WO2001077867A1

WO2001077867A1 - System and method of conducting open survey through a data communications network

Info

Publication number: WO2001077867A1
Application number: PCT/US2001/010417
Authority: WO
Inventors: Lon-Phon Lin; Hsun-Ko Chan
Original assignee: Lin Lon Phon; Chan Hsun Ko
Priority date: 2000-04-06
Filing date: 2001-04-02
Publication date: 2001-10-18
Also published as: AU2001253047A1; TW513639B

Abstract

A method and system for conducting open survey with statistical voting through the Internet. Users can register to access a web site (200). Users registration may facilitate any web advertisers or sponsors to provide ads or prizes (205) based on the profile of the users as entered. Upon entering the web site, the visitor, registered or not, can read issues, questions or surveys which have been posted by other people (210). Upon searching, the visitor can view the issue, question or survey (214), as well as any answers or reasons received (216).

Description

SYSTEM AND METHOD OF CONDUCTING OPEN SURVEY THROUGH A DATA COMMUNICATIONS NETWORK

RELATED FIELD The present invention relates to communications through networks such as the

Internet and more particularly relates to the efficient collecting and organizing of users' opinions, comments and feedback.

ART BACKGROUND From the beginning of time, people have loved to express their opinions.

Whether they live in a free world or not, people will find a way to express their approvals or rebukes on issues they care about. The issues may be as controversial as abortion, the breakup of Microsoft, or as innocuous as the future of bell-bottoms. Whatever the issue is, be it politics, religion, fashion, sports, or consumer products, some one will invariably voice his or her opinion. This opinion will probably trigger another counter opinion or approval from another person. This is the essence upon which the free world is founded.

Traditionally, public opinions may be expressed in two forms: either in a discussion basis, such as a "chat room" or "message board" environment, or in a survey basis, such as responding to a "survey" or "poll". However, both forms have some drawbacks. The drawback of a "chat room" or "message board" environment is that it only offers individual opinions and thus is very inefficient for one to learn what the public opinions are . For example, you can only catch up on two hundreds people's opinions after you spend many hours to read or hear all their previously posted messages or opinions. When you first walk into a room full of people, there is no easy way to figure out how the discussion has gone since the beginning without looking over someone's notes, if any.

On the other hand, the drawback of responding to a "poll" or "survey" is that the choices, and hence the opinions, are pre-designed so that one's opinion is bounded by whoever initially designs and provides the "poll" or "survey". If a user does not find a choice he/she likes, then there is no way to offer his/her true opinions. Another problem is that practically the so-called "public opinion polls" are collected only from a set of small "sample users" because of the cost associated with the process.

With the proliferation of the Internet, people can express their opinions much easier in a "chat room" or in a "message board" setting on the Internet. For example, just about every Internet Service Provider ("ISP") operates numerous chat rooms for various topics. People can either sign on to join a chat room in real time, or sign on to leave messages on the message board in any given topics. Despite the power of the Internet, it is still done in a traditional manner, and does not solve the problem by merely moving the "message board" from a real "board" to the Internet.

Some of the well-known boards are operated by Yahoo 's Financial, where each of the stocks in the stock market forms a topic. On each stock board, people can voice their concerns, questions, opinions and sometimes displeasure about the stock on the board. Typically, upon a user's entry, the board shows a "message list," which lists every message that has been posted based on the message' s title. The title of each message is given by the originator of the message. If any title interests the user, the user clicks on the link to read the message, which should have matched what the title says. However, it is not uncommon for users to find messages that turn out to have nothing to do with the titles they are given. This is quite frustrating and often engenders a feeling of betrayal. Therefore, it will be desirable to be able to quickly look at the title of each message to determine whether to follow the thread of discussion or not. It will also be desirable to be able to open up a thread of discussion, much as in the tradition of "standing on one's soapbox," and to invite a spirited discussion on the thread.

Now that the user has opened up a new topic for discussions and opinions in a "chat room" environment, how does the user know the breakdown of the opinions, in support or against his opinion, as the discussion progresses? Also, for a new visitor to the board or chat room, the visitor cannot tell where the public opinion is leaning and learn which message is more useful as a representative opinion of , say, the main stream. While being able to offer an opinion is generally sufficient for many participants of the message boards and chat rooms, it will be desirable for anyone to see the percentage of pros vs. the percentage of cons. Upon seeing the direction of the public opinion on the board, the visitor may want to put in his or her own vote, to support or defeat an opinion.

Businesses have been doing random market surveys for ages. Politicians have done voter surveys from day one. However, there is always some percentage of error due to the sampling size. Such surveys do not provide real time results either. One of the more problematic issues in the paradigm of conducting surveys is that the topics and the choices are provided by the survey originators, who may shape the questions in ^• any way they desire. It will be desirable to be able to formulate one's own survey question, e.g. "Should the Cuban boy Elian Gonzales be sent back to his father, wherever the father is?" and see how the public responds to such question. Also it will be desirable for a user participating in a survey to add a new choice if there is none that he/she likes or finds suitable.

Surveys, opinion tracking or message boards have been around for some time. However, they have not taken full advantage of the power of the Internet. With the Internet, we should be able to, efficiently and cost effectively, collect public opimons in a broad basis, and offer the statistic results back to the public in real time. It will therefore be desirable to be able to quickly determine which topic one wishes to join, to quickly open a new thread of discussion and to quickly vote on a discussion or to add a new choice on a discussion. With the power of the Internet and the disclosure of the present invention, the power is now handed back to the people of the Internet. The concept of a conventional "chat room" and "message board" is now empowered as a form of "statistical or voting chat room," where the cumulated opinions are extracted. The concept of a conventional method of taking a "survey" and "poll" is now empowered as a form of "open survey", where the issues and choices are openly provided by users.

