Abstract: A user can select a name of an entity such as a character in a book. In response to the selection, the passages of the book are processed using entity frequency and passage length to determine passages that are relevant to the entity. These relevant passages are processed to determine which of the relevant passages are descriptive and are most likely to help a user understand the entity by identifying characteristics of helpful passages such as words that indicate particular actions, words that are associated with biographical information, or the location of the passage in the book. The most descriptive passages can be shown to the user on the computing device that he is using to view the book.

Abstract: Computer-readable media, computer systems, and computing methods are provided for employing abstract objects to solicit bids from advertisers and to present ads submitted by the advertisers upon a user invoking the abstract objects while conducting an online search. The abstract objects include entities, entity classes, actions, and tasks, which are mined by crawling storage locations on the Internet. These abstract objects are monetized by building an index with entries referencing the abstract objects and maintaining the index in a location accessible to advertisers. Via the index, the advertisers target the abstract objects and place bids thereon. During a user-initiated online search, the abstract objects that are relevant to a task being carried out by the user are identified. Further, ads submitted by advertisers that placed bids upon the identified abstract objects are selected for presentation. Based on the bids, the winning advertiser's ad is presented to the user.

Abstract: Within a social network, users may form social groups based on shared traits, such as experiences and interests. The social network may be able to detect a user interest among the users of a social group in one or more products offered by one or more vendors (e.g., by evaluating conversations within the social group and search queries executed by users of the social group), and to notify the vendors of the detected user interest. The vendors may be willing to extend an offer to the users of the social group regarding the product, and the social network may present the offer to the users of the social group. The social network may also track acceptances of the offer by users of the social group, and may provide an e-commerce infrastructure to allow users to complete purchases of the product and to provide the rewards featured in the offers.

Abstract: An application caching system and method are provided wherein one or more applications may be cached throughout a distributed computer network. The system may include a central cache directory server, one or more distributed master application servers and one or more distributed application cache servers. The system may permit a service, such as a search, to be provided to the user more quickly.