WO2009111167A2 - Method and apparatus for social network marketing with consumer referral - Google Patents
Method and apparatus for social network marketing with consumer referral Download PDFInfo
- Publication number
- WO2009111167A2 WO2009111167A2 PCT/US2009/034445 US2009034445W WO2009111167A2 WO 2009111167 A2 WO2009111167 A2 WO 2009111167A2 US 2009034445 W US2009034445 W US 2009034445W WO 2009111167 A2 WO2009111167 A2 WO 2009111167A2
- Authority
- WO
- WIPO (PCT)
- Prior art keywords
- value
- advocate
- marketing
- advocacy
- attributes
- Prior art date
Links
Classifications
-
- G—PHYSICS
- G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
- G06Q—INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
- G06Q30/00—Commerce
- G06Q30/02—Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
-
- G—PHYSICS
- G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
- G06Q—INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
- G06Q30/00—Commerce
- G06Q30/02—Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
- G06Q30/0207—Discounts or incentives, e.g. coupons or rebates
- G06Q30/0214—Referral reward systems
-
- G—PHYSICS
- G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
- G06Q—INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
- G06Q50/00—Systems or methods specially adapted for specific business sectors, e.g. utilities or tourism
- G06Q50/01—Social networking
Definitions
- the present disclosure relates generally to an online marketing system with personalized advocacy for branded consumables.
- the Internet has become a marketplace for goods and services offering wide selection at low prices. Despite these advantages, some consumers prefer the personalized experience of in- person sales and retain loyalty to so-called "brick and mortar" stores. Retailers, service providers, and advertisers seek improved means of marketing goods over the Internet.
- word-of-mouth advertising a potential consumer is influenced by a product advocate socially connected to the consumer.
- the advocacy is a valuable service to the product supplier or advertiser.
- a service provider facilitates consumption of goods, brands, or services on an interactive network by characterizing consumers, consumption behavior, brands, consumables, advertisers, and advocates to determine a three-way match between a consumable good, a consumer, and an advocate.
- the matching method inputs two out of three parties to the match, a consumable good and an advocate, and determines one or more likely consumers by maximizing the estimated contextual value of personalized advocacy. Further, the service provider captures the value of the personalized advocacy in each match, and distributes that value in the form of various marketing incentives.
- Fig. 1 is a block diagram of an example backbone apparatus.
- Fig. 2 shows a typical consumer-to-advocate funnel.
- Fig. 3 shows a three-way match.
- Fig. 4 shows an example matching value estimator.
- Fig. 5 shows an example flowchart for a matching method.
- Fig. 6 shows an example valuation unit.
- Fig. 7 is a block diagram of an example computer server system.
- Fig. 8 is the first half of an alternate embodiment of an adaptive value estimator.
- Fig. 9 is the second half of the alternate embodiment.
- a possible use of the present invention is to computationally capture, support and monetize word-of-mouth advertising, providing sponsors a way to utilize personalized advocates to deliver authentic marketing messages to prospective consumers.
- this invention focuses on a system to manage and locate product consumers in personalized marketing campaigns on interactive networks.
- Network users typically operate a physical device, such as a telephone, a text messenger, a cell phone, a smart phone, a personal digital assistant, a networked music/video player, a personal computer, or a public terminal, to access marketing information on the Internet, utilizing a number of application programs to consume network content.
- the Internet consumer is typically able to access a plethora of information available online.
- the digital information consumer perceives information conveyed over the network through various forms of media objects, including text, icons, voice, avatars, audio recordings, pictures, animations, videos, interactive widgets, and other audiovisual information.
- the source code for a media object or a web page may contain metadata and one or more instances of script languages.
- ECMAScript is a script programming language, standardized by ECMA International of Geneva, Switzerland, in the ECMA-262 specification. JavaScript and Jscript are the most common implementations of the EMCAScript standard. "JavaScript” is a registered trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc. of Santa Clara, CA; technology is further developed and implemented under license by the Mozilla Foundation of Mountain View, CA. "JScript” is an ECMAScript implementation from Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, WA. JavaScript and Jscript are often used for client-side interactive web applications.
- script functions can interact with the Document Object Model (DOM) of the web page to perform one or more tasks.
- Scripts may also be used to make service requests to remote servers after a page has loaded. These requests can obtain new information or data, as well as load or launch additional applications, e.g., media object players, content viewers, application plug-ins, or software codes.
- Script code can merge with the DOM of the underlying page so that one or more additional media objects are displayed or otherwise rendered on the page.
- the script code may initiate one or more additional pages or other rendering for the additional media object(s).
- the client application may retrieve and execute the script.
- the script may initiate service requests to one or more remote servers to retrieve and render one or more media objects that enhance the underlying content of the page, optionally using parameter values assigned in the embedded code.
- the script when executed, may access stored locally stored user preferences or user attributes stored in relation to the use of browser "cookies" and contain one or more user attributes in a dynamically generated service request.
- the invention described herein is a backbone marketing system to support enhanced consumer access to marketing information, preferably provided by social peers of the consumer.
- the following embodiments and aspects thereof are described and illustrated in conjunction with systems, apparatuses and methods meant to be exemplary and illustrative, not limiting in scope.
- the present invention also relates to apparatus for performing the operations herein.
- This apparatus may be specially constructed for the required purposes, or it may comprise one or more general-purpose computers selectively activated by one or more computer programs to achieve the required results.
- Such a computer program may be stored in any suitable computer- readable storage medium.
- a computer-readable storage medium includes any mechanism for storing or transmitting information in a form that is usable by a machine, such as a general- purpose computer.
- the specification sets the framework by first describing a block diagram of a
- PeopleMatch backbone system which operates to identify best matches between a consumer, a branded consumable, and an advocate.
- Second, examples of matching algorithms employed are described. In each match, various prospective consumers are considered and their marketing value is estimated in a context dependent manner to determine best matches. Various example marketing and matching contexts are described.
- Third, a set of one or more best prospects is utilized in a marketing campaign, where the actual value of advocacy is determined and distributed. A portion of the distributed value provides various marketing incentives to expand the PeopleMatch marketing system.
- an alternative embodiment demonstrates an adaptive matching algorithm based on primitive attributes.
- Fig. 1 is a block diagram of an example backbone system.
- Various profiling functions are performed by elements 101-105, including a user profiler 101, an advocate profiler 102, a behavioral profiler 103, an advertiser/publisher profiler 104, and a consumable brand, product, or service (BPS) profiler 105.
- the various profilers may be accessed directly through service requests over network 130, or may be accessed indirectly trough a profiler Application
- the profiler API 100 may be used to modify or access the functionality of any of the profilers 101-105.
- a possible use of the system is to provide network servers for matching services.
- Various matching functions are performed by host servers 121- 125, which include a BPS server 121, a prospect server 122, an advocate server 123, a consumer server 124, and an influencer server 125.
- a server API 120 may be used to access or modify the functionality of any of the third party servers 121-125.
- a user may also qualify as an advocate or as an expert, as discussed further below.
- a user may also qualify as an advocate or as an expert, as discussed further below.
- a user may be used anonymously, in a preferred embodiment a user has a profile of various explicitly defined or implicitly derived attributes, including one or more attributes related to social interaction and consuming habits.
- the user registers and optionally completes an explicit user profile at registration.
- user profiles are obtained from an external service provider.
- user attributes are supplied in a backbone service request, such as by passing a user cookie as described above.
- user attributes are learned through online activity. Attributes of users learned in network use are further tracked in user profiler 101, stored in a database of user profiles 106, and in one embodiment, adaptively modified as described further below.
- a user profile in database 106 includes user attributes and one or more ratings related to a user's social preferences, such as user demographic groups, social connections, and relative ratings associated with the various attributes.
- an attribute rating is on a scale from negative one to positive one, with a positive one denoting that the rating holder is perfectly aligned with the attribute, and a negative one denoting that the rating holder is perfectly misaligned with the attribute.
- an example attribute may be "male buying habits.” A user who completely fit the pattern associated with the attribute would have an associated rating of positive one, while a user who completely fit the opposite pattern (“female buying habits”) would have a "male buying habit” rating of negative one. Users who displayed a mix of male and female buying habits would be rated somewhere between negative and positive one.
- a user profile may also include one or more rated attributes of consumption interest in a brand, product, or service (BPS), rated attributes of existing relationship(s) with a BPS and rated knowledge about a BPS.
- a user profile may also include one or more means of communicating with the user, and, with more than one means, a relative priority of means of communication.
- the user profile is partitioned into social, temporal, spatial, and semantic ratings.
- a user profile contains one or more personalized user consumption ratings.
- each user is assigned a unique identifier to be associated with access to the various user attributes in database 106.
- one or more groups of users with one or more common attributes may be formed.
- a user's attributes may include the identification of the user's groups and, for each such group, a rating of the user's alignment with the group.
- two user groups might be "males" and "females”.
- two or more user groups may be hierarchically organized in a progression from personal association to local group association to global association.
- a user may be geographically classified in various groups, including a city group, a county group, a state group, a country group, a continent group, and the entire group of users.
- the user has an associated rating for the one or more geographic groups.
- the ratings may be further characterized as personal ratings, local ratings, or global ratings.
- a user may be a citizen of Oakland in the state of California in the United States.
- a user rating may be decomposed into the global view of users who are United States citizens, modified by the more localized view of users who are Californians, further influenced by the local view of users who are citizens of Oakland, and refined by the personal alignment of the user.
- the averaged statistical response of each group in various contexts is tabulated and stored as a rating in the user database 106, and one or more ratings associated with a group are determined adaptively as described further below.
- the consumption habits of the group of users in a "male group” may be statistically analyzed to determine average group consumption habits.
- advocates are a pre-qualified and monitored subset of users.
- advocates may be further classified into two or more categories.
- the advocate categories include non-monetary incentive advocates and monetary incentive experts. Further, some advocates are further qualified as experts.
- a user may optionally choose to participate and may be further qualified as an advocate for a BPS by the marketing system.
- general BPS advocates are motivated with non-monetary incentives related to the value of their advocacy.
- a user may optionally choose to participate and may be further qualified as an expert advocate for a BPS.
- expert BPS advocates are further motivated with monetary incentives related to the value of their advocacy.
- an advocate has a profile of various explicitly defined or implicitly derived attributes, including one or more attributes related to social interaction and advocacy skills. Attributes of advocates learned in use of the network or system are further tracked in advocate profiler 102, stored in a database of advocate profiles 107, and, in one embodiment, adaptively modified as described below. In a preferred embodiment, each advocate is assigned a unique identifier used to access the advocate attributes in database 107.
- An advocate profile may also include one or more personal attributes, such as advocate demographics, advocate social connections, a set of user groups for the advocate, and relative alignment and popularity ratings associated with different demographic groups.
- An advocate profile may also include one or more rated attributes of an existing relationship or connection to a brand, product, or service (BPS) and one or rated attributes related to knowledge about a BPS.
- the advocate database 107 includes one or more attributes indicating means of communicating with the advocate and/or one or more communication availability status indicators.
- an advocate profile contains one or more types of advocate marketing scores.
- advocates are sub-divided into a number of advocate classification types. For example, a user who purchases a product may be qualified as a product- consumer advocate, while a user who meets a higher product supplier's criterion may be qualified as a brand advocate.
- a set of advocate classification types may also include one or more categories of experts. Experts may be further classified as paid experts, incentive experts, or self-motivated experts. A paid expert may be, for example, a manufacturer's representative. An incentive expert is motivated to act to realize certain non-monetary incentives, as described further below. A self-motivated expert does not receive tangible incentives, but may receive intangible incentives such as an improved advocacy rating.
- Each type of advocate may have its own standard of qualification and means of updating advocate ratings applied by advocate profiler 102.
- a database of consumable goods 110 is determined and updated by BPS profiler 105.
- a consumable good is typically a product, brand, or service, but could be anything that can be marketed, including a reference to further marketing materials, such as a manufacturer's website.
- the system characterizes and stores one or more attributes of a consumable BPS, such as a characterization of a BPS's typical buying cycle, a BPS's competing products, demographics of the average BPS consumer, BPS marketing goals, and so on.
- a favorable buying cycle for a hypothetical product is depicted as a funnel in Fig. 2.
- a favorable buying cycle for this product may contain various identifiable phases, typically progressing from the general to the specific.
- the number of phases from first inquiry to sale is illustrated as four, but this is for illustration purposes only and not by way of limitation.
- the actual number of identifiable phases may be smaller or larger for a particular consumable good.
- one or more of the identified phases may be further subdivided or combined with another identified phase.
- the consumer is acquiring information about available products in a generalized market survey 200, narrowing to acquisition of marketing materials for a few competing products 201, comparison-shopping to focus on one or more specific branded products 202, and purchasing in a product sale 203.
- a consumer may further opt-in to become a product advocate 204, and finally, to become a product expert 205.
- the categories of advocate and/or expert may be further subdivided and characterized. For example, a consumer who favors a purchased product may qualify as a "product-using advocate", while a consumer who also displays knowledge about competing products may qualify as a "product-comparison advocate”.
- the behavioral profiler may be considered as combining known members of the set of ⁇ who, what, where, how, when ⁇ related to a potential consumption to assess consumer interests, the probability of consumption and, in the case of a purchase, the location in a buying timeline.
- a known user is a prospect who would consume, influenced by socially related persons who would advocate consumption.
- a product, brand, or service is what the consumer would prospectively consume, as well as marketing messages for the BPS.
- the best advocate, marketing message, or product depends in part on where the consumer is, both in terms of physical location of the user or request, as well as in terms of network location, such as the current web page, domain, network, or service provider, and includes device specifics such as display device, communication device, and so on.
- the behavioral profiler 103 estimates how the purchase is to be made, as well as how best to approach the consumer.
- the behavioral profiler 103 also analyzes browsing requests to estimate when the purchase is to be made in an estimated user-modified product-buying cycle. By monitoring various browsing and other online activities of the user in behavioral profiler 103 and adaptively modifying behavioral database 108, future consumption habits of the consumer may be predicted, particularly as the consumer approaches a major purchase. Results from the behavioral profiler 103 are stored in database 108.
- the breadth of consumer inquiries is diminished, the consumer shifts focus from the more general to the more specific, and fewer consumers qualify for progression in the cycle, narrowing to a smaller stream.
- the typical buying cycle for a long-term asset such as an automobile
- the behavioral profiler accounts for these differences by dividing BPSs into categories, and characterizes the various phases of the buying cycle in each category and marketing context.
- the BPS profiler 105 inputs or learns characterizations of the different buying phases for each general and specific type of a BPS, and stores characterization of various buying cycles indexed by BPS identifier in database 110.
- similar products are grouped together in categories, such as example category "auto insurance.”
- a characterization of product buying cycles for various products or categories is obtained from a third party.
- an individual consumer may have individualized buying habits, stored in database 106, that differ from the typical buying cycle. Consumer actions are monitored and assessed in comparison with various consumption phase patterns to predict the location in a buying cycle in behavioral profiler 103.
- the behavioral profiler 103 further modifies the purchasing timeframe estimation using the output of the BPS profiler 105 and the user profiler 101 to combine the consumer's personalized buying habits stored in 106, a BPS's typical buying cycle stored in 110, and detected consumer actions stored in 108 to refine the prediction of the consumer's purchasing intentions and timeframe.
- Advertisers or marketers ultimately seek to identify consumers heading toward a purchase, and to steer the consumer to an advertised product.
- the interim marketing goals of an advertiser can vary considerably, and different advertisers with differing marketing materials and methods are willing to pay differing rates for realization of differing goals.
- One or more attributes of an advertiser and advertising campaign are determined in advertiser profiler 104 and stored in database 109.
- a measure of the fulfillment of each marketing goal is also stored in database 109.
- marketing messages are also stored in database 109.
- a measure of the fulfillment of each marketing goal may be determined or maintained in account manager 127 or obtained from advertisers, suppliers, or external accounting service providers, and stored in database 126.
- advertiser profiler 104 may also determine one or more relative priorities of advertisers to be stored in advertiser profile database 109.
- an advertiser profile also contains one or more ratings of current network conditions, such as monetization goals, content obligations, network traffic conditions or trends, and a desired user experience.
- Attributes of publishers may also affect the selection of appropriate consumers, products, advocates, experts, and marketing materials.
- an advertiser targets certain publications, and attributes of potential publishers may be stored in advertiser profile database 109.
- a publisher profiler (not shown) characterizes and updates attributes of publishers stored in a publisher database (not shown).
- a publisher database may contain one or more attributes related to publisher obligations, fulfillment of publisher goals, publisher marketing materials, publisher network conditions, qualified publisher advocates and experts, and so on.
- a search is performed to determine a set of best three-way matches made between a BPS, a consumer, and an advocate.
- the best matches are determined by searching one or more databases to determine profiles with favorably weighted attributes.
- database matcher 111 receives a service request including one or more weighting functions and an identification of one or more databases to search from context evaluator 114. In response, database matcher 111 determines and provides identification of the best matches.
- direct "one-click" communication between a consumer and an advocate often results in the most successful three-way marketing match.
- a representation of an advocate is displayed in proximity to a marketing message on a web page.
- a computer's pointing device such as a computer mouse
- an interested consumer is able to move a screen cursor to position it over the representation of the advocate.
- the representation of the advocate is instrumented to provide that a single click of the mouse button initiates communication between the consumer and the advocate as facilitated by communication manager 112.
- communication manager 112 accesses the database of user profilers 106 and the database of advocate profiles 107 to determine a default or preferred means of communication suitable to both parties.
- a default means of communication is by Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), but communication may be established through any convenient means, including one or more of communication by instant messaging, text instant messaging, audio-visual instant messaging, direct phone dialing, the Short Message Service (SMS) protocol, or e-mail communication.
- VoIP Voice over Internet Protocol
- SMS Short Message Service
- the communications manager allows each party to retain communication anonymity if desired. Communications activity and consumption activity completed through such communications are logged in database 113.
- the system is designed to facilitate marketing and consumption of products.
- Account manager 127 tracks matching and marketing activity and associated consumption activity, and stores logs of the activities in database 126.
- the account manager further determines the enhanced value of marketing with supplied advocacy as described further below.
- the account manager updates client accounts, bills various system customers, maintains various account receivables, and determines distribution of a revenue stream.
- a portion of the receivables stream is dedicated to providing various marketing incentives, including payments for experts and non-monetary incentives for advocates, as described further below.
- the marketing system provides one or more three-way matches between a consumer, a brand, product, or service (BPS), and an advocate.
- BPS brand, product, or service
- an advocate provides the identification of one or more third parties.
- the third party may be obtained through the server Application Programming Interface (API) 120.
- the server API 100 may be used to access of modify the functionality of any of the third party servers 121- 125, including one or more of the BPS server 121, the prospect server 122, the advocate server 123, the consumer server 124, and the influencer server 125.
- the BPS server is used to search for and access one or more attributes of a consumable good, such as a marketed brand, product, or service (BPS).
- a consumable good such as a marketed brand, product, or service (BPS).
- BPS marketed brand, product, or service
- the identification of a pair of users is provided in a service request, and the BPS server 121 responds with the identification of one or more brands, products, or services likely to benefit from marketing with personalized advocacy.
- a consumer may be qualified as an advocate or further qualified as an expert with regard to a specific BPS.
- at least one of the users must be qualified as a BPS advocate or expert.
- a service request to the BPS server includes an identification of the user to be regarded as the advocate, and a search is performed among all brands, products, and services qualified for advocacy by said user to find the BPS likely to provide the greatest marketing benefit with regard to the other consuming user.
- each user is regarded as a potential advocate, and a search is performed among all qualified brands, products, and services for either user as advocate to find the BPS likely to provide the greatest marketing benefit to the other consuming user.
- a service request response identifies the BPS and the user to be considered the advocate.
- an estimate of the match value is determined using the context evaluator 1 14, the database matcher 111, and the various databases 106-110, 113, and 126, as discussed further below.
- the match values associated with various matches are sorted, and one or more matches with the highest match values are considered the best.
- the advocate server is used to search for and access one or more attributes of a marketing advocate.
- the identification of a consumer and a BPS is provided in a service request, and the advocate server 123 responds by providing the identification of one or more advocates likely to successfully promote consumption of the BPS.
- an estimate of the match value is determined using the context evaluator 114, the database matcher 111, and the various databases 106-110, 113, and 126, as discussed further below.
- the match values associated with various matches are sorted, and one or more matches with the highest match values are considered the best.
- the consumer server is used to search for and access one or more attributes of consumers.
- the identification of an advocate and a BPS is provided in a service request, and the consumer server 124 responds by providing the identification of one or more consumers likely to be motivated by personalized advocacy of the BPS.
- an estimate of the match value is determined using the context evaluator 1 14, the database matcher 111, and the various databases 106-110, 113, and 126, as discussed further below.
- the match values associated with various matches are sorted, and one or more matches with the highest match values are considered the best.
- the identification of an advocate and a BPS is provided in a service request, and the prospect server 124 responds by providing the identification of one or more users likely to be motivated to consider consumption of the BPS.
- the prospect server 124 responds by providing the identification of one or more users likely to be motivated to consider consumption of the BPS.
- an estimate of the match value is determined.
- the match values associated with various matches are sorted, and one or more matches with the highest match values are considered the best.
- the identification of a BPS is provided in a service request, and the influencer server 125 responds by providing the identification of one or more groups of users likely to be motivated to consider consumption of the BPS, and for each group, one or more advocates likely to influence the group.
- the influencer server 125 responds by providing the identification of one or more groups of users likely to be motivated to consider consumption of the BPS, and for each group, one or more advocates likely to influence the group.
- an estimate of the match value is determined.
- the match values associated with various matches are sorted, and one or more matches with the highest match values are considered the best.
- a server is sometimes referred to as a virtual server.
- a virtual server is physically one or more server systems connected to the network and support circuitry to execute application programs for processing data. Data may be stored by means which facilitate efficient processing, such as by storing the data in a "database" consisting of a collection of data organized by relationships between the various forms of data contained therein.
- database consisting of a collection of data organized by relationships between the various forms of data contained therein.
- a virtual server executes a sequence of low-level CPU commands to complete instructions for processing data.
- a virtual server typically accepts instructions and executes commands for a multitude of "clients".
- the instructions may include, but are not limited to, instructions to store or retrieve data, to modify, verify or erase data, or to reorganize data.
- a virtual server may also initiate instructions for other network-attached devices. For example, a virtual "music server" might maintain a database to locate a library of musical compositions. The music server might receive commands to store new songs or retrieve old ones from a number of clients.
