Patent ID: 8364699

Claim:
A system for presenting an interface to a user, the system comprising: a data source comprising data associated with a plurality of commodities comprising a first commodity; and at least one server in electronic communication with the data source, the at least one server comprising at least one processor and an operatively associated computer readable medium, wherein the computer readable medium comprises instructions thereon that, when executed by the at least one processor, causes the at least one server to execute: a commodity framework layer for: receiving a request for content originating from an application executing on a client machine in electronic communication with the at least one server, wherein the request identifies the first commodity and a first event associated with the commodity, wherein the request comprises a Universal Resource Locator (URL) identifying the first commodity, and wherein the URL specifies a name of the first commodity and a name of the first event associated with the commodity; parsing a commodity descriptor file to identify a definition of the first commodity, wherein the commodity descriptor file comprises definitions of the plurality of commodities, and wherein the definition of the first commodity comprises: definitions for a plurality of services, wherein the plurality of services are to process data for the first commodity; definitions for a plurality of events including the first event, wherein each definition for an event defines a view describing a manner in which the first commodity will be returned and a service selected from the plurality of services associated with the event; generating a service call requesting a first service associated with the first commodity and the first event by a definition of the first event; in response to the service call, receiving from the first service data describing the commodity; and constructing a model of the commodity according to the data and according to a view defined by the definition of the first event.