Patent ID: 7552068

Claim:
A method of requesting a review of an item, the method comprising: receiving over a network at a first date a customer order for an item purchased from an electronic catalog; estimating by what date the customer will have at least initially evaluated the item based at least in part on the item-type; determining whether the estimated date has occurred and/or whether an event that indicates that the customer is to be provided with another item has occurred; electronically transmitting to the customer a message requesting the customer to provide a review of the item at least partly in response to one or more of the following: the occurrence of the estimated date, wherein the message is transmitted on or after the estimated date, and wherein the estimated date is after the first date and the message is transmitted to the customer only subsequent to the first date to provide the customer with time to at least initially evaluate the item; an event that indicates that the customer is to be provided with another item, wherein the message may be sent prior to the estimated date; receiving the customer review electronically; and using the received review to generate, via at least one computer system configured to perform collaborative filtering, a personalized recommendation using a collaborative filtering process.