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WO2001008020A1 - Systeme en ligne oriente sur des groupes de personnes - Google Patents

Systeme en ligne oriente sur des groupes de personnes Download PDF

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Publication number
WO2001008020A1
WO2001008020A1 PCT/US2000/019996 US0019996W WO0108020A1 WO 2001008020 A1 WO2001008020 A1 WO 2001008020A1 US 0019996 W US0019996 W US 0019996W WO 0108020 A1 WO0108020 A1 WO 0108020A1
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WO
WIPO (PCT)
Prior art keywords
focus
profile
user
category
hierarchy
Prior art date
Legal status (The legal status is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the status listed.)
Ceased
Application number
PCT/US2000/019996
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English (en)
Inventor
Tzufu Karl Tsai
Current Assignee (The listed assignees may be inaccurate. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation or warranty as to the accuracy of the list.)
Vcirclescom Inc
Original Assignee
Vcirclescom Inc
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Filing date
Publication date
Application filed by Vcirclescom Inc filed Critical Vcirclescom Inc
Publication of WO2001008020A1 publication Critical patent/WO2001008020A1/fr
Anticipated expiration legal-status Critical
Ceased legal-status Critical Current

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Classifications

    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
    • H04L67/00—Network arrangements or protocols for supporting network services or applications
    • H04L67/2866—Architectures; Arrangements
    • H04L67/30—Profiles
    • H04L67/306—User profiles
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING OR CALCULATING; COUNTING
    • G06Q—INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
    • G06Q30/00—Commerce
    • G06Q30/02—Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
    • H04L67/00—Network arrangements or protocols for supporting network services or applications
    • H04L67/01—Protocols
    • H04L67/131—Protocols for games, networked simulations or virtual reality

Definitions

  • This invention is about methods and apparatus to help on-line people live, work and communicate with others better. This invention is also about how to generate, deliver, and collect highly focused information, including paid Web advertisements and polls, to and from these online users. In addition, this invention is about business practices to increase and maintain revenue in a very diversified marketplace.
  • a common problem is that the on-line world, like the physical world, is artificially divided into different groups, typically by geographical location, language, culture, etc., and there is no formal channel or mechanism to communicate across these different groups. In other words, it is rather localized, and communication across different groups, even with users of similar interests or natures, does not come naturally. As a result, people must struggle to find other people having similar interests.
  • the present invention recognizes that these problems and limitations are inherited from the real world, but is adapted to eliminate these limitations from its on-line world.
  • Mailing lists have limitation of sizes. When the list membership grows, so does the volume of e-mails generated. This can overload subscriber mailboxes. Off-topic messages can also present a heavy burden to those who wish to stay on the main topic of the forum. Thus, it will be appreciated that scalability is a serious issue with mailing lists.
  • Another problem common to existing systems is that of having some recurring questions asked again and again by newcomers to the systems. Many systems try to lessen this problem by providing archives of past messages. Ideally, users should be able to retrieve past messages based on selected criteria such as identity of the poster, subject, date, words, and sub- ords. However, in general, the lack of good search mechanisms tends to render existing system archives difficult or impossible to use.
  • Web advertising has strong potentials. However, few Web sites are able to deliver the right advertisement to the right people at the right time. For instance, the "click-through" rate (i.e., the # of clicks vs. the # of exposures) of Web advertisement in the U.S. is around 0.6%, according to Ilona Nemeth, director of investor relations for DoubleClick. Outside the United States, where Internet use is typically less advanced, click-through rates tend to be even worse. The inability to determine what the end user is receptive to at any given time leads most Web sites to deliver blind or junk advertisement, which tends to be ineffective. Thus, most users simply use the free services commonly associated with advertising, and effectively ignore any and all ads, since the users have learned through experience that very few of those ads are of interest. Even the better Web sites can generally only deliver ads in categories that are very broad and generic in nature.
  • one object of the present invention is to create a virtual world to help on-line users find and interact with the right circles of people.
  • This virtual world must be reliable, resourceful, and very adaptable to suit the specific needs and tastes of individual users as well as groups of users.
  • This virtual world must also be responsive to the changes that occur naturally in any social setting.
  • Another object of the present invention is to provide a non-intrusive and yet highly targeted information delivery system to help effectively collect, as well as present, both free and paid-for information (e.g., adve ⁇ isements, polls, merchandise, services, etc.) for the right users at the right times.
  • free and paid-for information e.g., adve ⁇ isements, polls, merchandise, services, etc.
  • Yet another object of the present invention is to create a new business method and practice to recruit and match the most appropriate advertisers and sponsors with the right users in an economically and operationally viable way.
  • the essence of the present invention is the creation of a virtual world that helps users build groups of special interests that are called virtual circles ("VC"). It also can connect related groups into larger communities. Members in each virtual circle are entrusted and empowered to build their own ideal world.
  • VC virtual circles
  • This virtual world provides many desirable services to both the users and the advertisers and sponsors from all over the world.
  • each group (or virtual circle) is like a window into a part of their own personal world of interests.
  • the invention also relates to the way that information is collected from, and disseminated to, users, the way users interact with each other, and the interactions between other entities in the system.
  • the invention also creates new business practices and methods that set up apparatus, guidelines and incentives so as to encourage the users themselves to bring in those financial supporters and revenues.
  • Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram illustrating a hierarchy of Virtual Circles (VC's);
  • Fig. 2 is a schematic diagram illustrating the relationship between Virtual Bubbles (VB's) and VC's;
  • Fig. 3 is a schematic diagram illustrating the general architecture of the system
  • Fig. 4 is a is a schematic diagram illustrating creation of a new VC
  • Fig. 5 is a schematic diagram illustrating a posting
  • Fig. 6 is a schematic diagram illustrating how content is moved from a legacy system to a VC via a gateway
  • Fig. 7 is a schematic diagram illustrating how content is tagged as it moves from a legacy system to a VC
  • Fig. 8 is a schematic diagram illustrating how content is moved from a VC to various legacy systems
  • Fig. 9 is a schematic diagram illustrating how content is moved from several VC's to a legacy system
  • Fig. 10 is a schematic diagram illustrating how content is moved between legacy systems and VC's
  • Fig. 11 is a schematic diagram illustrating how passive postings within a VC are matched to a user
  • Fig. 12 is a schematic diagram illustrating how passive postings are matched to a user or generated by a user
  • Fig. 13 is a schematic diagram illustrating how active postings are crossmatched with users
  • Fig. 14 is a schematic diagram illustrating the hierarchy structure of categories
  • Fig. 15 is a schematic diagram illustrating that same structure in the context of nodes and levels
  • Fig. 16 is a schematic diagram illustrating how nodes may be trimmed
  • Fig. 17 is a schematic diagram illustrating trimming of a root node
  • Fig. 18 is a schematic diagram illustrating recursive combining
  • Fig. 19 is a schematic diagram illustrating reverse matching.
  • the preferred embodiment of this invention is a new type of Web portal that is designed to overcome the aforementioned shortcomings of legacy groupware systems such as mailing lists, newsgroups, BBS's and others.
  • This Web portal utilizes 3 different sets of interfaces, for 3 different types of users - members, administrators, and sponsors. 1. Virtual Circle. Community, and World
  • a virtual circle is the basic building block of the virtual community.
  • a VC comprises a group of like-minded members, a governing body, a group environment built collectively by these members, and the resources and activities shared among these members.
  • VC's are organized in a hierarchy according to their degree of specialization. More particularly, referring now to Fig. 1, a plurality of VC's 100 are shown.
  • the Sports VC 105 may in turn sit above an Ice Skating VC 120, a Roller Blading VC 125 and a Basketball VC 130.
