Content aggregation method and apparatus for on-line purchasing system

Abstract

The method comprises processing plural product information records from the product information sources into one or more groups based on which product information records are likely to correspond to the same product, correlating a unique product ID corresponding to the product associated with each of said groups to identify the product, comparing each identified product to categories of a taxonomy to determine a category for the identified products in the taxonomy, and determining attributes for each categorized product based on the product information records corresponding to each group, creating product specifications based on the determined attributes and storing the product specification in the corresponding determined categories of the taxonomy.

1 . A method of aggregating product information for use in a product database including various products arranged in product categories, the product information being collected from a plurality of sources in a networked computer environment regarding products of a product category comprising the steps of: 
 causing a crawler to visit the plurality of sources;    gathering product phrase information from each of the plurality of sources via said crawler;    determining whether at least one phrase of said product phrase information is a product characteristic associated with a product category; and    utilizing computational linguistics to gather said product phrase information which includes a phrase and at least one characteristic of said phrase.    
     
     
         2 . A data storage medium with computer-executable instructions thereon for aggregating product information for use in a product database including various products arranged in product categories, the product information being collected from a plurality of sources in a networked computer environment regarding products of a product category, the data storage medium comprising: 
 instructions for causing a crawler to visit the plurality of sources;    instructions for gathering product phrase information from each of the plurality of sources via said crawler;    instructions for determining whether at least one phrase of said product phrase information is a product characteristic associated with a product category; and    instructions for utilizing computational linguistics to gather said product phrase information which includes a phrase and at least one characteristic of said phrase.    
     
     
         3 . A product database prepared by a process comprising the steps of: 
 causing a crawler to visit a plurality of sources in a networked computer environment, the plurality of sources having product information including various products arranged in product categories;    gathering product phrase information from each of the plurality of sources via said crawler;    determining whether at least one phrase of said product phrase information is a product characteristic associated with a product category;    utilizing computational linguistics to gather said product phrase information which includes a phrase and at least one characteristic of said phrase; and    storing product information regarding products of a product category.    
     
     
         4 . A computer architecture in a networked environment comprising: 
 a server executing an agent server application, said server including a memory device having a product database stored therein;    at least one merchant server executing a commerce server application and being remote from said server;    a communication channel coupling said server to said at least one merchant server; and    an aggregation server operative to provide a crawler for visiting a plurality of sources hosted on said at least one merchant server to aggregate product information from said plurality of sources regarding products of a product category, to gather product phrase information from said plurality of sources, and to determine whether at least one of said product phrase information is a product characteristic associated with a product category.    
     
     
         5 . An aggregation server for aggregating product information for use in a product database including various products arranged in product categories, the product information being collected from a plurality of sources in a networked computer environment regarding products of a product category, the server comprising: 
 a crawler module to visit the plurality of sources;    a gathering module to gather product phrase information from each of the plurality of sources via said crawler;    a determining module to determine whether at least one phrase of said product phrase information is a product characteristic associated with a product category; and    a computational linguistics module to gather said product phrase information which includes a phrase and at least one characteristic of said phrase.