Displaying interest information

• US 9,195,753 B1
• Filed: 12/28/2007
• Issued: 11/24/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 12/28/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Inventors: King, Joseph, Meyers, Gregory J., Wilson, Aaron D., Mongrain, Scott Allen, Ahmed, Waquas, Gronim, William W., Lim, Carl K., Cox, Alexander J.
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen, Loan T
• Application Number:
  US11/966,606
• Time in Patent Office: 2,888 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0631 Item recommendations

Abstract

Displaying communities associated with personalized data provides a user with access to relevant communities based on the user'"'"'s activity with an electronic catalog. The communities include content which may be manipulated by user activity or non-user activity. The communities may facilitate user discussion or viewing of information related to the user'"'"'s interests. The communities may be associated with elements associated with user interaction and/or based off recommended elements or categories associated with the user. Communities may be ranked or scored to improve the relevancy of the community for the user. Communities may be displayed with, for example, a personalized page for the user that may include other user recommendations, or the communities may be associated with other personalized pages within a website, among other possibilities.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

identifying a collection of items associated with a user based at least in part on interaction by the user with an electronic marketplace;

determining at least one of a recommended item, a category, or a tag that is associated with an item within the collection of items;

identifying discussion forums associated with at least one of the recommended item, the category, the tag, or the collection of items, each of the discussion forums including dialog created by a plurality of users that includes discussions that are associated with the at least one of the recommended item, the category, the tag, or the collection of items;

filtering the discussion forums based at least in part on an amount of activity of each discussion forum to reduce a quantity of the discussion forums to less than a threshold quantity, wherein filtering the discussion forum further includes;

calculating a discussion score for each discussion forum, the discussion score based at least in part on content or relevance of the discussion forum to the at least one of the recommended item, the category, the tag, or the collection of items;

calculating a normalization score by applying a weight to the discussion score of each discussion forum, the weight to adjust the discussion score based on a relative frequency of the collection of items and one or more of the recommended item, the category, and the tag that are associated with the respective discussion forum; and

designating discussion forums having the normalized score above a threshold score to be displayed to the user; and

causing a display of the reduced quantity of the discussion forums with the items.

12. One or more non-transitory computer-readable media storing computer-executable instructions that, when executed on one or more processors, configure a computer to perform the method as recited in claim 1.

2. A method comprising:

identifying a collection of items associated with a user based at least in part on interaction by the user with an electronic marketplace;

determining at least one of a recommended item, a category, or a tag that is associated with an item within the collection of items;

identifying discussion forums associated with at least one of the recommended item, the category, the tag, or the collection of items, each of the discussion forums including dialog created by a plurality of users that includes discussions that are associated with the at least one of the recommended item, the category, the tag, or the collection of items;

filtering the discussion forums based at least in part on an amount of activity of each discussion forum to reduce a quantity of the discussion forums to less than a threshold quantity, wherein filtering the discussion forums further includes;

ranking the discussion forums based on recent activity in the discussion forums;

selecting ranked discussion forums above a threshold rank; and

filtering the ranked discussion forums to maintain a predetermined mix of the discussion forums associated with the collection of the items and the discussion forums associated with the at least one of the recommended item, the category, or the tag; and

causing a display of the reduced quantity of the discussion forums with the items.

13. One or more non-transitory computer-readable media storing computer-executable instructions that, when executed on one or more processors, configure a computer to perform the method as recited in claim 2.

3. One or more non-transitory computer-readable media storing computer-executable instructions that, when executed on one or more processors, performs acts comprising:

creating, after determining a user, a personalized page for the user that includes a collection of elements and discussion forums associated with the collection of elements, wherein the creating includes;

tracking user interaction with elements available to the user from a host of an electronic catalog;

associating the collection of elements with (1) elements acquired by the user based in part on a determination that the user has acquired elements from the host and (2) elements viewed by the user;

filtering the discussion forums associated with the collection of elements, wherein filtering the discussion forums includes;

ranking the discussion forums based on recent activity in the discussion forums;

selecting ranked discussion forums above a threshold rank; and

filtering the ranked discussion forums to maintain a predetermined measure of diversity of discussion forums associated with the elements acquired by the user and discussion forums associated with the elements viewed by the user; and

outputting at least the filtered discussion forums on the personalized page.

4. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media as recited in claim 3, further comprising creating an anonymous personalized page for an unknown user that includes another collection of elements and other discussion forums associated with the other collection of elements prior to the determination of the user, the creating to include identifying the other discussion forums associated with the other collection of elements based at least in part on at least one of upstream customer activity, time of day, or element popularity.

5. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media as recited in claim 3, wherein ranking the discussion forums is further based on a date of a most recent post in each of the discussion forums.

6. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media as recited in claim 3, wherein ranking the discussion forums is based on a number of reply posts in each of the discussion forums.

7. One or more non-transitory computer-readable media storing computer-executable instructions that, when executed on one or more processors, performs acts comprising:

creating, after determining a user, a personalized page for the user that includes a collection of elements and discussion forums associated with the collection of elements, wherein the creating includes;

tracking user interaction with elements available to the user from a host of an electronic catalog;

associating the collection of elements with (1) elements acquired by the user based in part on a determination that the user has acquired elements from the host or (2) elements viewed by the user;

selecting the discussion forums associated with the collection of elements, the discussion forums selected based at least on recent activity in the discussion forum, the selected discussion forums to be included in the personalized page, wherein the selecting the discussion forums includes;

generating a score for each discussion forum associated with an element in the collection of elements;

calculating a normalization score by applying a weight to the score of each discussion forum, the weight to adjust the score based on a relative frequency of the collection of elements; and

designating the discussion forums with the normalized score exceeding a threshold value for display in the personalized page; and

outputting at least the selected discussion forums on the personalized page.

