System and method for trusted contact, business selection with automated menuing using trusted friends' and family's recommendations
A recommendation platform that provides a menu of automated recommendations from on-line information by friends, with various weighting factors, to evaluate businesses. The platform is a software deployable system that amalgamates the candidate businesses into different categories and cross-references friends' experiences with these businesses. The interface utilizes a circular-like menu and is both compact and easily navigable.
1 . A recommendation system for aggregating and automatically presenting to a user, a weighted list of recommendations for goods and/or services based on information obtained from media accounts of friends of the user, comprising:
a recommendation application running on a user's device, presenting a user interface on a touch sensitive display of the device, level listings in a plane of the display being rotated parallel within the plane of the display, the user interface comprising:
a selectable first level listing of at least one of general goods and services organized into categories and ordered and displayed in a rotatable first geometric arrangement, each of the categories rotating in a first path having at least one of a clockwise and counterclockwise positioning defined by the first geometric arrangement on the display in response to a user's first motion on the first level listing on the display;
a selectable second level listing of types of the at least one of general goods and services organized into sets of sub-categories for each of the categories and, when a category is selected by the user, ordered and displayed in a second geometric arrangement, each of the sub-categories rotating in a second path having at least one of a clockwise and counterclockwise positioning defined by the second geometric arrangement on the display in response to a user's second motion on the second level listing on the display, wherein the sub-categories are populated with recommended vendors of the at least one of goods and services from the user's friends and, if there is no friends' recommendation, populated with non-friend recommended vendors from the recommendation system; and
a third level listing of contact and address information of the recommended vendors, a selected recommended vendor's contact and address information being displayed on the user device when the user selects a sub-category in the second level listing,
wherein the recommended vendors in at least one of the second and third level listings is weighted based on a distance from the user to the recommended vendors and a ranking based on trust levels of friends as assigned by the user to obtain friends' trust level-based recommendations;
a database containing friends' favorites or recommendations for vendors, originating from an independent media account of the friends; and
an application programming interface (API) communicating at least one of the user's selection of the categories and sub-categories to the database and communicating from the database at least one of the friend-based recommended vendors, the friends' trust level based recommendations, and non-friend recommended vendors to the at least one second and third level listings.
2 . The recommendation system of claim 1 , wherein the second level listing includes a third geometric arrangement of friend's images displaced from the second geometric arrangement of sub-categories, wherein a display ranking order of the friends in the third geometric arrangement is also based on the friends' trust level-based recommendations.
3 . The recommendation system of claim 2 , further comprising a friend trust menu, providing a user-selectable range of trust weighting values for a designated friend, the trust weighting values affecting a display ranking order of the friend in the third geometric arrangement.
4 . The recommendation system of claim 3 , further comprising a maximum trust weighting level option assignable to the designated friend.
5 . The recommendation system of claim 1 , wherein the independent media account of the friend is from a third-party.
6 . The recommendation system of claim 5 , wherein the system is not a stand alone social media site, but relying on friend information from the third party independent media account.
7 . The recommendation system of claim 6 , wherein the friend information is obtained via an OAuth request to the third party independent media account.
8 . The recommendation system of claim 1 , wherein the first and second geometric arrangements are at least one of circular and semi-circular.
9 . The recommendation system of claim 1 , further comprising a new vendor favoriting option for evaluating a new vendor by the user.
10 . The recommendation system of claim 1 , wherein the distance weighting (DW) for a user-to-vendor distance (D) is calculated as:
DW=1.5−( D* 0.01), when D is <=5;
DW=1.5−( D* 0.01), when D is >5 && D<= 15; and
DW=1 when D is >15,
where the values of D are in miles or kilometers.
11 . The recommendation system of claim 1 , further comprising an exchange of cares and shares between users.
12 . A method for aggregating and automatically presenting to a user, a weighted list of recommendations for businesses and/or services based on information obtained from media accounts of trusted friends, comprising:
displaying on a touch sensitive display of a user's smart device listings rotating within a plane parallel to the display, in a first geometric order, a first list of categories of at least one of general goods and services;
rotating in at least one of a clockwise and counterclockwise direction categories of the first list in a first path defined by the first geometric order, in response to a user's first motion on the display;
upon selection of a category in the first list by a user, displaying, on the user's smart device, in a second geometric order, a second list of types of the at least one goods and services organized into sets of sub-categories for each of the categories;
rotating the sub-categories in the second list in a second path defined by the second geometric order, in response to a user's second motion on the display;
populating the sub-categories with recommended vendors of the at least one goods and services from the user's friends and, if there is no friends' recommendation, with a non-friend recommended vendor from a recommendation system;
displaying, on the user's smart device, a selected vendor's contact and address information, the contact and address information being in a third list;
computing a display order of the recommended vendors in at least one of the second and third list based on a distance from the user, weighting of trust levels of the friends as assigned by the user, weighting of vendors by friends of the user, and weighting by the recommendation system;
storing via a database friends' recommendations for businesses and/or services, originating from a media account of the friends; and
an application programming interface communicating a selection of the user's categories and sub-categories to the database and communicating from the database a vendor recommendation using a ranking of different trust levels of the friends as assigned by the user and a non-friend based vendors recommendation from the recommendation system to the at least one second and third listings,
wherein the display of the second level and third list is based on a user's selection from a prior display.
13 . The recommendation method of claim 12 , further comprising displaying a third geometric order of friend's images displaced from the second geometric order of sub-categories, wherein a ranking order of the friends in the third geometric order is based on a number of times a vendor of the recommended vendors has been added as a favorite by friends of the user.
14 . The recommendation method of claim 12 , further comprising displaying a user-selectable range of trust weighting values for a designated friend, the trust weighting values affecting the ranking of the friend in the third geometric order.
15 . The recommendation method of claim 12 , wherein the media account is a social media account.
16 . The recommendation method of claim 12 , further comprising obtaining the friends' recommendation via an OAuth request the media account.
17 . The recommendation method of claim 12 , further comprising displaying a new vendor favoriting option for evaluating a new vendor by the user.
18 . The recommendation method of claim 12 , further comprising calculating the distance weighting (DW) for a user-to-vendor distance (D) according to:
DW=1.5−( D* 0.01), when D is <=5;
DW=1.5−( D* 0.01), when D is >5 && D<= 15; and
DW=1 when D is >15,
where the values of D are in miles or kilometers.
19 . The recommendation method of claim 12 , further comprising exchanging cares and shares between users.
20 . The recommendation method of claim 19 , wherein a care is rewarded to the user when their favorited at least one businesses and services are later favorited by friends, wherein the care incentivizes a value of authentic recommendations by reflecting a number of times the user's favorite influences their friends.
21 . The recommendation method of claim 20 , wherein the care is awarded to a first user who favorites at least one of a business, service, and entertainment when another user subsequently favorites the same at least one of the business, service, and entertainment, ensuring that authentic recommendations are incentivized and trusted within the user's network.
22 . The recommendation method of claim 19 , wherein a share represents a user's recommendation and cares represents validation of the recommendation by another user, enabling a feedback loop that encourages the sharing of trustworthy and valued recommendations.
23 . The recommendation method of claim 12 , further comprising:
aggregating favorites of at least one of businesses, services, and entertainment from other users followed by the user; and
displaying the aggregated favorites in a discover feed that allows the user to explore recommendations based on trusted connections.
24 . The recommendation method of claim 23 , wherein the discover feed includes an aggregated view of favorites from the user's friends, followers, and other users, wherein the aggregated view is displayed in a user interface allowing dynamic interaction with recommendations categorized by trust level and popularity.