Patent Application - TRACKING SIGNIFICANT TOPICS OF DISCOURSE IN FORUMS > Summary

Patent Application No. US 20100169327

Published on Jul 1, 2010

Application No. 12/347473

Filed on Dec 31, 2008

Priority Date -

Lindsay, Robert Taaffe - Palo Alto, CA US (4)

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.