1. A method for developing a user profile for indicating the user's topics of interest, comprising the steps of: identifying a plurality of documents considered by a computer system to have been consumed by a first user; for each identified document, a computer system developing a document summary identifying a plurality of concepts considered represented in the document and a relative strength by which the concept is considered associated with the document; a computer system accumulating the document summaries from all the identified documents into a profile for the first user; and storing the user profile in a user profile database in a storage medium accessible to the computer system, wherein each of the plurality of concepts comprises, in combination, a normalized term used in the identified document and a usage attribute identifying a way in which the normalized term is used, and wherein the step of developing a document summary, for a given identified document, comprises the steps of: identifying a plurality of the concepts used in the identified document; scoring a quality of each usage of the identified concepts in the identified document; and developing, in dependence upon the quality scores for each given one of the identified concepts, a feature strength for the concept as used in the identified document, the document summary indicating each of the concepts in the plurality of concepts in conjunction with its feature strength.
1. A method for developing a user profile for indicating the user's topics of interest, comprising the steps of: identifying a plurality of documents considered by a computer system to have been consumed by a first user; for each identified document, a computer system developing a document summary identifying a plurality of concepts considered represented in the document and a relative strength by which the concept is considered associated with the document; a computer system accumulating the document summaries from all the identified documents into a profile for the first user; and storing the user profile in a user profile database in a storage medium accessible to the computer system, wherein each of the plurality of concepts comprises, in combination, a normalized term used in the identified document and a usage attribute identifying a way in which the normalized term is used, and wherein the step of developing a document summary, for a given identified document, comprises the steps of: identifying a plurality of the concepts used in the identified document; scoring a quality of each usage of the identified concepts in the identified document; and developing, in dependence upon the quality scores for each given one of the identified concepts, a feature strength for the concept as used in the identified document, the document summary indicating each of the concepts in the plurality of concepts in conjunction with its feature strength. 6. A method according to claim 1 , further comprising the step of searching a database for documents whose document summaries match a profile determined in dependence upon the user profile.