Patent ID: 8775570

Claim:
A computer implemented method of exchanging information between a client network node and an online search system, the method comprising: implementing a URL application program interface (API) on the online search system to communicate with the client network node; receiving, via the URL API, a get recommendation (getrec) web enabled function call from the client network node to get recommendation information ordered by at least one of similarity, popularity, and distance, the getrec function call including a geographic location identifier, a radius identifier, a tag identifier, an item identifier, a global or local search flag, and a user identifier as parameters; responding to the getrec function call by returning, via the URL API, a number of recommendations, a number of uses, and a set of tags; receiving a recommendation (rec) function call that includes a recommendation credit identifier as a parameter in association with a respective geographic location identifier parameter and a respective item identifier parameter; passing the recommendation credit identifier as an attribute to the online search system; and decrementing a submission credit of a submitting user account associated with the recommending credit identifier according to an economic recommendation model that constrains, based on a frequency quota, geofencing, a provider quota, and a user quota, an ability of a user of the online search system to recommend various content.