  • the Law VC 1 10 may sit above a Civil VC 135 and a Patent VC 140.
  • the Computer VC 1 15 may sit above a Software VC 145 and a Hardware VC 150; the Software VC 145 may in turn sit above a Software Patent VC 155 and an Educational VC 160.
  • sub-community may be used to describe one or more related VC's that share some common characteristics. For example, in Fig. 1, a Software sub-community 200 is shown.
  • the users of the system visit one VC of interest, and then move on to the next VC of interest, etc.
  • the combined effect of all these VC's forms a virtual world within which the on-line user's needs can be satisfied.
  • VC's can be manually set up during a system planning or review stage, or they can be set up whenever the system operator decides to, or they can be formed by popular demand from the users.
  • Each VC may have many characteristics. One of these characteristics determines the openness or accessibility of the VC. Most VC's are created as "public", which means they are accessible by everyone - members or not. A private VC is accessible by members only and, in some cases, membership may have to be approved by the governing body of the VC.
  • the governing body of a VC moderates and administers the VC's operations.
  • the governing body can be a single designated administrator, a group of administrators, or the entire membership of the VC.
  • any existing VC if a group of members would like to concentrate on a narrower or, in other words, a proper subset of the current focus of the VC, the members petition and/or register to form a new VC dedicated to that narrower focus.
  • the original VC is called the "parent” or “base” VC
  • the new VC is called the "child” or “derived” VC.
  • parent VC It is common for parent VC to spawn multiple child VC's, and it is possible that a child VC may have multiple parent VC's.
  • the Law VC 110 is further refined into several child VC's such as Civil 135 and Patent 140. Subsequently, additional child VC's might be created, e.g., criminal, Real Estate, etc. (not shown).
  • One of the criteria for the destruction of a VC is the lack, or shifting, of interests. If the membership drops under, say, 50 users for 3 months, the VC may be destroyed automatically, and all of the archives and user information associated with that VC may be packaged up and put into a dormant area or simply discarded. - 9
  • Another possible reason for the destruction of a VC is where illegal activities have been occurring in that VC and where the governing body has failed to restrain those activities.
  • the destruction of a VC may not be enforced as long as there is an active child VC underneath it. This is one reason that there may be some inactive intermediate VC's. The other reason that there may be some inactive intermediate VC's is that certain VC's are created in the system planning stage and may not become populated above a certain system threshold quickly, if at all. Under these conditions, the system will have the final say regarding the destruction of those VCs.
  • any VC can form a relationship with other VC's, in much the same way that 2 cities recognize each other as sister cities in human society. This type of horizontal communication complements the vertical one inherited in the parent/child hierarchy discussed above.
  • Sister VC's typically have some similarities in their main topics, and they may pass relevant information (usually in the form of discussion messages and announcements) to each other, either automatically or manually through the intervention of the governing body.
  • the Ice Skating VC 120 has a sister relationship with the Roller Blading VC 125. If the Ice Skating VC 120 has some important news or findings that may be of interest to the Roller Blading VC 125, this information may be passed over to the Roller Blading VC.
  • the sister relationship may be established during the system planning stage. It may also be formed via solicitation from, and a consensus vote in, the VC's. The sister relationship is terminated as soon as either VC decides to cease the relationship. 4. Guests, Registered Users. Members, and Administrators
  • Registration with the system is not a pre-requisite to using the system. Any on-line user may come and browse through various VC's at will. These users are treated as guests. The minimum requirement for guests, before they can effectively use the system, is to specify their preferred language(s) and geographic area(s) of interest. These 2 parameters may be explicitly declared by the guests, or they may be derived automatically from the entry point (e.g., a specific link) which the guests come from or from their browser and/or system settings.
  • Registered users have more privileges than guests. For example, a registered user can typically post messages or talk with another user in a certain VC whereas a guest typically cannot.
  • Registration serves not only to establish the user's identity, but also to set up the user's profile and focus (see Section 5 below). Without profile and focus, or with false information for profile and focus, the system may not serve the user effectively. Falsified profile will create confusions, and incorrect focus will filter out things of interest to the user. For example, if a user is interested in issues happening around Boston and yet sets up a focus as being interested in Paris, all the user will see is information relating to issues in Paris.
  • Public VC's (which are the majority of the VC's in the system) do not have any restrictions for membership application and membership is typically granted instantaneously.
  • Private VC's may have some specific criteria that must be met in order to become a member.
  • the governing body typically establishes these criteria, although the system administrator may also mandate certain criteria for certain types of VC's. For example, VC's with adult content may be required to enforce system-wide rules relating to a minimum age for admission.
  • a member typically acquires rights from the time their membership is approved. However, some VC's may not grant full rights to their members until certain criteria have been met (e.g., the member has reached a certain level of credits or has been a member for a predetermined period of time). For example, members in some VC's may not be able to vote or . post until they have been granted their membership for 3 days. This practice might help increase the possibility that new members will become familiar with the group and/or its issues before their first posts and/or votes.
  • Any given VC may also decide to clearly mark the presence of new members, as well as every input from them, so that more seasoned members can easily spot and help the newcomers when the situation warrants it.
  • the VC it is also possible for the VC to require that users prove their eligibility or worthiness in order to access certain services. For instance, there could be some form of test to gauge the level of readiness or understanding of the potential voters in a poll.
  • VC Voice Call Continuity
  • group administrators The services provided by any given VC might be guarded, or moderated, by a special group of members called administrators or group administrators. Administrators are typically elected periodically from the existing membership. There may be VC-specific rules, or by-laws, governing the election and recall of administrators. The system administrator may help in the enforcement of those specific by-laws.
  • characteristics of a profile may include source of origin, language(s) capability, specified geographical areas, level of expertise/knowledge, etc.
  • members may have multiple profiles. They can have per-VC profiles in addition to their systemwide profile. These per-VC profiles are active only in the VC they are defined in. Possible per-VC profile can include professional/amateur, level of experience, member since, past position, current position, credits, expert status, contribution level, and many other VC-specific attributes.
  • the profiles of registered users are private information and are never used in ways other than to direct the matching operation (see below) of the system.
  • the system administrator has full access to user attributes, no user or entities may examine any information about any other user unless that user explicitly permits it.
  • the attributes for each user are normally private, but that user can make certain parts of their attributes public. For example, a user can make their profession public but their income private; or a user can make their age and physical location private but their e-mail address public.
  • Attributes can be public, private, and controlled. Public and private attributes are as described above. Controlled attributes are attributes which may be accessed by others, but only with the explicit permission of their "owner".
  • Certain active entities such as users or advertisements may have a set of filters attached. These filters establish a focus. Focus clearly specifies what is expected and/or what is of interest to that particular entity. Common filters include expected language(s) capability, geographical areas of interest, relationships (e.g., friend or enemy), past experiences (e.g., users/vendors/posts/others to be ignored), and others.
  • a third aspect for any entity is an optional action list. This list specifies one or more actions to be taken when there is a match. Actions are generally in the categories of either "collect” or “record”. Collect is always an action to collect certain user attributes. Record, on the other hand, is an action to deposit new (or update existing) attributes into the user's profile that may be useful later. These recorded attributes are always public in nature and cannot be changed by their "owner”.
  • a paid poll may seek to know more about those polled, and thus it attaches the "collect" action to collect things such as in which VC the poll is taken, the user's age, the user's income level, and/or other personal attributes of the user.
  • Poll is a common service available to any VC and is generally free.
  • a paid poll can be set up to serve interests outside of the system e.g., it may be set up to serve an advertiser.
  • Another action can relate to "click-through". For example, an advertiser may wish to record the "click-through" rate of a particular advertisement, so that they can assess the user's interest in that advertisement.
