Patent Application
20130085900
As the use of network-based publication systems and marketplaces, such as on-line commerce services or auction services expands, and the volume of item listings in such applications increases, the speed, ease, and convenience with which information can be retrieved from such marketplaces increases in importance to customers.
Some embodiments are illustrated by way of example and not limitation in the figures of the accompanying drawings in which:
In the following description, for purposes of explanation, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of some example embodiments. It will be evident, however, to one skilled in the art that the present embodiments may be practiced without these specific details.
Some ecommerce site search pages allow shoppers to arrive at a product category by way of a special “Category” button, which may be similar to a browser search. However, studying shoppers' online shopping habits indicates that shoppers may be more likely to purchase when they quickly arrive into a category of desired products such as men's clothes, women's clothes, and the like, and then continue their search for items to purchase. However, shoppers sometime may be frustrated by the fact that they can arrive at a product category only through the classic, browser-like, search discussed above.
Likewise the perception of color offers issues to both sellers who list products for sale on an ecommerce site and shoppers who buy products on an ecommerce site. Sellers have voiced issues concerning the listing process that allows only one color of a given shade, for example, red only, to be selected when preparing a listing for a product that is a shade of red. Faced with a choice of merely red, sellers complain that color of their product may be burgundy or brick red, but their only choice of a color for listing their product is red. Further, this scarcity of color selection can lead to a purchaser complaining that the item purchased isn't as described because it is really a burgundy but was listed as merely red.
Study of shopper's shopping habits has also shown that shoppers shop by style, brand, material, or other aspects of the product being shopped for. However, most ecommerce sites do not provide the shopper with an aspect selection until the shopper has searched down the search tree. For example, a shopper may not see a brand of an item until the shopper is searching at a lower level of the search. Yet, shoppers often shop by brand, or size, or color, or material, as examples of aspects. Study of shoppers' online habits has found that shoppers may be more likely to purchase if product aspects can be seen at an early point in the item search, so that the shopper doesn't lose interest as the shopper proceeds down the search tree.
Additional study of shoppers' shopping habits has determined that shoppers tend to focus tightly on what is presented to them in a first category. It has been shown that if an ecommerce site introduces a second category to shoppers, they tend to continue shopping in the first category, but also sometimes shop in the second category as well. This can result in increased sales. This shopper behavior may be similar for brands, as well. For example, if a shopper in shopping for Hugo Boss clothes and the shopper is then presented with Hickey-Freeman as a brand, there may be a tendency to shop in both the Hugo Boss brand and the Hickey Freeman brand. This benefits both the shopper, who may have a better probability of finding what he or she wants or needs, and the ecommerce site, that may experience higher sales. Therefore it is helpful to suggest multiple brands to a shopper. One way this may be accomplished may be to present the shopper with not only the brand for which the shopper is searching, but also present the shopper with brands related to that brand.
The system and method disclosed herein thus provides for shoppers on an ecommerce site to enter the category of products being shopped more quickly, for shopping by aspects at an earlier level of an item search tree, for better selection of color by both sellers and shoppers, and for suggesting to a shopper brands that are related to the brand the shopper is searching for. Accordingly, one or more of the methodologies discussed herein may obviate a need for additional searching or navigation by the user, which may have the technical effect of reducing computing resources used by one or more devices within the system. Examples of such computing resources include, without limitation, processor cycles, network traffic, memory usage, storage space, and power consumption.
One example embodiment of a distributed network implementing image-based indexing for listings in a publication system is illustrated in the network diagram of
Turning specifically to the network-based marketplace platform 12, an Application Program Interface (API) server 24 and a web server 26 are coupled to, and provide programmatic and web interfaces respectively to, one or more application servers 28. The application servers 28 host one or more marketplace applications 30 and payment applications 32. The application servers 28 are, in turn, shown to be coupled to one or more databases servers 34 that facilitate access to a number of databases, in particular an item listing database 35, an image database 36, and an index database 37. The item listing database 35 stores data indicative of item listings for items which are offered for sale or auction on the platform 12. Each item listing includes, inter alia, a text description of the relevant item and metadata categorizing the item. The image database 36 includes images associated with respective item listings in the item listing database 35. The images in the image database 36 may be standard format image files such as JPEG files. The index database 37 contains index data relating to images in the image database to permit image-based searching of the image database 36. The format of index data in the index database 37 is described in more detail below.
