User-driven media system in a computer network

• US 20060242554A1
• Filed: 03/09/2006
• Published: 10/26/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 04/25/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Rakuten Group, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Gather, Inc.
• Inventors: Gerace, Thomas A., Barbour, Russell G.
• Granted Patent: US 10,740,722 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/209
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0218 based on score
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0225 Avoiding frauds
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0246 Traffic
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0254 based on statistics

Abstract

A global computer network system includes a method and apparatus for writer compensation, a method and apparatus for reader rating and a method and apparatus for enabling readers to tip an author. The system further provides content organization according to user relationship and website community. Another feature effects content browsing by relationship of users in the system. The system provides determination of content scarcity and advertisement (ad inventory) scarcity. The system also includes user-specified comments or reader indications on system contents such as authored works and bookmarks.

Claims

1. A computer system for publishing content comprising:

computer means, operable in a global computer network, for enabling network users to produce respective authored works that are viewable by other network users, a network user being an author-user in connection with producing a respective authored work and a network user being a reader-user when viewing an authored work; and

a compensation module coupled to the computer means and for each authored work produced through the computer means, compensating a respective author-user based on quality of the authored work, popularity of the authored work and/or revenue generated for advertisers by the authored work instead of on a predetermined fee basis.

2. A computer system as claimed in claim 1, wherein authored works include any of text, video, images, audio and multimedia.

3. A computer system as claimed in claim 1 wherein the compensation module employs reader expressed ranking to determine quality and/or popularity of an authored work.

4. A computer system as claimed in claim 1 wherein popularity of an authored work is measured by any of:

traffic to the authored work,

number of times the authored work appears in search results,

number of times the authored work is bookmarked;

number of times the authored work is commented on or cited in an email message or other authored work;

number of times the authored work is forwarded, recommended or emailed from one user to another, and

amount of tips given to the authored work.

5. A computer system as claimed in claim 4, wherein traffic to the authored work is measured by any combination of number of network users, number of non-network users and total number of users viewing the authored work, one or multiple counts per user.

6. A computer system as claimed in claim 1 wherein compensation to the respective author-user from the compensation module is in the form of either currency units or points wherein the points are convertible to currency.

7. A computer system as claimed in claim 1 wherein the computer system generates revenue;

and

compensation to the respective author-user from the compensation module is limited to a certain percent of revenue generated by the computer system.

8. A computer system as claimed in claim 1 wherein compensation to the respective author-user from the compensation module is limited to a certain percentage of a budget.

9. A computer system as claimed in claim 1 wherein the author user is rated for quality based on the average of quality ratings of his authored works.

10. A computer system as claimed in claim 9 wherein the author user is rated across system content or within specific tags or taxonomical category, and/or each authored work is rated across system content or within specific tags or taxonomical category.

11. A computer system as claimed in claim 1 wherein the author user is rated for popularity based on the measured popularity of his authored works, where popularity is measured in user traffic to those works, relative traffic to those works against other works on the site or other works similarly categorized, the number of times an authored work is forwarded, the number of times an authored work is bookmarked, and/or a popularity rating from other users.

12. A computer system as claimed in claim 11, wherein user traffic to an authored work of an author user is measured by any combination of network users and non-network users viewing the authored work, one count being given toward popularity of the author per user viewing user.

13. A computer system as claimed in claim 11 wherein the author user is rated across all system content or within specific tags or taxonomical category and/or each authored work is rated across all system content or within specific tags or taxonomical category.

14. A computer system as claimed in claim 1 wherein one of the compensation module or the computer means further orders or ranks authors relative to each other.

15. A computer system as claimed in claim 14 wherein, for a given author, the compensation module shows change in his author ranking among rankings of other authors, as a percent or as a count of rank levels.

16. A computer system as claimed in claim 14, wherein the computer means displays a list of authors with fastest increase in rank and authors with fastest decline in rank.

17. A computer system as claimed in claim 15 wherein change in author ranking is based on any one of:

quality rating of the author;

popularity rating of the author; and

popularity rating multiplied by quality rating.

18. A computer system as claimed in claim 1 wherein currency units or points earned by an author-user for a subject authored work are dependent on the value of advertising displayed adjacent the subject authored work and selected by a user.

19. A computer system as claimed in claim 18 wherein the compensation module shows to the author-user (i) why a certain advertisement was placed next to the subject authored work, by viewing which authored works, keywords, tags, or taxonomies were targeted with advertisements and (ii) what advertising fees were associated with the certain advertisement,

wherein author compensation is determined by percent of advertising fees received for the certain advertisement appearing adjacent to the subject authored work.

