WO2012108902A1

WO2012108902A1 - Systems for distributing e-content based on selective payment

Info

Publication number: WO2012108902A1
Application number: PCT/US2011/046034
Authority: WO
Inventors: Stephen STALOCH
Original assignee: TOLL TRIGGER LLC
Current assignee: TOLL TRIGGER LLC
Priority date: 2011-02-11
Filing date: 2011-07-29
Publication date: 2012-08-16
Anticipated expiration: 2013-08-11

Abstract

A system for managing distribution of e-content is disclosed. The system comprises an administrative module to provision the system with at least one toll trigger defining a condition upon which to impose a toll on a page of the e-content so that access to said page requires one of a payment or a paid subscription; a toll determination module to track each page of the e-content that is currently subject to a toll; a traffic update module to update stored information about page requests; and a trigger update module to update to determine the pages of the e-content that are each subject to a toll and an amount thereof.

Description

UNITED STATES PATENT APPLICATION

FOR

SYSTEMS FOR DISTRIBUTING E-CONTENT BASED ON SELECTIVE PAYMENT

INVENTOR :

Stephen P. Staloch

Prepared by:

HAHN MOODLEY LLP

3333 Bowers Ave.

Suite 130

Santa Clara, CA, 95054

Attorney Docket No.3.P004

SYSTEMS FOR DISTRIBUTING E-CONTENT BASED ON SELECTIVE PAYMENT

BACKGROUND

Online content that is accessible through the Internet is often referred to as "e-content." E-content may take many forms, including educational content, news content, etc.

The inventor is aware that access to e-content may be provided based on a free model or on a paid subscription model. As the name suggests, with the free model, e-cbntent is provided freely to anyone who requests the content. On the other hand, with the paid subscription model, access to e-content is limited to subscribers who pay for the content.

A disadvantage of the free model is that e-content providers have limited opportunity to monetize distribution of e-content. In contrast, the paid subscription model allows an e-content provider to earn money from e-content, but limits access to e- content only to paid subscribers to the e-content.

SUMMARY

Broadly, embodiments of the present invention disclose a method and a system for distributing e-content. For descriptive convenience, hereinafter the method shall be referred to as "the toll trigger method", and the system shall be referred to as "the toll trigger system" .

In accordance with oiie embodiment of the toll trigger- method, access to the e-content may be initially provided on a free basis to visitors requesting access to the e-content.

Thereafter, and at a later time, a toll may be placed on the e- content based on one or more toll triggers. E-content whose access is restricted by a toll may have said toll removed so that access is once again free if one or more trigger releases are satisfied. Each toll trigger and toll release may represent an administrator-defined or algorithmically determined criterion or condition upon which to impose a toll to restrict access to the e-content. For example, in one embodiment a toll trigger may include a popularity threshold for a particular piece of e- content, as will be explained in greater detail below. In one embodiment, the toll may comprise a monetary amount that has to be paid for access to a particular piece of e-content, before said piece of the content may be viewed.

Advantageously, embodiments of the invention allow for the free distribution of e-content, thereby allowing the e-content to gain in popularity. Thereafter, once the e-content has gained in popularity, restricting access to the e-content by imposing a toll thereon as aforesaid allows the owner of the e-content to benefit financially from the further distribution of said e- content .

Other advantages of the toll trigger method and system will be apparent from the detailed description below.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Various embodiments are described herein with reference to the drawings, wherein:

FIG. 1 illustrates a high-level functional block diagram of a toll trigger system and a content management system, in

accordance with one embodiment of the invention.

FIGs . 2-4 illustrate flow charts of exemplary methods for distributing e -content, in according to embodiments of the invention .

FIG. 5 illustrates how the disclosed toll trigger methods may be used to build syndicate networks for the distribution of e- content, in accordance with one embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 6 illustrates a high-level block diagram of hardware for the disclosed toll trigger system, according to one embodiment.

The drawings described herein are for illustration purposes only and are not intended to limit the scope of the present disclosure in any way. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In the following detailed description of the embodiments of the invention, reference is made to the accompanying drawings that form a part hereof, and in which are shown by way of illustration specific embodiments in which the invention may be practiced. These embodiments are described in sufficient detail to enable those skilled in the art to practice the invention , and it is to be understood that other embodiments may be utilized and that changes may be made without departing from the scope of the present invention. The following detailed description is, therefore, not to be taken in a limiting sense, and the scope of the present invention is defined by the appended claims.