  • the system is configured so that a controlled attribute cannot be collected until the "owner" of that attribute gives permission for it to be collected. Such permission may be granted or declined after the system explicitly asks the user for such permission.
  • Action lists are very valuable tools for Web advertising and polling. They can also be useful for free services as well. For example, a user can set up a "hail list" in a VC so that whenever anyone on the hail list (e.g., friends) enter the VC, an automatic "hello" will be generated.
  • a “hail list” in a VC so that whenever anyone on the hail list (e.g., friends) enter the VC, an automatic "hello" will be generated.
  • the system works by applying focus to profile. In other words, the system passes information only when there is a match of profile and focus between any two entities. Once there is a match, should there be any actions attached to the entity with the match, the actions will be performed.
  • Some attributes are earned (e.g., expert status awarded by the system as a result of peer reviews) and some attributes are recorded as part of an action list. These attributes can be categorized into either state (i.e., earned) or status (i.e., recorded) attributes.
  • Example 1 The following are some simple examples of how the focus/profile matching process works.
  • Example 1 The following are some simple examples of how the focus/profile matching process works.
  • a help-wanted message, posted from Boston, may have the following profile: Salary: $70,000 Job location: Boston Title: software engineer The same help-wanted ad might also "pre-screen" potential candidates with the following focus:
  • IP Intellectual Property
  • a local car dealership in Boston selling sports utility vehicles wishes to announce a monthly sale of a vehicle particularly suited for campers.
  • the user may post an ad with the following: profile:
  • a single Chinese female wishes to meet unmarried young males who can speak Spanish from all over the world.
  • a poll might be conducted to identify the best satellite TV to be targeted at young electrical engineer professionals in the United States. This poll might have these focus and action list: focus:
  • Major services include discussion forums, news, calendars, resources, polls, votes, classifieds, contest/match, chat, talk, hot buys, hot vendors, ratings, and games, as well as some administrative and group and individual customization types of services.
  • VCIRC-1 Most of the services listed above have their contents archived into an easily searchable form. This not only helps cut down on repeats and the waste of bandwidth, but also helps establish a historical prospective on various activities of the VC.
  • Each VC evaluates its own needs and enables a subset of all available services as it deems appropriate. For instance, a VC about archery might like to hold a target-shooting contest each month. And it might like to let users check the scores of the best archer in 1999 some time in the next millennium.
  • Avatar is a representation of a registered user. It can be as simple as the user's id, an icon, or a small thumbnail-sized picture.
  • Avatars can be explicitly shown in chat/talk screens, or embedded in messages, or feedback, or just about any other type of input from the user. Clicking on the avatar brings up a card of information about the user which the avatar represents. This may be followed by an action appropriate to the context (e.g., a talk session may be initiated).
  • the amount and type of information shown on the avatar's information card are controlled by its "owner" - in fact, this information is derived from the personal profile which the user explicitly entered into the system.
  • a registered user may show up on one or more other member's screens, e.g., members who are waiting for friends or some specific fellow members to chat, talk or play games with.
  • friends may "hello" each other, engage in chat or perform other social functions. These social functions mirror those of a real world setting.
  • a registered user can earn 3 types of credits: recruit (new members) credits, posting (thumb-up messages) credits, and helper (e.g., working as administrators) credits.
  • each avatar shows not only a picture and a name, but also the number of credits the associated user has accumulated. It may include both the credits earned in the current VC and the total credits earned anywhere in the system. This configuration is preferred, since it not only bestows a sense of honor to those who contribute heavily, but also clearly identifies those users as being experts to others who may need help.
  • the avatar may also be configured so as to show if it is a friend, an enemy, or neither, e.g., by different color-lining schemes.
  • the user can track friends and enemies with the tracking feature described in Section 6.13.4 below.
  • discussion forums can also house postings forwarded from other VC's, as well as postings forwarded from external legacy systems such as newsgroups and mailing list.
  • the administrator has the responsibility of forwarding relevant postings to related VC's.
  • the administrator is also responsible for correcting postings that are not properly marked with the right profile.
  • a daily summary of all the postings in any of the forums may be sent directly to a mailbox specified by that member, and an embedded link can be provided to quickly and easily bring the user to the right place.
  • the member may also choose to get an alert, e.g., whenever there is new message in the external forum.
  • News relevant to the VC must be selected and presented to the users in a timely and orderly fashion. Most commonly, this news will be collected by the members elsewhere and then posted into a VC. Additionally, the system can collect the news from selected news sources which are identified by the members or administrators of the service. The administrator is solely responsible for keeping irrelevant news off the VC.
  • the VC's calendar lists all group-related, as well as community-related, events. Calendar items should be clearly marked (e.g., color coded) as local or external items.
  • This service is set up to facilitate marking the same events into the user's own personal calendar. If there is any change in the calendar, the changes will generate a warning, e.g., possibly in the form of an e-mail, to alert the users who marked the event as to what has been changed.
  • a warning e.g., possibly in the form of an e-mail
  • the administrator of this service is responsible for keeping track of all the events. 6.4 Resources
  • This list can answer a lot of user questions and thus save a lot of bandwidth and frustration. Also, this list represents the level of dedication which the members have put into building the virtual world they share.
  • Polling is a regular function in the modern world to gather opinions about things. It is a desirable feature for most VC's. For example, the governing body of a certain VC may wish to start a new service, or put new contents into the group environment, and it may wish to poll the members of the VC for opinions.
  • a poll can be initiated within the VC or it can be passed down through the VC hierarchy from a higher VC.
  • a poll can also be initiated as a paid service for companies or entities outside of the system.
  • a poll administrator is responsible for setting up, accepting (from outside sources), and/or maintaining the proper function of the poll. 6.6 Vote
  • Voting will typically be used to decide major issues such as reorganizing community hierarchy, accepting/expelling members, electing administrators, and coping with other important issues. Voting is frequently the easiest way to perform these functions.
  • Voting can be a closed (i.e., for members only) or it can be open (i.e., for all members in the community including the current VC and any derived VC's further down the chain).
  • Trade is a service which helps members job-hunt, recruit help, buy, sell, auction, or exchange personal goods or services among themselves.
  • the system is preferably configured to record these transactions as the basis for future research and/or reference.
  • the system may impose a fixed fee or percentage charge for all transactions occurring within the VC, with or without any further involvement in the transaction.
  • the system may withhold payment (e.g., credit card charges or some kind of e-credit) from the buyer until the goods or services are received in good order. This will guarantee payment to the seller, while ensuring that the buyer receives the expected product.
  • payment e.g., credit card charges or some kind of e-credit
  • Contest/Match may be set up periodically to promote healthy competition among the members. It is possible to set up a judge/review panel to determine the winner. But the ideal competitions are those that can be measured independently and objectively. For example, an archery contest that can be clearly scored, a footrace that can be easily timed, or some scholastic achievement that can be clearly measured.
  • Match can be based on an honor system (similar to postal match/contest) or this can be locally witnessed, submitted, and reviewed by the administrators or some form of committee.
  • the system is configured to maintain a detailed archive of each contest, and to record the winning status in the winner's profile.
  • the winner may also be invited to post a detailed message about how they won, e.g., equipment used, pre-contest preparation, helpful tips, etc. This can help the other members of the group, and may help the system in identifying possible sponsors for the group.
  • Chat/Talk is supported in text, audio and/or video. Talk is a one-on-one activity, while chat is more of a multi-party activity.
  • Talk can be initiated by clicking on the avatar representing the user to whom you wish to talk, while a chat session is conducted in a virtual chat room.
  • Multiple chat rooms may be created within any given VC, and whoever creates a chat room may control its function, including sending an invitation to other registered users who are presently in the VC. Users may also join and leave those chat rooms at will.
