REAL TIME EXPERT DIALOG SERVICE
Methods and systems provide for establishment of online dialogs between a person and a user of an online community where those people are not necessarily familiar with each others areas of expertise or interests. The methods and systems can categorize a dialog topic received from the person, and determine, from categorization of users, a selection of users of a system to receive the dialog topic. That selection can be further narrowed according to user availability and/or ranking determinations, as well as an initial subject matter test posed to the selection of users. Judging the acceptability of the users' responses can help determine subject matter expertise in an area relevant to the proposed topic.
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This application claims benefit as a Continuation of application Ser. No. 12/125,691, filed May 22, 2008 the entire contents of which is hereby incorporated by reference as if fully set forth herein, under 35 U.S.C. §120. The applicant hereby rescinds any disclaimer of claim scope in the parent application or the prosecution history thereof and advises the USPTO that the claims in this application may be broader than any claim in the parent application.
TECHNICAL FIELDThe present invention generally relates to online forums, and more specifically to forums where users can obtain information relating to questions that they pose from others who respond, if they desire to.
BACKGROUNDCurrently Yahoo! provides forums where a first user can post a question that can be read by an audience, and members of the audience can respond to answer the question. The audience can rank the responses, and users with highly-ranked responses accumulate points evidencing their participation in the forums. Improvements and extensions to systems of this sort are desirable.
SUMMARYAspects include a method of initiating an interactive dialogue in an online community, which comprises receiving a topic suggestion from a first person, and categorizing the topic suggestion into a subject matter category. The method also includes posing a test related to the subject matter category to a subset of users of the online community who potentially have expertise in the subject matter category, receiving responses to the test, and determining from which users an acceptable response was received. Then, the person who provided the topic suggestions is connected in the method to one or more users who submitted an acceptable response, in order to facilitate a dialog. Thereafter, the method also comprises providing a capability for the first person and the one or more users to determine collectively whether to publish electronically a transcript of the dialog. In some aspects, dialog participants can individually decide whether to approve publication of the dialog.
Such aspects also can include ranking users of the online community for expertise in the subject matter category, and dialogs can be established between dialog topic proposers and highly ranked users. Ranking can be based on other content generated by users, including other previously committed dialogs that have been rated by others. Other aspects can include a facility for searching previously published dialogs and allowing rating of them, as well as other commentary.
The subject matter test can be selected either by a system facilitating the online community, or by the person proposing the dialogic topic, and either the person or the system determines characteristics of an acceptable result.
Still other aspects can include providing a capability for one or more users receiving a proposed dialog topic to pose a subject matter expertise test to the person proposing the dialog topic, prior to connecting.
Still further aspects can include categorizing users into subject matter categories, reflecting one or more of expertise and interests of such users. Then, methods can include determining possible users to a given dialog topic based on such user categorization. Such possible users can be further narrowed by determination of present availability or willingness to receive topics, as well user rankings, and/or a subject matter test.
Any such methods can be embodied in instructions stored on computer readable media that can be used to configure one or more computers to implement the methods. After storage of such instructions on that computer readable media, that computer readable media is an article of manufacture. Such methods can be implemented as a service among a number of services provided through a web site or another information delivery means that can allow exchange of necessary information, such as dialog topics. For example, a service such as Skype or another suitable Voice over IP service, coupled with Text to Speech functionality may be used for interfacing users together to form dialogs.
For example, such a system for providing an online dialog service can comprise an interface element operable for receiving a topic suggestion electronically from a first person, a categorizer operable for determining a category for the topic from a plurality of categories available to the categorizer, and a selector operable for selecting users of the online community having expertise in the category. The system can also comprise a tester operable for posing an initial subject matter test in the category to at least some of the selected users and determining from which selected users an acceptable response was received, and a dialog initiator operable for connecting the first person and one or more of the selected users who provided acceptable responses. The system also can comprise a dialog recorder for recording the dialog, and an interface element operable for allowing conclusion of the dialog and posting of the dialog for online availability.
Further articles of manufacture can be created according to method aspects disclosed herein, and can comprise articles of manufacture storing dialogs created according to these methods.