Reference in this specification to "one embodiment" or "an embodiment" means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic described in connection with the embodiment is included in at least one embodiment of the invention. The appearances of the phrase "in one embodiment" in various places in the specification are not necessarily all referring to the same embodiment, nor are separate or alternative embodiments mutually exclusive of other embodiments. Moreover, various features are described which may be exhibited by some embodiments and not by others. Similarly, various requirements are described which may be requirements for some embodiments but not other embodiments . Broadly, the toll trigger system represents a mechanism for determining when visitors to a website should be charged a fee to view a particular web page. The determination is based on a past history of visitors to the website and parameters which can be set by a manager/administrator of the website. Typically, the administrator manages e-content on behalf of an owner/publisher. The parameters allow the administrator to indicate what criteria axe used to determine if a page should be charged a toll. This includes, but is not limited to, charging a toll when a web page receives a larger than expected number of visitors. A toll on a particular page may be applied and removed multiple times based on the elapsed time since the page was created, the viewing patterns of that page and the other pages on the website, the time of day, and changes to the parameters set by the manager.

The toll, trigger system may allow a website manager to group the website content into various categories (for example, "sports" on a newspaper website) and apply the same rules to all web pages in that category. An administrative interface allows the manager to specify an arbitrary number of categories, specify the category of each web page, specify the parameters that determine the criteria for imposing a toll on the pages in a particular category, and specify the parameters for a particular page.

The toll trigger system may monitor traffic on the website and record the views of the web content as a function of the

category, time since the page was first posted, the time of day, the day of the week, and other criteria specified by the manager/administrator. This information is available on the administrative interface and would typically be used by the manager^' to refine the parameters used to determine the tolls for each category.

The toll trigger system may support user-defined paid access criteria. Users who have paid subscriptions to the website, or paid subscriptions to a coalition of websites that includes the website, are not charged a toll. When a user is subject to a toll, the user has the option of paying a toll for one-time access (or, in some cases, and n-time access, where n is any integer greater than one) , or a (larger) toll for access to all material subject to a toll, or all pages in a particular category (such as archived pages) that are subject to a toll.

It is to be noted that the toll trigger method may be applied to control access to any form of e-content. However, in the examples given below it is assumed that the e-content whose access is being controlled is in the form of online news content. The examples are for illustrative purposes only and are intended to be non-limiting.

In one embodiment, the toll trigger method may impose tolls on web pages in accordance with two distinct methods, as described below. Both methods involve looking at the number of visits to a page over a specified period of time. In one embodiment, this period is defined as the last hour. It is possible to use different time periods. According to different embodiments, these time periods may be based on historical data or other administrator-defined criteria. However, an hour is long enough to avoid spurious triggers due to small numbers, and short enough to detect when a page has gone viral .

Method 1: percent views in category. Determine the percent of people who have viewed (or tried to view) that page in a certain time period, e.g. say in the past hour, compared to the total number of people who have viewed any page in the same category over an administrator-defined period of time. For example, if 200 people have viewed one of the sports pages or a sports story, and 90 of them viewed a particular soccer story and 160 of them viewed a particular baseball story. Then the soccer story has 45 percent views and the baseball has 80 percent. Compare the percent views to the user-defined (i.e. administrator-defined) threshold for that story (the threshold will depend on the category of the story, the time since publication, the time of day, etc. If the percent of views is larger than the threshold, impose a toll.

Method 2 : number of page views . Determine the number of people who have viewed (or tried to view) that page in a defined time period, e.g. say in the last hour. Compare that number to the user defined threshold for that story (the threshold will depend on the category of the story, the time since publication, the time of day, etc. If the number of page views is larger, impose a toll. The user/manager determines which method to use for a particular story or category. Different pages can use different methods. Note: once a toll is turned on, it stays on until the relevant number drops below a second threshold, (the "off threshold") which is smaller than the threshold to impose the toll. (This is to avoid the toll tur ing on and off rapidly and is similar to how a thermostat works.)

Figure 1 illustrates an embodiment 100 of the toll trigger system. The toll trigger system 100 is coupled to content management system 120 by means of intermediate network 130.

According to embodiments of the present invention the network may be a wide area network (WAN) and may include the Internet .

