Method and apparatus for creating contextualized auction feeds

• US 8,069,090 B2
• Filed: 12/17/2010
• Issued: 11/29/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 02/16/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: eBay Inc.
• Original Assignee: Moreover Acquisition Corporation
• Inventors: Pitkow, James Edward
• Primary Examiner(s): Pond, Rober M.
• Application Number:
  US12/972,204
• Publication Number:
  US 20110087556A1
• Time in Patent Office: 347 Days
• Field of Search: 705/26, 705/27, 705/37
• US Class Current: 705/26.3
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0641 Shopping interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/08 Auctions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/04 Trading; Exchange, e.g. stocks, commodities, derivatives or currency exchange

Abstract

A method and apparatus is disclosed herein for generating contextualized live auction feeds. The method of generating contextualized live auction feeds comprises receiving context data from a user. The method further comprises utilizing the context data received from the user to search auctions. The method, in one embodiment, includes generating contextualized live auction feeds for an auction based on the context data.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving created data at a server from data regarding at least one auction entered by a user at a user interface;

creating at the server a list containing at least one contextually appropriate live auction feed based on the created data;

transmitting from the server to the user interface the list containing at least one contextually appropriate live auction feed along with a request for the user to return at least one selection for each of the at least one contextually appropriate live auction feeds;

receiving at the server from the user interface the at least one selection for each of the at least one contextually appropriate live auction feeds to identify selected contextually appropriate live auction feeds, wherein the at least one received selection is a restriction and the restriction is based on metadata;

transmitting to the user interface each of the selected contextually appropriate live auction feeds;

for each of the selected contextually appropriate live auction feeds, monitoring the selected contextually appropriate live auction feeds at a predetermined interval for modifications to the selected contextually appropriate live auction feeds; and

updating the selected contextually appropriate live auction feeds with the modification.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the metadata is selected from a group of metadata consisting of:

title, source, category, keyword, source category, seller rank, seller location, region, language, genre, user interface, author, auction host, duplicates, sources, search results, relevance vs date order, backscroll, date range, last article ID, or geolocations.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the selected contextually appropriate live auction feeds comprises at least one dynamic element to be monitored.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the at least one dynamic element is selected from a group of dynamic elements consisting of:

current bid, time remaining in auction, last bid, bid history, seller rating, or seller feedback.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the at least one dynamic element is time remaining in the auction and further comprising the step of de-selecting any selected contextually appropriate live auction feed when the time remaining in the auction is zero.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein updates to the selected contextually appropriate live auction feeds are streamed from an auction host.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the predetermined interval is continuously.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein created data excludes commands entered by the user at the user interface.

9. An article of manufacture including one or more non transitory computer-readable media that store a program of instructions that when executed by one or more processors in the processing system, causes the one or more processors to perform a method of providing auction information to a user, the methods comprising:

receiving created data at a server from data regarding at least one auction entered by a user at a user interface;

creating at the server a list containing at least one contextually appropriate live auction feed based on the created data;

transmitting from the server to the user interface the list containing at least one contextually appropriate live auction feed along with a request for the user to return at least one selection for each of the at least one contextually appropriate live auction feeds;

receiving at the server from the user interface the at least one selection for each of the at least one contextually appropriate live auction feeds to identify selected contextually appropriate live auction feeds, wherein the at least one received selection is a restriction and the restriction is based on metadata;

transmitting to the user interface each of the selected contextually appropriate-live auction feeds;

for each of the selected contextually appropriate live auction feeds, monitoring the selected contextually appropriate live auction feeds at a predetermined interval for modifications to the selected contextually appropriate live auction feeds; and

updating the selected contextually appropriate live auction feeds with the modification.

10. The article of manufacture of claim 9, wherein the selected contextually appropriate live auction feeds comprises at least one static element and at least one dynamic element, the dynamic element to be continually updated.

11. The article of manufacture of claim 9, wherein the metadata is selected from a group of metadata consisting of:

title, source, category, keyword, source category, seller rank, seller location, region, language, genre, user interface, author, auction host, duplicates, sources, search results, relevance vs date order, backscroll, date range, last article ID, or geolocations.

12. The article of manufacture of claim 9, wherein the predetermined interval is continuous.

13. An apparatus for generating contextualized auction feeds, the apparatus comprising:

a processor and associated non-transitory computer-readable media that store a program of instructions which causes the processor to

receive a unit of context data created from a data interaction between a user and a user interface from the user interface regarding an auction;

use the unit of context data to search a plurality of auction hosts to identify at least one contextually appropriate live auction feed;

generate a feed for each at least one contextually appropriate live auction feeds, wherein each feed is a contextualized auction feed;

provide the contextualized auction feeds as part of an electronic feed list to the user interface along with a request for the user to return at least one selection for each of the at least one contextually appropriate live auction feeds wherein the at least one selection is based on metadata and is selected from a group of selections consisting of;

a feed restriction, a feed modification, a feed selection, or a feed subscription;

receive, from the user interface, the selection request for each of the contextualized auction feeds; and

monitor the selected contextualized auction feed for modifications to fields associated the at least one contextually appropriate live auction feed and automatically update the selected contextualized auction feed when a modification is detected.