Distributed monitoring system providing knowledge services

Abstract

A de-centralized, or distributed, monitoring system provides for data collection across a broad range of remote sources, collecting explicit data (which may be input directly by a user in the form of recommendation, comment, or vote) and / or implicit data (which may be collected by the system according to the user's browsing activity). Data may be monitored locally at the client side, and subsequently transmitted to a central database. Data may be aggregated at the server, having been collected on the client side from multiple remote sources. During the aggregation process, data collected by the distributed monitoring system are categorized and organized in a central database for convenient retrieval. Implementation of the collected data includes both transmitting explicit data on demand as well as utilizing explicit data, implicit data, or a combination of both explicit and implicit data, in an open recommendation system which facilitates customization and personalization of the information retrieval process. A user may be provided with the option of turning off, or “deselecting,” the implicit data collection functionality of the system.

Description

[0001] Cross References to Related Applications [0002] This application claims priority from US Provisional Application No. 60 / 208394 (filed May 30, 2000) and US Provisional Application No. 60 / 228519 (filed August 28, 2000). The contents of both applications are incorporated herein by reference. technical field [0003] The present invention relates to information retrieval from the Internet or other search spaces, and more particularly to a system that accumulates and organizes information collected from many remote locations in a central database and implements the collected information in an open recommendation system. Background technique [0004] At present, the nature and structure of the Internet and other large search spaces pose many problems to users, combined with current technology and Internet exploration methods, and the current state of the art cannot provide solutions to these problems. For example, although a vast amount of information is available on the...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

While most users believe that interaction with other users and recommendations by other users constitute the most effective technique for identifying useful, relevant information, currently employed information organization and retrieval systems are not well suited to provide a centralized server through which , users have convenient and unrestricted access to input from other users

[0007] Additionally, while many users turn to the Internet to find information about other media types, such as television and radio, these and other media that are not HTML-based are completely ignored by currently applied Internet navigation and information retrieval systems; Navigation methods and systems access these various other media

The inability to access or exclude from current search and navigation systems other media sources that are not based on HTML documents represents a significant limitation of the state of the art

[0008] Furthermore, where current technologies provide limited interactive capabilities, the interaction is generally limited to the exchange of information between the user and the site host, i.e. a closed system, rather than being extended to include the different aspects of the site in an open recommender system. information exchange between users

Thus, current systems provide search results that do not take into account the preferences of users of such closed systems

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