One ISP, such as AT&T Worldnet, has offered a Polling Booth feature to its subscribers who have utilized the ISP's offering of free personal web pages. This feature is available to its subscribers through a dial-up connection with the ISP and by accessing http://publish.att.net/polling/index.html. The Polling Booth feature is intended to encourage communication with visitors to the personal web pages of each subscriber. The subscriber, hence the owner of the web page, can create a polling booth, with user-specified multiple-choice questions and answers, using a template and allow visitors to vote by selecting their answer through a set of "radio buttons." The results can be viewed by the owner, as well as the visitors, of the web page.

However, this kind of polling booth provided by the ISP is deficient, inter alia, in that a visitor to the web site cannot easily create his or her own thread of voting and opinion tracking. It is not an open system which allows instantaneous "voicing out" or "voicing back" by the participants. The visitor is completely reactive and control-less, since the visitor is presented with a question and a set of "radio-button" answers. If the visitor really wishes to start a poll or begin a thread of survey, the visitor practically has nowhere to go. If the visitor is also a subscriber, then at least the visitor can create a polling booth of her own, using the tool provided by the ISP. Another serious drawback is that there is no "quality control" of such polling on Internet, because you don't know if a hundred votes are made up by a hundred distinct people or a single person.

An example of a conventional on-line message board can be found at the site, www.βndlaw. com, where each subject, e.g. Trademark, offers a page for viewing a listing of the outlines of the messages posted by the participants. At this board, however, each participant, when posting a message, is prompted to provide his own outline, or short title.

These various ways of using the Internet frequently represent new methods of doing business. Methods of doing business have been held to be patentable subject matter by the United States Supreme Court in State Street Bank in January 1999. Numerous such patents have also issued prior to, or following, the Supreme Court's landmark decision. The United States Patent Office has also created a new classification, U.S. Class 705, to treat such inventions which have been spawned by the Internet.

For example, an US Patent issued to Appleman, et al., No. 5,918,010, on June 29, 1999, is directed to a collaborative Internet data mining system, which facilitates a group effort from a plurality of guides to the Internet. This is done by automatically processing the information provided by the guides and thereby create a branded or uniform look-and-feel to the web sites supported by the plurality of guides.

Another U.S. Patent No. 5,995,947, issued to Fraser, at al., on November 30, 1999, is directed to a system for doing interactive mortgage and loan information and real-time trading system. The Fraser patent provides a system and method for trading loans in real-time by making loan applications, such as home mortgage loan applications, and placing them up for a bid by a plurality of potential lenders. A database of pending loan applications as their status is maintained by a transaction server and each party to the loan can search and modify that database consistent with their role in the transaction, by requests to the server from a client device identified with their role. Also, brokers at a broker station can add loan applications, can review the status of loan applications entered by that broker, can be notified of lenders' bids on their loans, and can accept bids by lenders. Therefore, it is desirable to have a simple system of "statistical or voting chat room" or "open survey", where anyone can open an issue for others to vote, to add their own opimons, whereas the result of such voting is shown to all. The opinion or reason from each user's vote is outlined, extracted and compiled so that all visitors to the voting chat room can easily see what the issues are and breakdown of pros and cons, and the reasons thereof, on real-time basis. The system can also be used for businesses to gather information and public opinion regarding their products, services or how their businesses are perceived in the eyes of the general public.

In addition to individuals and businesses, there is also a need to allow any form of organization, such as governments at various levels to put their fingers on the pulse of their constituents. This is conventionally done through survey firms or pollsters, which is very costly. While the present invention is very cost efficient to collect public opinions in an "open and statistic" manner, it can be used by any organization to collect real-time public opinion on any important issue. The present invention is directed to empower any individual, business or organization, without regard to their financial prowess, in expressing their opinion and asking others to show solidarity. This is the power of the Internet at its best.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION.

A method and system for conducting open survey with statistical voting through the Internet is disclosed. A web site is implemented with a server and database to allow Internet clients to visit and to open any issue for open survey. Any other Internet clients may visit the web site to vote on any issue, with the voting result being accumulated. The internet client may agree or disagree with the issue, choose an existing reason or add a new reason to support her vote. Any company entity can also use the web site to conduct market research or product survey by presenting the company's issue for the Internet clients of the web site to vote on. The company entity may also use the web site, or an engine version thereof, to conduct in-house survey or voting.

The method may be implemented with the steps of first maintaining a database of survey questions, replies and reasons at a database server accessible through the Internet, maintaining a database of user profile information at the database server, the user profile information comprising information regarding users, allowing an Internet client to access the database server to respond to the survey questions, and allowing an Internet client to access the database server to present at least one new survey question to the database for other Internet clients to respond.

The system in accordance with the present invention may comprise a profile database configured to store user information, a server configured to allow the Internet clients to access the database through the Internet, a survey database configured to store survey questions, replies, reasons and votes, and computer programs to be executed by the server, the computer programs configured to allow the Internet clients to access the survey database, reply to the survey questions, open new survey questions, add new reasons and see the results of public opinions.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS. Figure 1 shows a generalized environment in which the system and method in accordance with the present invention may be implemented.

Figure 2 is a simplified block diagram showing the operation of an individual user at the web site of the present invention. Figure 3 shows the operation of the web site of the present invention for a business or corporate user.

Figure 4 illustrates the current implementation of the database structure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT. A system and method for conducting open voting chat rooms through a data communications network is disclosed. In the description that follows, numerous specific details are set forth in detail to provide a more thorough understanding of the present invention. It will be apparent, however, to one ordinarily skilled in the art that the present invention may be practiced without these specific details. In other instances, well-known features have not been described in detail so as not to obscure the present invention.

