Systems and methods for consumer-generated media reputation management

• US 7,720,835 B2
• Filed: 05/07/2007
• Issued: 05/18/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 05/05/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cision US Inc. (Cision Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Visible Technologies LLC
• Inventors: Graziano, Dean Michael, Webber, Jim, Ward, Miles
• Primary Examiner(s): Cottingham; John R.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Richardson; James E
• Application Number:
  US11/745,390
• Publication Number:
  US 20070294281A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,107 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 707/710
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking

Abstract

TruCast is a method for management, by way of gathering, storing, analyzing, tracking, sorting, determining the relevance of, visualizing, and responding to all available consumer generated media. Some examples of consumer generated media include web logs or “blogs”, mobile phone blogs or “mo-blogs”, forums, electronic discussion messages, Usenet, message boards, BBS emulating services, product review and discussion web sites, online retail sites that support customer comments, social networks, media repositories, and digital libraries. Any web hosted system for the persistent public storage of human commentary is a potential target for this method. The system is comprised of a coordinated software and hardware system designed to perform management, collection, storage, analysis, workflow, visualization, and response tasks upon this media. This system permits a unified interface to manage, target, and accelerate interactions within this space, facilitating public relations, marketing, advertising, consumer outreach, political debate, and other modes of directed discourse.

Claims

1. A method for reputation management implemented by at least one computer, the method comprising:

discovering sources of consumer generated media using a plurality of keywords predetermined to return consumer generated media;

collecting consumer generated media content from the discovered sources using a plurality of robots to parse the discovered sources code into XML encoded text;

storing the collected consumer generated media in a first database;

presenting to a user an interactive graphical user interface containing the consumer generated media content;

determining a sentiment of the consumer generated media content using a second database having sentiment data used to analyze the consumer generated media content;

automatically categorizing the consumer generated media content according to a plurality of characteristics of the consumer generated media content; and

automatically replying to a first set of the consumer generated media content, wherein, a robot, programmed to determine a source website, wherein the source website is the source of the consumer generated media, and then programmed to interact with the source website as a user, posts an automatically selected response, of a plurality of responses, to the first set of the consumer generated media content from the source website, the posted response being selected based on the sentiment and the plurality of characteristics of the consumer generated media content of the first set of the consumer generated media content.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

filtering collected consumer generated media using a predefined fuzzy logic comparison between existing stored content and incoming collected content.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

determining the conceptual relevance of at least one collected consumer generated media post.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

prompting a user with at least one collected consumer generated media post; and

inputting a conceptual category.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

statistically analyzing user inputted conceptual categorization; and

automatically, using the statistical analysis, determining a conceptual category for at least one collected consumer generated media post.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

outputting a visualization to the user interface to present at least one of statistical, relational and graphical information to a user.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

forwarding at least one collected consumer generated media post to the user interface, in order to facilitate the writing of a response.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

displaying a user interface configured to access a response page from which at least one collected consumer generated media post was received;

navigating at least one field;

assigning each of the fields an identifier and dynamically creating a robot using prewritten code and inputting a response page location and at least one identifier from that location.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

tracking a location where a response was posted; and

transmitting an alert to a user interface.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the consumer generated media is a weblog.

11. A system for searching a plurality of data products, the system comprising:

a first database configured to store at least one collected consumer generated media post;

a second database configured to store sentiment data, the sentiment data used to analyze a media post and determine a sentiment;

a display;

and a processor in data communication with the display and with the first database and the second database, the processor comprising;

a first component configured to discover sources of consumer generated media using a plurality of keywords predetermined to return consumer generated media;

a second component configured to collect consumer generated media content from the discovered sources using a plurality of robots to parse website code into XML encoded text;

a third component configured to present to a user an interactive graphical user interface to a user containing the consumer generated media content;

a fourth component configured to determining a sentiment of the consumer generated media content;

a fifth component configured to automatically categorize the consumer generated media content according to a plurality of characteristics of the consumer generated media content; and

a sixth component configured to automatically reply to a generated first set of the consumer generated media content, wherein, a robot, programmed to determine a source website, wherein the source website is the source of the consumer generated media, and further programmed to interact with the source website as a user, posts an automatically selected response, of a plurality of responses, to the generated first set of the consumer generated media content from the source website, the posted response being selected based on the sentiment and the plurality of characteristics of the consumer generated media content of the generated first set of the consumer generated media content;

wherein the components are located on at least one of a standalone computer or a plurality of computers coupled to a network.

12. The system of claim 11, further comprising:

a seventh component configured to access a response page from which at least one collected consumer generated media post was received;

an eighth component configured to navigate at least one field;

a ninth component configured to assign each of the fields an identifier; and

a seventh component configured to dynamically create a robot using prewritten code and input a response page location and at least one identifier from that location.

13. The system of claim 12, further comprising:

a tenth component configured to track a location where a response was posted; and

an eleventh component configured to transmit an alert to the user interface.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the consumer generated media is a weblog.