Patent application number | Description | Published |
20080262964 | NETWORK BASED USER-TO-USER PAYMENT SERVICE - A network-based payment service and site provides various features for facilitating user-to-user payments. One such feature enables users of the payment service to create pay boxes, or other types of payment objects, that can be incorporated into externally hosted web pages and used to make payments. In some embodiments, the payment objects enable users to make payments directly from the externally hosted web pages. | 10-23-2008 |
20090281877 | IDENTIFYING ASSOCIATIONS BETWEEN ITEMS AND EMAIL-ADDRESS-BASED USER COMMUNITIES - A computer-implemented service analyzes collected data reflective of actions of users of an interactive system to identify items that are significantly more popular in specific user communities than in a general user population. The communities may, for example, include email-based communities (e.g., all users with email addresses associated with a particular company or other organization), shipping address based communities (e.g., all users with shipping addresses in Seattle), and/or communities based on other types of user attributes. The results of the analysis may be exposed to users to assist users in making item selection decisions, and/or may be used to provide item recommendations to users. | 11-12-2009 |
20110035370 | IDENTIFYING RELATED SEARCH TERMS BASED ON SEARCH BEHAVIORS OF USERS - A system is disclosed that identifies related search terms by performing a term co-occurrence analysis of search query submissions of users. The system may give different amounts of weight to different search query submissions based, for example, on whether subsequent user actions reveal that particular searches were successful. The system may use the identified related search terms to correct spelling errors in search queries received from users. | 02-10-2011 |
20110060664 | SERVICES FOR ENABLING USERS TO SHARE INFORMATION REGARDING E-COMMERCE TRANSACTIONS - Various computer-implemented services are disclosed for assisting users in selecting items from an electronic catalog, and for selecting merchants with which to conduct transactions. One such service enables users to share information about their respective purchases with other users. Another service enables users to share information regarding the merchants with which they have conducted transactions. | 03-10-2011 |
20120072363 | Method And System For Anticipatory Package Shipping - A method and system for anticipatory package shipping are disclosed. According to one embodiment, a method may include packaging one or more items as a package for eventual shipment to a delivery address, selecting a destination geographical area to which to ship the package, shipping the package to the destination geographical area without completely specifying the delivery address at time of shipment, and while the package is in transit, completely specifying the delivery address for the package. | 03-22-2012 |
20120278317 | MINING OF USER EVENT DATA TO IDENTIFY USERS WITH COMMON INTEREST - A computer-implemented matching service matches users to other users, and/or to user communities, based at least in part on a computer analysis of event data reflective of user behaviors. The event data may, for example, evidence user affinities for particular items represented in an electronic catalog, such as book titles, music titles, movie titles, and/or other types of items that tend to reflect the traits of users. Event data reflective of other types of user actions, such as item-detail-page viewing events, browse node visits, search query submissions, and/or web browsing patterns may additionally or alternatively be considered. By taking such event data into consideration, the matching service reduces the burden on users to explicitly supply personal profile information, and reduces poor results caused by exaggerations and other inaccuracies in such profile information. | 11-01-2012 |
20120303713 | PLAYLIST-BASED DETECTION OF SIMILAR DIGITAL WORKS AND WORK CREATORS - A computer-implemented service recommends digital works (and/or creators of works) to a user based on works currently or previously played or downloaded by the user on a player device or based on playlists stored on the player device. The works may be, for example, music files, video files, electronic books, or other digital content for playing by users. A user may thus obtain personalized recommendations that are based on works obtained from sources (web sites, physical CDs, etc.) that are independent of the recommendations system. In one embodiment, the service identifies pairs of works (and/or work creators) that are similar to each other by virtue of the relatively high frequency with which they co-occur on playlists or within play histories of users. The resulting mappings are used to provide recommendations to users. | 11-29-2012 |
20120323645 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR ANTICIPATORY PACKAGE SHIPPING - A method and system for anticipatory package shipping are disclosed. According to one embodiment, a method may include packaging one or more items as a package for eventual shipment to a delivery address, selecting a destination geographical area to which to ship the package, shipping the package to the destination geographical area without completely specifying the delivery address at time of shipment, and while the package is in transit, completely specifying the delivery address for the package. | 12-20-2012 |
20130085896 | Placing a Purchase Order via a Communications Network - An order is placed by a purchaser in which a server system receives an identification of the purchaser, payment information, and shipment information from a client system. The server system assigns a client identifier to the client system and associates the identifier with the purchaser information. The server system sends to the client system the identifier and a document identifying an item to be purchased and including an order button. The client system receives and stores the identifier and receives and displays the document. In response to the selection of the order button, the client system sends to the server system a request to purchase the identified item. The server system receives the request and combines the purchaser information associated with the client identifier to generate an order to purchase the item in accordance with the billing and shipment information. | 04-04-2013 |
