Smart button

Abstract

The present invention provides for systems and methods that facilitate conveying user information between and among users effectively to thereby create a collaborative filtering environment with maintained user privacy. More specifically, the present invention allows user-profile building to occur coincident with user-browsing, for example. This can be accomplished in part by incorporating an input component on the user interface used for browsing and/or searching. A user who has opted-in to construct a personal profile makes declarations regarding his relationship with at least a portion of the information being currently viewed. The declarations are annotated to the user's profile. At the user's discretion, the user's profile can be disseminated to others in whole or in part such that other people can make use of the user's expertise, experience or opinions. In addition, the user profiles can be machine-readable and searchable.

1 . A system that facilitates building a profile comprising: 
 at least one input component that receives user annotations regarding user perceptions about a current computer-based interaction; and    a profile component that populates a profile of the user with the user annotations.    
   
   
       2 . The system of  claim 1  is part of a web browser.  
   
   
       3 . The system of  claim 1  is part of a search engine.  
   
   
       4 . The system of  claim 1 , the input component comprising a plurality of semantic-centric input components that reflect context of the current computer-based interaction.  
   
   
       5 . The system of  claim 4 , the semantic-centric input components respectively are UI buttons.  
   
   
       6 . The system of  claim 4 , further comprising an extraction component that analyzes a web page and that extracts semantic components of at least portions of the web page.  
   
   
       7 . The system of  claim 1 , further comprising a profile review component that allows the user to review and/or edit the profile.  
   
   
       8 . The system of  claim 1 , further comprising an inference component that makes declarations on behalf of the user.  
   
   
       9 . The system of  claim 8 , the inference component comprising at least one of: a support vector machine (SVM), a naïve Bayes model, a Bayesian network, a decision tree, a Hidden Markov Model (HMM), neural network, data fusion engine.  
   
   
       10 . The system of  claim 8 , the inference component comprising a classifier.  
   
   
       11 . The system of  claim 8 , the inference component inferring when to make a declaration on behalf of the user.  
   
   
       12 . The system of  claim 1 , further comprising a privacy-preserving searching component that allows the user to search for others who have a similar profile as the user.  
   
   
       13 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein dissemination of at least a portion of the user profile is selective and controlled by the discretion of the user.  
   
   
       14 . The system of  claim 1 , the user profile comprising information relating to opinions, expertise, and experiences of the user, the profile being created by the user in a passive manner.  
   
   
       15 . The system of  claim 1 , the computer-based interaction is viewing any one of a web page, a web site, and search results.  
   
   
       16 . A method that facilitates creating user profiles comprising: 
 providing one or more input components that receive at least one user annotation regarding a user's perceptions about a current computer-based interaction; and    annotating a user profile with the user's perceptions.    
   
   
       17 . The method of  claim 16 , further comprising selecting one or more input components that reflect the user's perceptions about the computer-based interaction.  
   
   
       18 . The method of  claim 16 , the one or more input components are provided on a user-interface.  
   
   
       19 . The method of  claim 16 , the one or more input components are semantic-centric input components that reflect context of the current computer-based interaction.  
   
   
       20 . The method of  claim 19 , further comprising: 
 analyzing a web page; and    extracting one or more semantic components of at least a portion of the web page.    
   
   
       21 . The method of  claim 20 , further comprising morphing the one or more input components based at least in part upon the semantic components in an automatic fashion.  
   
   
       22 . The method of  claim 21 , the morphing of the one or more input components based at least in part upon user behavior with respect to movement of a pointer device.  
   
   
       23 . The method of  claim 22 , the pointer device comprising a mouse.  
   
   
       24 . The method of  claim 20 , the semantic components extracted from the web page being based at least in part upon declarations previously annotated to the user profile by the user.  
   
   
       25 . The method of  claim 16 , further comprising at least one of reviewing or editing the user's profile by the respective user.  
   
   
       26 . The method of  claim 16 , annotating the user's profile is performed implicitly by the respective user.  
   
   
       27 . The method of  claim 16 , annotating the user's profile is performed by an inference component inferring the user's perceptions on behalf of the user.  
   
   
       28 . A method that facilitates conveying information about a user to others comprising: 
 browsing information stored on an electronic medium;    selectively making at least one declaration about at least a portion of the information being browsed;    annotating a user's personal profile with the at least one declaration; and    selectively sharing the user's personal profile with the others.    
   
   
       29 . The method of  claim 28 , wherein the user is browsing a web page and concurrently makes declarations regarding the user's perceptions with respect to the web page.  
   
   
       30 . The method of  claim 28  performed at least in part by a web browser.  
   
   
       31 . A data packet adapted to be transmitted between two or more computer processes facilitating conveying user profiles among users in a privacy-controlled manner, the data packet comprising information associated with browsing information stored on an electronic medium; selectively making at least one declaration about at least a portion of the information being browsed; annotating the user's personal profile with the at least one declaration; and selectively sharing the user's personal profile with the others.  
   
   
       32 . A computer-readable medium having stored thereon the following computer executable components: 
 at least one input component that receives user annotations regarding user perceptions about a current computer-based interaction; and    a profile component that populates a profile of the user with the user annotations.    
   
   
       33 . A system that facilitates creating user profiles comprising: 
 a means for providing one or more input components that receive at least one user annotation regarding a user's perceptions about a current computer-based interaction; and    a means for annotating a user profile with the user's perceptions.    
   
   
       34 . The system of  claim 33 , further comprising: 
 means for analyzing a web page;    means for extracting one or more semantic components of at least a portion of the web page; and    means for morphing the one or more input components based at least in part upon the semantic components in an automatic fashion.    
   
   
       35 . A system that facilitates conveying information about a user to others comprising: 
 means for browsing information stored on an electronic medium;    means for selectively making at least one declaration about at least a portion of the information being browsed;    means for annotating the user's personal profile with the at least one declaration; and    means for selectively sharing the user's personal profile with the others.