Components of the content management system 120 may vary

according to the dictates of functionality and will typically include on or more web servers 122 for serving e-content (e.g. in the form of web pages) stored in an e-content database 124. For serving the e-content the web server 122 may include a content request handler 126 that receives and handles requests for the e- content (page request) from a plurality of client devices 140.

Each client device 140 represents a device capable of accessing the content management system 120 via the intermediate network 130. Examples of client devices 140 include smart phones, desktop computers, notebook computers, tablet computers, etc. n

Communications between the client devices 140 and the content management system 120 may in accordance with any suitable networking protocol e.g. the Hypertext Transfer Protocol over the Internet Protocol (HTTP/IP) . The content management system 120 may also include a subscriber module 128 _t to administer functions related to subscribers of e-content such authenticating

subscribers, billing subscribers, etc.

Although the toll trigger system 100 is shown as separate and distinct from the content management system 120, it is to be appreciated that all or at least some of the functional

components of the toll trigger system may form part of the content management system 120, in accordance with some

embodiments.

As will be seen, the content management system 100 includes, as functional components, an administrative interface 102, a trigger determination module 104, traffic update module 106, and a trigger update module 108.

Administrative module 110:

Functionally, this module allows an administrator to provision the toll trigger system 100 with the necessary toll triggers and toll releases; and to view data and statistics collected by the toll trigger system. In one embodiment, the administrative module 110 may allow an administrator to specify possible categories of web pages, assign web pages to categories, and specify the parameters that

determine the toll on a specific page or on the pages in each category. The parameters to determine a toll may include a threshold for the number of visitors, or a threshold for the rate of visitors. In accordance with different embodiments, the thresholds may be specified to depend on the time since the posting of the page, the time of day or day of the week, the rate of payment once a toll is specified, etc. In one embodiment, a toll trigger occurs when a threshold is exceeded, and a toll release occurs when the threshold is no longer me .

In one embodiment, the administra ive module 110 may allow the administrator to view a compilation of information about traffic on the website, including a summary of traffic for pages in a specified category, traffic for a specific page, information about pages which had a toll applied, a list of most popular pages, etc.

In one embodiment, the administrative module 110 may provide an administrative interface, preferably, a graphical user interface, to make it easy to use the compiled information to modify the parameters specifying the tolls.

In one embodiment, the administrative interface may implement functions to do the following: 1. Create categories (sports, leisure, etc.)

2. Add a new page and assign it to a category

3. Specify the triggers for a category.

For example, the user or/administrator may decide that Sports will use Method 1, with thresholds

0-48 hours after publication: 75 percent

2-7 days after publication: 25 percent

more than 7 days after pub: 10 percent.

In the above example, all the percentages are expressed in terms of the total number of page views for the Sports category within an administrator-defined time period.

The administrative interface allows the administrator to specify a variety of time periods, with a percent threshold for each. The percentages represent the thresholds that must be satisfied before a toll may be imposed.

For Method 2 triggers, an administrator may specify various time intervals (for example, 0-48 hours after publication), and for each interval specify a baseline number of views in each hour of the day. For example:

7am 250

8am 400

9am 500

10am 500

etc . In one embodiment, the administrative interface may allow an administrator to specify a factor, K that defines a threshold that must be satisfied before toll may be imposed. In

particular, the threshold may be computed K times the baseline number for that hour. (For example, if K=2.5 there would need to be 1000 hits/hour at 8am to trigger the toll) .

In one embodiment, the administrative module 110 may allow the administrator to specify a paid adjustment factor for a page or category. For example, the administrator may set a paid

adjustment factor of 20 percent for the category Sports. This means that if a toll is applied on a Sports story, and more than

20 percent of the people (in a given hour when the toll is imposed) choose to pay the toll, then instead of turning off the toll when the views drop below the off threshold, the toll stays in place until the views drop even further, down to the paid adjustment factor threshold. Further, in one embodiment, free access may be even more restricted by lowering the number of free page views that are permitted before a toll is imposed.

In one embodiment, the administrative module 110 may allow the administrator to specify an off threshold and a paid adjustment factor threshold. In one embodiment, the administrative interface allows the administrator to define the toll releases or off thresholds. As an example, the administrator could specify that the off threshold is 0.9 times the threshold to impose a toll, and the paid adjustment factor threshold is 0.8 times the threshold to impose a toll. (Note that this makes sense whether Method 1 or Method 2 is being used to specify the toll

threshold.)

