Patent Application
20150221037
This disclosure relates generally to optimizing application design optimization and, more particularly, to systems and methods for allocating investment fund for an application to maximize revenue generation by the application.
Advances in mobile technology platforms and Internet protocols have encouraged many organizations to move their transactions into the digital space. For example, retailers of all sizes are increasingly reliant on websites and digital applications to sell their products and/or services, negotiate pricing and support arrangements, receive and respond to customer feedback and requests, and collect data about usage patterns and trends. As a result, websites and digital applications have become an important gateway between transacting parties for purposes of electronic commerce.
Websites and digital applications may include a large number of related web pages in connection with advertisement and/or sales of goods or services. Individual web pages may be linked together using hyperlinks that allow a user to navigate to different pages within the web site to locate content of interest or perform transactions. Due to the large number of webpages and hyperlinks, it may be difficult for owners of the website and applications to estimate the amount of spending allocated to each web page and/or hyperlink to maximize revenue for the owner of the website, especially under the constraint of a limited investment fund.
According to an exemplary embodiment, a method for optimizing investment fund allocation for an application is provided. The method may include identifying a directed graph representative of the application, the directed graph comprising a plurality of nodes and paths, wherein an incremental investment amount and an incremental revenue value are associated with the respective nodes and paths; determining, using a computer processor, a path of the directed graph that provides a maximum return on investment among the plurality of paths of the directed graph; allocating an investment amount, equaling the incremental investment amount associated with the path, to the path of the directed graph; and updating the incremental revenue value associated with the respective nodes and paths based on the incremental revenue value associated with the path of the directed graph. The method may further include repeating the determining, allocating, and updating steps until no investment amount is available. Determining the path of the directed graph that provides the maximum return on investment may be based, at least in part, on a ratio of the incremental revenue value to the incremental investment amount associated with the respective nodes and paths. Determining the path of the directed graph that provides the maximum return on investment may include sorting, a plurality of paths associated with the respective nodes, according to the ratio of the incremental revenue value to the incremental investment amount for the plurality of paths associated with the respective nodes. The method may further include determining that remaining investment funds are insufficient to allocate to a particular path of the directed graph, determining that a user selects to maximize spending with best possible return on investment, and excluding the particular path as the path of the directed graph. In addition, updating the incremental revenue value associated with the respective nodes and paths may include determining that one or more of the respective nodes and paths share a common node with the path of the directed graph, and increasing, the incremental revenue value associated with the one or more of the respective nodes and path, by a first amount, based at least in part, on the incremental revenue value associated with the path of the directed graph. Updating the incremental revenue value associated with the respective nodes and paths may further include determining that the one or more of the respective nodes and paths share a common link with the path of the directed graph, and increasing, the incremental revenue value associated with the one or more respective nodes and path, by a second amount, based at least in part, on the incremental revenue value associated with the path of the directed graph. The application may be an e-commerce website.
According to another exemplary embodiment, a system for optimizing investment fund allocation for an application is provided. The system may include a one or more hardware processors and a memory storing instructions that, when executed by the one or more hardware processors, may cause the one or more hardware processors to perform operations including: identifying a directed graph representative of the application, the directed graph comprising a plurality of nodes and paths, wherein an incremental investment amount and an incremental revenue value are associated with the respective nodes and paths; determining a path of the directed graph that provides a maximum return on investment among the plurality of paths of the directed graph; allocating an investment amount, equaling the incremental investment amount associated with the path, to the path of the directed graph; and updating the incremental revenue value associated with the respective nodes and paths based on the incremental revenue value associated with the path of the directed graph.
According to another exemplary embodiment, a non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions for optimizing investment fund allocation for an application is provided. The non-transitory computer-readable medium, when executed by a processor, may cause the processor to perform operations including: identifying a directed graph representative of the application, the directed graph comprising a plurality of nodes and paths, wherein an incremental investment amount and an incremental revenue value are associated with the respective nodes and paths; determining a path of the directed graph that provides a maximum return on investment among the plurality of paths of the directed graph; allocating an investment amount, equaling the incremental investment amount associated with the path, to the path of the directed graph; and updating the incremental revenue value associated with the respective nodes and paths based on the incremental revenue value associated with the path of the directed graph.
