System and method of forming action based virtual communities and related search mechanisms

• US 8,843,481 B1
• Filed: 10/02/2006
• Issued: 09/23/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 09/30/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Yongyong Xu
• Original Assignee: Yongyong Xu
• Inventors: Xu, Yongyong
• Primary Examiner(s): Bhatia, Ajay
• Assistant Examiner(s): MUELLER, KURT A
• Application Number:
  US11/542,325
• Time in Patent Office: 2,913 Days
• Field of Search: 707/3, 707/5, 707/6, 707/10, 707/100, 707/201, 707/737, 707/732, 725/116, 706/20, 706/219, 705/80
• US Class Current: 707/732
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/101 Collaborative creation, e.g. joint development of products or services
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0251 Targeted advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/04 Real-time or near real-time messaging, e.g. instant messaging [IM]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/52 for supporting social networking services

Abstract

A method for creating a virtual community of users is disclosed The method includes the steps of providing a community server operable to create a virtual community based upon an action performed by a user, and rendering community services to the virtual community of users based on the action. In another aspect of the invention, a method of searching based on an action based virtual community includes the steps of providing a community server operable to create a virtual community based upon a search action performed by a user, and rendering community services to the virtual community of users based on the search action, the rendered community services including information related to returned search results and search result relevance based on other user'"'"'s actions.

Claims

1. A method for creating a plurality of action-based virtual communities for a plurality of Internet users comprising the steps of:

providing a community server, said community server being configured to intercept only user actions performed in the Internet by each of said users, said user actions being provided to the community server by a user plug-in or helper object installed on networked user client machines;

wherein user actions are selected from querying, searching, shopping, bidding, donating and painting operations while browsing the Internet;

assigning a unique identifier in the form of URL to uniquely identify each of said user actions;

for each of said user actions, said community server creating a corresponding action-based virtual community, said action-based virtual community members compose of users who are performing the same or similar actions;

wherein the creation of said virtual community is done automatically without any user intervention and in real time;

wherein multiple said communities can be grouped together by setting up a new joint community whose members composing users who are performing each of said similar actions;

wherein each of said user can have multiple memberships when multiple actions are performed;

wherein said community further be filtered by allowing the system or the user to specify a filter with similar keywords which is automatically matched to said community members;

said community server automatically associating said users who performed the same or similar actions to said action-based virtual community based solely on the same or similar actions performed; and

said community server delivering community services to members of said action-based virtual community.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the action performed by the user comprises searching.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the action performed by the user comprises asking questions, submitting requests, filling forms or purchasing.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the community services comprise targeted advertising related to the action performed.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the action performed comprises a search and the community services comprise statistical information regarding returned search results.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the statistical information regarding the returned search results comprise count of current community users accessing the returned search results.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the community server is configured to examine communications between the user and other networked resources.

8. A method of forming a plurality of virtual communities based on Internet search actions and keywords comprising the steps of:

providing a community server, said community server being configured to intercept search actions conducted by a user, said search actions being provided to the community server by a user plug-in or helper object installed on networked user client machines;

wherein user actions are selected from querying, searching, shopping, bidding, donating and painting operations while browsing the Internet;

assigning a unique identifier in the form of URL to uniquely identify each of said user search actions by keywords;

for each search keyword of search actions conducted by said user, said community server forming a corresponding virtual community related to said search keyword, said virtual community members composing of users who are conducting the same or similar explicit search actions;

wherein the creation of said virtual community is done automatically without any user intervention;

wherein said community can be grouped together by setting up a new joint community whose members composing users who are performing each of said similar actions;

wherein said community can further be filtered by allowing the system or the user to specify a filter with similar keywords which is automatically matched to said community members;

said community server automatically associating said users that conducted said same search action to said community based solely upon said search action; and

said community server delivering community services to members of said virtual community based on the search action and keyword, said community services comprising information related to said search keyword and search results.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the delivered community services include statistical information related to returned search results based on the users'"'"' interests.

10. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

upon said user selecting a returned search result, said community server being configured to update real time meta information related to the selected search result.

11. The method of claim 8, wherein the delivered community services comprise providing a user voting and ranking mechanism for the returned search results based on actions of current search users in order to improve search results.

12. The method of claim 8, wherein the community server is configured to re-rank search results by implicitly tracking user actions on the search results.

13. The method of claim 8, wherein the community server is configured to track user selection of returned search results and to adjust results back to other users performing the same or similar searches.

14. The method of claim 8, wherein the community server is configured to feed user actions over the search results back to the search engine to update the search and improve the search relevancy between search result and search criteria.

15. A computer system operating in the Internet to provide action based virtual communities comprising:

a virtual community server configured to manage a plurality of action-based virtual communities and intercept user action performed by a user in the Internet, said user actions being provided to the virtual community server by a user plug-in or helper object installed on networked user client machines wherein user actions are selected from querying, searching, shopping, bidding, donating and painting operations while browsing the Internet;

a component configured to intercept user actions performed by a user in the Internet, and, upon detecting an action performed by said user, configured to perform the additional step of notifying said community server to create an action-based virtual community corresponding to the action performed by said user, said action-based virtual community having as members users who performed the same or similar actions in real time;

wherein the creation of said virtual community is done automatically without any user intervention;

wherein said community can be grouped together by setting up a new joint community whose members composing users who are performing each of said similar actions;

wherein said community can further be filtered by allowing the system or the user to specify a filter with similar keywords which is automatically matched to said community members;

wherein said community server is configured to automatically add said user to said action-based virtual community based solely upon said user action; and

wherein said community server is configured to deliver community services for members of said action-based virtual community.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the user actions include searching and the community server is configured to render community services related to returned search results.

17. The system of claim 15, wherein the community server is configured to assign a unique identifier for each of the plurality of user actions.

18. A method of providing Internet search results comprising the steps of:

providing a community server configured to intercept actions selected from among querying, searching, shopping, bidding, donating and painting operations while browsing the Internet, said search actions being provided to the community server by a user plug-in or helper object installed on networked user client machines;

for each search keyword of said search actions, said community server assigning a unique identifier in the form of URL and creating a corresponding action-based virtual community in real time;

said community server automatically associating said user that conducted the search action to said action-based virtual community based solely upon said search action, members of said action-based virtual community comprising users who conducted the same or similar search actions;

wherein the creation of said virtual community is done automatically without any user intervention;

wherein said community can be grouped together by setting up a new joint community whose members composing users who are performing each of said similar actions;

wherein said community can further be filtered by allowing the system or the user to specify a filter with similar keywords which is automatically matched to said community members;

performing said search actions through another search means and retrieving search results; and

re-arranging said search results based on knowledge within said action-based virtual communities created in correspondence with said search actions before providing said search results to the user.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the knowledge within said action-based virtual communities is acquired by monitoring user'"'"'s response to the search result.

20. The method of claim 18, wherein the knowledge within said action-based virtual communities contains which link a user has selected from the search results list or a total time a user spent on reading a search result.