Patent Document ID: 7600017
Application ID: 11651661

Base Claim:
1. A system for processing message traffic from a plurality of electronic discussion forums, comprising: a computer implemented message collector for collecting messages from the plurality of electronic discussion forums; a computer including processing logic to process the messages based on a topic in order to track a plurality of pseudonyms, wherein the processing logic computes at least one numerical relevance score for the collected messages posted by the plurality of pseudonyms, wherein the numerical relevance score rates the relevance of the collected messages to the topic on a numerical scale, and wherein the numerical relevance score is determined based on a set of predefined rules, the set of predefined rules having a plurality of conditions defining information relevant to the topic and having an associated weighting to indicate the strength a particular condition should have in determining the relevance of the messages with respect to the topic; and a computer implemented report generator for generating a report on the topic using results from the processing logic, wherein the report at least indirectly reflects at least the at least one numerical relevance score for the collected messages posted by the plurality of pseudonyms; wherein the processing logic is further adapted to compute a buzz score based on a set of the collected messages for the topic, and wherein the buzz score is a function of the at least one numerical relevance score for messages in the set of the collected messages, and the report at least indirectly reflects the buzz score.

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Claim 15:
15. A system as defined in claim 1 , wherein the computer is a UNIX-based server.