Methods, systems, and articles of manufacture for addressing popular topics in a socials sphere

• US 8,452,772 B1
• Filed: 08/01/2011
• Issued: 05/28/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 08/01/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Intuit, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Intuit, Inc.
• Inventors: Carpio, Aliza D., Buhler, Alan F., Elwell, Joseph P.
• Primary Examiner(s): THAI, HANH B
• Application Number:
  US13/195,830
• Time in Patent Office: 666 Days
• Field of Search: 707/737, 707739-741, 706/46, 706/55, 705/319
• US Class Current: 707/737
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/285 Clustering or classification
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]

Abstract

Disclosed are methods, systems, and articles of manufactures for addressing popular topics in a social sphere. The method or the system continuously monitors conversations in online forum(s), identifies trend(s) of interest, identifies one or more content items that match the trend(s), and delivers the one or more content items to appropriate forum(s). The method or the system may aggregates conversations in a target forum to identify a trend and automatically responds to the trend by identifying and delivering matching existing content items to a target forum. The method or the system may further catalog a newly created content item upon creation and may identify a trend by employing some third-party products or services, by executing one or more Internet bots to monitor the online conversions, or by using trending application(s) offered by forums or social network websites.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method, comprising:

a computer identifying a pertinent trend in conversations of a target forum;

the computer identifying or creating one or more content items that match the pertinent trend and a presentation requirement for the one or more content items by;

performing a content management process on a plurality of existing content items;

classifying or clustering at least some of the plurality of existing content items to identify one or more classifications for an existing content item of the plurality of existing content items;

identifying or determining one or more relationships between the existing content item and a product or service; and

matching the pertinent trend with one or more existing content items of the plurality of existing content items; and

the computer delivering at least some of the one or more content items to the target forum based at least in part upon the presentation requirement.

2. The computer implemented method of claim 1, identifying the pertinent trend in the conversations of the target forum comprising:

identifying or receiving one or more trends from an external source;

determining the pertinent trend from the one or more trends by at least performing a trend filtering process; and

determining a meaning of or an issue associated with the pertinent trend by performing a process.

3. The computer implemented method of claim 2, determining the meaning of or the issue associated with the pertinent trend comprising:

performing a lexical analysis on the pertinent trend to convert at least a part of the pertinent trend into a sequence of tokens;

performing a syntax analysis on the at least the part of the pertinent trend to analyze the sequence of tokens to determine a syntactic structure of the at least the part of the pertinent trend with respect to a grammar;

performing a semantics analysis on the at least the part of the pertinent trend to associate semantic information with the at least the part of the pertinent trend; and

performing a context analysis on the at least the part of the pertinent trend to determine one or more specific contexts with which the at least the part of the pertinent trend is associated.

4. The computer implemented method of claim 2, determining the meaning of or the issue associated with the pertinent trend comprising performing a natural language processing on the pertinent trend.

5. The computer implemented method of claim 4, performing the natural language processing on the pertinent trend comprising:

performing a natural language understanding process on the pertinent trend to convert at least a part of the pertinent trend into one or more representation structures to be manipulated by a computing system;

performing a natural language word sense process on the pertinent trend to determine one meaning from a plurality of meanings of a term associated with the at least the part of the pertinent trend;

recognizing one or more recognized terms in the at least the part of the pertinent trend;

performing word, sentence, or topic segmentation on the at least the part of the pertinent trend; and

identifying or determining one or more relationships between a first portion and a second portion of the at least the part of the pertinent trend.

6. The computer implemented method of claim 1, identifying the pertinent trend in the conversations of the target forum comprising:

identifying or receiving one or more trends from an external source;

aggregating additional information or data that are associated with the one or more trends; and

determining a meaning or an issue based at least in part upon the additional information or data.

7. The computer implemented method of claim 6, identifying the pertinent trend in the conversations of the target forum comprising:

filtering the one or more trends to determine the pertinent trend; and

filtering the additional information or data associated with the one or more trends to determine pertinent information or data associated with the pertinent trend.

8. The computer implemented method of claim 7, identifying the pertinent trend in the conversations of the target forum comprising determining the meaning or the issue based at least in part upon the pertinent trend or the pertinent information or data associated with the pertinent trend.

9. The computer implemented method of claim 7, filtering the one or more trends comprising performing a data dredging process on the one or more trends;

and filtering the one or more trends comprising performing the data dredging process on the additional information or data associated with the one or more trends.