20. A computer system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the compensation module enables the author-user to compare her total and average earnings to other author-users in the system generally, and/or

wherein the system enables the author-user to compare her total and average earnings to other author-users writing in the same topic area(s).

21. A computer system as claimed in claim 1 further comprising means for measuring popularity of tags based on any of:

number of times a tag is bookmarked, and number of times the tag is commented on or cited in an email message or other authored work.

22. A computer system as claimed in claim 21 wherein the computer means displays a list of tags with fastest increase in popularity rank and tags with fastest decline in popularity rank.

23. A method of publishing content on a global computer network comprising the computer implemented steps of:

providing one or more authored works accessible for on-line reading, through the global computer network, different authored works having different authors;

for each authored work, enabling readers of a respective audience to view and read the authored work; and

for a given authored work, (i) obtaining multiple area ratings from each reader of the given authored work and (ii) making a determination of quality of the given authored work based on the obtained multiple area ratings across readers.

24. A method as claimed in claim 23 wherein the multiple area ratings include combinations of a rating distinguishing between serious and humorous subject matter, a rating on writing quality, a rating on presentation, a rating distinguishing between conservative and liberal points of view, rating the suitability for different audiences or age groups, rating that evaluates compliance with one or more standards and rating to indicate how well the authored work was categorized or tagged.

25. A method as claimed in claim 23 further comprising the step of:

for each authored work, effecting display order of the authored work based on the obtained multiple area ratings and observed popularity across readers, said display order being any of order within taxonomy, order within tags, order within category of subject matters of authored works, order within hierarchy of a Web site and order within query results, order within works related to topics local to the reader, order within a list of articles published by people to whom the user or group is related, order within a list of subscriptions the reader has requested or any combination thereof.

26. A method as claimed in claim 23 wherein readers rate relevancy of a subject authored work, and

for each authored work, effecting sorting of search results and/or queries based on reader relevancy rating of the authored work.

27. A method as claimed in claim 23 further comprising the step of:

compensating an author based on the obtained multiple area ratings across readers and/or observed popularity across readers of an authored work by that author.

28. A method as claimed in claim 23 further comprising the step of measuring any one of popularity of an authored work, quality of an authored work, popularity of an author, popularity of a tag.

29. A method as claimed in claim 23 further comprising the steps of:

identifying for any given tag which other tags are most commonly used with it; and

identifying for a given set of tags which tag sets are most commonly used in combination with the given set.

30. A method as claimed in claim 29 wherein the steps of identifying further include determining which authored works, users or user-groups are correlated to which tags or tag sets.

31. A method as claimed in claim 29 wherein the steps of identifying include ordering identified tags or tag sets.

32. A method as claimed in claim 23 further comprising the step of:

measuring any combination of author quality, author popularity and/or frequency of writing of an individual author,

wherein author quality is based on measured quality of the author'"'"'s individual works or average quality of his authored works, and author popularity is based on measured popularity of the author'"'"'s individual works or average popularity of his authored works or total popularity of his authored works.

33. A method as claimed in claim 32 further comprising the step of:

from said measuring, ranking each author, including ranking each author within a topical area or keyword area and ranking each author generally.

34. A method as claimed in claim 32 further comprising the steps of:

from said measuring, determining value to readership community at large that the author has created; and

compensating the author according to determined value.

35. A method as claimed in claim 23 wherein the step of providing includes rotating authored works or removing authored works based on respective expiration threshold.

36. A method as claimed in claim 35 wherein the expiration threshold is any one of:

a predefined number of times an authored work is seen by overall reader user community;

a predefined number of times an authored work is seen by an individual reader user; and

an elapsed time since the authored work was published.

37. A method as claimed in claim 36 wherein reader users may include registered users and/or non-registered users, and registered users may be weighted differently than non-registered users.

38. A method as claimed in claim 35 wherein authored works of different taxonomical categories or tags expire at different times.

39. A method as claimed in claim 23 wherein the step of providing includes for each authored work, limiting respective audience according to author designations of readers.

40. A method as claimed in claim 23 further comprising an author compensation subsystem, said subsystem compensating an author based on how many advertisements appearing next to that author'"'"'s authored works are selected by readers.

41. A method as claimed in claim 23 further comprising an author compensation subsystem, said subsystem compensating an author based on the percent of ad fees received for the advertisements displayed next to the author'"'"'s authored works.

