Patent ID: 8296278

Claim:
A method for identifying a product issue with a particular software product using forum data stored in a forum database, the method comprising: retrieving the forum data from the forum database; identifying a plurality of forum threads from the forum data; identifying a strength of relationship between each of a plurality of pairs of forum posts across separate forum threads in the plurality of forum threads; receiving a threshold for clustering the forum threads, the threshold defining a first set of forum threads having the strength of relationship meeting the threshold and a second set of forum threads having the strength of relationship not meeting the threshold; clustering the first set of forum threads into one or more clustered forum threads according to the threshold and keeping unclustered the second set of forum threads according to the threshold; evaluating the one or more clustered forum threads to identify the product issue with the particular software product; and providing a software patch to one or more client computers, the software patch being directed to correcting the product issue with the particular software product.