PERSON-TO-PERSON VIEWING OF RECOMMENDED ITEMS AS GROUPED INTO CATEGORIES
A system that allows individuals to maintain lists of items of interest in an account, such as books, restaurants, hotels, clothes, etc. An individual can mark items in their account as recommended, after which other individuals in their sharing network can view the recommended items as grouped into categories. Items are displayed with action links (e.g. for purchasing, reservations, mapping, etc.) In an explore view categories are displayed for all of the combined recommended items from all of the individuals in the viewer's sharing network. When a category is selected from the explore view, an indication is provided for each item as to the individual who marked the item as recommended. An individual viewing a recommended item may also save the item to their own account as one to try later. The distribution of items between individuals through recommendations can be temporally and geographically mapped to identify patterns of interest.
This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/844,174 entitled “PERSON-TO-PERSON VIEWING OF RECOMMENDED ITEMS AS GROUPED INTO CATEGORIES,” filed on Mar. 13, 2013, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.
BACKGROUNDIndividuals often seek answers to certain types of questions from their social network (i.e., via “word of mouth”). For example, an individual may ask one of their friends “Where should I take my wife on a date night?” “What movie should I rent?” or “Where should I go when I'm in New York?” Unfortunately, there is no efficient way to exchange this type of information using existing social applications or review sites, as the actionable answer—a specific product, place, experience, etc. is often lost in the full text of the response. It is also often challenging for individuals who are asked these types of questions to instantly recall the relevant items. For example, when asked, an individual may not be able to immediately recall the exact name of “a great book that they heard about,” “a favorite sushi place,” “where to stay in Sonoma,” “a favorite Riesling,” or “what to see in Vancouver.” A need exists for an improved system and method for storing, sharing, and recommending these types of items.
An item recommendation system that allows individuals to maintain lists of items of interest in an account and share or recommend those items to others is disclosed herein. An item is any virtual or physical object of interest to a user, such as books, restaurants, hotels, clothes, etc. An item may also be an experience or other activity that an individual can describe. Items are stored by the system in a meta-catalog of items, the meta-catalog being both a collection of items across all individuals that utilize the system as well as a reference collection of likely recommendable items. Items are deduplicated in the meta-catalog, so that each item is represented once in the collection. When an item is added by an individual to an individual's list, the individual is able to view a collection of information that characterizes that item. The information may include an image of the item, a location of an item, a description of the item, actions that may be taken on the item (e.g. for purchasing the item from an external website, making a reservation, mapping directions, etc.), and other information as will be set forth herein.
The system allows an individual to share an item in an individual's list with another individual. When an individual wishes to share an item, the system generates a share message to be sent by a selected method (e.g. email, Twitter, Facebook, SMS, etc.). The system also allows individuals to directly share with other individuals having accounts within the system, such as via a website or application running on a communication device of the individual. The share message includes information about the item being shared and a link or other mechanism to view the item. The message also provides a mechanism to allow the recipient to accept or decline the share. If the recipient accepts the share, the item is saved into an account associated with the recipient. The acceptance or the rejection of the share establishes a positive or negative relationship between each individual (the sharer and the recipient) and the item. In some embodiments, an individual may also be able to share a category- or location-based list of items with another individual. For example, an individual might share all restaurants they have stored for New York City if a friend were going to visit that city.
In addition to making a specific recommendation by sharing, an individual can also mark items in their account as recommended. Once marked as recommended, other individuals in their sharing network can view the recommended items, subject to the two individuals being already connected by virtue of a shared and accepted item or items between them. An explore view may be provided in which categories are displayed for all of the combined recommended items from all of the individuals in the viewer's sharing network. When a category is selected from the explore view, the items in the category are displayed, and an indication is provided for each item as to the individual or individuals who marked the item as recommended. An individual viewing a recommended item may also save the item to their own account for future reference or action (e.g., sharing, recommendation, purchase). The saving of the recommendation establishes a positive relationship between each individual (the recommender and the recipient) and the item.
