Patent ID: 7702690

Claim:
A computer implemented method for automatically determining any of importance of an on-line asset, topic of said asset, a user's current context/topic of interest, and relationships among assets and queries, without asking members of an on-line community directly comprising a processor executing the steps of: observing usage patterns of said on-line community; employing automatic techniques to extract patterns from said usage; learning affinities between and among users, assets, and topics/terms; identifying usefulness of an online asset by observing user implicit behaviors in connection with said usage patterns of said online asset and by extracting behavioral patterns from said observations; refining said identified online asset usefulness by context, wherein the context of each online asset is automatically detected based on observed terms/topics from individual and group user behaviors when said online asset is determined to be useful based upon said individual and group user behaviors; and, given a user query, any of: determining a user's current context/topic based on the user's query and refining said identified user context based on previous searches performed and assets used during the user's navigation; comparing the identified context of a current user with the identified context of all assets within the system and assigning to each asset a score based on its similarity to the current user's context; and using said similarity score to present a user with recommended assets; said observed usage patterns comprising user online search, navigation, and interaction behavior, said behavior including any of searches performed and position in user trail; assets viewed and position in user trail; dwell, range, scrolling, think time, and mouse movement on an asset; anchors and lines used in asset text; virtual bookmarks and virtual printing; and explicit downloading, emailing, printing, saving, and removing.