Methods and systems for activity-based recommendations

A computer-implemented system for recommending items to a target user, the system comprising:

• a receiving module configured to receive data indicating historical activities of a user community, the user community including the target user;
• a clustering module configured to define multiple activity clusters of the historical activities with identifiable similarities;
• an associating module configured to associate a reference group of users with the multiple clusters, the reference group of users being selected from the user community based on the historical activities of the reference group of users and the historical activities of the target user being substantially similar;
• a communication module configured to receive generally current time activities of the reference group of users, the generally current time activities being activities occurring within a defined time window;
• and
• a recommendation module configured to recommend items to the target user based on the generally current time activities of the reference group of users.

A computer-readable medium comprising instructions, which when executed by one or more processors, perform the following operations:

• receive data indicating historical activities of a user community, the historical activities including historical activities of the target user;
• select a reference group of users from the user community based on analysis of the historical activities of the target user;
• receive generally current time activities of the reference group of users, the generally current time activities including those activities that have occurred within a defined time window;
• and
• recommend items to the target user based on the generally current time activities of the reference group of users.

A computer-implemented apparatus for recommending items to a target user, the computer-implemented apparatus comprising:

• means for receiving data indicating historical activities of a user community, the historical activities including historical activities of the target user;
• means for selecting a reference group of users from the user community based on analysis of the historical activities of the target user;
• means for receiving generally current time activities of the reference group of users, the generally current time activities including those activities that have occurred within a defined time window;
• and
• means for recommending items to the target user based on the generally current time activities of the reference group of users.