US 2010/0164957 A1 · DISPLAYING DEMOGRAPHIC INFORMATION OF MEMBERS DISCUSSING TOPICS IN A FORUM

Abstract

Users in public forums often mention certain topics in the course of their discussions. Member's comments in messages to other members are analyzed to obtain terms that co-occur with topics. Frequencies of co-occurrence of a term with topics are normalized based on frequency of the term in a random sample of message. The terms are ranked by their normalized frequency of co-occurrence with a topic in messages. The top terms are selected based on their rank. Analysis of demographic information associated with members that mentioned top terms associated with a topic is displayed in graphical format that highlights the relationship between the age, gender, and usage of the top terms over time. The demographic information presented includes average age of members that mentioned a top term or their gender information within a selected time interval.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A computer implemented method of displaying top terms associated with a topic, wherein the top terms are mentioned by members of an online forum in electronic communications to other members of the forum, the method executed by a computer, and comprising:

determining a first plurality of top terms associated with a topic based on communications between the members of the forum that occurred during a first time interval;
determining for each top term a first aggregate demographic value based on a demographic attribute of each of the members that used the top term during the first time interval;
formatting for display a graph including at least one axis representing the demographic attribute associated with the members;
for each top term, formatting for display on the graph an icon representing the top terms with respect to the at least one demographic axis, wherein a location of the icon for the top term with respect to the demographic axis is based on the first aggregate demographic value, and a size of the icon is based on a frequency of use of the top term by those members that mentioned the top term in the communications.

1 more element

A computer program product having a computer-readable storage medium storing computer-executable code for generating a user interface display for displaying top terms associated with a topic, wherein the top terms are mentioned by members of an online forum in electronic communications to other members of the forum, the user interface, once generated by the computer-executable code comprising:

a demographic axis representing a demographic attribute associated with the members;
and
a first plurality of icons displayed with respect to the demographic axis, wherein each icon is associated with a top term in a first plurality of top terms associated with a topic and the first plurality of top terms is determined based on the communications between the members during a first time interval, and a location of an icon for a top term with respect to the demographic axis is based on a first aggregate demographic value based on the demographic attribute of each of the members that used the top term during the first time interval, and a size of the icon is based on a frequency of use of the top term by those members that mentioned the top term in the communications.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Displaying demographic information of members discussing topics in a forum

Life of this patent

Displaying demographic information of members discussing topics in a forum

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims20