Recommendation engine that processes data including user data to provide recommendations and explanations for the recommendations to a user

Abstract

Embodiments of the invention relate to a computer-implemented method for generating explanatory data from a personalized recommendations process for a primary user based at least on stored data about the primary user. The method comprises a server computer obtaining data related to one or more users who are relevant to the primary user, then determining at least one group of users relevant to the primary user. The server computer also obtains data related to one or more entities, determines one or more entities relevant to the primary user, and associates the at least one relevant group of users with the one or more relevant entities. One or more potential candidate factors are generated. A set of factors are selected from the one or more potential candidate factors, wherein the potential candidate factors are used as explanatory data to determine recommendations to the primary user.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCES TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This application claims priority from co-pending U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61 / 509,999 filed Jul. 20, 2011 entitled “Method and Apparatus for Explaining Recommendations”.[0002]The present disclosure may be related to the following commonly assigned U.S. Provisional patent applications:[0003]U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61 / 509,995 filed Jul. 20, 2011, entitled “Method and Apparatus for Category Based Navigation”,[0004]U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61 / 510,003 filed Jul. 20, 2011 entitled “Method and Apparatus for Allowing Users to Augment Searches”, and[0005]U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61 / 510,004 filed Jul. 20, 2011 entitled “Method and Apparatus for Quickly Evaluating Entities”.[0006]The respective disclosures of these applications / patents are incorporated herein by reference, as if set forth in full in this document, for all purposes.FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0007]The present invention relates t...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

This patent explains the benefits of providing explaining data to users who receive personalized recommendations. This helps them understand how the recommendations are generated. By improving the intelligence of these recommendations, the system becomes more effective in providing relevant information to users.

Problems solved by technology

Existing methods for generating personalized recommendations to a target user may not provide explaining factors and processes used to determine the personalized recommendations.

Thus, if the target user is dissatisfied with the personalized recommendations, it is difficult for the target user to feed back to a personalized recommendations system how to improve the generation of personalized recommendations for the target user.

However, if User C is an ex-boyfriend of the target user, the target user may not want to go to Restaurant C for fear of running into User C, even though it may be likely that the target user would have enjoyed the food at Restaurant C.

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