Patent ID: 6859807

Claim:
A method of identifying popular subject matter content within a community of online members of an electronic content provider, the method comprising: (a) receiving member content from the community of online members, including subject matter queries and/or text postings provided by the community of online members, directed to content categorized in one or more subject matter areas on a website operated by the electronic content provider; (b) processing said subject matter queries and/or text postings for the entire community of online members, to determine a ranking of first content topics of interest for the community of online members; (c) generating a first list identifying said first content topics and their associated first popularity ranking as determined at step (b); (d) processing said subject matter queries and/or text postings for the community of online members, including by tabulating keywords in text therein, to identify second topics for the community of online members which are changing in popularity, and to determine a ranking of such second content topics of interest; (e) generating a second list identifying said second content topics and their associated second popularity ranking as determined at step (d); wherein said first list measures popularity of content during a first time period, and said second list measures a change in popularity of content over such period.