The marketplace applications 30 provide a number of marketplace functions and services to users that access the marketplace platform 12. The payment applications 32 likewise provide a number of payment services and functions to users. The payment applications 32 may allow users to quantify for, and accumulate, value (e.g., in a commercial currency, such as the U.S. dollar, or a proprietary currency, such as “points”) in accounts, and then later to redeem the accumulated value for products (e.g., goods or services) that are made available via the marketplace applications 30. While the marketplace and payment applications 30 and 32 are shown in
Further, while the system 10 shown in
The web client 16, it will be appreciated, accesses the various marketplace and payment applications 30 and 32 via the web interface supported by the web server 26. Similarly, the programmatic client 18 accesses the various services and functions provided by the marketplace and payment applications 30 and 32 via the programmatic interface provided by the API server 24. The programmatic client 18 may, for example, be a seller application (e.g., the TurboLister application developed by eBay Inc., of San Jose, Calif.) to enable sellers to author and manage listings on the marketplace platform 12 in an off-line manner, and to perform batch-mode communications between the programmatic client 18 and the network-based marketplace platform 12.
A number of fixed-price applications 46 support fixed-price listing formats (e.g., the traditional classified advertisement-type listing or a catalogue listing) and buyout-type listings. Specifically, buyout-type listings (e.g., including the Buy-It-Now (BIN) technology developed by eBay Inc., of San Jose, Calif.) may be offered in conjunction with an auction-format listing, and allow a buyer to purchase goods or services, which are also being offered for sale via an auction, for a fixed-price that is typically higher than the starting price of the auction.
Store applications 48 allow sellers to group their listings within a “virtual” store, which may be branded and otherwise personalized by and for the sellers. Such a virtual store may also offer promotions, incentives and features that are specific and personalized to a relevant seller.
Reputation applications 50 allow parties that transact utilizing the network-based marketplace platform 12 to establish, build, and maintain reputations, which may be made available and published to potential trading partners. Consider that where, for example, the network-based marketplace platform 12 supports person-to-person trading, users may have no history or other reference information whereby the trustworthiness and credibility of potential trading partners may be assessed. The reputation application 50 allows a user, for example through feedback provided by other transaction partners, to establish a reputation within the network-based marketplace platform 12 over time. Other potential trading partners may then reference such a reputation for the purposes of assessing credibility and trustworthiness.
Personalization applications 52 allow users of the marketplace platform 12 to personalize various aspects of their interactions with the marketplace platform 12. For example a user may, utilizing an appropriate personalization application 52, create a personalized reference page at which information regarding transactions to which the user is (or has been) a party may be viewed. Further, a personalization application 52 may enable a user to personalize listings and other aspects of their interactions with the marketplace and other parties.
In one embodiment, the network-based marketplace platform 12 may support a number of marketplaces that are customized, for example, for specific geographic regions. A version of the marketplace may be customized for the United Kingdom, whereas another version of the marketplace may be customized for the United States. Each of these versions may operate as an independent marketplace, or may be customized (or internationalized) presentations of a common underlying marketplace.
Navigation of the network based-marketplace may be facilitated by one or more navigation applications 56. For example, a keyword search application 57 enables keyword searches of listings published via the marketplace platform 12. Similarly, an image search application 59 enables an image-based search of item listings published via the marketplace platform 12. To perform an image-based search, a user may submit a query image, whereupon the image search application 59 may compare the query image to images in the image database to produce a result list of item listings based on a similarity ranking between the query image and the images associated with the respective item listings. The comparison ranking is established by parsing or processing the query image to provide index data, and thereafter comparing the query image's index data to pre-compiled index data for the listing images, as described in more detail below. A browse application allows users to browse various category, catalogue, or inventory data structures according to which listings may be classified within the marketplace platform 12. Various other navigation applications may be provided to supplement the search and browsing applications.
