WO2012159112A2

WO2012159112A2 - System, method, and computer readable medium for providing merchant rewards based on dissemination of offers through merchant networks

Info

Publication number: WO2012159112A2
Application number: PCT/US2012/038858
Authority: WO
Inventors: Brian Smith
Original assignee: Bizbrag, Inc.
Priority date: 2011-05-19
Filing date: 2012-05-21
Publication date: 2012-11-22
Also published as: WO2012159112A3

Abstract

Aspects of the invention may involve systems, methods, and computer readable medium. In an embodiment of the invention, a computer-implemented method for disseminating offers may be provided. The method may include receiving and storing social network contact information from merchants in a community of merchants. An offer, associated with the first merchant, may be received from an offer provider. A modified offer may be sent to the social network contact information of a second merchant from a community of merchants. The modified offer may include a modification to the offer to include an inbound link that may be tagged to identify the second merchant. Notification may be received that the modified offer was purchased or redeemed through the offer provider, where the notification may identify the second merchant based on the inbound link of the modifier offer.

Description

SYSTEM, METHOD, AND COMPUTER READABLE MEDIUM FOR PROVIDING MERCHANT REWARDS BASED ON DISSEMINATION OF OFFERS THROUGH MERCHANT NETWORKS

Cross-reference to Related Patent Applications

[0001] This application is a continuation-in-part of prior U.S. Application No.

13/1 1 1 ,463 filed May 19, 201 1 , entitled "System, Method, and Computer Readable Medium for Providing Automated Dissemination of Advertisements through Search Engines, Websites, and Online Social Networking Sites." The content of U.S. Application No. 13/1 1 1,463 is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

Background

[0002] Current business advertising tools may send targeted information, such as emails, to a pre-selected group of entities or contacts. Advertising tools such as email marketing software and other online marketing vehicles may be utilized to send emails from an entity to that entity's contacts.

Summary

[0003] Aspects of the invention may involve systems, methods, and computer readable medium. In an embodiment, a computer-implemented method for disseminating offers may be provided. The method may include receiving by a computer, social network contact information from merchants in a community of merchants; storing by the computer, the social network contact information; receiving by the computer, an offer from an offer provider, where the offer may be associated with a first merchant; transmitting by the computer, a modified offer using the social network contact information of a second merchant from the community of merchants, wherein the modified offer may include the offer modified to include an inbound link that may be tagged to identify the second merchant; and receiving by the computer, a notification that the modified offer may have been purchased or redeemed through the offer provider, wherein the notification may identify the second merchant based on the inbound link of the modified offer

[0004] In another embodiment, one or more tangible non-transitory computer-readable storage media for storing computer-executable instructions executable by processing logic may be provided. The media may store one or more instructions for: receiving social network contact information from merchants in a community of merchants; storing the social network contact information; receiving an offer from an offer provider, where the offer may be associated with a first merchant; transmitting a modified offer using the social network contact information of a second merchant from the community of merchants, wherein the modified offer may include the offer modified to include an inbound link that may be tagged to identify the second merchant; and receiving a notification that the modified offer may have been purchased or redeemed through the offer provider, wherein the notification may identify the second merchant based on the inbound link of the modified offer

[0005] In yet another embodiment, a computer-implemented system for disseminating offers may be provided. The system may include a storage device storing social network contact information from merchants in a community of merchants, where the social network contact information may include a plurality of social network accounts; a processor having memory storing processor-executable instructions for the programming environment; a receiving module to receive an offer from an offer provider, where the offer may be associated with a first merchant; a transmit module to transmit a modified offer to the social network accounts of a second merchant from the community of merchants, wherein the modified offer may include the offer modified to include an inbound link that may be tagged to identify the second merchant; and a notification receiving module to receive notification that the modified offer may have been purchased or redeemed through the offer provider, wherein the notification may identify the second merchant based on the inbound link of the modified offer.

[0006] In another embodiment, another computer-implemented method for

disseminating offers may be provided. The method may include transmitting social network contact information of a first merchant from a first merchant computer to a distribution platform; transmitting by the first merchant computer, authorization for transmission of an offer from an offer provider, where the offer is associated with the first merchant; transmitting by the first merchant computer authorization for transmission by the distribution platform of a modified offer to social network contacts from the social network contact information of the first merchant, where the modified offer includes the offer modified to include an inbound link that is tagged to identify the first merchant; and receiving by the first merchant computer a notification that the modified offer was used to purchase or redeem the offer from the offer provider.

Brief Description of the Drawings

[0007] The foregoing and other features and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following, more particular description of various exemplary embodiments, as illustrated in the accompanying drawings wherein like reference numbers generally indicate identical, functionally similar, and/or structurally similar elements. The first digits in the reference number indicate the drawing in which an element first appears.

[0008] FIG. 1 depicts an illustrative high-level device processing system for use with an illustrative embodiment for providing resource dissemination;

[0009] FIG. 2 depicts an illustrative distribution system for use with an illustrative embodiment for providing resource dissemination;

[0010] FIG. 3 illustrates an example distribution flowchart describing processing performed in an illustrative embodiment;

[0011] FIG. 4 illustrates an example screenshot of a webpage containing parent information in an illustrative embodiment;

[0012] FIG. 5 illustrates an example screenshot of a webpage containing child information in an illustrative embodiment;

[0013] FIG. 6 illustrates an example screenshot of a reduced webpage containing reduced parent information in an illustrative embodiment;

[0014] FIG. 7 illustrates an example screenshot of a reduced webpage containing reduced child information in an illustrative embodiment;

[0015] FIG. 8 illustrates an example screenshot of a parent dashboard in an illustrative embodiment;

[0016] FIG. 9 illustrates an example screenshot of a child dashboard in an illustrative embodiment;

[0017] FIG. 10 illustrates an example take action screenshot in an illustrative

embodiment; [0018] FIG. 11 depicts example flowcharts describing processing performed in an illustrative embodiment;

[0019] FIG. 12 depicts example high-level software modules for use with an illustrative embodiment for providing resource dissemination;

[0020] FIG. 13 depicts an example computer system that may be used in implementing an illustrative embodiment;

[0021] FIG. 14 depicts an example high-level system diagram for use with an illustrative embodiment for providing resource dissemination;

[0022] FIG. 15 depicts an example offer distribution diagram for use with an illustrative embodiment for providing resource dissemination;

[0023] FIG. 16 depicts an example merchant offer distribution diagram for use with an illustrative embodiment for providing resource dissemination;

[0024] FIG. 17 illustrates an example consumer redemption workflow describing processing performed in an illustrative embodiment;

[0025] FIG. 18 depicts example high-level offer distribution system for use with an illustrative embodiment for providing resource dissemination; and

[0026] FIG. 19 illustrates an example workflow describing processing performed in an illustrative embodiment.

Description of the Embodiments

[0027] Exemplary embodiments are discussed in detail below. While specific exemplary embodiments are discussed, it should be understood that this is done for illustration purposes only. In describing and illustrating the exemplary embodiments, specific terminology is employed for the sake of clarity. However, the embodiments are not intended to be limited to the specific terminology so selected. A person skilled in the relevant art will recognize that other components and configurations may be used without departing from the spirit and scope of the embodiments. It is to be understood that each specific element includes all technical equivalents that operate in a similar manner to accomplish a similar purpose. The examples and embodiments described herein are non-limiting examples.

[0028] All publications cited herein are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety. [0029] As used herein, the term "a" refers to one or more. The terms "including," "for example," "such as," "e.g.," "may be" and the like, are meant to include, but not be limited to, the listed examples. The term "product" may refer to both products and services.

Overview

[0030] In an embodiment, content such as news, articles, announcements,

advertisements, offers (e.g., but not limited to, daily deals, coupons, limited time specials, etc.) brochures, sales sheets, videos, text documents, and/or links to content may be distributed to online channels and platforms through a data communications network (e.g., internet). The online channels and platforms may include, but are not limited to, social media sites, social networks, email contacts, search engines, websites, blogs, etc. The distribution may occur through a parent and child relationship, for example. The parent may develop media content and the media content may be distributed through the child's contact list. An example developed using a social online marketing network may be BragForce™, which may be the BizBrag.com™ platform.

[0031] As used herein, social networks and social media may be used interchangeably and refer to the same technology.

[0032] The parent and child relationship may occur when, for example, a company sends content to another company. The sending company may be the parent and the receiving company may be the child. Parent - child examples may be as follows, and may be reciprocal, as the parent may be the entity creating and triggering the content distribution cycle:

manufacturer - distributor, manufacturer - retailer, distributor - retailer, plumber - electrician, realtor - lender, franchisor - franchisee, enterprise - customer, service provider - service provider.

[0033] An embodiment of the invention may leverage and utilize network connections

(e.g., the child's connections) as an opt-in conduit and/or facilitator to distribute content and yet may maintain multiple degrees of separation throughout various online channels.

[0034] The process may occur from a single platform that may enable parent and child to connect (e.g., communicate) to each other. This connection may enable parent content to reach child connections, child content to reach parent connections, or a combination of parent and child content to reach parent and/or child contacts. Reaching connections may occur through several online channels such as, social media sites, social networks, email contacts, search engines, websites, blogs, etc.

[0035] For example, parent and child may sign up to become members of BizBrag.com.

Once they are members, parent and child may connect to each other through BizBrag's™ social online marketing network (e.g., the BragForce™). Once parent and child are connected through the BragForce™, content may be sent from parent to child and vise- versa allowing for content to flow through the parent and child to their respective connections and contacts, achieving multiple degrees of separation.

[0036] In one embodiment, a parent and child may connect through an embodiment of the invention to facilitate the parent to create and/or send content to the child. Content may be in the form of, for example, an article, announcement, webpage, video, brochure, image, coupon, sales sheet, text document or another type of media. The child may pass along the content to the child's various online marketing channels and networks. Thus, the parent's content may reach the child's connections, contacts and customers. To the receiver of the content, the content may appear to be generated and distributed by the child. The channels may include, but are not limited to social networks, social media, email contacts, blogs, video sites, search engines, online news feeds, etc.

[0037] In addition to content, the parent may send to the child, parent information such as name, address, email, website or website address, a postal address, a telephone number, a map location, blog, store address, store website, social network links, social media links, logo, email capture components, news, reviews, past information, etc. Content from the parent may be automatically forwarded to the child's channels by, for example, clicking an 'auto-forward' button.

[0038] In another embodiment, the parent content may be manually forwarded to the child's channels. The manual forward may require action on the part of the child to forward the parent's content to the child's channels.

[0039] In an embodiment, prior to sending parent content to child contacts, parent information contained in the content may be replaced with child information. Such a replacement may occur automatically or through manual intervention. When parent sends content through the child to child network connections, the contact information may either remain the parent's contact information or change to the child's contact information. Replacing parent information with child information may allow for branding to the child's own network, while utilizing the parent's content. Alternatively, the parent's contact information may remain with the content throughout the process, so when the content is disseminated via the child's network, the parent's contact information is shown to customers, potential customers, and/or clients.

