International Business Machines Corporation

Avaya Inc.

Jane Childs

Moon Ju Kim

Ted Saoumi

Juan Leon-Rodriguez

Susan Burlingame Levangia

Lamana Rogers

Paul Nicholas Martynenko

The present invention provides for the ranking of messages for presentation to a user based on user behavior with respect to previous messages received from ranked communication endpoints. In particular, the percentage of a message played back by a user can be used to assigned a rank for future messages received from the initiating communication endpoint associated with the subject message. Initiating communication endpoints associated with messages that the user has listened to all or a large proportion of are associated with a relatively high ranking that is applied to future messages from those communication endpoints. Initiating communication endpoints associated with messages that the user listens to only the message header or a small proportion of the message itself are assigned a relatively low ranking. Messages received as textual communications or by a unified messaging application may be ranked according to the order in which the user selects the messages for retrieval.

Method and apparatus for ordering communications

A method, software and apparatus are provided which enable a merchant to promote products and services in a deterministic manner. When a shopper enters a set of key words in an entry in an on-screen form for a web server to obtain a list of items (products and/or services) of interest to the shopper, the documents describing the items are prioritized based on the web sites owner's organizational strategic decisions by the merchant providing a weighting factor for the products and services. The weighting factor is combined with existing ranking mechanisms to the documents to increase the probability that certain items come to the top when the search results are presented to the shopper. These items could be used to ensure shoppers do not overlook special offers or to reduce overstocks by promoting products with a large inventory. The weighting factor is configured so as to not decrease the shoppers confidence in the ranking process.

Internet strategic brand weighting factor

Growing community of inventors

New South Wales, Australia

Jane Childs