  • Users may set up their focus to indicate if, and to whom, they are willing to talk.
  • the users may also indicate to whom they may be willing to talk, e.g., some possible options are
  • a voice recognition system to help generating minutes or transcripts from verbal chat and talk sessions.
  • a real-time language translation feature can help facilitate communication between users speaking different languages and/or dialects.
  • Hot buys, hot vendors and ratings are all derived services. Whenever an external poll or advertisement is in effect, feedback is collected from the users who may care to comment (typically in a simple form, such as "thumbs up” or “thumbs down") and these results are tallied periodically.
  • Ratings is more of a reflection of past consumer experience than of a current popular impression like hot buys and hot vendors. Ratings are collected over time from the real consumers and/or clients of goods and services after those individuals have had more in-depth knowledge and/or experience with the goods or services which have been acquired.
  • On-line games such as chess, role-playing adventures, education, training or others, can help with relaxation and learning, as well as fostering friendship.
  • single and multi- player games are typically available as a group service.
  • interested players may register and wait for their preferred partner(s), depicted by their focus, to enter the VC.
  • Administrative services provide information about the VC, such as the charter, the list of members, currently logged-in members (preferably shown in the form of avatars), administrators, contacts, and other VC-specific information. Administrative services also help sponsors (advertisers, pollsters, etc.) to determine where, and how many users in any given VC, are of interest to them.
  • the system provides interfaces to let each VC's governing body modify the system's default environment and thereby create their own ideal environment.
  • the same provision is extended to individual members so that they can customize a personalized on-line environment on top of the group environment.
  • Links under the related VC's There may be links that they visit periodically or even daily, and which they may wish to access from anywhere on the Internet. For example, the user may wish to store their personal finances under the VC Finance/Investment, using encryption for security.
  • These types of links are generally private and typically protected by encryption. - 24 -
  • Search is an important tool, as is evident in today's search engine-based Web portals.
  • the members who are interested in certain things have access to context-sensitive search tools.
  • the user can set up a search criteria in a related VC, e.g., the Computer/Software VC, so that each time the user enters the VC, the search criteria automatically brings up a list of new links of interest to the user.
  • a related VC e.g., the Computer/Software VC
  • the auto search feature is primarily focused oh publications associated with the VC. Provision is also made to search sites on the Internet too. Of course, the search criteria must be more specific in such Internet searches, so as to keep the number of links manageable.
  • the system permits the user to set up reject/enemy and friend lists so that social interaction can be tracked and brief notes recorded about the relationship and activities (e.g., summaries of chat sessions).
  • Tracking is one of the more important services. Tracking is like putting flags on things or events of interests. Tracking can be used to watch for a variety of different events, as when a follow-up message is posted to a tracked thread/message, new advertisements appear from a specific vendor, a friend is entering the system, stocks in the portfolio jump up 20%, weather changes, a daily summary of all message headers in a tracked VC is prepared, or just about anything else that can be tracked.
  • This tracking feature informs the user via e-mail and/or some forms of on-line alert systems.
  • alert system Regardless of which alert system is used to deliver the message, it is easy for the recipient to turn off, either temporarily or permanently, any specific tracking. This can be implemented as an on-off switch built right inside of the alert message.
  • the rational behind this is simple: users may change their mind or interests of the things they tracked, and the system must give them a fast and easy way to reflect their current state of mind.
  • tracking works all the time and auto search is performed only when the user is visiting the VC where the search is defined.
  • the system Since the user interface is an important factor in determining the usability of the system, the system provides a number of different user interface "themes" to suit different user tastes.
  • the VC is a group
  • the user is also given the option to turn off some, or most, of the less relevant advertisements, external polls, etc., as well as other group or standard services.
  • feedback is preferably in the form of either “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” or in the scale 0 to 10, optionally accompanied by a short comment, an option to provide additional information elsewhere on the Internet, and the identity of the feedback member. Thumbs-up and thumbs-down from different users can cancel each other out.
  • Feedback is recorded as a positive or negative credit into the entities evaluated. For instance, a well thought-out article in the discussion forum may receive a lot of thumbs-up feedback from the readers. These feedback votes are credited to both the article and its poster. The end result is that the article will be clearly marked as "Great” or “Must read”, and the author receives more points which may eventually make that author an "Expert” or “Most Valuable Member”.
  • the administrator of any given service may determine that only postings or entities that have earned a certain level of positive credits get archived.
  • the member can earn 3 types of credits: recruit (new members) credits, posting (thumbs- up messages) credits, and helper (e.g., working as administrators) credits. Credits are redeemable for specific system resources (e.g., disk space), for certain privileged services (e.g., creating a Virtual Bubble - see Section 10 below) for cash, or for other forms of reward.
  • recruit new members
  • posting thumbs- up messages
  • helper e.g., working as administrators credits.
  • Credits are redeemable for specific system resources (e.g., disk space), for certain privileged services (e.g., creating a Virtual Bubble - see Section 10 below) for cash, or for other forms of reward.
  • Any registered users can earn bonus credits when they bring in paid sponsors (e.g., advertisers, pollsters, etc.) to the system. Once the sponsor's request is deemed appropriate and thus fulfilled, a percentage of the income received from the sponsor is given to the registered user as a referral bonus.
  • the bonus can be paid in cash, stock or in some form of credits.
  • the sponsors financially support the operation of the system.
  • Potential sponsors include advertisers, pollsters, companies, institutions, organizations, schools, and possibly other paid or unpaid entities.
  • the system may generate revenue by catering to the users directly. These kinds of activities may involve auctions, direct sales and other forms of e-commerce.
  • members are encouraged to present the system with a list of vendors they wish to receive information from. Even more preferably, the users may act as salesmen and bring paid sponsors directly into the system. With little or no work on the part of the system, these vendors or advertisers may sign-up through the sponsor interface and automatically become sponsors of the system.
  • This profit sharing can be at a fixed rate (e.g., 2%) or at a higher rate for the initial ad (e.g., 10%) and lower hereafter (e.g., 1%).
  • the system only rewards solicitors who bring in the right sponsor. Irrelevant ads only spoil the receptiveness of the members and hurt the system, and should be discouraged or even punished.
  • This type of user-based sales and marketing can cut down on operational and marketing costs while producing superior results.
  • a major source of income for the system comes from Web advertising - advertisements from international conglomerates, national businesses and even local vendors, in short, advertisements from all over the world.
  • the advertisements may come from either indirect sources (e.g., agencies, etc.) or direct sources (e.g., vendors, manufacturers, etc.). Either way, the advertisements have to be carefully categorized, set up and directed to the relevant communities.
  • this invention can easily meet the advertiser's desire to deliver the right ad to the right people at the right time.
  • the "right people” can be found by crossmatching the focus and profile of the advertisement with the focus and profile of the members. This works since the system's users, with the system's guarantee of their privacy, tend to be very cooperative in setting up their true personal profiles. This is also because setting up the correct profile and focus is the only way the user can receive the appropriate services from the system (e.g., meet the right people, read the right postings in the right language, etc.).
  • an automobile manufacturer e.g., Ford
  • Ford finds that the Hobby/ Automobile/Sports Car VC, and all the VC's in the Hobby/Racing sub-community except the Hobby/Racing/Miniature VC and Hobby/Racing/Daytona VC, to be the most appropriate VC's.
  • Ford believes that any VC with a given set of keywords (e.g., "automobile", "car”, and “racing”) in their charters could be a good match.
  • Ford might set up the advertisement's focus as follows: Location: Asia Age: under 30
  • Some attributes denote the capability of the advertisement. For instance, "available languages" in the above example denotes how many language versions the advertisement is in so the Chinese version will be presented if (1) the current user has their language filter set to Chinese or (2) one of the user's language attributes is Chinese.