42. A computer system for publishing content in a global computer network, the system comprising:

a computer member providing to readers on-line reading access to a plurality of authored works, different authored works having different respective authors;

a rating module coupled to the computer member, for each authored work, the rating module (i) obtaining multiple area ratings from each reader of the authored work and (ii) making a determination of quality of the authored work based on the obtained multiple area ratings across readers;

wherein the multiple areas of the ratings include any of;

rating the authored work as serious or humorous,

rating writing quality,

rating presentation,

rating the authored work as conservative or liberal,

rating suitability for different audiences or age groups,

rating to evaluate compliance with one or more standards,

rating to indicate how well the authored work was categorized,

rating to indicate the accuracy of facts presented in the authored work,

rating to indicate the uniqueness of the author'"'"'s perspective, and

rating to indicate the quotability of the author'"'"'s content.

43. A computer system as claimed in claim 42 wherein the ratings may vary by tag or keyword.

44. A computer system as claimed in claim 42 wherein the rating module records readers ratings and expert ratings and differentiates between them.

45. A computer system as claimed in claim 42 wherein the rating module is coupled to a search engine and effects order of a subject authored work in display of search results based on respective obtained multiple area ratings and observed popularity across readers.

46. A computer system as claimed in claim 45 further comprising a filter for filtering out authored works of low quality such that search results demote or omit low quality authored works.

47. A computer system as claimed in claim 45 wherein if the subject authored work is rated better than other authored works based on obtained multiple area ratings and observed popularity, then the rating module promotes the subject authored work through a hierarchy of the computer member ahead of said other authored works.

48. A computer system as claimed in claim 47 wherein said promotion is done one of site-wide, within a taxonomical category or within a list of authored works related to a keyword or set of keywords.

49. A computer system as claimed in claim 47 wherein the rating module further identifies to editors of a website the promoted authored works such that the authored works may be further promoted and/or featured on other parts of the website or in email.

50. A computer system as claimed in claim 42 further comprising an author compensation subsystem, said subsystem compensating an author based on the obtained multiple area ratings across readers and/or observed popularity across readers of an authored work by that author.

51. A computer system as claimed in claim 50 wherein the author compensation subsystem further measures quality, popularity and frequency of writing of individual authors and therefrom ranks each author.

52. A computer system as claimed in claim 42 further comprising an author compensation subsystem, said subsystem compensating an author for a given authored work based on advertising revenue generated by the given authored work.

53. A computer system as claimed in claim 42 wherein the computer member rotates authored works based on respective expiration thresholds, the computer member rotating authored works differently for different users, showing each user the authored works only a set number of times before rotation.

54. A computer system as claimed in claim 42 wherein the computer member enables a user to navigate through the plurality of authored works based on ratings, author ratings, topics of authored works and/or by faceted or polymorphic searches.

55. A computer system as claimed in claim 42 wherein the computer member provides assistance to users by ordering authored works or by filtering them based on user-definable characteristics and by allowing user subscriptions on any of authors, topics and/or keywords used to find these authored works.

56. A computer system as claimed in claim 42, wherein the rating module further enables a reader user to indicate an authored work as miscategorized, mistagged, in violation of copyright, or in violation of other standards.

57. A computer system as claimed in claim 56, wherein if an authored work is indicated more than a threshold amount, than the authored work is placed under review, the threshold amount being with respect to a predetermined number or a percent of readers viewing the authored work.

58. A computer system as claimed in claim 56, wherein if an authored work is indicated as being mistagged, the computer member initiates at least one of removal of the authored work, citing the authored work as having an illegitimate tag, and removal of the illegitimate tag.

59. The computer system as claimed in claim 58, wherein the computer member further enables review of author of the authored work for abuse of tags and/or review of the reader user who indicated the authored work as being mistagged.

60. A computer system for publishing content in a global computer network, the system comprising:

a computer member providing to users on-line reading access to a plurality of authored works, different authored works having different respective authors; and

a navigation means coupled to the computer member for enabling a user to navigate through the plurality of authored works based on ratings, author ratings, topics of authored works and/or by polymorphic or faceted searches.

61. A computer system as claimed in claim 60 wherein the navigation means orders authored works or filters them based on user-definable characteristics, and

the computer member allows subscriptions on authors, topics, and/or keywords used to find the authored works.

62. A computer system for publishing content in a global computer network, the system comprising:

a computer member providing to users on-line reading access to a plurality of authored works, different authored works having different respective authors; and

an author rating module for ranking authors based on any combination of;

recency of authored works,

topic-specific popularity of authored works,

topic-specific quality of authored works and

rankings over a period of time.

63. A computer system for publishing content in a global computer network, comprising:

a computer member providing to readers online reading access to a plurality of authored works, different authored works having different respective authors; and

means for enabling a reader to optionally make a payment to an author as a gesture regarding a given authored work by the author.