Figure 1 shows a generalized environment in which the system and method in accordance with the present invention may be implemented. Data communications network 100 is a network which allows information to be exchanged anywhere in the world. Currently, the Internet, with the World Wide Web, is probably the most accessible global data communications network of its kind, especially with the help of web browsers. Server 105 and storage unit 110 store the computer programs and database that interact with Internet clients through the Internet and execute instructions received from the Internet clients. The Internet clients can be either individual clients 120, such as anyone who surfs the web, or corporate clients 130, who can be any entity, e.g. businesses, government agencies or schools, that wish to utilize the power of open survey or voting chat room in accordance with the present invention.

For individual users, they can participate in voicing their opinions on issues, agreeing or disagreeing with issues, presenting their own favorite issues, all by communicating with server 105 and storage unit 110 through the Internet 100. When users agree or disagree on issues, they can indicate the reasons for their voting based on the provided reasons, i.e. "canned reasons," or update the discussion with their new reasons. The new reasons may add to the list of "canned reasons" for subsequent visitors. The users' votes are accumulated for all visitors to see. Compared with the conventional chat room or polling booth feature, the openness of the present invention can allow any user to begin a thread of discussion on his own, provided that the issues are not already opened for discussion at the web site. Voting or polling provides information on how people perceive certain issues or controversy. Having duplicate discussions or voting will denigrate the quality of the on-going voting, since the power of an open survey lies in having people voice out their opinions in a cumulative manner, not in having users "re-invent the wheel" with another discussion.

If the issues the user is interested in are not available yet, the user can always bring up her own issues, along with providing a set of reasons, or none at all, for other Netizens to vote on. When the user base of this open survey and voting chat room grows, the user base will attract corporate sponsors, offering prizes and incentives, since the user base, and the user profile thereof, will allow corporations to put their fingers on the pulses of the society. Such incentive system will generate more users to participate, thus enlarging the user base even more.

For example, an apparel company may offer advertisement such as banner ads, coupons, or prizes to a web page of the present web site, where people participate in the voting of fashion-related issues. While the apparel company is not involved, directly or indirectly, in the formulation of the issues or reasons, the company's advertisement or prizes may reach those voting users who represent the more fashion- conscious segment of the population. In other words, any web site where issues are voted on represents a focal point for the targeted audience. And those people are the ones the advertisers would like to target and reach. As can be appreciated by those skilled in the art, any commercial message, e.g. banner ads, coupons, prizes, can achieve higher effectiveness when it is received by those with similar interest. The web site of the present invention for casting votes, or for conducting open surveys, can thus provide assurance to its sponsors that their messages will be received by the right target segment, not wasted among the masses.

One way of starting various potentially attractive topics is to pull the positions presented by editorials, commentaries or op-eds from newspapers or magazines in the country or in any given region. Some topics may be formulated by the positions presented by editorial pages from university's student newspaper publications. It should be appreciated by those skilled in the art that editorials or commentaries are used to advocate one position over another , or present various positions for further consideration. For example, an editorial page from the Washington Post may present a thought-provoking issue on new taxes, while an editorial from the Los Angeles Times may advocate the immediate investigation of the police scandal. An op-ed from the Georgetown University's student newspaper may voice out against new fees, while a commentary from the UCLA's Daily Bruin may argue for more diversity in classes. The newspapers and magazine naturally present a constant generation of new issues for public opinion, whether it is regional, national, or even international.

Figure 2 is a simplified block diagram showing the operation of an individual user at the web site of the present invention. A user can register to access the web site at 200. To ensure the meaningfulness of polling and voting, a mechanism to identify "unique user" may be implemented at 206, which is a mechanism different from the one used by web advertisers such as Yahoo, DoubleClick and Flycast. For the purpose of the present invention, we want to make sure, though our authentication cannot be 100% guaranteed, that any single nature person can register as a member only once. This authentication process is done by asking users to provide certain information that can support its unique identity, and the user will lose all benefits if such information is found untrue or fraudulent. Of course, it should be noted that while anyone can access to read about the polls, surveys, and other people's answers and reasons, the system is preferably set up such that only an identified unique user can open a new issue for survey, or answer a survey. In other words, user registration counts when new questions are presented to the web site, or when answers are tabulated by the web site. Because of the unique user methodology, the integrity of the survey is maintained. Furthermore, while the result of the survey is important, the profiles of those who take the survey are just as important for analysis purposes.

It should be pointed out that, for the purpose of the present disclosure, the words "issue," "survey," "poll" and "question" are used interchangeably since an issue, a survey or a question all originate from some author to, hopefully, cause someone else to respond, reply, vote or answer. The issues, surveys or questions may take the following formats, as an example: think Microsoft is better off being broken up into different units."

- "Should Microsoft be broken up?"

- "Why should Microsoft be broken up?" In response, the question or reply may take the following formats:

- "Agree"; "Don't Agree"; "Agree with Condition";

- "Yes"; "No"; "Yes with Condition".

And then select reasons, or add reasons to support the vote:

- "Select (list of prepared reasons)"; "Add a Reason". User registration may also facilitate any web advertisers or sponsors to provide ads or prizes 205 based on the profiles of the users as entered. Of course, the ads may be implemented in banner-ad styles so that different ads appear at different web pages or different frames, or as dependent on the surveys the user is currently taking. If the visitor is registered, thus becoming a "user," the user may be eligible to receive prizes, upon final verification of the user's information. This system will encourage users to register with as much relevant and truthful information as possible, thereby enhancing the value of the survey. Of course, those skilled in the art of on-line marketing may readily come up with alternate ways to incentivize truthful and meaningful profile building, while striving to ensure utmost protection for users' privacy rights. Upon entering the web site, the visitor, registered or not, can read issues, questions or surveys which have been posted by other people 210. The visitor can also search for any issues, questions or surveys which appeal to her, much in the same way a web surfer to a search engine, e.g. Yahoo, can use keywords for the search. Upon searching, the visitor can view the issue, question or survey 214, as well as any answers or reasons received 216. The visitor can also see how the issue is voted on, e.g. a percentage breakdown of yes votes vs. no votes.