  • Age is a filter that is used to match the profile of the potential audiences to the ad.
  • the "click-through rate”, and other unlisted but similar filters, represent the expected past history or experience of the user in the VC.
  • the ideal user is depicted as someone having an active interest in buying cars, which is evident from the fact that the user clicked 5% of the car ads presented to that user in the past 60 days.
  • the action "collect” serves an important function in marketing research. In addition to trying to sell a sports car, the vendor may also want to collect certain information about those potential buyers. The action "collect” addresses this goal.
  • an advertisement must first be posted to the right VC(s), and then it must be matched with the right users. Normally the advertisements will be posted into one or more VC's and then retrieved and viewed by selected members of the VC(s). The entry points of any advertisement will be recorded as one of its attributes.
  • the system may show the most relevant advertisements (i.e., those explicitly entered into the current VC) first. When these are exhausted, the advertisements explicitly entered in the immediate parent VC(s) are retrieved and displayed. This retrieval process goes on all the way up the hierarchy if necessary.
  • the user has the option of limiting "pull" (see Section 13 below) or the relevancy of the advertisement displayed. This is done by limiting the level of retrieval of advertisements entered from the current VC.
  • the minimum level is 1 , which means that only those ads entered in the current VC will be displayed.
  • System default is to retrieve ads all the way up to the root of the system.
  • various algorithms may be used to determine how many times an advertisement from a given level should be displayed. In general, the more relevant the advertisement to the VC (i.e., the closer it is explicitly entered to the VC), the more frequent it should be displayed to appropriate users in that VC.
  • Users also have the option to retrieve a specific advertisement, the last few advertisements displayed, advertisements from a specific vendor or a category of vendors, or the entire list of advertisements.
  • This list of advertisements can be limited to a given VC, to a given community of VC's, or to a list of communities of VC's.
  • This advertisement retrieval can be displayed on-line as well as off-line.
  • the system is configured so that it can automatically stop delivering certain advertisements to certain VC(s), providing that the thumbs-down count reaches a set threshold, or if the "click-through" rate is not above a certain percentage. For instance, if a given advertisement has a less than 1% click-through rate after delivering 50% of the total scheduled impressions, then the system may stop delivering the remainder of the advertisements.
  • the system can give priority to the advertisements, both in terms of the delivery of those advertisements or the frequency of repetition of those advertisements.
  • Priority may also be given to time-critical advertisements such as weekly sale, new product debut, those that have to be displayed during certain time-of-day or day-of-week, or those paying a premium on top of regular rate.
  • the advertisements and their advertiser(s) may enjoy free publicity if the advertisement is showered by thumbs-up votes. These thumbs-up votes will make them hot buys and hot vendors in these VC's (see Section 6.10 above).
  • the system is configured to penalize any advertiser that practices bait-and-switch tactics or other types of unfair business practices.
  • the system is configured to give rate discounts to advertisers if they offer their best deals in terms of lower prices or better services to the users. The advertisers are also encouraged to provide free samples to the users, as a promotion of both their products and the new system.
  • the pricing of the advertisement can be based on: Advertisement type Number of filters applied Fixed number of exposures
  • Regular advertisements can be prepared, entered, published, analyzed with a report and then billed entirely through the system's advertiser interface. In other words, the advertisement comes in, and goes out, through an on-line automated advertisement mechanism. There is no human contact involved and it can be very efficient.
  • the advertiser interface is also adapted to provide more traditional services through alliances with Web advertising agencies all over the world.
  • Polls are very important to the system.
  • a VC poll administrator seeking public opinions on things, can initiate them internally within the VC.
  • a poll can also be set up by paid sources outside of the system and then directed to selected groups of users within the system.
  • Polls operate similarly to advertisements with several differences: they omit the normal thumbs-up, thumbs-down type of relevancy feedback, and they typically need to record more personal information about the users who have been polled. And, of course, the nature of polls is to collect opinions about things, rather than trying to sell something to the users.
  • the one thing that is never collected by the poll is the identity of the participants. This is to protect their privacy.
  • This directory is something like the Yellow Pages, and can serve both person-to-business activities and business-to-business activities. These directory listings include locale and other attributes so as to help users find the appropriate organizations more easily.
  • Companies or others may be charged a fee, either based on the number of users involved, resources consumed, or other measures, to create their own private, closed communities, or to acquire other specific premium services such as video conferencing provided by the system.
  • the system supports a wide range of transactions between users and businesses. Sometimes one or both parties may wish to go through the transaction via a broker.
  • This service is most desirable during non-local and international transactions. However, it may also involve trading between two members in any given VC, as is mentioned in Section 6.7 above.
  • the system is also arranged to carry some 3 rd party merchandise (e.g., books, music CD, toys, etc.) and/or services (e.g., auctions, real estate listing services, etc.) under its own banner.
  • 3 rd party merchandise e.g., books, music CD, toys, etc.
  • services e.g., auctions, real estate listing services, etc.
  • the transaction may occur locally within the system or pass through directly to the 3 rd party.
  • VB's virtual bubbles
  • VC's virtual bubbles
  • These VB's provide services similar to VC's to a special interest group, and they can be used as a intranet, extranet, or customer service front, or simply a club, corporation, or member gathering and social place.
  • the system utilizes gateways between VC's and those services.
  • Multimedia content embedded in the messages has to be filtered or separated and then delivered as links to the storage in the system.
  • the VC's are very accommodating, in terms of geographical, language and other local differences, compared to those legacy services, it is necessary to set up filters to direct the information in the VC's into the appropriate legacy systems (e.g., newsgroups).
  • the "Law" VC may be mapped into multiple newsgroups such as Misc. legal Uk. legal Alt.uk.law Alt.lawyers as well as several different mailing lists such as Usa.tx-law-mailing-list Usa.ma-legislation-mailing-list
  • Each outgoing message may also carry other information such as a link to the corresponding Web page in the system, and some system promotional information.
  • the maintenance of these gateways is the duty of the governing body. 10. Forming A Virtual Bubble
  • a Virtual Bubble (“VB”) is an intimate and private group. It provides similar group level services, and can form hierarchies similar to those of the VC. In any given system, there is typically 1 root VC that is the root of the VC hierarchy. But there are many different hierarchy trees for VB's which reflects the privately-held nature of VB's - there can be many different business, organizational or institutional owners controlling VB's in their own tree hierarchy. VB and VC have completely separate tree hierarchies and should be viewed as disjoint and non- overlapping trees. There is no way to establish a parent/child or sister relationship between a VB and a VC.
  • VC's are public areas governed by their members whereas VB's are always privately held and owned.
  • a second difference is that a VB usually has a geospatial and/or language and/or some other attribute(s) orientation that naturally forms its profile, while a VC is not associated with any attributes and has none. In other words, a VB has profile whereas a VC never has profile.
  • a VB always resides within a VC that is the closest to it, in terms of the main interests.
  • VB's can be regarded as another form of VC group resources or they can be viewed as sub-doors into narrower focused groups.
  • the American Bar Association may maintain an ABA VB within the Law VC.
  • FIG. 2 To create an extranet to facilitate communication and trading amongst business partners. Looking next at Fig. 2, there is shown a plurality of VC's 100 and VB's 300. More particularly, the VC's 115, 145, 150, 155 and 160 from Fig. 1 are reproduced in Fig. 2; in addition, a Storage Technology VC 165 has been added in Fig. 2, where Storage Technology VC 165 is a child of the Hardware VC 150. Fig.
