1. A method of operating a computer to provide a response to a received user input, the method comprising: automatically with the computer: (a) in response to receiving, from a user's device, a partial user input signifying a portion of an answerable statement, before receiving a complete user input representing the entire answerable statement, calculating for each of a plurality of predefined answerable statements, a metric that is, at least in part, based on a frequency with which the predefined answerable statement had been selected by previous users; (b) if the metric for none of the predefined answerable statements exceeds a threshold, sending, to the user's device, information representing a selected plurality of the predefined answerable statements, which predefined answerable statements are selected based on the respective associated metrics; and (c) if the metric for one of the predefined answerable statements exceeds the threshold and not otherwise, sending, to the user's device, information representing a response associated with said one of the predefined answerable statements.
10. The method of claim 1 wherein part (b) further comprising sending, to the user's device, the selected predefined answerable statements if and only if each of their respective metrics exceed a second threshold, which second threshold is lower than the threshold in part (b).