We are working on an application that allows user to search/read some content in a particular domain. We wanted to add some capability in the app which can suggest user some content based on the usage pattern (analyze data based on frequency and relevance).

Currently every time user search or read something we do store that information in backend database. We would like to use this data to present some additional content to user.

Could someone explain what kind of tools will be required for such a job and any example? And what this concept is called, data analysis? data mining? business intelligence? or something else?

Update: Sorry for being too broad, here is an example

SQL Database (Just to give an idea, actual db is little different with normalization and stuff)

Table: UserArticles

Fields: UserName | ArticleId | ArticleTitle | DateVisited | ArticleCategory

Table: CategoryArticles

Fields: Category | Article Title | Author etc.

One Category may have one more articles. One user may have read the same article multiple times (in this case we place additional entry in the user article table.

Task: Use the information availabel in UserArticle table and rank categories in order which would be presented to user automatically in other part of application. Factors to be considered are frequency and recency.

This might be possible through simple queries or may require specialized tools. Either way, the task is what mention above. I am not too sure which route to take, hence the question. Thoughts??