Virtualizing consumer behavior as a financial instrument

• US 8,271,310 B2
• Filed: 06/20/2007
• Issued: 09/18/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 12/20/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Flake, Gary W., Gounares, Alexander G.
• Primary Examiner(s): Dixon, Thomas
• Assistant Examiner(s): Fields, Benjamin S
• Application Number:
  US11/765,685
• Publication Number:
  US 20080154741A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,917 Days
• Field of Search: 705/7.11, 705/7.35, 705/7
• US Class Current: 705/7.11
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0215 Including financial accounts
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]

Abstract

The claimed subject matter relates to an architecture that can characterize an item involved in a consumer transaction and/or a behavior of a consumer as a virtual financial instrument. The architecture can monitor the future performance of the virtual instrument in order to identify trendspotters as well as trend followers in a particular market domain.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented system that characterizes an item involved in a consumer transaction as a virtual financial instrument, comprising:

an acquisition component that obtains transaction data related to an item involved in a consumer transaction, and further obtains trend data associated with the item;

a valuation component that assigns a virtual price to the item, the virtual price is a function of the trend data;

a broker component that issues a virtual share of the item at the virtual price to an account associated with a consumer involved in the transaction, wherein the broker component defines the virtual share as either a virtual buy or a virtual short based upon at least one of the transaction data or the trend data; and

a portfolio component that classifies a virtual share into one or more markets and creates a virtual portfolio for each market, periodically receives virtual price updates from the valuation component to track performance of each virtual portfolio, and identifies a consumer as a trendspotter, someone whose consumer transactions have predicted items that become popular for the particular market based upon the performance.

2. The system of claim 1, the item is a good or service for which sales of the item are substantially impacted by non-seasonal or non-cyclical sales trends.

3. The system of claim 1, the consumer transaction is a purchase of the item.

4. The system of claim 1, the consumer transaction is a rating of the item.

5. The system of claim 1, the transaction data includes a type of consumer transaction.

6. The system of claim 1, the transaction data includes at least one of a unique identifier associated with a consumer involved in the transaction, a time stamp of a time of the consumer transaction, an indication of whether the item meets with approval, a prediction of future commercial success of the item, or a price paid for the item.

7. The system of claim 1, the trend data includes a sales history of the item.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the virtual portfolio includes all virtual shares for a particular market.

9. The system of claim 1, the broker component issues a virtual dividend to the account associated with a trendspotter.

10. The system of claim 9, the virtual dividend is a function of the performance.

11. The system of claim 9, the virtual dividend is issued in exchange for a new consumer transaction.

12. The system of claim 9, the virtual dividend is a discount, a subsidy, a rebate, or a monetary reward.

13. Computer storage media storing computer-executable instructions that, when executed by one or more computing devices, cause the one or more computer devices to perform a method for characterizing consumer transaction information as a virtual financial instrument, comprising:

obtaining transaction information relating to a purchase or a rating of an item by a consumer;

receiving a sales history pertaining to the item;

determining a virtual price for the item based upon the sales history;

associating the consumer with an account;

storing the transaction information to the account;

issuing a virtual share for each respective purchase or rating in the account;

valuing the virtual share at the virtual price;

classifying each virtual share in the account into a respective market;

aggregating virtual shares for each market into a respective virtual portfolio;

assessing a performance of each respective virtual portfolio; and

identifying the consumer as a trendspotter, someone whose consumer transactions have predicted items that become popular, for a particular market based upon the performance of an associated virtual portfolio.

14. The media of claim 13, further comprising at least one of the following acts:

encouraging the trendspotter to engage in additional transactions;

or

allocating resources relating to sale or marketing to the item associated with the additional transactions.

15. A computer-implemented system that characterizes an item involved in a consumer transaction as a virtual financial instrument, comprising:

an acquisition component for receiving transaction information pertaining to a purchase or a rating of an item by a consumer and

obtaining a sales history pertaining to the item;

a valuation component for utilizing the sales history for assigning a virtual price to the item;

a broker component that issues a virtual share of the item at the virtual price to an account associated with a consumer involved in the transaction; and

a portfolio component that creates a portfolio comprising the virtual share for each item within a respective market and identifies the consumer as a trendspotter, someone whose consumer transactions have predicted items that become popular, based on a performance of the portfolio.