Systems and methods for measuring and managing distributed online conversations

• US 8,983,975 B2
• Filed: 02/23/2009
• Issued: 03/17/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 02/22/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Aria Haghighi, Christopher Kenton, Terry Dean Blankers
• Original Assignee: Aria Haghighi, Christopher Kenton, Terry Dean Blankers
• Inventors: Kenton, Christopher, Blankers, Terry Dean, Haghighi, Aria
• Primary Examiner(s): LE, HUNG D
• Application Number:
  US12/918,279
• Publication Number:
  US 20100325107A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,213 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 707/749
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/00 Commerce

Abstract

A system (10) for measuring and managing distributed online conversations accessible via a network (20) comprises memory (3812) and an online conversation monitoring system (12) communicatively coupled to the network and communicatively coupled to the memory and being configured to create and manage search topics and queries, to search sites on the network utilizing the search topics and queries to identify relevant online conversations related to an entity, to capture relevant online conversations related to the entity, to store in the memory each captured relevant online conversation as a discrete incident associated with the entity to which it is relevant, to score each discrete incident according to a set of metrics, and to present scored incidents to the entity to which relevant online conversation relates.

Claims

1. A system for measuring and managing distributed online conversations accessible via a network, the system comprising:

memory; and

an online conversation monitoring system communicatively coupled to the network and communicatively coupled to the memory, the online conversation monitoring system being configured to;

create and manage search topics and queries;

search sites on the network utilizing the search topics and queries to identify relevant online conversations related to an entity;

capture relevant online conversations related to the entity;

store in the memory each captured relevant online conversation as a discrete incident associated with the entity to which it is relevant;

score each discrete incident according to a set of metrics;

prioritize each scored incident, wherein each scored incident is prioritized based at least in part on the score of each discrete incident and a score generated for the source on which each incident is discovered; and

present a prioritized list of scored incidents to the entity to which relevant online conversation relates.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the online conversation monitoring system is configured to identify each source on which each relevant online conversation is discovered and store an indicator of the source in the memory linked to the online conversation discovered thereon and the entity to which the online conversation is relevant.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein queries utilize keywords and the online conversation monitoring system is configured to use natural language programming to generate an automated count of keyword density as judged against the queries for each captured relevant online conversation which relevance metric is utilized in scoring the discrete incident.

4. The system of claim 1 wherein the online conversation monitoring system includes a web server configured to generate a user interface accessible via a remote device accessed by the entity and wherein a prioritized list of incidents is presented via the user interface to the entity.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein the online conversation monitoring system is configured to use topic modeling techniques of natural language programming to identify words having positive and negative emotional value within each captured relevant online conversation to generate a sensitivity metric utilized in scoring the discrete incident.

6. The system of claim 1 wherein the online conversation monitoring system is configured to weight available metrics and/or incident and source scores to create a single, composite score for prioritizing attention and/or response to incidents.

7. The system of claim 1 wherein the online conversation monitoring system is configured to adjust scores based on business rules of the entity to which to which each discrete incident relates.

8. The system of claim 1 wherein the online conversation monitoring system comprises an information management platform, an agent portal, a social module, a call center platform and aggregating tools.

9. The system of claim 1 and further comprising an entity system communicatively coupled to the online conversation monitoring system, the entity system including a client portal, a communications module and a media module, and further comprising a third party system communicatively coupled to the online conversation monitoring system, the third party system including search/aggregators running a computing device of the third party system.

10. The system of claim 1 wherein the online conversations monitoring system comprises a online conversations monitoring system with search/aggregators running thereon.

11. The system of claim 1 wherein the online conversation monitoring system is configured to generate a sentiment score with regard to each discrete incident that allows simultaneous measurement in multiple degrees of both positive and negative sentiment.

12. The system of claim 1 wherein the online conversation monitoring system is configured to present the discrete incidents relating to an entity to the entity in a prioritized list wherein the prioritized list is generated taking into consideration at personalized scoring rules generated by the entity.

13. The system of claim 12 wherein the prioritized list is presented via an interface providing the ability to sort incidents by score, source, type, sentiment, number of posts, date of posts, assigned team, recommended response or alert flags.

14. The system of claim 13 wherein the interface permits the entity to preview incident details, history and score on the same screen.

15. A method of measuring and managing distributed online conversations accessible via a network comprising:

creating search topics and queries to be utilized in searching media sites accessible via the internet to identify online conversations relating to an entity;

storing the created search topics in memory accessible by a search device coupled to the internet;

searching media sites on the internet utilizing the stored created search topics and queries to identify relevant online conversations related to the entity;

capturing relevant online conversations related to the entity discovered in the searching step;

storing in memory each captured relevant online conversation as a discrete incident associated with the entity to which it is relevant;

accessing the memory in which each captured relevant online conversation is stored to score each discrete incident according to a set of metrics;

accessing the memory in which each captured relevant online conversation is stored to prioritize each scored incident, wherein each scored incident is prioritized based at least in part on the score of each discrete incident and a score generated for the source on which each incident is discovered; and

presenting a prioritized list of scored incidents to the entity to which relevant online conversation relates via a graphical user interface generated by a server communicatively coupled to the memory.

16. The method of claim 15 and further comprising scoring the sentiment of each discrete incident in a manner that allows simultaneous measurement in multiple degrees of both positive and negative sentiment.

17. The method of claim 16 and further comprising providing the entity to sort incidents on the presented prioritized list by score, source, type, sentiment, number of posts, date of posts, assigned team, recommended response, and alert flags and to preview incident details, history and score on the same screen.