Abstract: A facility for determining availability status for item groups each containing one or more items is described. For each item whose availability status changes, for each item group containing the item, the facility adds the item group to a list of item groups if the item group is not already present in the list. The facility periodically removes a plurality of item groups from the list. For each item group it removes from the list, the facility determines an availability status for the item group based upon availability statuses of items contained in the group.

Abstract: One embodiment of the present invention is a system and method of encouraging customers to review purchased items. Customers are provided with review requests a predetermined amount of time after the customer has purchased an item or had the item delivered. The predetermined amount of time is related to an estimated time it will take the customer to evaluate the item. The reviews may include textual reviews that are presented to other customers and/or item ratings that are used to generate personal recommendations.

Abstract: A Web based system provides informational services for assisting customers in selecting products or other types of items from an electronic catalog of a merchant. Users of the system can create and join user communities, such as communities based on user hobbies, localities, professions, and organizations. The system also supports implicit membership communities that are based on email addresses (e.g., all users having a “nasa.com” email address), shipping/billing addresses, and other known user information. Using purchase history data collected for online users, the system automatically identifies and generates lists of the most popular items (and/or items that are becoming popular) within particular communities, and makes such information available to users for viewing. For example, in the context of an online book store users of the nasa.com community may automatically be presented a Web page which lists the bestselling book titles among nasa.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for enabling any of a variety of devices to communicate with each other over a common or universal protocol. In general, a client device and a server device communicate with each other over a communications link utilizes the common protocol. Initially, once a communications link is established, the server device identifies itself to the client device by sending a tag line message over the communications link. Upon receiving the tag line message, the client then determines that the server is capable of using the common protocol. The client device may then initiate several requests including a service request, a type request or a use request. If the client device initiates a service request, the client simple uses the common protocol to request the service. In response to receiving the service request, the server device performs the requested service and provides a confirmation to the client device.

Abstract: A method for a first device to access the services supplied by a second device by establishing a communicative connection between the first consumer device and a first server. The first server, establishes a communicative connection between the first server and a second server. The second server establishes a communicative connection between the second server and the second device. Once the communicative connection are established, a service request can be sent from the first device, to the second device utilizing the communicative connections. In response to receiving the request the second consumer device can perform the requested service.

Abstract: An online store system, which may be implemented as a web site or another type of interactive system, presents context-sensitive information to customers about their prior orders during browsing of an electronic catalog of products. In one embodiment, when a customer accesses a detail page for a particular product, the detail page is supplemented with information, such as status information, about a related order placed by the customer. The related order may be an order for the product represented in the detail page or may be for a related product. Information about related orders may additionally or alternatively be added to other types of pages, such as product category pages and shopping cart pages. In one embodiment, a customer's related order information is maintained in a cache during the customer's browsing session, and the cache is updated in real time to reflect actions performed by the customer.

Abstract: Various methods are disclosed for monitoring user browsing activities that indicate user interests in particular products or other items, and for using such information to identify items that are related to one another. In one embodiment, relationships between products within an online catalog are determined by identifying products that are frequently viewed by users within the same browsing session (e.g., products A and B are related because a significant portion of those who viewed A also viewed B). The resulting item relatedness data is preferably stored in a table that maps items to sets of related items. The table may be used to provide personalized product recommendations to users, and/or to supplement product detail pages with lists of related products. In one embodiment, the table is used to provide session-specific product recommendations to users that are based on the products viewed by the user during the current browsing session.

Abstract: A method and system for placing an order to purchase an item via the Internet. The order is placed by a purchaser at a client system and received by a server system. The server system receives purchaser information including identification of the purchaser, payment information, and shipment information from the client system. The server system then assigns a client identifier to the client system and associates the assigned client identifier with the received purchaser information. The server system sends to the client system the assigned client identifier and an HTML document identifying the item and including an order button. The client system receives and stores the assigned client identifier and receives and displays the HTML document. In response to the selection of the order button, the client system sends to the server system a request to purchase the identified item.

Abstract: A method and system for allowing users of different web pages to exchange information. The information exchange system identifies groups of related web pages and maintains a database of user-supplied information for each group of related web pages. When a user accesses a web page, the information exchange often displays in a separate area the information associated with the group of related web pages. Also, the information exchange system allows the user to enter information that will be displayed to other users who access related web pages.

Abstract: A method for effecting transactions across multiple vendors in an integrated environment, wherein the user may purchase each of a plurality of items the user finds independent of the vendors. The user's selections are received from the user and mapped to selected set of vendors. When the user is finished, she invokes a check-out application to fill in one or many order entry forms for each of the relevant vendors whose goods the user selected during the course of shopping. The check-out application uses common information, such as name, address and credit card number, previously provided by the user in order to fill in the order entry forms for each vendor without requiring the user to fill in these forms. Finally, the check-out application tracks confirmation numbers in a common information store.