10. The computer implemented method of claim 1, identifying the pertinent trend in the conversations of the target forum comprising:

monitoring at least a part of the conversations in a social sphere;

aggregating the at least the part of the conversations to create a target data set;

performing a natural language processing on the target data set; and

identifying the pertinent trend based at least in part upon a result of the natural language processing.

11. The computer implemented method of claim 10, identifying the pertinent trend in the conversations of the target forum comprising:

validating the target data set by using one or more test cases;

adjusting the conversations that have been aggregated based at least in part upon a result of validating the target data set; and

determining a meaning of or an issue associated with the pertinent trend.

12. The computer implemented method of claim 10, monitoring the at least the part of the conversations in the social sphere comprising using a program that browses at least a part of the target forum in an automated manner and is designed with reference to a robots exclusion standard associated with the target forum.

13. The computer implemented method of claim 1, the content management process comprising at least one of:

capturing one or more content items to form the plurality of existing content items;

recognizing one or more objects of interest of the plurality of existing content items;

processing the plurality of existing content items to clean up at least some of the plurality of content items;

unifying related data or information that is related to the plurality of existing content items by at least aggregating the related data or information from one or more sources of data or information;

indexing the plurality of existing content items by associating one or more indices with the plurality of existing content items; and

transforming the plurality of existing content items from a first format to a second format.

14. The computer implemented method of claim 13, indexing the plurality of existing content items comprising:

analyzing a format of and a language used in the plurality of existing content items;

performing natural language processing on the plurality of existing content items;

parsing the plurality of existing content items to determine a parsing result for the plurality of existing content items; and

performing an action of indexing the plurality of existing content items based at least in part upon the result of parsing the plurality of existing content items.

15. The computer implemented method of claim 1, further comprising parsing at least some of the one or more content items, parsing comprising:

providing vocabulary support by using a set of lexemes;

describing at least a part of the plurality of existing content items by using one or more syntaxes, one or more principles, or one or more rules determined from a syntax analysis;

determining or identifying semantic information or meanings for the at least the part of the plurality of existing content items by using generative or interpretative semantics; and

determining or identifying an understanding of the at least the part of the plurality of existing content items by using one or more grammars.

16. The computer implemented method of claim 15, parsing further comprising performing natural language processing on the at least some of the one or more content items.

17. The computer implemented method of claim 16, performing the natural language processing comprising:

performing natural language understanding or machine reading comprehension;

resolving polysemy in the at least some of the one or more content items;

identifying a mapping between a term in the at least some of the one or more content items and a corresponding term that is understood by a computing system;

performing segmentation on one or more words, one or more sentences, or one or more topics; and

creating a model for one or more semantic relationships that are determined or detected within the at least some of the one or more content items by using domain ontologies.

18. The computer implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving additional information or data that are related to the at least some of the one or more content items from a separate computing system or a separate site; and

delivering the at least some of the one or more content items to the separate computing system or the separate site.

19. The computer implemented method of claim 18, receiving the additional information or data comprising classifying an order in the aggregated representation among a plurality of orders by using the addition information or data received from a remote computing system, in which the additional information or data or the data on the remote computing system is at least one type of data selected from the group consisting of:

personal finance data, tax data, budgeting data, order receipt data, accounting data, and tax return data.

20. An article of manufacture comprising a non-transitory computer readable storage medium having stored thereupon a sequence of instructions which, when executed by a computer, causes the computer to perform a computer-implemented method comprising:

identifying a pertinent trend in conversations of a target forum;

identifying or creating one or more content items that match the pertinent trend by;

performing a content management process on a plurality of existing content items,

classifying or clustering at least some of the plurality of existing content items to identify one or more classifications for an existing content item of the plurality of existing content items,

identifying or determining one or more relationships between the existing content item and a product or service, and matching the pertinent trend with one or more existing content items of the plurality of existing content items, and

identifying or creating a presentation requirement for the one or more content items; and

delivering at least some of the one or more content items to the target forum based at least in part upon the presentation requirement.