Additional objects and advantages of the present disclosure will be set forth in part in the following detailed description, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the present disclosure. The objects and advantages of the present disclosure will be realized and attained by means of the elements and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims.
It is to be understood that the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary and explanatory only, and are not restrictive of the invention, as claimed.
The accompanying drawings, which constitute a part of this specification, illustrate several embodiments and, together with the description, serve to explain the disclosed principles.
Exemplary embodiments are described with reference to the accompanying drawings. In the figures, the left-most digit(s) of a reference number identifies the figure in which the reference number first appears. Wherever convenient, the same reference numbers are used throughout the drawings to refer to the same or like parts. While examples and features of disclosed principles are described herein, modifications, adaptations, and other implementations are possible without departing from the spirit and scope of the disclosed embodiments. Also, the words “comprising,” “having,” “containing,” and “including,” and other similar forms are intended to be equivalent in meaning and be open ended in that an item or items following any one of these words is not meant to be an exhaustive listing of such item or items, or meant to be limited to only the listed item or items. It must also be noted that as used herein and in the appended claims, the singular forms “a,” “an,” and “the” include plural references unless the context clearly dictates otherwise. It is intended that the following detailed description be considered as exemplary only, with the true scope and spirit being indicated by the following claims.
Processor 102 may be disposed in communication with one or more input/output (I/O) devices via I/O interface 103. I/O interface 103 may employ communication protocols/methods such as, without limitation, audio, analog, digital, monoaural, RCA, stereo, IEEE-1394, serial bus, universal serial bus (USB), infrared, PS/2, BNC, coaxial, component, composite, digital visual interface (DVI), high-definition multimedia interface (HDMI), RF antennas, S-Video, VGA, IEEE 802.11 a/b/g/n/x, Bluetooth, cellular (e.g., code-division multiple access (CDMA), high-speed packet access (HSPA+), global system for mobile communications (GSM), long-term evolution (LTE), WiMax, or the like), etc.
Using I/O interface 103, computer system 101 may communicate with one or more I/O devices. For example, input device 104 may be an antenna, keyboard, mouse, joystick, (infrared) remote control, camera, card reader, fax machine, dongle, biometric reader, microphone, touch screen, touchpad, trackball, sensor (e.g., accelerometer, light sensor, GPS, gyroscope, proximity sensor, or the like), stylus, scanner, storage device, transceiver, video device/source, visors, etc. Output device 105 may be a printer, fax machine, video display (e.g., cathode ray tube (CRT), liquid crystal display (LCD), light-emitting diode (LED), plasma, or the like), audio speaker, etc. In some embodiments, a transceiver 106 may be disposed in connection with the processor 102. The transceiver may facilitate various types of wireless transmission or reception. For example, the transceiver may include an antenna operatively connected to a transceiver chip (e.g., Texas Instruments WiLink WL1283, Broadcom BCM47501UB8, Infineon Technologies X-Gold 618-PMB9800, or the like), providing IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n, Bluetooth, FM, global positioning system (GPS), 2G/3G HSDPA/HSUPA communications, etc.
In some embodiments, processor 102 may be disposed in communication with a communication network 108 via a network interface 107. Network interface 107 may communicate with communication network 108. Network interface 107 may employ connection protocols including, without limitation, direct connect, Ethernet (e.g., twisted pair 10/100/1000 Base T), transmission control protocol/internet protocol (TCP/IP), token ring, IEEE 802.1 a/b/g/n/x, etc. Communication network 108 may include, without limitation, a direct interconnection, local area network (LAN), wide area network (WAN), wireless network (e.g., using Wireless Application Protocol), the Internet, etc. Using network interface 107 and communication network 108, computer system 101 may communicate with devices 110A-C (collectively “user devices 110”). These devices may include, without limitation, personal computer(s), server(s), fax machines, printers, scanners, various mobile devices such as cellular telephones, smartphones (e.g., Apple iPhone, Blackberry, Android-based phones, etc.), tablet computers, eBook readers (Amazon Kindle, Nook, etc.), laptop computers, notebooks, gaming consoles (Microsoft Xbox, Nintendo DS, Sony PlayStation, etc.), or the like. In some embodiments, computer system 101 may itself embody one or more of these devices.