In one embodiment, in addition to providing the above functions, the administrative interface may also provide statistics and other inf oi nici ion about web traffic, tolls which were imposed, viewing patterns of a particular category, etc.

Two examples of the type of statistics provided by the

administrative interface are provided below:

Example 1 : Using data from the past 4 months, in the category Sports, in the first 48 hours after a page is posted, the administrative interface provides, in one embodiment, the median number of page views for each hour of the day..

The results might look like this

7am 320

8am 510

9am 605

10am 417

11am 283

12pm 771 etc .

The above numbers indicate how many views a typical sports story received during the first two days after publication, in each hour of the day .

Based on these numbers, the administrator may decide to impose a toll if a Btory receives 3 times the median number of hits as a typical story (of that age, and category, at that time of the day) . For the above example, the administrative interface may provide a simple way to copy the above data to the place where the Method 2 trigger threshold is specified. (The administrator may then specify the factor K=3. ί

Example 2 : Using data from the past 4 months, in the category Sports, in the first 48 hours after the pages were posted, the administrative interface made, in one embodiment, provide the 95th percentile of page views for each hour of the day. The results might look like this:

7am 845

8am 2310

9am 3353

10am 3771

11am 883

12pm 4117 The above numbers indicate how many views a sports story in the top 5 percent of popularity received during the first two days after publication, in each hour of the day. The administrator may decide to impose a toll when a story is in the top 5 percent of popularity. Thus, the administrative interfaces may, in one embodiment, provide a simple way to copy the above data to the place where the Method 2 trigger threshold is specified (The administrator may then set the factor K=l) . In one embodiment, the toll trigger system may allow an administrator to tag a particular story. A tagged story may have to meet publisher- defined criteria in terms of page views or popularity, before the toll trigger system will impose a toll on the tagged story.

Toll determination module 104:

In one embodiment, the toll determination module 104 keeps track of which pages are currently subject to a toll; When a visitor wants to view a page, the toll determination module 104

immediately returns an answer about whether or not a toll should be imposed. Then the toll determination module 104 updates its information (based on the information about the person wanting to visit that page) . In one embodiment, the toll determination module 104 may mark or index pages in the e-content database 124 that are subject to a toll. In the latter embodiment, the content management system 120 would merely pass information about web traffic to the toll trigger system 100. In some embodiments, the toll trigger system 100 may update the content management system 120 in real time.

Information passed to the toll trigger system:

In order to execute the toll trigger method, the toll trigger system 100 may receive the following information from the content management system 120:

a) The unique identifier of the page to be visited (the identifier may be embedded in the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) of the page)

b) An identifier for the person visiting (e.g. an Internet Protocol (IP) address for the person) .

c) What kind of visitor they are (subscriber, anonymous person, robot, non-subscriber who paid the toll. In one

embodiment information about the referring page may be provided.

Technique to impose a toll:

As described above, the toll trigger system 100 keeps toll information for each page. Thus, in one embodiment, by looking up the toll information for a page and checking what kind of visitor is requesting access to the page, the toll trigger system 100 determines if there is a toll for the page. Additionally the system 100 also determines the amount of the toll, if the toll will depend on location, referring URL, etc.) . In one embodiment, the amount of the toll is returned to the content management system 120. The content management system may block access to any requested page until the toll amount associated with that page is paid or collected. To this end the subscriber module 120 may implement the necessary functions to secure the required payment. For example, in accordance with different embodiments, the subscriber module may:

1) offer the visitor the choice of making a onetime payment to access the requested page.

2) prompt the visitor to enter existing subscription

information (e.g. useniame and password) to enable access to the web page .

3) offer the visitor the option to become a subscriber to all or selected content administered by the content management system 120.

4) offer the visitor the option of purchasing a toll trigger pass allowing access to all or a limited amount of content available through a national toll trigger network, or selected affiliates of the toll trigger network.

Technique to update tolls:

The toll trigger system 100 may update tolls. For example, in one embodiment, the Traffic Update Module 106 is used to record information about the visitor, and then the Trigger Update Module 108 is used to update the list of pages subject to a toll.

