Data feed adoption tracking

• US 8,341,026 B1
• Filed: 11/30/2009
• Issued: 12/25/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 11/30/2009
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Inventors: Mirchandani, Jeetendra, Gupta, Mohit, Schuster, Brian J., Vining, Simon C.
• Primary Examiner(s): HAQ, NAEEM U
• Application Number:
  US12/627,565
• Time in Patent Office: 1,121 Days
• Field of Search: 705/26.1, 705/26.2, 705/26.25, 705/26.3, 705/26.35, 705/26.4, 705 2641- 2644, 705/26.5, 705 2661- 2664, 705/26.7, 705/26.8, 705/26.81, 705/26.82, 705/26.9, 705/27.1, 705/27.2
• US Class Current: 705/26.1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising

Abstract

This document relates to tracking the adoption of a data feed. For example, a feed of items is sent to a referral network site. The feed includes some of the items sold through an electronic commerce network site. The referral network site refers a plurality of customers to the electronic commerce network site. The referral includes feed generation information. A determination is made whether the feed has been adopted by the referral network site based upon the feed generation information.

Claims

1. A non-transitory computer readable medium embodying a program executable by at least one computing device, comprising:

an item feed application configured to periodically send a feed of a subset of a plurality of items to a comparison shopping network site over a network, the item feed including a universal resource locator (URL) associated with each of the subset of items, the URL including feed generation information corresponding to the feed, the items being sold to a plurality of customers through an electronic commerce network site over a network; and

a feed monitoring application comprising;

code that detects a referral for an item from the comparison shopping network site;

code that extracts the feed generation information from the URL associated with the item of the referral;

code that identifies which feed is associated with the referral based upon the extracted feed generation information;

code that determines whether the referral is an initial referral associated with the identified feed; and

code that determines a processing delay time for the feed in response to the referral being the initial referral associated with the identified feed.

2. The non-transitory computer readable medium embodying the program executable by the at least one computing device of claim 1, wherein the feed monitoring application further comprises code that stores the processing delay time for the feed in a database.

3. The non-transitory computer readable medium embodying the program executable by the at least one computing device of claim 1, wherein the feed monitoring application further comprises code that extracts information about the item from the referral.

4. The non-transitory computer readable medium embodying the program executable by the at least one computing device of claim 1, wherein the feed monitoring application further comprises code that determines whether the referral includes feed generation information.

5. The non-transitory computer readable medium embodying the program executable by the at least one computing device of claim 1, wherein the feed generation information includes a unique feed identifier.

6. A method, comprising the steps of:

sending, by a computing device, a feed of a subset of a plurality of items sold through an electronic commerce network site implemented in the computing device to a referral network site, the referral network site referring a plurality of customers to the electronic commerce network site, the feed including a plurality of network addresses each corresponding to one of the subset of items;

receiving, by the computing device, a referral from the referral network site, the referral comprising a network address corresponding to one of the plurality of items;

determining, by the computing device, whether the referral is a first referral associated with the feed based upon feed generation information included in the network address; and

determining a feed processing delay time for the feed in response to the referral being the first referral associated with the feed.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising storing, by the computing device, the processing delay time in a database.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising determining, by the computing device, a processing latency of a plurality of feeds sent to the referral network site based upon corresponding processing delay times stored in the database.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising encoding, by the computing device, a graphical representation of the processing latency for display on a display device.

10. The method of claim 6, further comprising determining, by the computing device, whether the network address includes feed generation information before determining whether the referral is associated with the feed.

11. The method of claim 6, further comprising providing, by the computing device, an alarm indication when the feed processing time exceeds a predetermined threshold.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the predetermined threshold is an average of feed processing times of the previous N feeds sent to the referral network site.

13. A system, comprising:

at least one computing device;

an electronic commerce system implemented in the at least one computing device and configured to sell a plurality of items over a network;

an item feed application implemented in the at least one computing device and configured to send a feed of a subset of the items to a referral network site over a network, the item feed including feed generation information in a plurality of network addresses, each network address corresponding to one of the subset of items; and

a feed monitoring application implemented in the at least one computing device, the feed monitoring application being configured to;

detect a referral from the referral network site, the referral comprising a network address corresponding to an item;

determine whether the referral is an initial referral associated with the item feed based upon feed generation information included in the network address; and

determine a processing delay time for the item feed in response to the referral being the initial referral associated with the item feed.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the feed monitoring application is further configured to store the processing delay time in a database.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the feed monitoring application is further configured to determine a processing latency for a plurality of feeds sent to the referral network site.

16. The system of claim 13, wherein the feed monitoring application is further configured to provide a notification when an initial referral associated with the item feed is not received within a predefined period after sending the item feed to the referral network site.

17. The system of claim 13, wherein the feed monitoring application is further configured to determine whether the network address includes feed generation information before determining whether the referral is associated with the feed.

18. The system of claim 13, wherein the feed monitoring application is further configured to determine a time difference between receipt of the initial referral and receipt of a subsequent referral associated with the item feed.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein the feed monitoring application is further configured to determine a percentage of all referrals associated with the item feed that are received within a predetermined time of the initial referral.

20. The system of claim 13, wherein the network address is a universal resource locator (URL).