Abstract: Techniques to enhance group decision-making within messaging platforms. A conversation thread between two or more participants is analyzed. One or more keywords occurring in the conversation thread that are associated with an event characteristic are identified by comparing messages of each of the two or more participants against a keyword listing. Natural language processing is used to determine a contextual use of the one or more keywords. One or more events relevant to the event characteristic and the contextual use are determined. An application programming interface is used to locate and retrieve event-related information for the one or more events.

Abstract: Techniques to enhance group decision-making within messaging platforms. A conversation thread between two or more participants is analyzed. One or more keywords occurring in the conversation thread that are associated with an event characteristic are identified by comparing messages of each of the two or more participants against a keyword listing. Natural language processing is used to determine a contextual use of the one or more keywords. One or more events relevant to the event characteristic and the contextual use are determined. An application programming interface is used to locate and retrieve event-related information for the one or more events.

Abstract: A system and method of enhancing group decision-making within messaging platforms, the method comprising analyzing a conversation thread between two or more participants communicating using a messaging platform; identifying one or more keywords occurring in the conversation thread associated with an event characteristic; determining a contextual use of the one or more keywords; determining one or more events relevant to the identified event characteristic and the contextual use; locating and retrieving event-related information for the one or more events from a decision support system; and presenting the retrieved event-related information to the two or more participants.

Abstract: A system and method of enhancing group decision-making within messaging platforms, the method comprising analyzing a conversation thread between two or more participants communicating using a messaging platform; identifying one or more keywords occurring in the conversation thread associated with an event characteristic; determining a contextual use of the one or more keywords; determining one or more events relevant to the identified event characteristic and the contextual use; locating and retrieving event-related information for the one or more events from a decision support system; and presenting the retrieved event-related information to the two or more participants.

Abstract: Embodiments of a search engine are disclosed that enable authors and third parties to influence the persistence and ranking of the author or the author's posts in search result listings using a bidding process or other compensation-based mechanism. In one embodiment, the search engine allows authors to submit bids in auction for ranking in order to keep their posts (or posts of other authors) visible to targeted searchers for a longer period of time than would normally be available. The bid amount, together with other attributes, can be used to determine the relevance and ranking of posts or authors provided in a search results page to a searcher. Embodiments of the search engine may be utilized with a microblogging service or a social networking service.