  • Compaq Computer VB 305 is in the Computers VC 115
  • Compaq Hard Drive Division VB 310 is in the Storage Technology VC 165
  • Compaq Computer VB 305 is a parent of the Compaq Hard Drive Division VB 310.
  • This notification system is always in effect as long as the user stays logged on.
  • the user can find other registered users, interesting topics, VC's, sponsors, or just about any entity in the system, through a flexible search facility.
  • This search facility is a system-wide facility, unlike that of the VC's.
  • Virtual Associations are the voluntary groupings established within the system to bring together users having similar interests. Virtual associations or groups come in two basic forms:
  • Both VC's and VB's are organized in a hierarchy structure. This hierarchy structure permits the subject matter of the groups to be subdivided into progressively more detailed groupings, whereby users can readily locate an appropriate group reflecting their pa ⁇ icular level of interest in a subject.
  • VB's are substantially the same as VC's, except as noted above.
  • Users are the individuals utilizing the system. Users can be classified into three basic categories:
  • a guest is someone who has not been identified by the system. Guests can enter and use the system, but they have restricted privileges within the system. For example, a guest might be able to read an informational posting, but they might not be able to post information.
  • Registered users are the standard user category. Registered users normally have all of the standard privileges associated with the system. For example, a registered user can typically read informational postings, make informational postings, talk or chat with another user, etc.
  • a registered user can join a pa ⁇ icular VC, in which case they become a member of that VC.
  • Administrators have all of the privileges associated with being a registered user, plus they have the special privileges associated with their administrative authority.
  • There is an administrator for the overall system which is the system administrator, and there is one or more administrators for each group (i.e., VC or VB) which are called group administrators.
  • the authority of an administrator depends on the domain that they are responsible for administrating. For example, the administrator for the overall system can create a new VC; the administrator for a particular VC can push postings downward (i.e., to a child VC) or laterally (i.e., to a sister VC), etc.
  • Focus is the filter which acts as a discriminator to limit the content which is presented to the user by the system.
  • Profile is a set of attributes characterizing the user. Focus and profile are defined by the user, according to the degree of specificity which that pa ⁇ icular user desires to declare. For convenience, the system permits the user to declare their focus and profile in the context of categories established by the system.
  • Postings are the medium through which information, or "content", is passed to and from users. Postings can be in one of two forms:
  • a passive posting has both profile and content.
  • a passive posting has the information which is to be passed (i.e., the "content") and a tag (or "profile") which sets forth some attributes associated with that information.
  • This profile is then used by the system to determine which users should be shown the passive posting.
  • the profile of the passive posting is compared with the focus of different users: where the profile of the passive posting "matches" the focus of a given user, the passive posting will be displayed to that user.
  • Passive postings are typically things like news postings, calendar event postings, etc.
  • An active posting has profile, focus and content. More pa ⁇ icularly, an active posting has the information which is to be passed (i.e., the adve ⁇ ising message, or "content"), a tag (or “profile”) which sets fo ⁇ h some attributes associated with that information, and another tag (or "focus") which sets forth a filter to limit whom the advertisement should be shown to.
  • This profile and focus is then used by the system to determine which users should be shown the active posting (i.e., the advertisement).
  • the profile and focus of the active posting is compared with the focus and profile of different users: where the profile and focus of the active posting "crossmatches" the focus and profile of a given user, the active posting will be displayed to that user. Passive postings are typically things like adve ⁇ isements or polls, etc.
  • Creating A New VC is based on the concept of VC's.
  • a good sta ⁇ ing point for this example is with the creation of a new VC.
  • a new VC is typically created by the system administrator. At the time of creation, the system administrator needs to integrate the new VC into the existing hierarchy of VC's. This means that the relationship of the new VC, vis-a-vis the existing VC's, must be identified. As noted above, the hierarchy of VC's is defined in the context of parent, child and sister relationships.
  • a new VC 170 being integrated into an existing hierarchy of VC's. More pa ⁇ icularly, Fig. 4 shows new VC 170 being added to the hierarchy so that new VC 170 is a child of the existing VC 175, the parent of the existing VC 180, and the sister of the existing VC 185.
  • the new VC can be identified as being the parent (P) of ce ⁇ ain VC's, the child (C) of other VC's, and the sister (S) of still other VC's.
  • P parent
  • C ce ⁇ ain VC's
  • S sister
  • the system or group administrator can add special, VC-specific categories to the system for use in content tagging, i.e., the system administrator can establish VC-specific categories for the profile of any postings made in the VC.
  • the content from internally generated sources typically comprises postings from the system administrator and/or other users.
  • a posting from an internal source might comprise a calendar posting.
  • a passive posting 400 typically has two pans: content 405 and profile 410.
  • Content 405 is the message itself , i.e., "There will be a meeting for all members of the Exxon Marketing DepaHment on Friday, April 21, 2000 at 9:00 am.”
  • Profile 410 is the classification attribute, or categorization, of the message. Profile is created by the poster at the time of posting. This is done by presenting the user with some pre- established categories to choose from: the user then selects the proper element for each pre- established category. Categories can be presented to the user by the system (in which case they are presented on a systemwide basis) or they can be presented to the user by a specific VC (in which case they are presented on a VC-specific basis).
  • language e.g., English, Chinese, etc.
  • VC-specific categories might be as follows, for a gymnastics oriented VC:
  • the poster sets the profile for each posting by selecting the appropriate items from each category presented to the poster.
  • all categories are offered for all postings. Fu ⁇ hermore, all postings are looked at in the context of all categories when applying the focus/profile test used to direct appropriate content to the user. And if the poster fails to declare an item in a category when the poster is setting the profile for the posting, the system is configured to automatically assume that the content has no identity in that category.
  • an active posting is similar to a passive posting, except that it includes focus as well.
  • the content from an externally generated source typically comprises an item from a legacy system such as a newsgroup or a mailing list.
  • gateways In order to access an externally generated source, the system utilizes gateways.
  • a gateway 500 must be established for each legacy system 505 (i.e. newsgroup or mailing list, etc.) which is to be connected to a VC 100.
  • Each legacy system 505 has its own gateway 500 which is mapped to one or more VC's 100.
  • a gateway 500 resides, in a logical sense, adjacent to each legacy system 505 and acts as a medium through which the legacy system 505 passes content to a VC 100 (gateway 500 can also serve to pass content from a VC to a legacy system, as noted below).
  • Each gateway 500 includes a profile tagger 510 which establishes the profile for the content of each posting passing from the legacy system 505 through the gateway 500.
  • the content arrives at VC 100 with the profile needed for proper processing by the system.
  • the party which sets up the gateway for a pa ⁇ icular legacy system establishes the profile tagger which will be used to tag each message moving from the legacy system, through the gateway, to one or more VC's.
  • a posting consisting of just content 405 passes from the legacy system 500 (Fig. 6) to the gateway 500 (Fig. 6), where profile tagger 510 (Fig. 6) adds profile 410 (Fig. 7) to the content, before the tagged content is sent to a VC 100 (Fig. 6).
  • gateways permit an externally generated source to pass content to a VC, they also permit a VC to pass information from a VC back to an external source.
  • the process for sending content from a VC to the legacy system is quite different from the process for sending content from a legacy system to a VC.
  • FIG. 8 there is shown an architecture for passing content (e.g., postings) from VC 100 back to a legacy system 505.
  • the VC 100 is mapped, either at the time of creation or sometime thereafter, to specific gateways 500, each of which leads to an associated legacy system 505.
  • Fig. 8 there is shown a single VC 100 which is mapped to three different gateways 500A, 500B and 500C, each of which leads, in turn, to its respective legacy system 505A, 505B and 505C.
  • a unique focus 505 is attached to that mapping. This focus acts as a filter for all messages coming out of the VC 100 and going into the gateway 500.
