Microsoft patents Opinion Search Engine that helps companies learn how customers feel

Internet users use blogs and social networks to express their opinions about any topic of interest, this imposes a new set of challenges and opportunities in the way data is being searched and retrieved. “Opinions” play a crucial role in influencing major decisions (can be a simple purchase decision or supporting a presidential candidate). Hence, it has increased the need for a new type of search engine which not only retrieves facts but also empowers the retrieval of opinions.

Microsoft has patented a similar “Opinion Search Engine” that actually helps companies understand how customers feel.

Opinion Search Engine

The company tweeted-

Did you know MSFT patented an ‘opinion search engine’ that helps companies learn how customers feel?

What is an Opinion Search Engine

The number of reviews floating on the internet has been increasing rapidly, and it has made it really diﬃcult for the end user to sort the helpful ones from the ones which are not. This is where “Opinion Search Engine” helps, these search engines analyze opinions expressed by different people in customer reviews, social networking apps, and blogs and classifies it as positive, negative, or neutral in various levels of importance and further presents the most important ones to the end users.

These are search engines which can be used in several diverse applications like product reviews to accumulating opinions on a political candidate or dispute. Business enterprises can make use of this search engine to determine how users observe their products and where they stand when compared to their competition.

What Can Opinion Search Engine Do

Here are some of the rank, recommendation and display features of this search engine:

  1. Compare Products Based on Opinions
  2. Display and Compare Opinion Trend
  3. Query Products Based on Positive/Negative Percentage in Features
  4. Identify Distinguishing Features of a Product
  5. Recommend Competitor Products
  6. Recommend Related Products
  7. Display Products by Dynamic Groups
  8. Rank Products Based on a Recommendation Score
  9. Rank Products by User Opinion
  10. Generate Demographic Statistics of Opinion Data

Microsoft Patents

Microsoft has a total of 88,857 patent applications and 56,841 granted patents spread across 46,972 patent families. The key markets for Microsoft are the USA, WIPO (PCT) and European Patent Office, based on the countries of patent applications. The key technology expenses are electric digital data processing, pictorial communication, and transmission of digital information.

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