[0040] In another embodiment, to facilitate automatic transmission of information to parent and child contacts, information may be required from the parent and child such as username and password.

[0041] In yet another embodiment, the parent (or content provider) may be a daily deal provider. A daily deal may be, for example, any coupon-type offer (e.g., a social coupon) from a merchant where the offer may expire after a limited time. Daily deal providers may include, for example, Groupon™, LivingSocial™, Google Offers™, Gilt City™, BuyWithMe™. For example, daily deal providers may perform the following:

L A daily deal provider may have a sales team that goes to merchants in local cities and solicits business to distribute a coupon for a product or service for a merchant. The distributed coupon may be referred to as a deal.

2. The deal may then be distributed (in the form of email marketing) to consumers who have subscribed to receive coupons via email from the daily deal provider. In some cases, one deal may be offered per local region per day - giving that deal a certain amount exclusivity and focused attention, for example.

3. When a consumer views the deal, and chooses to purchase or redeem the deal, they may click a link in the email which may take them to a webpage hosted by, for example, the daily deal provider. This webpage may have a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) unique to that deal (all deals may have their own URL). The deal webpage may have, for example, relevant content about the deal: the merchant name, the deal that is being offered, savings, merchant location, hours of operations, contact information, deal expiration, a 'Buy Now' link and most importantly a countdown clock along with the number of deals that have been already purchased. 4. Some daily deal providers may provide the offer for a certain time (e.g., 24 hours). Within that certain time, a certain number of these deals may have to be purchased. In some cases, if the number of purchases is reached within that timeframe, then the deal is 'on.' In some cases, if the number of deals purchased falls below the goal within the timeframe, then the deal is Off and all of the consumers who purchased the deal may be refunded their money. This concept may create a social component because it may motivate people to 'share' the deal so that the deal will be On.'

6. The deals may range from, for example, 10% off to 90% off. The perceived benefit to the merchant may be that it bumps revenue, gets fresh customers, creates awareness and hopefully motivates customers to buy more than just the coupon deal when they are in the merchant's place of business. A goal may be to keep customers coming back.

However, due to the 'one and done' deal concept, it may be difficult to measure the effectiveness of the advertising.

7. When the coupons are purchased, the daily deal provider may take a percentage of the coupons sold (sometimes up to 50%) - and this is how the Daily Deal companies make their money.

8. The transaction may be as such: when a consumer purchases a deal, they may be buying it from the daily deal provider. The daily deal provider may hold all of the proceeds from all of the purchases for that deal for a period of time (e.g., between 10 - 60 days (depending on the daily deal provider)) and at the end of that time, the daily deal provider may pay the merchant their share of the monies collected (e.g., a 50/50 split, lower or higher, again, depending on the daily deal provider).

9. In some cases, from the time the daily deal provider sales representative makes initial contact with a merchant until the merchant's actual offer is run, it may be anywhere from 2 - 4 months, for example.

[0042] Many daily deal providers run off of the same basic model. Each daily deal provider may have minimal competitive advantage. The competitive advantage may be coming in niches, such as deals for Moms, deals for teens, deals for luxury goods. It's all about distribution and reach. The biggest issue these daily deal providers have may be a lack of engagement and retention with merchants. For example, it is a One-and-done' transaction. Because of the One-and-done' issue, a merchant can, perceivably, go to 12 different daily deal providers a year and have a deal per month with zero loyalty to any daily deal provider.

Illustrative Systems

[0043] FIG. 1 depicts an illustrative high-level device processing system 100 for use with an illustrative embodiment for providing resource dissemination. System 100 may include input device 1 10, communication infrastructure 120, processing device 130, storage 140, parent information 150, child information 160, content information 170, web resource 180, and an output device 190.

[0044] Input device 1 10 may include a device for providing inputs to processing device

130 through communications infrastructure 120. For example, input device may receive input from a user or another device. Input device 1 10 may include, for example, a keyboard, track ball, touch sensitive display, haptic device, microphone, etc.

[0045] Communications infrastructure 120 may include a communication path designed to send and receive data. For example, communications infrastructure 120 may include a communications bus, cross-over bar, interconnect, network, etc. Communications infrastructure 120 may, for example, interface devices to computer systems (e.g., bus) or interface computer systems to each other (e.g., network).

[0046] Processing device 130 may include logic configured to execute computer- executable instructions that implement illustrative embodiments. The instructions may reside in storage 140. An example processing device that may be used includes processors available from Intel Corporation, Santa Clara, California (e.g., Xeon, Pentium, etc).

[0047] Storage 140 may include a computer-readable medium that may be configured to store instructions configured to implement illustrative embodiments of the invention. Storage 140 may be a primary storage accessible to processing device 130 and may include a random- access memory (RAM) that may include RAM devices, such as, for example, hard drives, Dynamic RAM (DRAM) devices, flash memory devices, Static RAM (SRAM) devices, etc. Storage 140 may store, for example, parent information 150, child information 160, content information 170, and/or web resource 180.

[0048] Output device 190 may include a device for providing outputs from processing device 130 to a user or another device or system. Output device 190 may include, for example, cathode ray tubes (CRTs), plasma displays, light-emitting diode (LED) displays, liquid crystal displays (LCDs), printers, vacuum florescent displays (VFDs), surface-conduction electron- emitter displays (SEDs), field emission displays (FEDs), etc.

[0049] Input device 1 10 (e.g., keyboards, mice, trackballs, microphones, touch screens, haptic devices, etc.) may allow input of parent information 150, child information 160, content information 170, and/or web resource 180.

[0050] Parent information 150 may be inputted into the system by a parent a user, or received via communication infrastructure 120. Parent information 150 may include parent contact information, parent business information, and parent system 100 configuration information (e.g., system 100 preferences and/or settings). Parent contact information and business information may, for example, include a business name, a postal address, an email address, a telephone number, a business logo, a uniform resource locator (URL), a Twitter™ account, a Linkedin™ account, a Facebook™ account, a webstore, a blog, reviews, news, social network accounts, social media accounts, images, comments, videos, lead generation components, etc.

[0051] Child information 160 may be inputted into the system 100 by a child. Child information 160 may include child contact information 165, child business information, child dissemination targets and/or child system configuration information (e.g., system 100 preferences and/or system 100 settings). Child contact information 165 and child business information may include, for example, a business name, a postal address, an email address, a telephone number, a business logo, a uniform resource locator (URL), a Twitter™ account, a

Linkedin™ account, a Facebook™ account, a webstore, a blog, reviews, news, social network accounts, social media accounts, images, comments, videos, lead generation components, etc.

[0052] Content information 170 may be inputted by either the parent, child, or a third party. Content information may contain advertising, a daily deal, or other marketing material. Content information 170 may include a uniform resource locator (URL), a hyperlink, a webpage, hypertext markup language (HTML) formatted data, extensible hypertext markup language (XHTML) formatted data, extensible markup language (XML) formatted data, dynamic hypertext markup language (DHTML) formatted data, audio data, graphic data, video data, image data, Flash, JavaScript, portable document format (PDF) data, joint photographic experts group (JPEG) data, portable networks graphic (PNG) data, tagged image file format (TIFF) data, graphics interchange format (GIF) data, etc.

[0053] Web resource 180 may include a webpage or other resource or resources that may be suitable for the World Wide Web and may be accessed via a web browser (e.g., but not limited to, Internet Explorer™, Firefox™, Opera™, Safari™, etc.), or other web accessible application. Web resource 180 may include a uniform resource locator (URL), a hyperlink, a webpage, hypertext markup language (HTML) formatted data, extensible hypertext markup language (XHTML) formatted data, extensible markup language (XML) formatted data, dynamic hypertext markup language (DHTML) formatted data, audio data, graphic data, video data, image data, Flash, JavaScript, portable document format (PDF) data, joint photographic experts group (JPEG) data, portable networks graphic (PNG) data, tagged image file format (TIFF) data, graphics interchange format (GIF) data, cascading style sheets (CSS) formatted data, etc.

[0054] Processing device 130 may create one or more web resource 180 using parent information 150, child information 160, and/or content information 170. In one embodiment, processing device 130 may selectively replace parent information 150 (e.g., parent contact information) with child contact information 165 or other child information 160 in web resource 180. Embodiments may be configured to automatically replace parent information 150 with child information 160 or may require child permission to complete the replacement. Indication as to whether automatic replacement occurs may be stored in system 100 configuration settings, for example.

[0055] Processing device 130 may transmit web resource 180 to output device 190 via communications infrastructure 120. Processing device 130 may disseminate web resource 180 to child contacts listed in the child contact information 165, parent contacts listed in the parent information 150, or a combination of parent and child contacts. Embodiments may be configured to automatically disseminate web resource 180 to child contacts or may require child permission to transmit the web resource. Indication as to whether automatic dissemination occurs may be stored in system 100 configuration settings. [0056] FIG. 2 depicts an illustrative distribution system 200 for use with an illustrative embodiment for providing resource dissemination. System 200 may communicate with parent 205, child 210, and dissemination targets 215. System 200 may also include parent interface 220a and child interface 220b (collectively parent and child interfaces 220) as well as dissemination target interfaces such as social networks 260, web distribution interface 270, and/or mail user agent 280. System 200 may include a server 230, database 240, and/or mail server 250, for example.

[0057] Parent 205 may include content creators, for example, a manufacturer, a franchisor, a distributor, a wholesaler, an enterprise, a service provider, a realtor, a plumber, an electrician, a daily deal provider, a merchant, a retailer, a wholesaler, a spa, a sporting event, a concert event, a provider of luxury goods, a franchise, an adventure event, a movie theater, a provider of sporting goods, a recreational business, an entertainment business, a brick and mortar business, an online business, a cleaning business, a personal care business, a professional services business, a bar, a night club, an amusement park, a water sport business, a computer business, an electronics business, a music business, an entertainment business, a home business, a provider of jewelry, etc.

[0058] Child 210 may include content distributors, for example, a retailer, a distributor, a franchise, a customer, a service provider, a lender, a plumber, an electrician, a daily deal provider, a merchant, a retailer, a wholesaler, a spa, a sporting event, a concert event, a provider of luxury goods, a franchise, an adventure event, a movie theater, a provider of sporting goods, a recreational business, an entertainment business, a brick and mortar business, an online business, a cleaning business, a personal care business, a professional services business, a bars, a night club, an amusement park, a water sport business, a computer business, an electronics business, a music business, an entertainment business, a home business, a provider of jewelry, etc. Child 210 may disseminate content created by parent 205 or other children. Child 210 may also create content (similar to parent 205) without a parent 205. In one embodiment, parent 205 may distribute created content to another parent. Also possible, child 210 may deliver content to another child.