Traffic Update Module 106: In one embodiment, this module takes as input the unique identifier of a web page and information about the prospective website visitor, and uses the input to update stored information about traffic on the website. In one embodiment, the stored information may include:

the number of unique visitors to a page . In one

embodiment, this number may be expressed as a function of time e.g., in each hour (since the page was first posted) .

the number of unique visitors to the pages in a

particular category, in each hour.

the number of visitors who paid to view a page, in each hour .

The toll trigger system 100 has to keep a record of visitors to the pages of the website. Strictly speaking, the toll trigger only needs a record of the non-subscriber non-robots who visit the site. But it may be prudent to keep track of all visits, and separate the information according to the type of visitor. Below the case of non- subscriber non-robot visitors (which we just refer to as a "visitor") is described. The same process applies to keeping track of the other categories. The toll trigger system 100 keeps a count of the distinct visitors to every category of web page, and every page in each of those categories. Thus, if a visitor visits the sports landing page and then read article 32456 on soccer and article 85121 on baseball, then the category "sports" should increment by 1 , as would the counters for the sports landing page and pages 32456 and 85121. When counting the number of page visits, techniques may be. employed to avoid the problem of over counting that can arise when a visitor accesses a page several times. Counters for counting the page visits may be implemented a variety of ways, e.g.

1) by having a counter for each interval (e.g. 5 minutes) in the past cut-off period (e.g. 2 hours) , and a counter for each hour prior to the cut-off period, back to the time when the page was created. Each hour 5 -minute counters may be combined for the 1-2 hour period into a counter for that hour. This will allow an accurate determination of the traffic for the past hour, and also provide a record of traffic over the life of the page.

The Trigger Update Module 108:

This module takes the specifications of the website manager as provisioned using the administrative module 102 and the record of traffic to the website to determine whether a page should have a toll imposed or lifted. To update a page, the module 108 may first determine the category of the page and find what trigger method is being used. The traffic counters (described under Traffic Update Module) may be used to determine the number of visits to the page in the past hour, and the number of visits to pages in that category in the past hour. In one embodiment, the trigger update module may perform the following steps:

Look up the threshold for imposing the toll, as specified by the manager. Note: since the past hour is not typically an exact hour on the clock interpolation is performed to determine the threshold rate for the toll. For example, if it is 11:43am, and the threshold at 11am is 450 and the threshold at noon is 520, then the threshold right now is 450*17/60 + 520*43/60 = 500.16. Note: when looking up the threshold for Method 2, recall that threshold is the multiplier K times the baseline number for that time of day. If the toll is not currently applied, then apply the toll if the number computed from the counters. is larger than the computed threshold. Also, if the toll is already applied, then check if the paid adjustment factor has passed. Check if the number computed from the counters is *smaller* than the Off Threshold or Paid Adjustment Threshold times the

threshold specified by the manager.

Figure 2 shows a flowchart of a method for distributing e- content, in accordance with an embodiment of the present

invention. Specifically, at 200, an access to the e-content is granted on free basis. At 202, access patterns for the e-content are monitored. At 204, a toll lock for access to the e-content is selectively activated when the access patterns match with at least one toll trigger. Further, when the toll ^: lock is active, the e-content is only accessible upon payment of a toll

associated with the toll lock.

Figure 3 shows a flowchart of a method for distributing e- content, in accordance with an embodiment of the present

invention. Specifically, at 300, an interest level for each page of e-content is assigned. The said interest level comprises one of a first interest level, a second interest level, and a third interes level. At 302, a free access is provided to each page of the e-content assigned to the first interest level. At 304, each page of the e-content assigned to the second interest level is toll accessed so that further access to said page requires one of a toll payment or a paid subscription with an affiliate. At 306, each page of the e-content assigned to the third interest level is toll accessed so that further access to said page requires a license fee paid by a syndicate in exchange for which access to said page is granted to subscribers of the syndicate.

Figure 4 shows a flowchart of a method for distributing e- content, in accordance with an embodiment of the present

invention. Specifically, at 400, an affiliate network comprising at least one affiliate is created. At 402, an affiliate page interest level for the e-content is defined. At 404, for pages determined to satisfy the affiliate page interest level, an access is allowed to said pages to one of subscribers of each affiliate in the affiliate network, and the payers of a toll amount associated with said pages. At 406, a syndicate page interest level for the e-content is defined. At 408, for pages determined to satisfy the affiliate page interest level, said pages are allowed to be distributed in accordance with a

syndication model through a syndication network comprising syndicates who pays a license fee to distribute said pages.