The visitor may also search surveys conducted by corporate users of the web site, where a corporation may want the whole world to vote on the most attractive feature of an ideal product. An automobile manufacturer may want to know how drivers value certain features in its line of cars. Such surveys can be found by the visitors to the web site. Of course, the corporate users may offer random prizes to those who respond to such surveys. The interaction with the corporate users at the web site will be discussed in another section below.

Additionally, the visitor may be allowed to see the vote distribution based on user profile, e.g. people from different location, religion, or educational level, may vote differently. This "second level" information may be made available to certain users who preferably pay for this kind of premium feature, or who provide additional profile information about themselves, as a quid pro quo. For example, if a user is into researching how the demographic factors affect people's opinions, such second level information may be quite useful to her. Upon entering the web site, the user may also vote, answer or reply to any issue or survey 220. This preferably requires some sort of registration to filter out repeat respondents. Registration also turns "visitors" into "users," thus building up the user base of the web site. The user can agree or disagree, with or without reasons 222. Reasons may be from a set of prepared reasons supplied by the author of the survey. The user can then select the reason(s) 224, for example through a drop-down menu. The user can further add her own reason 226 with or without further explanation, which may or may not add to the set of prepared reasons. The decision of expanding or restricting the set of prepared reasons can be made by the author or the webmaster, depending on the situation. When the user is set to open her own survey, the user can open an issue 230 at the web site, if the existing issues do not appeal to her, or search for the issue, initiated by the user or by the web site itself to avoid redundancy 232.

An extraction feature 234 can be implemented to provide abstracts out of the issues, reasons or explanations supplied by the users. Extraction 234 may be done by having the users provide a short title or abstract about their reasons, or by using software tools capable of performing statistical inference from the textual passages, e.g. ActiveKnowledge from Autonomy, U.K. Extraction may be needed to organize user-supplied textual passages, whether they are issues, reasons, or explanation, since it is practically impossible to dictate how people express their thoughts. With the open nature of the survey, the web site of the present invention can facilitate dynamic and real-time survey of any subject matter. For example, anyone can open a survey for the Top 10 Restaurants in a region, or the Top 10 Tennis Players in the World. By virtue of the power of the Internet, such surveys can be accessed and voted by everyone in the world. Also because of the Internet, the results of the surveys are always up to date. The more unique users who vote on the surveys, the more creditable the results which are complied. For a visitor to a new city, the Top 10 Tourist Traps can provide a basic guide for sightseeing. For a parent who wants to send her kid to the right liberal arts college, the Top 10 Liberal Arts College in the Nation can be a real advantage, especially when such survey is up to date.

Further, the openness of the web site can allow any individual, any group, any organization such as a business or non-profit entity, to post questions or issues on the Net, with the hope that the survey can be replied by a designated group, or by the public at large. In other words, any issue that may benefit from a public opinion is suitable for being posted to the web site of the present invention. For example, an individual wondering which job offer she should accept, or which car to buy, can post the question to the web site. She can set up a private space at the web site for herself. She can then e-mail her friends and contacts to ask for their opinions as to which job offer to accept, or which car to buy. She can even open her survey to anyone who happens to visit her space at the web site. The openness of the web site fosters a sense of community in that when a survey or question is posted, it will be replied by any group the initiator allows it to reply. When the initiator is wondering about what to do or what not to do, the web site provides the avenue that is better than, say, calling home.

For someone who is planning a wedding banquet or convention dinner, the menu selection can be posted to the web site for all the guests to vote on. For a nonprofit organization who is planning its activities, the choices can be offered to the web site for its members, or anyone in the community it serves, to vote on. The web site of the present invention can become one of the quickest and simplest ways to ask for a public opinion (as well as to reach a group decision), whether it is initiated by an individual or by an organization, for a closed group of participants or for anyone at large. Reference is to Figure 3, where the operation of the web site of the present invention for a business or corporate user is illustrated. A corporate user, upon entering the web site, can conduct researches and surveys at the web site 300. Here, it should be understood that anyone, whether from a corporation or not, can visit the web site as individual visitor, or even user if registered. However, as a corporate user, any individual, or group of individuals, designated by the corporate user can access more profile information 340, e.g. second level information, than a typical individual user.

The corporate user, which can be the marketing and sales department or product development of the corporation, can do any or all of the following activities: read issues or surveys 310, search issues or surveys 312, view issues or surveys by their title or abstract 314 and read the reasons thereof 316. The issues and surveys will tell the corporate user what people talk about and the voting results will tell them how the prospective market segments are formed. This feature may be, or may not be, the same as the unregistered individual user. However, with access to second level, profile information underlying the survey, the corporate user can gain insight to how the voting or survey is broken down.

For example, a toy company's marketing department may want to see what parents and children are concerned about, or essentially "What is Hip, i.e. ' What is In' ?" by reading opinions and surveys on subjects such as Education, Entertainment, Toys or Professional Sports. An apparel company can do its research on the next fashion trend by searching "Fashion" and reading about what people say when issues are presented.

The corporate user can conduct its own issue or surveys at the web site by opening issues and surveys 320, selecting a target group 322 based on registration profiles, supplying prepared reasons to be entered or updated 324, as well as providing random prizes to those who respond 326. The corporate user may choose to withhold its identity or let it be known, depending on the sensitivity of the issues. For example, a well-known, blue-chip soft drink company should have tested the market, prior to launching a sweeter soft drink for the new generation, for its later-coined "Classic" drink. If the market reaction could have been foreseen, the company would have saved a lot of resources by not having to scrap the whole campaign later.