- the music server might send commands to other devices on the network, e.g., to disseminate the musical database among various subservient servers, such as a "jazz server,” a “hip-hop server,” a “classical server,” and so on, to register paying user requests in a “billing server,” to verify the identity, preferences, and access privileges of a user in a “registration server” and so on.
- the music server may therefore also be a client of other servers.
- virtual servers and clients are abstract interactive devices controlled by software instructions, whose interaction protocols may be flexibly defined.
- a "client” as used herein may include functionally to process information and programs, as well as to issue commands.
- a virtual server as used herein may include functionally to initiate commands to users and other servers as well as to respond to instructions.
- a database should not be construed to be a single physical collection of data.
- a database is an abstract collection of data and may be distributed over one or more physical locations. Said data may be stored physically within a single or multiple servers, within attached physical device(s), network attached device(s), or user devices(s).
- an application program should not be construed to be a single physical collection of commands.
- an application program is an abstract collection of CPU commands, which may be physically executed, in whole or in part, within a single or multiple servers, within attached physical devices(s), within network attached device(s), or within user device(s).
- Fig. 3 depicts a prospective three-way match between a user 300, denoted user A, a second user 301 acting as an advocate, denoted user B, advocate B, or expert B, and a consumable, denoted BPS C.
- the consumable is a brand, product, or service drawn to the attention of user A.
- Each of the three parties of the match possesses a set of attributes, said sets denoted attributes(A), attributes(B), and attr ⁇ butes ⁇ C), and stored in databases 106, 107, and 110, respectively.
- Some or all of the attributes may be explicitly defined, while some attributes may be implicitly or probabilistically determined.
- the matching system operates by estimating a set of essential quantities reflecting pair-wise relationships in the three-way match.
- user A and advocate B have a social relationship based on some commonality of experience, interests, and values.
- the social relationship may be characterized as having an objective or factual component, denoted "knowledge” in Fig. 3, and a subjective or emotional component denoted "connection.”
- knowledge(A, B) an objective or factual component
- connection a subjective or emotional component
- connection ⁇ A, B user A's connection to advocate B
- connection(B, A) advocate B's connection to user A
- the estimated essential quantities are further combined in a context-dependent manner to determine an overall match score or match value.
- a social strength function combines the essential estimated quantities.
- the essential social strength quantities include an estimate of social knowledge and social connection.
- each essential quantity is rated on a scale from negative one to positive one, assigned a weighting factor on a scale from negative one to positive one, and the social strength is determined as a weighted sum of the product of the rated factors.
- a set of weighting factors for each context, combining a marketing context and a phase of a buying cycle, is determined and stored.
- a consumer typically gives greater weight to fact gathering, whereas in a potential sales closing with an advocate, the consumer typically gives greater weight to intangible emotional aspects of the relationship with the advocate, such as trust in the advocate.
- This change in consumer focus is reflected by using a set of weighting factors giving greater weight to knowledge in an early buying cycle, and greater weight to connection in a later buying cycle.
- each of the attributes of A and B are quantized. Attributes are then partitioned into groups affecting essential estimated quantities.
- a social strength may be further characterized as having two components, attributes reflecting potential common knowledge and attributes reflecting potential common connection. By correlating the common knowledge attributes of A and B, a common knowledge score is computed. By correlating the common connection attributes of A and B, a common connection score is computed. The social strength is computed by combining the component scores. In one implementation, the social strength is a sum of component scores. In an alternate implementation, the essential estimated quantities are thought of as occupying orthogonal dimensions, and the social strength is a Euclidean distance (or "L2 norm") calculated as a sum of squares of orthogonal essential estimated quantity scores.
- the attributes of A and B are combined using a combination of weighting factors, differences, squared distances, and correlation. Attributes are quantized and partitioned into groups affecting essential estimated quantities. Generally, user A and advocate B have more in common when they have highly correlated attributes. A weighting factor may be used to ignore or negatively weigh an undesired attribute. However, in some marketing efforts, it may be desired that the user A and the advocate B have some attributes with a large difference in quantized value, such as those characterizing product knowledge. For example, in a generalized market survey phase of a buying cycle, it may be desired that the advocate have a much greater knowledge of the BPS than the user, whereas a knowledgeable consumer about to make a purchase may prefer an advocate with similar knowledge of the product. An example knowledge score (Ks) for the early buying cycle phase is
- Ks knowledge(B, C) - knowledge(A,C).
- Ks ⁇ knowledge(B, C) - knowledge(A,C) ⁇ 2 .
- Ks knowledge(B, C) * knowledge(A,C).
- a marketing contact is classified as a direct contact or an indirect contact.
- a consumer may access marketing material consisting of a banner advertisement for a product motorcycle.
- the banner ad may be accompanied by an instrumented representation of an advocate, which provides a direct communication contact to the represented advocate.
- the banner ad may be accompanied by a link to request an indirect contact to an advocate.
- an advocate profile includes one or more attributes related to the expected marketing value of the advocate in a direct contact context.
- Direct and indirect marketing contacts may be further classified and advocate attributes may be correspondingly expanded to account for differing responses in consumer-initiated contact and system-assisted contact.
- a marketing contact is classified as explicit, implicit, or probabilistic.
- the banner ad may be accompanied by a single explicit advocate reference, such as a representation of a specific named advocate.
- the banner ad may be accompanied by a single implicit advocate reference, such as the representation of an otherwise anonymous advocate labeled "Service Technician.”
- an advocate profile includes one or more attributes related to the expected marketing value of the advocate in an explicit (implicit) context.
- An example of a probabilistic contact is a banner ad accompanied by two or more representations of competing advocates, any of which may be selected by the consumer.
- the expected marketing value of an individual advocate is a product of (a) the probability that the advocate is selected by the consumer and (b) the conditional expected marketing value of the advocate if selected.
- the context categories include one or more means of probabilistic contact
- an advocate profile includes one or more attributes related to the expected marketing value of the advocate in the probabilistic context.
- Fig. 4 illustrates an example matching value estimator.
- the inputs are attributes of user A, user B, and BPS C, and a RuleSet identifier for the context of the marketing campaign and the phase of the buying cycle.
- the RuleSet identifier indexes a table 403 of filter rules and score combining weights.
- the filter rules control filters /?04), q(B), and r(C).
- filter r(C) scales and quantizes attributes of BPS C to determine which are quantized positively, which are quantized negatively, and which are ignored at the output of filter r(C).
- filter q(B) determines the weighting of advocate B's attributes
- filter p(A) determines the weighting of user A's attributes.
- User A's attributes are combined in score unit 407
- advocate B's attributes are combined in score unit 408, and BPS Cs attributes are combined in score unit 409.
- Unit 404 evaluates the essential estimated quantities of the pair- wise relationship between user A and advocate B. Two or more essential quantities are estimated, denoted
- the two or more essential quantities included social knowledge score and social connection score.
- Unit 405 evaluates the essential estimated quantities of the pair- wise relationship between user A and BPS C. Two or more essential quantities are estimated, denoted
- the two or more essential quantities include product knowledge score and product purchasing behavior score.
- Unit 406 evaluates the essential estimated quantities of the pair- wise relationship between advocate B and BPS C. Two or more essential quantities are estimated, denoted
- the two or more essential quantities include product knowledge score and product connection score.
- the various scores at the outputs of scoring units 407-409 and pair-wise evaluator units 404-406 are multiplied by weighting factors denoted wl-w9 in scaling unit 410.
- the weighting factors are obtained from table 403 in response to an identified RuleSet.
- the weighted scores are combined in adder 411 to create a MatchValue output, where a greater MatchValue output indicates a three-way match with a greater expected marketing value.
- a possible use of a matching estimator contemplated by this invention is in determining a set of best consumers.
- An example flowchart for a consumer selection algorithm is shown in Fig. 5, where it is assumed that two parties of the match, the advocate, user B, and the consumption object, BPS C, are fixed, and a set of best consumers for the two parties is to be determined.
- the flowchart consists of a number of sequential steps.
- the matching process begins in step 500.
- the advocate user identifier (ID), the consumption object ID, the advertiser ID (if any), the publisher ID (if any) and the context ID are input to the process in step 501.
- the identifiers are used to index the databases 106-110 to obtain the attributes of related parties to the match.
- the list of matched advocates is initialized as an empty list, with a list member count of zero.
- Steps 504-506 are a repetitive loop used to process the database of consumers.
- the entries indexed by BPS C in database 110 include a list of likely prospects for consumption of BPS C.
- the list of likely consumer prospects for BPS C is compared to the list of available consumers in database 107 in step 505. If the list of likely prospects for BPS C is not included in database 110, the list of available consumers is checked to see if any qualify as a likely prospect for BPS C in step 505. If there is an unprocessed consumer who is available and qualified, the unprocessed consumer is processed in step 506.
- step 506 the potential available and qualified consumer is processed to determine a MatchValue score, and the consumer identifier and associated MatchValue score are added to the match list.
- Steps 504 and 505 are repeated to see if there is another unprocessed qualified and available consumer, and if so, to continue scoring and adding the consumer(s). The loop continues until all qualified and available consumers are exhausted, at which point step 505 proceeds to step 507.
- step 507 the number of matches in the list is checked. If the count of list members is zero, no consumer was found in the search, an error message is generated in step 508, and the process terminates in step 513. Otherwise, the match list is non-empty, and the list of matching consumers is sorted according to MatchValue in step 509. Step 510 determines how the sorted list is to be further processed. In "threshold mode" all matches with a MatchValue exceeding a threshold Tare identified as best consumers in step 511 and the process terminates in step 513. Otherwise, it is assumed that up to N best consumers are desired, where N is a positive integer. In this mode, the top N scoring consumers in the matched list are identified in step 512 and the process terminates in step 513.
- Fig. 6 is an example signal flow chart to reflect a method of determining these quantities.
- the AddedValue output of Fig. 6 is also used to provide adaptive matching in an alternative embodiment, discussed further below.
- the quantities determined in Fig. 6 may be determined by a number of sub-processes dispersed in time. Each processing block of Fig. 6 is assumed to operate as an independent process with inputs tagged as necessary to maintain the integrity and time alignment of the indicated signal flow.
- a advocate user B and a BPS C of interest are input to the marketing system.
- a consuming user A with a qualifying match score is determined. This advocate may be determined as a member of the match list of the example matching process of Fig. 5.
- a user identifier for user A is supplied by a representative of one of the parties or a third party.
- the marketing value of marketing materials with and without additional advocacy is estimated.
- the "MatchValue" output of Fig. 4 represents the expected monetary value of the marketing materials with advocacy by advocate B.
- the "MatchValue" output from block 602 is scaled if necessary (not shown) to represent this expected monetary value.
- the expected value of the marketing materials without advocacy is also estimated or determined.
- the marketing material is an advertisement placed within a web page.
- the value of the advertisement without advocacy is determined by repeatedly running the ad without accompanying advocacy, tracking commercial activity in relation to the ad, and accumulating a measure of the average economic value. For example, a product manufacturer may be willing to pay ten cents per click on a banner advertisement to a service provider.
- the service provider instruments the advertisement to record and account for each click on the ad, and determines the average value per placed ad without advocacy.
- the service provider estimates the value of one or more advertisements without advocacy, using statistics for similar advertisements in similar product categories and similar contexts.
- the value of the marketing materials without advocacy is denoted "WithoutValue" at the output of block 602.
- the marketing materials are augmented to provide user B as a marketing advocate to consuming user A.
- the marketing materials are preferably instrumented to support one-click communicative access to advocate B, as described above, in block 603.
- the terms of the advocacy contractual arrangement are registered with the account manager 127.
- Account manager 127 tracks all commercial activity in relation to the advertisement with advocacy, and tracks the actual marketing value of the associated actions.
- the accumulated actual marketing value is output as "Real Value" by block 605.
- Block 606 calculates the added value of the advocacy by subtracting the WithoutValue from the RealValue.
- the advertising client is billed for the RealValue.
- the AddedValue represents an augmented revenue stream generated by the advocacy. This added value is available to provide advocacy incentives, advocacy costs, service provider costs and a reasonable service provider profit for providing advocacy selection and/or advocacy accounting support.
- Block 607 assigns the costs of advocacy to an advocacy sponsor, and divides the advocacy revenue to provide advocacy system profit and incentives. In a preferred embodiment, monetary incentives are reserved for expert advocates, and other advocates receive non-monetary incentives.
- Figs. 8 and 9 represent a first and second half of an alternative embodiment of the matching system of Section B above.
- the estimated value of a match may be determined by first determining a number of interim quantities which reflect essential components of a two-way relationship, and second, combining those components into a MatchValue score.
- Figs. 8-9 represent an alternative approach, which directly estimates a MatchValue score from primitive attributes without determining interim quantities.
- the relationship of the known parties is fixed and the pre-existing value of the relationship is realized without an advocacy matching system.
- the value of a prospective third party is essentially determined by the relationships of the third party with each of the known parties.
- the advocate's relationship with the product determines a part of the context of the advocate matching, but does not change from one prospective consumer to the next.
- an optimized search for a consumer is performed by evaluating the relationship of the consumer to the product and the relationship of the advocate to the consumer. The evaluation is performed in a context-dependent manner depending on the consuming user's present relationship with the product, as reflected in a behavioral profile of user actions in a characterized product buying cycle.
- a first half of an optimized advocate processor is shown in Fig. 8.
- raw attributes of BPS C, user A, and advocate B are input to categorization and quantization blocks 804-806.
- the attributes are categorized into N categories, where N is a positive integer, and organized and indexed such that the i th attribute of user A is the same as the /' attribute of user B, and so on.
- each attribute reflects a potential quality of the party, and the attributes are quantized positively to reflect the probability that the party possesses the attribute. In cases where it is more probable that the party does not possess the attribute, the attribute may be quantized negatively.
- a quantized value of 0.80 may reflect a probability of 80% that the user's favorite color is red.
- a quantized value of -0.70 may reflect a probability of 70% that the favorite color of the user is a different color, such as blue.
- the similarity between two users in terms of preference for red may be taken as the product of the quantized party attributes for the two users.
- Filters 807-809 provide a modified weighting of the quantized attributes of C, A, and B, respectively, using a RuleSet determined from context to index three tables of filter weights, 801-803. The filter weights determine the attribute emphasis or de-emphasis required for the marketing context.
- the N weighted attributes of BPS C are denoted x[l] to x[N], the N weighted attributes of advocate B are denoted X[4JV+1 ] to x[5N], and the N weighted attributes of user A are denoted x[2N+ 1 ] to x[3N] .
- the weighted attributes of BPS C are further correlated with the weighted attributes of user A to produce N correlated attributes of the relationship of A and C denoted x[N+l] to x[2N], The correlations are output by multiplier unit 810.
- weighted attributes of user A are further correlated with the weighted attributes of advocate B to produce N correlated attributes of the relationship of A and B denoted x[3N+l] to x[4N], output by multiplier unit 811.
- the 5 N outputs of Fig. 8 are further processed in Fig. 9.
- the estimated value of advocacy is determined as a weighted sum of the 5 /V outputs of Fig. 8.
- the tap weights, w[l] to w[5N], are dependent on the marketing context.
- Multiplexer 904 has L different sets of tap weights as input, with 5iVtap weights in each set, and a select control input. Examples sets of input tap weights are denoted 901-903.
- the output of 904 is a set of weights as determined by a "ContextSelection" input, which selects one of the L tap weight sets as w[l] to w[5N].
- Each tap weight w[i] is multiplied by the corresponding /' output of Fig. 8, x[i], in multiplier unit 905.
- Adder 906 adds the outputs of the multipliers to output an estimated value of the advocacy.
- the EstimatedValue output may be used as an alternative to the MatchValue output of Fig. 4.
- the system adapts the tap weights to refine the predicted advocacy value to better track actual value.
- the output AddedValue reflects the additional value realized by the provided advocacy.
- This AddedValue output of Fig. 6 is input to block 907 of Fig. 9, which determines the difference between the EstimatedValue and the AddedValue.
- the difference, "error,” is attributed to estimation error and random system perturbations.
- the error is scaled by a small quantity, epsilon, in multiplier 908.
- Units 909 and 910 are example adaptation units for tap weights w[ ⁇ ] and w[5N]. A similar adaptation unit is provided for each tap weight.
- the output of multiplier 908 is correlated with the inputs to the EstimatedValue filter at the time of estimation in multipliers 911-912.
- the quantities x[l] to x[5N] may have to be stored for later processing after the AddedValue has been determined.
- the output of the multipliers 911-912 is a small adjustment to the tap weight, w[ ⁇ ] or w[5N ⁇ .
- the adjustment to tap weight w[ ⁇ ] is accomplished in adder 913, while the adjustment to tap weight w[5N] is accomplished in adder 914.
- Figs. 8-9 provides a distinct advantage.
- a consumer who develops a relationship with an advocate is likely to change subjective components of the advocate evaluation based on the accumulated results of marketing contacts with the advocate.
- An adaptive system learns the time-varying weights given to various attributes, and adjusts them accordingly.
- Figs. 4, 5, and 6, as well as one or more of the processes of Figs. 8-9 discussed below, may be performed by specialized signal processing hardware, or may be performed using a general-purpose computer implementing a sequence of software steps.
- the processing may incorporate one or more steps performed on a user's computer system (a "client” system) and one or more steps performed on a service provider's computer system (a "server” system).
- Server and client systems described herein can be implemented by a variety of computer systems and architectures.
- Fig. 7 illustrates suitable components in an exemplary embodiment of a general-purpose computer system.
- the exemplary embodiment is only one example of suitable components and is not intended to suggest any limitation as to the scope of use or functionality of the invention. Neither should the configuration of components be interpreted as having any dependency or requirement relating to any one or combination of components illustrated in the exemplary embodiment of a computer system.
- the invention may be operational with numerous other general purpose or special purpose computer system environments or configurations.
- the invention may be described in the general context of computer-executable instructions, such as program modules, being executed by a computer.
- program modules include routines, programs, objects, components, data structures, and so forth, which perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types.
- the invention may also be practiced in distributed computing environments where tasks are performed by remote processing devices that are linked through a communications network.
- program modules may be located in local and/or remote computer storage media including memory storage devices.
- an exemplary system for implementing the invention may include a general-purpose computer system 700.
- Computer system 700 accesses one or more applications and peripheral drivers directed to a number of functions described herein.
- Components of the computer system 700 may include, but are not limited to, a CPU or central processing unit 702, a system memory 708, and a system bus 722 that couples various system components including the system memory 708 to the processing unit 702.
- a signal "bus" refers to a plurality of digital signal lines serving a common function.
- the system bus 722 may be any of several types of bus structures including a memory bus, a peripheral bus, and a local bus using any of a variety of bus architectures.
- such architectures include the Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) bus, Enhanced ISA (EISA) bus, the Micro Channel Architecture (MCA) bus, the Video Electronics Standards Association local (VLB) bus, the Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus, the PCI-Express bus (PCI-X), and the Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP) bus.
- ISA Industry Standard Architecture
- EISA Enhanced ISA
- MCA Micro Channel Architecture
- VLB Video Electronics Standards Association local
- PCI Peripheral Component Interconnect
- PCI-X PCI-Express
- AGP Accelerated Graphics Port
- An operating system manages the operation of computer system 700, including the input and output of data to and from applications (not shown).
- the operating system provides an interface between the applications being executed on the system and the components of the system.
- the operating system is a Windows ® 95/98/NT/XP/Vista/Mobile operating system, available from Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash.
- the present invention may be used with other suitable operating systems, such as an OS-X ® operating system, available from Apple Computer Inc. of Cupertino, Calif, a UNIX ® operating system, or a LINUX operating system.
- the computer system 700 may include a variety of computer-readable media.
- Computer- readable media can be any available media that can be accessed by the computer system 700 and includes both volatile and nonvolatile media.
- Computer-readable media may include volatile and nonvolatile computer storage media implemented in any method or technology for storage of information such as computer-readable instructions, data structures, program modules or other data.
- Computer storage media includes, but is not limited to, random access memory (RAM), read-only memory (ROM), electrically erasable programmable ROM (EEPROM), flash memory or other memory technology, compact-disk ROM (CD-ROM), digital versatile disks (DVD) or other optical disk storage, magnetic tape cassettes, magnetic tape, hard magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices, floppy disk storage devices, magnetic diskettes, or any other medium which can be used to store the desired information and which can accessed by the computer system 700.
- RAM random access memory
- ROM read-only memory
- EEPROM electrically erasable programmable ROM
- CD-ROM compact-disk ROM
- DVD digital versatile disks
- magnetic tape cassettes magnetic tape
- hard magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices floppy disk storage devices
- magnetic diskettes or any other medium which can be used to store the desired information and which can accessed by the computer system 700.
- Communication media may also embody machine-readable instructions, data structures, program modules or other data in a modulated data signal such as a carrier wave or other transport mechanism and includes any information delivery media.
- modulated data signal means a signal that has one or more of its characteristics set or changed in such a manner as to encode information in the signal.
- communication media includes wired media such as a wired network or direct-wired connection, and wireless media such as acoustic, RF, infrared, cellular networks, and other wireless media.
- the system memory 708 includes computer storage media in the form of volatile and/or nonvolatile memory such as read only memory (ROM) 706 and random access memory (RAM) 705.
- ROM read only memory
- RAM random access memory
- a basic input/output system 707 (BIOS) containing the basic routines that help to transfer information between elements within computer system 700, such as during start-up, is typically stored in ROM 706 and other non-volatile storage, such as flash memory.
- system memory 708 may contain some or all of the operating system 709, the application programs 712, other executable code 710 and program data 711.
- Memory 708 typically contains data and/or program modules that are immediately accessible to and/or presently being operated on by CPU 702.
- a CPU may contain a cache memory unit 701 for temporary local storage of instructions, data, or computer addresses.
- the computer system 700 may also include other removable/non-removable, volatile/nonvolatile computer storage media.
- Fig. 7 illustrates a bulk storage unit 713 that reads from or writes to one or more magnetic disk drives of non-removable, nonvolatile magnetic media, and storage device 721 that may be an optical disk drive or a magnetic disk drive that reads from or writes to a removable, a nonvolatile storage medium 730 such as an optical disk or a magnetic disk.
- Other computer storage media that can be used in the exemplary computer system 700 includes removable or non-removable media and volatile or nonvolatile storage.
- the storage media includes, but is not limited to, magnetic tape cassettes, flash memory cards, digital versatile disks, digital video tape, solid state RAM, solid state ROM, and the like.
- Bulk storage 713 and the storage device 721 may be connected directly to the system bus 722, or alternatively may be connected through an interface such as storage controller 714 shown for bulk storage 713.