In order to make listings, available via the network-based marketplace, as visually informative and attractive as possible, as well as to enable image-based searching, the marketplace applications 30 may include one or more imaging applications 58, which users may use to upload images for inclusion within listings. Images thus uploaded are stored in the image database 36, each image being associatively linked to at least one item listing in the item listing database 35. One of the imaging applications 58 also operates to incorporate images within viewed listings. The imaging applications 58 may also support one or more promotional features, such as image galleries that are presented to potential buyers. For example, sellers may pay an additional fee to have an image included within a gallery of images for promoted items.
The marketplace platform 12 may also include an index imaging application 61 to parse or process images uploaded via the image application 58, as well as to parse or process query images submitted via the image search application 59. The result of processing images by the image indexing application 61 is index data which is stored in the index database 37. Particular processes for indexing images, as well as the format of index data, are discussed in more detail below.
Listing creation applications 60 allow sellers conveniently to author listings pertaining to goods or services that they wish to transact via the marketplace platform 12, and listing management applications 62 allow sellers to manage such listings. Specifically, where a particular seller has authored and/or published a large number of listings, the management of such listings may present a challenge. The listing management applications 62 provide a number of features (e.g., auto-relisting, inventory level monitors, etc.) to assist the seller in managing such listings. One or more post-listing management applications 64 also assists sellers with a number of activities that typically occur post-listing. For example, upon completion of an auction facilitated by one or more auction applications 44, a seller may wish to leave feedback regarding a particular buyer. To this end, a post-listing management application 64 may provide an interface to one or more reputation applications 50, so as to allow the seller conveniently to provide feedback regarding multiple buyers to the reputation applications 50.
Dispute resolution applications 66 provide mechanisms whereby disputes arising between transacting parties may be resolved. For example, the dispute resolution applications 66 may provide guided procedures whereby the parties are guided through a number of steps in an attempt to settle a dispute. In the event that the dispute cannot be settled via the guided procedures, the dispute may be escalated to a third party mediator or arbitrator.
A number of fraud prevention applications 68 implement various fraud detection and prevention mechanisms to reduce the occurrence of fraud within the marketplace. One of the fraud prevention applications 68 may include automatic image comparison, by use of index data produced by the image indexing application 61 and stored in the index database 37. Such image comparison may be used by the fraud prevention application 68 automatically to detect listing images similar to the query image, and to alert a fraud assessor to such image listings, so that the human assessor can examine the identified item listing for assessing whether or not the identified item listing is a fraudulent listing.
Messaging applications 70 are responsible for the generation and delivery of messages to users of the network-based marketplace platform 12, such messages for example advising users regarding the status of listings at the marketplace (e.g., providing “outbid” notices to bidders during an auction process or providing promotional and merchandising information to users).
Merchandising applications 72 support various merchandising functions that are made available to sellers to enable sellers to increase sales via the marketplace platform 12. The merchandising applications 72 also operate the various merchandising features that may be invoked by sellers, and may monitor and track the success of merchandising strategies employed by sellers.
As discussed earlier, if a user is presented with related brands, within and across categories, the shopping experience can be enhanced. One embodiment for determining related brands is seen below.
By looking at queries performed by eBay users and appropriate user sessions, a network of queries may be created. In this network, queries may be connected with each other based on textual information as well as information inferred from queries, BINs, BIDs, and other activities performed by eBay users. More information may be found in “Inferring Semantic Query Relations from Collective User Behavior” {nparikh, nsundaresan}@ebay.com, CIKM 2008). For example, Nike shoes may be related to Reebok shoes, and Gucci bags may be related to Coach wallets and so on.