The issues and surveys are open to everyone through the web site. Of course, the web site itself needs to have an impartial and credible public perception such that the integrity of the issues and surveys are beyond reproach. The prizes or incentives offered are to reward participation and candor. With respect to the feature of selecting a target group 322, the corporation may only be interested in responses from certain segment of the society. For example, a long distance telephone carrier may want to know how it can win customers back from its competitors. The screening of potential respondents can be done either during user registration, or on an ad-hoc basis. The web site can be configured to allow only registered users with qualifying data to respond, if such profile-building questions are asked during user's initial registration.

Such profile-building questions can also be transmitted to the users, after the initial user registration, at any time on an ad-hoc basis, if needed. For example, after corporate users have signed up with the web site, they may want to be able to reach their targets better by asking the web site to send out ad-hoc profile information to the web site's registered users for updates.

The other way to identify target user group is to screen as the survey questions are presented. However, the web site ends up having to make available such surveys to everyone anyway, whereas the other method allows the web site to control who actually gets the survey questions. Either solution has its advantages and drawbacks, and those skilled in the art should be able to determine the best methodology for their application.

When a fast food chain wants to know whether certain location within a neighborhood is appropriate for a new restaurant, the chain may present such survey to all those users who have indicated their local community. Such surveys will not add any value if those who respond are nowhere near the proposed site. Or if a women's outdoors gear company conducts a survey on features to be offered for women's outdoor gear, replies from the male contingency will not add any value to the survey, well unless the survey has something to be with aesthetic appeal. In the example for the fast food chain, the qualifying profile data can be obtained from a user's zip code, for example, which can be used to identify geographical information.

A corporate user may also want to conduct product development by presenting their product ideas to the user base. For example, a mountain bike company may want to see if the intended user group can accept a bike with new technology in certain price range. Based on the response and the survey, the company will have its answers within a short time, by virtual of the power of the Internet. In addition to zip code, other profile building data may be: education level, gender, age, profession, family, religion, ethnicity etc. One essential point for profile building is for the web site to unconditionally protect privacy and confidentiality. The DoubleClick Inc. debacle of February 2000 serves to remind everyone the importance of respecting users' privacy.

It should be noted that some corporations may be only interested in the result of the survey, e.g. the percentage breakdown, while other corporations may want to obtain second level information as to location, ethnicity, profession, educational levels, etc. Such second level information may be used by corporations to do "data-mining" to analyze information conveyed by the massive user base of the web site. Research institutions may also be interested in obtaining such second level information to substantiate their researches. More importantly, as time progresses, the accumulated information of the web site only becomes more massive and more valuable for analyzing trends as they relate to the various profile factors. Intra-Corporation Use. The corporate users can also use the web site for conducting in-house employee surveys, such as "Should we implement casual dress code?" or "Should we allow telecommuting?" An employee can enter the information through the web, from her own computer at work or any place, without worrying about the fact that the employer may know who the respondent is. By using the web site of the present invention, which is a public and open institution subject to public scrutiny, the employees are assured that the anonymity can be maintained with respect to the employers. As can be appreciated by anyone who has been through "team-building experts" or company psychologists, those company-retained experts or psyches may not be the most trusted audience, despite their assurance of confidentiality. Through a public web site for intra-company or intra-departmental survey, such concerns can be allayed.

If the corporate user is concerned about having to deal with a public web site, albeit with password or security measures, the corporate user may obtain an "engine" of the web site for the corporation to implement in-house. The engine, which is a term well known to those ordinarily skilled in the art of software and programming, can be implemented as an in-house tool for internal communications. For example, employees frequently attach other people's email when expressing their own view. After a few rounds, a recipient of the email gets an email message with 10 to 15 prior email messages appended thereto. It will be a waste of time to read through every message. With the engine of the present invention, the surveying and polling feature can be attached to the originating, or subsequent, email to allow each recipient to vote on certain issue. In the implementation of the engine, the survey is only done among a constrained team of employees and confidential information of the corporation is only released to those with "a need to know" as required to preserve trade secret status. Other teams or departments of the corporate user may have their own threads of voting being conducted in parallel and independent from each other. For example, the sales department may circulate an email for each member to voice out as to the desired location for next year's sales theme. As the email is circulated among the sales team, each member's vote is counted and the reason, if any, is recorded and extracted for quick overview. The marketing department may circulate an email for picking a trademark for a new product line. The human resources department may conduct a survey among employees as to the most appreciated way of rewarding outstanding performance. The engine of the present invention makes in- house survey and polling a breeze.

Of course, corporate users can offer incentives or prizes to those who participate in either their external or internal surveys. This feature will attract more, and more meaningful, participation from the users or company employees, thereby making the result more reliable and useful.

On a greater scale, a web site in accordance with the present invention can be used by municipalities to conduct local elections, since the web site has the following characteristics: anonymity, confidentiality while the mechanism is subject to public supervision or scrutiny. A voter's identify, or the voter's choice of candidates, is guaranteed to be confidential, while the results are tabulated and compiled. Finally, the whole mechanism or operation of the web site can be supervised and scrutinized without breach of confidentiality.

The web site of the present invention is a public mechanism, thus making its independence and neutrality beyond any doubt. Also, the power of the web site comes not from the individual user's information, but from the collective voices of those users. The web site may or may not collect any personal profile information, but the web site will collect and accumulate opinions, reasons or survey results. Such information is accumulated over time to allow subsequent researchers to determine what people think at any give time. The web site of the present invention essentially preserves the sentiment of its user base toward any given issue, and records the trend in any change of the sentiment. It can be said to be a "virtual recorder" for the world wide web of our time.

