Manual and automatic techniques for finding similar users

Abstract

A user data engine records profile data supplied by a user and usage data that is based on interactions between the user and a software application. A group data engine receives a set of user data comprising the profile data and the usage data for each user of a plurality of users. The group data engine determines a similarity value between each pair of users of the software application. The group data engine identifies groups of similar users based on the similarity values by executing one or more clustering algorithms. A user may then search for other users and groups of users of the software application and may then receive information from the users and/or groups of users that is related to use of the software application.