Natural language search for audience
View Patent ↗A facility for defining a group of people is described. The facility provides a visual user interface containing a control for receiving a query string. The facility receives a query string via the control, and uses an index on a body of documents to identify documents of the body that satisfy the received query string. The facility accesses a record indicating which documents of the body were accessed by each of a population of people during a foregoing time period to identify people among the population that accessed at least a threshold number of the identified documents during the foregoing time period. The facility displays within the visual user interface, in conjunction with the control, information characterizing the people identified.
1. A method in a computing system for defining a group of people, comprising:
providing a visual user interface containing a control for receiving a query string;
receiving a query string via the control;
using an index on a body of documents to identify documents of the body that satisfy the received query string;
accessing a record indicating which documents of the body were accessed by each of a population of people during a foregoing time period to identify people among the population that accessed at least a threshold number of the identified documents during the foregoing time period; and
displaying within the visual user interface, in conjunction with the control, information characterizing the people identified.
2. The method of claim 1 wherein the displaying step is performed within 30 seconds of the receiving step.
3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving a modified query string via the control; and
repeating the two identifying acts and the displaying act with respect to the received modified query string.
4. The method of claim 1 wherein the body of documents is a set of web pages available at a subject web site.
5. The method of claim 4 , further comprising building the index based on the textual content of the web pages of the set.
6. The method of claim 1 wherein the threshold number is a constant.
7. The method of claim 1 wherein the threshold number is a predetermined percentage of the number of identified documents.
8. A computer-readable medium whose contents cause a computing system to define a group of people by:
providing a visual user interface containing a control for receiving a query string;
receiving a query string via the control;
using an index on a body of documents to identify documents of the body that satisfy the received query string;
accessing a record indicating which documents of the body were accessed by each of a population of people during a foregoing time period to identify people among the population that accessed at least a threshold number of the identified documents during the foregoing time period; and
displaying within the visual user interface, in conjunction with the control, information characterizing the people identified.