Patent ID: 7904544

Claim:
An apparatus for estimating a demand for a service offered via a network, the apparatus comprising: an external-factor storing unit to store an event for a case in which information relating to the service appears in a predetermined information source on the network, as an external factor affecting the demand; a demand-amount calculating unit to calculate an amount of the demand for the service by determining whether the event as the external factor stored is appeared in the predetermined information source; and a resource-change instructing unit to instruct a change of a resource allocated to the service, according to the amount of the demand calculated, wherein the external-factor storing unit to further store a correlation coefficient that indicates a degree of an influence of the external factor on the demand, in an associated manner, for every event divided based on at least an insertion mode of the information relating to the service in the predetermined information source, and the demand-amount calculating unit to calculate the amount of the demand by using the correlation coefficient stored; the insertion mode of the information relating to the service in the predetermined information source includes an insertion position, a font size or a color of a company name related to the service and an appearing frequency of the company name.