Computer services for assisting users in locating and evaluating items in an electronic catalog based on actions performed by members of specific user communities

A method of assisting users in selecting items from an electronic catalog of items, the catalog accessible to users of an online sales system that provides services for allowing users to purchase items from the catalog, the method comprising steps, each step performed by computer, of:

• identifying a subset of users of the online sales system that have email addresses that satisfy a particular criterion, wherein the subset comprises a plurality of users;
• identifying at least one item that characterizes the subset of users, wherein the step of identifying comprises
• processing purchase history data of the subset of users and of users falling outside said subset;
• and
• electronically notifying users of the online sales system of a relationship between the at least one item and the subset of users, to assist users in selecting items from the electronic catalog.

A method of assisting users in selecting items from a catalog of items, comprising:

• electronically identifying a subset of a general population of users;
• tracking, via computer, at least one type of user activity that indicates user affinities for particular items of the catalog to generate activity history data;
• processing, via computer, the activity history data of the general population of users, including the subset of users, to identify a set of items that distinguish the subset from the general population;
• and
• electronically notifying users of the catalog of a relationship between the set of items and the subset of users, to thereby assist the users of the catalog in selecting items therefrom.

A method of assisting users in selecting items from an electronic catalog of items, comprising:

• electronically identifying among a population of users of the electronic catalog, a subset of users that, based on user shipping addresses, reside in a common geographic region;
• electronically monitoring actions of the subset of users, and of users falling outside the subset, to generate user activity history data reflective of user actions performed with respect to items in the electronic catalog;
• electronically processing the user activity history data to identify an item whose popularity level among the subset of users is substantially higher than a popularity level of the item among the population of users;
• and
• electronically notifying at least one user that a relationship exists between the item and the geographic region to assist the at least one user in selecting items from the electronic catalog.

A computer-implemented method of assisting users in selecting items from an electronic catalog of items, the method comprising:

• storing email addresses of users of the electronic catalog;
• electronically identifying, for each of a plurality of organizations, a respective group of said users who are deemed to be affiliated with the respective organization by virtue of a domain name of the respective organization occurring within an email address of each such user, to thereby identify a plurality of organization-specific groups of users;
• electronically tracking at least one type of user activity that indicates user affinities for particular items in the electronic catalog to generate activity history data for the users;
• electronically analyzing for each organization-specific group of users, the activity history data to generate a list of items within the electronic catalog that distinguish the organization-specific group from a general population of the users, to thereby generate a plurality of organization-specific popular items lists;
• and
• electronically exposing the organization-specific popular items lists to the users of the electronic catalog in association with the organizations to which such popular items lists correspond, to allow users to identify items that are popular within specific organizations.

A system for assisting users in selecting items from an electronic catalog of items, the system comprising:

• at least one electronic database which contains email addresses of users of the electronic catalog;
• and
• a computer system that executes a computer program to
• identify, for each of a plurality of organizations, a respective group of said users who are deemed to be affiliated with the respective organization by virtue of a domain name of the respective organization occurring within an email address of each such user, to thereby identify a plurality of organization-specific groups of users;
• track at least one type of user activity that indicates user affinities for particular items in the electronic catalog to generate activity history data for the users;
• analyze, for each organization-specific group of users, the activity history data to generate a list of items within the electronic catalog that distinguish the organization-specific group from a general population of the users, to thereby generate a plurality of organization-specific popular items lists;
• and
• expose the organization-specific popular items lists to the users of the electronic catalog in association with the organizations to which such popular items lists correspond, to allow users to identify items that are popular within specific organizations.