[0059] Dissemination targets 215 may include potential customers, current customers, business associates, employees, employers, organizations, network groups, associations, partners, referrals, communities, companies etc. Dissemination targets 215 may view web resource 180 using a computer interface such as, but not limited to, a personal computer, a mobile phone, a mobile device, a cell phone, a laptop, an iPhone™, an iPad™, a PDA, a tablet PC, etc.

[0060] Parent and child interfaces 220 may include a web browser, dedicated software application, or other interface that allows parent 205 and/or child 210 to interface with server 230. Parent and child interfaces 220 may include input device 1 10, output device 190, communications infrastructure 120, processing device 130, and storage 140. Using input device 1 10, processing device 130, and communications infrastructure 120 parent and child interfaces 220 may allow parent 205 and/or child 210 to input and upload child information 160, parent information 150, content information 170, and/or instructions to server 230. Communication between parent and child interfaces 220 and server 230 may use, for example, HTTP, TCP/IP, FTP, SMS, UDP, SMTP, HTTPS, SOAP, ICMP, POP3, IMAP, HOP, RMI, or other protocol for transferring information. Using output device 190, processing device 130, and/or

communications infrastructure 120, parent and child interfaces 220 may allow parent 205 and/or child 210 to download and view child information 160 and parent information 150, content information 170, web resource 180, and/or instructions from server 230. Parent and child interfaces 220 may communicate with or be part of server 230.

[0061] Server 230 may include a web server such as an Apache™ server, Microsoft™

IIS™, Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud™ (Amazon EC2™), etc. Server 230 may include input device 1 10, output device 190, communications infrastructure 120, processing device 130, and storage 140. Server 230 may provide web resource 180 to dissemination targets 215. Server 230 may communicate with or be a part of database 240.

[0062] Database 240 may include a system intended to organize and store data in for example, a relational database. Database 240 may include databases such as MySQL™, PostgreSQL™, Microsoft Access™, SQL Server™, FileMaker™, Oracle™, Sybase™, dBASE™,

Clipper™, FoxPro™, etc. Database 240 may include input device 1 10, output device 190, communications infrastructure 120, processing device 130, and storage 140. Database 240 may also include parent information 150, child information 160, content information 170, and/or web resource 180.

[0063] Mail server 250 may include a system intended to deliver and receive mail to and from other systems. Mail server 250 may include mail servers such as Apache James™, Atmail™, CommuniGate Pro™, Microsoft Exchange™, Sendmail™, Postfix™, Exim™, Amazon

Mail Server™, etc. Mail server 250 may deliver email communications from parent 205 and/or child 210 to dissemination targets 215. Mail server 250 may transmit and receive

communications from mail user agent 280 via protocols such as IMAP, POP3, SMTP, and HTTP.

[0064] Mail user agent 280 may be a system used to manage email or allow access to an email mailbox. Email may be accessible through a number of means such as via a computer or mobile phone. Mail user agent 280 may include mail tools such as Gmail™, Yahoo Mail™,

Microsoft Outlook™, Thunderbird™, Apple Mail™, Pegasus Mail™, Hotmail™, etc. Mail user agent 280 may allow dissemination targets 215 to view email from parent 205 and/or child 210.

[0065] Another method of dissemination of communications from parent 205 and/or child 210 may be through social networks 260 via a social network interface . Social networks

260 may include, for example, Twitter™, Facebook™, Linkedin™, etc. Social network interface may include a web browser, dedicated software application, or other interface (e.g., mobile phone, tablet computer, personal digital assistant, etc.) that may allow dissemination targets 215 to interface with social networks 260 and view web resource 180, for example.

[0066] Another method of dissemination of communications from parent 205 and/or child 210 may be through web distribution via web distribution interface 270. Web distribution may include newsfeeds, search engines, websites, blogs, etc. Web distribution interface 270 may include a web browser, dedicated software application, or other interface that may allow dissemination targets 215 to view web resource 180.

[0067] In another embodiment, parent 205 may create a content library containing, for example, pdf, jpeg, video, doc, html, xhtml, dhtml, image data, flash, javascript, gif, etc. The library may be made available to one or more children. Content library may be stored in, for example, database 240. Child 210 may be able to access content library by, for example, clicking through a drop-down box and populating web resource 180 with content from content library. Content in content library may be made available in both editable and non-editable forms. Once content from content library is retrieved and used for the web resource 180, child 205 may disseminate the web resource to the dissemination targets.

[0068] In another embodiment, parent 205 may distribute content through multiple children. Also, child 210 may receive content through multiple parents 205. [0069] According to another embodiment, the distribution system 200 could be represented by any of a number of well-known network architecture designs including, but not limited to, services oriented architecture (SOA), peer-to-peer, client-server, hybrid-client (e.g., thin-client), distributed computing, cloud computing, standalone, etc. A standalone system (not shown) may exist where information may be distributed via a medium such as, e.g., a computer- readable medium, such as, e.g., but not limited to, a compact disc read only memory (CD- ROM), and/or a digital versatile disk (DVD), BLUERAY®, etc.

Illustrative Processing

[0070] FIG. 3 illustrates example distribution flowchart 300 describing processing performed in an illustrative embodiment. Parent 205 and/or child 210 may connect to distribution application (block 310). An example distribution application interface may include parent and child interfaces 220.

[0071] Parent 205 may upload content information 170 (block 320). Content may be uploaded using parent and child interfaces 220 to server 230 and may be stored in database 240. Parent 205 and/or child 210 may also store parent information 150 and child information 160 in database 240.

[0072] Web resource 180 may be created (e.g., using processing device 130) based on the content uploaded in block 320 and saved parent information 150 (block 330). Web resource 180 may be saved in database 240. Depending on the configuration of system 100 (e.g., system 100 preferences and settings), from block 330 flow may proceed to block 340, block 360 or block 370. If, for example, the system 100 is configured to have child 210 approve web resource 180 prior to dissemination, flow may move to block 340. Alternatively, system 100 may be configured to disseminate web resource 180 without child 210 approval and flow may move to block 360 or 370. If parent information 150 is to be replaced with child information 160 without child approval, flow may move from 330 to 360. If parent information 150 remains in web resource 180, then flow may move to 370 for distribution of web resource 180 to dissemination targets 215.

[0073] Web resource 180 and/or notification may be sent to child 210 (block 340).

Child 210 may receive a notification that web resource 180 is available for review. [0074] Child 210 may approve web resource 180 (block 350). After reviewing web resource 180 child 210 may approve or reject the web resource 180. If, for example, child 210 rejects web resource 180, a notification may be sent to parent 205 for review. If, for example, child 210 accepts web resource 180, flow may move to block 360. In some embodiments, depending, for example on the system 100 settings, flow may move to 370.

[0075] Parent information 150 in web resource 180 may be replaced with child information 160 (block 360). Parent contact information, for example, may be replaced with child contact information. System 100 settings may determine which parent information 150 in web resource 180 may be replaced with corresponding child information 160. In some embodiments, depending, for example on the system 100 settings, parent information 150 in web resource 180 may not be replaced with child information 160 and flow may move to 370.

[0076] Web resource 180 may be distributed to dissemination targets 215 (block 370).

Dissemination targets 215 may receive web resource, for example, via social networks 260, web distribution interface 270, and/or mail user agent 280. In some embodiments, parent information 150 may remain in the disseminated web resource 180. In other embodiments, parent information 150 in web resource 180 may be automatically replaced by child information 160 prior to dissemination.

Example Embodiments

[0077] FIG. 4 illustrates an example screenshot of a webpage 400 containing parent information 150 in an illustrative embodiment of the invention. Webpage 400 may contain one or more web resources 180. Webpage 400 may have been created from parent information 150 and content information 170. Webpage 400 may contain parent logo 410, parent contact information 420, and parent information bar 430. Parent information bar 430 may contain parent company name and email address, for example. Webpage 400 may be transmitted to dissemination targets 21 or may have parent information 1 0 replaced with child information 160 as shown in FIG. 5. Webpage 500 may be transmitted to dissemination targets 215 with or without child 210 approval .

[0078] FIG. 5 illustrates an example screenshot of a webpage 500 containing child information 160 in an illustrative embodiment of the invention. Webpage 500 may contain one or more web resources 180. Webpage 500 may contain child logo 510, child contact information 520, and child information bar 530. Child information bar 530 may contain child company name and email. Webpage 500 may illustrate the replacement of parent information 150 with child information 160. For example, child logo 510, child contact information 520, and child information bar 530 may have replaced parent logo 410, parent contact information 420, and parent information bar 430, respectively. Webpage 500 may be transmitted to dissemination targets 215 with or without child 210 approval.

[0079] FIG. 6 illustrates an example screenshot of a reduced webpage 600 containing parent information 150 in an illustrative embodiment of the invention. Reduced webpage 600 may contain one or more web resources 180. Reduced webpage 600 may have been created from parent information 150 and content information 170. Reduced webpage 600 may contain a subset of webpage 400. Reduced webpage may contain parent logo 610 and parent information bar 630. Parent information bar 630 may contain parent company name and email address, for example. Reduced webpage 600 may be transmitted to dissemination targets 215 or may have parent information 150 replaced with child information 160 as shown in FIG. 7. Reduced webpage 600 may be transmitted to dissemination targets 215 with or without child 210 approval.

[0080] FIG. 7 illustrates an example screenshot of a reduced webpage 700 containing child information 160 in an illustrative embodiment of the invention. Reduced webpage 700 may contain one or more web resources 180. Reduced webpage 700 may contain child logo 710 and child information bar 730. Child information bar 730 may contain child company name and email. Reduced webpage 700 may illustrate the replacement of parent information 150 with child information 160. For example, child logo 710 and child information bar 730 may have replaced parent logo 610 and parent information bar 630, respectively. Reduced webpage 700 may be transmitted to dissemination targets 215 with or without child 210 approval.

[0081] FIG. 8 illustrates an example screenshot of parent dashboard 800 in an illustrative embodiment of the invention. Dashboard 800 may contain navigation buttons such as My

Dashboard™ button 810, BizBrag U™ & FAQ's button 815, Edit my Bizfolio™ (profile) button

820, view/edit Braggits™ button 825, Widgets & API button 830, View Public BizFolio™ button 835, Community Forum button 840 and My Account button 845.

[0082] A Braggit™ may be an article, announcement, video, brochure, sales sheet, etc., that may become a web resource 180 (e.g., webpage 400) once created. The Braggit™ may be populated with parent information 170. For example, the parent information 170 may be extracted from the parent's BizFolio™ (e.g., the business profile page on BizBrag.com™).

