Patent ID: 7685117

Claim:
A method of influencing behavior of an electronic World Wide Web (WWW) Internet search engine, to identify search items in response to a query from an online network user, comprising: compiling a set of N popular items {X 1 , X 2 , . . . , X i , . . . , X N }, wherein for each popular item X i amongst the set of N popular items, a plurality of M early adopter web pages {Y[X i ] 1 . . . Y[X i ] M } is determined resulting in N separate sets of M early adopter web pages, said M early adopter web pages being determined based on a time of adoption of said popular item X i at said M early adopter web pages; correlating said N separate sets of M early adopter web pages to identify a trend predictor value of each of the early adopter web pages and to determine which of the early adopter web pages occur most frequently in the set {Y[X i ] j }, where 1≦i≦N and 1≦j≦M, wherein said most frequently occurring early adopter web pages are qualified as trend predictors; measuring an adoption rating for a first search item identified in a set of web pages, said set of web pages including one or more web pages in said N separate sets of at least M early adopter web pages; and responding to a query from a user for search items at least in part based on said adoption rating for said first search item.