In some embodiments, processor 102 may be disposed in communication with one or more memory devices (e.g., RAM 113, ROM 114, etc.) via a storage interface 112. The storage interface may connect to memory devices including, without limitation, memory drives, removable disc drives, etc., employing connection protocols such as serial advanced technology attachment (SATA), integrated drive electronics (IDE), IEEE-1394, universal serial bus (USB), fiber channel, small computer systems interface (SCSI), etc. The memory drives may further include a drum, magnetic disc drive, magneto-optical drive, optical drive, redundant array of independent discs (RAID), solid-state memory devices, solid-state drives, etc. Variations of memory devices may be used for implementing, for example, one or more modules, such as investment optimization module 325 and graph file system 310, as shown in
The memory devices may store a collection of program or database components, including, without limitation, an operating system 116, user interface application 117, web browser 118, mail server 119, mail client 120, user/application data 121 (e.g., any data variables or data records discussed in this disclosure), etc. Operating system 116 may facilitate resource management and operation of computer system 101. Examples of operating systems include, without limitation, Apple Macintosh OS X, Unix, Unix-like system distributions (e.g., Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, etc.), Linux distributions (e.g., Red Hat, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, etc.), IBM OS/2, Microsoft Windows (XP, Vista/7/8, etc.), Apple iOS, Google Android, Blackberry OS, or the like. User interface 117 may facilitate display, execution, interaction, manipulation, or operation of program components through textual or graphical facilities. For example, user interfaces may provide computer interaction interface elements on a display system operatively connected to computer system 101, such as cursors, icons, check boxes, menus, scrollers, windows, widgets, etc. Graphical user interfaces (GUIs) may be employed, including, without limitation, Apple Macintosh operating systems' Aqua, IBM OS/2, Microsoft Windows (e.g., Aero, Metro, etc.), Unix X-Windows, web interface libraries (e.g., ActiveX, Java, Javascript, AJAX, HTML, Adobe Flash, etc.), or the like.
In some embodiments, computer system 101 may implement a web browser 118 stored program component. The web browser may be a hypertext viewing application, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, etc. Secure web browsing may be provided using HTTPS (secure hypertext transport protocol), secure sockets layer (SSL), Transport Layer Security (TLS), etc. Web browsers may utilize facilities such as AJAX, DHTML, Adobe Flash, JavaScript, Java, application programming interfaces (APIs), etc. In some embodiments, computer system 101 may implement a mail server 119 stored program component. Mail server 119 may be an Internet mail server such as Microsoft Exchange, or the like. Mail server 119 may utilize facilities such as ASP, ActiveX, ANSI C++/C#, Microsoft .NET, CGI scripts, Java, JavaScript, PERL, PHP, Python, WebObjects, etc. Mail server 119 may utilize communication protocols such as internet message access protocol (IMAP), messaging application programming interface (MAPI), Microsoft Exchange, post office protocol (POP), simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP), or the like. In some embodiments, computer system 101 may implement a mail client 120 stored program component. Mail client 120 may be a mail viewing application, such as Apple Mail, Microsoft Entourage, Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird, etc.
In some embodiments, computer system 101 may store user/application data 121, such as the data, variables, records, etc. (e.g., record of transactions, response objects, response chunks) as described in this disclosure. Such databases may be implemented as fault-tolerant, relational, scalable, secure databases such as Oracle or Sybase. Alternatively, such databases may be implemented using standardized data structures, such as an array, hash, linked list, struct, structured text file (e.g., XML), table, or as object-oriented databases (e.g., using ObjectStore, Poet, Zope, etc.). Such databases may be consolidated or distributed, sometimes among the various computer systems discussed above in this disclosure. It is to be understood that the structure and operation of any computer or database component may be combined, consolidated, or distributed in any working combination.
The specification has described systems and methods for allocating funds for an application. It should be understood that an application may include a website application, or any other internet or mobile application without departing from the scope of the present disclosure.