21. The article of manufacture of claim 20, identifying the pertinent trend in the conversations of the target forum comprising:

identifying or receiving one or more trends from an external source;

determining the pertinent trend from the one or more trends by at least performing a trend filtering process; and

determining a meaning of or an issue associated with the pertinent trend by;

performing a lexical analysis on the pertinent trend to convert at least a part of the pertinent trend into a sequence of tokens,

performing a syntax analysis on the at least the part of the pertinent trend to analyze the sequence of tokens to determine a syntactic structure of the at least the part of the pertinent trend with respect to a grammar,

performing a semantics analysis on the at least the part of the pertinent trend to associate semantic information with the at least the part of the pertinent trend, and

performing a context analysis on the at least the part of the pertinent trend to determine one or more specific contexts with which the at least the part of the pertinent trend is associated.

22. The article of manufacture of claim 21, determining the meaning of or the issue associated with the pertinent trend comprising:

performing a natural language processing on the pertinent trend, by performing at least a natural language understanding process on the pertinent trend to convert at least a part of the pertinent trend into one or more representation structures to be manipulated by a computing system;

performing a natural language word sense process on the pertinent trend to determine one meaning from a plurality of meanings of a term associated with the at least the part of the pertinent trend;

recognizing one or more recognized terms in the at least the part of the pertinent trend;

performing word, sentence, or topic segmentation on the at least the part of the pertinent trend; and

identifying or determining one or more relationships between a first portion and a second portion of the at least the part of the pertinent trend.

23. The article of manufacture of claim 20, identifying the pertinent trend in the conversations of the target forum comprising:

identifying or receiving one or more trends from an external source;

aggregating additional information or data that are associated with the one or more trends;

filtering the one or more trends to determine the pertinent trend;

filtering the additional information or data associated with the one or more trends to determine pertinent information or data associated with the pertinent trend; and

determining a meaning or an issue based at least in part upon the additional information or data or upon the pertinent trend or the pertinent information or data associated with the pertinent trend.

24. The article of manufacture of claim 20, identifying the pertinent trend in the conversations of the target forum comprising:

monitoring at least a part of the conversations in a social sphere;

aggregating the at least the part of the conversations to create a target data set;

performing a natural language processing on the target data set;

identifying the pertinent trend based at least in part upon a result of the natural language processing;

validating the target data set by using one or more test cases;

adjusting aggregating the conversations based at least in part upon a result of validating the target data set; and

determining a meaning of or an issue associated with the pertinent trend.

25. A computing system, comprising:

a computer comprising a processor for executing instructions and being configured to;

identify a pertinent trend in conversations of a target forum;

identify or create one or more content items that match the pertinent trend, the computer being configured to identify or create one or more content items by being configured to;

perform a content management process on a plurality of existing content items,

classify or cluster at least some of the plurality of existing content items to identify one or more classifications for an existing content item of the plurality of existing content items,

identify or determine one or more relationships between the existing content item and a product or service, and

match the pertinent trend with one or more existing content items of the plurality of existing content items;

identify or create a presentation requirement for the one or more content items; and

deliver at least some of the one or more content items to the target forum based at least in part upon the presentation requirement.

26. The system of claim 25, the computer being configured to identify the pertinent trend in the conversations of the target forum by being configured to:

identify or receive one or more trends from an external source;

determine the pertinent trend from the one or more trends by performing at least a trend filtering process; and

determine a meaning of or an issue associated with the pertinent trend, wherein the computer is configured to determine the meaning by being configured to;

perform a lexical analysis on the pertinent trend to convert at least a part of the pertinent trend into a sequence of tokens,

perform a syntax analysis on the pertinent trend to analyze the sequence of tokens to determine a syntactic structure of the at least a part of the pertinent trend with respect to a grammar,

perform a semantics analysis on the pertinent trend to associate semantic information with the at least a part of the pertinent trend, and

perform a context analysis on the pertinent trend to determine one or more specific contexts with which the pertinent trend is associated.

27. The system of claim 26, the computer being configured to determine the meaning of or the issue associated with the pertinent trend, the computer being configured to determine the meaning of or the issue by being configured to perform a natural language processing on the pertinent trend.

28. The system of claim 25, the computer being configured to identify the pertinent trend in the conversations of the target forum by the computer being configured to:

identify or receive one or more trends from an external source;

aggregate additional information or data that are associated with the one or more trends;

determine a meaning or an issue based at least in part upon the additional information or data;

filter the one or more trends to determine the pertinent trend;

filter the additional information or data associated with the one or more trends to determine pertinent information or data associated with the pertinent trend; and

determine the meaning or the issue based at least in part upon the pertinent trend or the pertinent information or data associated with the pertinent trend.