A sharing network is created for each individual by the system, where the sharing network is the network of individuals that an individual has affirmatively shared and item with or accepted an item share from. Every bond between individuals may be characterized by the items that have been shared between the individuals, with additional information gleaned about each individual as a result of subsequent actions by the individual (e.g., re-sharing an item, purchasing an item, later deleting an item, recommending an item, etc.). Items distributed between individuals through sharing and recommendations can be temporally and geographically mapped to identify patterns of interest. Timestamps are recorded for actions related to saving, sharing and recommending items. Each item may be recorded in and linked through the meta-catalog, through which an item can be tracked as it is recommended and shared through different sharing networks. In various applications, the data obtained from tracking items may be utilized for purposes such as determining the value or relevance of an item, the strength of a bond between people, the reactions of certain individuals to certain types of recommendations, etc. Once such information is determined, it may be utilized for purposes such as recommending items, determining which individuals are best to ask for recommendations, determining the receptivity of certain individuals to certain types of recommendations, etc.
It will be appreciated that the disclosed system and method provides mechanisms similar to those of traditional “word of mouth” interactions between individuals. These types of interactions are considered to be advantageous over those of existing systems, in that a recommendation from someone who an individual knows and trusts will often mean more to the individual than an aggregation of anonymous opinions, ratings, and reviews. Individuals experience a positive social interaction when they are able to share an item that they value highly (e.g. a “pearl” of an item). Additional layers of recommending and sharing of an item may be recorded and for certain applications may be considered to increase the overall value of the item.
Various embodiments of the invention are described below. The following description provides specific details for a thorough understanding and an enabling description of these embodiments. One skilled in the art will understand, however, that the invention may be practiced without many of these details. In addition, some well-known structures or functions may not be shown or described in detail, so as to avoid unnecessarily obscuring the relevant description of the various embodiments. The terminology used in the description presented below is intended to be interpreted in its broadest reasonable manner, even though it is being used in conjunction with a detailed description of certain specific embodiments of the invention.
The system and method can also be practiced in distributed computing environments, where tasks or modules are performed by remote processing devices, which are linked through a communications network, such as a Local Area Network (“LAN”), Wide Area Network (“WAN”), or the Internet. In a distributed computing environment, program modules or subroutines may be located in both local and remote memory storage devices. Aspects of the invention described herein may be stored or distributed on tangible, non-transitory computer-readable media, including magnetic and optically readable and removable computer discs, stored in firmware in chips (e.g., EEPROM chips). Alternatively, aspects of the invention may be distributed electronically over the Internet or over other networks (including wireless networks). Those skilled in the relevant art will recognize that portions of the invention may reside on a server computer, while corresponding portions reside on a client computer. Data structures and transmission of data particular to aspects of the invention are also encompassed within the scope of the invention.
Referring to the example of
The person-to-person item recommendation system communicates with one or more third party servers 125 via public or private networks. The third party servers 125 include servers maintained by businesses that periodically provide relevant information to the server 115. For example, some servers make data related to items (e.g. books, restaurants, etc.) that are saved in individual accounts available to the person-to-person item recommendation system 100. The third-party servers may also be utilized for making the items actionable. For example, an individual may be provided links by which to purchase an item, make reservations at the item, map driving directions to the item, etc.
Mobile devices 105 and personal computers 110 may be utilized by individuals for accessing their accounts on the server 115, viewing recommended items in other individual's accounts, accessing other websites related to items, sending and receiving share messages, etc. The mobile devices 105 and personal computers 110 may have a dedicated software application that allows user to access their accounts on server 115, of the accounts may be accessed through multi-purpose software applications such as a web browser like Firefox™. The mobile devices 105 and computers 110 communicate with each other and the server 115 and third party servers 125 through public and private networks 140, including, for example, the Internet. The mobile devices 105 communicate wirelessly with a base station or access point using a wireless mobile telephone standard, such as the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), Long Term Evolution (LTE), or another wireless standard, such as IEEE 802.11, and the base station or access point communicates with the server 115 and third party servers 125 via the networks 140. Personal computers 110 communicate through the networks 140 using, for example, TCP/IP protocols.