  • a unique focus 515A, 515B and 515C respectively.
  • VC 100 sends that message out to every gateway 500 that VC 100 is mapped to.
  • the message arrives at each mapped gateway 500, it has its profile 405 (Fig. 3) compared with the gateway's focus 515. If the profile of the message matches the focus of the gateway, the message is passed through the gateway and out to the legacy system.
  • the user making the posting can be given explicit control of which matching gateway(s) the message shall be forwarded to.
  • VC's 100 may be mapped to the same gateway 500; however, a separate focus 515 is established for each such mapping.
  • a focus 515" is established for VC 190
  • a focus 515' is established for the VC 195.
  • Fig. 10 shows a common configuration for VC's 100, gateways 500 (having profile taggers 510 and focus 515) and legacy systems 505.
  • a new VC 170 (Fig. 4) has been created and set into its appropriate location within the VC hierarchy; and that this VC 170 has been filled with some content, i.e. either internally generated content or externally generated content.
  • Focus is probably the single most important attribute for the user, because without focus, the user would be unable to filter out unwanted information from the system, and the user will be effectively overwhelmed by the huge quantity of information present in the system.
  • focus is the filter which is used as a discriminator to selectively pass to the user only the content desired.
  • Focus is defined in the context of categories. More particularly, at the time the user joins the system, the user is presented with various categories and declares their focus in the context of those categories. In this respect it should be noted that at this stage in this example, the user is simply joining the overall system and has not yet joined any specific VC; as a result, when the user is prompted to declare their focus, the system will present the user with just the systemwide categories. It should also be noted that if the user does not declare into a category, the system automatically assumes that the category is not impo ⁇ ant to that user, and it does not use that category to exclude messages from the user. In other words, if the user does not define into a category, the system assumes that all profiles will match that category.
  • Profile Next, the user will declare their profile attributes. There are three primary uses for user profile: first, it is used as a time saver to establish a baseline for all of the postings by that user, e.g., the system uses the user's profile to establish a baseline profile for any messages that the user posts (however, the user can, of course, modify this baseline message profile if desired); second, it is used to match like users together; and third, it is used for adve ⁇ isers to target advertisements to appropriate users.
  • the user declares their profile in the same way that they declare their focus, i.e., the system presents the user with various categories, and the user declares their focus in the context of those categories.
  • Subscribing To Selected VC's Essentially, the user walks through the system's hierarchy of VC's to identify those VC's which best reflect that user's type, and degree, of interests. Alternatively, the user could follow a link into a certain VC, and decided whether to become a member of that VC.
  • the System Using The System.
  • the user is ready to use the system. This will typically involve logging into the system, and then selecting a particular VC to pa ⁇ icipate in. Such pa ⁇ icipation will typically involve receiving information from the system, or posting information to the system.
  • the pa ⁇ icular VC 100 entered by the user has a supply of content associated with it.
  • this content can be internally generated content or externally generated content. Regardless of its source, this content is present in the VC and is tagged, i.e., it comprises both profile 410 and content 405.
  • the user on the other hand, has both focus and profile. The system compares the user's focus with the profile of all the content associated with the VC to determine precisely which content will pass through to the user.
  • Fig. 12 there is a shown, in schematic form, how the user, in the course of posting a message into the circle, adds their profile to the content, whereby the content is rendered usable by the system. More particularly, profile is added to the content by (1) the system automatically establishing a default profile for the message, by taking the user's own profile, and then (2) the user may thereafter modify that default profile in accordance with explicit profile declarations made by the user, so as to arrive at the final profile for the content.
  • Pushing and Pulling the user normally receives information from postings who's profile matches the user's focus, and posts information by associating a profile with the content being posted.
  • the user has entered a VC before this information exchange begins.
  • the information transaction is taking place solely within the cu ⁇ ent VC.
  • the user is able to move beyond their immediate VC and access information originated or residing elsewhere (ie: in other VC's) in the system.
  • VC's have a hierarchy of relationships.
  • a VC may be a base VC, it may be a child of another VC, it may be a parent of another VC, or it may be a sister of another VC.
  • the relationships of these VC's govern how information transactions may move beyond the immediate VC.
  • the administrator for a given VC can push content to subordinate or sister VC's.
  • the system administrator can push content downward (i.e., to a child VC) or sideways (i.e., to a sister VC).
  • the VC administrator or system administrator
  • the content can be passed to just the immediate child VC, or the content can be passed to anywhere below the originating VC (i.e., to the immediate child of the originating VC and to anything below that immediate child).
  • all messages associated with a given VC are held in a database for that VC, regardless of whether the message was generated internally to that VC (i.e., by the VC administrator or a user) or externally to that VC (i.e., from a gateway).
  • the message is simply placed in the database for that other VC.
  • a database for that VC this term can mean a self-standing database specifically dedicated to that VC, or it can mean a part of a larger database which has entries for multiple VC's contained therein, each entry being tagged to a specific VC.
  • the user is also able to pull content from beyond their immediate VC. In a way, this is somewhat like the user deciding that they wish to be part of a larger group without leaving their immediate VC.
  • the user pulls content from outside their immediate VC by making an appropriate selection from the pull menu, e.g.,
  • an advertisement comprises an active posting, which comprises focus, profile and content.
  • the advertiser places the advertisement into a specific VC.
  • This placement provides a first level of advertising targeting, since placing the advertisement into a specific VC effectively directs the advertisement to a specific audience interested in a specific topic (i.e., the topic of the group).
  • the fact that each user has focus and profile, and each advertisement has focus and profile permits the system to crossmatch focus and profile, and profile and focus, so as to ensure that the advertisement is highly targeted. See Fig. 13.
  • the focus and profile test i.e., testing the profile of the advertisement against the focus of the user
  • the profile and focus test ensures that the advertisement is displayed only to the users who meet a target criteria.
  • Matching Profile with Focus, and Crossmatching Focus with Profile and Profile with Focus uses focus and profile to determine which content is displayed to which users.
  • profile is a group of characteristics which describe something about an object, e.g., a posting or a user.
  • Focus is the filter against which profile is applied in order to determine whether content should be passed to a user.
  • All postings have at least profile and content and, in some special cases such as advertisements and polls, focus as well. More specifically, passive postings have profile and content; active postings have focus, profile and content.
  • the system matches the profile of the posting against the focus of the user. If the profile of the posting matches the focus of the user, then posting is passed to the user, i.e., the content of the posting is displayed to the user.
  • an active posting e.g., an advertisement
  • the system crossmatches (1) the profile of the posting (i.e., the profile of the advertisement) against the focus of the user, and (2) the focus of the posting (i.e., the focus of the advertisement) against the profile of the user.
  • the posting i.e., the advertisement
  • the posting is passed to the user, i.e., the content of the posting (i.e., the advertisement) is displayed to the user.
  • focus and profile can be expressed in a relatively loose and unstructured manner.
  • focus and profile be expressed in a relatively structured manner, in order to facilitate comparing focus and profile (in the case of passive postings), or focus and profile and profile and focus (in the case of active postings).
  • focus and profile in the case of passive postings
  • focus and profile and profile and focus in the case of active postings.
  • this structured approach is capable of being easily modified during use so as to accommodate a continuously-changing community of users and subject matter.
  • the system preferably uses a set of categories to help organize focus and profile within the system, with each category having its own hierarchy.
  • Visibility is the determining factor for categories.
  • a category is said to be "visible" when the user can select an attribute from this category and the system will take it into consideration in the matching process.
  • Systemwide categories are established by the system administrator and is visible in all groups (VC's and VB's). Groupwide categories are established by the VC or VB administrator and only visible in the group they are defined in.