- Storage devices may interface to computer system 700 through a general computer bus such as 722, or may interconnect with a storage controller over a storage-optimized bus, such as the Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) bus, the ANSI AT A/AT API bus, the Ultra ATA bus, the Fire Wire (IEEE 1394) bus, or the Serial ATA (SATA) bus.
- SCSI Small Computer System Interface
- ANSI AT A/AT API the ANSI AT A/AT API bus
- Ultra ATA the Ultra ATA bus
- Fire Wire IEEE 1394
- SATA Serial ATA
- the storage devices and their associated computer storage media provide storage of computer-readable instructions, executable code, data structures, program modules and other data for the computer system 700.
- bulk storage 713 is illustrated as storing operating system 709, application programs 712, other executable code 710 and program data 711.
- data and computer instructions in 713 may be transferred to system memory 708 to facilitate immediate CPU access from processor 702.
- processor 702 may access stored instructions and data by interacting directly with bulk storage 713.
- bulk storage may be alternatively provided by a network-attached storage device (not shown), which is accessed through a network interface 715.
- a user may enter commands and information into the computer system 700 through the network interface 715 or through an input device 727 such as a keyboard, a pointing device commonly referred to as a mouse, a trackball, a touch pad tablet, a controller, an electronic digitizer, a microphone, an audio input interface, or a video input interface.
- Other input devices may include a joystick, game pad, satellite dish, scanner, and so forth.
- These and other input devices are often connected to CPU 702 through an input interface 718 that is coupled to the system bus, but may be connected by other interface and bus structures, such as a parallel port, a game port or a universal serial bus (USB).
- USB universal serial bus
- a display 726 or other type of video device may also be connected to the system bus 722 via an interface, such as a graphics controller 716 and a video interface 717.
- an output device 728 such as headphones, speakers, or a printer, may be connected to the system bus 722 through an output interface 719 or the like.
- the computer system 700 may operate in a networked environment using a network 130 operably connected to one or more remote computers, such as a remote computer 725.
- the remote computer 725 may be a terminal, a personal computer, a server, a router, a network PC, a peer device or other common network node, and typically includes many or all of the elements described above relative to the computer system 700.
- the network 130 depicted in Fig. 7 may include a local area network (LAN), a wide area network (WAN), or other type of network.
- LAN local area network
- WAN wide area network
- executable code and application programs may be stored in the remote computer.
- Fig. 7 illustrates remote executable code 724 as residing on remote computer 725. It will be appreciated that the network connections shown are exemplary and other means of establishing a communications link between the computers may be used.
- these elements are intended to represent a broad category of computer systems, including but not limited to general purpose computer systems based on one or more members of the family of CPUs manufactured by Intel Corporation of Santa Clara, California, the family of CPUs manufactured by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Inc., of Sunnyvale, California, or the family of ARM CPUs, originally designed by Advanced RISC Machines, Ltd., as well as any other suitable processor.
- AMD Advanced Micro Devices
- ARM CPUs originally designed by Advanced RISC Machines, Ltd.
- server functionalities described herein may be implemented by a plurality of server sub-systems communicating over a backplane.
- system bus 722 may be implemented as a plurality of busses interconnecting various subsystems of the computer system.
- computer system 700 may contain additional signal busses or interconnections between existing components, such as by adding a direct memory access unit (not shown) to allow one or more components to more efficiently access system memory 708.
- CACHEl and CPUl are packed together as "processor module” 702 with processor CPUl referred to as the "processor core.”
- cache memories 701, 703, contained in 702, 704 may be separate components on the system bus.
- certain embodiments of the present invention may not require nor include all of the above components.
- some embodiments may include a smaller number of CPUs, a smaller number of network ports, a smaller number of storage devices, or a smaller number of input-output interfaces.
- computer system 700 may include additional components, such as one or more additional central processing units, such as 704, storage devices, memories, or interfaces.
- one or more components of computer system 700 may be combined into a specialized system-on-a-chip (SOC) to further system integration.
- SOC system-on-a-chip
- the entire computer system may be integrated in one or more very large scale integrated (VLSI) circuit(s).
- VLSI very large scale integrated
- operations of one or more of the physical server or client systems described herein is implemented as a series of software routines executed by computer system 700.
- Each of the software routines comprises a plurality or series of machine instructions to be executed by one or more components in the computer system, such as CPU 702.
- the series of instructions may be stored on a storage device, such as bulk storage 713.
- the series of instructions may be stored in an EEPROM, a flash device, or a DVD.
- the series of instructions need not be stored locally, and could be received from a remote computer 725 or a server on a network via network interface 715.
Abstract
A service provider facilitates consumption of goods, brands, or services on an interactive network using characterizations of consumers, behavior, brands, consumable goods, advertisers, and advocates to determine a three-way match between a consumable good, a consumer, and an advocate. The matching method determines one or more likely consumers by maximizing the estimated contextual value of personalized advocacy. Further, the service provider captures the value of the personalized advocacy in each match, and distributes that value in the form of various marketing incentives.
Description
METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR SOCIAL NETWORK MARKETING WITH
CONSUMER REFERRAL
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present disclosure relates generally to an online marketing system with personalized advocacy for branded consumables.
BACKGROUND
The Internet has become a marketplace for goods and services offering wide selection at low prices. Despite these advantages, some consumers prefer the personalized experience of in- person sales and retain loyalty to so-called "brick and mortar" stores. Retailers, service providers, and advertisers seek improved means of marketing goods over the Internet.
Research has shown that some consumers prefer, and are more likely to be influenced by, marketing efforts provided by access to persons familiar with the marketed goods, brands, or services. In a brick and mortar store, consumers prefer retailers who provide individualized service, trustworthy knowledge, superior support, and easy access to quality goods. Some consumers prefer the social experience of personal interaction. Consumers are also heavily influenced by the consumption preferences of their social peers.
Perhaps the most powerful kind of advertising is so-called "word-of-mouth" advertising. In typical word-of-mouth advertising, a potential consumer is influenced by a product advocate socially connected to the consumer. The advocacy is a valuable service to the product supplier or advertiser. At this time, there is no simple way to assess the value of this advocacy and no infrastructure to support product advocacy, provide consumer-advocate-brand matching services, and provide advocacy incentives. Further, at this time no means exist for the consumable advertiser or supplier to compensate the network operator for facilitating communications between consumers and consumption advocates.
SUMMARY
A service provider facilitates consumption of goods, brands, or services on an interactive network by characterizing consumers, consumption behavior, brands, consumables, advertisers, and advocates to determine a three-way match between a consumable good, a consumer, and an advocate. The matching method inputs two out of three parties to the match, a consumable good and an advocate, and determines one or more likely consumers by maximizing the estimated contextual value of personalized advocacy. Further, the service provider captures the value of the personalized advocacy in each match, and distributes that value in the form of various marketing incentives.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
Fig. 1 is a block diagram of an example backbone apparatus.
Fig. 2 shows a typical consumer-to-advocate funnel.
Fig. 3 shows a three-way match.
Fig. 4 shows an example matching value estimator.
Fig. 5 shows an example flowchart for a matching method.
Fig. 6 shows an example valuation unit.
Fig. 7 is a block diagram of an example computer server system.
Fig. 8 is the first half of an alternate embodiment of an adaptive value estimator.
Fig. 9 is the second half of the alternate embodiment.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
A possible use of the present invention is to computationally capture, support and monetize word-of-mouth advertising, providing sponsors a way to utilize personalized advocates to deliver authentic marketing messages to prospective consumers. In particular, this invention
focuses on a system to manage and locate product consumers in personalized marketing campaigns on interactive networks.
Network users typically operate a physical device, such as a telephone, a text messenger, a cell phone, a smart phone, a personal digital assistant, a networked music/video player, a personal computer, or a public terminal, to access marketing information on the Internet, utilizing a number of application programs to consume network content. The Internet consumer is typically able to access a plethora of information available online. The digital information consumer perceives information conveyed over the network through various forms of media objects, including text, icons, voice, avatars, audio recordings, pictures, animations, videos, interactive widgets, and other audiovisual information.
The source code for a media object or a web page may contain metadata and one or more instances of script languages. ECMAScript is a script programming language, standardized by ECMA International of Geneva, Switzerland, in the ECMA-262 specification. JavaScript and Jscript are the most common implementations of the EMCAScript standard. "JavaScript" is a registered trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc. of Santa Clara, CA; technology is further developed and implemented under license by the Mozilla Foundation of Mountain View, CA. "JScript" is an ECMAScript implementation from Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, WA. JavaScript and Jscript are often used for client-side interactive web applications.
When a consumer accesses a web page, script functions can interact with the Document Object Model (DOM) of the web page to perform one or more tasks. Scripts may also be used to make service requests to remote servers after a page has loaded. These requests can obtain new information or data, as well as load or launch additional applications, e.g., media object players, content viewers, application plug-ins, or software codes. Script code can merge with the DOM of the underlying page so that one or more additional media objects are displayed or otherwise rendered on the page. Alternatively, the script code may initiate one or more additional pages or other rendering for the additional media object(s). When script code is embedded into an HTML document and subsequently accessed by a client application, the client application may retrieve and execute the script. The script may initiate service requests to one or more remote servers to retrieve and render one or more media objects that enhance the underlying content of the page,
optionally using parameter values assigned in the embedded code. For example, the script, when executed, may access stored locally stored user preferences or user attributes stored in relation to the use of browser "cookies" and contain one or more user attributes in a dynamically generated service request.
The invention described herein is a backbone marketing system to support enhanced consumer access to marketing information, preferably provided by social peers of the consumer. The following embodiments and aspects thereof are described and illustrated in conjunction with systems, apparatuses and methods meant to be exemplary and illustrative, not limiting in scope.
The following description sets forth numerous details to provide a thorough understanding of various aspects of the present invention. It will be apparent to those skilled in the art, however, that the present invention may be practiced without these specific details. In other instances, algorithms for processing data and symbolic representations of algorithmic operations are the means used by those skilled in the art to most effectively convey the substance of their work to others skilled in the art. An algorithm, as used herein, is a sequence of operations leading to a desired result, said operations requiring physical manipulations of physical quantities. Usually, though not necessarily, these quantities take the form of a sequence of electrical signals representing binary numbers to be stored, transferred, combined, compared, and otherwise manipulated.
The present invention also relates to apparatus for performing the operations herein. This apparatus may be specially constructed for the required purposes, or it may comprise one or more general-purpose computers selectively activated by one or more computer programs to achieve the required results. Such a computer program may be stored in any suitable computer- readable storage medium. A computer-readable storage medium includes any mechanism for storing or transmitting information in a form that is usable by a machine, such as a general- purpose computer.
The algorithms and displays presented herein are not inherently related to any particular computer or other apparatus. Various general-purpose systems may be used in accordance with the teachings herein, and it may prove expedient to construct more specialized apparatus to perform the algorithm operations. The required structure for a variety of these systems may
appear from the description below. In addition, the present invention is not described with reference to any particular programming language. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that a variety of programming languages may be used to implement the teachings of the invention as described herein.
The specification sets the framework by first describing a block diagram of a
PeopleMatch backbone system, which operates to identify best matches between a consumer, a branded consumable, and an advocate. Second, examples of matching algorithms employed are described. In each match, various prospective consumers are considered and their marketing value is estimated in a context dependent manner to determine best matches. Various example marketing and matching contexts are described. Third, a set of one or more best prospects is utilized in a marketing campaign, where the actual value of advocacy is determined and distributed. A portion of the distributed value provides various marketing incentives to expand the PeopleMatch marketing system. Fourth, an alternative embodiment demonstrates an adaptive matching algorithm based on primitive attributes.
A. System Backbone Apparatus
Fig. 1 is a block diagram of an example backbone system. Various profiling functions are performed by elements 101-105, including a user profiler 101, an advocate profiler 102, a behavioral profiler 103, an advertiser/publisher profiler 104, and a consumable brand, product, or service (BPS) profiler 105. The various profilers may be accessed directly through service requests over network 130, or may be accessed indirectly trough a profiler Application
Programming Interface (API) 100. The profiler API 100 may be used to modify or access the functionality of any of the profilers 101-105. A possible use of the system is to provide network servers for matching services. Various matching functions are performed by host servers 121- 125, which include a BPS server 121, a prospect server 122, an advocate server 123, a consumer server 124, and an influencer server 125. A server API 120 may be used to access or modify the functionality of any of the third party servers 121-125.
Al. User Profiling
In the system, it is convenient to think of the typical user as a potential consumer of a brand, product, service, or other consumable, but as described further below, a user may also qualify as an advocate or as an expert, as discussed further below. Although the system may be used anonymously, in a preferred embodiment a user has a profile of various explicitly defined or implicitly derived attributes, including one or more attributes related to social interaction and consuming habits. In one embodiment, the user registers and optionally completes an explicit user profile at registration. In another embodiment, user profiles are obtained from an external service provider. In an alternate or further embodiment, user attributes are supplied in a backbone service request, such as by passing a user cookie as described above. In an alternate or additional embodiment, user attributes are learned through online activity. Attributes of users learned in network use are further tracked in user profiler 101, stored in a database of user profiles 106, and in one embodiment, adaptively modified as described further below.
A user profile in database 106 includes user attributes and one or more ratings related to a user's social preferences, such as user demographic groups, social connections, and relative ratings associated with the various attributes. In one embodiment, an attribute rating is on a scale from negative one to positive one, with a positive one denoting that the rating holder is perfectly aligned with the attribute, and a negative one denoting that the rating holder is perfectly misaligned with the attribute. To illustrate, an example attribute may be "male buying habits." A user who completely fit the pattern associated with the attribute would have an associated rating of positive one, while a user who completely fit the opposite pattern ("female buying habits") would have a "male buying habit" rating of negative one. Users who displayed a mix of male and female buying habits would be rated somewhere between negative and positive one.
A user profile may also include one or more rated attributes of consumption interest in a brand, product, or service (BPS), rated attributes of existing relationship(s) with a BPS and rated knowledge about a BPS. A user profile may also include one or more means of communicating with the user, and, with more than one means, a relative priority of means of communication. In one embodiment, the user profile is partitioned into social, temporal, spatial, and semantic ratings. In one embodiment, a user profile contains one or more personalized user consumption
ratings. In a preferred embodiment, each user is assigned a unique identifier to be associated with access to the various user attributes in database 106.
A2. Group Profiling
In a further embodiment, one or more groups of users with one or more common attributes may be formed. A user's attributes may include the identification of the user's groups and, for each such group, a rating of the user's alignment with the group. For example, two user groups might be "males" and "females". Further, two or more user groups may be hierarchically organized in a progression from personal association to local group association to global association. To illustrate, a user may be geographically classified in various groups, including a city group, a county group, a state group, a country group, a continent group, and the entire group of users. In one embodiment, the user has an associated rating for the one or more geographic groups. The ratings may be further characterized as personal ratings, local ratings, or global ratings. For example, a user may be a citizen of Oakland in the state of California in the United States. A user rating may be decomposed into the global view of users who are United States citizens, modified by the more localized view of users who are Californians, further influenced by the local view of users who are citizens of Oakland, and refined by the personal alignment of the user. In one embodiment, the averaged statistical response of each group in various contexts is tabulated and stored as a rating in the user database 106, and one or more ratings associated with a group are determined adaptively as described further below. For example, the consumption habits of the group of users in a "male group" may be statistically analyzed to determine average group consumption habits.
A3. Advocate Profiling
In the system, advocates are a pre-qualified and monitored subset of users. As used herein, advocates may be further classified into two or more categories. The advocate categories include non-monetary incentive advocates and monetary incentive experts. Further, some advocates are further qualified as experts. As mentioned above, a user may optionally choose to participate and may be further qualified as an advocate for a BPS by the marketing system. In one embodiment, general BPS advocates are motivated with non-monetary incentives related to the value of their advocacy. In a further embodiment, a user may optionally choose to participate
and may be further qualified as an expert advocate for a BPS. In one embodiment, expert BPS advocates are further motivated with monetary incentives related to the value of their advocacy.
In a preferred embodiment, an advocate has a profile of various explicitly defined or implicitly derived attributes, including one or more attributes related to social interaction and advocacy skills. Attributes of advocates learned in use of the network or system are further tracked in advocate profiler 102, stored in a database of advocate profiles 107, and, in one embodiment, adaptively modified as described below. In a preferred embodiment, each advocate is assigned a unique identifier used to access the advocate attributes in database 107.
In a further embodiment, feedback from consumer actions, external product suppliers, advertisers and/or other marketers is also adaptively used to modify advocate profiles. An advocate profile may also include one or more personal attributes, such as advocate demographics, advocate social connections, a set of user groups for the advocate, and relative alignment and popularity ratings associated with different demographic groups. An advocate profile may also include one or more rated attributes of an existing relationship or connection to a brand, product, or service (BPS) and one or rated attributes related to knowledge about a BPS. In one embodiment, the advocate database 107 includes one or more attributes indicating means of communicating with the advocate and/or one or more communication availability status indicators.
In one embodiment, an advocate profile contains one or more types of advocate marketing scores. In a further embodiment, advocates are sub-divided into a number of advocate classification types. For example, a user who purchases a product may be qualified as a product- consumer advocate, while a user who meets a higher product supplier's criterion may be qualified as a brand advocate. A set of advocate classification types may also include one or more categories of experts. Experts may be further classified as paid experts, incentive experts, or self-motivated experts. A paid expert may be, for example, a manufacturer's representative. An incentive expert is motivated to act to realize certain non-monetary incentives, as described further below. A self-motivated expert does not receive tangible incentives, but may receive intangible incentives such as an improved advocacy rating. Each type of advocate may have its
own standard of qualification and means of updating advocate ratings applied by advocate profiler 102.
A3. Brand Profiling
A database of consumable goods 110 is determined and updated by BPS profiler 105. A consumable good is typically a product, brand, or service, but could be anything that can be marketed, including a reference to further marketing materials, such as a manufacturer's website. The system characterizes and stores one or more attributes of a consumable BPS, such as a characterization of a BPS's typical buying cycle, a BPS's competing products, demographics of the average BPS consumer, BPS marketing goals, and so on.
A4. Behavioral Profiling
An example buying cycle for a hypothetical product is depicted as a funnel in Fig. 2. A favorable buying cycle for this product may contain various identifiable phases, typically progressing from the general to the specific. In this example, the number of phases from first inquiry to sale is illustrated as four, but this is for illustration purposes only and not by way of limitation. The actual number of identifiable phases may be smaller or larger for a particular consumable good. Further, one or more of the identified phases may be further subdivided or combined with another identified phase. In this example, the consumer is acquiring information about available products in a generalized market survey 200, narrowing to acquisition of marketing materials for a few competing products 201, comparison-shopping to focus on one or more specific branded products 202, and purchasing in a product sale 203. A consumer may further opt-in to become a product advocate 204, and finally, to become a product expert 205. As mentioned above, the categories of advocate and/or expert may be further subdivided and characterized. For example, a consumer who favors a purchased product may qualify as a "product-using advocate", while a consumer who also displays knowledge about competing products may qualify as a "product-comparison advocate".
The behavioral profiler may be considered as combining known members of the set of {who, what, where, how, when} related to a potential consumption to assess consumer interests, the probability of consumption and, in the case of a purchase, the location in a buying timeline.
In a typical evaluation, a known user is a prospect who would consume, influenced by socially related persons who would advocate consumption. A product, brand, or service is what the consumer would prospectively consume, as well as marketing messages for the BPS. The best advocate, marketing message, or product depends in part on where the consumer is, both in terms of physical location of the user or request, as well as in terms of network location, such as the current web page, domain, network, or service provider, and includes device specifics such as display device, communication device, and so on. The behavioral profiler 103 estimates how the purchase is to be made, as well as how best to approach the consumer. The behavioral profiler 103 also analyzes browsing requests to estimate when the purchase is to be made in an estimated user-modified product-buying cycle. By monitoring various browsing and other online activities of the user in behavioral profiler 103 and adaptively modifying behavioral database 108, future consumption habits of the consumer may be predicted, particularly as the consumer approaches a major purchase. Results from the behavioral profiler 103 are stored in database 108.
At each phase of the typical funneling behavior, the breadth of consumer inquiries is diminished, the consumer shifts focus from the more general to the more specific, and fewer consumers qualify for progression in the cycle, narrowing to a smaller stream. Note that the typical buying cycle for a long-term asset, such as an automobile, is very different than the buying cycle for a short-term convenience like an automatic can opener. In one embodiment, the behavioral profiler accounts for these differences by dividing BPSs into categories, and characterizes the various phases of the buying cycle in each category and marketing context.
A5. Product, Brand, or Service Specific Profiling
The BPS profiler 105 inputs or learns characterizations of the different buying phases for each general and specific type of a BPS, and stores characterization of various buying cycles indexed by BPS identifier in database 110. In one embodiment, similar products are grouped together in categories, such as example category "auto insurance." Alternatively, a characterization of product buying cycles for various products or categories is obtained from a third party. Further, an individual consumer may have individualized buying habits, stored in database 106, that differ from the typical buying cycle. Consumer actions are monitored and assessed in comparison with various consumption phase patterns to predict the location in a
buying cycle in behavioral profiler 103. In one embodiment, the behavioral profiler 103 further modifies the purchasing timeframe estimation using the output of the BPS profiler 105 and the user profiler 101 to combine the consumer's personalized buying habits stored in 106, a BPS's typical buying cycle stored in 110, and detected consumer actions stored in 108 to refine the prediction of the consumer's purchasing intentions and timeframe.
A6. Advertiser and Publisher Profiling
Advertisers or marketers ultimately seek to identify consumers heading toward a purchase, and to steer the consumer to an advertised product. However, the interim marketing goals of an advertiser can vary considerably, and different advertisers with differing marketing materials and methods are willing to pay differing rates for realization of differing goals. One or more attributes of an advertiser and advertising campaign are determined in advertiser profiler 104 and stored in database 109. In one embodiment, a measure of the fulfillment of each marketing goal is also stored in database 109. In one embodiment, marketing messages are also stored in database 109. Alternatively, a measure of the fulfillment of each marketing goal may be determined or maintained in account manager 127 or obtained from advertisers, suppliers, or external accounting service providers, and stored in database 126. In one embodiment, advertiser profiler 104 may also determine one or more relative priorities of advertisers to be stored in advertiser profile database 109. In one embodiment, an advertiser profile also contains one or more ratings of current network conditions, such as monetization goals, content obligations, network traffic conditions or trends, and a desired user experience.