Abstract: One embodiment of the present invention is a system and method of determining the age of an item recipient, such as a gift recipient. The age range for the gift recipient is estimated based at least in part on a customer order history of gifts purchased by the customer for the gift recipient. At a first date, a customer order for a first gift for the recipient is received, where the first gift is associated with a first age appropriateness designation. At a second date, a customer order for a second gift for the recipient is received, where the second gift is associated with a second age appropriateness designation. An age range associated with the recipient is then estimated based upon at least the first age appropriateness designation and the second age appropriateness designation.

Abstract: Various methods are disclosed for monitoring user browsing activities, and for using such information to provide session-specific item recommendations to users. In one embodiment, a monitoring component of a merchant's Web site maintains a record of products viewed by each user during a current browsing session—preferably based on visits to product detail pages. A recommendations component uses the resulting history of viewed products to identify additional products to recommend, preferably using a pre-existing table that maps products to related products. In one embodiment, this table is generated by periodically analyzing user browsing histories to identify correlations between purchases, viewing events, and/or other actions performed with respect to particular products. The recommended items may be displayed together with an option to individually deselect the recently viewed items on which the recommendations are based.

Abstract: A wrapper builder application provides a variety of features for facilitating the creation of wrappers that are used to extract information from Web sites. In one aspect, the wrapper builder application provides a tool with which the process of creating a wrapper, which typically resembles coding, can be accomplished by a graphical design process involving drag and drop operations, clicking on objects, and filling in forms. A web viewer component provides a web browser frame, a source code frame, and a tree view frame, enabling the user to identify semistructured information of interest on Web sites. A wrapper editor component provides a graphical design environment in which a wrapper can be graphically constructed from operations and links. A wrapper model component provides a functioning internal representation of the graphically designed wrapper using Java objects and methods.

Abstract: A search engine system assists users in locating web pages from which user-specified products can be purchased. Web pages located by a crawler program are scored, based on a set of rules, according to likelihood of including an online product offering. A query server accesses an index of the scored web pages to locate pages that are both responsive to a user's search query and likely to include a product offering. In one embodiment, the responsive web pages are listed on a composite search results page together with products that satisfy the query.

Abstract: A search engine system uses information about historical query submissions to a search engine to suggest previously-submitted, related search phrases to users. The related search phrases are preferably suggested based on a most recent set of query submission data (e.g., the last two weeks of submissions), and thus strongly reflect the current searching patterns or interests of users. The system is preferably implemented within a search engine used to locate items that are available for electronic purchase, but may be implemented within other types of search engines. In one embodiment, the related search phrases are scored and selected for display based at least in-part on an evaluation of the “usefulness” of each search phrase, as reflected by actions performed by prior users while viewing the corresponding search results.

Abstract: A computer-implemented method is disclosed for extracting a user's bank account information from information entered by the user from the face of a check. The extracted information may be used to electronically transfer funds to or from the user's bank account. The method may be embodied within a web site system, a telephone-based voice prompting system, or another type of interactive computer system of a business entity, and provides an alternative to requiring the user to mail a voided check. The method involves receiving from the user a magnetic ink character recognition (MICR) line, and identifying a contiguous string of characters within the MICR line that satisfies a checksum test. The resulting string is stored as the bank routing number for the user. A check number and an account number may also be received from the user, in which case a test is performed to verify that the check number, the account number, and the bank routing number all coexist within the MICR line.

Abstract: A method for effecting transactions across multiple vendors in an integrated environment, wherein the user may purchase each of a plurality of items the user finds independent of the vendors. The user's selections are received from the user and mapped to selected set of vendors. When the user is finished, she invokes a check-out application to fill in one or many order entry forms for each of the relevant vendors whose goods the user selected during the course of shopping. The check-out application uses common information, such as name, address and credit card number, previously provided by the user in order to fill in the order entry forms for each vendor without requiring the user to fill in these forms. Finally, the check-out application tracks confirmation numbers in a common information store.

Abstract: A network-computer-based personal contact manager system is disclosed wherein users of networked clients maintain and update a set of user information which is stored in a relational database on a networked server. The personal contact manager system allows each user to specify on an individual basis which of their contacts are permitted to access respective datums of their user information. In some cases, and assuming permission is granted, the system will issue notifications (e.g., by e-mail) to a user's contacts when the user changes his information or when a preset event, such as a birthday, as defined by the user, is to occur. The system also allows users to find contacts based on common group affiliations and notifies users when there are coincidences in their data (e.g., travel plans, astrological compatibility).

Abstract: A web site system implements a process for storing selected data structures within browser cookies. The data structures may contain a variety of different types of data elements, including N-bit integers and other non-character elements. A version tracking scheme provides forward and backward compatibility between client and server software. The process is implemented without the need for any browser extensions, and without the need for users to download any special code to their computers.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for enabling any of a variety of devices to communicate with each other over a common or universal protocol. In general, a client device and a server device communicate with each other over a communications link utilizes the common protocol. Initially, once a communications link is established, the server device identifies itself to the client device by sending a tag line message over the communications link. Upon receiving the tag line message, the client then determines that the server is capable of using the common protocol. The client device may then initiate several requests including a service request, a type request or a use request. If the client device initiates a service request, the client simple uses the common protocol to request the service. In response to receiving the service request, the server device performs the requested service and provides a confirmation to the client device.