Method and apparatus for prioritizing a listing of information providers

• US 20050119957A1
• Filed: 06/18/2003
• Published: 06/02/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 06/18/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Thryv, Inc. (Mudrick Capital Management LP)
• Original Assignee: UTBK, Inc.
• Inventors: Van der Linden, Sean David, Altberg, Henrik Axel Ebbe, Faber, Scott, Hirson, Ron
• Granted Patent: US 7,698,183 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/35
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0273 Determination of fees for advertising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0283 Price estimation or determination
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/00 Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/06 Asset management; Financial planning or analysis

Abstract

A method and apparatus for prioritizing a listing of information providers according to a fee value and availability status indicated for the information providers, and providing a set of one or more information provider identifiers that satisfy a request for a type of information provider that has been received from a user over the Internet. The set of information provider identifiers are ranked according to their associated fee values and availability status. A set of one or more files are generated to display the set of information provider identifiers. The set of files are transmitted to the user, and the user is provided access to an information provider identified by one of the set of information provider identifiers.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method comprising:

in response to receiving from a user a request for a type of information provider, identifying a set of one or more information providers that satisfy the request;

prioritizing the set of information providers in accordance with a set of one or more fee values associated with the set of identified information providers and a set of one more availability status values associated with the set of identified information providers;

providing prioritized set of identified information providers for display according to their priority; and

providing access to a selected one of the prioritized set of identified information providers in response to a request for communication from the user.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the receiving the request for a type of information provider includes receiving the request in a form of one or more search terms submitted by the user from a website interface;

and

the providing the prioritized set of identified information providers includes providing the prioritized set from a database of information providers.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the set of identified information providers are further prioritized according to at least one attribute selected from a group comprising of:

rating, relevancy, experience, and consultation fee.

4. The method of claim 2 wherein the rating is selected from a group comprising of:

a peer rating, an independent auditor rating, and a user rating.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein providing access further includes charging the selected information provider.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein providing access further includes charging the selected information provider upon connecting the information provider to the user.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the selected information provider is charged if the user has a credit account with an information provider search engine.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the selected information provider is charged if the user establishes a credit account with an information provider search engine within a predetermined period of time after selecting the selected information provider.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the selected information provider is not charged if the user had communication with the information provider within a predetermined period of time prior to selecting the selected information provider.

10. The method of claim 1 further including limiting a number of charges the user can impose upon information providers with a predetermined period of time.

11. The method of claim 1 further including limiting a number of charges the user can impose upon the selected information provider with a predetermined period of time.

12. The method of claim 1 wherein the identifying the set of one or more information providers further includes selecting information providers that have a predetermined level of feedback.

13. The method of claim 1 wherein the identifying the set of one or more information providers further includes selecting information providers that have a web page of a predetermined level of quality.

14. The method of claim 1 further comprising charging the set of information providers according to their corresponding fee value upon displaying the set of information providers.

15. The method of claim 1 wherein the set of information providers are displayed as web page links, each of the web page links being an address for detailed information describing the associated information provider.

16. The method of claim 1 wherein providing access comprises:

retrieving contact information from the user requesting the selected information provider;

contacting the selected information provider and the user separately;

connecting the user to the selected information provider while maintaining security of the retrieved contact information.

17. The method of claim 1 further comprising providing the set of information providers access to their fee values for modifying and viewing.

18. A computer implemented method comprising:

receiving a request for a type of information provider;

retrieving information provider information that includes a fee value, an availability status, and an information provider identifier for each of a set of one or more information providers that satisfy the request for the type of information provider;

prioritizing the information provider information according to the fee value and the availability status indicated for each of the set of information providers; and

listing the prioritized set of information provider information on a web page that provides initiation of real time communication to the set of information providers.

19. The method of claim 18 wherein the request for a type of information provider is a set of one or more search term(s) entered into an information provider search engine search engine.

20. The method of claim 18 wherein the set of information providers are further prioritized according to at least one attribute selected from a group comprising of:

rating, relevancy, experience, and consultation fee.

21. The method of claim 20 wherein the rating is a peer rating, an independent auditor rating, and/or a user rating.

22. The method of claim 18 further comprising:

receiving a selection for one of the set of information providers listed on the web page;

retrieving contact information from the user requesting the information provider;

contacting the selected information provider and the requesting user separately; and

connecting the user to the selected information provider while maintaining security of the retrieved contact information.