29. The system of claim 25, the computer being configured to identify the pertinent trend in the conversations of the target forum by being configured to:

monitor at least a part of the conversations in a social sphere;

aggregate the at least the part of the conversations to create a target data set;

perform a natural language processing on the target data set;

identify the pertinent trend based at least in part upon a result of the natural language processing;

validate the target data set by using one or more test cases;

adjust the conversations that have been aggregated based at least in part upon a result of validating the target data set; and

determine a meaning of or an issue associated with the pertinent trend.

30. A computer implemented method, comprising:

a computer identifying a pertinent trend in conversations of a target forum, identifying the pertinent trend comprising;

identifying or receiving one or more trends from an external source,

determining the pertinent trend from the one or more trends by at least performing a trend filtering process, and

determining a meaning of or an issue associated with the pertinent trend by performing a process, determining the meaning of or the issue comprising;

performing a lexical analysis on the pertinent trend to convert at least a part of the pertinent trend into a sequence of tokens,

performing a syntax analysis on the at least the part of the pertinent trend to analyze the sequence of tokens to determine a syntactic structure of the at least the part of the pertinent trend with respect to a grammar,

performing a semantics analysis on the at least the part of the pertinent trend to associate semantic information with the at least the part of the pertinent trend, and

performing a context analysis on the at least the part of the pertinent trend to determine one or more specific contexts with which the at least the part of the pertinent trend is associated;

the computer identifying or creating one or more content items that match the pertinent trend and a presentation requirement for the one or more content items; and

the computer delivering at least some of the one or more content items to the target forum based at least in part upon the presentation requirement.

31. The computer implemented method of claim 30, further comprising the computer performing at least one of:

identifying or receiving one or more trends from an external source;

aggregating additional information or data that are associated with the one or more trends; and

determining a meaning or an issue based at least in part upon the additional information or data.

32. A computer implemented method, comprising:

a computer identifying a pertinent trend in conversations of a target forum, identifying the pertinent trend comprising;

identifying or receiving one or more trends from an external source,

determining the pertinent trend from the one or more trends by at least performing a trend filtering process, and

determining a meaning of or an issue associated with the pertinent trend by at least performing a natural language processing on the pertinent trend, performing the natural language processing comprising;

performing a natural language understanding process on the pertinent trend to convert at least a part of the pertinent trend into one or more representation structures to be manipulated by a computing system,

performing a natural language word sense process on the pertinent trend to determine one meaning from a plurality of meanings of a term associated with the at least the part of the pertinent trend,

recognizing one or more recognized terms in the at least the part of the pertinent trend,

performing word, sentence, or topic segmentation on the at least the part of the pertinent trend, and

identifying or determining one or more relationships between a first portion and a second portion of the at least the part of the pertinent trend;

the computer identifying or creating one or more content items that match the pertinent trend and a presentation requirement for the one or more content items; and

the computer delivering at least some of the one or more content items to the target forum based at least in part upon the presentation requirement.

33. The computer implemented method of claim 32, further comprising the computer performing at least one of:

identifying or receiving one or more trends from an external source;

aggregating additional information or data that are associated with the one or more trends; and

determining a meaning or an issue based at least in part upon the additional information or data.

34. A computer implemented method, comprising:

a computer identifying a pertinent trend in conversations of a target forum, identifying the pertinent trend comprising;

monitoring at least a part of the conversations in a social sphere,

aggregating the at least the part of the conversations to create a target data set,

performing a natural language processing on the target data set,

identifying the pertinent trend based at least in part upon a result of the natural language processing,

validating the target data set by using one or more test cases,

adjusting the conversations that have been aggregated based at least in part upon a result of validating the target data set, and

determining a meaning of or an issue associated with the pertinent trend; and

the computer identifying or creating one or more content items that match the pertinent trend and a presentation requirement for the one or more content items; and

the computer delivering at least some of the one or more content items to the target forum based at least in part upon the presentation requirement.

35. The computer implemented method of claim 34, further comprising the computer performing at least one of:

identifying or receiving one or more trends from an external source;

aggregating additional information or data that are associated with the one or more trends; and

determining a meaning or an issue based at least in part upon the additional information or data.

36. A computer implemented method, comprising:

a computer identifying a pertinent trend in conversations of a target forum, identifying the pertinent trend comprising;

monitoring at least a part of the conversations in a social sphere by using a program that browses at least a part of the target forum in an automated manner and is designed with reference to a robots exclusion standard associated with the target forum,

aggregating the at least the part of the conversations to create a target data set,

performing a natural language processing on the target data set, and

identifying the pertinent trend based at least in part upon a result of the natural language processing;

the computer identifying or creating one or more content items that match the pertinent trend and a presentation requirement for the one or more content items; and

the computer delivering at least some of the one or more content items to the target forum based at least in part upon the presentation requirement.

