Natural language search for audience

• US 8,024,323 B1
• Filed: 01/10/2008
• Issued: 09/20/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 11/13/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AudienceScience, Inc.
• Original Assignee: AudienceScience, Inc.
• Inventors: Nayfeh, Basem
• Primary Examiner(s): NGUYEN, PHONG H
• Application Number:
  US11/972,591
• Time in Patent Office: 1,349 Days
• Field of Search: 707/715, 707/805, 707/999.003, 705/14.49
• US Class Current: 707/715
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0251 Targeted advertisements

Abstract

A facility for defining a group of people is described. The facility provides a visual user interface containing a control for receiving a query string. The facility receives a query string via the control, and uses an index on a body of documents to identify documents of the body that satisfy the received query string. The facility accesses a record indicating which documents of the body were accessed by each of a population of people during a foregoing time period to identify people among the population that accessed at least a threshold number of the identified documents during the foregoing time period. The facility displays within the visual user interface, in conjunction with the control, information characterizing the people identified.

Claims

1. A method in a computing system for defining a group of people, comprising:

providing a visual user interface containing a control for receiving a query string;

receiving a query string via the control;

using an index on a body of documents to identify documents of the body that satisfy the received query string;

accessing a record indicating which documents of the body were accessed by each of a population of people during a foregoing time period to identify people among the population that accessed at least a threshold number of the identified documents during the foregoing time period; and

displaying within the visual user interface, in conjunction with the control, information characterizing the people identified.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the displaying step is performed within 30 seconds of the receiving step.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a modified query string via the control; and

repeating the two identifying acts and the displaying act with respect to the received modified query string.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the body of documents is a set of web pages available at a subject web site.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising building the index based on the textual content of the web pages of the set.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the threshold number is a constant.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the threshold number is a predetermined percentage of the number of identified documents.

8. A computer-readable medium whose contents cause a computing system to define a group of people by:

providing a visual user interface containing a control for receiving a query string;

receiving a query string via the control;

using an index on a body of documents to identify documents of the body that satisfy the received query string;

accessing a record indicating which documents of the body were accessed by each of a population of people during a foregoing time period to identify people among the population that accessed at least a threshold number of the identified documents during the foregoing time period; and

displaying within the visual user interface, in conjunction with the control, information characterizing the people identified.