user may submit a query to preview items for sale. After receiving the query, thumbnail images corresponding to items that satisfy the user query are displayed, each of the thumbnail images previously having been created based upon a user-specified image.

Claims

1. A method for facilitating person-to-person commerce over a network, the method comprising:

retrieving thumbnail images associated with items for sale, the thumbnail images created based on images retrieved from a plurality of sites, wherein the retrieving of the images is performed utilizing user-supplied information, the user-supplied information including user-specified locations of the plurality of sites from which the images associated with the items can be retrieved;

aggregating the retrieved thumbnail images; and

presenting the aggregated thumbnail images on a web page at a web site.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the presenting of the aggregated thumbnail images comprises:

determining a predefined page format;

retrieving item information corresponding to each of the items to be displayed, the item information including a thumbnail image corresponding to an item; and

populating the predefined page format based on the retrieved item information.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein a given one of the thumbnail images presented on the web page at the web site is presented with at least one of the following:

a title associated with an item corresponding to the given thumbnail image;

a current bid on the item corresponding to the given thumbnail image; and

an auction ending time for the item corresponding to the given thumbnail image.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the images include user-specified images.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the user-specified locations are specified by Uniform Resource Locators.

5. A machine-readable medium having stored thereon data representing sets of instructions which, when executed by a machine, cause the machine to:

retrieve thumbnail images associated with items for sale, the thumbnail images created based on images retrieved from a plurality of sites, wherein the retrieving of the images is performed utilizing user-supplied information, including user-specified locations of the plurality of sites from which the images associated with the items can be retrieved;

aggregate the retrieved thumbnail images; and

present the aggregated thumbnail images on a web page at a web site.

6. The machine-readable medium of claim 5, wherein the sets of instructions, when executed by the machine, further cause the machine to:

determine a predefined page format;

retrieve item information corresponding to each of the items to be displayed, the item information including a thumbnail image corresponding to an item; and

populate the predefined page format based on the retrieved item information.

7. The machine-readable of claim 5, wherein a given one of the thumbnail images presented on the web page at the web site is presented with at least one of the following:

a title associated with an item corresponding to the given thumbnail image;

a current bid on the item corresponding to the given thumbnail image; and

an auction ending time for the item corresponding to the given thumbnail image.

8. The machine-readable of claim 5, wherein the thumbnail images include user-specified images.

9. The machine-readable of claim 5, wherein the information further includes description of each of the items for sale.

11. The machine-readable medium of claim 5, wherein the user-specified locations are specified by Uniform Resource Locators.