System and method for web-based personalization and electronic commerce management

Abstract

The invention utilizes a personalization system that uses rules (110, 112, 113) to adjudicate and characterize a customer, or a customer's actions, and then to personalize a business function, such asa displayed page, based on the outcome of those rules. In one embodiment the invention provides a system for web-based personalization, that allows for personalizing the content or business functioning of a web-based application to reflect the characteristics of a particular user of said web-based application, said system comprising: a user profiler, for determining a snapshot of a particular user of a web-based application; a rules editor for inputting a set of rules governing the business functioning of said web-based application; a rules engine (102), that accepts input from said rules editor and said snapshot of said particular user, and uses said set of rules to make decisions about said particular user and the business functioning of said web-based application; and, a personalization processor that uses the output of said rules engine (102) to determine the content or business functioning of said web-based application as it applies to said particular user.

Description

[0001] Copyright Notice [0002] Some of the disclosed patent documents contain copyrighted materials. The owner of this copyright does not object to anyone reproducing the patent document or patent publication text as it appears in the patent documents or records of the Patent and Trademark Office, but retains others All copyright rights. [0003] priority [0004] This application requires an application number No.60 / 283,977, a provisional application named "Systems and Methods for Rule-Based World Wide Web Projects and Activities" submitted on April 16, 2001, and an application number No.60 / 306,509, the priority of provisional application entitled "System and Method for Web-based Personalization and E-commerce Management" filed on July 18, 2001, and the contents of the two applications are included here for reference. Technical field [0005] The present invention relates to online, especially to a Web-enabled system, and also to methods for personalizing application behavior and...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

[0008] Existing systems for personalizing website content are primarily analytical in nature and rely on the use of previously collected data in a way that allows administrators to modify websites or e-commerce applications based on their understanding of that data. For example , personalized systems from vendors such as ATG and Broadbase (these vendors mainly provide online analytical processing (OLAP) systems), which rely on commercial providers to collect large amounts of data, large enough to use analytical methods (that is, statistical methods) represent its target demographic and then use that data to personalize content to subgroups of that demographic. Data can be collected using traditional mechanisms, namely through standard market research tools, or online, such as by maintaining a customer's prior usage history. However, This data is typically stored in a repository for further analysis before it is subsequently analyzed and used to allow administrators to update the actual content. In this manner, the data is not used to provide real-time personalization of the system, or Personalization that is easily modifiable by administrators. Rather, the data is used more to represent content changes to a large group of users over a longer period of time. No attempt is made to customize data content at the individual user level within a user's or customer's actual session .

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