Parent's contact information may include a website or website address, a postal address, a telephone number, a map location, social media connections, social network 260 connections, email capture components, logo, past Braggits™, reviews, etc. For example, once the Braggit™ has been created, the parent 205 may send the Braggit™ to the child 210 via the BragForce™, from the parent dashboard 800 on BizBrag.com™.

[0083] The BizFolio™ may be, for example, the BizBrag™ members' (e.g., parent 205 and/or child 210) business profile page. The member may enter information about their business and this information may be stored on database 240. Once the data is stored, the BizFolio™ information may be programmatically inserted into each Braggit™, for example, that a member creates. For example, the BizFolio™ information may be used to programmatically populate and display the contact information on each Braggit™ that a member creates. So, for example, the business profile/contact information that may be on each Braggit™, may be

programmatically retrieved from the BizFolio™ information to customize each Braggit™ for the purposes of, for example, lead generation and general business information dissemination.

[0084] The BragForce™ may be, for example, BizBrag' s™ social online marketing network. The BragForce™ may encompass connections of members between each other. One way in which members may connect may be by logging in to BizBrag™, finding a member's

Braggit™ or BizFolio™ through a search and clicking on the 'Join Our BragForce™' tab, for example. Other ways in which a member may join another member's BragForce™ is by finding their BizBrag™ or BizFolio™ on the web and clicking on the 'Join Our BragForce™' tab. Yet another way in which a BizBrag™ community member may join another BizBrag™ community member's BragForce™ may be by clicking on the 'Join Our BragForce™' tab in an email that may be delivered via a Braggit™, for example. Another scenario in which a member joins another member's BragForce™ may be specific to the Parent-Child relationship. Parent 205 may have a dedicated sign-up URL for the child 210 to visit for signing up to BizBrag™ and becoming a BizBrag™ community member, for example. When child 210 signs up to BizBrag^TI via the custom URL dedicated to parent 205, child 210 may be programmatically (e.g., automatically) joined to the parent's 205 BragForce™. Parent's 205 custom URL may be obtained by, for example, parent 205 visiting BizBrag's™ registration page and registering for the custom URL for signing up one or more children to BizBrag™ services through that URL and creating, for example, an automatic connection. Each member may create their own BragForce™, which may be made up of connections to other BragForce™ members. The BragForce™ may assist in dissemination of Braggits™ by sending each BragForce™ connection a Braggit™ and having each BragForce™ connection pass those Braggits™ along to their own social networks 260 and email connections (along with creating as a blog post, for example).

[0085] The parent/child connection may mean that both the parent 205 and child 210 are in each other's BragForce™ and parent 205 may be the entity that, for example, creates the content. For example, member B joins members A's BragForce™. Member A sends member B a Braggit™ with member A's content and contact information. Member B then forwards this Braggit™ onto to member B's network connections (social), email contacts, blogs, search engines, etc. Member B's contact information and/or content may replace or augment member A's contact information and/or content. Alternatively, member A's original content and contact information may stay intact. An inverse relationship may occur, where member B may send a Braggit™ to member A and the same process takes place. Some organizations may have a sales force to sell products, BizBrag™ may give every community member the opportunity to build their 'BragForce™' in order to help each other brag about their businesses.

[0086] Clicking on My Dashboard button 810 may display dashboard 800. Dashboard

800 may display a connections screen 855, BragForce™ screen 860, Braggit™ Analytics screen 865, and a Performance screen 870.

[0087] Connections screen 855 may depict the number of current connections and may allow a user to view all their connections.

[0088] Connections screen 855 may allow a member to manage connections. Managing connections may include, for example, making or disconnecting connections, adding or removing contacts, visiting member's account that applies to those connections (e.g., a one-click hyperlink that re-directs the member directly to the member's Facebook™, Linkedln™,

Twitter™ accounts, etc.), searching for new connections, providing information on how to make connections, and/or connecting multiple connections within one connection location (e.g., more than two Facebook™ accounts).

[0089] BragForce™ screen 860 may depict the current number of pending Braggits™ and the reach and may allow the user to retrieve additional information on the BragForce™. [0090] BragForce™ screen 860 may allow a member to take an action regarding pending

Braggits™. Actions may include, for example, forwarding a Braggit™ to specific locations one- by-one, forwarding a Braggit™ to a specific location at the same time, rejecting a pending Braggit™, viewing connections from the sender of a pending Braggit™, viewing the BizFolio™ (e.g., business profile) of the sender of a pending Braggit™, viewing BragForce™ invites, managing BragForce™ invites, viewing BragForce™ messages, managing BragForce™ messages, searching for additional BragForce™ members, viewing current BragForce™ members and/or managing current BragForce™ members.

[0091] Braggit™ Analytics screen 865 may depict the current status of the user's

Braggits™ and may allow the user to retrieve additional information on the user's Braggits™.

[0092] Performance screen 870 may depict the user's current performance and may allow the user to retrieve additional information on the user's performance.

[0093] From dashboard 800 a user (e.g., parent 205) may create a Braggit™. The user may choose how the Braggit™ should be disseminated by using for example, the pick section 875 of Dashboard 800. Pick section 875 may include social media selection 880, search engine selection 882, BragForce™ selection 884, email marketing 886, and/or blogs 888, for example.

[0094] In an illustrative embodiment, a user may create a Braggit™, for example, by typing or uploading content into the appropriate web enabled form.

[0095] Braggits™ may be programmatically populated using, for example, information from the BizFolio™. The BizFolio™ may be a BizBrag™ members' business profile page. When a prospective member (e.g., parent 205 and/or child 210) joins BizBrag™, for example, they may fill in a sign up form. This form may request the following: email address, password, contact name and/or business name, for example. Once a prospective member has completed the sign up form, the email address, contact name and business name may be used to

programmatically create a personalized BizFolio (e.g., a business profile page for that member).

Each BizFolio™ (profile page) may receive a unique URL. By having a unique URL search engines may be able to discover and link to the URL. Additionally, the URL makes the

BizFolio™ shareable and accessible across the web.

[0096] A member may edit the personalized BizFolio™ (profile) page and add additional information, including, but not limited to: logo, slogan, key people, webstore URL, blog URL, key words, business color scheme, business information, contact information, products, services offered, etc. The contents of the BizFolio™ may be available on the server to allow BizBrag' s™ technology to programmatically retrieve contact information from the BizFolio™ and place the information into a created Braggit™. This On demand' supply of contact information may free the member from having to supply/type in the contact information into each Braggit™ that he/she creates. The BizBrag™ technology may programmatically retrieve the contact information from the server where the contact information is stored. The information in the BizFolio™ may be updated at anytime and may change in real-time so that each Braggit™ may always retrieve the latest contact information.

[0097] Child 210 contact information may be programmatically retrieved from the child's BizFolio™ information stored on the servers. Child 210 contact information may replace parent 205 contact information. Parent 205 contact information may have originally been placed in the Braggit™ via parent 205 BizFolio™ which may have been also stored on the servers programmatically. No user interface may be needed to 'switch' the child/parent contact information retrieved from the servers which may have been originally keyed in and stored in the BizFolio™.

[0098] A member may enter information about their business into the given fields and this information may be stored on the servers so that the information may be programmatically inserted into each Braggit™ that member creates. This BizFolio™ information may be used to populate and display contact information on each Braggit™, programmatically, that a member creates. The business profile/contact information that is on each Braggit™, may be

programmatically retrieved from the BizFolio™ information. Braggits™ may be customized for the purposes of lead generation and general business information dissemination.

[0099] FIG. 9 illustrates an example screenshot of child dashboard 900 in an illustrative embodiment of the invention. When a Braggit™ is received by child 210, child dashboard 900, in addition to similar buttons as parent dashboard 800, may also contain a take action button 910 for the received Braggit™. The child 210 may also receive a notification (e.g., via email, text message, page, etc.) that there is a Braggit™ from the parent 205 waiting for their attention in their BizBrag™ dashboard/account.

[00100] From child dashboard 900, a child 210 may be able to access a content library previously created by parent 205.

[00101] Take action button 910 may allow child 210 to view, edit, and transmit the

Braggit™. When take action button 910 is selected, a screen such as FIG. 10 may be displayed.

[00102] FIG. 10 illustrates an example take action screenshot 1000 in an illustrative embodiment of the invention. Take action screenshot 1000 may have close button 1010, view Braggit™ link 1020, new headline field 1030, personalized content field 1040, distribution information 1060, send Braggit™ now button 1050, and/or an auto-forwarding button 1070.

[00103] Close button 1010 may close the editing of the current Braggit™ and bring the user back to dashboard 800, for example.

[00104] New headline field 1030 may allow the child 210 to insert a new headline into the

Braggit™.

[00105] Personalized content field 1040 may allow the child to insert new content into the

Braggit™.

[00106] View Braggit™ link 1020 may allow the child 210 to view the Braggit™ with any changes made using new headline field 1030 or personalized content field 1040.

[00107] Distribution information 1060 may allow the child 210 to select the various methods to transmit the Braggit™ to dissemination targets 215.

[00108] Auto-forwarding button 1070 may cause the Braggit™ and/or future Braggits to be transmitted to dissemination targets 215 without child 210 interaction.

[00109] Once child 210 takes action with parent's Braggit™ (e.g., automatically or manually) and sends web resource 180 to child 210 social connections, contacts and search engines from dashboard 900, all of the auto-populated information on the Braggit™ from the parent's BizFolio™ may be "switched" and auto-populated with the child's information from their own BizFolio™. The content may remain the same or be altered by the child. The second scenario is that the "switch" of contact information may not occur and the parent contact information is sent to the child's network connections (e.g., dissemination targets 215).

[00110] The Braggit™ may then be distributed and viewed across the web (e.g., social media, social networks 260, email contacts, search engines, etc.) containing child information 160 or the parent information 150.

[00111] FIG. 1 1 depicts example flowcharts 1100 describing Braggit™ processing performed in an illustrative embodiment. Parent 205 and/or child 210 may connect to parent dashboard 800 and/or child dashboard 900, respectively (block 11 10). Both parent information 150 and child information 160 may be created and stored in their respective BizBrag.com business profile (e.g., BizFolio™). When creating a Braggit™, both parent information 150 and child information 160 may be automatically pulled from the profiles to populate the Braggit™. On Braggit™ creation, the parent 205 may determine whether a switch should occur where child information 160 replaces parent information 150 in the Braggit™ or whether the parent information 150 remains in the Braggit™.

[00112] Parent 205 may create a Braggit™ (block 1 120).

[00113] Parent 205 may send Braggit™ containing parent 205 information to child 210

(block 1 130).

[00114] Child 210 may forward the Braggit™ to dissemination targets 215 (block 1140).

Flow may proceed to 1152 when parent information 150 remains with the Braggit™.