Figure 4 illustrates the current implementation of the database structure. The fields are explained by the notation (*... *). Currently, the web site provides incentives to seed members from colleges and universities, as well as any regional or national organizations or associations, for their promotion of the web site and generation of user registration. The more users who sign up with the system, the more incentives the seed members will receive. It should be appreciated by those skilled in the art that other forms of promotional schemes can be configured to drive the registration and brand recognition of the web site in accordance with the present invention. The following illustrates the current implementation of the web page structure in accordance with the present invention. It should be noted that such web specifications are the basis for those skilled in the art of web site programming and development to implement the functionality of the web site. While the specific user interface is not described, the informational text is shown to illustrate how such pages can be built. Additionally, a storage diskette containing the current implementation of the web site, in source code format, in accordance with the present invention is submitted as an appendix to the present application.

Web Pag ;e List:

1. Main Page

2. Who Should And Why Should Page

3. How To Use Our Web Page

4. Registration Page

5. Member Registration Page

6. Company Registration Page

7. Welcome Page

8. An Issue Page

9. Open An Issue Page 10. Add A Reason Page

11. Add An Explanation Page

12. Customer Support Page

13. About Us Page

14. Policy Page

15. Survey List Page

16. Open Customer Satisfaction Survey Page

17. Open Product Survey Page

18. Open Employee Survey Page

19. Contact Us Page

20. Earn Point Page

21. A Survey Page

22. A Navigating Page

23. Member Profile Page

24. Management Page

1. Main Page

Logo (UVOICES.COM)

About Us Policy Registration Customer Support Win Prizes Contact Us

I Join us to get stocks and win point <go to earn point page> |

With Internet, you can be the real BOSS of our society.

Please join people to have your voice out.

You can also win a prize, and there are many prizes waiting for you.

Who should and Why should use this web? <who should and why should page> Click here to see how to use the web site <how to use our web page>

Your Voice on issues:

Search an issue: key world

Art: music, movie, painting, performance, ... Business & Economy: CEO stock options, ... Education: baby, kids, teenager, college, adult, ... Entertainment: ratings, ... Parent & Child & Family: childcare, schooling, ... Health & Beaut : disease, insurance, medicine, ...

Law & Morality: abortion, charity, death penalty, ethnic cleansing, ... Politics: elections, government policies, judicial branch, taxes, ... Religion: God, life, ...

Science & Technology: Internet porn, taxes on e-commerce, ... Social Sciences: United Nations, welfare system, ...

Sports: salary levels, violence on the field, ...

Business customer survey:

Search a company: company name Click to view the survey list <go to Survey List Page>

Open a customer satisfaction survey <Open Customer Satisfaction Survey

Page>

Open a product survey <Open Product Survey Page>

Business employee survey:

Search a company: company name

Click to view the survey list <go to Survey List Page> Open an employee survey <Open Employee Survey Page> o Should And Why Should Page

Any person who cares about the society and wants to be the boss of our society should join other people and have your voice out. Unlike a chat room which does not offer much information to you besides few people's opinions, our "statistic chatting" provides a cumulated opinions for every issue that is important to you. You can have your true voice out on our web site. You also can join other members so that the voices together will become powerful driving force to improve our society. As a member, you also can go to business survey section to offer your feedback and win prizes. There is no lengthy survey form to fill out; just a few clicks and you are on your way.

A company can also use our web site to do an "open survey" for your employee satisfaction or customer satisfaction. Or use our web site to find out the opinions for a product f om customers, or for a future product from potential customers. We suggest companies to provide prizes and incentives for customers who offer their opinions.

3. How To Use Our Web Page

Any visitor can view our web site freely. The uniqueness of our web site is that you can see other people's opinions in a statistical manner. Which means for any issue, you can see how many people agree or disagree based on whatever reasons they provide. For this, you don't have to be our registered member.

This is not a survey site with all pre-designed issues and selections. In our site, we are open for you to raise your issue, to voice your opinion, and to vote for an issue that you are concerned with a reason that you support. However, you need to become our registered member to do so because we need to make sure one person can only have one vote for each issue.

For a registered member, you may want to:

Open an issue: (please use Search first to make sure there is no similar open issue)

You can just select the right category and go down to the right place, then click on the Open issue bottom. Add a vote to an existing open issue:

You can go to the issue and vote by clicking on the AGREE or DISAGREE bottoms. Each member caα have only one vote on any particular issue, but can select more than one reason that support your vote.

Add a supporting reason to an existing open issue: You can go to the issue and just click on the ADD A REASON bottom. However, before you do so, you want to read other people's reason first. A vote or a reason will stand out with more people agree on it.

4. Registration Page

Welcome to join UVOICES.

Member registration: <go to Member Registration Page>

Company registration: <go to Company Registration Page>

5. Member Registration Page

It is totally free to become a member, and you may win big prizes by offering your opinions. You must be a real person, age 12 or above, to become a member. Your data will be kept confidential for the company except that we may release some data (email, gender, age, education, zip code, country) to other companies that offer prizes for a survey that you participate. To maintain high quality of our statistics, which is valuable information to you and other people, we need your data to make sure for each issue, one can vote only once. Please provide real data. You may lose your benefit, such as the prizes you won, if the data cannot be verified.

Required data:

First name

Last name

Email: Home phone:

Year of birth: yyyy

Gender:

Zip Code:

State: Country:

ID type (Driver license, National ID, SSN) ID: (Please enter only the last 4 digits of your ID)

Password: (>= 6 characters) Password again:

Optional data: (They are required for you to participate in winning a prize, or to own company shares that we offer to founding members of the web site. However, you can choose not to be eligible for this benefit by not providing optional data)

Education:

College/University:

Native: (American, European, Asian, Asia Pacific, African)

6. Company Registration Page

Our web site and our patent pending "open survey" is a very powerful and cost efficient way for a company to find out what customers or employee like or dislike. We are glad to have the opportunity to help you improve your businesses with our service.

