Patent ID: 8364664

Claim:
A computing device comprising: a communication interface; memory; and processing circuitry coupled to the communication interface and to the memory, the processing circuitry, memory, and communication interface operable to: receive search criteria information from an external environment through the communication interface; process the search criteria information to obtain a first set of search results selected from at least one maxima category wherein the at least one maxima category-groups searchable data based on content similarity and a second category within each maxima category tags searchable data within that maxima category with a relative popularity indicator, wherein a first set of communication data is created to output information related to the first set of search results to the external environment through the communication interface, and wherein the at least one maxima category contains hierarchically ordered sub-maxima categories that further organize the searchable data within the at least maxima category based on content similarity; receive user interaction data from the external environment, the user interaction data indicating user interaction with a search result included in the at least one maxima category and at least one of the hierarchically ordered sub-maxima categories included in the first set of search results; process the user interaction data to identify interesting maxima categories and uninteresting maxima categories based on the user interaction data and obtain a second set of search results by favoring search results within interesting maxima categories that are identified as interesting to a user via processing of the user interaction data, wherein a second set of communication data is created to output information related to the second set of search results to the external environment through the communication interface; and iteratively repeat the process of analyzing user interaction data and selecting other sets of search results from interesting maxima and eliminating search results from uninteresting maxima so that the user interaction data allows increasingly more meaningful search results to be identified over the communication interface as time progresses.