Alternatively, flow may proceed to 1154 when child information 160 replaces parent information 150 in Braggit™.

[00115] Braggit™ may go to child 210 contacts with parent information 150 (block

1 152).

[00116] Braggit™ may go to child 210 contacts with child information 160 (block 1 152).

Parent information 150 may be replaced with child information 160.

[00117] Braggit™ may be sent to dissemination targets 215 (block 1160).

Example Software Implementation [00118] FIG. 12 depicts example high-level software modules for use with an illustrative embodiment for providing resource dissemination.

[00119] A parent 205 or child 210 may enter user information (e.g., parent information

150 and child information 160) using a graphical user interface supplied by parent and child interfaces 220. User information may be stored in database 240.

[00120] Parent 205 may submit additional information by filling out a form that may be submitted to page creation module 1210. Page creation module 1210 may combine content information 170, which may have been submitted by parent 205, with parent information 150 to create a web resource 180 such as a webpage. Web resource 180 may be sent to all of parent's children via the distribution module 1220. Children who received the web resource 180 may then add content or choose to leave the web resource as is. Once child 210 makes a decision, a new web resource 180 may be created using content information 170, child information 160, parent information 150, and/or any new content child 210 may have provided.

[00121] Web resource 180 may be distributed through various distribution channels 1230 including members of parent 205 and child 210 network, children users, email, social networks 260, search engines, feeds, etc.

Illustrative Computer System

[00122] FIG. 13 depicts an illustrative computer system that may be used in implementing an illustrative embodiment of the present invention. Specifically, FIG. 13 depicts an illustrative embodiment of a computer system 1300 that may be used in computing devices such as, e.g., but not limited to, standalone or client or server devices. FIG. 13 depicts an illustrative embodiment of a computer system that may be used as client device, or a server device, etc. The present invention (or any part(s) or function(s) thereof) may be implemented using hardware, software, firmware, or a combination thereof and may be implemented in one or more computer systems or other processing systems. In fact, in one illustrative embodiment, the invention may be directed toward one or more computer systems capable of carrying out the functionality described herein. An example of computer system 1300 is shown in FIG. 13, depicting an illustrative embodiment of a block diagram of an illustrative computer system useful for implementing the present invention. Specifically, FIG. 13 illustrates an example computer 1300, which in an illustrative embodiment may be, e.g., (but not limited to) a personal computer (PC) system running an operating system such as, e.g., (but not limited to) MICROSOFT® WINDOWS® NT/98/2000/XP/Vista/Windows 7/etc. available from MICROSOFT® Corporation of Redmond, WA, U.S.A. or an Apple computer executing MAC® OS from

Apple® of Cupertine, CA, U.S.A. However, the invention is not limited to these platforms. Instead, the invention may be implemented on any appropriate computer system running any appropriate operating system. In one illustrative embodiment, the present invention may be implemented on a computer system operating as discussed herein. An illustrative computer system, computer 1300 is shown in FIG. 13. Other components of the invention, such as, e.g., (but not limited to) a computing device, a communications device, a telephone, a personal digital assistant (PDA), an iPhone, a 3G wireless device, a wireless device, a personal computer (PC), a handheld PC, a laptop computer, a smart phone, a mobile device, a netbook, a handheld device, a portable device, an interactive television device (iTV), a digital video recorder (DVR), client workstations, thin clients, thick clients, fat clients, proxy servers, network communication servers, remote access devices, client computers, server computers, peer-to-peer devices, routers, web servers, data, media, audio, video, telephony or streaming technology servers, etc., may also be implemented using a computer such as that shown in FIG. 13. In an illustrative embodiment, services may be provided on demand using, e.g., an interactive television device (iTV), a video on demand system (VOD), via a digital video recorder (DVR), and/or other on demand viewing system.

[00123] Computer system 1300 may include one or more processors, such as, e.g., but not limited to, processing device 130. Processing device 130 may be connected to communication infrastructure 120 (e.g., but not limited to, a communications bus, cross-over bar, interconnect, or network, etc.). Processing device 130 may include any type of processor, microprocessor, or processing logic that may interpret and execute instructions (e.g., for example, a field

programmable gate array (FPGA)). Processing device 130 may comprise a single device (e.g., for example, a single core) and/or a group of devices (e.g., multi-core). Processing device 130 may include logic configured to execute computer-executable instructions configured to implement one or more embodiments. The instructions may reside in main memory 1308 or storage 140. Processing device 130 may also include multiple independent cores, such as a dual-core processor or a multi-core processor. Processing device 130 may also include one or more graphics processing units (GPU) which may be in the form of a dedicated graphics card, an integrated graphics solution, and/or a hybrid graphics solution. Various illustrative software embodiments may be described in terms of this illustrative computer system. After reading this description, it will become apparent to a person skilled in the relevant art(s) how to implement the invention using other computer systems and/or architectures.

[00124] Computer system 1300 may include display interface 1302 that may forward, e.g., but not limited to, graphics, text, and other data, etc., from the communication

infrastructure 120 (or from a frame buffer, etc., not shown) for display on the display unit 1330. The display unit 1330 may be, for example, a television, a computer monitor, or a mobile phone screen. The output may also be provided as sound through a speaker.

[00125] The computer system 1300 may also include, e.g., but is not limited to, main memory 1308, random access memory (RAM), and storage 140, etc. Main memory 1308, random access memory (RAM), and storage 140, etc., may be a computer-readable medium that may be configured to store instructions configured to implement one or more embodiments and may comprise a random-access memory (RAM) that may include RAM devices, such as Dynamic RAM (DRAM) devices, flash memory devices, Static RAM (SRAM) devices, etc.

[00126] Storage 140 may include, for example, (but is not limited to) hard disk drive 1312 and/or removable storage drive 1314, representing a floppy diskette drive, a magnetic tape drive, an optical disk drive, a compact disk drive CD-ROM, flash memory, etc. Removable storage drive 1314 may, e.g., but is not limited to, read from and/or write to a removable storage unit 1318 in a well known manner. Removable storage unit 1318, also called a program storage device or a computer program product, may represent, e.g., but is not limited to, a floppy disk, magnetic tape, optical disk, compact disk, etc. which may be read from and written to removable storage drive 1314. As will be appreciated, the removable storage unit 1318 may include a computer usable storage medium having stored therein computer software and/or data.

[00127] In alternative illustrative embodiments, storage 140 may include other similar devices for allowing computer programs or other instructions to be loaded into computer system 1300. Such devices may include, for example, removable storage unit 1322 and interface 1320. Examples of such may include a program cartridge and cartridge interface (such as, e.g., but not limited to, those found in video game devices), a removable memory chip (such as, e.g., but not limited to, an erasable programmable read only memory (EPROM), or programmable read only memory (PROM)) and associated socket, and other removable storage units 1322 and interfaces 1320, which may allow software and data to be transferred from removable storage unit 1322 to computer system 1300. [00128] Computer 1300 may also include input device 110. Input device 110 may include any mechanism or combination of mechanisms that may permit information to be input into computer system 1300 from, e.g., a user. Input device 1 10 may include logic configured to receive information for computer system 1300 from, e.g. a user. Examples of input device 1 10 may include, e.g., but not limited to, a mouse, pen-based pointing device, or other pointing device such as a digitizer, a touch sensitive display device, and/or a keyboard, other data entry device, a biometric input device, a video source, an audio source, a microphone, a web cam, a video camera, and/or other camera (none of which are labeled).

[00129] Computer 1300 may also include output device 190 which may include any mechanism or combination of mechanisms that may output information from computer system 1300. Output device 190 may include logic configured to output information from computer system 1300. Embodiments of output device 190 may include, e.g., but not limited to, display 1330, and display interface 1302, including displays, printers, speakers, cathode ray tubes (CRTs), plasma displays, light-emitting diode (LED) displays, liquid crystal displays (LCDs), printers, vacuum florescent displays (VFDs), surface-conduction electron-emitter displays (SEDs), field emission displays (FEDs), etc. Computer 1300 may include input/output (I/O) devices such as, e.g., (but not limited to) communications interface 1324, cable 1328 and communications path 1326, etc. These devices may include, e.g., but are not limited to, a network interface card, and/or modems.

[00130] · Communications interface 1324 may allow software and data to be transferred between computer system 1300 and external devices.

[00131] In this document, the terms "computer program medium" and "computer readable medium" may be used to generally refer to media such as, e.g., but not limited to, removable storage drive 1314, a hard disk installed in hard disk drive 1312, flash memories, removable discs, non-removable discs, etc. In addition, it should be noted that various electromagnetic radiation, such as wireless communication, electrical communication carried over an electrically conductive wire (e.g., but not limited to twisted pair, CAT5, etc.) or an optical medium (e.g., but not limited to, optical fiber) and the like may be encoded to carry computer-executable instructions and/or computer data that may perform embodiments of the invention on e.g., a communication network. These computer program products may provide software to computer system 1300. It should be noted that a computer-readable medium that comprises computer- executable instructions for execution in a processor may be configured to store various embodiments of the present invention.

Example Merchant Reward Embodiment

[00132] Merchant retention may be a problem with current daily deal business models. A possible solution may involve providing daily deal providers with, for example, an annuity subscription revenue model. Currently no daily deal companies have annuity subscription revenue models in place. Such a business model may help enhance confidence among investors and public markets.

[00133] Daily deal providers may include, for example, Groupon™, LivingSocial™,

BuyWithMe™, Saveology™, Google Offers™, Gilt City™, Zulily™, DealOn™, Facebook™, Yelp™, Daily Candy™, Woot.com™, lsaleaday™, Dealster™, SocialBuy™, HomeRun™, Yipit™, CrowdSavings™, Angle's List Deals™, Chitrr™, etc.

[00134] In one example embodiment a daily deal provider may be the parent. The children may be the merchants that the daily deal provider has signed up to run a deal. The daily deal provider may be able to create and share Braggits™ (as described above). In this case a Braggit™ may be a daily deal or offer that may be inserted into the Braggit™ form as an image, link, video, etc. When the offer is distributed to the children (e.g., the signed up merchants), the relevant contact information may programmatically change to the child's contact information (e.g., the merchant's contact information) prior to distribution to the merchant's contacts or consumers.

[00135] The following describes an embodiment of an example workflow for rewarding merchants. First, a daily deal provider, for example, uses an embodiment of the invention, such as BizBrag™, and makes all of their merchants correspond to children in for example, the daily deal provider's BragForce™ and places them into, for example, BragForce™ groups, such as, spas, hotels, movies, restaurants, etc. Thus, the daily deal provider is the parent and the merchants that have signed with the daily deal provider become children. Each of the children may be placed into one or more groups. The groups may define related collections of merchants. [00136] The children may have all of their social networks 260 connected to their

BizBrag™ dashboard, for example. Each child (e.g., merchant) may have a deal provided by the daily deal provider which may be sent out through the child's social network 260 contacts so the daily deal may reach fans, friends, followers (e.g., all contacts) for viewing and purchasing. The daily deal may also be sent out using other children's social network 260 contacts so the daily deal may reach additional fans, friends, followers (e.g., all contacts) for viewing and purchasing.

