Patent Document ID: 9160548
Application ID: 14543566

Base Claim:
1. A computer-implemented method of matching users to user communities, the method comprising: for each of a plurality of users of an electronic catalog, storing event data representing user-generated events that reflect user affinities for particular items represented in the electronic catalog; storing information about a plurality of user communities, each of which corresponds to a respective subset of the plurality of users and comprises multiple users; identifying a first plurality of items that characterize item preferences of a first user community of the plurality of user communities; calculating a degree to which the first plurality of items are related to a set of items in the electronic catalog identified by the first user; and based at least in part on the degree, determining whether to suggest the first user community to the first user; wherein the method is performed by one or more computers.

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Claim 8:
8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first user community is an explicit-membership community that users explicitly join via a user interface associated with the electronic catalog.