43. The method of claim 37 further including a step: predicting a subsequent event state for said first event with the computing system from a plurality of event states assigned to said first event, based on determining a current event state.
37. A method of processing a search query with an online computing system comprising: a) receiving a search query relating to a first event; determining if said search query includes temporal parameters related to said first event; b) generating an initial set of search results, including an initial set of electronic documents, which are responsive to the search query with the online computing system; c) based on steps (a) and (b) processing said initial set of electronic documents to determine temporal characteristics of such documents with respect to one or more events and/or topics, wherein said temporal characteristics are associated with content in said documents pertaining to {event, event state} content snippets but are not any of creation time alone, publication time alone, or a combination of creation time and publication time alone; further wherein said processing determines said temporal characteristics in said documents by analyzing said {event, event state} content snippets and assigning an event state for each event to a distinct temporal period; d) generating a search result for said search query to contain a subset of said initial set of electronic documents selected based on said determined temporal characteristics; and e) presenting said search result to said user responsive to said search query.