[00137] In one example, the daily deal provider may run a deal for a local restaurant merchant offering 'buy 1 entree, get 1 free.' This deal may be distributed via email to all of the consumer subscribers in the area, for example. The daily deal provider may also, create alternate distribution by using the daily deal provider's children. In one scenario, a 'Deal' Braggit™, for example, may be created by dropping the deal image, link, video, etc. into the Braggit™ creation form, for example. For example, the Braggit™ may be shared with the restaurant merchant (whose deal it is) by choosing that merchant when choosing where to share the Braggit™ from their BizBrag™ dashboard. The merchant's deal can now reach the merchant's social connections.

[00138] Additionally, the daily deal provider may share the deal with additional children.

For example, children with similar interests may receive the deal to be distributed to their social network contacts. Such children with similar interests may be identified by groups.

Additionally, such groups may automatically exclude known direct competitors of the merchant supplying the daily deal. In one embodiment, the daily deal provider may share the Braggit™ with the merchant (as noted above) as well as BragForce™ group(s) that have similar interests and/or customer bases. For example, a restaurant deal may appeal to a movie theatre's social network 260, so the daily deal provider may share the Braggit™ deal with the BragForce™ group of 'movie theatres' and the deal may be pushed to the social networks 260 of the children (merchants) that are in that group. Such distribution may occur either automatically or by the merchant approving the Braggit™ deal, for example.

[00139] Accordingly, the Braggit™ deal that the daily deal provider created and shared with the merchant and various BragForce™ groups has been pushed out (e.g., shared) with various social networks 260, for example.

[00140] As described above, when a child sends content out to known contacts, the contact information supporting the content (e.g., address of the content sender) may change to the child's. When a child sends out a daily deal, for example, the uniform resource locator (URL) associated with the daily deal may change to reflect the identity of the sending child. Thus, a unique URL may be created that identifies a child. In an embodiment, when each Braggit™ deal, for example, is 'switched' to the child's contact information, etc., that Braggit™ URL gets an identifier (i.d.) that may allow tracking of the deal to enable, for example, determination of who sent the deal.

[00141] When for example, a daily deal is sent from a child (e.g., merchant) to a consumer and the consumer clicks on the URL and purchases the offer supplied in the daily deal, the merchant who transmitted the daily deal may be rewarded. The correct merchant may be identified based on the URL that the consumer clicked on. For example, when a Braggit™ deal is clicked on and results in the purchase of a daily deal, that i.d. is able to be tracked back to the BragForce™ member, and the child is therefore compensated a commission for their Braggit™ deal being the one that consummated the daily deal sale. In other words, a parent may compensate or reward a child for transmitting a daily deal that is eventually redeemed or purchased.

[00142] A child (e.g., a merchant) may sign up to receive their own and other merchants' daily deals. The daily deals may be in the form of, for example, a uniform resource locator (URL), a hyperlink, an advertisement, a coupon, a document, a web page, a web resource, a Braggit™, etc. When a child receives a daily deal, for example, the child may manually send out the daily deal to their contacts such as social media account contacts. Alternatively, the child may configure the system to automatically send the daily deal to their contacts such as social media account contacts. For example, a consumer may have a Facebook™ account that receives a daily deal that may be viewed by the consumer using Facebook™. The daily deals may originate from a daily deal provider, for example. A hybrid model is also a possibility where the child may configure the system to automatically send out daily deals that are retrieved from trusted sources, while daily deals received from non-trusted sources must be manually transmitted.

[00143] Every daily deal may have a unique URL, for example, that the daily deal company may have created. The daily deal URL, for example, may be distributed to the social media networks (from the merchant's dashboard or the daily deal company's dashboard or other distribution technology) of those merchants who have signed up to receive their own and other merchant's daily deals, for example. When the URL, for example, is distributed to the merchants' social media networks (from the merchant's dashboard or the daily deal company's dashboard or other distribution technology) the URL may be tagged with a specific identifier that may be unique to each individual merchant who has signed up to receive and transmit their own and other merchants' daily deals to their social media networks.

[00144] When, for example, the daily deal URL, is available to a consumer and clicked from anywhere across the social web and the daily deal is redeemed (e.g., purchased) by a consumer, the URL, for example, may be checked for a unique tag and may be traced back to the sending merchant based on the unique URL, for example. The traced merchant may be eligible for compensation, reward or recognition based on the redeemed (purchased) daily deal. The merchant whose identifier is tagged with the redeemed daily deal URL, for example, may be compensated, rewarded or recognized in some manner by the daily deal company or another.

[00145] FIG. 14 depicts an example high-level daily deal distribution system 1400 for use with an illustrative embodiment for providing resource dissemination. Daily deal distribution system 1400 may include a daily deal provider 1420, merchants 1410, social networks 260, and consumers 215. Distribution system 1400 depicts, for example, how daily deal provider 1420 may collaborate with merchants 1410 and use social networks 260 to communicate with consumers 215. Distribution system 1400 may be part of, for example, the BizBrag™ platform.

Social networks may include, for example, Twitter™, Linkedln™, Facebook™, Nexopia™, Bebo™, VKontakte™, Hi5™, Hyves™, Draugiem.lv™, StudiVZ™, iWiW™, Tuenti™, Nasza- Klasa™, Decayenne™, Tagged™, XING™, Badoo™, Skyrock™, Orkut™, Mixi™, Multiply™, Orkut™, Wretch™, renren™, Cyworld™, Orkut™, etc. Social networks may also include virtual worlds such as SecondLife™, as well as media sharing websites such as YouTube™, flicker™, slickshare™, etc.

[00146] Merchants 1410 may be a child 210. However, child 210 may include additional members besides merchants 1410 (e.g., merchants 1410 may be a subset of children).

Merchants 1410 may include, for example, a retailer, a wholesaler, a spa, a sporting event, a concert event, a provider of luxury goods, franchises, an adventure event, a movie theatre, a provider of sporting goods, a recreational business, an entertainment business, a brick and mortar business, an online business, a cleaning business, a personal care business, a professional services business, a bar, a night club, an amusement park, a water sport business, a computer business, an electronics business, a music business, an entertainment business, a home business, a provider of jewelry, etc.

[00147] Daily deal provider 1420 may provide the web resource 180 as a daily deal content or offer to the merchants 1410. Daily deal provider 1420 may be a platform that assists in the dissemination of daily deals or offers to consumers 215. Daily deal provider may be an offer provider such as, for example, Groupon™, LivingSocial™, BuyWithMe™, Saveology™, Google Offers™, Gilt City™, Zulily™, DealOn™, Facebook™, Yelp™, Daily Candy™, Woot.com™, lsaleaday™, Dealster™, SocialBuy™, HomeRun™, Yipit™, CrowdSavings™, Angle's List Deals™, etc.

[00148] Social networks 260 may provide a medium for consumers 215 to view the daily deals or offers from the daily deal provider 1420. Daily deal provider 1420 may provide a daily deal to merchants 1410. Merchants 1410 may have a list of consumer contacts such as social network accounts. Merchants 1410 may send the daily deal to the social networks 260 for viewing by the consumers 215. Each merchant may have their own unique consumer contacts.

[00149] FIG. 15 depicts an example offer distribution system 1500 for use with an illustrative embodiment for providing resource dissemination. Offer distribution system 1500 may include a daily deal provider 1420, a merchant's daily deal or offer 1510, merchants 1410, a group of merchants 1520, social networks 260, and consumers 215.

[00150] The daily deal provider 1420 may send a merchant's daily deal or offer 1510 to merchants 1410 or a group of merchants 1520. The merchant's daily deal or offer 1510 may be an offer for a merchant's products or services. For example, pay $20 for $40 worth of goods at merchant A's store. The merchant's daily deal or offer 1510 may be, for example, a uniform resource locator (URL), a hyperlink, an advertisement, a coupon, a document, a web page, a web resource, a Braggit™, etc. The merchant's daily deal or offer 1510 may be, for example, a web page, or link that, when clicked, a consumer may be taken to a page created by, for example, the daily deal provider, and may enable the consumer the ability to purchase or redeem the daily deal or offer.

[00151] Group of merchants 1520 may be a collection of related merchants 1410. The merchants 1410 may be grouped because of unique characteristics. For example, spas, hotels, movies, restaurants, etc. may be grouped together. Daily deal provider 1420 may decide that an offer should be sent to a group of merchants 1520 because of a common or related characteristic of the merchants. For example, an offer for theater tickets may be supplied to a group of restaurant merchants located near the theater.

[00152] Group of merchants 1520 may send out merchant's daily deal or offer 1510 to the list of consumer contacts including using social networks 260 for viewing by the consumers 215.

[00153] FIG. 16 depicts an example merchant's offer distribution diagram for use with an illustrative embodiment for providing resource dissemination.

[00154] Merchant's daily deal or offer 1510 may be sent from daily deal provider 1420 to second merchant 1610. When merchant's daily deal or offer 1510 is received by second merchant 1610, merchant's daily deal or offer 1510 may be modified to include a unique identifier to identify second merchant 1610. The modified daily deal or offer 1620 may be transmitted to consumers 215 through, for example, social networks 260 or other distribution mediums.

[00155] Thus, when merchant's daily deal or offer 1510 is shared with second merchant

1610 or a community of merchants (e.g., one or more merchants), a variable may be passed to merchant's daily deal or offer 1510 that may tag a unique identifier that correlates with second merchant 1610. The unique identifier may be used to track a deal purchase or redemption by a customer. Second merchant 1610 may then be associated with the purchase or redemption transaction of that daily deal or offer 1510. Such association may qualify second merchant 1610 to receive a commission, reward or other form of compensation.

[00156] FIG. 17 illustrates an example consumer redemption workflow describing processing performed in an illustrative embodiment.

[00157] In one embodiment, consumer 215 may redeem merchant's daily deal or offer

1510. In this example, because merchant's daily deal or offer 1510 was sent by second merchant 1610 using second merchant's contacts, it may be a modified daily deal or offer 1620 that the consumer 215 views. The consumer 215 may redeem or purchase the daily deal or offer by, for example, clicking on the link supplied with modified daily deal or offer 1620. At this point, consumer 215 may, for example, enter credit card information (alternatively, for example, credit card information may already be stored by the daily deal provider 1420) to purchase or redeem the daily deal or offer.

