Methods of providing information related to activities

• US 10,740,417 B2
• Filed: 08/24/2016
• Issued: 08/11/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 08/25/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Mastercard International Incorporated (MasterCard Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Mastercard International Incorporated (MasterCard Incorporated)
• Inventors: Trencher, John, Fabiano, Vergari, Bennett, Michael
• Primary Examiner(s): Hasan, Syed H
• Application Number:
  US15/246,072
• Publication Number:
  US 20170061022A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,448 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24578 using ranking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9537 Spatial or temporal dependent retrieval, e.g. spatiotemporal queries
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/02 Reservations, e.g. for tickets, services or events

Abstract

A method of providing a user with information related to one or more activities is provided. The method comprises identifying one or more activities; calculating a locality for the user for each activity; identifying a subset of the activities based on the respective locality for each activity; and providing information related to at least one of the subset of the activities to the user.

Claims

1. A method of providing a user with information related to one or more activities, the method implemented using an activity analysis computing device including a processor in communication with a memory, the method comprising:

identifying the one or more activities;

calculating a locality for the user for each activity based on a weighted average of i) an average distance that other users have travelled to the activity and ii) a distance that the user has travelled to similar activities that are not the activity itself;

comparing a first set of transaction data of the user to a second set of transaction data of one or more other users to identify similar users having similar transaction data;

identifying a subset of the activities by;

filtering the one or more activities based on a popularity of the one or more activities in the similar transaction data of the similar users; and

filtering the one or more activities by excluding activities that appear in transaction records of the first set of transaction data of the user; and

providing information related to at least one activity of the subset of the activities to the user based on the calculated locality for the user for the at least one activity and the similar transaction data for the at least one activity, wherein the at least one activity has not been performed by the user.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying one or more activities comprises:

comparing the user with one or more other users;

identifying a subset of the other users based on the comparison;

accessing transaction data associated with each user in the subset of the other users, the transaction data comprising one or more transaction records, each transaction record identifying an activity; and

compiling the one or more activities corresponding to at least one transaction record in the transaction data.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein comparing the user with one or more other users comprises:

accessing first user information related to the user and second user information related to each other user; and

assessing a similarity between the user and each other user based on the first user information and the second user information.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein identifying a subset of the other users comprises determining whether the similarity between the user and each other user is above a threshold.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

accessing transaction data associated with the user, the transaction data comprising one or more transaction records, each transaction record identifying an activity,

wherein an activity is determined to be associated with the user if there is a transaction record identifying the activity in the transaction data associated with the user.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein providing information related to at least one activity of the subset of the activities to the user comprises:

assessing a popularity of each activity of the subset of activities with respect to one another,

wherein the user is provided with information related to at least one activity of the subset of activities based on the popularity of each activity.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein assessing a popularity of each activity comprises, for each activity:

determining a number of transaction records linked to unique users that are related to the activity;

comparing the number to an expected number of transaction records for a sample activity; and

calculating the popularity based on the comparison.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein assessing a popularity of each activity comprises, for each activity:

determining a first number of transaction records linked to unique users that are related to the activity over a first period;

comparing the first number to a second number of transaction records that are related to the activity over a second period prior to the first period; and

calculating the popularity based on the comparison.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein calculating the locality for the user comprises:

identifying one or more locations for the user;

determining a radius for each location; and

calculating the locality based on each location and the radius for the location.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein identifying one or more locations comprises:

accessing transaction data associated with the user, wherein the transaction data comprises location identifiers for each of one or more transactions; and

assessing whether a location corresponding to each location identifier meets a threshold.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein determining a radius for each location is based on one or more of:

the activity;

the user; and

a subset of other users.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein calculating the locality based on each location and the radius for the location comprises:

calculating a partial locality for each location based on the radius for the location; and

combining the partial localities.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein providing information to the user comprises:

transmitting in a limited amount of data the information related to the at least one activity to a user device of the user; and

displaying, in a user interface of the user device, the information.

14. A system comprising:

a processor; and

a memory in communication with the processor, the memory having instructions which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to;

identify one or more activities;

calculate a locality for a user for each activity based on a weighted average of i) an average distance that other users have travelled to the activity and ii) a distance that the user has travelled to similar activities that are not the activity itself;

compare a first set of transaction data of the user to a second set of transaction data of one or more other users to identify similar users having similar transaction data;

identify a subset of the activities by;

filtering the one or more activities based on a popularity of the one or more activities in the similar transaction data of the similar users; and

filtering the one or more activities by excluding activities that appear in transaction records of the first set of transaction data of the user; and

provide information related to at least one activity of the subset of the activities to the user based on the calculated locality for the user for the at least one activity and the similar transaction data for the at least one activity, wherein the at least one activity has not been performed by the user.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the instructions further cause the processor to:

compare the user with one or more other users;

identify a subset of the other users based on the comparison;

access transaction data associated with each user in the subset of the other users, the transaction data comprising one or more transaction records, each transaction record identifying an activity; and

compile the one or more activities corresponding to at least one transaction record in the transaction data.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the instructions further cause the processor to:

access transaction data associated with the user, the transaction data comprising one or more transaction records, each transaction record identifying an activity,

wherein an activity is determined to be associated with the user if there is a transaction record identifying the activity in the transaction data associated with the user.

17. The system of claim 14, wherein to provide information related to at least one activity of the subset of the activities to the user, the instructions further cause the processor to:

assess a popularity of each activity of the subset of activities with respect to one another,

wherein the user is provided with information related to at least one activity of the subset of activities based on the popularity of each activity.

18. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having computer-executable instructions embodied thereon, wherein when executed by at least one processor coupled to a memory, the computer-executable instructions cause at least one processor to:

identify one or more activities;

calculate a locality for a user for each activity based on a weighted average of i) an average distance that other users have travelled to the activity and ii) a distance that the user has travelled to similar activities that are not the activity itself;

compare a first set of transaction data of the user to a second set of transaction data of one or more other users to identify similar users having similar transaction data;

identify a subset of the activities by;

filtering the one or more activities based on a popularity of the one or more activities in the similar transaction data of the similar users; and

filtering the one or more activities by excluding activities that appear in transaction records of the first set of transaction data of the user; and

provide information related to at least one activity of the subset of the activities to the user based on the calculated locality for the user for the at least one activity and the similar transaction data for the at least one activity, wherein the at least one activity has not been performed by the user.