Computer architecture and method for validating and collecting and metadata and data about the internet and electronic commerce environments (data discoverer)

摘要

A method of collecting subscriber specified information supports retrieval of information to analyze Internet and/or electronic commerce data over or from the World Wide Web for service providers using a computer. The method includes the steps of providing a customer with a questionnaire and/or forms to collect customer specific data, collecting the customer specific data, and parsing the customer specific data into environmental data and business data. The method also includes the steps of determining information source requirements (representing predetermined requirements) and optional decision support requirements (representing customer specified requirements), responsive to one or both of the environmental data and the business data, and determining core business rules and core data sources responsive to the information source requirements. The method also includes the steps of determining optional incremental business rules and optional incremental data sources responsive to the decision support requirements, and determining the information requiring retrieval to analyze the Internet and/or electronic commerce data over or from the World Wide Web utilizing the core business rules, the core data sources, the optional incremental business rules, and the optional incremental data sources.