Attributes of publishers may also affect the selection of appropriate consumers, products, advocates, experts, and marketing materials. Typically, an advertiser targets certain publications, and attributes of potential publishers may be stored in advertiser profile database 109. Alternatively, a publisher profiler (not shown) characterizes and updates attributes of publishers stored in a publisher database (not shown). A publisher database may contain one or more attributes related to publisher obligations, fulfillment of publisher goals, publisher marketing materials, publisher network conditions, qualified publisher advocates and experts, and so on.
A7. Database Matching
In various embodiments, a search is performed to determine a set of best three-way matches made between a BPS, a consumer, and an advocate. The best matches are determined by searching one or more databases to determine profiles with favorably weighted attributes. In one embodiment, database matcher 111 receives a service request including one or more weighting functions and an identification of one or more databases to search from context evaluator 114. In response, database matcher 111 determines and provides identification of the best matches.
A8. Communication Manager
In various embodiments, direct "one-click" communication between a consumer and an advocate often results in the most successful three-way marketing match. In an example embodiment, a representation of an advocate is displayed in proximity to a marketing message on a web page. By using a computer's pointing device, such as a computer mouse, an interested consumer is able to move a screen cursor to position it over the representation of the advocate. In one embodiment, the representation of the advocate is instrumented to provide that a single click of the mouse button initiates communication between the consumer and the advocate as facilitated by communication manager 112. In a further embodiment, communication manager 112 accesses the database of user profilers 106 and the database of advocate profiles 107 to determine a default or preferred means of communication suitable to both parties. In a typical implementation, a default means of communication is by Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), but communication may be established through any convenient means, including one or more of communication by instant messaging, text instant messaging, audio-visual instant messaging, direct phone dialing, the Short Message Service (SMS) protocol, or e-mail communication. In a preferred embodiment, the communications manager allows each party to retain communication anonymity if desired. Communications activity and consumption activity completed through such communications are logged in database 113.
A9. Account Manager
The system is designed to facilitate marketing and consumption of products. Account manager 127 tracks matching and marketing activity and associated consumption activity, and
stores logs of the activities in database 126. In one embodiment, the account manager further determines the enhanced value of marketing with supplied advocacy as described further below. In a further embodiment, the account manager updates client accounts, bills various system customers, maintains various account receivables, and determines distribution of a revenue stream. In one embodiment, a portion of the receivables stream is dedicated to providing various marketing incentives, including payments for experts and non-monetary incentives for advocates, as described further below.
AlO. Server API
As indicated above, the marketing system provides one or more three-way matches between a consumer, a brand, product, or service (BPS), and an advocate. In a typical use of the system, two of the three parties to a three-way match are provided, and a marketing system server provides the identification of one or more third parties. In one embodiment, the third party may be obtained through the server Application Programming Interface (API) 120. The server API 100 may be used to access of modify the functionality of any of the third party servers 121- 125, including one or more of the BPS server 121, the prospect server 122, the advocate server 123, the consumer server 124, and the influencer server 125.
Al l . BPS Server
The BPS server is used to search for and access one or more attributes of a consumable good, such as a marketed brand, product, or service (BPS). In a typical use of the BPS server 121, the identification of a pair of users is provided in a service request, and the BPS server 121 responds with the identification of one or more brands, products, or services likely to benefit from marketing with personalized advocacy. As mentioned above, a consumer may be qualified as an advocate or further qualified as an expert with regard to a specific BPS. In order to make a successful match, at least one of the users must be qualified as a BPS advocate or expert.
When each user is qualified to act as an advocate for one or more products, the question arises as to which user should be regarded as the advocate and which should be regarded as the consumer. In one embodiment, a service request to the BPS server includes an identification of the user to be regarded as the advocate, and a search is performed among all brands, products,
and services qualified for advocacy by said user to find the BPS likely to provide the greatest marketing benefit with regard to the other consuming user. In an alternate or augmented embodiment, each user is regarded as a potential advocate, and a search is performed among all qualified brands, products, and services for either user as advocate to find the BPS likely to provide the greatest marketing benefit to the other consuming user. In the alternate embodiment, a service request response identifies the BPS and the user to be considered the advocate.
With each prospective match of a consumer, advocate, and BPS, an estimate of the match value is determined using the context evaluator 1 14, the database matcher 111, and the various databases 106-110, 113, and 126, as discussed further below. The match values associated with various matches are sorted, and one or more matches with the highest match values are considered the best.
A 12. Advocate Server
The advocate server is used to search for and access one or more attributes of a marketing advocate. In a typical use of the advocate server 123, the identification of a consumer and a BPS is provided in a service request, and the advocate server 123 responds by providing the identification of one or more advocates likely to successfully promote consumption of the BPS. With each prospective match of a consumer, advocate, and BPS, an estimate of the match value is determined using the context evaluator 114, the database matcher 111, and the various databases 106-110, 113, and 126, as discussed further below. The match values associated with various matches are sorted, and one or more matches with the highest match values are considered the best.
Al 3. Consumer Server
The consumer server is used to search for and access one or more attributes of consumers. In a typical use of the consumer server 124, the identification of an advocate and a BPS is provided in a service request, and the consumer server 124 responds by providing the identification of one or more consumers likely to be motivated by personalized advocacy of the BPS. With each prospective match of a consumer, advocate, and BPS, an estimate of the match value is determined using the context evaluator 1 14, the database matcher 111, and the various
databases 106-110, 113, and 126, as discussed further below. The match values associated with various matches are sorted, and one or more matches with the highest match values are considered the best.
A14. Prospect Server
In a typical use of the prospect server 124, the identification of an advocate and a BPS is provided in a service request, and the prospect server 124 responds by providing the identification of one or more users likely to be motivated to consider consumption of the BPS. With each match of a prospect, advocate, and BPS, an estimate of the match value is determined. The match values associated with various matches are sorted, and one or more matches with the highest match values are considered the best.
Al 5. Influencer Server
In a typical use of the influencer server 125, the identification of a BPS is provided in a service request, and the influencer server 125 responds by providing the identification of one or more groups of users likely to be motivated to consider consumption of the BPS, and for each group, one or more advocates likely to influence the group. With each prospective match of a group, advocate, and BPS, an estimate of the match value is determined. The match values associated with various matches are sorted, and one or more matches with the highest match values are considered the best.
In the context of a computer network terminology, a server is sometimes referred to as a virtual server. A virtual server is physically one or more server systems connected to the network and support circuitry to execute application programs for processing data. Data may be stored by means which facilitate efficient processing, such as by storing the data in a "database" consisting of a collection of data organized by relationships between the various forms of data contained therein. When a virtual server consists of more than one computer server system, the set of computer server systems is interconnected hierarchically to perform high-level functions as combined functions of several servers under central control.
Functionally, a virtual server executes a sequence of low-level CPU commands to complete instructions for processing data. A virtual server typically accepts instructions and
executes commands for a multitude of "clients". The instructions may include, but are not limited to, instructions to store or retrieve data, to modify, verify or erase data, or to reorganize data. A virtual server may also initiate instructions for other network-attached devices. For example, a virtual "music server" might maintain a database to locate a library of musical compositions. The music server might receive commands to store new songs or retrieve old ones from a number of clients. Further, the music server might send commands to other devices on the network, e.g., to disseminate the musical database among various subservient servers, such as a "jazz server," a "hip-hop server," a "classical server," and so on, to register paying user requests in a "billing server," to verify the identity, preferences, and access privileges of a user in a "registration server" and so on. The music server may therefore also be a client of other servers. Practitioners of the art will recognize that virtual servers and clients are abstract interactive devices controlled by software instructions, whose interaction protocols may be flexibly defined. A "client" as used herein may include functionally to process information and programs, as well as to issue commands. Similarly, a virtual server as used herein may include functionally to initiate commands to users and other servers as well as to respond to instructions.
Similarly, a database should not be construed to be a single physical collection of data. As used herein, a database is an abstract collection of data and may be distributed over one or more physical locations. Said data may be stored physically within a single or multiple servers, within attached physical device(s), network attached device(s), or user devices(s). Similarly, an application program should not be construed to be a single physical collection of commands. As used herein, an application program is an abstract collection of CPU commands, which may be physically executed, in whole or in part, within a single or multiple servers, within attached physical devices(s), within network attached device(s), or within user device(s).
B. Contextual Matching
Fig. 3 depicts a prospective three-way match between a user 300, denoted user A, a second user 301 acting as an advocate, denoted user B, advocate B, or expert B, and a consumable, denoted BPS C. In a typical environment, the consumable is a brand, product, or service drawn to the attention of user A. Each of the three parties of the match possesses a set of attributes, said sets denoted attributes(A), attributes(B), and attrϊbutes{C), and stored in
databases 106, 107, and 110, respectively. Some or all of the attributes may be explicitly defined, while some attributes may be implicitly or probabilistically determined.
In a preferred implementation, the matching system operates by estimating a set of essential quantities reflecting pair-wise relationships in the three-way match. For example, in a preferred embodiment, user A and advocate B have a social relationship based on some commonality of experience, interests, and values. The social relationship may be characterized as having an objective or factual component, denoted "knowledge" in Fig. 3, and a subjective or emotional component denoted "connection." To signify that the example relationship may not be reflexive, user A's knowledge of advocate B is denoted knowledge(A, B), while advocate B's knowledge of user A is denoted knowledge(B, A). Similarly, user A's connection to advocate B is denoted connection{A, B), while advocate B's connection to user A is denoted connection(B, A), and so on. The estimated essential quantities are further combined in a context-dependent manner to determine an overall match score or match value.
To estimate the strength of the social relationship between A and B, a social strength function combines the essential estimated quantities. In a preferred implementation, the essential social strength quantities include an estimate of social knowledge and social connection. In one implementation, each essential quantity is rated on a scale from negative one to positive one, assigned a weighting factor on a scale from negative one to positive one, and the social strength is determined as a weighted sum of the product of the rated factors. In a preferred embodiment, a set of weighting factors for each context, combining a marketing context and a phase of a buying cycle, is determined and stored. For example, in a generalized market survey, a consumer typically gives greater weight to fact gathering, whereas in a potential sales closing with an advocate, the consumer typically gives greater weight to intangible emotional aspects of the relationship with the advocate, such as trust in the advocate. This change in consumer focus is reflected by using a set of weighting factors giving greater weight to knowledge in an early buying cycle, and greater weight to connection in a later buying cycle.
In an alternate embodiment, each of the attributes of A and B are quantized. Attributes are then partitioned into groups affecting essential estimated quantities. For example, a social strength may be further characterized as having two components, attributes reflecting potential
common knowledge and attributes reflecting potential common connection. By correlating the common knowledge attributes of A and B, a common knowledge score is computed. By correlating the common connection attributes of A and B, a common connection score is computed. The social strength is computed by combining the component scores. In one implementation, the social strength is a sum of component scores. In an alternate implementation, the essential estimated quantities are thought of as occupying orthogonal dimensions, and the social strength is a Euclidean distance (or "L2 norm") calculated as a sum of squares of orthogonal essential estimated quantity scores.
In a preferred embodiment, the attributes of A and B are combined using a combination of weighting factors, differences, squared distances, and correlation. Attributes are quantized and partitioned into groups affecting essential estimated quantities. Generally, user A and advocate B have more in common when they have highly correlated attributes. A weighting factor may be used to ignore or negatively weigh an undesired attribute. However, in some marketing efforts, it may be desired that the user A and the advocate B have some attributes with a large difference in quantized value, such as those characterizing product knowledge. For example, in a generalized market survey phase of a buying cycle, it may be desired that the advocate have a much greater knowledge of the BPS than the user, whereas a knowledgeable consumer about to make a purchase may prefer an advocate with similar knowledge of the product. An example knowledge score (Ks) for the early buying cycle phase is
Ks = knowledge(B, C) - knowledge(A,C).
If the only significance is the magnitude of difference in knowledge, an example knowledge score is
Ks = {knowledge(B, C) - knowledge(A,C)}2.
An example knowledge score for the later buying cycle phase is
Ks = knowledge(B, C) * knowledge(A,C).
Further, as mentioned above, the scores are weighted to account for marketing context. In one embodiment, a marketing contact is classified as a direct contact or an indirect contact. For
example, a consumer may access marketing material consisting of a banner advertisement for a product motorcycle. The banner ad may be accompanied by an instrumented representation of an advocate, which provides a direct communication contact to the represented advocate. Alternatively, the banner ad may be accompanied by a link to request an indirect contact to an advocate. When the context categories include one or more means of direct contact, an advocate profile includes one or more attributes related to the expected marketing value of the advocate in a direct contact context. Direct and indirect marketing contacts may be further classified and advocate attributes may be correspondingly expanded to account for differing responses in consumer-initiated contact and system-assisted contact.
In an alternate or augmented embodiment, a marketing contact is classified as explicit, implicit, or probabilistic. For example, the banner ad may be accompanied by a single explicit advocate reference, such as a representation of a specific named advocate. Alternatively, the banner ad may be accompanied by a single implicit advocate reference, such as the representation of an otherwise anonymous advocate labeled "Service Technician." When the context categories include one or more means of explicit (implicit) contact, an advocate profile includes one or more attributes related to the expected marketing value of the advocate in an explicit (implicit) context. An example of a probabilistic contact is a banner ad accompanied by two or more representations of competing advocates, any of which may be selected by the consumer. The expected marketing value of an individual advocate is a product of (a) the probability that the advocate is selected by the consumer and (b) the conditional expected marketing value of the advocate if selected. When the context categories include one or more means of probabilistic contact, an advocate profile includes one or more attributes related to the expected marketing value of the advocate in the probabilistic context.
Fig. 4 illustrates an example matching value estimator. In Fig. 4, the inputs are attributes of user A, user B, and BPS C, and a RuleSet identifier for the context of the marketing campaign and the phase of the buying cycle. The RuleSet identifier indexes a table 403 of filter rules and score combining weights. The filter rules control filters /?04), q(B), and r(C). In one implementation, filter r(C) scales and quantizes attributes of BPS C to determine which are quantized positively, which are quantized negatively, and which are ignored at the output of filter r(C). Similarly, filter q(B) determines the weighting of advocate B's attributes, and filter p(A)
determines the weighting of user A's attributes. User A's attributes are combined in score unit 407, advocate B's attributes are combined in score unit 408, and BPS Cs attributes are combined in score unit 409.
Unit 404 evaluates the essential estimated quantities of the pair- wise relationship between user A and advocate B. Two or more essential quantities are estimated, denoted
(/(A5B) }
where the essential quantity index / equals 1 , 2, and so on. The two or more essential quantities included social knowledge score and social connection score.
Unit 405 evaluates the essential estimated quantities of the pair- wise relationship between user A and BPS C. Two or more essential quantities are estimated, denoted
( S, (AJB) }
where the essential quantity index / equals 1, 2, and so on. The two or more essential quantities include product knowledge score and product purchasing behavior score.
Unit 406 evaluates the essential estimated quantities of the pair- wise relationship between advocate B and BPS C. Two or more essential quantities are estimated, denoted
( Λ, (A,B) }
where the essential quantity index i equals 1 , 2, and so on. The two or more essential quantities include product knowledge score and product connection score.
The various scores at the outputs of scoring units 407-409 and pair-wise evaluator units 404-406 are multiplied by weighting factors denoted wl-w9 in scaling unit 410. The weighting factors are obtained from table 403 in response to an identified RuleSet. The weighted scores are combined in adder 411 to create a MatchValue output, where a greater MatchValue output indicates a three-way match with a greater expected marketing value.
C. Consumer Matching
A possible use of a matching estimator contemplated by this invention is in determining a set of best consumers. An example flowchart for a consumer selection algorithm is shown in Fig. 5, where it is assumed that two parties of the match, the advocate, user B, and the consumption object, BPS C, are fixed, and a set of best consumers for the two parties is to be determined.
The flowchart consists of a number of sequential steps. The matching process begins in step 500. In step 501, the advocate user identifier (ID), the consumption object ID, the advertiser ID (if any), the publisher ID (if any) and the context ID are input to the process in step 501. In step 502, the identifiers are used to index the databases 106-110 to obtain the attributes of related parties to the match. In step 503, the list of matched advocates is initialized as an empty list, with a list member count of zero.
Steps 504-506 are a repetitive loop used to process the database of consumers. In a preferred embodiment, the entries indexed by BPS C in database 110 include a list of likely prospects for consumption of BPS C. In such an embodiment, the list of likely consumer prospects for BPS C is compared to the list of available consumers in database 107 in step 505. If the list of likely prospects for BPS C is not included in database 110, the list of available consumers is checked to see if any qualify as a likely prospect for BPS C in step 505. If there is an unprocessed consumer who is available and qualified, the unprocessed consumer is processed in step 506. In step 506, the potential available and qualified consumer is processed to determine a MatchValue score, and the consumer identifier and associated MatchValue score are added to the match list. Steps 504 and 505 are repeated to see if there is another unprocessed qualified and available consumer, and if so, to continue scoring and adding the consumer(s). The loop continues until all qualified and available consumers are exhausted, at which point step 505 proceeds to step 507.
In step 507, the number of matches in the list is checked. If the count of list members is zero, no consumer was found in the search, an error message is generated in step 508, and the process terminates in step 513. Otherwise, the match list is non-empty, and the list of matching consumers is sorted according to MatchValue in step 509. Step 510 determines how the sorted list is to be further processed. In "threshold mode" all matches with a MatchValue exceeding a
threshold Tare identified as best consumers in step 511 and the process terminates in step 513. Otherwise, it is assumed that up to N best consumers are desired, where N is a positive integer. In this mode, the top N scoring consumers in the matched list are identified in step 512 and the process terminates in step 513.
D. Determining Actual and Added Value of Advocacy
The previous section discusses an example method of finding best advocates for a three- way match. In this section, the actual and added value of advocacy in a three-way match is determined. Fig. 6 is an example signal flow chart to reflect a method of determining these quantities. The AddedValue output of Fig. 6 is also used to provide adaptive matching in an alternative embodiment, discussed further below. As discussed further below, the quantities determined in Fig. 6 may be determined by a number of sub-processes dispersed in time. Each processing block of Fig. 6 is assumed to operate as an independent process with inputs tagged as necessary to maintain the integrity and time alignment of the indicated signal flow.
In Fig. 6, it is assumed that a advocate user B and a BPS C of interest are input to the marketing system. In block 601, a consuming user A with a qualifying match score is determined. This advocate may be determined as a member of the match list of the example matching process of Fig. 5. In an alternative embodiment, a user identifier for user A is supplied by a representative of one of the parties or a third party. In block 602, the marketing value of marketing materials with and without additional advocacy is estimated. In a preferred embodiment, the "MatchValue" output of Fig. 4 represents the expected monetary value of the marketing materials with advocacy by advocate B. The "MatchValue" output from block 602 is scaled if necessary (not shown) to represent this expected monetary value.
In block 602, the expected value of the marketing materials without advocacy is also estimated or determined. In a typical environment, the marketing material is an advertisement placed within a web page. In one embodiment, the value of the advertisement without advocacy is determined by repeatedly running the ad without accompanying advocacy, tracking commercial activity in relation to the ad, and accumulating a measure of the average economic value. For example, a product manufacturer may be willing to pay ten cents per click on a banner advertisement to a service provider. The service provider instruments the advertisement to record
and account for each click on the ad, and determines the average value per placed ad without advocacy. In an alternate or augmented embodiment, the service provider estimates the value of one or more advertisements without advocacy, using statistics for similar advertisements in similar product categories and similar contexts. The value of the marketing materials without advocacy is denoted "WithoutValue" at the output of block 602.
In block 603, there is a check to see if there is a reason to provide advocacy because of an increase in expected marketing value with advocacy. If not, the marketing materials are placed without advocacy, and no further processing of advocacy value is required.
If there is an expected increase in marketing value, the marketing materials are augmented to provide user B as a marketing advocate to consuming user A. The marketing materials are preferably instrumented to support one-click communicative access to advocate B, as described above, in block 603. In block 604, the terms of the advocacy contractual arrangement are registered with the account manager 127. Account manager 127 tracks all commercial activity in relation to the advertisement with advocacy, and tracks the actual marketing value of the associated actions. When the marketing campaign has ended for the instrumented marketing materials, the accumulated actual marketing value is output as "Real Value" by block 605.
Block 606 calculates the added value of the advocacy by subtracting the WithoutValue from the RealValue. The advertising client is billed for the RealValue. The AddedValue represents an augmented revenue stream generated by the advocacy. This added value is available to provide advocacy incentives, advocacy costs, service provider costs and a reasonable service provider profit for providing advocacy selection and/or advocacy accounting support. Block 607 assigns the costs of advocacy to an advocacy sponsor, and divides the advocacy revenue to provide advocacy system profit and incentives. In a preferred embodiment, monetary incentives are reserved for expert advocates, and other advocates receive non-monetary incentives.
E. Adaptive Embodiment of Matching System
Figs. 8 and 9 represent a first and second half of an alternative embodiment of the matching system of Section B above. In Section B, it is assumed that the estimated value of a match may be determined by first determining a number of interim quantities which reflect essential components of a two-way relationship, and second, combining those components into a MatchValue score. Figs. 8-9 represent an alternative approach, which directly estimates a MatchValue score from primitive attributes without determining interim quantities.
When two of three parties to a match are known, the relationship of the known parties is fixed and the pre-existing value of the relationship is realized without an advocacy matching system. The value of a prospective third party is essentially determined by the relationships of the third party with each of the known parties. When the third party to be determined is a consumer, the advocate's relationship with the product determines a part of the context of the advocate matching, but does not change from one prospective consumer to the next. Ignoring the pre-existing relationship, an optimized search for a consumer is performed by evaluating the relationship of the consumer to the product and the relationship of the advocate to the consumer. The evaluation is performed in a context-dependent manner depending on the consuming user's present relationship with the product, as reflected in a behavioral profile of user actions in a characterized product buying cycle.
A first half of an optimized advocate processor is shown in Fig. 8. In Fig. 8, raw attributes of BPS C, user A, and advocate B are input to categorization and quantization blocks 804-806. The attributes are categorized into N categories, where N is a positive integer, and organized and indexed such that the ith attribute of user A is the same as the /' attribute of user B, and so on. In one embodiment, each attribute reflects a potential quality of the party, and the attributes are quantized positively to reflect the probability that the party possesses the attribute. In cases where it is more probable that the party does not possess the attribute, the attribute may be quantized negatively. For example, if a designated attribute of a user is that the user has a favorite color of red, a quantized value of 0.80 may reflect a probability of 80% that the user's favorite color is red. On the other hand, a quantized value of -0.70 may reflect a probability of 70% that the favorite color of the user is a different color, such as blue. The similarity between
two users in terms of preference for red may be taken as the product of the quantized party attributes for the two users.
