Patent Document ID: RE43835
Application ID: 11709352

Base Claim:
1. A method of identifying popular subject matter content within a first community of online members of an electronic content provider, the method comprising: (a) receiving member content from the first community of online members, including subject matter queries and/or text postings provided by the first community of online members, directed to content categorized in one or more subject matter areas on a website operated by the electronic content provider; (b) processing said subject matter queries and/or text postings for the entire first community of online members , to determine a first popularity ranking of first content topics of interest for the first community of online members; (c) generating a first list identifying said first content topics and their associated first popularity ranking as determined at step (b) ; (d) processing said subject matter queries and/or text postings for the first community of online members , including by tabulating keywords in text therein, to identify second topics for the first community of online members which are changing in popularity, and to determine a second popularity ranking of such second content topics of interest , wherein processing said subject matter queries and/or said text postings includes tabulating keywords within said subject matter queries and/or said text postings ; (e) generating a second list identifying said second content topics and their associated second popularity ranking as determined at step (d) ; and wherein said first list measures popularity of content during a first time period, and said second list measures a change in popularity of content over such period.

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Claim 2:
2. The method of claim 1 , further including a step (d): repeating steps (a) through (c) for a second separate community of online members comprising: (f) receiving member content from a second community of online members, including subject matter queries and/or text postings provided by the second community of online members, directed to content categorized in one or more subject matter areas on a website operated by an electronic content provider; (g) processing said subject matter queries and/or text postings for the entire second community of online members to determine a first popularity ranking of first content topics of interest for the second community of online members; and (h) generating a list identifying said first content topics of interest for the second community of online members and the first popularity rankings associated with the first content topics of interest for the second community of online members .