Patent ID: 8498992

Claim:
An item selecting apparatus comprising: a computer; a favorite item set making section selecting, for a target user, a first prescribed number of items in order of highest preference degree or items with preference degrees equal to or greater than a first prescribed value by using use histories, and making a favorite item set being a set of items accorded with preference of the target user from the selected items; a first rate calculating section handling a set of some or all of the items in the favorite item set or a set of items related to use by the target user in the use histories as a first set of items, and calculating, with respect to the first set of items, a first rate of the number of items satisfying recommended item conditions representing conditions for judging as items to be recommended to the number of all items in the first set; a user characteristic value calculating section calculating a user characteristic value representing the strength of a relation between the preference of the target user and the recommended item conditions by using the first rate; and an item selecting section selecting, from items in the favorite item set, a plurality of items including items satisfying the recommended item conditions to make a result item set; wherein the item selecting section makes the result item set so that when the user characteristic value satisfies prescribed user characteristic value conditions, a rate of the number of items in the result item set which satisfy the recommended item conditions to the number of all items in the result item set will be greater than the first rate and smaller than 1 except for a case where the first rate is 1; and wherein the favorite item set making section is implemented by the computer.