In Fig. 8, various attributes for any party may be emphasized, de-emphasized, ignored, or rejected by weighting the quantized attributes for the party. Filters 807-809 provide a modified weighting of the quantized attributes of C, A, and B, respectively, using a RuleSet determined from context to index three tables of filter weights, 801-803. The filter weights determine the attribute emphasis or de-emphasis required for the marketing context.
The N weighted attributes of BPS C are denoted x[l] to x[N], the N weighted attributes of advocate B are denoted X[4JV+1 ] to x[5N], and the N weighted attributes of user A are denoted x[2N+ 1 ] to x[3N] . The weighted attributes of BPS C are further correlated with the weighted attributes of user A to produce N correlated attributes of the relationship of A and C denoted x[N+l] to x[2N], The correlations are output by multiplier unit 810. Similarly, the weighted attributes of user A are further correlated with the weighted attributes of advocate B to produce N correlated attributes of the relationship of A and B denoted x[3N+l] to x[4N], output by multiplier unit 811. The 5 N outputs of Fig. 8 are further processed in Fig. 9.
In Fig. 9, the estimated value of advocacy is determined as a weighted sum of the 5 /V outputs of Fig. 8. The tap weights, w[l] to w[5N], are dependent on the marketing context. Multiplexer 904 has L different sets of tap weights as input, with 5iVtap weights in each set, and a select control input. Examples sets of input tap weights are denoted 901-903. The output of 904 is a set of weights as determined by a "ContextSelection" input, which selects one of the L tap weight sets as w[l] to w[5N]. Each tap weight w[i] is multiplied by the corresponding /' output of Fig. 8, x[i], in multiplier unit 905. Adder 906 adds the outputs of the multipliers to output an estimated value of the advocacy. In one embodiment, the EstimatedValue output may be used as an alternative to the MatchValue output of Fig. 4.
In a further augmentation of the embodiment, the system adapts the tap weights to refine the predicted advocacy value to better track actual value. Recall that in Fig. 6, the output AddedValue reflects the additional value realized by the provided advocacy. This AddedValue output of Fig. 6 is input to block 907 of Fig. 9, which determines the difference between the EstimatedValue and the AddedValue. The difference, "error," is attributed to estimation error
and random system perturbations. The error is scaled by a small quantity, epsilon, in multiplier 908. Units 909 and 910 are example adaptation units for tap weights w[\] and w[5N]. A similar adaptation unit is provided for each tap weight. The output of multiplier 908 is correlated with the inputs to the EstimatedValue filter at the time of estimation in multipliers 911-912. To align the inputs of the adaptation unit, the quantities x[l] to x[5N] may have to be stored for later processing after the AddedValue has been determined. The output of the multipliers 911-912 is a small adjustment to the tap weight, w[\] or w[5N\. The adjustment to tap weight w[\] is accomplished in adder 913, while the adjustment to tap weight w[5N] is accomplished in adder 914.
If the attributes of a consumer-advocate relationship are thought of as contributing a subjective, emotion-based component to marketing decisions, the adaptability of Figs. 8-9 provides a distinct advantage. A consumer who develops a relationship with an advocate is likely to change subjective components of the advocate evaluation based on the accumulated results of marketing contacts with the advocate. An adaptive system learns the time-varying weights given to various attributes, and adjusts them accordingly.
F. Example Server System
As indicated above, one or more of the processes of Figs. 4, 5, and 6, as well as one or more of the processes of Figs. 8-9 discussed below, may be performed by specialized signal processing hardware, or may be performed using a general-purpose computer implementing a sequence of software steps. The processing may incorporate one or more steps performed on a user's computer system (a "client" system) and one or more steps performed on a service provider's computer system (a "server" system). Server and client systems described herein can be implemented by a variety of computer systems and architectures. Fig. 7 illustrates suitable components in an exemplary embodiment of a general-purpose computer system. The exemplary embodiment is only one example of suitable components and is not intended to suggest any limitation as to the scope of use or functionality of the invention. Neither should the configuration of components be interpreted as having any dependency or requirement relating to any one or combination of components illustrated in the exemplary embodiment of a computer
system. The invention may be operational with numerous other general purpose or special purpose computer system environments or configurations.
The invention may be described in the general context of computer-executable instructions, such as program modules, being executed by a computer. Generally, program modules include routines, programs, objects, components, data structures, and so forth, which perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types. The invention may also be practiced in distributed computing environments where tasks are performed by remote processing devices that are linked through a communications network. In a distributed computing environment, program modules may be located in local and/or remote computer storage media including memory storage devices.
With reference to Fig. 7, an exemplary system for implementing the invention may include a general-purpose computer system 700. Computer system 700 accesses one or more applications and peripheral drivers directed to a number of functions described herein. Components of the computer system 700 may include, but are not limited to, a CPU or central processing unit 702, a system memory 708, and a system bus 722 that couples various system components including the system memory 708 to the processing unit 702. As used by those skilled in the art, a signal "bus" refers to a plurality of digital signal lines serving a common function. The system bus 722 may be any of several types of bus structures including a memory bus, a peripheral bus, and a local bus using any of a variety of bus architectures. By way of example, and not limitation, such architectures include the Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) bus, Enhanced ISA (EISA) bus, the Micro Channel Architecture (MCA) bus, the Video Electronics Standards Association local (VLB) bus, the Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus, the PCI-Express bus (PCI-X), and the Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP) bus.
An operating system manages the operation of computer system 700, including the input and output of data to and from applications (not shown). The operating system provides an interface between the applications being executed on the system and the components of the system. According to one embodiment of the present invention, the operating system is a Windows ® 95/98/NT/XP/Vista/Mobile operating system, available from Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash. However, the present invention may be used with other suitable operating
systems, such as an OS-X ® operating system, available from Apple Computer Inc. of Cupertino, Calif, a UNIX ® operating system, or a LINUX operating system.
The computer system 700 may include a variety of computer-readable media. Computer- readable media can be any available media that can be accessed by the computer system 700 and includes both volatile and nonvolatile media. For example, computer-readable media may include volatile and nonvolatile computer storage media implemented in any method or technology for storage of information such as computer-readable instructions, data structures, program modules or other data. Computer storage media includes, but is not limited to, random access memory (RAM), read-only memory (ROM), electrically erasable programmable ROM (EEPROM), flash memory or other memory technology, compact-disk ROM (CD-ROM), digital versatile disks (DVD) or other optical disk storage, magnetic tape cassettes, magnetic tape, hard magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices, floppy disk storage devices, magnetic diskettes, or any other medium which can be used to store the desired information and which can accessed by the computer system 700.
Communication media may also embody machine-readable instructions, data structures, program modules or other data in a modulated data signal such as a carrier wave or other transport mechanism and includes any information delivery media. The term "modulated data signal" means a signal that has one or more of its characteristics set or changed in such a manner as to encode information in the signal. For instance, communication media includes wired media such as a wired network or direct-wired connection, and wireless media such as acoustic, RF, infrared, cellular networks, and other wireless media.
The system memory 708 includes computer storage media in the form of volatile and/or nonvolatile memory such as read only memory (ROM) 706 and random access memory (RAM) 705. A basic input/output system 707 (BIOS), containing the basic routines that help to transfer information between elements within computer system 700, such as during start-up, is typically stored in ROM 706 and other non-volatile storage, such as flash memory. Additionally, system memory 708 may contain some or all of the operating system 709, the application programs 712, other executable code 710 and program data 711. Memory 708 typically contains data and/or program modules that are immediately accessible to and/or presently being operated on by CPU
702. Optionally, a CPU may contain a cache memory unit 701 for temporary local storage of instructions, data, or computer addresses.
The computer system 700 may also include other removable/non-removable, volatile/nonvolatile computer storage media. By way of example only, and not by way of limitation, Fig. 7 illustrates a bulk storage unit 713 that reads from or writes to one or more magnetic disk drives of non-removable, nonvolatile magnetic media, and storage device 721 that may be an optical disk drive or a magnetic disk drive that reads from or writes to a removable, a nonvolatile storage medium 730 such as an optical disk or a magnetic disk. Other computer storage media that can be used in the exemplary computer system 700 includes removable or non-removable media and volatile or nonvolatile storage. The storage media includes, but is not limited to, magnetic tape cassettes, flash memory cards, digital versatile disks, digital video tape, solid state RAM, solid state ROM, and the like. Bulk storage 713 and the storage device 721 may be connected directly to the system bus 722, or alternatively may be connected through an interface such as storage controller 714 shown for bulk storage 713. Storage devices may interface to computer system 700 through a general computer bus such as 722, or may interconnect with a storage controller over a storage-optimized bus, such as the Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) bus, the ANSI AT A/AT API bus, the Ultra ATA bus, the Fire Wire (IEEE 1394) bus, or the Serial ATA (SATA) bus.
The storage devices and their associated computer storage media, discussed above and illustrated in Fig. 7, provide storage of computer-readable instructions, executable code, data structures, program modules and other data for the computer system 700. For example, bulk storage 713 is illustrated as storing operating system 709, application programs 712, other executable code 710 and program data 711. As mentioned previously, data and computer instructions in 713 may be transferred to system memory 708 to facilitate immediate CPU access from processor 702. Alternatively, processor 702 may access stored instructions and data by interacting directly with bulk storage 713. Furthermore, bulk storage may be alternatively provided by a network-attached storage device (not shown), which is accessed through a network interface 715.
A user may enter commands and information into the computer system 700 through the network interface 715 or through an input device 727 such as a keyboard, a pointing device commonly referred to as a mouse, a trackball, a touch pad tablet, a controller, an electronic digitizer, a microphone, an audio input interface, or a video input interface. Other input devices may include a joystick, game pad, satellite dish, scanner, and so forth. These and other input devices are often connected to CPU 702 through an input interface 718 that is coupled to the system bus, but may be connected by other interface and bus structures, such as a parallel port, a game port or a universal serial bus (USB). A display 726 or other type of video device may also be connected to the system bus 722 via an interface, such as a graphics controller 716 and a video interface 717. In addition, an output device 728, such as headphones, speakers, or a printer, may be connected to the system bus 722 through an output interface 719 or the like.
The computer system 700 may operate in a networked environment using a network 130 operably connected to one or more remote computers, such as a remote computer 725. The remote computer 725 may be a terminal, a personal computer, a server, a router, a network PC, a peer device or other common network node, and typically includes many or all of the elements described above relative to the computer system 700. The network 130 depicted in Fig. 7 may include a local area network (LAN), a wide area network (WAN), or other type of network. Such networking environments are commonplace in offices, enterprise-wide computer networks, intranets and the Internet. In a networked environment, executable code and application programs may be stored in the remote computer. By way of example, and not by way of limitation, Fig. 7 illustrates remote executable code 724 as residing on remote computer 725. It will be appreciated that the network connections shown are exemplary and other means of establishing a communications link between the computers may be used.
Collectively, these elements are intended to represent a broad category of computer systems, including but not limited to general purpose computer systems based on one or more members of the family of CPUs manufactured by Intel Corporation of Santa Clara, California, the family of CPUs manufactured by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Inc., of Sunnyvale, California, or the family of ARM CPUs, originally designed by Advanced RISC Machines, Ltd., as well as any other suitable processor. Of course, other implementations are possible. For
example, the server functionalities described herein may be implemented by a plurality of server sub-systems communicating over a backplane.
Various components of computer system 700 may be rearranged, deleted, or augmented. For example, system bus 722 may be implemented as a plurality of busses interconnecting various subsystems of the computer system. Furthermore, computer system 700 may contain additional signal busses or interconnections between existing components, such as by adding a direct memory access unit (not shown) to allow one or more components to more efficiently access system memory 708.
As shown, CACHEl and CPUl are packed together as "processor module" 702 with processor CPUl referred to as the "processor core." Alternatively, cache memories 701, 703, contained in 702, 704 may be separate components on the system bus. Furthermore, certain embodiments of the present invention may not require nor include all of the above components. For example, some embodiments may include a smaller number of CPUs, a smaller number of network ports, a smaller number of storage devices, or a smaller number of input-output interfaces. Furthermore, computer system 700 may include additional components, such as one or more additional central processing units, such as 704, storage devices, memories, or interfaces. In addition, one or more components of computer system 700 may be combined into a specialized system-on-a-chip (SOC) to further system integration. In some computer system environments where component count is critical, the entire computer system may be integrated in one or more very large scale integrated (VLSI) circuit(s).
As discussed above, in one implementation, operations of one or more of the physical server or client systems described herein is implemented as a series of software routines executed by computer system 700. Each of the software routines comprises a plurality or series of machine instructions to be executed by one or more components in the computer system, such as CPU 702. Initially, the series of instructions may be stored on a storage device, such as bulk storage 713. However, the series of instructions may be stored in an EEPROM, a flash device, or a DVD. Furthermore, the series of instructions need not be stored locally, and could be received from a remote computer 725 or a server on a network via network interface 715.
While a number of exemplary aspects and embodiments have been discussed above, those of skill in the art will recognize certain modifications, permutations, additions and sub- combinations thereof. It is therefore intended that the following appended claims and claims hereafter introduced are interpreted to include all such modifications, permutations, additions and sub-combinations as are within their true spirit and scope.
Claims
1. A method of providing marketing advocacy over a network, the method comprising: accessing a datastore to obtain one or more attributes of a marketed object, one or more attributes of an advocate of consumption of the object, and one or more attributes of one or more network users; determining, for each of the one or more network users, a measure of the value of the relationship between the network user and the object, denoted knowledge, and a measure of the value of the relationship between the advocate and the network user, denoted connection; combining the knowledge and connection measures to estimate a net value of marketing advocacy for each of the network users; sorting the network users using the estimated net value of marketing advocacy; and facilitating communication between the advocate and one or more network users with largest net marketing value.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein said facilitating communication between the advocate and one or more network users further comprises providing instrumentation of a marketing message to the network user to establish a two-way communication link between the advocate and a network user instantiated by a single network user interface action.
3. The method of claim 2, wherein said two-way communication link further comprises one or more of a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) call, a telephone call, a cellular phone call, a smart phone call, an instant messaging session, an e-mail communication, a Short Message Sevice (SMS) protocol message, a text message, or a mail message.
4. The method of claim 1, wherein said determining measures of the knowledge and the connection further comprises: dividing the one or more attributes into groups, one group relevant to knowledge, and one group relevant to connection, quantizing the attributes in each group; determining the value of each attribute in each group; combining the determined values for the group relevant to knowledge to compute a combined knowledge measurement; and combining the determined values for the group relevant to connection to compute a combined connection measurement.
5. The method of claim 4, wherein said determining the value of each attribute in the group characterizing a relationship between a party A and a party B further comprises one or more of (a) correlating the quantized value of the attribute for the party A with the quantized value of the corresponding attribute for the party B, (b) determining the difference between the quantized value of the attribute for the party A and the quantized value of the corresponding attribute for the party B, (c) determining the Euclidean distance between the quantized value of the attribute for the party A and the quantized value of the corresponding attribute for the party B, (d) determining the magnitude of the quantized value of the attribute for party A, and (e) determining the magnitude of the quantized value of the attribute for party B.
6. The method of claim 4, wherein said combining the determined values for the group relevant to a trait further comprises one or more of (a) computing a weighted linear combination of each of the determined values for attributes in the group relevant to the trait (b) computing a weighted sum of each of the determined values for attributes in the group relevant to the trait, and (c) computing a weighted sum of the squares of each of the determining values for attributes in the group relevant to the trait.
7. An apparatus for providing marketing advocacy over a network, said apparatus comprising a memory, one ore more central processing units, and a set of one or more processor instructions, said instructions operative, when executed by one or more of the processor units, to: access a datastore to obtain one or more attributes of a marketed object, one or more attributes of an advocate of consumption of the object, and one or more attributes of one or more network users; determine, for each of the one or more network users, a measure of the value of the relationship between the network user and the object, denoted knowledge, and a measure of the value of the relationship between the advocate and the network user, denoted connection; combine the knowledge and connection measures to estimate a net value of marketing advocacy for each of the network users; sort the network users using the estimated net value of marketing advocacy; and facilitate communication between the advocate and one or more network users with largest net marketing value.
8. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein to facilitate communication between the advocate and one or more network users further comprises to provide instrumentation for a marketing message to a network user to establish a two-way communication link between the advocate and the network user instantiated by a single network user interface action.
9. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein said two-way communication link further comprises one or more of a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) call, a telephone call, a cellular phone call, a smart phone call, an instant messaging session, an e-mail communication, a Short Message Sevice (SMS) protocol message, a text message, or a mail message.
10. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein to determine measures of the knowledge and the connection further comprises: dividing the one or more attributes into groups, one group relevant to knowledge, and one group relevant to connection, quantizing the attributes in each group; determining the value of each attribute in each group; combining the determined values for the group relevant to knowledge to compute a combined knowledge measurement; and combining the determined values for the group relevant to connection to compute a combined connection measurement.
11. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein to determine the value of each attribute in the group characterizing a relationship between a party A and a party B further comprises one or more of (a) correlating the quantized value of the attribute for the party A with the quantized value of the corresponding attribute for the party B, (b) determining the difference between the quantized value of the attribute for the party A and the quantized value of the corresponding attribute for the party B, (c) determining the Euclidean distance between the quantized value of the attribute for the party A and the quantized value of the corresponding attribute for the party B, (d) determining the magnitude of the quantized value of the attribute for party A, and (e) determining the magnitude of the quantized value of the attribute for party B.
12. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein to combine the determined values for the group relevant to a trait further comprises one or more of (a) computing a weighted linear combination of each of the determined values for attributes in the group relevant to the trait (b) computing a weighted sum of each of the determined values for attributes in the group relevant to the trait, and (c) computing a weighted sum of the squares of each of the determining values for attributes in the group relevant to the trait.
13. A method to capture and distribute the value of marketing advocacy over a network, the method comprising: accessing a datastore to obtain one or more attributes of a network user, one or more attributes of an object of interest to the user, and one or more attributes of an advocate of consumption of the object; providing instrumentation of one or more marketing messages for the object to track commercial activity in relation to the advocate; determining a net value of marketing advocacy for consumption of the object; collecting a measure of the net value of marketing advocacy from one or more marketing sponsors; and distributing said collections to provide advocacy marketing incentives, advocacy system costs, and advocacy system provider profit.
14. The method of claim 13, wherein said providing instrumentation of one or more marketing messages for the object to track commercial activity in relation to the advocate further comprises one or more of linking the one or more marketing messages with one or more means of communication with the advocate, facilitating network-based communications between the advocate and the network user, logging any commercial activity related to communication between the advocate and the network user, and calculating the market value of any of said commercial activity.
15. The method of claim 13 , wherein said determining a net value of marketing advocacy for consumption of the obj ect further comprises calculating the gross commercial value of one or more marketing messages associated with advocacy by the advocate; estimating the gross commercial value of the one or more marketing messages without advocacy by the advocate; and determining said net value as the difference between the calculated gross commercial value with advocacy and the estimated gross commercial value without advocacy.
16. An apparatus to capture and distribute the value of marketing advocacy over a network, said apparatus comprising a memory, one ore more central processing units, and a set of one or more processor instructions, said instructions operative, when executed by one or more of the processor units, to: access a datastore to obtain one or more attributes of a network user, one or more attributes of an object of interest to the user, and one or more attributes of an advocate of consumption of the object; provide instrumentation of one or more marketing messages for the object to track commercial activity in relation to the advocate; determine a net value of marketing advocacy for consumption of the object; collect a measure of the net value of marketing advocacy from one or more marketing sponsors; and distribute said collections to provide advocacy marketing incentives, advocacy system costs, and advocacy system provider profit.
17. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein to provide instrumentation of one or more marketing messages for the object to track commercial activity in relation to the advocate further comprises one or more of linking the one or more marketing messages with one or more means of communication with the advocate, facilitating network-based communications between the advocate and the network user, logging any commercial activity related to communication between the advocate and the network user, and calculating the market value of any of said commercial activity.
18. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein to determine a net value of marketing advocacy for consumption of the object further comprises calculating the gross commercial value of one or more marketing messages associated with advocacy by the advocate; estimating the gross commercial value of the one or more marketing messages without advocacy by the advocate; and determining said net value as the difference between the calculated gross commercial value with advocacy and the estimated gross commercial value without advocacy.
19. A method of providing marketing advocacy over a network, the method comprising: accessing a datastore to obtain one or more attributes of a marketed object, one or more attributes of an advocate of consumption of the object, and one or more attributes of one or more network users; and for each of the one or more network users, determining, for each of the one or more attributes, a measure of the value of the attribute as it pertains to the marketing value in the relationships between the advocate, the network user, and the object, and linearly combining each of the one or measures into an estimated net value of marketing advocacy in relation to the network user; sorting the network users using the estimated net value of marketing advocacy; and facilitating communication between the advocate and one or more network users with largest net marketing value.
20. The method of claim 19, wherein said determining a measure of the value of each attribute as it pertains to the marketing value in the relationships between the advocate, the network user, and the object, further comprises quantizing each of the one or more attributes of the network user, the advocate, and the object, and scoring the quantized attributes.
21. The method of claim 20, wherein said scoring the quantized attributes further comprises one or more of (a) correlating the quantized value of the attribute for the advocate with the quantized value of the corresponding attribute for the network user, (b) correlating the quantized value of the attribute for the advocate with the quantized value of the corresponding attribute for the object, (c) determining the difference between the quantized value of the attribute for the advocate and the quantized value of the corresponding attribute for the network user, (d) determining the difference between the quantized value of the attribute for the advocate and the quantized value of the corresponding attribute for the object, (e) determining the Euclidean distance between the quantized value of the attribute for the advocate and the quantized value of the corresponding attribute for the network user, (f) determining the Euclidean distance between the quantized value of the attribute for the advocate and the quantized value of the corresponding attribute for the object, (g) determining the magnitude of the quantized value of the attribute for the advocate, (h) determining the magnitude of the quantized value of the attribute for the network user and (i) determining the magnitude of the quantized value of the attribute for the object.
22. The method of claim 19, wherein said linearly combining each of the one or measures into an estimated net value of marketing advocacy in relation to the network user further comprises calculating, for each measure of the value of an attribute as it pertains to the marketing value in the relationships between the advocate, the network user, and the object, a contribution consisting of the product of the measure and a tap weight; and accumulating the contribution for each measure of the value of an attribute to obtain a total estimated net value.
23. The method of claim 22, wherein said linearly combining further comprises tracking an actual net value of provided marketing advocacy in relation to the network user; determining a difference between the estimated net value and the actual net value to obtain an error value; correlating the error value with each measure of the value of an attribute to obtain an adjustment quantity; determining tap weight adjustments by scaling said adjustment quantities.