Required data:

Company name:

Contact person: Phone:

Email:

Address: street

City, State, Country, Zip code

Password: (>= 6 characters) Password again:

EmployeeCode: (>= 6 characters) (Please give this code to your employee so that they can participate in the employee survey)

7. Welcome Page Dear User:

Welcome to join UVOICES family We hope you will enjoy our services and wish it be useful and beneficial to you. Your login name will be your email address.

8. An Issue Page (sample text)

Issue: Do you agree with a woman's right to have abortion? Vote (click to vote): Agree Disagree Agree with condition

Total: 500 Agree: 200 (40%) Disagree: 50 (10%)

Agree with condition: 250 (50%) Reasons (click + to add your support to a reason, click - to remove your support):

(click <ear icon> to review the reasons in detail)

(click <mouth icon> to add a new reason, chck <big mouth icon> to add more details)

Agree because: <mouth> + - 3 Women should have the right <ear> <big mouth>

+ - 125 There is too much population <ear> <big mouth> Disagree because: (mouth) + - 1 It's a form of homicide. <ear> <big mouth>

+ - 39 We are not God. <ear> <big mouth> + - 28 Baby is a life and has it's own right <ear> big mouth> Agree with condition: (mouth) + - 1 If the woman has a mental disorder <ear> <big mouth>

+ - 239 If it is dangerous for the woman' s condition <ear> <big mouth> + - 128 If the woman is a victim of rape <ear> big mouth>

9. Open An Issue Page

Issue: (no more than 2 lines)

Key word: (please enter only one key word)

Your vote: (click to vote) Agree Disagree Agree with condition

Your reason: (no more than 2 lines)

Details: (explain the reason, no more than 100 lines) Submit

10. Add A Reason Page

Issue: <display the issue>

Your reason: (no more than 2 lines)

Details: (explain the reason, no more than 100 lines)

Submit 11. Add An Explanation Page

Issue: <display the issue> <Show Agree, Disagree or Agree with condition> Reason: <display the reason>

Details: (explain the reason, no more than 100 lines)

Submit 12. Customer Support Page

Forget password? <Randomly bring 5 questions, including ID. If correct, send password by email>

Show member profile <go to Member Profile Page>

13. About Us Page

About UV01CES.COM

At UVOICES, with the Internet, we believe that your opinion about matters which are important to you should be taken into consideration at any time by government and by business owners. In other words, you should be the real boss of our society all the time - not only at tiαe time of election. Unlike traditional form of conducting a survey, at UVOICES, we let you express your opinion in your own way. And unlike a chat room or bulletin board, we organize all opinions together so that it becomes important information to everyone, and cannot be ignored.

Please join us, and let us all be the real boss for our society.

About UVOICES team

14. Policy Page

For individual members

Our service is totally free for individuals. You must be a real person, age 12 or above, to be a member to enjoy the many benefits available only to members.

As a member, your personal data will be kept strictly confidential and will be used by UVOICES only, except that when you join a survey with a prize offered, your email, gender, age, education, zip code and country will be released to the company that sponsors the survey.

You will receive email from UVOICES under the following conditions: To confirm your registration or if we have any question about your account. When the voting of an issue that you participate becomes too unbalance, and you are on the losing side. <when diff% > 10% && diffft > 50 && diffDate > 30>

When there is a new activity with a prize offered.

Any circumstance that UVOICES may decide to be beneficial to you.

For company members Your company name, contact person and email will appear on the survey page.

It is free for a company to open a survey. We will only charge $0.5 per person, up to $10,000 maximum for each survey, when you request the detail personal data, e.g. Level 2 Information, that we are allowed to release.

The employee survey will be opened only to your employee with your employee code. The public cannot see the result of the employee survey. To achieve maximum security and confidentiality, an engine version of the survey tool for strictly in-house use is available by inquiring at Product Support.

15. Survey List Page <may display those that are still open>

Company name Survey title Prize

Worth <By alphabetical order>

16. Open Customer Satisfaction Survey Page

Company: <display company, or ask to register if no such data> Contact person: <display> Phone: <display>

Email: <display>

Survey: Are you happy with our products and services? Due date: mm dyvw Prize: Worth: $ Chck here if your company wants to offer more prizes <give a Ust of 10 fields>

17. Open product survey page

Company: <display company, or ask to register if no such data> Contact person: <display>

Phone: <display>

Email: <display>

Survey: Do you like the product?

Link to product picture: Due date: mm ddyyyy

Prize: Worth: $

Click here if your company wants to offer more prizes <give a list of 10 fields>

18. Open Employee Survey Page Company: <display company, or ask to register if no such data> Contact person: <display> Phone: <display> Email: <display> Survey: (no more than 2 lines)

Due date: mm ddyyyy

Prize: Worth:

$

19.ContactUs Page

Please call us at East cost office: (999) 567-8732 .

(East Coast address)

West cost office: (888) 789-7950

(West Coast address)

UVOICES.COM

EyesOn Network, Inc.