[00158] In 1720, daily deal provider 1420 may verify that the link, for example, selected by consumer 215 is associated with second merchant 1610. In 1730, daily deal provider 1420 may determine that when the daily deal is purchased or redeemed and the association with second merchant 1610, second merchant 1610 may be entitled compensation. In other words, the second merchant 1610 whose unique identifier is tracked to the inbound link that correlated with the purchase or redemption of that daily deal, may qualify for a commission, reward or other form of compensation, for example.

[00159] Inbound links may also be known as backlinks, incoming links, inlinks, and/or inward links, and may include incoming links to a website or webpage. An inbound link may include a link received by a web page, website, or any web node, from another web node or web resource. Inbound links may include, for example, a link from one or more Braggits and other webpages on external sites linking back to the daily deal provider's html page of the offer.

[00160] FIG. 18 depicts an example high-level offer distribution system 1800 for use with an illustrative embodiment for providing resource dissemination. High-level offer distribution system 1800 may include a daily deal provider 1420, merchant's daily deal or offer 1510, distribution platform 1810, offer creation platform 1820, switch component 1830, merchants 1410, and consumer contacts 165.

[00161] Merchant's daily deal or offer 1510 may be produced by daily deal provider 1420 in collaboration with the merchant. Daily deal provider 1420 may transmit merchant's daily deal or offer 1510 to distribution platform 1810. Alternatively, merchant's daily deal or offer 1510 may be produced on offer creation platform 1820 which may be part of or provided by distribution platform 1810. Distribution platform 1810 may be the BizBrag™ application described above, for example. Distribution platform may include various modules created using software or hardware or a combination of hardware and software. Such modules may include, for example, a receiving module to receive an offer from a daily deal provider 1420 or other offer creator; a transmitting module to transmit or disseminate the offer; a notification receiving module to receive notification that the offer may have been purchased or redeemed; a modification module to modify a URL to incorporate a unique identifier; a customization module to customize offers and/or modified offers with contact information; an identification module to analyze the modified URL and extract the unique identifiers; and a notification transmitting module to transmit a notification that a merchant may be rewarded. Distribution platform 1810 may also include switch component 1830.

[00162] Switch component 1830 may allow merchants 1410 to specify whether daily deals provided from daily deal provider 1420, for example, may be automatically or manually sent to merchant contacts 165. For example, merchant B may choose to manually send any daily deals from daily deal provider Q, while merchant C may choose to automatically send any daily deals from daily deal provider Q. Accordingly, when daily deal provider Q sends daily deal or offer 1510 to merchant B, merchant B may manually approve the transmission of daily deal or offer 1510 to merchant B's contacts. When daily deal provider Q sends daily deal or offer 1510 to merchant C, merchant C's contacts may automatically receive the daily deal or offer. Additionally, more than one daily deal provider 1420 may send daily deals or offers. Merchants 1410 may specify different rules for different daily deal providers 1420 or other merchants 1410. For example, merchant B may send daily deals to merchant C. Merchant C may be configured to automatically send any daily deals from merchant B but not from merchant D, for example.

[00163] In one embodiment, entities whose contact information is listed in multiple merchant's contact information may only be sent one daily deal. Duplicate contacts may be filtered out by the daily deal provider or the merchants.

[00164] Additionally, switch component 1830 may allow tagging of the daily deal or offer with the sending merchant's identification (e.g., modifying URLs sent with the daily deal or offer with a unique identifier). For example, merchant C's contacts may receive a daily deal or offer that is associated with merchant C.

[00165] FIG. 19 illustrates an example workflow describing processing performed in an illustrative embodiment. Flow may start at 1910 where an offer provider may agree to create an offer associated with a first merchant. An offer provider may work out a agreement with one or more merchants 1410 for transmitting an offer for products and/or services of the first merchant. An offer provider may be a daily deal provider 1420. An offer may be a daily deal or offer 1510. From 1910 flow may move to 1920.

[00166] In 1920, a second merchant may agree to join a merchant community associated with the offer provider. The offer provider may have one or more merchants 1420 in the merchant community. From 1920 flow may move to 1930.

[00167] In 1930, social network contact information may be received from merchants in the community of merchants. The social network contact information may be child contact information 165. From 1930, flow may move to 1940 where the social network information may be stored. Flow may move to 1950.

[00168] In 1950, an offer may be received from the offer provider, where the offer may be associated with the first merchant. In one embodiment, a daily deal provider 1420 may transmit a daily deal advertisement and/or daily deal link to a deal distribution platform 1810 (e.g., BizBrag™). From 1950, flow may move to 1960.

[00169] In 1960, the offer may be transmitted using the social network contact information of the second merchant from the community of merchants. In one embodiment, the deal distribution platform 1810 or the daily deal provider 1420 may transmit the daily deal to the first merchant, second merchant, and possibly other members of the merchant community. The first merchant, second merchant, and possibly other members of the merchant community may choose to transmit the daily deal to each of their social network contacts. In another

embodiment, the deal distribution platform 1810 or the daily deal provider 1420 may transmit the daily deal directly to the social contacts of the first merchant, second merchant, and other members of the merchant community.

[00170] In another embodiment, the daily deal is modified when transmitting to the social network contacts to identify the merchant who has the social network contacts. In other words, all daily deals sent to the first merchant's social media contacts will be tagged to identify the first merchant if the daily deal is purchased or redeemed. In one embodiment, a URL associated with the daily deal is modified to include a merchant identifier. Search engines may record the merchant tagged URL.

[00171] When a consumer 215 redeems or purchases the daily deal, the consumer 215 may click on the daily deal which may have a URL associated with the daily deal. The URL may be modified to be associated with the merchant who had the social contact information of the consumer 215. The consumer may be directed to a webpage created by the daily deal provider 1420, for example. The consumer 215 may redeem or purchase the daily deal from the daily deal provider's web page. Based on the tagged information the merchant who had the social contact information of the consumer 215 may be identified.

[00172] From 1960, flow may move to 1970. In 1970, notification may be received that the offer was purchased or redeemed by a consumer 215 whose social network address is in the social network contact information of the second merchant. From 1970 flow may move to 1980.

[00173] In 1980, the second merchant may be rewarded as a result of the offer being purchased or redeemed by the consumer 215. Because the redeemed or purchased daily deal was associated with a specific merchant, the merchant may be compensated or receive a commission from the redemption or purchase of the daily deal. From 1980 flow may end. [00174] In one embodiment, when a daily deal provider 1420 has access to BizBrag™ technology through a partnership, for example, they may be able to signup their merchants to join the BragForce™, for example, and this may give the daily deal provider 1420, for example, a steady and constant ongoing relationship with merchants 1410 by supplying them with daily deals from other merchants that are in that daily deal provider's BragForce™, for example.

[00175] In another embodiment, with the BizBrag™ technology, for example, through a partnership, a daily deal provider 1420 may have, for example, a revenue share partnership with BizBrag™. Thus giving the daily deal provider 1420 a monthly subscription revenue model which may increase the value of the daily deal provider 1420.

[00176] In another embodiment, with the BizBrag™ technology, for example, the partners of BizBrag™ may be the only daily deal providers 1420 that may distribute, track and reward merchants 1410 in such a way as they can with the BragForce™, Braggits and links, for example.

[00177] In another embodiment, the merchants 1410 may maintain a relationship with the daily deal provider 1420 and may capitalize from other merchants, thus creating an added revenue stream to their business.

[00178] In yet another embodiment, a daily deal provider 1420 may have a community or platform for merchants 1410 to join and connect their social media networks accounts with the daily deal provider 1420 and the community. Merchants 1410 may join the community to share their own and other merchant's daily deals, created by the daily deal provider 1420, for example, across each merchant's social media networks. Through tracking back, merchants 1410 may be rewarded with compensation, or otherwise, when another merchant's deal is redeemed and/or purchased from the first merchant's social media network. Deals may come in the form of any of the following web resources, for example, URL, webpage, HTML, etc. Merchants 1410 may be grouped and connected with other collaborative merchants within the daily deal provider 1420's community.

[00179] In yet another embodiment, deals or offers may be customized to a merchant's own contact information when sharing another merchant's deal with their social media network. Deals or offers may go directly into a merchant's social media account without merchant's consent. Alternatively, it may only go with merchant's consent. Each merchant may set up unique rules governing when deals or offers may go directly to the merchant's social media contacts. For example, a merchant may trust deals originating from a trusted merchant and may enable any deals or offers from the trusted merchant to be automatically sent to the social media contacts. On the other hand, the same merchant may not trust deals originating from an untrusted merchant and may require manual intervention prior to sending deals or offers to social media contacts. Deals or offers may be able to be linked to the original deal webpage or another deal webpage created by the daily deal provider 1420.

[00180] In yet another embodiment, deals or offers that are distributed across the community may be tagged with a merchant identifier in the deal or offer URL, for example. The tagging may occur as it is approved (automatically or manually) by the merchant and shared with the merchant's social media networks. This may result in, for example, a unique URL for tracking back to the originating merchant. The tracing back may allow compensation or recognition of the merchant whose social media contacts were used for redemption of the deal.

[00181] In another embodiment, deals or offers may be editable by the daily deal provider

1420 for expiration, changes or deletion of that deal at any point. Merchants 1410 may connect with other merchants 1410 within the community in order to, for example, share deals, share comments and view deals with other merchants in the community. Daily deal provider 1420 may be able to view which merchants are sharing the deals. Daily deal provider 1420 may be able to view which merchants are automatically sharing the deals. Additionally, daily deal provider 1420 may be able to view the number of social media network connections for each merchant. Daily deal provider 1420 may be able to view each deal's traffic source of views, and the number of times it was viewed in those traffic sources.

[00182] In another embodiment, track back technology to identify the merchant that is subject to a commission, compensation or reward in some form may be identified by passing a variable that uniquely identifies the creator and/or distributor of the daily deal across the social media networks. Deals or offers may be distributed across the merchant network's social media accounts (contacts) in the form of a link, for example. The link may be directed to the daily deal page the daily deal provider 1420 created from the daily deal provider 1420's own platform. Or, the daily deal provider 1420 may provide a daily deal page which was created from a third party platform (e.g., BizBrag™, Facebook™, Microsoft™, Google™ or other platform). Or, the link may be directed to the daily deal page created by the merchant on a first party or third party platform. Or, the link may be directed to a daily deals page that the daily deal provider 1420 created from the daily deal provider 1420's own platform. Or, the link may be directed to the daily deal page in the form of a link directed to a third party page linked to the daily deal page the daily deal provider 1420 created from a third party platform (e.g., BizBrag™, Facebook™,

Microsoft™, Google™ or other platform). Or, the link may be directed to the daily deal page in the form of a link directed to a third party page linked to the daily deal page created by the merchant on a first party or third party platform.