Applications Claiming Priority (2)
Application Number | Priority Date | Filing Date | Title |
---|---|---|---|
US12/041,054 US8554623B2 (en) | 2008-03-03 | 2008-03-03 | Method and apparatus for social network marketing with consumer referral |
US12/041,054 | 2008-03-03 |
Publications (2)
Publication Number | Publication Date |
---|---|
WO2009111167A2 true WO2009111167A2 (en) | 2009-09-11 |
WO2009111167A3 WO2009111167A3 (en) | 2009-12-03 |
Family
ID=41013858
Family Applications (1)
Application Number | Title | Priority Date | Filing Date |
---|---|---|---|
PCT/US2009/034445 WO2009111167A2 (en) | 2008-03-03 | 2009-02-19 | Method and apparatus for social network marketing with consumer referral |
Country Status (3)
Country | Link |
---|---|
US (1) | US8554623B2 (en) |
TW (1) | TWI409712B (en) |
WO (1) | WO2009111167A2 (en) |
Families Citing this family (70)
Publication number | Priority date | Publication date | Assignee | Title |
---|---|---|---|---|
US8352400B2 (en) | 1991-12-23 | 2013-01-08 | Hoffberg Steven M | Adaptive pattern recognition based controller apparatus and method and human-factored interface therefore |
US7966078B2 (en) | 1999-02-01 | 2011-06-21 | Steven Hoffberg | Network media appliance system and method |
US9507778B2 (en) | 2006-05-19 | 2016-11-29 | Yahoo! Inc. | Summarization of media object collections |
US8594702B2 (en) | 2006-11-06 | 2013-11-26 | Yahoo! Inc. | Context server for associating information based on context |
US8402356B2 (en) | 2006-11-22 | 2013-03-19 | Yahoo! Inc. | Methods, systems and apparatus for delivery of media |
US9110903B2 (en) | 2006-11-22 | 2015-08-18 | Yahoo! Inc. | Method, system and apparatus for using user profile electronic device data in media delivery |
US8769099B2 (en) | 2006-12-28 | 2014-07-01 | Yahoo! Inc. | Methods and systems for pre-caching information on a mobile computing device |
US8069142B2 (en) | 2007-12-06 | 2011-11-29 | Yahoo! Inc. | System and method for synchronizing data on a network |
US8307029B2 (en) | 2007-12-10 | 2012-11-06 | Yahoo! Inc. | System and method for conditional delivery of messages |
US8671154B2 (en) | 2007-12-10 | 2014-03-11 | Yahoo! Inc. | System and method for contextual addressing of communications on a network |
US8166168B2 (en) | 2007-12-17 | 2012-04-24 | Yahoo! Inc. | System and method for disambiguating non-unique identifiers using information obtained from disparate communication channels |
US9706345B2 (en) | 2008-01-04 | 2017-07-11 | Excalibur Ip, Llc | Interest mapping system |
US9626685B2 (en) | 2008-01-04 | 2017-04-18 | Excalibur Ip, Llc | Systems and methods of mapping attention |
US8762285B2 (en) | 2008-01-06 | 2014-06-24 | Yahoo! Inc. | System and method for message clustering |
US20090182618A1 (en) | 2008-01-16 | 2009-07-16 | Yahoo! Inc. | System and Method for Word-of-Mouth Advertising |
US8538811B2 (en) | 2008-03-03 | 2013-09-17 | Yahoo! Inc. | Method and apparatus for social network marketing with advocate referral |
US8560390B2 (en) * | 2008-03-03 | 2013-10-15 | Yahoo! Inc. | Method and apparatus for social network marketing with brand referral |
US8554623B2 (en) | 2008-03-03 | 2013-10-08 | Yahoo! Inc. | Method and apparatus for social network marketing with consumer referral |
US8589486B2 (en) | 2008-03-28 | 2013-11-19 | Yahoo! Inc. | System and method for addressing communications |
US8745133B2 (en) * | 2008-03-28 | 2014-06-03 | Yahoo! Inc. | System and method for optimizing the storage of data |
US8271506B2 (en) | 2008-03-31 | 2012-09-18 | Yahoo! Inc. | System and method for modeling relationships between entities |
US8452855B2 (en) * | 2008-06-27 | 2013-05-28 | Yahoo! Inc. | System and method for presentation of media related to a context |
US8813107B2 (en) | 2008-06-27 | 2014-08-19 | Yahoo! Inc. | System and method for location based media delivery |
US8706406B2 (en) | 2008-06-27 | 2014-04-22 | Yahoo! Inc. | System and method for determination and display of personalized distance |
US10230803B2 (en) | 2008-07-30 | 2019-03-12 | Excalibur Ip, Llc | System and method for improved mapping and routing |
US8583668B2 (en) | 2008-07-30 | 2013-11-12 | Yahoo! Inc. | System and method for context enhanced mapping |
US8386506B2 (en) | 2008-08-21 | 2013-02-26 | Yahoo! Inc. | System and method for context enhanced messaging |
US8281027B2 (en) | 2008-09-19 | 2012-10-02 | Yahoo! Inc. | System and method for distributing media related to a location |
US20100082427A1 (en) * | 2008-09-30 | 2010-04-01 | Yahoo! Inc. | System and Method for Context Enhanced Ad Creation |
US9600484B2 (en) | 2008-09-30 | 2017-03-21 | Excalibur Ip, Llc | System and method for reporting and analysis of media consumption data |
US8108778B2 (en) | 2008-09-30 | 2012-01-31 | Yahoo! Inc. | System and method for context enhanced mapping within a user interface |
US8024317B2 (en) | 2008-11-18 | 2011-09-20 | Yahoo! Inc. | System and method for deriving income from URL based context queries |
US20100125569A1 (en) * | 2008-11-18 | 2010-05-20 | Yahoo! Inc. | System and method for autohyperlinking and navigation in url based context queries |
US8060492B2 (en) | 2008-11-18 | 2011-11-15 | Yahoo! Inc. | System and method for generation of URL based context queries |
US9805123B2 (en) | 2008-11-18 | 2017-10-31 | Excalibur Ip, Llc | System and method for data privacy in URL based context queries |
US8032508B2 (en) | 2008-11-18 | 2011-10-04 | Yahoo! Inc. | System and method for URL based query for retrieving data related to a context |
US9224172B2 (en) | 2008-12-02 | 2015-12-29 | Yahoo! Inc. | Customizable content for distribution in social networks |
US8055675B2 (en) | 2008-12-05 | 2011-11-08 | Yahoo! Inc. | System and method for context based query augmentation |
US8166016B2 (en) | 2008-12-19 | 2012-04-24 | Yahoo! Inc. | System and method for automated service recommendations |
US20100185509A1 (en) * | 2009-01-21 | 2010-07-22 | Yahoo! Inc. | Interest-based ranking system for targeted marketing |
US8150967B2 (en) | 2009-03-24 | 2012-04-03 | Yahoo! Inc. | System and method for verified presence tracking |
US10223701B2 (en) | 2009-08-06 | 2019-03-05 | Excalibur Ip, Llc | System and method for verified monetization of commercial campaigns |
US8914342B2 (en) | 2009-08-12 | 2014-12-16 | Yahoo! Inc. | Personal data platform |
US8364611B2 (en) | 2009-08-13 | 2013-01-29 | Yahoo! Inc. | System and method for precaching information on a mobile device |
US8601055B2 (en) * | 2009-12-22 | 2013-12-03 | International Business Machines Corporation | Dynamically managing a social network group |
US10079892B2 (en) * | 2010-04-16 | 2018-09-18 | Avaya Inc. | System and method for suggesting automated assistants based on a similarity vector in a graphical user interface for managing communication sessions |
US9710555B2 (en) * | 2010-05-28 | 2017-07-18 | Adobe Systems Incorporated | User profile stitching |
US8655938B1 (en) | 2010-05-19 | 2014-02-18 | Adobe Systems Incorporated | Social media contributor weight |
US10540660B1 (en) | 2010-05-19 | 2020-01-21 | Adobe Inc. | Keyword analysis using social media data |
US20110314017A1 (en) * | 2010-06-18 | 2011-12-22 | Microsoft Corporation | Techniques to automatically manage social connections |
CN102402757A (en) * | 2010-09-15 | 2012-04-04 | 阿里巴巴集团控股有限公司 | Method and device for providing information, and method and device for determining comprehensive relevance |
US20120209677A1 (en) | 2010-10-20 | 2012-08-16 | Mehta Kaushal N | Person-2-person social network marketing apparatuses, methods and systems |
US8560484B2 (en) * | 2010-12-17 | 2013-10-15 | Intel Corporation | User model creation |
US20120158503A1 (en) * | 2010-12-17 | 2012-06-21 | Ebay Inc. | Identifying purchase patterns and marketing based on user mood |
US9552376B2 (en) | 2011-06-09 | 2017-01-24 | MemoryWeb, LLC | Method and apparatus for managing digital files |
US10438176B2 (en) | 2011-07-17 | 2019-10-08 | Visa International Service Association | Multiple merchant payment processor platform apparatuses, methods and systems |
US10318941B2 (en) | 2011-12-13 | 2019-06-11 | Visa International Service Association | Payment platform interface widget generation apparatuses, methods and systems |
WO2013039490A1 (en) * | 2011-09-14 | 2013-03-21 | Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. | Determining risk associated with a determined labor type for candidate personnel |
JP5506104B2 (en) * | 2011-09-30 | 2014-05-28 | 楽天株式会社 | Information processing apparatus, information processing method, and information processing program |
WO2013090611A2 (en) | 2011-12-13 | 2013-06-20 | Visa International Service Association | Dynamic widget generator apparatuses, methods and systems |
US20130211891A1 (en) * | 2012-01-27 | 2013-08-15 | Isaac S. Daniel | System and method for marketing products or services through an online social network |
CN103684898B (en) * | 2012-09-14 | 2017-06-23 | 阿里巴巴集团控股有限公司 | It is a kind of to monitor the method and device that user's request is run in a distributed system |
US20150254679A1 (en) * | 2014-03-07 | 2015-09-10 | Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc. | Vendor relationship management for contact centers |
US11216468B2 (en) | 2015-02-08 | 2022-01-04 | Visa International Service Association | Converged merchant processing apparatuses, methods and systems |
US20160307202A1 (en) * | 2015-04-14 | 2016-10-20 | Sugarcrm Inc. | Optimal sales opportunity visualization |
US20180336640A1 (en) * | 2017-05-22 | 2018-11-22 | Insurance Zebra Inc. | Rate analyzer models and user interfaces |
US10832336B2 (en) * | 2017-05-22 | 2020-11-10 | Insurance Zebra Inc. | Using simulated consumer profiles to form calibration data for models |
KR20210097692A (en) * | 2018-09-21 | 2021-08-09 | 스티브 커티스 | System and method for distributing revenue among users based on quantified and qualitative sentiment data |
CN110060080A (en) * | 2018-11-28 | 2019-07-26 | 阿里巴巴集团控股有限公司 | Sharing method, device and the client device of trade company's evaluation |
US10936178B2 (en) | 2019-01-07 | 2021-03-02 | MemoryWeb, LLC | Systems and methods for analyzing and organizing digital photos and videos |
Citations (4)
Publication number | Priority date | Publication date | Assignee | Title |
---|---|---|---|---|
US20030009367A1 (en) * | 2001-07-06 | 2003-01-09 | Royce Morrison | Process for consumer-directed prescription influence and health care product marketing |
US20050234781A1 (en) * | 2003-11-26 | 2005-10-20 | Jared Morgenstern | Method and apparatus for word of mouth selling via a communications network |
US20060031108A1 (en) * | 1999-11-15 | 2006-02-09 | H Three, Inc. | Method and apparatus for facilitating and tracking personal referrals |
US20070121843A1 (en) * | 2005-09-02 | 2007-05-31 | Ron Atazky | Advertising and incentives over a social network |
Family Cites Families (358)
Publication number | Priority date | Publication date | Assignee | Title |
---|---|---|---|---|
US6850252B1 (en) | 1999-10-05 | 2005-02-01 | Steven M. Hoffberg | Intelligent electronic appliance system and method |
US5446891A (en) | 1992-02-26 | 1995-08-29 | International Business Machines Corporation | System for adjusting hypertext links with weighed user goals and activities |
US5583763A (en) | 1993-09-09 | 1996-12-10 | Mni Interactive | Method and apparatus for recommending selections based on preferences in a multi-user system |
US5493692A (en) | 1993-12-03 | 1996-02-20 | Xerox Corporation | Selective delivery of electronic messages in a multiple computer system based on context and environment of a user |
US6571279B1 (en) | 1997-12-05 | 2003-05-27 | Pinpoint Incorporated | Location enhanced information delivery system |
US5758257A (en) | 1994-11-29 | 1998-05-26 | Herz; Frederick | System and method for scheduling broadcast of and access to video programs and other data using customer profiles |
EP0718784B1 (en) | 1994-12-20 | 2003-08-27 | Sun Microsystems, Inc. | Method and system for the retrieval of personalized information |
US5651068A (en) | 1995-03-08 | 1997-07-22 | Hewlett-Packard Company | International cryptography framework |
JP3134040B2 (en) | 1995-05-25 | 2001-02-13 | 三菱電機株式会社 | Time division multiplex communication control method |
AU1122997A (en) | 1995-11-07 | 1997-06-11 | Cadis, Inc. | Search engine for remote object oriented database management system |
US5764906A (en) | 1995-11-07 | 1998-06-09 | Netword Llc | Universal electronic resource denotation, request and delivery system |
US5794210A (en) | 1995-12-11 | 1998-08-11 | Cybergold, Inc. | Attention brokerage |
US5802510A (en) | 1995-12-29 | 1998-09-01 | At&T Corp | Universal directory service |
US5781879A (en) | 1996-01-26 | 1998-07-14 | Qpl Llc | Semantic analysis and modification methodology |
JP2785794B2 (en) | 1996-03-25 | 1998-08-13 | 日本電気株式会社 | Dynamic channel allocation method and apparatus |
US6014638A (en) | 1996-05-29 | 2000-01-11 | America Online, Inc. | System for customizing computer displays in accordance with user preferences |
US6457004B1 (en) | 1997-07-03 | 2002-09-24 | Hitachi, Ltd. | Document retrieval assisting method, system and service using closely displayed areas for titles and topics |
US6021403A (en) | 1996-07-19 | 2000-02-01 | Microsoft Corporation | Intelligent user assistance facility |
US5920854A (en) | 1996-08-14 | 1999-07-06 | Infoseek Corporation | Real-time document collection search engine with phrase indexing |
US5933811A (en) | 1996-08-20 | 1999-08-03 | Paul D. Angles | System and method for delivering customized advertisements within interactive communication systems |
US20050165699A1 (en) | 1996-11-12 | 2005-07-28 | Hahn-Carlson Dean W. | Processing and management of transaction timing characteristics |
US6098065A (en) | 1997-02-13 | 2000-08-01 | Nortel Networks Corporation | Associative search engine |
US7236969B1 (en) | 1999-07-08 | 2007-06-26 | Nortel Networks Limited | Associative search engine |
US6708184B2 (en) | 1997-04-11 | 2004-03-16 | Medtronic/Surgical Navigation Technologies | Method and apparatus for producing and accessing composite data using a device having a distributed communication controller interface |
US20010013009A1 (en) | 1997-05-20 | 2001-08-09 | Daniel R. Greening | System and method for computer-based marketing |
US6182068B1 (en) | 1997-08-01 | 2001-01-30 | Ask Jeeves, Inc. | Personalized search methods |
US6047234A (en) | 1997-10-16 | 2000-04-04 | Navigation Technologies Corporation | System and method for updating, enhancing or refining a geographic database using feedback |
US6708203B1 (en) | 1997-10-20 | 2004-03-16 | The Delfin Project, Inc. | Method and system for filtering messages based on a user profile and an informational processing system event |
US6112181A (en) | 1997-11-06 | 2000-08-29 | Intertrust Technologies Corporation | Systems and methods for matching, selecting, narrowcasting, and/or classifying based on rights management and/or other information |
US6157924A (en) | 1997-11-07 | 2000-12-05 | Bell & Howell Mail Processing Systems Company | Systems, methods, and computer program products for delivering information in a preferred medium |
SE511584C2 (en) | 1998-01-15 | 1999-10-25 | Ericsson Telefon Ab L M | information Routing |
US6212552B1 (en) | 1998-01-15 | 2001-04-03 | At&T Corp. | Declarative message addressing |
JP3004254B2 (en) | 1998-06-12 | 2000-01-31 | 株式会社エイ・ティ・アール音声翻訳通信研究所 | Statistical sequence model generation device, statistical language model generation device, and speech recognition device |
US6141010A (en) | 1998-07-17 | 2000-10-31 | B. E. Technology, Llc | Computer interface method and apparatus with targeted advertising |
US6317722B1 (en) | 1998-09-18 | 2001-11-13 | Amazon.Com, Inc. | Use of electronic shopping carts to generate personal recommendations |
US6845370B2 (en) | 1998-11-12 | 2005-01-18 | Accenture Llp | Advanced information gathering for targeted activities |
US6859799B1 (en) | 1998-11-30 | 2005-02-22 | Gemstar Development Corporation | Search engine for video and graphics |
US6324519B1 (en) | 1999-03-12 | 2001-11-27 | Expanse Networks, Inc. | Advertisement auction system |
US6523172B1 (en) | 1998-12-17 | 2003-02-18 | Evolutionary Technologies International, Inc. | Parser translator system and method |
US7073129B1 (en) | 1998-12-18 | 2006-07-04 | Tangis Corporation | Automated selection of appropriate information based on a computer user's context |
US6826552B1 (en) * | 1999-02-05 | 2004-11-30 | Xfi Corporation | Apparatus and methods for a computer aided decision-making system |
US6397307B2 (en) | 1999-02-23 | 2002-05-28 | Legato Systems, Inc. | Method and system for mirroring and archiving mass storage |
US6741980B1 (en) | 1999-03-23 | 2004-05-25 | Microstrategy Inc. | System and method for automatic, real-time delivery of personalized informational and transactional data to users via content delivery device |
US6694316B1 (en) | 1999-03-23 | 2004-02-17 | Microstrategy Inc. | System and method for a subject-based channel distribution of automatic, real-time delivery of personalized informational and transactional data |
US7039639B2 (en) | 1999-03-31 | 2006-05-02 | International Business Machines Corporation | Optimization of system performance based on communication relationship |
US6327590B1 (en) | 1999-05-05 | 2001-12-04 | Xerox Corporation | System and method for collaborative ranking of search results employing user and group profiles derived from document collection content analysis |
US6490698B1 (en) | 1999-06-04 | 2002-12-03 | Microsoft Corporation | Multi-level decision-analytic approach to failure and repair in human-computer interactions |
US7181438B1 (en) | 1999-07-21 | 2007-02-20 | Alberti Anemometer, Llc | Database access system |
US6889382B1 (en) | 1999-07-27 | 2005-05-03 | Mediaone Group, Inc. | Remote TV control system |
CN1176432C (en) | 1999-07-28 | 2004-11-17 | 国际商业机器公司 | Method and system for providing national language inquiry service |
US7178107B2 (en) | 1999-09-16 | 2007-02-13 | Sharp Laboratories Of America, Inc. | Audiovisual information management system with identification prescriptions |
EP1087321A1 (en) | 1999-09-24 | 2001-03-28 | Alcatel | A method of manipulating an already sent E-Mail and a corresponding server |
AUPQ312299A0 (en) | 1999-09-27 | 1999-10-21 | Canon Kabushiki Kaisha | Method and system for addressing audio-visual content fragments |
US7010492B1 (en) | 1999-09-30 | 2006-03-07 | International Business Machines Corporation | Method and apparatus for dynamic distribution of controlled and additional selective overlays in a streaming media |
US6665640B1 (en) | 1999-11-12 | 2003-12-16 | Phoenix Solutions, Inc. | Interactive speech based learning/training system formulating search queries based on natural language parsing of recognized user queries |
US7139557B2 (en) | 1999-11-15 | 2006-11-21 | Pango Networks, Inc. | Systems, devices and methods for providing services in a proximity-base environment |
US20010047384A1 (en) | 1999-11-29 | 2001-11-29 | John Croy | Methods and systems for providing personalized content over a network |
US7062510B1 (en) | 1999-12-02 | 2006-06-13 | Prime Research Alliance E., Inc. | Consumer profiling and advertisement selection system |
US7284033B2 (en) | 1999-12-14 | 2007-10-16 | Imahima Inc. | Systems for communicating current and future activity information among mobile internet users and methods therefor |
US7822823B2 (en) | 1999-12-14 | 2010-10-26 | Neeraj Jhanji | Systems for communicating current and future activity information among mobile internet users and methods therefor |
US6845448B1 (en) | 2000-01-07 | 2005-01-18 | Pennar Software Corporation | Online repository for personal information |
US20030191816A1 (en) | 2000-01-11 | 2003-10-09 | Spoovy, Llc | System and method for creating and delivering customized multimedia communications |
US6314365B1 (en) | 2000-01-18 | 2001-11-06 | Navigation Technologies Corp. | Method and system of providing navigation services to cellular phone devices from a server |
US6662195B1 (en) | 2000-01-21 | 2003-12-09 | Microstrategy, Inc. | System and method for information warehousing supporting the automatic, real-time delivery of personalized informational and transactional data to users via content delivery device |
US20020035605A1 (en) | 2000-01-26 | 2002-03-21 | Mcdowell Mark | Use of presence and location information concerning wireless subscribers for instant messaging and mobile commerce |
US6829333B1 (en) | 2000-01-31 | 2004-12-07 | Frazier Spaeth Llc | Automated system for messaging based on chains of relationships |
US6789073B1 (en) | 2000-02-22 | 2004-09-07 | Harvey Lunenfeld | Client-server multitasking |
FI112433B (en) | 2000-02-29 | 2003-11-28 | Nokia Corp | Location-related services |
EP1275042A2 (en) | 2000-03-06 | 2003-01-15 | Kanisa Inc. | A system and method for providing an intelligent multi-step dialog with a user |
US20010035880A1 (en) | 2000-03-06 | 2001-11-01 | Igor Musatov | Interactive touch screen map device |
US7320025B1 (en) | 2002-03-18 | 2008-01-15 | Music Choice | Systems and methods for providing a broadcast entertainment service and an on-demand entertainment service |
AU2001243637A1 (en) | 2000-03-14 | 2001-09-24 | Blue Dolphin Group, Inc. | Method of selecting content for a user |