The illustrated components and steps are set out to explain the exemplary embodiments shown, and it should be anticipated that ongoing technological development will change the manner in which particular functions are performed. These examples are presented herein for purposes of illustration, and not limitation. Further, the boundaries of the functional building blocks have been arbitrarily defined herein for the convenience of the description. Alternative boundaries can be defined so long as the specified functions and relationships thereof are appropriately performed. Alternatives (including equivalents, extensions, variations, deviations, etc., of those described herein) will be apparent to persons skilled in the relevant art(s) based on the teachings contained herein. Such alternatives fall within the scope and spirit of the disclosed embodiments.
As illustrated in
The nodes of the directed graph in connection with an application may include one or more revenue nodes corresponding to pages where customers make a confirmed purchase, such as nodes 2 and 6 in
An organization or business entity may make investments across one or more paths in the directed graph to improve revenue. For example, the organization may improve the design of a webpage, corresponding to a node of the directed graph, to attract more sales of the listed products. As another example, an organization may devote more advertising or marketing resources to that page. Consistent with some embodiments of the present disclosure, the computer system 101 may analyze attributes associated with the plurality of nodes and paths in the directed graph and determine a scheme to allocate the investment fund among the plurality of nodes and paths.
Fund allocation system 300 may communicate with one or more external systems, such as a web analytics system, via external system interface 305. For example, external system interface 305 may receive inputs, such as revenue realized on a path, or provide outputs, such as investment fund allocation plan, to external systems. External system interface 305 can be a software program and/or a hardware device.
Fund allocation system 300 may communicate with one or more users, e.g., user 345, via user interface and/or display module 315. User 345 may provide input to fund allocation system 300 or view the output generated by fund allocation system 300 via user interface and/or display module 315. In some embodiments, user 345 may provide input, e.g., total amount of investment fund available, for investment fund allocation. In some embodiments, user 345 may select different modes for fund allocation via user interface and/or display module 315. For example, user 345 may select to maximize spending with best possible return on investment, or user 345 may select to maximize return on investment.
User interface and/or display module 315 may display a directed graph or navigation tree representative of an application to user 345. In some embodiments, user 345 may select to reconfigure paths of the navigation tree representative of an application via user interface and/or display module 315. User interface and/or display module 315 may then send the path reconfiguration request to path reconfiguration module 320 for processing. Path reconfiguration module 320 may reconfigure the navigation tree representative of an application to implement a hypothetical scenario (e.g., a WHAT-IF scenario) for testing or analysis. In some embodiments, path reconfiguration module 210 may also output a modified website/webpage or application that reflects the reconfigured navigation tree.
Graph file system 310 may receive inputs from other modules or systems of fund allocation system 300, and generate a directed graph or navigation tree for an application of interest. For example, graph file system 310 may interact with external system interface 305 or user interface and/or display module 315 to receive input information associated with an application, identify a directed graph representation of the application, and provide the graph representation to an external system or user. In some implementations, graph file system 310 may receive the graph representative an application from a user or external system directly.
Validation system 330 may validate the graph provided by graph file system 310 by checking whether there exist any inconsistencies (e.g., infinite cyclic loops and the like) in the graph. For example, validation system 330 may perform validation of a directed graph by ensuring that all nodes are connected and the specified attributes associated with the nodes and paths are consistent. Validation of a directed graph may be performed, for example, each time a directed graph is generated by graph file system 310. The graph provided by graph file system 310 and data structures associated with the graph may be stored in graph database 335.
Investment optimization module 325 may compute an optimized investment plan on investment fund allocation across multiple nodes and paths, based on the graph representation of the application provided by graph file system 310, in order to achieve the best return on investment. In computing the optimized investment plan, investment optimization module 325 may take into account of the user input, such as, the available investment amount, user preferences on how to spend the fund, etc. Investment optimization module 325 may also take into account of the attributes associated with the nodes and paths stored in attributes database 340, to compute the optimized investment plan. For example, investment optimization module 325 may use linear programming techniques for the optimization.