For a fuller understanding of aspects and examples disclosed herein, reference is made to the accompanying drawings in the following description.
The following description is presented to enable a person of ordinary skill in the art to make and use various aspects of the inventions. Descriptions of specific techniques, implementations and applications are provided only as examples. Various modifications to the examples described herein may be apparent to those skilled in the art, and the general principles defined herein may be applied to other examples and applications.
The following relates to examples and aspects of providing a capability of initiating category specific real-time dialogs between a person posting a dialogue topic and one or more of a plurality of known experts in that topic area. These aspects and examples may further involve tracking or otherwise recording the dialogue taking place and upon completion of the dialogue allowing the participants in the dialogue to decide whether the dialogue should be available to the public at large for searching, rating, and other commentary. A still further aspect can include that users participating in dialogs may receive ratings from other users based on dialogs published in a particular category, and thus can achieve higher stature, gaining preference and ranking for engaging in further dialogs in that category. Also, because carrying on a successful real-time dialog about a particular subject is made easier when the dialog participants are familiar with the subject, connecting a person to a user knowledgeable in the subject is helpful, and an initial subject matter test can be used in identifying a participant for a particular dialog.
In this description, it is generally provided that a person, who may or may not be a regular user of the site or service providing such real-time dialogue capability, may propose a dialogue topic to the site or service, which can function to identify potential users known to the site or service, who are willing to engage in real time dialogs and who have subject matter expertise in one or more categories related to the topic posed by the person. Thus, the following description, for ease of reference, uses the term “person” to refer to a person posing a dialogue topic, while the term “user” refers to a person who is known to the site or service and can be selected or offered an opportunity to engage in a dialogue with the person.
To start with,
At step 110, the topic is categorized. Its categorization can be implicit from a context in which the topic was received, for example, or can be determined by textual analysis. For example, a person submitting a topic for reception may currently be browsing in a portion of a website relating to a particular category. Alternatively, or additionally, a category can be determined from the content of the suggested topic. For example, a search algorithm can be used to identify one or more known categories that relate to certain words contained in the suggested topic. For example, if the suggested topic included the word, “Plato”, then the categorization logic may categorize the suggested topic into a philosophy category. By example of a further alternative, the person submitting the suggested topic may be presented with a menu from which one or more categories can be selected.
The method 100 continues with identifying 115 one or more users known to the service having expertise in the category of the suggested topic. Various methods, aspects, and examples for identifying such users will be described with respect to further figures herein.
Method 100 continues with connecting 130 the identified the user or users to the person who originally submitted the suggested dialogue topic. Method 100 continues with recording the dialogue as it progresses. For example, a server may record (135) the text that each user types as the dialogue progresses. Since in these examples the dialogue is occurring in real time, the dialogue would be expected to comprise text offered by both parties potentially in an alternating fashion. The dialogue may continue for some time. When the person and the user or users engaged in the dialogue determine to end it, each of the person and the user or users is provided an opportunity to decide whether or not the dialogue should be committed 140 for publication.
It is preferred herein that each of the person and the user or users can independently determine whether or not the dialogue should be committed for publication. If any of them decide that the dialogue should not be published, then the dialogue would not be made available for public viewing. Thus, each participant both has an incentive to produce a quality dialog while also being able to prevent publication of a dialog that the participant feels does not adequately reflect that participants expertise, or is otherwise objectionable. If the dialogue is determined to be committed for publication, then method 100 includes adding 150 the dialogue to a library of dialogs available online
Thus at a high level, it can be discerned that two or more people can engage in a real-time dialogue facilitated by a service. The way in which users are determined to participate in the dialogue is a topic of further explanation herein. The contents of that dialogue can be recorded, and the two or more people participating in that dialog can determine whether or not they would wish that dialogue to be published.
In this context,
The service 205 can be implemented using a variety of processes, examples of which are illustrated in
Continuing with
Once users in a category relevant to the dialogue topic are identified, those users can be ranked 318 amongst themselves as to their expertise in that category. User ranking can be based on a large variety and number of criteria, including aspects such as whether previous dialogs in the same category were ranked highly by other users of the system, that a user has a job in a related field, or even information available on the Internet in general can be searched and used to determine a user's expertise in that category. Further aspects of ranking will be addressed herein.
