20140156556 Time variant rating system and method thereof

ABSTRACT

Embodiments of the present invention provide a system for enhancing reliability in computation of ratings provided by a user over a social network.

The system comprises of a processor and a memory coupled to the processor. The memory further comprises a rater score database, a satisfaction database, a social network registration database, a user profile database, and a plurality of instruction executable by the processor. Said instructions in the memory are enabled to accept a message from at least one user wherein said message comprises a satisfaction score associated with at least one service provider and to retrieve a rater score associated with said at least one user from said rater score database. Further, the memory includes instructions in order to compute a new satisfaction score based on said rater score and said satisfaction score and update said satisfaction database to include said new satisfaction score. In a similar manner, the new satisfaction score can be computed based upon the information stored in the social network registration database and user profile database.

Time variant rating system and method thereof

An Inventor: Dr. Tal Lavian

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The invention relates to social networking applications and more specifically, the invention relates to enhancing reliability of ratings provided to users in a social network by means of time dynamics.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

• In current scenario of global inflation, resource management is increasingly required to cut the cost and to overcome many other problems. For example, the prevalent use of single occupancy vehicles is known to be a significant cause of several major economic, social and environmental problems. The problems embrace increasing cost due to usage of energy resource for each vehicle, higher parking-space issues, traffic congestion, increased level of air pollution and the like. Further, an alternative to the usage of single occupancy vehicles is the use of multi-occupancy vehicles, where multiple individuals can share a single vehicle.

• For sharing a resource such as a vehicle, an individual needs to search for people who are willing to join for sharing a vehicle for riding together to a particular location. This requires spending time in searching reliable people to share the ride. Further, in existing systems, a user can post a query for vehicle sharing. Corresponding to the post, other users of the system those are interested in sharing the vehicle for the ride (hereinafter may be referred to as “interested 2 users”) can reply to that query regarding their interests in sharing the vehicle. However, in these systems, the interested users may be completely unknown to the user who posts the query. Thus, the main problem in such systems is the lack of credibility, in the interested people, which typically is the pre-requisite for many users. Further, in these systems, the user has to wait until any interested user respond corresponding to the query of the user. Furthermore, the user may need to contact the other interested users, either personally or telephonically, to discuss various parameters for sharing the vehicle. Such parameters may include, but are not restricted to, compensation/expense that may be shared between the users, timings, and various conditions corresponding to the sharing of vehicle for a ride. This wastes a significant amount of time on the user’s part.
• Further, in addition to vehicle sharing, there are some other resources that may not be shared, generally, with others such as house, machinery etc. Further, such non-sharable resources may be expensive to possess. An individual may think of providing or receiving such resource in exchange of any other resource or any service. However, exchanging such expensive resources, with any other resource or service offered by any other person, require a high level of credibility in the offer of the other person and vice versa. Further, if an individual decides to exchange a resource with a service offered by the other person then the individual may be required to keep an eye on the activities performed (corresponding to the service) by the other person. This wastes a significant time of the individual to track the service provided by the other person. For example, a user may think of reducing a cost by borrowing a machinery from any other person (possessing the machinery) in exchange of providing some service to the other person such as pets’ keeping in the absence of the other person. Here, the other person has to have trust on the individual so as to allow the individual to handle the pets in the absence of the other person. Thus, credibility of any unknown users for exchanging the product/service remains always under stake.
• In addition to resource sharing and exchanging, many individuals like to look for some collective activities with other individuals, such as recreational activities. For any recreational activity, such as playing, riding etc., an individual usually searches for like-minded individuals. For example, an individual may be willing to go out to dine with someone or may be willing to play chess with someone who is good at (or interested in) playing chess. For this, the individual may be required to spend a considerable amount of time to search any person around who is like-minded and 3 also credible to go along with for any such collective activity. In such cases, credibility of any unknown person is always a question for the individual.
• Occasional, users make their decision based on what other users are recommending or not recommending. For instance, if a user tells about a good doctor or barber, other users may get influenced and visit him and not to others. In the same way, if another user tells about a terrible service or professionalism of a service provider, other users may decide not to use this service. A very similar phenomenon is observed on the web, if many users recommend a book or other product on Amazon, other users may decide to follow the recommendations and buy or not buy this goods or services. In a similar way, one can observe recommendation on eBay™ or even on Yelp™. If many users say something on a social medium, other users might blindly follow, irrespective of whether it is correct or incorrect without verifying the facts.
• In a web based social network, occasionally users make their decisions to purchase or not to purchase a service or a product based on the ratings provided by the social network users. However, these ratings are influenced by the ratings provided previously by other users at the root of the rating tree. The influence of previous ratings provided by the users in the past leaves a drastic impact on the current ratings of new users. Hence, most of the times the ratings provided are unrealistic making these ratings unreliable. Another factor which influences the rating of any use is the frequency of ratings provided for a particular user. The credibility of only three users submit their comments/ratings, cannot be compared to the credibility of ratings provided by 3,000 users.
• Based on the aforementioned, there is a need of a system and a corresponding method to support resource sharing with credible users and without requiring much time consumption at a user’s end. Further, the system should provide support for combined or exchangeable activities with credible and suitable users based on the interest of a user. Furthermore, there is need for the system that enables the user to share and/or exchange services or products. Thus, the system is required for providing support to the user in sharing/exchanging/purchasing resources/services by means or reliable rating system and to overcome the shortcoming of the related arts.

SUMMARY

• Embodiments of the present invention provide a system for enhancing reliability in computation of ratings provided by a user over a social network. The system comprises of a processor and a memory coupled to the processor. The memory further comprises a rater score database, a satisfaction database, and a plurality of instruction executable by the processor. Said instructions in the memory are enabled to accept a message from at least one user wherein said message comprises a satisfaction score associated with at least one service provider and to retrieve a rater score associated with said at least one user from said rater score database. Further, the memory includes instructions in order to compute a new satisfaction score based on said rater score and said satisfaction score and update said satisfaction database to include said new satisfaction score.

• In another embodiment, of the present invention enables the system for enhancing reliability in computation of ratings provided by a user over a social network. The system comprises of a processor and a memory coupled to the processor. The memory further comprises a social network registration database, a satisfaction database, and a plurality of instruction executable by the processor. Said instructions in the memory are enabled to accept a message from at least one user wherein said message comprises a satisfaction score associated with at least one service provider and to retrieve a social network registration information associated with said at least one user from said social network registration database. Further, the memory includes instructions in order to compute a new satisfaction score based on said social network registration information and said satisfaction score and update said satisfaction database to include said new satisfaction score.
• Further, an embodiment of the present invention enables the system for enhancing reliability in computation of ratings provided by a user over a social network. The system comprises of a processor and a memory coupled to the processor. The memory further comprises a user profile database, a satisfaction database, and a plurality of instruction executable by the processor. Said instructions in the memory are enabled to accept a message from at least one user wherein said message comprises a satisfaction score associated with at least one service provider and to retrieve a user profile associated with said at least one user from said user profile database. Further, the memory includes instructions in order to compute a new satisfaction score based on said user profile and said satisfaction score and update said satisfaction database to include said new satisfaction score.

Dr. Tal Lavian offers insightful and decisive expertise as a telecommunications expert witness and network communications expert witness.