Attributes database 340 may store attributes associated with each path and/or node of the directed graph representative of an application. The attributes may include current spending level, current revenue earning, incremental investment amount, incremental revenue amount, or the like, for each path/or node in the directed graph. The attributes data may be provided by user 345 through user interface and/or display module 315, or by external systems via external system interface 305. In some embodiments, attributes database 340 may also store outputs generated by investment optimization module 325 when computing the optimized investment plan.
At step 404, the investment fund allocation process may build a directed graph, e.g., a navigation tree, based on the information gathered from the user or external system. For example, the investment fund allocation process may identify a directed graph based on inputs related to a navigation tree service. In the case of navigation tree service comprising a website or application, the investment fund allocation process may identify a root node corresponding to the homepage of the website, or the main view of the application. The investment fund allocation process may also identify the connection between the webpages, that is, the paths of the directed graph. The investment fund allocation process may display the graph including nodes, edges, paths, and attributes levels, to the user through a display unit.
At step 406, the investment fund allocation process may determine a path that provides the best return on investment (ROI). An exemplary method with respect to determining a path that provides the best ROI will be described below in connection with
At step 408, the investment fund allocation process may allocate investment for the path. An exemplary method with respect to allocating investment for the path will be described below in connection with
After allocating the fund to the path, the investment fund allocation process may update the attributes database at step 410. An exemplary method with respect to updating the attributes database will be described below in connection with
At step 412, the investment fund allocation process may check whether any remaining investment fund is available. If there are no remaining investment funds available, the investment fund allocation process 400 may terminate. If there are remaining investment funds to be allocated, the investment fund allocation process 400 may return to step 406 and repeat steps 406-412. By iterating through steps 406-412, the investment fund allocation process may progressively compute the best paths for fund allocation until no remaining funds are available.
The method 500 can take account of the attributes associated with each node and path in the directed graph representative of an application. In some implementations, for each node of the graph, a table may be used to represent the attributes associated with the paths connected with the node. An example table is illustrated in table 1. The number of rows in the table may depend on the number of paths associated with the node. For example, the more paths associated with the node, the more rows may be included in the table. The attributes data such as current spent level, current revenue earning, incremental investment amount, incremental revenue value, may be obtained by input from users or input from external systems.
As shown in step 502 of
At step 504, for each node, the paths may be sorted according to the ratio of incremental revenue value to incremental investment amount in a decreasing order. In other words, the rows in the attributes table may be rearranged such that the first row contains the highest ratio of incremental revenue value to incremental investment, the second row contains the second highest ratio of incremental revenue value to incremental investment, and so on. For example, in Table 1, the first row contains the highest ratio of incremental revenue value to incremental investment amount, i.e., a ratio of 3, and the second row contains the second highest ratio of incremental revenue value to incremental investment amount, i.e., a ratio of 2. The sorting process is performed for each of the node in the directed graph. In case that two paths having the same ratio of incremental revenue value to incremental investment amount, the path having a smaller incremental investment amount may be given a preference and placed first in the table.
At step 506, the best path, that is, the path having the highest ratio of incremental revenue value to incremental investment, may be selected for each respective node. The best path corresponds to the first row of the attributes table after the sorting process. For example, in Table 1, the path associated with the first row having the incremental investment amount of 15 and incremental revenue value of 45 may be selected as the best path for this node.
At step 508, among the best paths of all the nodes, the best path of the node which has the highest ratio of incremental revenue value to incremental investment may be selected as the path for investment fund allocation. In case that two best paths having the same ratio of incremental revenue value to incremental investment amount, the path having a smaller incremental investment amount may be selected as the path for investment fund allocation. For example, if two best paths have the same ratio of incremental revenue value to incremental investment amount, while one best path has an incremental investment amount of 15, and the other best path has an incremental investment amount of 10, the path having the incremental investment amount of 10 may be selected as the path for investment fund allocation.
As shown in step 602 of
At step 604, method 600 may proceed by checking whether the remaining investment amount is sufficient to allocate to the selected path. If the remaining investment amount is equaling to or greater than the incremental investment amount associated with the selected path, the remaining investment amount may be considered sufficient to allocate to the selected path. On the other hand, if the remaining investment amount is less than the incremental investment amount associated with the selected path, the remaining investment amount may be considered insufficient to allocate to the selected path.