Method 300 may proceed with determining 310 availability of one or more users determined to rank highly. For example, not all users will be online at the same time, or users may also provide an indication that they are not presently willing to receive suggested dialogue topics. Alternatively, a determination of availability can proceed by sending a suggested dialogue topic to those users determined to rank highly and then a message containing that suggested dialogue topic would simply not reach unavailable users. In either case, an initial selection of highly ranked users can be further narrowed by a determination or by a practical implementation of an availability determination.
Method 300 thereafter proceeds with available highly ranked users by posing 313 a subject matter test to such users. Such a test provides an initial hurdle to verify subject matter expertise on the part of a user and can be implemented in a variety of ways, examples of which are disclosed herein. Categorization of users can be used to establish an interest level and provide an initial estimate of expertise. The hurdle test can verify such expertise. Users provide responses to the test, which are received 314 by service 205. The acceptability of these responses is determined at step 315. Such determination of acceptability can be performed by the person who proposed the suggested dialogue topic or alternatively can be automated by the system, as described in further detail herein. Once one or more acceptable responses have been received, a user or users can be selected to participate in the dialogue with the person.
A further step that can be conducted is a reverse qualification test 325 that can be performed on behalf of the user or users selected, and which can test a subject matter expertise level of the person suggesting that dialogue topic. For example, some users may desire to participate in dialogs only with persons who have a certain background in the category, such as experts, while other users may be willing to engage in dialogs with anyone. Once one or more available users have been identified and vetted by the method 300, the method of 100 can continue at the connection step 130.
Now turning to
The method 305 differs from method 300, in that ranking information is not accessed, and instead available users are directly posed a test of subject matter competence. Responses are received 314 from the available users who were given the test and acceptability of answers received are determined 315. The step of reverse qualification 335 also can be conducted in method 305. Method 305 thus illustrates an example, where ranking information may not be maintained or where it is, for example, it may be determined that a category for the proposed dialogue topic has a small enough number of users that a ranking of such users is unnecessary.
However, it is generally contemplated that ranking information should be used to select users of service 205, who are to receive an opportunity to engage in the dialogue. This is at least because such ranking would be considered a reward for participation.
Now turning to
The method is illustrated in
The reverse qualification step 335 may be implemented in a number of ways including for example, allowing users of service 205 to specify a desire to receive one or more of the beginner, intermediate, and advanced conversation topics. Persons proposing dialogue topics may then be asked to self identify a level of dialogue sought and this then may provide an additional layer of screening to properly match a person posing a dialogue topic to a user with whom that person may have a satisfying dialogue.
Now turning to
In some particular examples, service 205 may query the searcher for feedback in one or more areas, for example. The service 205 may query the searcher for her opinion about specific aspects 435 of the dialogue.
Such specific aspects may include accuracy, professionalism or formalism, uniqueness of contribution, and whether the searcher found the dialogue to be informative. Other rating aspects that the service 205 may ask of the searcher is a feedback rating for each person and user who participated in the dialogue. Although it is generally preferred to consider real time dialogs as contemplated herein to be a joint contribution of all those who participated in the dialogue, it may be the case that one or more of the participants in a given dialogue should be given more or less credit for it. Also service 205 may solicit general comments 425 from the searcher to further characterize the content of that dialogue. Such comments may be made available to others who search for dialogs available through service 205.
The ranking information compiled in method 400 can be used as one component of the overall ranking of the user in a particular category, as well as more broadly in the service 205 as a whole.
Of course, user provided preferences 515 also can be considered and that a person may desire to become more involved in a given category and is learning in that category but may not yet be considered a subject matter expert. Searching of publicly available information such as information available on the Internet also can be used to identify subject matter expertise of users of service 205.
Additionally, external sites can provide information useful in determining rankings via prearranged interfaces, via XML or pre-set data formats, and the like. For example, professional networking sites such as LinkedIn can provide employment information, degree information and the like about users of LinkedIn, who also are users of service 205. Other social networking sites such Facebook and MySpace also can be sources of information useful in ranking users of service 205. These differing sources of information can be blended together in any of a variety of ways to arrive at a ranking for a user in a particular category. And, in cases where a category has one or more subcategories, and where particular information is available, users may be given different rankings for those subcategories. For example, a user may be given a first ranking in art history and a different ranking in a particular style of art.