As shown in
Once individual B receives the share from individual A, individual B accepts the share and saves the item into individual B's account. An example process for accepting a share and saving an item that has been shared from another individual's account will be described in more detail below with respect to
Individual C, who also received the share of the item from individual A, accepts the share and saves the item into individual C's account. Individual C also subsequently marks the item with “recommend,” and shares the item with individual G. An example process for an individual marking an item as recommended will be described in more detail below with respect to
Once individual D receives the share from individual B, individual D accepts and saves the item into individual D's account. Individual D also subsequently shares the item with individual H, and marks the item as recommended. In contrast, individual E declines the share of the item from individual B. An example process for declining a share from another individual will be described in more detail below with respect to
Individual F views and saves the recommended item from individual C's account into individual F's account. Individual F also subsequently shares the item with individual J, and marks the item as recommended in individual F's account. An example process for viewing and saving a recommended item from another individual's account will be described in more detail below with respect to
Individual H accepts the share of the item from individual D, and saves the item into individual H's account. Individual I views and saves the recommended item from individual D's account into individual I's account. Individual J accepts the share of the item from individual F, and saves the item into individual J's account. Individual K views and saves the recommended item from individual F's account into individual K's account, but is also shown to later delete the item. As will be described in more detail herein, the data obtained from tracking actions such as those illustrated in
By virtue of the sharing of items between individuals, many sharing networks are created in
While
It will be appreciated that the tracking of the actions associated with the propagation of an item through sharing networks (such as those illustrated in
In some embodiments, a simple numerical count may be made of shares made, shares accepted, shares rejected, etc. may be maintained by the system 100 for each individual. The system may then add an incremental value (e.g., +0.25) for each positive subsequent action or subtract an incremental value (e.g., −0.25) for each negative subsequent action associated with the bond. A bond between two individuals may be characterized in one dimension (e.g., a scalar value, a characterization as “strong,” “medium,” or “weak”) or a bond may be a multi-dimensional measure of the relationship between the individuals, such as a characterization across multiple categories of items shared between the users (e.g., a “strong” bond between two individuals on media but a “weak” bond on restaurants). One skilled in the art will appreciate that the disclosed scoring system is merely representative, and that other methods to calculate the strength of bonds between individuals can be readily applied to achieve the desired result.
In addition to characterizing bonds between individuals, the system 100 is able to characterize the value of items in the meta-catalog. The value of an item may be represented by the number of times it has been successfully shared, or successfully recommended and saved. A numerical score may periodically be calculated by the system for an item (e.g., daily, weekly, monthly), with the score reflecting the number of times that the item was successfully shared or recommended. By calculating a derivative of the resulting item data series, the system 100 can assess the relative value of an item to one or more sets of individuals or sharing networks. Steep increases in scores reflect “hot” items that are rapidly propagated through sharing networks. Slow increases in scores reflect “cold” items that are slowly propagated through sharing networks. The system may provide such information to businesses, marketers, or other parties that are interested in identifying industry trends.
Various interpretations may be drawn from such data, such as the effectiveness of a recommender generally, or of a recommender for certain kinds of recommendations in particular. For example, Information characterizing the quality of a recommender may be calculated by the system based on the ratio of shares to accepts and/or declines, the ratio of recommendations to views and saves by others, etc. The strength of a bond between individuals may be derived for certain types of items, or for certain kinds of recommendations in particular. Similar determinations regarding a sharing network as a whole may also be determined. With regard to the items themselves, the quality and/or popularity of an item and relationships between items may also be determined through the analysis of such data. Once such information is determined, it may be utilized for purposes such as recommending items, determining which individuals are best to ask for recommendations, determining the receptivity of certain individuals to certain types of recommendations, etc.
To initially populate the meta-catalog, the system may collect items and item descriptions from commonly-available datasets of books, music, the arts, businesses, etc. To the extent allowed by the quality of the data, the system deduplicates items in the meta-catalog so that each item is represented only once in the catalog. As will be described in additional detail herein, when a user wants to add an item to lists that they maintain, the system searches the meta-catalog and returns items that most closely match the item description provided by the user (e.g., title, location, keyword). If none of the items in the meta-catalog match that of interest to the user, the user is allowed to add a new item to the meta-catalog. In this fashion, the meta-catalog grows to include unique and unusual items such as “best view in San Francisco” or “great place in Golden Gate Park for a nap.” When adding an item to the meta-catalog, the user may select a system categorization or may recommend that a new category be added to the meta-catalog. Such recommendations may be vetted by a system operator or by a community of system users who select new categories based on consensus.
