Information providing system for providing store information regarding specified stores to a terminal device

Abstract

The information providing system accurately predicts a behavior pattern of a user, selects and provides the optimal information at individual points in time. Provision information files for a number of stores are stored. When a user from a cellular phone transmits a retrieval condition including the position information and a keyword, a file is retrieved whose degree of accordance to the retrieval condition is a certain reference level. Tables show statistical degrees of interest of users in association with respective geographical areas, respective time periods, and respective store genres. The degree of accordance of the retrieved file is corrected based on the corresponding degrees of interest in the tables, and a list is presented, in which stores are sorted in the large order of the corrected degree of accordance, to the phone. The store information selected by the user from the list is distributed to the phone.