As disclosed above, ranking information for users can be a useful component in a process for identifying one or more users with expertise in a given real-time dialogue topic. Another technique that can be used additionally is the technique of posing a subject matter test to one or more users who may have expertise in a given category, and therefore would be candidates for participation in a given dialogue.
A further example approach to a subject matter test is presented with respect to
Since one intended result of service 205 facilitation of real time dialogue initiation is a compiled library of committed and categorized dialogs,
Various pre-existing communications facilities and other functionality, like web functionality, can be used to implement methods according to these examples. For example, a service such as Skype or another suitable Voice over IP service, coupled with Text to Speech functionality may be used for interfacing users together to form dialogs.
Code for these processes can be stored in computer readable media, such as solid-state drives, hard drives, CD-ROMs and other optical storage means, transiently in nonvolatile memories as well as embodied in communication signals. Dialogs also can be saved or otherwise recorded to any of a variety of computer readable media or otherwise stored in a database for searching and subsequent retrieval
The Web interface process 220 of
Computer-executable instructions comprise, for example, instructions and data which cause or otherwise configure a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, or special purpose processing device to perform a certain function or group of functions. The computer executable instructions may be, for example, binaries, intermediate format instructions such as assembly language, or source code.
The examples presented herein provide illustrations of ways in which real time category specific dialogs can be facilitated by an online service. The various examples presented combinations of user categorization, user of ranking, subject matter testing, and user availability determinations to arrive at a selection of one or more users to provide an opportunity to engage in a dialogue on the proposed topic. Different implementations may implement different combinations of these aspects or combinations of subsets of these aspects. In a large-scale system, with many categories and many users, it is contemplated that a categorization or ranking of users, followed by a subject matter test allows both assurances of subject matter expertise and adequate rewards for participation in creation of committed dialogs. Further by providing each participant in a dialogue with an option to allow or prevent publication of such dialogue, it is contemplated that each participant then would have an interest in the overall quality of the dialogue. Many variations and enhancements to the examples and aspects disclosed herein will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art in view of these disclosures, and all such variations and enhancements should therefore be considered within the scope of the appended claims and their equivalents.
Claims
1. A method of initiating an interactive dialog in an online community, comprising:
- capturing a dialog, which has not been published to an online community, that occurred between a first user of the online community and one or more particular second users of the online community;
- wherein the dialog was carried out over a network using a dialog mechanism provided to the online community;
- providing to each of the first user and the one or more particular second users, over the network, a mechanism by which to indicate approval to publish the dialog; and
- publishing the dialog electronically to the online community only upon determining that, through use of the mechanism, each of the first user and the one or more particular second users decided the dialog should be committed for electronic publication;
- wherein the method is performed by one or more computing devices.
2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:
- prior to capturing the dialog, receiving a topic suggestion from the first user;
- identifying, from the online community, one or more second users based, at least in part, on the topic suggestion; and
- selecting the one or more particular second users from among the one or more second users.
3. The method of claim 2, further comprising:
- posing, to the one or more second users, a test related to the topic suggestion;
- receiving responses to the test; and
- selecting the one or more particular second users, from the one or more second users, based on from whom an acceptable response to the test was received.
4. The method of claim 1, further comprising, prior to capturing the dialog, determining participants in the dialog, wherein determining participants in the dialog includes:
- posing, to the first user, a test related to the topic suggestion;
- receiving, from the first user, a response to the test; and
- providing, to one or more second users, the response to the test;
- wherein the dialog is facilitated between the first user and the one or more particular second users, of the one or more second users, that determined the response to the test was acceptable.
5. The method of claim 1, further comprising, prior to capturing the dialog, determining participants in the dialog, wherein determining participants in the dialog includes:
- receiving, from the first user, a level of expertise associated with the topic suggestion, and
- identifying one or more second users based, at least in part, on the level of expertise associated with the topic suggestion;
- wherein the one or more particular second users are from the one or more second users.