A seed list of popular brands on eBay may be provided by ecommerce system Category Managers. This set may be expanded to include more brands bought/sold on ecommerce systems by mining semantically similar brands from S. The set of popular brands thus obtained is referred to as P.
In an example embodiment, a BEE may be used to determine a brand intent in queries and item titles. The BEE may take in the list P as input. The BEE may also take in various sources/dictionaries which may provide synonyms for the values in P. Using this information, it may tag a query or product or title with a particular brand. Details are shown in the block diagram of
D may include dictionaries built using publication system data or external sources. These dictionaries will have synonyms of the form (d&g=dolce & gabbana; bcbg=bcbg max azria et al.).
BEE may take any query or item title as input and tag it with the correct brand. Some examples are given below:
By looking at past user activity M may map a query q to a category c. If in the history of user sessions after doing the query “battery,” 90% of people clicked on items listed in Category 81074 (Computers & Networking>Pc Components>For Desktops>Power Supplies>Standard ATX Power Supplies) and a remaining 10% of users clicked on items listed in Category 3312(Cell Phones & PDAs>Cell Phones & Smartphones) then M will decompose the query q=“battery” into a vector (cat-81074=90, cat-3312=10).
An example algorithm to build the index I1 is as follows:
An example algorithm to build the index I2 is as follows:
A final index I may be formed by merging indices I1 and I2. I1 is a measure of how likely a user is to be interested in brand x/category y given that she is interested in brand xp and category yp. I2 is a measure of how likely a user is to buy brand x/category y given that she bought brand xp/category yp. Here x may or may not be equal to xp and y may or may not be equal to yp. While merging the indices, what weights to use for I1 and I2 is determined by the use case. The weights will be different if the recommendations are to be displayed on a search page versus a post auction win merchandizing email and so on.
The relationships obtained in index I may be as follows:
The above means that the brand S&S in category 6304 is related to the brand S&S in category 6244(Same Brand/Different Category); The brand Dooney&Burke in category 63852 is related to the brand Coach in category 63852(Different Brand/Same Category); the brand Onkyo in category 72406 is related to the brand Yamaha in category 3280 (Different Category/Different Brand) and 0.02, 4291.83 . . . and 0.02029 . . . indicate the strengths of these relationships.
These relationships may be pruned based on strength scores. These relationships may also be used to find out popular brands in a category and popular categories for a brand.
In the example interface shown in
A commonly used ecommerce web site navigation page may be seen in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/073,926 entitled “TWO-PASS SEARCHING FOR IMAGE SIMILARITY OF DIGESTS OF IMAGE-BASED LISTINGS IN A NETWORK-BASED PUBLICATION SYSTEM,” filed Mar. 28, 2011 and incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. The page illustrates how a shopper may navigate to a product category by beginning at a selectable category button such as “Fashion” and then ultimately refining down to the desired item. This may be called a classic search.
It has been discovered by studying shoppers’ online shopping habits that shoppers may be more likely to purchase when they quickly get into a product category such as, for example, men's clothes or women's clothes, and then continue their search as above. However, shoppers sometimes may be frustrated by the fact that they may arrive at a product category only through the classic, browser-like, search discussed above. Shoppers' habits indicate a desire to enter into a category by using the search box found at the top of a search page seen in the application cited next above.
