Search systems and methods with integration of aggregate user annotations

• US 20050256867A1
• Filed: 03/15/2005
• Published: 11/17/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 03/15/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: R2 Solutions LLC (Acacia Research Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Yahoo! Inc. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Lee, Kevin, Walther, Eckart, Lu, Qi, Diab, Ali, Ku, David, Tam, Chung-Man
• Granted Patent: US 8,005,835 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/338 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/8365 Query optimisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9538 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9558 Details of hyperlinks; Management of linked annotations
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99942 Manipulating data structure, e.g. compression, compaction, compilation
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99943 Generating database or data structure, e.g. via user interface
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99944 Object-oriented database structure
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing

Abstract

Computer systems and methods allow users to annotate content items found in a corpus such as the World Wide Web. Annotations, which can include any descriptive and/or evaluative metadata related to a document, are collected from a user and stored in association with that user. Users are able to annotate and view their annotations for any document they encounter while interacting with the corpus, including hits returned in a search of the corpus. Users are also able to search their annotations or to limit searches to documents they have annotated. Metadata from annotations can also be aggregated across users and aggregated metadata applied in generating search results.

Claims

1. A method for responding to a user query, the method comprising:

accessing a store of annotations created by a plurality of annotating users, each annotation being associated with one of the annotating users and with one of a plurality of documents belonging to a corpus, each annotation including user-specific metadata related to the associated document;

aggregating, across the plurality of annotating users, one or more items of user-specific metadata related to the same one of the documents, thereby generating one or more aggregate attributes for the document;

receiving a query submitted by a querying user;

searching the corpus to identify one or more hits, wherein each hit is a document from the corpus that is determined to be relevant to the query;

generating a search report including a listing of the hits, wherein the listing is based at least in part on at least one of the aggregate attributes of the hits; and

transmitting the search report to the querying user.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the one or more items of user-specific metadata aggregated during the act of aggregating include a rating for the associated document.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the act of aggregating includes computing an average rating for the document, wherein the average rating is one of the aggregate attributes.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein generating the search report includes:

including in the search report the average rating for each of the hits.

5. The method of claim 3 wherein generating the search report includes:

arranging the listing of the hits in an order based at least in part on the average rating for each of the hits.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the one or more items of user-specific metadata include a user-supplied keyword describing the associated document.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein the act of aggregating includes identifying a keyword set of most frequently supplied keywords, wherein the keyword set is one of the aggregate attributes.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein searching the corpus includes:

extracting a search term from the query; and

identifying as a hit any document in the corpus for which the keyword set includes the search term.

9. The method of claim 7 wherein the search report includes the keyword set for each hit.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein the one or more items of user-specific metadata include a label selected from a predefined vocabulary by the annotating user.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein the predefined vocabulary includes a plurality of category labels.

12. The method of claim 10 wherein the act of aggregating includes identifying a label set of most frequently selected label, wherein the label set is one of the aggregate attributes.

13. The method of claim 12 wherein searching the corpus includes:

extracting a search term from the query; and

identifying as a hit any document in the corpus for which the label set includes the search term.

14. The method of claim 13 wherein the search report includes the label set for each hit.

15. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

identifying, as an annotated hit, each of the hits for which the store of annotations contains an annotation created by the querying user and associated with that hit; and

for each of the hits for which the store of annotations contains an annotation created by the querying user, including in the search report an indication of whether each hit is an annotated hit.

16. The method of claim 15 wherein the search report further includes a control operable by the querying user to view the querying user'"'"'s annotation for each annotated hit.

17. The method of claim 15 wherein the search report further includes metadata extracted from the querying user'"'"'s annotation for each annotated hit.

18. The method of claim 1 wherein the corpus is the World Wide Web.

19. The method of claim 1 wherein the querying user is a computer.

20. The method of claim 1 wherein the querying user is a human.

21. A computer system for responding to user queries, the system comprising:

an index data store configured to store a searchable representation of a corpus comprising a plurality of documents;

a personalization data store configured to store annotations created by a plurality of annotating users, each annotation being associated with one of the documents in the corpus, each annotation including user-specific metadata related to that document;

an aggregation module communicably coupled to the personalization data store and the index data store,

the aggregation module being configured to aggregate, across the plurality of annotating users, one or more items of user-specific metadata related to one of the documents, thereby generating one or more aggregate attributes for the document, and to store each of the aggregate attributes for the document in the index data store; and

a search module communicably coupled to the index data store and the personalization data store,

the search module including;

input control logic configured to receive a query submitted by a querying user;

search control logic configured to search the index data store and to identify one or more hits, wherein each hit is a document in the corpus that is determined to be relevant to the query; and

reporting control logic configured to generate a search report including a listing of the hits, the listing based at least in part on the aggregate attributes of the hits, the reporting control logic being further configured to transmit the search report to the querying user.