8. A computer system, comprising:

one or more processors; and

memory to store instructions that, when executed, cause the one or more processors to perform acts comprising;

a recommendation creator stored in the memory and executable by the one or more processors to store interactions with a user, the interactions including interactions with elements in an electronic catalog, and to recommend additional elements associated with the elements in the electronic catalog based at least in part on the interactions with the user;

a community association engine stored in the memory and executable by the one or more processors to select a subset of discussion forums associated with at least one of the recommended elements, individual ones of the subset of discussion forums including dialog created by a plurality of users that includes opinions that are associated with the at least one of the recommended elements, wherein the community association engine selects the subset of discussion forums by;

generating a score for individual discussion forums of the subset of discussion forums;

calculating a normalization score for the individual discussion forums by applying a weight to the score of the individual discussion forums, the weight to adjust the score based on a relative frequency of the recommended elements; and

selecting one or more of the individual discussion forums having an associated normalization score above a threshold score; and

a personalization manager stored in the memory and executable by the one or more processors to present a personalized page including the one or more of the individual discussion forums selected.

9. The computer system as recited in claim 8, wherein the personalized page includes recommended elements and recommended categories.

10. The computer system as recited in claim 8, wherein the personalized page includes the one or more of the individual discussion forums selected, sorted based in part on recent activity or a number of posts in each discussion forum.

11. The computer system as recited in claim 8, wherein the personalized page further comprises a tag portion to display a tag associated with the recommended elements.

14. A method comprising:

creating, after determining a user, a personalized page for the user that includes a collection of elements and discussion forums associated with the collection of elements, wherein the creating includes;

tracking user interaction with elements available to the user from a host of an electronic catalog;

associating the collection of elements with;

elements acquired by the user based in part on a determination that the user has acquired elements from the host, and

elements viewed by the user;

filtering the discussion forums associated with the collection of elements, wherein filtering the discussion forums includes;

ranking the discussion forums based on recent activity in the discussion forums;

selecting ranked discussion forums above a threshold rank; and

filtering the ranked discussion forums to maintain a predetermined measure of diversity of discussion forums associated with the elements acquired by the user and discussion forums associated with the elements viewed by the user; and

outputting at least the filtered discussion forums on the personalized page.

15. The method as recited in claim 14, further comprising creating an anonymous personalized page for an unknown user that includes another collection of elements and other discussion forums associated with the other collection of elements prior to the determination of the user, the creating to include identifying the other discussion forums associated with the other collection of elements based at least in part on at least one of upstream customer activity, time of day, or element popularity.

16. The method as recited in claim 14, wherein ranking the discussion forums is based on a date of a most recent post in each of the discussion forums.

17. The method as recited in claim 16, wherein ranking the discussion forums is based on a number of reply posts in each of the discussion forums.

19. One or more non-transitory computer-readable media storing computer-executable instructions that, when executed on one or more processors, configure a computer to perform the method as recited in claim 14.

18. A method comprising:

creating, after determining a user, a personalized page for the user that includes a collection of elements and discussion forums associated with the collection of elements, wherein the creating includes;

tracking user interaction with elements available to the user from a host of an electronic catalog;

associating the collection of elements with;

elements acquired by the user based in part on a determination that the user has acquired elements from the host, or

elements viewed by the user;

selecting the discussion forums associated with the collection of elements, the discussion forums selected based at least on recent activity in the discussion forums, the selected discussion forums to be included in the personalized page, wherein the selecting the discussion forums includes;

generating a score for each discussion forum associated with an element in the collection of elements;

calculating a normalization score by applying a weight to the score of each discussion forum, the weight to adjust the score based on a relative frequency of the collection of elements; and

designating the discussion forums with the normalized score exceeding a threshold value for display in the personalized page; and

outputting at least the selected discussion forums on the personalized page.

20. One or more non-transitory computer-readable media storing computer-executable instructions that, when executed on one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to execute modules comprising:

a recommendation creator stored in the memory and executable by the one or more processors to store interactions with a user, the interactions including interactions with elements in an electronic catalog, and to recommend additional elements associated with the elements in the electronic catalog based at least in part on the interactions with the user;

a community association engine stored in the memory and executable by the one or more processors to select a subset of discussion forums associated with at least one of the recommended elements, individual ones of the discussion forums including dialog created by a plurality of users that includes opinions that are associated with the at least one of the recommended elements, wherein the community association engine selects the subset of discussion forums by;

generating a score for individual discussion forums of the subset of discussion forums;

calculating a normalization score for the individual discussion forums by applying a weight to the score of the individual discussion forums, the weight to adjust the score based on a relative frequency of the recommended elements; and

selecting one or more of the individual discussion forums having an associated normalization score above a threshold score; and

a personalization manager stored in the memory and executable by the one or more processors to present a personalized page including the one or more of the individual discussion forums selected.

21. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media as recited in claim 20, wherein the personalized page includes recommended elements and recommended categories.

22. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media as recited in claim 20, wherein the personalized page includes the one or more of the individual discussion forums selected, sorted based in part on recent activity or a number of posts in each discussion forum.

23. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media as recited in claim 20, wherein the personalized page further comprises a tag portion to display a tag associated with the recommended elements.