This desire may be fulfilled by designing the search page so that the shopper may be presented with a plurality of category choices, as if being asked a question such as “what are you looking for?” “Are you looking for men's clothing?” That is, the shopper may be presented with categories to select, much like answering the question by continuing their search in the selected category. This may be done by silhouettes that indicate product categories, or it may be done by a pop-up window that indicates product categories, or a combination of both. Silhouettes that may be adapted for this purpose may be seen in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/011,510 entitled “MULTILEVEL SILHOUETTES IN AN ONLINE SHOPPING ENVIRONMENT,” filed Jan 21, 2011, Incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
An illustration of this may be seen in
As discussed above, a study of shopper's shopping habits has also discovered that shoppers shop by style, brand, material, or other aspects of the product being shopped for. However, ecommerce sites do not provide the shopper with an aspect selection until the shopper has searched down the search tree. For example, a shopper may not see a brand of an item until the shopper is searching at a lower level of the search. An example of the usual ecommerce site landing page that exhibits the foregoing shortcomings may be seen in the above reference U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/073,926. Yet, as mentioned, shoppers often shop by brand, or size, or color, or material, as examples of aspects. To provide product aspects early in the search enhances the shopping and helps insure that the shopper does not lose interest as she proceeds down the search tree. One example of this may be seen in
To determine what the shopper may be looking for, a question 505 such as “Are you looking for?” may be presented. An answer to this question may be selected by the shopper from a series of silhouettes illustrating item categories for the brand entered, ranging, for example, from Ralph Lauren men's clothing to Ralph Lauren women's shoes, Ralph Lauren women's bags, Ralph Lauren's men's accessories, Ralph Lauren women's accessories, and Ralph Lauren men's accessories as presented in
It has also been learned by studying the habits of shoppers that shoppers sometimes become confused because the brand scroll box 519 of
As discussed above, if a shopper is shopping for a first brand and is then presented with a second, perhaps related, brand, there may be a tendency for the shopper to shop in both the first brand and the second brand. This benefits both the shopper, who may have a better probability of finding what the shopper wants or needs, and the ecommerce site, that may experience higher sales. Therefore it may be helpful to suggest multiple brands to a shopper. One way this may be accomplished is to present the shopper with not only the brand for which the shopper may be searching, but also present the shopper with brands related to that brand.
One way to implement displaying related brands to the shopper may be seen in
Referring again to
A method of using the color picker 507 of
Decision 603 may determine that the user is not a seller listing an item and at decision 609 may determine whether the user is a shopper searching for an item. If the user is a shopper, then at decision 611, the system may determine whether color may be an aspect of the item. If color is an aspect, then at operation 613, the system may detect a color (e.g., “reds”) selected by a shopper from a pluralized color selector such as the color picker 507 of
In another embodiment that allows a more precise selection of color, once the seller selects a color, a pop-up window or layer with selectable tabs or buttons for a more nearly precise shade of the color may be presented with additional shades of the color. For example, if a white button 522 in
A method of using the color picker 507 of
Decision 603 of
Certain embodiments are described herein as including logic or a number of components, modules, or mechanisms. A component is a tangible unit capable of performing certain operations and may be configured or arranged in a certain manner. In example embodiments, one or more computer systems (e.g., a standalone, client or server computer system) or one or more components of a computer system (e.g., a processor or a group of processors) may be configured by software (e.g., an application or application portion) as a component that operates to perform certain operations as described herein.
In various embodiments, a component may be implemented mechanically or electronically. For example, a component may comprise dedicated circuitry or logic that is permanently configured (e.g., as a special-purpose processor) to perform certain operations. A component may also comprise programmable logic or circuitry (e.g., as encompassed within a general-purpose processor or other programmable processor) that is temporarily configured by software to perform certain operations. It will be appreciated that the decision to implement a component mechanically, in dedicated and permanently configured circuitry, or in temporarily configured circuitry (e.g., configured by software) may be driven by cost and time considerations.
Accordingly, the term “component” should be understood to encompass a tangible entity, be that an entity that is physically constructed, permanently configured (e.g., hardwired) or temporarily configured (e.g., programmed) to operate in a certain manner and/or to perform certain operations described herein. Considering embodiments in which components are temporarily configured (e.g., programmed), each of the components need not be configured or instantiated at any one instance in time. For example, where the components comprise a general-purpose processor configured using software, the general-purpose processor may be configured as respective different components at different times. Software may accordingly configure a processor, for example, to constitute a particular component at one instance of time and to constitute a different component at a different instance of time.