Figure 5 of the drawings illustrates how the toll trigger methods disclosed herein may be used to create affiliate and syndicate networks, in accordance with one embodiment. Referring to Figure 5 for pages classified as having a first page interest scale characterized as "low", e-content publishers using the disclosed content management and toll trigger systems provide access to the pages on a free basis. For pages classified as having a second page interest scale characterized as "medium" the pages are distributed through affiliates from an The affiliate network created for that purpose. Distribution of said pages through the affiliate network is based on an affiliate toll trigger that matches the second page interest scale or level. Within the affiliate network, access to the said pages is only granted to subscribers of the affiliates and to payers of an affiliate toll associated with the affiliate toll trigger.

In some cases affiliates may become syndicatees within a

syndicate network as will now be described. This happens when page interest levels rise to a third interest scale that is characterized as "high" . In this case affiliates become

syndicatees or licensees in which case access to pages classified as high on the interest scale is provided only to syndicatees and the syndicating affiliates' subscribers.

By way of example consider the following: Fox News becomes a licensee with rights to syndicated stories generated by the affiliates within the affiliate network. If story readership reaches a predetermined level - greater than the criteria required at the affiliate level - a syndication toll is invoked and Fox News receives full rights to the native story (with proper attribution, naturally) . Without a license, the trigger imposed at the affiliate level will legally restrict Fox News from reproduction. Advantageously, this filtering process moves only those stories that rise to a high level of interest to Fox's attention .

In some cases, the content management system 120 may place advertisements on a page based on a location associated a requestor of the page. For example, the location may be

determined based on an IP address of the requestor. Further, the advertisements may be categorized as local, regional, or

national .

Figure 6 of the drawings shows hardware 600 that may be used to implement the toll trigger system 100, in accordance with one embodiment of the present disclosure. Referring to Figure 6, the hardware 600 typically includes at least one processor 602 coupled to a memory 604. The processor 602 may represent one or more processors (e.g. microprocessors), and the memory 604 may represent random access memory (RAM) devices comprising a main storage of the hardware 600, as well as any supplemental levels of. memory, e.g., cache memories, non-volatile or back-up memories (e.g. programmable or flash memories), read-only memories, etc. In addition, the memory 604 may be considered to include memory storage physically located elsewhere in the hardware 600, e.g. any cache memory in the processor 602 as well as any storage capacity used as a virtual memory, e.g., as stored on a mass storage device 610.

The hardware 600 also typically receives a number of inputs and outputs for communicating information externally. For interface with a user or operator, the hardware 600 may include one or more user input devices 606 (e.g., a keyboard, a mouse, imaging device, seamier, etc.) arid a one or more output devices 608 (e.g., a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) panel, a sound playback device (speaker) .

For additional storage, the hardware 600 may also include one or more mass storage devices 610, e.g., a floppy or other removable disk drive, a hard disk drive, a Direct Access Storage Device (DASD) , an optical drive (e.g. a Compact Disk (CD) drive, a Digital Versatile Disk (DVD) drive, etc.) and/or a tape drive, among others. Furthermore, the hardware 600 may include an interface with one or more networks 612 (e.g., a local area network (LAN) , a wide area network (WAN) , a wireless network, and/or the Internet among others; to permit the communication of information with other computers coupled to the networks. It should be appreciated that the hardware 600 typically includes suitable analog and/or digital interfaces between the processor 602 and each of the components 604, 606, 608, and 612 as is well known in the art . The hardware 600 operates under the control of an operating system 614, and executes various computer software applications, components, programs, objects, modules, etc. to implement the techniques described above. In particular, the computer software applications will include the applications to perform the disclosed toll trigger methods. Moreover, various applications, components, programs, objects, etc., collectively indicated by reference 616 in Figure 6, may also execute on one or more processors in another computer coupled to the hardware 600 via a network 612, e.g. in a distributed computing environment, whereby the processing required to implement the functions of a computer program may be allocated to multiple computers over a network.