  • scopes is important so that users are not overburdened by categories that only make sense in certain sections and/or groups.
  • Each administrator establishes categories of attributes according to the subject matter of their particular domain. In other words, each administrator looks at the subject matter to be dealt with within their domain, and then establishes a logical structure, in the form of hierarchies of attributes, for characterizing items of focus and profile. Again, inasmuch as categories can be added and deleted and modified over time, the system can be continuously adapted to accommodate changes in the community.
  • a systemwide administrator might establish some of the general categories widely applicable within the system, e.g., a geospatial category, a language category, an experience category, etc.
  • a group administrator administering a group relating to automobiles, might establish some general automobile categories, e.g., sedans, minivans, sports cars, etc.
  • the administrator will typically create, either at the time of creation or some time thereafter, a hierarchy for each of the categories.
  • the geospatial and language categories might look something like that shown in Fig. 14.
  • everything lower on the hierarchy tree is a more specific instance of the node immediately higher on the hierarchy tree.
  • Focus and profile is defined within the system in the context of categories of attributes that have been established.
  • postings must have their profile and, in the case of active postings (e.g., advertisements), their profile and focus, defined in the context of these same categories.
  • node 2 On the hierarchy tree of any given category, there are some relationships among the attribute nodes.
  • One of the relationships is "overshadow". From Fig. 15, node 2 is said to overshadow node 4 since node 4 is a more specific instance, i.e., either a direct or indirect descendant, of node 2. And from Fig. 15, we can see node 2 not only overshadows node 4, but node 5, 6, 8, 9, and 10 as well. The nodes overshadowed by node 2 are said to be in node 2's "coverage” or "footprint”.
  • Geospatial North America Language: English
  • Posting 4 has the following profile: Geospatial: America Language: Chinese
  • Geospatial category since User's Geospatial focus item ("North America") is more generic than the Posting' s Geospatial profile item ("America”); and there is a match in the Language category, since there is exact match between one of the User's Language focus items ("Chinese) and the Posting's Language profile item ("Chinese”). Therefore, Posting 4 is displayed to User X.
  • the user will make an explicit declaration into an established category, e.g., the user will explicitly declare the entry "Chinese” into the Language category, or the user will explicitly declare (“Vietnam”) into the Geospatial category.
  • the system applies the following rule:
  • Focus node A matches profile node B if they are either the same node or A overshadows B.
  • categories and consequently focus and profile, are implemented as follows. First, as each new attribute node in a category is defined, that node is given a unique node number.
  • these categories might have the co ⁇ esponding structure shown in Fig. 15.
  • node numbers can then used to express profile and focus in a shorthand way. For example, suppose User X has the focus: Geospatial: North America Language: English-based Here, focus could be expressed as: Geospatial: 4 Language: 12 Or, even more simply, the focus for User X can be expressed simply as focus (4, 12). Similarly, suppose Posting 4 has the profile: Geospatial: America Language: Chinese Profile could be expressed as: Geospatial: 8 Language: 13 Or, more simply, the profile for Posting 4 can be expressed simply as profile (8, 13). This information is stored in a database.
  • the focus list for that user is extracted from the database.
  • This entry is in the format: (root node, level, node LD).
  • Posting 4 has the profile:
  • the profile for Posting 4 can be expressed as profile (8, 13). This profile is then compared against the focus for User X.
  • the first entry in the profile for Posting 4, i.e., 8, is compared against the first item in the focus list for User X, i.e. (1, III, 4). If this comparison produces a match, then there is a match for the first category, and the system automatically moves on to the next category.
  • the second profile node i.e., 13 is tested against the first focus item, i.e., (1, III, 4). Again, if this comparison produces a match, then there is a match for the first category, and the system automatically moves on to the next category.
  • the Posting' s list of profile nodes is then tested, one by one, against the next item in the focus list, etc..
  • focus and profile must match for all categories in order for content in question to be displayed to the user.
  • Posting No. 10 with a profile 476, 351, 12 Posting No. 19, with a profile 43,5, 10 , Posting No. 597, with a profile 15, 17, 12463
  • the test is then conducted by taking the profile of the first posting, i.e., Posting No. 10, taking the first node in that first posting' s profile, i.e., 476, and comparing it against the focus of the user. This is done by testing that first profile node, 476, against the first sorted focus node, i.e., (l, LL 6). If there is a match, then there is a match for that category, and the process can go directly on to test for the next category.
  • the process instead moves to the second node in the profile list, i.e., 351, and it is tested against the first element in the focus lists, etc.
  • Trimming applies to both focus and profile. In particular, trimming is a technique for speeding up the testing process. It is done to preserve the least number of nodes that can still represent the whole attribute set. The fewer the attribute nodes, the faster the matching process. As shown in the Fig. 16, if both category nodes have been marked, where node A overshadows node B, then it is not necessary to retain node A. In this case, the system drops the node A for it is of the more general condition and simply retains the node B for the more specific condition.
  • Root trimming applies to both focus and profile. As shown in Fig. 17, if the only marked node is the root node, then the system can trim the category by dropping the entire category. In other words, if this is a focus that just had its root node trimmed, then all profiles satisfy this category.
  • Recursive Combining applies to focus only. This relates to the special condition where, if all nodes on a given level that are overshadowed by a common node are marked, it is possible to replace the markings for those nodes by marking the node immediately above. The goal here, again, is to reduce the node count in the matching process. See, for example, Fig. 18. The word recursive signifies that this combining process will be recursively applied upwards wherever possible. This process is applied after the trimming has taken place. Reverse Matching. Normally, for a focus node to match a profile node, the profile node has to be either the same as or overshadowed by the focus node. This guarantees that only the postings that have profiles falling entirely within the boundary of the user's focus will be visible to the user.
  • node 6 and 8 are marked.
  • node 3, 1, 5, and 2 will be treated as derived marked nodes to be matched precisely (i.e.: no overshadowning) against any profile.
  • this invention is particularly oriented towards housing multi-layered social constructs, it is very natural to adapt this system to any specific needs of, for example, large companies, organizations, and local governments.
  • some alternative embodiments may be a VB enhancement to serve as an intranet Web site, or a groupware system that serves a specific organization, company, town or even a city.
  • An intranet or groupware model may even be prefe ⁇ ed over the "open system" embodiment described above in that issues of security, confidentiality, performance, etc. may be more easily addressed.
  • another embodiment can be a business-to-business or extranet type of e-commerce Web po ⁇ al, within which corporate citizens replace the individual users of the preferred embodiment discussed above.
  • This invention not only makes an on-line experience more productive and rewarding, but also helps users learn and understand each other better, even though they maybe coming from different geographical locations, speaking different languages, and from different cultural backgrounds.
  • This invention also gives the sponsors of the system the ability to non-intrusively deliver to, and/or collect from, the users highly targeted information at the right time, including advertisements, polls and other potentially lucrative services.
  • this virtual world model can effectively replace, in total or in part, a large portion of many real world activities such as conferencing, polling, elections, etc.
  • Another example is that people may do business, make friends or conduct other activities confidently, in an international setting, from the front seat of their PC's or workstations.

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Abstract

L'invention concerne un système en ligne qui crée un univers virtuel qui aide les utilisateurs à former des groupes d'intérêts spécifiques, ces groupes pouvant être réunis dans cet univers virtuel en des communautés plus larges.
PCT/US2000/019996 1999-07-22 2000-07-21 Systeme en ligne oriente sur des groupes de personnes Ceased WO2001008020A1 (fr)

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CN115400415A (zh) * 2022-08-24 2022-11-29 网易（杭州）网络有限公司 执行进度获取方法、装置、电子设备及存储介质
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