23. The method of claim 22 further comprising charging the selected information provider the fee value associated with the selected information provider after receiving the selection of the selected information provider.

24. A computer implemented method comprising:

retrieving a set of one or more information provider identifiers that satisfy a request for a type of information provider that has been received from a user over the Internet;

ranking the set of information provider identifiers according to their associated fee values and availability status;

generating a set of one or more files to display the set of information provider identifiers;

transmitting the set of files to the user; and

providing the user access to an information provider identified by one of the set of information provider identifiers.

25. The method of claim 24 wherein the set of files are web page files.

26. The method of claim 24 wherein the set of information provider identifiers are a set of links to web pages corresponding to the identified information providers.

27. The method of claim 24, wherein providing access comprises:

receiving a selection of an information provider identified by one of the set of information provider identifiers;

retrieving contact information from the user requesting the information provider;

contacting the selected information provider and the user separately; and

connecting the user to the selected information provider while maintaining security of the user'"'"'s retrieved contact information.

28. A machine-readable medium having stored thereon a set of instructions, which when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising:

in response to receiving from a user a request for a type of information provider, identifying a set of one or more information providers that satisfy the request;

prioritizing the set of information providers in accordance with a set of one or more fee values associated with the set of identified information providers and a set of one more availability status values associated with the set of identified information providers;

providing prioritized set of identified information providers for display according to their priority; and

providing access to a selected one of the prioritized set of identified information providers in response to a request for communication from the user.

29. The machine-readable medium of claim 28 wherein the set of identified information providers are further prioritized according to one or more of the following attributes:

rating, relevancy, experience, and consultation fee.

30. The machine-readable medium of claim 29 wherein the rating is a peer rating, an independent auditor rating, and/or a user rating.

31. The machine-readable medium of claim 28 further comprising charging those of the set of information providers that are requested upon receiving a request.

32. The machine-readable medium of claim 28 wherein providing access further includes charging the selected information provider upon connecting the information provider to the user.

33. The method of claim 28 wherein the selected information provider is charged if the user has a credit account with an information provider search engine.

34. The method of claim 28 wherein the selected information provider is charged if the user establishes a credit account with an information provider search engine within a predetermined period of time after selecting the selected information provider.

35. The method of claim 28 wherein the selected information provider is not charged if the user had communication with the selected information provider within a predetermined period of time prior to selecting the selected information provider.

36. The method of claim 28 further including limiting a number of charges the user can impose upon information providers with a predetermined period of time.

37. The method of claim 28 further including limiting a number of charges the user can impose upon the selected information provider with a predetermined period of time.

38. The method of claim 28 wherein the identifying the set of one or more information providers further includes selecting information providers that have a predetermined level of feedback.

39. The method of claim 28 wherein the identifying the set of one or more information providers further includes selecting information providers that have a web page of a predetermined level of quality.

40. The machine-readable medium of claim 28 further comprising charging the set of information providers according to their corresponding fee value upon displaying the set of information providers.

41. The machine-readable medium of claim 28 wherein the set of information providers are displayed as web page links, each of the web page links being an address for detailed information describing the associated information provider.

42. The machine-readable medium of claim 28 wherein providing access comprises:

retrieving contact information from the user requesting the selected information provider;

contacting the selected information provider and the user separately; and

connecting the user to the selected information provider while maintaining security of the retrieved contact information.

43. The machine-readable medium of claim 28 further comprising providing the set of information providers access to their fee values for modifying and viewing.

44. A machine-readable medium having stored thereon a set of instructions, which when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising:

retrieving a set of one or more information provider identifiers that satisfy a request for a type of information provider that has been received from a user over the Internet;

ranking the set of information provider identifiers according to their associated fee values and availability status;

generating a set of one or more files to display the set of information provider identifiers;

transmitting the set of files to the user; and

providing the user access to an information provider identified by one of the set of information provider identifiers.

45. The machine-readable medium of claim 44 wherein the set of files are web page files.

46. The machine-readable medium of claim 44 wherein the set of information provider identifiers are a set of links to web pages corresponding to the identified information providers.

47. The machine-readable medium of claim 44, wherein providing access comprises:

receiving a selection of an information provider identified by one of the set of information provider identifiers;

retrieving contact information from the user requesting the information provider;

contacting the selected information provider and the user separately; and

connecting the user to the selected information provider while maintaining security of the user'"'"'s retrieved contact information.