20.Earn Point Page

At UVOICES, we not only want you to use our services, but also want you to share with our success. This is how you can share with our future success:

We will set aside one million shares of common stocks of our company, EyesOn Network, Inc., to share with our members. You can earn our shares in three ways:

1) You must be an Active Member. An active member means that you register by providing us necessary data that we can identify you as a unique natural person, and you participate with at least 10 issues. You will earn a point when you become an active member. <when voteCount = 10, add 1 to stockPoint and totalMemberStock> 2) You will earn a point when anyone else directly referred by you becomes an active member. <when voteCount = 10, add 1 to stockPoint of referBy and totalMemberStock>

3) If you are a Seed College Member, you will earn a point for each new active member in the same college, whether the member is referred by you or not, once you meet the requirement, which is, the number of active members in the same college grows more than 10 per week. <add stockPoint only when weekly update collegeActiveMemberCountByWeek table>

Each point will entitle you to own a share of common stock for free before we run out of the pool of one million shares. We will not really distribute the share until we go IPO or become acquired. The company also reserves the right to have option to buy back the points with a fair market price of equivalent stocks at the time of IPO or acquisition.

21. A Survey Page

I ote: your email, gender, age, education, zip code and country will be released to the company if you participate in the survey to win a prize j

Company: <display company>

Contact person: <display>

Phone: <display>

Email: <display> Link to product picture: <only for product survey>

Due date: mm ddyyyy

Prize: Worth: $_

Survey: <display an Issue Page for this survey>

22. A Navigating Page (for any subject as an example) Law & Morality

Category: Abortion, Charity, Death penalty, War General issues: click to open an issue <display issues>

23. Member Profile Page

24.Management Page <Provide utility functions for managers to update data, to generate statistic data-¬

in the foregoing specification, the invention has been described with reference to specific embodiments thereof. It will, however, be evident that various modifications and changes may be made thereto without departing from the broader spirit and scope of the invention. The specification and drawings are accordingly to be regarded in an illustrative rather than a restrictive sense.

Claims

What Is Claimed Is:

1. A method of conducting open survey through a data communications network, comprising the steps of: (a) maintaining a database of survey questions, replies and reasons at a database server accessible through the network;

(b) maintaining a database of user profile information at the database server, the user profile information comprising information regarding network clients; (c) allowing a network client to access the database server to respond to the survey questions;

(d) allowing a network client to access the database server to present at least one new survey question to the database for other network clients to respond.

2. The method according to claim 1, further comprising the step of allowing any network client to search and view the survey questions, replies and reasons without having to provide user profile information.

3. The method according to claim 1, further comprising the step of allowing network clients to add new replies and reasons when responding to the survey questions.

4. The method according to claim 1, further comprising the step of correlating user profile information with user's replies to the survey questions.

5. The method according to claim 1, wherein the network client is allowed to respond only if the network client has provided user profile information to the database.

6. The method according to claim 1, wherein the network client is allowed to present new survey question if the network client has provided user profile information to the database.

7. The method according to claim 1, further comprising the steps of:

(a) allowing a corporate user to conduct surveys on its product ideas;

(b) correlating user profile information with replies to the surveys to generate second level profile information;

(c) providing the second level profile infomiation to the corporate user.

8. The method according to claim 7, further comprising the steps of:

(a) randomly offering prizes to users who reply to the surveys initiated by the corporate user.

9. The method according to claim 1, wherein the network client is a corporate entity who conducts open surveys about its business.

10. A system for conducting open survey through a communications network with a plurality of network clients, comprising: (a) a profile database configured to store user information;

(b) a server configured to allow the network clients to access the database through the Internet;

(c) a survey database configured to store survey questions, replies, reasons and votes; (d) computer programs to be executed by the server, the computer programs configured to allow the network clients to access the survey database, reply to the survey questions, and open new survey questions.

11. A system according to claim 10, further comprising: (a) Computer programs to be executed by the server, the computer programs configured to allow the network clients to vote on the survey questions and to track the results of the voting.

12. A system according to claim 11, further comprising:

(a) Computer programs to be executed by the server, the computer programs configured to offer a set of reasons for the network clients to select in support of their voting, the set of reasons being supplied by the originator of the survey questions.

13. A system according to claim 12, further comprising:

(a) Computer programs to be executed by the server, the computer programs configured to allow the network clients to enter additional reasons not supplied by the set of reasons.

14. A system according to claim 10, further comprising:

(a) Computer programs to be executed by the server, the computer programs configured to correlate the user information of the network clients with their replies to the survey questions.

15. A system according to claim 11, further comprising:

16. A system according to claim 12, further comprising:

17. A system according to claim 14, further comprising:

(a) Computer programs to be executed by the server, the computer programs configured to allow the network clients to access the correlation generated.

18. A system according to claim 10, wherein the data communications network is the Internet.

19. A system according to claim 10, wherein the data communications network is an intranet for intra-company communication.

20. A system according to claim 11, wherein the data communications network is the Internet.

21. A system according to claim 12, wherein the data communications network is the Internet.

22. A system according to claim 13, wherein the data communications network is the Internet.

23. The method according claim 1, wherein the data communications network is the Internet.

24. The method according to claim 1, wherein the data communications network is an intranet for intra-company communication.

25. The method according claim 2, wherein the data communications network is the Internet.

26. The method according claim 2, wherein the data communications network is an intranet for intra-company communication.

27. The method according to claim 1, wherein said database of survey questions, replies and reasons comprises positions presented by editorial pages in a given set of newspaper publication.

28. The system according to claim 10, wherein said survey database comprises positions presented by editorial pages in a given set of newspaper publication.

29. A method of conducting open surveys through the Internet, comprising the steps of:

(a) generating a database of issues by extracting from editorial pages in predetermined periodicals; (b) presenting the issues to a plurality of Internet clients through the

Internet;

(c) allowing the Internet clients to access the issues to respond to the issues;

(d) recording the responses to the issues from the Internet clients; (e) tabulating the responses to the issues based on their contents;

(f) extracting at least one representative summary from said responses;

(g) allowing at least one Internet client to add at least one issue to the database of issues for other Internet clients to respond.