37. The computer implemented method of claim 36, further comprising the computer performing at least one of:

identifying or receiving one or more trends from an external source;

aggregating additional information or data that are associated with the one or more trends; and

determining a meaning or an issue based at least in part upon the additional information or data.

38. A computer implemented method, comprising:

a computer identifying a pertinent trend in conversations of a target forum;

the computer identifying or creating one or more content items that match the pertinent trend and a presentation requirement for the one or more content items;

the computer parsing at least some of the one or more content items, parsing the at least some of the one or more content items comprising;

providing vocabulary support by using a set of lexemes,

describing at least a part of the plurality of existing content items by using one or more syntaxes, one or more principles, or one or more rules determined from a syntax analysis,

determining or identifying semantic information or meanings for the at least the part of the plurality of existing content items by using generative or interpretative semantics, and

determining or identifying an understanding of the at least the part of the plurality of existing content items by using one or more grammars; and

the computer delivering at least some of the one or more content items to the target forum based at least in part upon the presentation requirement.

39. The computer implemented method of claim 38, parsing the at least some of the one or more content items comprising performing natural language processing on the at least some of the one or more content items.

40. An article of manufacture comprising a non-transitory computer readable storage medium having stored thereupon a sequence of instructions which, when executed by a computer, causes the computer to perform a computer-implemented method comprising:

identifying a pertinent trend in conversations of a target forum by identifying or creating a presentation requirement for the one or more content items, and

delivering at least some of the one or more content items to the target forum based at least in part upon the presentation requirement, wherein identifying the pertinent trend in the conversations of the target forum comprises;

identifying or receiving one or more trends from an external source,

determining the pertinent trend from the one or more trends by at least performing a trend filtering process, and

determining a meaning of or an issue associated with the pertinent trend by performing a process, determining the meaning or the issue comprising;

performing a lexical analysis on the pertinent trend to convert at least a part of the pertinent trend into a sequence of tokens,

performing a syntax analysis on the at least the part of the pertinent trend to analyze the sequence of tokens to determine a syntactic structure of the at least the part of the pertinent trend with respect to a grammar,

performing a semantics analysis on the at least the part of the pertinent trend to associate semantic information with the at least the part of the pertinent trend, and

performing a context analysis on the at least the part of the pertinent trend to determine one or more specific contexts with which the at least the part of the pertinent trend is associated.

41. A computing system, comprising:

a computer comprising a processor for executing instructions and being configured to;

identify a pertinent trend in conversations of a target forum by the computer being configured to;

identify or receive one or more trends from an external source,

determine the pertinent trend from the one or more trends by performing at least a trend filtering process,

determine a meaning of or an issue associated with the pertinent trend by performing a process comprising;

perform a lexical analysis on the pertinent trend to convert at least a

part of the pertinent trend into a sequence of tokens,

perform a syntax analysis on the pertinent trend to analyze the

sequence of tokens to determine a syntactic structure of the at least a part of the pertinent trend with respect to a grammar,

perform a semantics analysis on the pertinent trend to associate

semantic information with the at least a part of the pertinent trend, and

perform a context analysis on the pertinent trend to determine one or more specific contexts with which the pertinent trend is associated;

identify or create one or more content items that match the pertinent trend;

identify or create a presentation requirement for the one or more content items; and

deliver at least some of the one or more content items to the target forum based at least in part upon the presentation requirement.

42. A computing system, comprising:

a computer comprising a processor for executing instructions and being configured to;

identify a pertinent trend in conversations of a target forum by the computer being configured or operable to

monitor at least a part of the conversations in a social sphere,

aggregate the at least the part of the conversations to create a target data set,

perform a natural language processing on the target data set,

identify the pertinent trend based at least in part upon a result of the natural language processing,

validate the target data set by using one or more test cases,

adjust the conversations that have been aggregated based at least in part upon a result of validating the target data set, and

determine a meaning of or an issue associated with the pertinent trend;

identify or create one or more content items that match the pertinent trend;

identify or create a presentation requirement for the one or more content items; and

deliver at least some of the one or more content items to the target forum based at least in part upon the presentation requirement.