Services for spontaneous collaboration

• US 8,812,405 B2
• Filed: 08/19/2009
• Issued: 08/19/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 01/07/2005
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Bantz, David Frederick, Pickover, Clifford A.
• Primary Examiner(s): WILSON, CANDICE D C
• Application Number:
  US12/544,124
• Publication Number:
  US 20100049581A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,826 Days
• Field of Search: 705/1, 705/1.1, 705300-301, 705/348, 705/319
• US Class Current: 705/319
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/016 After-sales
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0273 Determination of fees for advertising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0281 Customer communication at a business location, e.g. providing product or service information, consulting
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0283 Price estimation or determination
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0617 Representative agent
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0631 Item recommendations
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0633 Lists, e.g. purchase orders, compilation or processing

Abstract

An apparatus for providing spontaneous collaboration between a shopper and consultants concerning a shopping goal derives information about the shopper'"'"'s physical or logical proximity to a particular product category, combined with the current contents of his or her shopping cart is used to determine one or more shopping goals; as well as information about each potential consultant, including physical proximity, willingness to consult, areas of expertise and recent experience is used to rank each consultant in terms of relevance to one or more shopping goal.

Claims

1. Ai apparatus for characterization of areas of consultant expertise, said

apparatus comprising:

A) a processor device executing machine-executable instructions;

B) a program storage device operably coupled with the processor device and comprising the machine-executable instructions for;

automatically determining shopping goals of a shopper, without said shopper having to explicitly supply the shopping goals as input, by;

analyzing contents of the shopper'"'"'s shopping cart; and

performing a location operation to determine the shopper'"'"'s location in the store;

wherein said shopping goals comprise a first list of candidate products that the shopper desires to acquire in a store;

listing the contents of the shopper'"'"'s shopping cart in a second list;

for each candidate product in the first list of candidate products, automatically;

querying a database comprising a third list of potential shopping collaborators correlated to the candidate product for which the potential shopping collaborators have experience and knowledge;

retrieving from the database the third list of the potential shopping collaborators with experience and knowledge of the candidate product;

determining which of the potential shopping collaborators are currently online, therefore available; and

ranking the available shopping collaborators by assigning a high ranking to those collaborators with attributes of;

close physical proximity between the shopper and the collaborators;

a positive rating of the shopper'"'"'s past experience with the collaborators as stored in the database;

experience in multiple product sets associated with the candidate product;

recent purchase of the candidate product; and

frequent purchases of the candidate product;

merging the third lists of ranked, available shopping collaborators for each candidate product into a final list to eliminate duplicates of shopping collaborators relevant to more than one candidate product;

and transmitting to a user interface associated with the shopper the final list of ranked available shopping collaborators; and

C) the user interface for;

presenting the final list of ranked available shopping collaborators to the shopper;

and receiving a rating of the shopper'"'"'s interaction with the shopping collaborators.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the candidate product comprises a service.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the candidate product comprises information.

4. A computer program product for characterization of areas of consultant expertise, the computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer readable storage medium having computer readable program code embodied therewith, the computer readable program code comprising instructions for:

automatically determining shopping goals of a shopper, without said shopper having to explicitly supply the goals as input by;

analyzing contents of the shopper'"'"'s shopping cart; and

performing a location operation to determine the shopper'"'"'s location in the store;

wherein said shopping goals comprise a first list of candidate products that the shopper desires to acquire in a store;

listing the contents of the shopper'"'"'s shopping cart in a second list;

for each candidate product in the first list of candidate products, automatically;

querying a database comprising a third list of potential shopping collaborators correlated to the candidate products for which the potential shopping collaborators have experience and knowledge;

retrieving from the database the third list of the potential shopping collaborators with experience and knowledge of the candidate product;

determining which of the potential shopping collaborators are currently online, therefore available; and

ranking the available shopping collaborators by assigning a high ranking to those collaborators with attributes of;

close physical proximity between the shopper and the collaborators;

a positive rating of the shopper'"'"'s past experience with the collaborators as stored in the database;

experience in multiple product sets associated with the candidate product;

recent purchase of the candidate product; and

frequent purchases of the candidate product;

merging the third list of the ranked available shopping collaborators for each candidate product into a final list to eliminate duplicates of collaborators relevant to more than one candidate product;

transmitting to a user interface associated with the shopper the final list of ranked available shopping collaborators for displaying to the shopper;

and receiving a rating of the shopper'"'"'s interaction with the shopping collaborators.

5. The computer program product of claim 4, wherein the candidate product comprises a service.

6. The computer program product of claim 4 wherein the candidate product comprises information.

7. The computer program product of claim 4 wherein the store is an online store and the shopping cart is a virtual shopping cart.

8. The computer program product of claim 4 wherein the shopper'"'"'s location is correlated with a map of the store to identify a category of products to which the shopper is currently proximate.

9. The computer program product of claim 8, wherein the store is an on-line store and the shopper'"'"'s location is a logical position of a web page that is a current object of the shopper'"'"'s attention in a site map.

10. The computer program product of claim 8 wherein the contents of the shopper'"'"'s shopping cart are compared with the category of products to which the shopper is currently proximate to determine a characterization of the shopper'"'"'s goal.

11. The computer program product of claim 10 wherein determining a characterization further comprises determining a length of time the shopper has been proximate to a product category.

12. The computer program product of claim 7 wherein determining the shopper'"'"'s goals comprise determining that the shopper has explicitly asked for help in making a product choice.

13. The computer program product of claim 4 wherein the store is an online store and the shopping cart is a virtual shopping cart.

14. The computer program product of claim 13 wherein the shopper'"'"'s location is a logical position of a web page in a site map that is a current object of the shopper'"'"'s attention.

15. The computer program product of claim 14 wherein contents of the shopper'"'"'s shopping cart are compared with the category of products to which the shopper is currently proximate to determine a characterization of the shopper'"'"'s goal.