REPRESENTATION AND DISPLAY OF GEOGRAPHICAL POPULARITY DATA

• US 20080051994A1
• Filed: 08/28/2006
• Published: 02/28/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 08/28/2006
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Johns, Paul Roger, Fisher, Danyel Aharon
• Application Number:
  US11/467,789
• Publication Number:
  US 20080051994A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 701/210
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising

Abstract

The popularity of geographical points, locations or regions is represented and displayed by software in a computing system. Geographical popularity data may be stored according to a hierarchical naming convention that maps to geographical detail levels, and the geographical popularity data may be updated, e.g., continually or periodically, to maintain real-time, dynamic popularity measurements. The geographical popularity data can be represented according to different hierarchical levels of geographical detail. One visualization technique includes displaying the geographical popularity data as a chloropleth enabling a user to observe variation of the popularity of geographical sub-regions within a greater geographical context.

Claims

1. A method for visually representing the popularity of a plurality of geographical sub-areas of a geographical area in a computing system, comprising:

retrieving popularity data from a popularity data store corresponding to each of the plurality of geographical sub-areas of the geographical area;

assigning a color to the popularity data for each of the plurality of geographical sub-areas of the geographical area according to a mapping function; and

displaying the geographical area according to the colors assigned to the geographical sub-areas of the geographical area according to said assigning.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the displaying includes displaying the geographical area at a size determined by a first hierarchical level of detail, and displaying the plurality of geographical sub-areas at a second hierarchical level of detail representing greater detail than the first hierarchical level of detail.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the displaying includes displaying the geographical area as a chloropleth based on the colors assigned according to said assigning.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein said retrieving includes querying a relational data store representing popularity scores for the plurality of geographical sub-areas, wherein said querying includes specifying a hierarchical level of detail that is associated with each of the plurality of geographical sub-areas for efficient retrieval of the popularity data.

5. The method of claim 1, further including receiving from a user an indication of a geographical location, and based on said indication, determining said geographical area to display to the user and said plurality of geographical sub-areas.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising, based on said indication, determining a first hierarchical level of detail for said geographical area and determining a second hierarchical level of detail for said plurality of sub-areas, wherein the second hierarchical level of detail represents a greater level of geographical detail than the first hierarchical level of detail.

7. A computing device comprising means for performing the method of claim 1.

8. A user interface in a computing system for displaying geographical popularity data for a geographical region, comprising:

a geographical region user interface element that displays a geographical region at a first level of detail; and

a plurality of geographical sub-region user interface elements displayed within the geographical region, wherein each of the plurality of geographical sub-region user interface elements represents a second level of detail greater in detail than the first level of detail,

wherein each geographical sub-region user interface element is displayed with a color derived from a function of a popularity information retrieved for the geographical sub-region user interface element from a popularity information data store representing popularity information for the plurality of geographical sub-regions represented by the plurality of geographical sub-region user interface elements.

9. The user interface of claim 8, wherein the plurality of geographical sub-region user interface elements are displayed as a chloropleth within the geographical region user interface element according to said colors.

10. The user interface of claim 8, wherein the second level of detail represented by the plurality of geographical sub-region user interface elements corresponds to a hierarchical level of the names of the plurality of geographical sub-region user interface elements as stored in the popularity information data store.

11. The user interface of claim 8, wherein the function for determining a color for each of the geographical sub-region user interface elements based on the popularity information is a mapping function that maps a range of popularity scores for the geographical sub-region user interface elements to a pre-defined range of colors that ranges from a starting color to an ending color.

12. The user interface of claim 8, wherein the popularity information of the popularity information data store includes a popularity score for each of the geographical sub-region user interface elements, and the popularity scores of the geographical sub-region user interface elements are updated each time a pre-defined class of user interaction occurs anywhere in the computing system with respect to any geographical region represented by any of the plurality of geographical sub-region user interface elements.

13. A method for representing the popularity of a plurality of sub-regions of a geographical region in a computing system, comprising:

each time a user interacts with a geographical sub-region of a plurality of sub-regions in a software application,

recording a log record for said geographical sub-region in a popularity data store storing popularity information for each of the plurality of geographical sub-regions; and

determining a popularity score for the geographical sub-region based on the log record representing the user'"'"'s interaction with the geographical sub-region of the plurality of sub-regions.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

determining the log record from a record of at least one of a pre-existing web log store or a pre-existing usage log store.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein the recording includes recording a log record according to a pre-defined data format, and the recording includes recording a name field indicative of the name of the geographical sub-region with which the user interacted.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the recording includes recording a hierarchical name field formatted according to a hierarchical naming convention, whereby the hierarchical name field represents a hierarchical level of detail represented by the geographical sub-region.

17. The method of claim 13, wherein the recording includes recording a log record according to a pre-defined data format, and the recording includes recording a temporal field indicative of a time of the user'"'"'s interaction.

18. The method of claim 13, wherein the recording includes recording a log record according to a pre-defined data format, and the recording includes recording a sub-region display style field indicative of display style for the geographical sub-region.

19. The method of claim 13, wherein the recording includes recording a log record according to a pre-defined data format, and the recording includes recording an originating IP address of a computing device where the user interacted with the geographical sub-region.

20. A computer readable medium comprising computer executable instructions for performing the method of claim 13.