System, method and computer program product for searching summaries of mobile apps reviews

• US 9,223,831 B2
• Filed: 01/02/2013
• Issued: 12/29/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 01/02/2013
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Codeq, LLC, CrowdChunk LLC
• Original Assignee: Codeq, LLC
• Inventors: Baker, Douglas Dane, Fernandes, Brian, Fernandez, Paulo Malvar, Abdul-Mageed, Muhammad
• Primary Examiner(s): Saeed, Usmaan
• Assistant Examiner(s): Weinrich, Brian E.
• Application Number:
  US13/732,880
• Publication Number:
  US 20140188897A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,091 Days
• Field of Search: 707/748, 707/944, 705/26.7
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24578 using ranking
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0623 Item investigation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0631 Item recommendations
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/944 Business related

Abstract

A system, method, and computer program product (e.g. mobile App) and/or web-based service is provided to enable users to research online reviews in order to assess the performance and functionality of mobile applications. The system extracts reviews from multiple online sources, including: mobile Apps “stores”, blogs, online magazines, websites, etc.; and, utilizes sentiment analysis algorithms and supervised machine learning analysis to present more informative summaries for each App'"'"'s reviews. Summaries may include: a sentence that encapsulates a sentiment held by many users; the most positive and negative comments; and a list of features with average scores (e.g. graphics, fun, easy to use, etc.). Additionally, the user may view a separate review detail page per App that provides further summaries, such as a short list of other Apps that the same reviewer gave a very positive review for the features. The user is then able to purchase and download the App via a link.

Claims

1. A networked based computing system for retrieving, analyzing, and displaying multiple reviews of mobile application software configured for a user to search for and view analyzed summaries of the reviews, the system comprising:

a) a system server, comprising;

i. a central processing unit for retrieving, processing, and storing analyzed summaries of the reviews;

ii. a review database for storing records of written reviews of mobile applications retrieved by the central processing unit;

iii. a review analytics database for storing the records from the review database that are processed for use by a natural language processing module;

iv. a natural language processing module for performing tokenization, lemmarization, and sentence splitting computing processes on the records of the written reviews;

v. a review scraper module for retrieving users'"'"' reviews from online data sources, preprocessing them for compatibility with the natural language processing module, and storing them within the reviews database;

vi. a sentiment analysis feature extraction processing module for processing the records of the written reviews stored within the reviews database to generate a profile for each mobile application comprising analytical summaries, and storing the profile within the review analytics database; and

vii. a query interface web module to receive, over a network, a search request for a particular mobile application and/or class of mobile applications from a client computer, wherein the query interface web module provides the mobile application'"'"'s profile and analytical summaries stored on the review analytics database to the client computer in response to the search request,

wherein each analytical summary comprises a review detail webpage of the particular mobile application comprising;

i. a score calculated by the central processing unit for features of the application that were reviewed, wherein said features are labeled either “

positive”

or “

negative”

; and

ii. reviews of other cross-referenced applications that the central processing unit has determined;

     1) were rated highly by a reviewer(s) who gave a positive rating to the application, and

     2) were rated highly by reviewer(s) who gave a negative rating to the application.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the online data sources for the reviews comprise:

mobile application stores, blogs, online magazines and web sites.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein said analytical summaries further comprise one or more of:

a) a list of two or more quotes from the reviewers and displaying how many reviewers made a similar comment about the application;

b) a list of two or more quotes from the reviewers that the central processing unit has determined are the most positive and most negative comments about the application;

c) a list of features extracted from the reviews and displaying the average score of each feature as calculated by the central processing unit;

d) a professional reviews webpage listing reviews extracted from information technology professionals and links to the original review written by the professional.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein said features comprise:

enjoy ability, graphics and user interface quality, ease of use and performance, and price.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein said reviews stored within the review database are preprocessed by the review scraper module directing the central processing unit to adjust and convert the review'"'"'s character encoding to ensure compatibility with the natural language processing module, and to remove all foreign language and other text when it is not translatable.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein said review scraper module performs superficial parsing to fix punctuation and capitalization of the text within the reviews to enable the natural language processing software to recognize sentences.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the sentiment analysis feature extraction processing module utilizes lexical analysis, supervised machine learning sentiment, and topic analysis to compute the analytical summaries.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the sentiment analysis feature extraction processing module further directs the central processing unit to calculate the average score of the application'"'"'s rated features.