Components can provide information to, and receive information from, other components. Accordingly, the described components may be regarded as being communicatively coupled. Where multiple of such components exist contemporaneously, communications may be achieved through signal transmission (e.g., over appropriate circuits and buses) that connect the components. In embodiments in which multiple components are configured or instantiated at different times, communications between such components may be achieved, for example, through the storage and retrieval of information in memory structures to which the multiple components have access. For example, one component may perform an operation, and store the output of that operation in a memory device to which it is communicatively coupled. A further component may then, at a later time, access the memory device to retrieve and process the stored output. Components may also initiate communications with input or output devices, and can operate on a resource (e.g., a collection of information).
The various operations of example methods described herein may be performed, at least partially, by one or more processors that are temporarily configured (e.g., by software) or permanently configured to perform the relevant operations. Whether temporarily or permanently configured, such processors may constitute processor-implemented modules that operate to perform one or more operations or functions. The modules referred to herein may, in some example embodiments, comprise processor-implemented modules.
Similarly, the methods described herein may be at least partially processor-implemented. For example, at least some of the operations of a method may be performed by one or more processors or processor-implemented modules. The performance of some of the operations may be distributed among the one or more processors, not only residing within a single machine, but deployed across a number of machines. In some example embodiments, the processor or processors may be located in a single location (e.g., within a home environment, an office environment or as a server farm), while in other embodiments the processors may be distributed across a number of locations.
The one or more processors may also operate to support performance of the relevant operations in a “cloud computing” environment or as a “software as a service” (SaaS). For example, at least some of the operations may be performed by a group of computers (as examples of machines including processors), these operations being accessible via a network (e.g., the Internet) and via one or more appropriate interfaces (e.g., Application Program Interfaces (APIs)).
Example embodiments may be implemented in digital electronic circuitry, or in computer hardware, firmware, software, or in combinations thereof. Example embodiments may be implemented using a computer program product, e.g., a computer program tangibly embodied in an information carrier, e.g., in a machine-readable medium for execution by, or to control the operation of, data processing apparatus, e.g., a programmable processor, a computer, or multiple computers.
A computer program can be written in any form of programming language, including compiled or interpreted languages, and it can be deployed in any form, including as a stand-alone program or as a module, subroutine, or other unit suitable for use in a computing environment. A computer program can be deployed to be executed on one computer or on multiple computers at one site or distributed across multiple sites and interconnected by a communication network.
In example embodiments, operations may be performed by one or more programmable processors executing a computer program to perform functions by operating on input data and generating output. Method operations can also be performed by, and apparatus of example embodiments may be implemented as, special purpose logic circuitry, e.g., a field programmable gate array (FPGA) or an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC).
The computing system can include clients and servers. A client and server are generally remote from each other and typically interact through a communication network. The relationship of client and server arises by virtue of computer programs running on the respective computers and having a client-server relationship to each other. In embodiments deploying a programmable computing system, it will be appreciated that both hardware and software architectures require consideration. Specifically, it will be appreciated that the choice of whether to implement certain functionality in permanently configured hardware (e.g., an ASIC), in temporarily configured hardware (e.g., a combination of software and a programmable processor), or a combination of permanently and temporarily configured hardware may be a design choice. Below are set out hardware (e.g., machine) and software architectures that may be deployed, in various example embodiments.
In some embodiments, the described methods may be implemented using one of a distributed or non-distributed software application designed under a three-tier architecture paradigm. Under this paradigm, various parts of computer code (or software) that instantiate or configure components or modules may be categorized as belonging to one or more of these three tiers. Some embodiments may include a first tier as an interface (e.g., an interface tier). Further, a second tier may be a logic (or application) tier that performs application processing of data inputted through the interface level. The logic tier may communicate the results of such processing to the interface tier, and/or to a backend, or storage tier. The processing performed by the logic tier may relate to certain rules, or processes that govern the software as a whole. A third, storage tier, may be a persistent storage medium, or a non-persistent storage medium. In some cases, one or more of these tiers may be collapsed into another, resulting in a two-tier architecture, or even a one-tier architecture. For example, the interface and logic tiers may be consolidated, or the logic and storage tiers may be consolidated, as in the case of a software application with an embedded database. The three-tier architecture may be implemented using one technology, or, a variety of technologies. The example three-tier architecture, and the technologies through which it is implemented, may be realized on one or more computer systems operating, for example, as a standalone system, or organized in a server-client, peer-to-peer, distributed or some other suitable configuration. Further, these three tiers may be distributed between more than one computer systems as various components.