20130254065 | PLAY HISTORY BASED DETECTION OF SIMILAR DIGITAL WORKS OR WORK CREATORS - A computer-implemented service recommends digital works (and/or creators of works) to a user based on works currently or previously played or downloaded by the user on a player device or based on playlists stored on the player device. The works may be, for example, music files, video files, electronic books, or other digital content for playing by users. A user may thus obtain personalized recommendations that are based on works obtained from sources (web sites, physical CDs, etc.) that are independent of the recommendations system. In one embodiment, the service identifies pairs of works (and/or work creators) that are similar to each other by virtue of the relatively high frequency with which they co-occur on playlists or within play histories of users. The resulting mappings are used to provide recommendations to users. | 09-26-2013 |
20130346186 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR ALLOCATING DISPLAY SPACE - Display space on web page may be allocated by bids. In one embodiment, the display space system receives bids indicating a bid amount and an advertisement. When providing a web page with the display space, the display space system selects a bid. The display space system adds the advertisement of the selected bid to the web page. The bid may specify web pages on which the advertisement may be placed, the users to whom the advertisement may be presented, and time when the advertisement may be placed. The bid amount may be in an established currency or in advertising points. Activities for which advertising points may be awarded may include listing an auction, auction bidding, or purchasing of an item. When a user advertisement is placed, the display space system reduces user advertising points. The display space system may also place bids for display space on behalf of the user. | 12-26-2013 |
20140108427 | MINING OF USER EVENT DATA TO IDENTIFY USERS WITH COMMON INTERESTS - A computer-implemented matching service matches users to other users, and/or to user communities, based at least in part on a computer analysis of event data reflective of user behaviors. The event data may, for example, evidence user affinities for particular items represented in an electronic catalog, such as book titles, music titles, movie titles, and/or other types of items that tend to reflect the traits of users. Event data reflective of other types of user actions, such as item-detail-page viewing events, browse node visits, search query submissions, and/or web browsing patterns may additionally or alternatively be considered. By taking such event data into consideration, the matching service reduces the burden on users to explicitly supply personal profile information, and reduces poor results caused by exaggerations and other inaccuracies in such profile information. | 04-17-2014 |
20140222615 | SERVICES FOR ENABLING USERS TO SHARE INFORMATION REGARDING E-COMMERCE TRANSACTIONS - Various computer-implemented services are disclosed for assisting users in selecting items from an electronic catalog, and for selecting merchants with which to conduct transactions. One such service enables users to share information about their respective purchases with other users. Another service enables users to share information regarding the merchants with which they have conducted transactions. | 08-07-2014 |
20140222803 | IDENTIFYING ITEMS RELEVANT TO A CURRENT QUERY BASED ON ITEMS ACCESSED IN CONNECTION WITH SIMILAR QUERIES - The present invention provides a software facility for identifying the items most relevant to a current query based on items selected in connection with similar queries. In preferred embodiments of the invention, the facility receives a query specifying one or more query terms. In response, the facility generates a query result identifying a plurality of items that satisfy the query. The facility then produces a ranking value for at least a portion of the items identified in the query result by combining the relative frequencies with which users selected that item from the query results generated from queries specifying each of the terms specified by the query. The facility identifies as most relevant those items having the highest ranking values. | 08-07-2014 |
20150026089 | DELIVERING ORDERED ITEMS TO AN APPROPRIATE ADDRESS - A method, system, and computer-readable medium for automatically determining appropriate delivery information for one or more items of an order or potential order is described. A variety of types of information can be considered when determining what delivery information is appropriate for one or more items, such as a type of the items, the particular items, relationships of the items to other items, information about the purchaser, and/or information about the recipient. In addition, the automatic determination of an appropriate address for an item being ordered or potentially ordered by a user can be made in a variety of ways, such as based on inferences from past behavior when ordering items, on inferences from information about the item and from available delivery information for the user, and/or on previous explicit indications from the user. | 01-22-2015 |
20150066791 | MINING OF USER EVENT DATA TO IDENTIFY USERS WITH COMMON INTERESTS - A computer-implemented matching service matches users to other users, and/or to user communities, based at least in part on a computer analysis of event data reflective of user behaviors. The event data may, for example, evidence user affinities for particular items represented in an electronic catalog, such as book titles, music titles, movie titles, and/or other types of items that tend to reflect the traits of users. Event data reflective of other types of user actions, such as item-detail-page viewing events, browse node visits, search query submissions, and/or web browsing patterns may additionally or alternatively be considered. By taking such event data into consideration, the matching service reduces the burden on users to explicitly supply personal profile information, and reduces poor results caused by exaggerations and other inaccuracies in such profile information. | 03-05-2015 |