If the remaining investment amount is sufficient to allocate to the selected path, at step 606, an investment amount equaling the incremental investment amount associated with the selected path may be allocated to the selected path. At step 608, the remaining investment amount may be adjusted by deducting the incremental investment amount associated with the selected path from the remaining investment amount. In addition, the selected path may be removed from the path pool for fund allocation such that the selected path may not be considered or selected again for fund allocation in subsequent iterations.
If the remaining investment amount is not sufficient to allocate to the selected path, at step 610, the method may proceed by checking whether the user selected to maximize spending with best possible ROI. Users may provide inputs as to different options for fund allocation via a user interface, e.g., user interface and/or display module 315.
If the user does not select to maximize spending with best possible ROI (for example, the user may select only to maximize ROI), at step 612, the fund allocation process may be terminated. That is, the remaining investment amount may not be allocated to any of the paths of the directed graph, and no further iterations of steps 406-412 need to be conducted.
On the other hand, if the user selects to maximize spending with best possible ROI, the method may proceed by selecting next eligible path to spend the remaining investment amount at step 614. In this scenario, no investment amount may be allocated to the selected path, and the fund allocation process 400 may continue to iterate through steps 406-412 to search for the next eligible path to spend the remaining investment amount.
After each investment decision (e.g., certain amount of investment funds is allocated to a selected path of the directed graph), the attributes tables associated with nodes 1-K may be updated. For example, the incremental revenue values associated with certain related paths may increase as a result of the investment decision to invest a certain amount of funds to the selected path. In some embodiments, the updated attributes table may be provided by the user through a user interface after each investment decision. In some other embodiments, the updated attributes table may be obtained by an automated re-estimation process, which will be described below in connection with
As shown in step 802 of
If the particular path shares a common node with the previously selected path that investment funds have been allocated to, the incremental revenue value may be increased by a first amount at step 804. The first amount may be determined based on the incremental revenue value associated with the previously selected path. For example, with reference to
At step 806, the method may proceed by determining whether the particular path shares a common link with the previously selected path that investment funds have been allocated to. If the particular path does not share any common link with the previously selected path, the incremental revenue value associated with the particular path may not be further increased. For example, with reference to
If the particular path shares a common link with the previously selected path that investment funds have been allocated to, the incremental revenue value may be further increased by a second amount at step 808. The second amount may be determined based on the incremental revenue value associated with the previously selected path. For example, with reference to
The specification has described systems and methods for optimizing investment fund allocation for an application. The illustrated steps are set out to explain the exemplary embodiments shown, and it should be anticipated that ongoing technological development will change the manner in which particular functions are performed. These examples are presented herein for purposes of illustration, and not limitation. For example, steps or processes disclosed herein are not limited to being performed in the order described, but may be performed in any order, and some steps may be omitted, consistent with disclosed embodiments. Further, the boundaries of the functional building blocks have been arbitrarily defined herein for the convenience of the description. Alternative boundaries can be defined so long as the specified functions and relationships thereof are appropriately performed. Alternatives (including equivalents, extensions, variations, deviations, etc., of those described herein) will be apparent to persons skilled in the relevant art(s) based on the teachings contained herein. Such alternatives fall within the scope and spirit of the disclosed embodiments.
Furthermore, one or more computer-readable storage media may be utilized in implementing embodiments consistent with the present disclosure. A computer-readable storage medium refers to any type of physical memory on which information or data readable by a processor may be stored. Thus, a computer-readable storage medium may store instructions for execution by one or more processors, including instructions for causing the processor(s) to perform steps or stages consistent with the embodiments described herein. The term “computer-readable medium” should be understood to include tangible items and exclude carrier waves and transient signals, i.e., be non-transitory. Examples include random access memory (RAM), read-only memory (ROM), volatile memory, nonvolatile memory, hard drives, CD ROMs, DVDs, flash drives, disks, and any other known physical storage media.
It is intended that the disclosure and examples be considered as exemplary only, with a true scope and spirit of disclosed embodiments being indicated by the following claims.