Example embodiments may include the above described tiers, and processes or operations about constituting these tiers may be implemented as components. Common to many of these components is the ability to generate, use, and manipulate data. The components, and the functionality associated with each, may form part of standalone, client, server, or peer computer systems. The various components may be implemented by a computer system on an as-needed basis. These components may include software written in an object-oriented computer language such that a component oriented, or object-oriented programming technique can be implemented using a Visual Component Library (VCL), Component Library for Cross Platform (CLX), Java Beans (JB), Java Enterprise Beans (EJB), Component Object Model (COM), Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM), or other suitable technique.
Software for these components may further enable communicative coupling to other components (e.g., via various Application Programming interfaces (APIs)), and may be compiled into one complete server, client, and/or peer software application. Further, these APIs may be able to communicate through various distributed programming protocols as distributed computing components.
Some example embodiments may include remote procedure calls being used to implement one or more of the above described components across a distributed programming environment as distributed computing components. For example, an interface component (e.g., an interface tier) may form part of a first computer system that is remotely located from a second computer system containing a logic component (e.g., a logic tier). These first and second computer systems may be configured in a standalone, server-client, peer-to-peer, or some other suitable configuration. Software for the components may be written using the above described object-oriented programming techniques, and can be written in the same programming language, or a different programming language. Various protocols may be implemented to enable these various components to communicate regardless of the programming language used to write these components. For example, a component written in C++ may be able to communicate with another component written in the Java programming language through utilizing a distributed computing protocol such as a Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA), a Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), or some other suitable protocol. Some embodiments may include the use of one or more of these protocols with the various protocols outlined in the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model, or Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) protocol stack model for defining the protocols used by a network to transmit data.
Example embodiments may use the OSI model or TCP/IP protocol stack model for defining the protocols used by a network to transmit data. In applying these models, a system of data transmission between a server and client, or between peer computer systems may for example include five layers comprising: an application layer, a transport layer, a network layer, a data link layer, and a physical layer. In the case of software, for instantiating or configuring components, having a three-tier architecture, the various tiers (e.g., the interface, logic, and storage tiers) reside on the application layer of the TCP/IP protocol stack. In an example implementation using the TCP/IP protocol stack model, data from an application residing at the application layer is loaded into the data load field of a TCP segment residing at the transport layer. This TCP segment also contains port information for a recipient software application residing remotely. This TCP segment is loaded into the data load field of an IP datagram residing at the network layer. Next, this IP datagram is loaded into a frame residing at the data link layer. This frame is then encoded at the physical layer, and the data transmitted over a network such as an internet, Local Area Network (LAN), Wide Area Network (WAN), or some other suitable network. In some cases, internet refers to a network of networks. These networks may use a variety of protocols for the exchange of data, including the aforementioned TCP/IP, and additionally ATM, SNA, SDI, or some other suitable protocol. These networks may be organized within a variety of topologies (e.g., a star topology), or structures.
Although an embodiment has been described with reference to specific example embodiments, it will be evident that various modifications and changes may be made to these embodiments without departing from the broader spirit and scope of the embodiment. Accordingly, the specification and drawings are to be regarded in an illustrative rather than a restrictive sense. The accompanying drawings that form a part hereof, show by way of illustration, and not of limitation, specific embodiments in which the subject matter may be practiced. The embodiments illustrated are described in sufficient detail to enable those skilled in the art to practice the teachings disclosed herein. Other embodiments may be utilized and derived therefrom, such that structural and logical substitutions and changes may be made without departing from the scope of this disclosure. This Detailed Description, therefore, is not to be taken in a limiting sense, and the scope of various embodiments is defined only by the appended claims, along with the full range of equivalents to which such claims are entitled.