9. A computer implemented method for retrieving, analyzing, and displaying reviews of mobile application software configured for a user to search for and view the analyzed summaries of the reviews, comprising processor(s) on a system server:

a) retrieving users'"'"' reviews from online data sources, preprocessing them for compatibility with a natural language processing module, and storing them within a reviews database;

b) processing the reviews stored within the reviews database using lexical analysis, supervised machine learning sentiment, and topic analysis to generate a profile for each mobile application, and storing the profile within a review analytics database;

c) searching the profiles stored on the review analytics database based on a request from a user on their electronic computing device, and associating analytical summaries of features of the mobile application with the profile for the mobile application; and

,

d) transmitting the application to the user'"'"'s electronic computing device based on receiving the user'"'"'s selection of a link within the mobile application'"'"'s profile,

wherein said analytical summaries comprise a review detail webpage for each application displaying;

i. a score calculated by the central processing unit for features of the application that were reviewed, wherein said feature is labeled either “

positive”

or “

negative” and

comprise enjoy ability, graphics and user interface quality, ease of use and performance, and price; and

,

ii. reviews of other cross-referenced applications that the central processing unit has determined;

     1) were rated highly by a reviewer(s) who gave a positive rating to the application; and

     2) were rated highly by reviewer(s) who gave a negative rating to the application.

10. The computer implemented method of claim 9, wherein the online data sources for the reviews comprise:

mobile application stores, blogs, online magazines and web sites.

11. The computer implemented method of claim 9, wherein said analytical summaries comprise a list of two or more quotes from the reviewers and displaying how many reviewers made a similar comment about the application.

12. The computer implemented method of claim 9, wherein said analytical summaries comprise a list of two or more quotes from the reviewers that the central processing unit has determined are the most positive and the most negative comments about the application.

13. The computer implemented method of claim 9, wherein said analytical summaries comprise a list of features extracted from the reviews and displaying the average score of each feature as calculated by the central processing unit, wherein said features comprise:

enjoy ability, graphics and user interface quality, ease of use and performance, and price.

14. The computer implemented method of claim 9, wherein said analytical summaries comprise a professional reviews webpage listing reviews extracted from information technology professionals and links to the original review written by the professional.

15. A computer program product embodied in a non-transitory computer readable medium that, when executing on one or more computers, performs the steps of:

a) retrieving users'"'"' reviews from online data sources, preprocessing them for compatibility with a natural language processing module, and storing them within a reviews database;

b) processing the reviews stored within the reviews database using lexical analysis, supervised machine learning sentiment, and topic analysis to generate a profile for each mobile application, and storing the profile within a review analytics database, wherein the profile comprises analytical summaries of features of the mobile application;

c) searching the profiles stored on the review analytics database based on a request from a user on their electronic computing device, and providing analytical summaries of features of the mobile application to the electronic computing device; and

,

d) transmitting the application to the user'"'"'s electronic computing device based on receiving the user'"'"'s selection of a link within the mobile application'"'"'s profile

wherein the analytical summaries viewed by the user on their mobile electronic computing device comprises a review detail webpage for each application displaying;

i. score calculated by the central processing unit for features of the application that were reviewed, wherein said features are labeled either “

positive”

or “

negative” and

comprise enjoy ability, graphics and user interface quality, ease of use and performance, and price; and

,

ii. reviews of other cross-referenced applications that the central processing unit has determined;

     1) were rated highly by a reviewer(s) who gave a positive rating to the application; and

     2) were rated highly by reviewer(s) who gave a negative rating to the application.

16. The computer program product of claim 15, further comprising a mobile application running on a user'"'"'s mobile electronic computing device configured for the user to search for and view the profiles of mobile applications stored on the review analytics database.

17. The computer program product of claim 16, wherein the analytical summaries viewed by the user on their mobile electronic computing device comprises one or more of:

a) a list of two or more quotes from the reviewers and displaying how many reviewers made a similar comment about the application;

b) a list of two or more quotes from the reviewers that the central processing unit has determined are the most positive and most negative comments about the application; and

,

c) a list of features extracted from the reviews and displaying the average score of each feature as calculated by the central processing unit, wherein said features comprise enjoy ability, graphics and user interface quality, ease of use and performance, and price.

18. The computer program product of claim 16, wherein the analytical summaries viewed by the user on their mobile electronic computing device comprises a professional reviews webpage listing reviews extracted from information technology professionals and links to the original review written by the professional.