US6773344B1 (en) | 2000-03-16 | 2004-08-10 | Creator Ltd. | Methods and apparatus for integration of interactive toys with interactive television and cellular communication systems |
US6785670B1 (en) | 2000-03-16 | 2004-08-31 | International Business Machines Corporation | Automatically initiating an internet-based search from within a displayed document |
US6601012B1 (en) | 2000-03-16 | 2003-07-29 | Microsoft Corporation | Contextual models and methods for inferring attention and location |
US7260837B2 (en) | 2000-03-22 | 2007-08-21 | Comscore Networks, Inc. | Systems and methods for user identification, user demographic reporting and collecting usage data usage biometrics |
WO2001076120A2 (en) | 2000-04-04 | 2001-10-11 | Stick Networks, Inc. | Personal communication device for scheduling presentation of digital content |
US6757661B1 (en) | 2000-04-07 | 2004-06-29 | Netzero | High volume targeting of advertisements to user of online service |
US7725523B2 (en) | 2000-04-11 | 2010-05-25 | Bolnick David A | System, method and computer program product for gathering and delivering personalized user information |
US6714158B1 (en) | 2000-04-18 | 2004-03-30 | Sirf Technology, Inc. | Method and system for data detection in a global positioning system satellite receiver |
US6731940B1 (en) | 2000-04-28 | 2004-05-04 | Trafficmaster Usa, Inc. | Methods of using wireless geolocation to customize content and delivery of information to wireless communication devices |
US6985839B1 (en) | 2000-05-05 | 2006-01-10 | Technocom Corporation | System and method for wireless location coverage and prediction |
CA2349914C (en) | 2000-06-09 | 2013-07-30 | Invidi Technologies Corp. | Advertising delivery method |
US7404084B2 (en) | 2000-06-16 | 2008-07-22 | Entriq Inc. | Method and system to digitally sign and deliver content in a geographically controlled manner via a network |
US6957214B2 (en) | 2000-06-23 | 2005-10-18 | The Johns Hopkins University | Architecture for distributed database information access |
US6954778B2 (en) | 2000-07-12 | 2005-10-11 | Microsoft Corporation | System and method for accessing directory service via an HTTP URL |
GB0017380D0 (en) | 2000-07-14 | 2000-08-30 | Mailround Com Limited | Information communication system |
US7624337B2 (en) | 2000-07-24 | 2009-11-24 | Vmark, Inc. | System and method for indexing, searching, identifying, and editing portions of electronic multimedia files |
US6494457B2 (en) | 2000-07-26 | 2002-12-17 | Shelly Conte | Enhanced hide and seek game and method of playing game |
US6618717B1 (en) | 2000-07-31 | 2003-09-09 | Eliyon Technologies Corporation | Computer method and apparatus for determining content owner of a website |
US6882977B1 (en) * | 2000-07-31 | 2005-04-19 | Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. | Method and facility for displaying customer activity and value |
US20020052786A1 (en) | 2000-08-09 | 2002-05-02 | Lg Electronics Inc. | Informative system based on user's position and operating method thereof |
US6931254B1 (en) | 2000-08-21 | 2005-08-16 | Nortel Networks Limited | Personalized presentation system and method |
US7437312B2 (en) | 2000-08-23 | 2008-10-14 | Bizrate.Com | Method for context personalized web browsing |
ES2191605T3 (en) | 2000-09-11 | 2003-09-16 | Mediabricks Ab | METHOD FOR PROVIDING A CONTENT OF MEDIA ON A DIGITAL NETWORK. |
US20020111956A1 (en) | 2000-09-18 | 2002-08-15 | Boon-Lock Yeo | Method and apparatus for self-management of content across multiple storage systems |
US6907465B1 (en) | 2000-09-22 | 2005-06-14 | Daniel E. Tsai | Electronic commerce using personal preferences |
US7865306B2 (en) | 2000-09-28 | 2011-01-04 | Michael Mays | Devices, methods, and systems for managing route-related information |
JP2003044708A (en) | 2000-10-02 | 2003-02-14 | Omron Corp | Information mediating system and information mediating method to be used in the system |
US6502033B1 (en) | 2000-10-05 | 2002-12-31 | Navigation Technologies Corp. | Turn detection algorithm for vehicle positioning |
US6904160B2 (en) | 2000-10-18 | 2005-06-07 | Red Hen Systems, Inc. | Method for matching geographic information with recorded images |
WO2002037334A1 (en) | 2000-10-30 | 2002-05-10 | Elias Arts Corporation | System and method for performing content experience management |
WO2002041190A2 (en) | 2000-11-15 | 2002-05-23 | Holbrook David M | Apparatus and method for organizing and/or presenting data |
US20020103920A1 (en) | 2000-11-21 | 2002-08-01 | Berkun Ken Alan | Interpretive stream metadata extraction |
US20020065844A1 (en) | 2000-11-30 | 2002-05-30 | Rich Robinson | Metadata internet platform for enabling customization of tags in digital images |
AUPR230700A0 (en) | 2000-12-22 | 2001-01-25 | Canon Kabushiki Kaisha | A method for facilitating access to multimedia content |
US7058508B2 (en) | 2001-01-12 | 2006-06-06 | Energy Control Technologies | Automated building service broker |
JP2002222145A (en) | 2001-01-26 | 2002-08-09 | Fujitsu Ltd | Method of transmitting electronic mail, computer program, and recording medium |
US20020138331A1 (en) | 2001-02-05 | 2002-09-26 | Hosea Devin F. | Method and system for web page personalization |
US7027801B1 (en) | 2001-02-06 | 2006-04-11 | Nortel Networks Limited | Method delivering location-base targeted advertisements to mobile subscribers |
US6701311B2 (en) | 2001-02-07 | 2004-03-02 | International Business Machines Corporation | Customer self service system for resource search and selection |
EP1360597A4 (en) | 2001-02-15 | 2005-09-28 | Suffix Mail Inc | E-mail messaging system |
US20050015451A1 (en) | 2001-02-15 | 2005-01-20 | Sheldon Valentine D'arcy | Automatic e-mail address directory and sorting system |
US20020133400A1 (en) | 2001-03-13 | 2002-09-19 | Boomerangmarketing.Com Incorporated | Systems and methods for internet reward service |
WO2002076077A1 (en) | 2001-03-16 | 2002-09-26 | Leap Wireless International, Inc. | Method and system for distributing content over a wireless communications system |
EP1386432A4 (en) | 2001-03-21 | 2009-07-15 | John A Stine | An access and routing protocol for ad hoc networks using synchronous collision resolution and node state dissemination |
US7512407B2 (en) | 2001-03-26 | 2009-03-31 | Tencent (Bvi) Limited | Instant messaging system and method |
US20020173971A1 (en) | 2001-03-28 | 2002-11-21 | Stirpe Paul Alan | System, method and application of ontology driven inferencing-based personalization systems |
JP2002297753A (en) | 2001-03-30 | 2002-10-11 | Fujitsu Ltd | System for providing image data |
ITTO20010296A1 (en) | 2001-03-30 | 2002-09-30 | Telecom Italia Lab Spa | METHOD FOR THE TRANSMISSION OF LOCALIZATION DATA OF MOBILE APPARATUS FOR MOBILE TELEPHONY. |
US7039643B2 (en) | 2001-04-10 | 2006-05-02 | Adobe Systems Incorporated | System, method and apparatus for converting and integrating media files |
JP3709423B2 (en) | 2001-04-13 | 2005-10-26 | 繁幸 梨木 | Word-of-mouth information transmission device, word-of-mouth information transmission method, and word-of-mouth information transmission program |
US7620621B2 (en) | 2001-05-01 | 2009-11-17 | General Electric Company | Methods and system for providing context sensitive information |
WO2002091186A1 (en) | 2001-05-08 | 2002-11-14 | Ipool Corporation | Privacy protection system and method |
US20020198786A1 (en) | 2001-05-30 | 2002-12-26 | Tripp Cynthia Pope | Marketing system |
US7194512B1 (en) | 2001-06-26 | 2007-03-20 | Palm, Inc. | Method and apparatus for wirelessly networked distributed resource usage for data gathering |
US20030009495A1 (en) | 2001-06-29 | 2003-01-09 | Akli Adjaoute | Systems and methods for filtering electronic content |
US6798358B2 (en) | 2001-07-03 | 2004-09-28 | Nortel Networks Limited | Location-based content delivery |
US20030008661A1 (en) | 2001-07-03 | 2003-01-09 | Joyce Dennis P. | Location-based content delivery |
EP1282054A1 (en) | 2001-08-01 | 2003-02-05 | Alcatel | Method for implementing an appointment service for participants of a communication network, and a service processor and program module for such |
US6778979B2 (en) | 2001-08-13 | 2004-08-17 | Xerox Corporation | System for automatically generating queries |
US7284191B2 (en) | 2001-08-13 | 2007-10-16 | Xerox Corporation | Meta-document management system with document identifiers |
FI115419B (en) | 2001-08-20 | 2005-04-29 | Helsingin Kauppakorkeakoulu | User-specific personalization of information services |
US7185286B2 (en) | 2001-08-28 | 2007-02-27 | Nvidia International, Inc. | Interface for mobilizing content and transactions on multiple classes of devices |
US7403938B2 (en) | 2001-09-24 | 2008-07-22 | Iac Search & Media, Inc. | Natural language query processing |
JP4160506B2 (en) | 2001-09-28 | 2008-10-01 | レヴェル 3 シーディーエヌ インターナショナル インコーポレーテッド. | Configurable adaptive wide area traffic control and management |
US20030078978A1 (en) | 2001-10-23 | 2003-04-24 | Clifford Lardin | Firmware portable messaging units utilizing proximate communications |
US7421466B2 (en) | 2001-10-29 | 2008-09-02 | Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. | Dynamic mapping of wireless network devices |
ATE495423T1 (en) | 2001-11-02 | 2011-01-15 | Panasonic Corp | TERMINAL DEVICE |
US7136871B2 (en) | 2001-11-21 | 2006-11-14 | Microsoft Corporation | Methods and systems for selectively displaying advertisements |
US6781920B2 (en) | 2001-12-05 | 2004-08-24 | International Business Machines Corporation | Method for resolving meeting conflicts within an electronic calendar application |
EP1485825A4 (en) | 2002-02-04 | 2008-03-19 | Cataphora Inc | A method and apparatus for sociological data mining |
US20030149574A1 (en) | 2002-02-05 | 2003-08-07 | Rudman Daniel E. | Method for providing media consumers with total choice and total control |
JP2005518114A (en) | 2002-02-14 | 2005-06-16 | アバイア テクノロジー コーポレーション | Presence tracking and namespace interconnect technology |
US20060069616A1 (en) | 2004-09-30 | 2006-03-30 | David Bau | Determining advertisements using user behavior information such as past navigation information |
US7680796B2 (en) | 2003-09-03 | 2010-03-16 | Google, Inc. | Determining and/or using location information in an ad system |
US7013149B2 (en) | 2002-04-11 | 2006-03-14 | Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, Inc. | Environment aware services for mobile devices |
US7065345B2 (en) | 2002-04-19 | 2006-06-20 | Stephen J. Carlton | Data processing apparatus and method for correlation analysis |
US20050192025A1 (en) | 2002-04-22 | 2005-09-01 | Kaplan Richard D. | Method and apparatus for an interactive tour-guide system |
US20050182824A1 (en) | 2002-04-30 | 2005-08-18 | Pierre-Alain Cotte | Communications web site |
US20040148341A1 (en) | 2003-01-29 | 2004-07-29 | Web.De Ag | Web site having an individual event settings element |
US20040015588A1 (en) | 2002-07-22 | 2004-01-22 | Web.De Ag | Communications environment having multiple web sites |
US8611919B2 (en) | 2002-05-23 | 2013-12-17 | Wounder Gmbh., Llc | System, method, and computer program product for providing location based services and mobile e-commerce |
US7194463B2 (en) | 2002-05-28 | 2007-03-20 | Xerox Corporation | Systems and methods for constrained anisotropic diffusion routing within an ad hoc network |
US20060026067A1 (en) | 2002-06-14 | 2006-02-02 | Nicholas Frank C | Method and system for providing network based target advertising and encapsulation |
US7209915B1 (en) | 2002-06-28 | 2007-04-24 | Microsoft Corporation | Method, system and apparatus for routing a query to one or more providers |
US7707317B2 (en) | 2002-07-01 | 2010-04-27 | Prolifiq Software Inc. | Adaptive electronic messaging |
US7752072B2 (en) | 2002-07-16 | 2010-07-06 | Google Inc. | Method and system for providing advertising through content specific nodes over the internet |
JP4300767B2 (en) | 2002-08-05 | 2009-07-22 | ソニー株式会社 | Guide system, content server, portable device, information processing method, information processing program, and storage medium |
US7363345B2 (en) | 2002-08-27 | 2008-04-22 | Aol Llc, A Delaware Limited Liability Company | Electronic notification delivery mechanism selection based on recipient presence information and notification content |
US7570943B2 (en) | 2002-08-29 | 2009-08-04 | Nokia Corporation | System and method for providing context sensitive recommendations to digital services |
US7657907B2 (en) | 2002-09-30 | 2010-02-02 | Sharp Laboratories Of America, Inc. | Automatic user profiling |
US7254581B2 (en) | 2002-11-13 | 2007-08-07 | Jerry Johnson | System and method for creation and maintenance of a rich content or content-centric electronic catalog |
US7802724B1 (en) | 2002-12-20 | 2010-09-28 | Steven Paul Nohr | Identifications and communications methods |
US20040203909A1 (en) | 2003-01-01 | 2004-10-14 | Koster Karl H. | Systems and methods for location dependent information download to a mobile telephone |
US8225194B2 (en) | 2003-01-09 | 2012-07-17 | Kaleidescape, Inc. | Bookmarks and watchpoints for selection and presentation of media streams |
US7305445B2 (en) | 2003-01-28 | 2007-12-04 | Microsoft Corporation | Indirect disposable email addressing |
US7406502B1 (en) | 2003-02-20 | 2008-07-29 | Sonicwall, Inc. | Method and system for classifying a message based on canonical equivalent of acceptable items included in the message |
US7543237B2 (en) | 2003-03-19 | 2009-06-02 | Accenture Global Servicecs Gmbh | Dynamic collaboration assistant |
KR100478019B1 (en) | 2003-04-03 | 2005-03-22 | 엔에이치엔(주) | Method and system for generating a search result list based on local information |
US7007014B2 (en) | 2003-04-04 | 2006-02-28 | Yahoo! Inc. | Canonicalization of terms in a keyword-based presentation system |
US7613687B2 (en) | 2003-05-30 | 2009-11-03 | Truelocal Inc. | Systems and methods for enhancing web-based searching |
US7069308B2 (en) | 2003-06-16 | 2006-06-27 | Friendster, Inc. | System, method and apparatus for connecting users in an online computer system based on their relationships within social networks |
US7392311B2 (en) | 2003-06-19 | 2008-06-24 | International Business Machines Corporation | System and method for throttling events in an information technology system |
US20050015599A1 (en) | 2003-06-25 | 2005-01-20 | Nokia, Inc. | Two-phase hash value matching technique in message protection systems |
US20040267880A1 (en) | 2003-06-30 | 2004-12-30 | Kestutis Patiejunas | System and method for delivery of media content |
US7219013B1 (en) | 2003-07-31 | 2007-05-15 | Rockwell Collins, Inc. | Method and system for fault detection and exclusion for multi-sensor navigation systems |
US8200775B2 (en) | 2005-02-01 | 2012-06-12 | Newsilike Media Group, Inc | Enhanced syndication |
US20060236258A1 (en) | 2003-08-11 | 2006-10-19 | Core Mobility, Inc. | Scheduling of rendering of location-based content |
US7213036B2 (en) | 2003-08-12 | 2007-05-01 | Aol Llc | System for incorporating information about a source and usage of a media asset into the asset itself |
US7529811B2 (en) | 2003-08-21 | 2009-05-05 | Microsoft Corporation | Systems and methods for the implementation of a core schema for providing a top-level structure for organizing units of information manageable by a hardware/software interface system |
US7840892B2 (en) | 2003-08-29 | 2010-11-23 | Nokia Corporation | Organization and maintenance of images using metadata |
US7849103B2 (en) | 2003-09-10 | 2010-12-07 | West Services, Inc. | Relationship collaboration system |
US8639520B2 (en) | 2003-10-06 | 2014-01-28 | Cerner Innovations, Inc. | System and method for creating a visualization indicating relationships and relevance to an entity |
US7257570B2 (en) | 2003-11-13 | 2007-08-14 | Yahoo! Inc. | Geographical location extraction |
US7529215B2 (en) | 2003-11-17 | 2009-05-05 | Telefonaktiebolaget Lm Ericsson (Publ) | Encapsulation of independent transmissions over internal interface of distributed radio base station |
US20050203801A1 (en) | 2003-11-26 | 2005-09-15 | Jared Morgenstern | Method and system for collecting, sharing and tracking user or group associates content via a communications network |
WO2005054994A2 (en) | 2003-11-26 | 2005-06-16 | Buy.Com, Inc. | Method and system for word of mouth advertising via a communications network |
US20050159220A1 (en) | 2003-12-15 | 2005-07-21 | Gordon Wilson | Method and interface system for facilitating access to fantasy sports leagues |
KR100556438B1 (en) | 2004-01-02 | 2006-03-03 | 엘지전자 주식회사 | Remote Controller of The Display Device and Method for Controlling of The Same |
US20050151849A1 (en) | 2004-01-13 | 2005-07-14 | Andrew Fitzhugh | Method and system for image driven clock synchronization |
US20050160080A1 (en) | 2004-01-16 | 2005-07-21 | The Regents Of The University Of California | System and method of context-specific searching in an electronic database |
US8015119B2 (en) | 2004-01-21 | 2011-09-06 | Google Inc. | Methods and systems for the display and navigation of a social network |
US7269590B2 (en) | 2004-01-29 | 2007-09-11 | Yahoo! Inc. | Method and system for customizing views of information associated with a social network user |
US7707122B2 (en) | 2004-01-29 | 2010-04-27 | Yahoo ! Inc. | System and method of information filtering using measures of affinity of a relationship |
US7522995B2 (en) | 2004-02-05 | 2009-04-21 | Nortrup Edward H | Method and system for providing travel time information |
US10417298B2 (en) | 2004-12-02 | 2019-09-17 | Insignio Technologies, Inc. | Personalized content processing and delivery system and media |
US20050216295A1 (en) | 2004-02-27 | 2005-09-29 | Abrahamsohn Daniel A A | Method of and system for obtaining data from multiple sources and ranking documents based on meta data obtained through collaborative filtering and other matching techniques |
WO2005089286A2 (en) | 2004-03-15 | 2005-09-29 | America Online, Inc. | Sharing social network information |
JP2005293020A (en) | 2004-03-31 | 2005-10-20 | Fujitsu Ltd | Method for searching for video data of moving object, apparatus for imaging/detecting moving object, and apparatus for searching for video data of moving object |
US7379968B2 (en) | 2004-06-03 | 2008-05-27 | International Business Machines Corporation | Multiple moderation for networked conferences |
US7746376B2 (en) | 2004-06-16 | 2010-06-29 | Felipe Mendoza | Method and apparatus for accessing multi-dimensional mapping and information |
US7984037B2 (en) | 2004-07-16 | 2011-07-19 | Canon Kabushiki Kaisha | Method for evaluating xpath-like fragment identifiers of audio-visual content |
US7958115B2 (en) | 2004-07-29 | 2011-06-07 | Yahoo! Inc. | Search systems and methods using in-line contextual queries |
US20080046298A1 (en) | 2004-07-29 | 2008-02-21 | Ziv Ben-Yehuda | System and Method For Travel Planning |
US20070043766A1 (en) | 2005-08-18 | 2007-02-22 | Nicholas Frank C | Method and System for the Creating, Managing, and Delivery of Feed Formatted Content |
US20060040719A1 (en) | 2004-08-20 | 2006-02-23 | Jason Plimi | Fantasy sports league pre-draft logic method |
US7865457B2 (en) | 2004-08-25 | 2011-01-04 | International Business Machines Corporation | Knowledge management system automatically allocating expert resources |
US8615731B2 (en) | 2004-08-25 | 2013-12-24 | Mohit Doshi | System and method for automating the development of web services that incorporate business rules |
US20060053058A1 (en) | 2004-08-31 | 2006-03-09 | Philip Hotchkiss | System and method for gathering consumer feedback |
US20060047563A1 (en) | 2004-09-02 | 2006-03-02 | Keith Wardell | Method for optimizing a marketing campaign |
US20060069612A1 (en) | 2004-09-28 | 2006-03-30 | Microsoft Corporation | System and method for generating an orchestrated advertising campaign |
US20060085392A1 (en) | 2004-09-30 | 2006-04-20 | Microsoft Corporation | System and method for automatic generation of search results based on local intention |
DE102004050785A1 (en) | 2004-10-14 | 2006-05-04 | Deutsche Telekom Ag | Method and arrangement for processing messages in the context of an integrated messaging system |
US8019692B2 (en) | 2004-10-19 | 2011-09-13 | Yahoo! Inc. | System and method for location based social networking |
US7324957B2 (en) | 2004-10-21 | 2008-01-29 | Soundstarts, Inc. | Proximal advertising using hand-held communication devices |
US20060129313A1 (en) | 2004-12-14 | 2006-06-15 | Becker Craig H | System and method for driving directions based on non-map criteria |
KR100703468B1 (en) | 2004-12-29 | 2007-04-03 | 삼성전자주식회사 | Apparatus and method for guiding path in personal navigation terminal |
US20060184579A1 (en) | 2005-01-05 | 2006-08-17 | Michael Mills | Framework for providing ancillary content in a television environment |
TW200625125A (en) * | 2005-01-11 | 2006-07-16 | zong-ming Chen | Service method and system of network public-praise data base |
US7472397B2 (en) | 2005-01-11 | 2008-12-30 | International Business Machines Corporation | Method and system to correlate and consolidate a plurality of events |
US20100002635A1 (en) | 2005-01-12 | 2010-01-07 | Nokia Corporation | Name service in a multihop wireless ad hoc network |
US7895574B2 (en) | 2005-01-14 | 2011-02-22 | Microsoft Corporation | System and methods for automatically verifying management packs |
US7689556B2 (en) | 2005-01-31 | 2010-03-30 | France Telecom | Content navigation service |
