Virtual earth community based recommendations

• US 20060238381A1
• Filed: 01/19/2006
• Published: 10/26/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 04/21/2005
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Endres, Raymond E., Gounares, Alexandrer, Lawler, Stephen, Schwartz, Joseph, Lombardi, Steve, Kimchi, Gur, Kuppusamy, Ashok, Dekate, Amit
• Application Number:
  US11/335,209
• Publication Number:
  US 20060238381A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 340/995.100
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/26 specially adapted for navigation in a road network
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3841 Data obtained from two or more sources, e.g. probe vehicles
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/29 Geographical information databases
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0253 During e-commerce, i.e. online transactions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0275 Auctions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0277 Online advertisement
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/0962 having an indicator mounted inside the vehicle, e.g. giving voice messages
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/0969 having a display in the form of a map
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 29/007 using computer methods
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 29/106 using electronic means
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1001 for accessing one among a plurality of replicated servers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34

Abstract

Provided is a single repository for capturing, connecting, sharing, and visualizing information based on a geographic location, for example. Provided is a schema, repository, index, and APIs for any information, place, entity, attribute, service or person that can be referenced geographically. A system to provide real time image data includes an input component that receives image data associated with a specific geographic area, a splitter component that splits the image data into at least two quadrants, and a storage component that stores at least a portion of the at least two quadrants. Also provides is on-line or real-time advertising based on a user'"'"'s mapped location and/or a user preference.

Claims

1. A system that provides a recommendation based on a community of users, comprising:

a receiver component that receives entity information from a plurality of users;

a community module that maintains the entity information in a retrievable format; and

a render component that displays the retrievable entity information based in part on a user request.

2. The system of claim 1, further comprising an inference engine that searches the entity information based in part on an inference of what another person would prefer.

3. The system of claim 1, the community module further retrieves the entity information based on a subset of all entities received from the plurality of users.

4. The system of claim 1, the community module searches for a particular entity based on the user request if the user is a member of a community of the plurality of users.

5. The system of claim 1, the user request is a broad request, a narrow request, or a request there between depending on a user requirement.

6. The system of claim 5, the broad user request is provided from a community of the plurality of users and the narrow request is provided from a subset of the community comprising the plurality of users.

7. The system of claim 1, further comprising a machine-learning component that obtains the retrievable entity information based upon an inference search.

8. The system of claim 7, the inference search is based in part on a similar preference from a different user.

9. The system of claim 1, the entity is one of a location, a place, and an event.

10. A method of providing user requested data based in part on input received from a community of users, comprising:

maintaining entity information received from a community of users in a retrievable format;

receiving a request from another user for an entity recommendation; and

retrieving the entity recommendation based in part on the received entity information and a preference of the another user.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

providing the another user the retrieved entity recommendation in a broad format or in a narrow format; and

allowing the another user an ability to transition from the broad format to the narrow format and there between.

12. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

receiving predefined user criteria;

searching for additional users that previously submitted similar user-defined criteria;

inferring a preference of the another user based upon the predefined user criteria and the similar user-defined criteria; and

displaying a result of the inferred preference to the another user.

13. The method of claim 10, further comprising receiving a seed module;

capturing a user preference based upon data input by the another user;

placing the captured user preference into a group of activities; and

applying the user preference to the community of users.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

applying at least one filter based on the captured user preference; and

providing the another user at least one recommended entity based on the group of activities into which the user preference was placed.

15. The method of claim 10, further comprising defining the community of users based upon at least one of a frequent contact, a recent contacts and an additional contact.

16. The method of claim 10, retrieving the entity recommendation further comprising ascertaining at least one of a geographic region and a subset of all entities the another user previously requested.

17. The method of claim 10, further comprising allowing each user of the community of users to opt-in or opt-out of providing each user'"'"'s preferences to the community of users.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising:

selectively ignoring a preference of a user that opted-out of providing preferences; and

maintaining the opted-out user preference in a secured format not viewable by the community of users.

19. A system for applying a user preference to a community of users, comprising:

means for obtaining data relating to entities a user has viewed, searched for, or indicated a preference;

means for placing the obtained data into at least one activity group; and

means for inferring a user desired activity based in part on the at least one activity group.

20. The system of claim 19, further comprising means for applying the inferred user desired activity to a community of users.