Patent ID: 7831454

Claim:
A system for directing customers to a business establishment comprising: a processor user device including a service locator configured to receive a query from an associated user, which query is representative of a desired purveyor of at least one of selected goods and services in a selected geographic area; the service locator configured to secure, into a memory, data representative of a set of purveyors of the at least one of selected goods and services in the selected geographic area from an associated database; the service locator configured to retrieve, via a computer network, near real time business activity data from each purveyor of goods or services in the set thereof, the business activity data including at least one of the group consisting of a number of customers in line, an average wait time for access, an amount of traffic to, and operating hours associated with each purveyor in the set thereof; the service locator configured to generate a business activity level signal representative of a level of the near real time business activity for each purveyor in the set thereof; the service locator configured to generate relative ranking information corresponding to the business activity level for each purveyor in the set thereof; and a display associated with the user device for displaying, in accordance with the data representative of the set of purveyors, a map on the user device showing a location and the near real time business activity data with the relative ranking information for the set of purveyors.