[00183] In another embodiment, the following steps may be performed, not necessarily in this order. First, a daily deal provider may create merchant Q's daily deal HTML page, for example. Then, the daily deal provider may share merchant Q's daily deal HMTL page (via a link, another HTML page, Braggit™, etc.) with merchant Q and/or one or more merchants from a community of merchants. Then, merchant(s) from the community of merchants may share merchant Q's daily deal HTML page, for example, with their social network connections. The sharing with social network connections may be performed automatically or manually, for example. When merchants from the community of merchants share merchant Q's daily deal HTML page, for example (via a link or another HTML page) with their social network connections, the URL to merchant Q's daily deal HTML page, that the daily deal provider may have created, may be tagged with a unique identifier to each specific merchant. One method of tagging may include passing a variable to the URL that links to merchant Q's daily deal HTML page created by the daily deal provider. A consumer may click on a link to an offer that has been shared to social networks by any of the merchants in the community of merchants and may be redirected to merchant Q's HTML daily deal page that daily deal provider may have created. A consumer, for example, does not have to be in a merchant's social network connections for this to work. If, for example, a merchant's social network connection contact shares or transmits the daily deal to another entity, and that entity redeems the offer, the merchant stills gets credit, even though the redeeming entity is not in the merchants social network. For example, a link or Braggit™ may be shared all across the social web, but whichever merchant shared it initially, they will be tagged to the link throughout and get the reward. If, for example, the consumer redeems and/or purchases merchant Q's daily deal, then daily deal provider is made aware of the inbound/referring link that was affiliated with that redemption/purchase of merchant Q's daily deal that the daily deal provider created. Should that link show a unique identifier tagged to the URL of the referring/inbound link, then the daily deal provider sees which merchant from the community of merchants that the unique identifier is tagged to and in turn rewards that merchant for the referral which resulted in the redemption/purchase of merchant Q's daily deal by the consumer. [00184] References to "one embodiment," "an embodiment," "example embodiment,"

"various embodiments," etc., may indicate that the embodiment(s) of the invention so described may include a particular feature, structure, or characteristic, but not every embodiment necessarily includes the particular feature, structure, or characteristic.

[00185] Further, repeated use of the phrase "in one embodiment," or "in an illustrative embodiment," do not necessarily refer to the same embodiment, although they may.

[00186] Unless specifically stated otherwise, as apparent from the following discussions, it is appreciated that throughout the specification discussions utilizing terms such as

"processing," "computing," "calculating," "determining," or the like, refer to the action and/or processes of a computer or computing system, or similar electronic computing device, that manipulate and/or transform data represented as physical, such as electronic, quantities within the computing system's registers and/or memories into other data similarly represented as physical quantities within the computing system's memories, registers or other such information storage, transmission or display devices.

[00187] In a similar manner, the term "processor" may refer to any device or portion of a device that processes electronic data from registers and/or memory to transform that electronic data into other electronic data that may be stored in registers and/or memory. A "computing platform" may comprise one or more processors.

[00188] Embodiments of the present invention may include apparatuses for performing the operations herein. An apparatus may be specially constructed for the desired purposes, or it may comprise a general purpose device selectively activated or reconfigured by a program stored in the device.

[00189] Embodiments may be embodied in many different ways as a software

component. For example, it may be a stand-alone software package, or it may be a software package incorporated as a "tool" in a larger software product, such as, for example, a scientific modeling product. It may be downloadable from a network, for example, a website, as a standalone product or as an add-in package for installation in an existing software application. It may also be available as a client-server software application, as a web-enabled software application, or as a mobile application. It may also be part of a daily deal provider's system.

[00190] While various embodiments of the present invention have been described above, it should be understood that they have been presented by way of example only, and not limitation. Thus, the breadth and scope of the present invention should not be limited by any of the above-described illustrative embodiments, but should instead be defined only in accordance with the following claims and their equivalents.

Claims

What is claimed is:

1. A computer-implemented method for disseminating offers, the method comprising: receiving by a computer, social network contact information from merchants in a community of merchants;

storing by the computer, the social network contact information;

receiving by the computer, an offer from an offer provider, wherein the offer is associated with a first merchant;

transmitting by the computer, a modified offer using the social network contact information of a second merchant from the community of merchants, wherein the modified offer comprises the offer modified to include an inbound link that is tagged to identify the second merchant; and

receiving by the computer, a notification that the modified offer was purchased or redeemed through the offer provider, wherein the notification identifies the second

merchant based on the inbound link of the modified offer.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

rewarding the second merchant as a result of the offer being purchased or redeemed.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein merchants from the community of merchants are grouped and connected with other merchants from the community of merchants.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

customizing the modified offer with contact information of the second merchant before transmitting the modified offer using the social network contact information of the second merchant.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

requiring a consent by the second merchant before transmitting the modified offer using the social network contact information of the second merchant.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising: automatically transmitting the offer using the social network contact information of the second merchant without requiring consent of the second merchant to transmit the modified offer.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the offer comprises: a uniform resource locator (URL), a hyperlink, an advertisement, a daily deal, a coupon, a document, a web page, or a link that, when clicked, a consumer is taken to a page created by the offer provider, enabling the consumer to purchase or redeem the offer.

8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

creating by the computer a modified uniform resource locator (URL) for the modified offer before transmitting to social contacts of a merchant in the community of merchants, wherein the modified URL is unique and based on an identifier for each of the merchants in the community of merchants or the offer provider; and

identifying the second merchant or the offer provider based on the modified URL used by a consumer when purchasing or redeeming the offer.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

editing the offer by the offer provider after the offer has been transmitted using the social network contact information of the second merchant.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein editing comprises one of:

changing expiration date of the offer, deleting the offer, changing content of the offer or changing terms of the offer.

1 1. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

providing communication between the first merchant and the second merchant, wherein the communication comprises:

receiving a second offer or a comment from the second merchant; and

transmitting to the first merchant the second offer or comment from the second merchant.

12. The method of claim 1 1 , further comprising:

transmitting by the computer to the offer provider, data comprising at least one of:

communication information between the first merchant and the second merchant, information on which merchants are sharing offers,

information on which merchants do not require consent before transmitting the offer using the social network contact information,

information on the social network contact information from the community of merchants, or

information on the offer, wherein the information on the offer comprises at least one of:

the offer traffic source of views, or

the number of times the offer was viewed in the traffic source of views.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein a consumer purchases or redeems the offer using one of: a mobile device, a tablet PC, or a computer.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein social network contact information comprises at least one of:

a social network account or an email account.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the merchants comprise at least one of:

a retailer, a manufacturer, a franchisor, a distributor, a wholesaler, an enterprise, a service provider, a restaurant, a non-profit, or a realtor, a spa, a sporting event, a concert event, a provider of luxury goods, a franchise, an adventure event, a movie theatre, a provider of sporting goods, a recreational business, an entertainment business, a brick and mortar business, an online business, a cleaning business, a personal care business, a professional services business, a bar, a night club, an amusement park, a water sport business, a computer business, an electronics business, a music business, an entertainment business, a home business, or a provider of jewelry.

16. The method of claim 1 , wherein the offer comprises at least one of:

a uniform resource locator (URL), a hyperlink, a webpage, hypertext markup language (HTML) formatted data, extensible hypertext markup language (XHTML) formatted data, extensible markup language (XML) formatted data, dynamic hypertext markup language (DHTML) formatted data, audio data, a graphic, a video, an image, Flash, JavaScript, portable document format (PDF) data, joint photographic experts group (JPEG) data, portable networks graphic (PNG) data, tagged image file format (TIFF) data, cascading style sheets (CSS) formatted data, or graphics interchange format (GIF) data.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein the offer provider comprises at least one of:

a daily deal company, a coupon provider, or a merchant.

18. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

associating an expiration date with the offer;

expiring the offer when the expiration date occurs, wherein expiring the offer comprises no longer providing the ability to purchase the offer.

19. The method of claim 1, wherein the first merchant is not a member of the community of merchants.

20. The method of claim 1, wherein the modified offer is transmitted using one of: a mobile device or a tablet PC.

21. One or more tangible non-transitory computer-readable storage media for storing computer-executable instructions executable by processing logic, the media storing one or more instructions for:

receiving social network contact information from merchants in a community of merchants;

storing the social network contact information;

receiving an offer from an offer provider, wherein the offer is associated with a first merchant;

transmitting a modified offer using the social network contact information of a second merchant from the community of merchants, wherein the modified offer comprises the offer modified to include an inbound link that is tagged to identify the second merchant; and receiving a notification that the modified offer was purchased or redeemed through the offer provider, wherein the notification identifies the second merchant based on the inbound link of the modified offer.

22. A computer-implemented system for disseminating offers, the system comprising:

a storage device storing social network contact information from merchants in a community of merchants, wherein the social network contact information comprises a plurality of social network accounts;

a processor having memory storing processor-executable instructions for the

programming environment;

a receiving module to receive an offer from an offer provider, wherein the offer is associated with a first merchant;

a transmit module to transmit a modified offer to the social network accounts of a second merchant from the community of merchants, wherein the modified offer comprises the offer modified to include an inbound link that is tagged to identify the second merchant; and a notification receiving module to receive notification that the modified offer was purchased or redeemed through the offer provider, wherein the notification identifies the second merchant based on the inbound link of the modified offer.

23. The system of claim 22, further comprising:

a customization module to customize the modified offer with contact information of the second merchant.

24. The system of claim 22, wherein the transmit module requires consent from the second merchant before transmitting the modified offer using the social network contact information of the second merchant.

25. The system of claim 22, further comprising:

a modification module to modify a uniform resource locator (URL) for the modified offer before transmitting to social contacts of the second merchant from the community of merchants, wherein the modified URL is unique and identifies the second merchant; and

an identification module to identify the second merchant provider based on the modified URL used by a consumer when purchasing or redeeming the offer.

26. The system of claim 22, wherein the offer comprises: a uniform resource locator (URL), a hyperlink, an advertisement, a daily deal, a coupon, a document, a web page, or a link that, when clicked, a consumer is taken to a page created by the offer provider, enabling the consumer to purchase or redeem the offer.

27. The system of claim 22, wherein the offer provider comprises at least one of:

a daily deal company, a coupon provider, or a merchant.

28. The system of claim 22, wherein the offer comprises at least one of:

29. The system of claim 22, wherein the merchants comprise at least one of:

30. A computer-implemented method for disseminating offers, the method comprising: transmitting social network contact information of a first merchant from a first merchant computer to a distribution platform;

transmitting by the first merchant computer, authorization for transmission of an offer from an offer provider, wherein the offer is associated with the first merchant; transmitting by the first merchant computer authorization for transmission by the distribution platform of a modified offer to social network contacts from the social network contact information of the first merchant, wherein the modified offer comprises the offer modified to include an inbound link that is tagged to identify the first merchant; and

receiving by the first merchant computer a notification that the modified offer was used to purchase or redeem the offer from the offer provider.