System and Method for an Electronic Product Advisor

Abstract

A system and method operates on a client device and acquires a suspect list of user products based on information derived from the client device. The system normalizes the list, and the user confirms the accuracy of the product list. The user product list is sent to a server where the user product list is compared to other lists using collaborative filtering techniques. The collaborative filtering techniques determine products of interest for the use and the level of interest of the user. The system computes a similarity measure based upon the number of similar products that match the user's product list and rankings provided by the user and others. Demographic and behavioral data may also be used in performing the comparison and the similarity measure. The system acquires editorial rankings of products from other users and provides a ranked list of recommended products based upon the editorial rankings.

1 . A computer implemented method for establishing and maintaining an online community of users of products, the method comprising:
 via an Internet-compatible communications interface, receiving data regarding a plurality of users, and receiving data regarding at least one user-owned product, the data regarding at least one user-owned product including a price of the product;   associating at least one user-owned product having received price data with at least one product user;   estimating the value of at least one associated product, at least in part as a function of received price data; and   via the Internet-compatible communications interface, providing functionality allowing each profiled user to search and retrieve an estimated used value of a product, including the cumulative used value of a subset of products associated with the user and having estimated prices.