Patent ID: 7483846

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of monitoring changes to states of items in an electronic catalog, the method comprising: generating user activity data reflective of actions performed by a user with respect to an item in an electronic catalog of items; programmatically analyzing the user activity data to determine that the user's actions represent a non-conversion event; storing information about the non-conversion event, including an identifier of the user, an identifier of the item, and state data descriptive of a state of the item at a time of the non-conversion event; and subsequent to the non-conversion event, and in response to a change in the state of the item, using the stored information about the non-conversion event, including said identifier of the user, said identifier of the item, and said state data descriptive of the state of the item at the time of the non-conversion event, to generate a state-change notification message to notify the user of the change in state, wherein using the stored information to generate the state change notification message comprises (a) determining whether to generate a state change notification message to notify the user of the change in state, and (b) when said determination is positive, generating the state change notification message for transmission to the user; wherein the above recited steps of the method are performed via execution of software by one or more processors, and the state change notification message is provided without requiring the user to subscribe to be notified in connection with said item.