In general, the routines executed to implement the embodiments of the disclosure may be implemented as part of an operating system or a specific application, component, program, object, module or sequence of instructions referred to as "computer programs." The computer programs typically comprise one or moire instructions set at various times in various memory and storage devices in a computer, and that, when read and executed by one or more processors in a computer, cause the computer to perform

operations necessary to execute elements involving the various aspects of the disclosure. Moreover, while the disclosure has been described in the context of fully functioning computers and computer systems, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the various embodiments of the disclosure are capable of being distributed as a program product in a variety of forms, and that the disclosure applies equally regardless of the particular type of computer-readable media used to actually effect the

distribution. Examples of computer- readable media include but are not limited to recordable type media such as volatile and non-volatile memory devices, floppy and other removable disks, hard disk drives, optical disks (e.g., Compact Disk Read-Only Memory (CD-ROMs) , Digital Versatile Disks (DVDs) , flash memory, etc.)-, among others. Another type of distribution may be

implemented as Internet downloads .

While certain exemplary embodiments have been described and shown in the accompanying drawings, it is to be understood that such embodiments are merely illustrative and not restrictive of the broad disclosure and that this disclosure is not limited to the specific constructions and arrangements shown and described, since various other modifications may occur to those ordinarily skilled in the art upon studying this disclosure. In an area of technology such as this, where growth is fast and further advancements are not easily foreseen, the disclosed embodiments may be readily modifiable in arrangement and detail as

facilitated by enabling technological advancements without departing from the principals of the present disclosure.

In the foregoing specification, specific embodiments of the present disclosure have been described. However, one of ordinary skill in the art appreciates that various modifications and changes can be made without departing from the scope of the present disclosure as set forth in the claims below.

Accordingly, the specification and figures are to be regarded in an illustrative rather than a restrictive sense, and all such modifications are intended to be included within the scope of present disclosure. The benefits, advantages, solutions to problems, and any element (s) that may cause any benefit,

advantage, or solution to occur or become more pronounced -are not to be construed as a critical, required, or essential features or elements of any or all the claims. The disclosure is defined solely by the appended claims including any amendments made during the pendency of this application and all equivalents of those claims as issued.

Claims

CLAIMS What is claimed is: Claims :

1. A system for managing distribution of e-content, comprising :

an administrative module to provision the system with at least one toll trigger defining a condition upon which to impose a toll on a page of the e-content so that access to said page requires one of a payment or a paid subscription;

a toll determination module to track each page of the e- content that is currently, subject to a toll;

a traffic update module to update stored information about page requests; and

a trigger update module to update to determine the pages of the e-content that are each subject to a toll and an amount thereof .

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one toll trigger is based on a threshold number of page views over a defined time.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one toll trigger is based on a threshold number of page views per page category.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the administrative module allows provisioning of a toll release defining a condition upon which to remove a toll associated with a page.

5. The system of claim 1, which is coupled to a content management system.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the toll determination module flags pages of the content management system subject to a toll.

7. The system of claim 1, which forms a part of a content management system.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the administrative module provides a graphical user interface to facilitate said provisioning.

9. A computer readable medium containing a computer program product for managing distribution of e-content, the computer program product comprising:

program code for provisioning at least one toll trigger defining a condition upon which to impose a toll on a page of the e-content so that access to said page requires one of a payment or a paid subscription;

program code for tracking each page of the e-content that is currently subject to a toll;

program code for updating stored information about page requests; and

program code for determining the pages of the e-content that are each subject to a toll and an amount thereof.

10. The computer program product of claim 9, wherein the at least one toll trigger is based on a threshold number of page views over a defined time.

11. The computer program product of claim 9, wherein the at least one toll trigger is based on a threshold number of page views per page category.

12. The computer program product of claim 9, wherein the program code for provisioning allows provisioning of a toll release defining a condition upon which to remove a toll

associated with a page.

13. The computer program product of claim 9, wherein the program code for provisioning provides a graphical user interface to facilitate said provisioning.

14. A system for managing distribution of e-content, comprising:

means for providing a toll trigger defining a condition upon which to impose a toll on a page of the e-content so that access to said page, requires one of a payment or a paid subscription; means for tracking each page of the e-content that is currently subject to a toll;

means for updating stored information about page requests; and

means for determining the pages of the e-content that are each subject to a toll and an amount thereof.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the at least one toll trigger is based on a threshold number of page views over a defined time.

16. The system of claim 14, wherein the at least one toll trigger is based on a threshold number of page views per page categor .

17. The system of claim 14, wherein the means for providing allows provisioning of a toll release defining a condition upon which to remove a toll associated with a page.