As shown in
As shown in
In addition to the recommend button 551 for marking an item as recommended, a remove button 553 is also provided for removing the item from an individual's account. It will be appreciated that the remove button 553 is generally provided after an individual has utilized the save button 552 of
After an individual has selected the share button 610 of
While
As shown in
At a block 1150, the system receives a response to the share message. At a decision block 1160, the system determines whether the second individual accepted the share. If the second individual accepted the share, then processing continues to a block 1170 where the item is saved in an account for the second individual and a sharing network interaction is recorded by the system. If the individuals did not already have a bond, a network sharing bond between the individuals is created by the system. If the individuals were already part of the same sharing network, however, the system may increase the value of the bond between the individuals as a result of the additional share. If the second individual did not accept the share, then processing continues to a block 1180 where the item is not saved in an account for the second individual and a sharing network interaction may be recorded by the system. If the individuals did not already have a bond, the system does not record an interaction because no sharing network exists. If the individuals did already have a bond, the system may decrease the value of the bond between the individuals as a result of the decline. A record is kept by the system 100 of whether the second individual accepted the share or declined the share.
At a block 1250, a permission action is received by the system. A permission action is an action performed by both individuals that reflects a willingness to allow each individual to view the recommended items in the other's account. As described above, one example of a permission action is an item sharing between two individuals. If an individual shares an item that is accepted by another individual, or if an individual receives and accepts a shared item, the system interprets the willingness to share between the individuals as permission to allow both individuals to see each other's recommended items. At a block 1260, the first individual is therefore enabled to view the recommended items in the second individual's account, and the second individual is enabled to view the recommended items in the first individual's account, based on the permission action having been received. At a block 1270, a category view is provided wherein categories are displayed into which the recommended items in an individual's account have been grouped.
In some embodiments, the system 100 may provide an option to allow a first individual to terminate a second individual's ability to see the first individual's recommended items. Such a feature may be desirable, for example, when the two individuals are no longer friends. In some embodiments, the system 100 may also require more confirmation than an item share to allow another individual to access the sharer's recommendations. For example, an individual asked for a restaurant recommendation by a stranger on the street corner may want to share a recommendation, but not allow the stranger to access all of the recommendations of the individual. As a result, the system may provide an option for an individual to share an item without the share considered as a permission action.
From the foregoing, it will be appreciated that specific embodiments of the invention have been described herein for purposes of illustration, but that various modifications may be made without deviating from the scope of the invention. For example, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the depicted flow charts may be altered in a variety of ways. More specifically, the order of the steps may be re-arranged, steps may be performed in parallel, steps may be omitted, other steps may be included, etc. Accordingly, the invention is not limited except as by the appended claims.
Claims
1. A method in a computing system for person-to-person viewing of recommended items, the method comprising:
- receiving entries of items of interest from a first individual and saving them in an account that is associated with the first individual;
- designating a saved item in the first individual's account as a recommended item when input is received from the first individual for designating the item as a recommended item, the set of recommended items in the first individual's account being a subset of the set of saved items;
- receiving entries of items of interest from a second individual and saving them in an account that is associated with the second individual;
- designating a saved item in the second individual's account as a recommended item when input is received from the second individual for designating the item as a recommended item, the set of recommended items in the second individual's account being a subset of the set of saved items;
- receiving a permission action performed by the second individual to allow the first individual to view the recommended items in the second individual's account;
- enabling the first individual to be able to view the recommended items in the second individual's account based on the permission action having been received; and
- providing a category view wherein categories into which the recommended items in the second individual's account have been grouped are displayed.
2. The method of claim 1, wherein the category view comprises a single page in which the categories are listed, the items in a category being displayed once a category is selected.