6. The method of claim 5, further comprising, prior to capturing the dialog, determining participants in the dialog, wherein determining participants in the dialog includes:
- receiving from the one or more second users an indication of a willingness to participate in topics at a particular level of expertise, and
- identifying one or more second users based at least in part on each corresponding indication of willingness to participate in the dialog topic;
- wherein the one or more particular second users are from the one or more second users.
7. The method of claim 1, further comprising, prior to capturing the dialog, determining participants in the dialog, wherein determining participants in the dialog includes:
- ranking users of the online community for expertise in dialog topics;
- identifying one or more second users based, at least in part, on a ranking associated with each of the one or more second users; and
- wherein the one or more particular second users are from the one or more second users.
8. The method of claim 7, wherein the ranking is based on other online content generated by each ranked user.
9. The method of claim 2, further comprising providing a facility for the first user to generate the test and determine the acceptable responses from among the responses received.
10. The method of claim 1, further comprising querying each of the first person and the one or more particular second users for approval to publish the dialog.
11. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing one or more sequences of instructions, wherein processing the one or more sequences of instructions by one or more processors causes:
- capturing a dialog, which has not been published to an online community, that occurred between a first user of the online community and one or more particular second users of the online community;
- wherein the dialog was carried out over a network using a dialog mechanism provided to the online community;
- providing to each of the first user and the one or more particular second users, over the network, a mechanism by which to indicate approval to publish the dialog; and
- publishing the dialog electronically to the online community only upon determining that, through use of the mechanism, each of the first user and the one or more particular second users decided the dialog should be committed for electronic publication;
- wherein the method is performed by one or more computing devices.
12. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 11, further comprising instructions for:
- prior to capturing the dialog, receiving a topic suggestion from the first user;
- identifying, from the online community, one or more second users based, at least in part, on the topic suggestion; and
- selecting the one or more particular second users from among the one or more second users.
13. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 12, further comprising instructions for:
- posing, to the one or more second users, a test related to the topic suggestion;
- receiving responses to the test; and
- selecting the one or more particular second users, from the one or more second users, based on from whom an acceptable response to the test was received.
14. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 11, further comprising instructions for, prior to capturing the dialog, determining participants in the dialog; wherein determining participants in the dialog includes:
- posing, to the first user, a test related to the topic suggestion;
- receiving, from the first user, a response to the test; and
- providing, to one or more second users, the response to the test;
- wherein the dialog is facilitated between the first user and the one or more particular second users, of the one or more second users, that determined the response to the test was acceptable.
15. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 11, further comprising instructions for, prior to capturing the dialog, determining participants in the dialog; wherein determining participants in the dialog includes:
- receiving, from the first user, a level of expertise associated with the topic suggestion, and
- identifying one or more second users based, at least in part, on the level of expertise associated with the topic suggestion;
- wherein the one or more particular second users are from the one or more second users.
16. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 15, further comprising instructions for, prior to capturing the dialog, determining participants in the dialog, wherein determining participants in the dialog includes:
- receiving from the one or more second users an indication of a willingness to participate in topics at a particular level of expertise, and
- identifying one or more second users based at least in part on each corresponding indication of willingness to participate in the dialog topic;
- wherein the one or more particular second users are from the one or more second users.
17. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 11, further comprising instructions for, prior to capturing the dialog, determining participants in the dialog, wherein determining participants in the dialog includes:
- ranking users of the online community for expertise in dialog topics;
- identifying one or more second users based, at least in part, on a ranking associated with each of the one or more second users; and
- wherein the one or more particular second users are from the one or more second users.
18. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 17, wherein the ranking is based on other online content generated by each ranked user.
19. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 12, further comprising instructions for providing a facility for the first user to generate the test and determine the acceptable responses from among the responses received.
20. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 11, further comprising instructions for querying each of the first person and the one or more particular second users for approval to publish the dialog.
Type: Application
Filed: May 27, 2011
Publication Date: Sep 22, 2011
Applicant: YAHOO! INC. (Sunnyvale, CA)
Inventor: Kalyan Ayloo (Sunnyvale, CA)
Application Number: 13/117,869
International Classification: G06F 3/00 (20060101);