The example computer system 700 includes a processor 702 (e.g., a central processing unit (CPU) a graphics processing unit (GPU) or both), a main memory 704 and a static memory 706, which communicate with each other via a bus 708. The computer system 700 may further include a video display unit 710 (e.g., a liquid crystal display (LCD) or a cathode ray tube (CRT)). The computer system 700 also includes an alphanumeric input device 712 (e.g., a keyboard), a cursor control device 714 (e.g., a mouse), a disk drive unit 716, a signal generation device 718 (e.g., a speaker) and a network interface device 720.
The disk drive unit 716 includes a machine-readable medium 722 on which is stored one or more sets of instructions (e.g., software 724) embodying any one or more of the methodologies or functions described herein. The software 724 may also reside, completely or at least partially, within the main memory 704 and/or within the processor 702 during execution thereof by the computer system 700, the main memory 704 and the processor 702 also constituting machine-readable media.
The software 724 may further be transmitted or received over a network 726 via the network interface device 720.
While the machine-readable medium 722 is shown in an example embodiment to be a single medium, the term “machine-readable medium” should be taken to include a single medium or multiple media (e.g., a centralized or distributed database, and/or associated caches and servers) that store the one or more sets of instructions. The term “machine-readable medium” shall also be taken to include any medium that is capable of storing, encoding or carrying a set of instructions for execution by the machine and that cause the machine to perform any one or more of the methodologies described herein. The term “machine-readable medium” shall accordingly be taken to include, but not be limited to, solid-state memories, optical and magnetic media, and carrier wave signals.
The tables 800 also include an items table 804 in which are maintained item records for goods and services that are available to be, or have been, transacted via the networked system 12. Each item record within the items table 804 may furthermore be linked to one or more user records within the user table 802, so as to associate a seller and one or more actual or potential buyers with each item record.
The items table 804 may be connected to an image table which contains images associated with the respective items or item listings in the items table 804. The image table 820 is in turn connected to an index data table 830 which contains index data as described in detail above.
A transaction table 806 contains a record for each transaction (e.g., a purchase or sale transaction) pertaining to items for which records exist within the items table 804.
An order table 808 is populated with order records, each order record being associated with an order. Each order, in turn, may be with respect to one or more transactions for which records exist within the transaction table 806.
Bid records within a bids table 810 each relate to a bid received at the networked system 12 in connection with an auction-format listing supported by an auction application 32. A feedback table 812 is utilized by one or more reputation applications 50, in one example embodiment, to construct and maintain reputation information concerning users. A history table 814 maintains a history of transactions to which a user has been a party. One or more attributes tables 816 record attribute information pertaining to items for which records exist within the items table 804. Considering only a single example of such an attribute, the attributes tables 816 may indicate a currency attribute associated with a particular item, the currency attribute identifying the currency of a price for the relevant item as specified in by a seller.
Thus, a method and system to index images and to perform an image-based search in a network-based marketplace have been described. Although the present method and system have been described with reference to specific example embodiments, it will be evident that various modifications and changes may be made to these embodiments without departing from the broader spirit and scope of the application. Accordingly, the specification and drawings are to be regarded in an illustrative rather than a restrictive sense.
The Abstract of the Disclosure is provided to comply with 37 C.F.R. §1.72(b), requiring an abstract that will allow the reader to quickly ascertain the nature of the technical disclosure. It is submitted with the understanding that it will not be used to interpret or limit the scope or meaning of the claims. In addition, in the foregoing Detailed Description, it can be seen that various features are grouped together in a single embodiment for the purpose of streamlining the disclosure. This method of disclosure is not to be interpreted as reflecting an intention that the claimed embodiments require more features than are expressly recited in each claim. Rather, as the following claims reflect, inventive subject matter lies in less than all features of a single disclosed embodiment. Thus the following claims are hereby incorporated into the Detailed Description, with each claim standing on its own as a separate embodiment.
