Recommendation systems using gourmet item sampling events

• US 8,626,608 B2
• Filed: 10/12/2012
• Issued: 01/07/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 12/14/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: John Nicholas and Kristin Gross Trust
• Original Assignee: John Nicholas and Kristin Gross Trust
• Inventors: Gross, John Nicholas
• Primary Examiner(s): Iwarere, Seye
• Application Number:
  US13/651,243
• Publication Number:
  US 20130041488A1
• Time in Patent Office: 452 Days
• Field of Search: 705/10, 705/26.7, 705/7.29, 705/7.32
• US Class Current: 705/26.7
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0203 Market surveys; Market polls
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0217 involving input on products or services in exchange for incentives or rewards
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0277 Online advertisement
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0278 Product appraisal
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0281 Customer communication at a business location, e.g. providing product or service information, consulting
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/12 Hotels or restaurants

Abstract

Items—including gourmet products—are evaluated and rated by participants in a controlled event, which can be coordinated by software locally or at a dedicated website. Event data, including item scores and participant scores can be shared with vendors, merchants and other commercial entities associated with the products. Promotional incentives from such entities for the products (and related products) can then be directly targeted and provided to participants and other members of the public. The participant'"'"'s activities can also be collected and disseminated to affiliates/friends of the participants through social networking sites, personalized web pages, etc.

Claims

1. A recommender system adapted to provide recommendations on a group of consumable items comprising:

(a) a first routine of the recommender system that collects at least a set of ratings for a set of consumable items using one or more electronic data collection devices from a group of participants who are participating in an item sampling event in which at least some of the set of consumable items are sampled during said item sampling event;

(b) a second routine running on the one or more electronic data collection devices or on one or more computing systems that calculates correlations based on said set of ratings between at least one of

     1) said group of participants and other persons rating said set of consumable items or related items;

or

     2) said set of items including at least item scores and participant scores; and

(c) a third routine of the recommender system that presents recommendations on consumable items to at least some of said group of participants based on said correlations.

3. The recommender system of claim 1, wherein said item sampling event is identified by one or both of said first routine and said second routine to begin at a designated time and to extend for a designated period.

4. The recommender system of claim 1, wherein participants can dynamically join the item sampling event in progress.

5. The recommender system of claim 1, wherein said set of consumable items is preselected.

6. The recommender system of claim 1, wherein said set of consumable items comprises different wines.

7. The recommender system of claim 1, wherein the group of participants is selected by an organizing member of the group of participants.

8. The recommender system of claim 1, wherein said correlations comprise:

a. which pair of the group of participants provided the closest ratings results;

b. which pair of the group of participants provided the most disparate ratings results;

c. which identified couple in the group of participants provided the closest ratings data;

d. which identified couple in the group of participants provided the most disparate ratings data;

e. a deviation from aggregate scores for the group of participants on a participant by participant basis;

f. one or more participants of the group of participants who subjectively gave the lowest rating to the item rated highest by the group of the group of participants;

g. one or more participants who gave the highest rating to the item rated lowest by the group of participants;

h. one or more participants who gave the lowest rating to the item rated lowest by the group of participants;

i. one or more participants who gave the highest rating to the items rated highest by the group of participants; and

j. a score of each item of the set of consumable items broken down by sex or age groups.

9. The recommender system of claim 1, wherein the first routine or another routine collects a set of predictive ratings from at least some of the group of participants, each of the set of predictive ratings indicating what one of the group of participants predicts another of the group of participants'"'"' rating will be for at least one of the set of consumable items.

10. The recommender system of claim 1, wherein the second routine is running on the one or more computing systems, and the one or more computing systems are connected to the one or more electronic data collection devices via a network, such that the set of ratings for the set of consumable items is transmitted to the one or more computing systems over the network.

11. The recommender system of claim 1, wherein the third routine is running on the one or more computing systems or on other computing systems.

12. The recommender system of claim 11, wherein the third routine provides the recommendations on consumable items over a network to personal electronic devices owned by ones of said the group of participants.

13. The recommender system of claim 1, wherein said recommendations are presented to said group of participants while said item sampling event is in progress.

14. The recommender system of claim 1, wherein said recommendations are presented to individual participants as promotional electronic coupons that are configured to only be active within a first distance of one or more predetermined preferred establishments.

2. A method of conducting a contest for sampling items using a computing system comprising:

(a) providing a set of one or items to be rated during an item sampling event in which the items are sampled by a group of participants;

(b) automatically collecting at set of reference ratings for said set of items from a group of one or more reference raters using said computing system;

(c) automatically collecting at least a set of participant ratings for said set of items from said group of sampling participants during said item sampling event using said computing system; and

(d) calculating participant scores for said item sampling event using said computing system;

wherein a winner of the contest is identified by said participant scores that are based on determining a correlation between each sampling participant rating provided for an item, and a corresponding reference rating provided by said one or more reference raters.

15. The method of claim 2, wherein said item sampling event begins at a designated time and extends for a designated period.

16. The method of claim 2, wherein participants can dynamically join said item sampling event in progress.

17. The method of claim 2, wherein said set of one or more items is preselected.

18. The method of claim 2, wherein said set of one or more items comprises consumable items.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein said set of one or more consumable items comprises different wines.

20. The method of claim 2, wherein the group of participants is selected by an organizing member of the group of participants.

21. The recommender system of claim 2, wherein said recommendations are presented to said group of participants while said item sampling event is in progress.

22. The recommender system of claim 2, wherein said recommendations are presented to individual participants as promotional electronic coupons that are configured to only be active within a first distance of one or more predetermined preferred establishments.