US7343364B2 (en) | 2005-02-04 | 2008-03-11 | Efunds Corporation | Rules-based system architecture and systems using the same |
US20060212401A1 (en) | 2005-03-15 | 2006-09-21 | Apple Computer, Inc. | Method and system for network-based promotion of particular digital media items |
US20060212330A1 (en) | 2005-03-16 | 2006-09-21 | Erkki Savilampi | Network based processing of calendar meeting requests |
US20080285886A1 (en) | 2005-03-29 | 2008-11-20 | Matthew Emmerson Allen | System For Displaying Images |
US8732175B2 (en) | 2005-04-21 | 2014-05-20 | Yahoo! Inc. | Interestingness ranking of media objects |
US7466244B2 (en) | 2005-04-21 | 2008-12-16 | Microsoft Corporation | Virtual earth rooftop overlay and bounding |
US7777648B2 (en) | 2005-04-21 | 2010-08-17 | Microsoft Corporation | Mode information displayed in a mapping application |
US10210159B2 (en) | 2005-04-21 | 2019-02-19 | Oath Inc. | Media object metadata association and ranking |
US7607582B2 (en) | 2005-04-22 | 2009-10-27 | Microsoft Corporation | Aggregation and synchronization of nearby media |
US7606580B2 (en) | 2005-05-11 | 2009-10-20 | Aol Llc | Personalized location information for mobile devices |
US7451102B2 (en) | 2005-06-03 | 2008-11-11 | Shadow Enterprises Inc. | Ordering method utilizing instant messaging |
US20060282455A1 (en) | 2005-06-13 | 2006-12-14 | It Interactive Services Inc. | System and method for ranking web content |
US7259668B2 (en) | 2005-07-12 | 2007-08-21 | Qwest Communications International Inc. | Mapping the location of a mobile communications device systems and methods |
US7899469B2 (en) | 2005-07-12 | 2011-03-01 | Qwest Communications International, Inc. | User defined location based notification for a mobile communications device systems and methods |
US20070244753A1 (en) | 2005-08-26 | 2007-10-18 | Spot Runner, Inc., A Delaware Corporation, Small Business Concern | Systems and Methods For Media Planning, Ad Production, and Ad Placement For Print |
US20070150359A1 (en) | 2005-09-09 | 2007-06-28 | Lim Kok E S | Social marketing network |
US7577665B2 (en) | 2005-09-14 | 2009-08-18 | Jumptap, Inc. | User characteristic influenced search results |
GB2430507A (en) | 2005-09-21 | 2007-03-28 | Stephen Robert Ives | System for managing the display of sponsored links together with search results on a mobile/wireless device |
US20070073641A1 (en) | 2005-09-23 | 2007-03-29 | Redcarpet, Inc. | Method and system for improving search results |
EP1935204A4 (en) | 2005-09-23 | 2013-04-03 | Grape Technology Group Inc | Enhanced directory assistance system and method including location and search functions |
US7496548B1 (en) | 2005-09-26 | 2009-02-24 | Quintura, Inc. | Neural network for electronic search applications |
US8874477B2 (en) | 2005-10-04 | 2014-10-28 | Steven Mark Hoffberg | Multifactorial optimization system and method |
US7499586B2 (en) | 2005-10-04 | 2009-03-03 | Microsoft Corporation | Photographing big things |
US7933897B2 (en) | 2005-10-12 | 2011-04-26 | Google Inc. | Entity display priority in a distributed geographic information system |
US20070088852A1 (en) | 2005-10-17 | 2007-04-19 | Zohar Levkovitz | Device, system and method of presentation of advertisements on a wireless device |
US7796285B2 (en) | 2005-10-18 | 2010-09-14 | Dialogic Corporation | Supplementing facsimile image data |
WO2007051129A2 (en) | 2005-10-25 | 2007-05-03 | Brubaker Curtis M | Method and apparatus for obtaining revenue from the distribution of hyper-relevant advertising |
US20070100956A1 (en) | 2005-10-29 | 2007-05-03 | Gopesh Kumar | A system and method for enabling prospects to contact sponsoring advertisers on the telephone directly from an Internet-based advertisement with just a single-click, and efficiently tracking from what Internet location (URL) the telephone contacts are initiated. |
US20070168430A1 (en) | 2005-11-23 | 2007-07-19 | Xerox Corporation | Content-based dynamic email prioritizer |
US7580926B2 (en) | 2005-12-01 | 2009-08-25 | Adchemy, Inc. | Method and apparatus for representing text using search engine, document collection, and hierarchal taxonomy |
US9135304B2 (en) | 2005-12-02 | 2015-09-15 | Salesforce.Com, Inc. | Methods and systems for optimizing text searches over structured data in a multi-tenant environment |
US20080086356A1 (en) | 2005-12-09 | 2008-04-10 | Steve Glassman | Determining advertisements using user interest information and map-based location information |
US20070150168A1 (en) | 2005-12-12 | 2007-06-28 | Microsoft Corporation | Traffic channel |
US7681147B2 (en) | 2005-12-13 | 2010-03-16 | Yahoo! Inc. | System for determining probable meanings of inputted words |
US7729901B2 (en) | 2005-12-13 | 2010-06-01 | Yahoo! Inc. | System for classifying words |
JP2009520276A (en) | 2005-12-14 | 2009-05-21 | フェイスブック,インク. | System and method for social mapping |
US7451162B2 (en) | 2005-12-14 | 2008-11-11 | Siemens Aktiengesellschaft | Methods and apparatus to determine a software application data file and usage |
WO2007076150A2 (en) | 2005-12-23 | 2007-07-05 | Facebook, Inc. | Systems and methods for generating a social timeline |
US20070155411A1 (en) | 2006-01-04 | 2007-07-05 | James Morrison | Interactive mobile messaging system |
US20070162850A1 (en) | 2006-01-06 | 2007-07-12 | Darin Adler | Sports-related widgets |
US20070161382A1 (en) | 2006-01-09 | 2007-07-12 | Melinger Daniel J | System and method including asynchronous location-based messaging |
WO2007084616A2 (en) | 2006-01-18 | 2007-07-26 | Ilial, Inc. | System and method for context-based knowledge search, tagging, collaboration, management and advertisement |
US7788188B2 (en) | 2006-01-30 | 2010-08-31 | Hoozware, Inc. | System for providing a service to venues where people aggregate |
US20070185599A1 (en) | 2006-02-03 | 2007-08-09 | Yahoo! Inc. | Sports player ranker |
US8485876B2 (en) | 2006-02-27 | 2013-07-16 | Maurice S. Bowerman | Monitoring a sports draft based on a need of a sports team and the best available player to meet that need |
WO2007105212A2 (en) | 2006-03-14 | 2007-09-20 | Tal David Ben Simon | Device, system and method of interactive gaming and investing |
US7519470B2 (en) | 2006-03-15 | 2009-04-14 | Microsoft Corporation | Location-based caching for mobile devices |
US20070239517A1 (en) | 2006-03-29 | 2007-10-11 | Chung Christina Y | Generating a degree of interest in user profile scores in a behavioral targeting system |
EP1843256A1 (en) | 2006-04-03 | 2007-10-10 | British Telecmmunications public limited campany | Ranking of entities associated with stored content |
US7693652B2 (en) | 2006-04-05 | 2010-04-06 | Microsoft Corporation | Waypoint adjustment and advertisement for flexible routing |
US8442973B2 (en) | 2006-05-02 | 2013-05-14 | Surf Canyon, Inc. | Real time implicit user modeling for personalized search |
US9602512B2 (en) | 2006-05-08 | 2017-03-21 | At&T Intellectual Property I, Lp | Methods and apparatus to distribute media delivery to mobile devices |
US7503007B2 (en) | 2006-05-16 | 2009-03-10 | International Business Machines Corporation | Context enhanced messaging and collaboration system |
US9507778B2 (en) | 2006-05-19 | 2016-11-29 | Yahoo! Inc. | Summarization of media object collections |
US20070282675A1 (en) | 2006-05-30 | 2007-12-06 | Kivin Varghese | Methods and systems for user-produced advertising content |
US20070282621A1 (en) | 2006-06-01 | 2007-12-06 | Flipt, Inc | Mobile dating system incorporating user location information |
US7831586B2 (en) | 2006-06-09 | 2010-11-09 | Ebay Inc. | System and method for application programming interfaces for keyword extraction and contextual advertisement generation |
US20070288278A1 (en) | 2006-06-13 | 2007-12-13 | International Business Machines Corporation | Method and system for automatically scheduling and managing agendas for presentation-style meetings |
US7742399B2 (en) | 2006-06-22 | 2010-06-22 | Harris Corporation | Mobile ad-hoc network (MANET) and method for implementing multiple paths for fault tolerance |
US7624104B2 (en) | 2006-06-22 | 2009-11-24 | Yahoo! Inc. | User-sensitive pagerank |
US20080005313A1 (en) | 2006-06-29 | 2008-01-03 | Microsoft Corporation | Using offline activity to enhance online searching |
EP2047372A4 (en) | 2006-07-10 | 2010-09-22 | Vringo Inc | Pushed media content delivery |
US7783622B1 (en) | 2006-07-21 | 2010-08-24 | Aol Inc. | Identification of electronic content significant to a user |
WO2008012834A2 (en) | 2006-07-25 | 2008-01-31 | Jain Pankaj | A method and a system for searching information using information device |
US20080028031A1 (en) | 2006-07-25 | 2008-01-31 | Byron Lewis Bailey | Method and apparatus for managing instant messaging |
US8568236B2 (en) | 2006-07-28 | 2013-10-29 | Yahoo! Inc. | Fantasy sports agent |
US8403756B2 (en) | 2006-07-28 | 2013-03-26 | Yahoo! Inc. | Fantasy sports alert generator |
US20080040283A1 (en) | 2006-08-11 | 2008-02-14 | Arcadyan Technology Corporation | Content protection system and method for enabling secure sharing of copy-protected content |
KR100801662B1 (en) | 2006-08-31 | 2008-02-05 | 에스케이 텔레콤주식회사 | Management system for recommending a goods and recommend method thereof |
US20080133327A1 (en) | 2006-09-14 | 2008-06-05 | Shah Ullah | Methods and systems for securing content played on mobile devices |
US20080086458A1 (en) | 2006-09-15 | 2008-04-10 | Icebreaker, Inc. | Social interaction tagging |
US8099105B2 (en) | 2006-09-19 | 2012-01-17 | Telecommunication Systems, Inc. | Device based trigger for location push event |
US20080109761A1 (en) | 2006-09-29 | 2008-05-08 | Stambaugh Thomas M | Spatial organization and display of travel and entertainment information |
US20080172632A1 (en) | 2006-09-29 | 2008-07-17 | Stambaugh Thomas M | Distributed web-based processing, spatial organization and display of information |
US8230037B2 (en) | 2006-09-29 | 2012-07-24 | Audible, Inc. | Methods and apparatus for customized content delivery |
US20080147655A1 (en) | 2006-10-10 | 2008-06-19 | Alok Sinha | Virtual network of real-world entities |
US7656851B1 (en) | 2006-10-12 | 2010-02-02 | Bae Systems Information And Electronic Systems Integration Inc. | Adaptive message routing for mobile ad HOC networks |
US20080120183A1 (en) | 2006-10-12 | 2008-05-22 | Sung Park | Systems and methods for communicating personal information |
US9817902B2 (en) | 2006-10-27 | 2017-11-14 | Netseer Acquisition, Inc. | Methods and apparatus for matching relevant content to user intention |
US20080102911A1 (en) | 2006-10-27 | 2008-05-01 | Yahoo! Inc. | Integration of personalized fantasy data with general sports content |
US8108501B2 (en) | 2006-11-01 | 2012-01-31 | Yahoo! Inc. | Searching and route mapping based on a social network, location, and time |
US20080120690A1 (en) | 2006-11-17 | 2008-05-22 | Microsoft Corporation | Client enforced network tunnel vision |
US20080120308A1 (en) | 2006-11-22 | 2008-05-22 | Ronald Martinez | Methods, Systems and Apparatus for Delivery of Media |
US20090234814A1 (en) | 2006-12-12 | 2009-09-17 | Marco Boerries | Configuring a search engine results page with environment-specific information |
US8935296B2 (en) | 2006-12-14 | 2015-01-13 | Taylor Morgen Corp. | Method of facilitating contact between mutually interested people |
US7769745B2 (en) | 2006-12-15 | 2010-08-03 | Yahoo! Inc. | Visualizing location-based datasets using “tag maps” |
US20080154720A1 (en) | 2006-12-20 | 2008-06-26 | Microsoft Corporation | Shopping route optimization and personalization |
US20080163284A1 (en) | 2006-12-29 | 2008-07-03 | Microsoft Corporation | Browse filters on a television interface |
KR100801622B1 (en) | 2007-03-07 | 2008-02-11 | 삼성전자주식회사 | Hinge unit and kimchi refrigerator having the same |
US20080255976A1 (en) * | 2007-04-10 | 2008-10-16 | Utbk, Inc. | Systems and Methods to Present Members of a Social Network for Real Time Communications |
WO2008134595A1 (en) | 2007-04-27 | 2008-11-06 | Pelago, Inc. | Determining locations of interest based on user visits |
US7752279B2 (en) | 2007-05-29 | 2010-07-06 | Research In Motion Limited | System for facilitating thread-based message prioritization |
US20080320001A1 (en) | 2007-06-21 | 2008-12-25 | Sreedhar Gaddam | Collaboration System and Method for Use of Same |
US8332402B2 (en) | 2007-06-28 | 2012-12-11 | Apple Inc. | Location based media items |
US8321794B2 (en) | 2007-06-28 | 2012-11-27 | Microsoft Corporation | Rich conference invitations with context |
US20090012965A1 (en) | 2007-07-01 | 2009-01-08 | Decisionmark Corp. | Network Content Objection Handling System and Method |
US20090012934A1 (en) | 2007-07-03 | 2009-01-08 | Corbis Corporation | Searching for rights limited media |
US20090043844A1 (en) | 2007-08-09 | 2009-02-12 | International Business Machines Corporation | System and method for name conflict resolution |
US9946975B2 (en) | 2007-08-24 | 2018-04-17 | At&T Intellectual Property I, L.P. | Method and apparatus to identify influencers |
US8001002B2 (en) | 2007-09-07 | 2011-08-16 | Microsoft Corporation | Interactively presenting advertising content offline |
US20090100052A1 (en) | 2007-10-16 | 2009-04-16 | Stern Edith H | Enabling collaborative networks |
US8635360B2 (en) | 2007-10-19 | 2014-01-21 | Google Inc. | Media playback point seeking using data range requests |
US20090299837A1 (en) | 2007-10-31 | 2009-12-03 | Ryan Steelberg | System and method for brand affinity content distribution and optimization |
US9245041B2 (en) | 2007-11-10 | 2016-01-26 | Geomonkey, Inc. | Creation and use of digital maps |
US9203911B2 (en) | 2007-11-14 | 2015-12-01 | Qualcomm Incorporated | Method and system for using a cache miss state match indicator to determine user suitability of targeted content messages in a mobile environment |
US10346854B2 (en) | 2007-11-30 | 2019-07-09 | Microsoft Technology Licensing, Llc | Feature-value attachment, reranking and filtering for advertisements |
US20090150507A1 (en) | 2007-12-07 | 2009-06-11 | Yahoo! Inc. | System and method for prioritizing delivery of communications via different communication channels |
US8307029B2 (en) | 2007-12-10 | 2012-11-06 | Yahoo! Inc. | System and method for conditional delivery of messages |
US20090165051A1 (en) | 2007-12-19 | 2009-06-25 | United Video Properties, Inc. | Methods and devices for presenting an interactive media guidance application |
US7769740B2 (en) | 2007-12-21 | 2010-08-03 | Yahoo! Inc. | Systems and methods of ranking attention |
US7865308B2 (en) | 2007-12-28 | 2011-01-04 | Yahoo! Inc. | User-generated activity maps |
US9471898B2 (en) | 2007-12-31 | 2016-10-18 | International Business Machines Corporation | Endorsing E-mail messages using social network verification |
US7925708B2 (en) | 2008-01-04 | 2011-04-12 | Yahoo! Inc. | System and method for delivery of augmented messages |
US8073795B2 (en) | 2008-01-07 | 2011-12-06 | Symbol Technologies, Inc. | Location based services platform using multiple sources including a radio frequency identification data source |
US20090204484A1 (en) | 2008-02-07 | 2009-08-13 | Grayson Johnson | Method of Displaying Targeted Digital Electronic Advertising Using Global Positioning System (GPS) Coordinates and Associated Demographic Data |
US20090204676A1 (en) | 2008-02-11 | 2009-08-13 | International Business Machines Corporation | Content based routing of misaddressed e-mail |
US20090204672A1 (en) | 2008-02-12 | 2009-08-13 | Idelix Software Inc. | Client-server system for permissions-based locating services and location-based advertising |
US8930238B2 (en) | 2008-02-21 | 2015-01-06 | International Business Machines Corporation | Pervasive symbiotic advertising system and methods therefor |
US8560390B2 (en) | 2008-03-03 | 2013-10-15 | Yahoo! Inc. | Method and apparatus for social network marketing with brand referral |
US8554623B2 (en) | 2008-03-03 | 2013-10-08 | Yahoo! Inc. | Method and apparatus for social network marketing with consumer referral |
US8538811B2 (en) | 2008-03-03 | 2013-09-17 | Yahoo! Inc. | Method and apparatus for social network marketing with advocate referral |
US8682960B2 (en) | 2008-03-14 | 2014-03-25 | Nokia Corporation | Methods, apparatuses, and computer program products for providing filtered services and content based on user context |
US8220050B2 (en) | 2008-03-31 | 2012-07-10 | Sophos Plc | Method and system for detecting restricted content associated with retrieved content |
US20090313546A1 (en) | 2008-06-16 | 2009-12-17 | Porto Technology, Llc | Auto-editing process for media content shared via a media sharing service |
US20090320047A1 (en) | 2008-06-23 | 2009-12-24 | Ingboo Inc. | Event Bundling |
US8813107B2 (en) | 2008-06-27 | 2014-08-19 | Yahoo! Inc. | System and method for location based media delivery |
US7792040B2 (en) | 2008-07-30 | 2010-09-07 | Yahoo! Inc. | Bandwidth and cost management for ad hoc networks |
US20100063993A1 (en) | 2008-09-08 | 2010-03-11 | Yahoo! Inc. | System and method for socially aware identity manager |
KR101024149B1 (en) | 2008-09-11 | 2011-03-22 | 야후! 인크. | Method of registering advertisements on an electronic map using advertisement registration reference information |
US9805123B2 (en) | 2008-11-18 | 2017-10-31 | Excalibur Ip, Llc | System and method for data privacy in URL based context queries |
US8032508B2 (en) | 2008-11-18 | 2011-10-04 | Yahoo! Inc. | System and method for URL based query for retrieving data related to a context |
US20100125569A1 (en) | 2008-11-18 | 2010-05-20 | Yahoo! Inc. | System and method for autohyperlinking and navigation in url based context queries |
US8024317B2 (en) | 2008-11-18 | 2011-09-20 | Yahoo! Inc. | System and method for deriving income from URL based context queries |
US20100185642A1 (en) | 2009-01-21 | 2010-07-22 | Yahoo! Inc. | Interest-based location targeting engine |
-
2008
- 2008-03-03 US US12/041,054 patent/US8554623B2/en not_active Expired - Fee Related
-
2009
- 2009-02-19 WO PCT/US2009/034445 patent/WO2009111167A2/en active Application Filing
- 2009-02-25 TW TW098105933A patent/TWI409712B/en not_active IP Right Cessation
Patent Citations (4)
Publication number | Priority date | Publication date | Assignee | Title |
---|---|---|---|---|
US20060031108A1 (en) * | 1999-11-15 | 2006-02-09 | H Three, Inc. | Method and apparatus for facilitating and tracking personal referrals |
US20030009367A1 (en) * | 2001-07-06 | 2003-01-09 | Royce Morrison | Process for consumer-directed prescription influence and health care product marketing |
US20050234781A1 (en) * | 2003-11-26 | 2005-10-20 | Jared Morgenstern | Method and apparatus for word of mouth selling via a communications network |
US20070121843A1 (en) * | 2005-09-02 | 2007-05-31 | Ron Atazky | Advertising and incentives over a social network |
Also Published As
Publication number | Publication date |
---|---|
US20090222302A1 (en) | 2009-09-03 |
TWI409712B (en) | 2013-09-21 |
TW200951859A (en) | 2009-12-16 |
US8554623B2 (en) | 2013-10-08 |
WO2009111167A3 (en) | 2009-12-03 |
Similar Documents
Publication | Publication Date | Title |
---|---|---|
US8554623B2 (en) | Method and apparatus for social network marketing with consumer referral | |
US8538811B2 (en) | Method and apparatus for social network marketing with advocate referral | |
US8560390B2 (en) | Method and apparatus for social network marketing with brand referral | |
Kannan | Digital marketing: A framework, review and research agenda | |
Trusov et al. | Crumbs of the cookie: User profiling in customer-base analysis and behavioral targeting | |
US9691079B2 (en) | Audience server | |
JP5961666B2 (en) | System, method and computer executable program for customizing touchpoints | |
US9413557B2 (en) | Pricing in social advertising | |
US20050165643A1 (en) | Audience targeting with universal profile synchronization | |
US20120143674A1 (en) | Performance-based advertising platform that transforms advertiser self-interest into a social benefit | |
US20160012512A1 (en) | Lifestyle recommendation system | |
US20090012839A1 (en) | Determining Brand Affiliations | |
KR20080098019A (en) | Ad publisher performance and mitigation of click fraud | |
KR20080094782A (en) | Ad targeting and/or pricing based on customer behavior | |
KR20120092654A (en) | System and method for word-of-mouth advertising | |
US20240005368A1 (en) | Systems and methods for an intelligent sourcing engine for study participants | |
US20230368226A1 (en) | Systems and methods for improved user experience participant selection | |
US20220051273A1 (en) | Telecommunications Data Used For Lookalike Analysis | |
US20160148242A1 (en) | Automatic generation of personalized reward points | |
WO2021071860A1 (en) | Systems and methods for an intelligent sourcing engine for study participants | |
Popper | Bringing It All Together in a Framework of Sponsored Search |
Legal Events
Date | Code | Title | Description |
---|---|---|---|
121 | Ep: the epo has been informed by wipo that ep was designated in this application |
Ref document number: 09718318 Country of ref document: EP Kind code of ref document: A2 |
|
NENP | Non-entry into the national phase |
Ref country code: DE |
|
122 | Ep: pct application non-entry in european phase |
Ref document number: 09718318 Country of ref document: EP Kind code of ref document: A2 |