3. The method of claim 1, wherein the recommended items in a third individual's account may also be viewed by the first individual, and an explore view is provided in which categories are displayed for the combined recommended items from the second and third individuals' accounts.
4. The method of claim 3, wherein when a category is selected from the explore view, the recommended items in that category from both the second and third individuals are displayed, and an indication is provided for each item as to which individual designated it as recommended.
5. The method of claim 4, wherein when an item has been marked as recommended by both the second and third individuals, only the individual who first marked the item as recommended is indicated.
6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:
- receiving a permission action performed by the first individual to allow the second individual to view the recommended items in the first individual's account;
- enabling the second individual to be able to view the recommended items in the first individual's account based on the permission action having been received; and
- providing a category view wherein the recommended items in the first individual's account can be viewed by the second individual as grouped into categories.
7. The method of claim 6, wherein the permission action that is received as performed by the first individual comprises the first individual accepting a share process from the second individual for sharing an item from the second individual's account.
8. The method of claim 1, wherein the permission action that is received as performed by the second individual comprises the second individual initiating a share process for sharing an item from the second individual's account with the first individual.
9. The method of claim 8, wherein the share process comprises:
- generating a share message for sending the share to the first individual;
- providing the first individual with the identity of the second individual and the item being shared; and
- providing the first individual with an option for accepting the share or declining the share.
10. The method of claim 1, further comprising enabling the first individual to be able to save a recommended item from the second individual's account to the first individual's account.
11. The method of claim 10, further comprising recording in a data file associated with the recommended item a time stamp indicating when the first individual saved the recommended item from the second individual's account.
12. The method of claim 10, wherein the process for saving an item in an individual's account comprises storing a link for the item, the link being directed to an entry for the item in a master catalog of items that is maintained.
13. The method of claim 10, further comprising enabling the first individual to be able to create a custom category for the recommended item that is saved from the second individual's account, the custom category being different from a category associated with the item in the second individual's account.
14. The method of claim 13, wherein the name of the custom category is displayed as associated with the item when the first individual marks the item as recommended and the item is viewed by other individuals as a recommended item from the first individual's account.
15. The method of claim 13, wherein an explore view is provided in which categories are displayed for the combined recommended items from a plurality of individuals in a sharing network, and the item that the first individual associated with the custom category in the first individual's account is instead grouped into a standardized category for the purposes of the explore view.
16. The method of claim 1, further comprising providing action links that are displayed and associated with a saved item.
17. The method of claim 1, wherein different action links are provided for different categories of items, including at least a first action link for a first category for purchasing the item from an external website, a second action link for a second category for making a reservation at the item, and a third action link for a third category for mapping directions to the item.
18. A computer readable storage medium with instructions stored thereon that, when executed by a computing system, cause the computing system to perform a method for person-to-person viewing of recommended items, the method comprising:
- receiving entries of items of interest from a first individual and saving them in an account that is associated with the first individual;
- designating a saved item in the first individual's account as a recommended item when input is received from the first individual for designating the item as a recommended item, the set of recommended items in the first individual's account being a subset of the set of saved items;
- receiving entries of items of interest from a second individual and saving them in an account that is associated with the second individual;
- designating a saved item in the second individual's account as a recommended item when input is received from the second individual for designating the item as a recommended item, the set of recommended items in the second individual's account being a subset of the set of saved items;
- receiving a permission action performed by the second individual to allow the first individual to view the recommended items in the second individual's account;
- enabling the first individual to be able to view the recommended items in the second individual's account based on the permission action having been received; and
- providing a category view wherein categories into which the recommended items in the second individual's account have been grouped are displayed.
19. The computer readable storage medium of claim 18, wherein the category view comprises a single page in which the categories are listed, the items in a category being displayed once a category is selected.
20. The computer readable storage medium of claim 18, wherein the recommended items in a third individual's account may also be viewed by the first individual, and an explore view is provided in which categories are displayed for the combined recommended items from the second and third individuals' accounts.
21-30. (canceled)
Type: Application
Filed: Dec 16, 2016
Publication Date: Sep 28, 2017
Inventors: Matthew Berk (Seattle, WA), Ryan Fritzky (Seattle)
Application Number: 15/381,525