64. A computer system as claimed in claim 63 wherein the payment is in points.

65. A computer system as claimed in claim 63 wherein the payment is in currency units.

66. A computer system as claimed in claim 63 wherein the gesture is considered one of respect, gratitude and encouragement to publish additional authored works and reported to the author or other readers or both, either anonymously or naming the tipper.

67. A computer system as claimed in claim 63 wherein the means further displays to readers an average payment an author has received as averaged across all of his authored works and/or a maximum payment an author has received for an individual authored work.

68. A computer system as claimed in claim 67, wherein the means further groups and lists authors having similar average and/or maximum payment sizes, and the means displays at least one of indications of relative sizes of payments and actual maximum payment.

69. A computer system as claimed in claim 63, wherein the means reports to

authors which authored works or subjects they have received the greatest volume of payments, the greatest average size payments, and the greatest total payments.

70. A computer system as claimed in claim 63, wherein average or total payments are a metric for quality of author measurement and/or quality of authored work measurement.

71. A computer system as claimed in claim 63, wherein total of payments is a metric for determining popularity of the authored work and/or author.

72. A computer system as claimed in claim 63 wherein the means further calculates authors earnings per word based on payments and/or other points awarded by the system.

73. A computer system as claimed in claim 63, wherein the means further calculates author'"'"'s earnings based on advertisement appearing next to authored works by the author.

74. A computer system for publishing content in a global computer network, the system comprising:

a computer member providing to users on-line reading access to a plurality of authored works, different authored works having different respective authors; and

organization means coupled to the computer member for organizing each authored work using a standardized set of taxonomical categories and/or using one or more author selected keywords.

75. A computer system as claimed in claim 74 wherein reader users further organize the authored works by suggesting alternative taxonomical categorizations and/or alternative keywords.

76. A computer system as claimed in claim 75 wherein the alternative suggestions are weighted differently than author suggested taxonomical categorizations and keywords.

77. A computer system as claimed in claim 75 wherein only the top certain number of keywords most frequently suggested are displayed in ranked lists for navigational purposes, the ranked lists including a list of keywords most often published by, a list of keywords most often commented on, a list of keywords most often selected by readers, a list of keywords most often searched on and/or a list of keywords most often forwarded in email messages.

78. A computer system as claimed in claim 75 wherein in response to author selected keywords and reader users suggested keywords for an authored work, the organization means provides additional keywords for selectable use as tags to the authored work.

79. A computer system as claimed in claim 78 wherein for each additional keyword, when not selected by the author or a reader user, the organization means marks the additional keyword as negatively correlated to the authored work.

80. A computer system as claimed in claim 79 wherein the negative correlation grows stronger each time the organization means suggests additional keywords to the author or reader user and the additional keywords are not selected by the user.

81. A computer system as claimed in claim 74 wherein the organization means further identifies multiple different spellings of a word including misspellings, the organization means linking each identified different spelling to a most frequently used, properly spelled term for that word and displays that term instead of other spellings.

82. A computer system as claimed in claim 74 wherein in response to a user using a keyword in operations of the computer member, the organization means presents a list of additional keywords that often appear together with the keyword, the additional keywords being user selectable for further specifying operations of the computer member.

83. A computer system as claimed in claim 82 wherein upon user selection of one of the listed additional keywords, the organization means present further additional keywords for additional user selection.

84. A computer system as claimed in claim 74 further comprising facets for filtering authored works provided by the computer member, the facets helping users to narrow subsets of available authored works, the facets filtering or sorting by any combination of quality, date, topic, time, recency of publication, length of publication, author rating, authored work rating, media type, authors per media type, degrees of separation between author and user, reader rating, amount of tips received by the authored work, association with an organization, or membership within a group.

85. A computer system as claimed in claim 84 wherein the facets are further used to order authored works.

86. A computer system as claimed in claim 84 wherein there are different sets of facets for each user selection of an individual facet.

87. A computer system as claimed in claim 74 wherein the computer member displays to a user a list of authored works or summaries of authored works organized by any combination of the user'"'"'s interests, relationships, expressed or inferred interest in certain authors and expressed or inferred interest in certain topic areas or keywords.

88. A global computer network system for publishing content, comprising:

a computer member providing to users on-line reading access to a plurality of authored works, different authored works having different respective authors; and

a scarcity determination member coupled to the computer member, the scarcity determination member determining and displaying to users topic areas of authored works or keywords of authored works for which reader user demand is greater than author user supply.

89. A global computer network system as claimed in claim 88 wherein the scarcity determination member determines reader user demand in a topic area or keyword by counting any combination of number of times the keyword or topic area is searched on, number of times the keyword or topic area is selected by a reader user, and number of times the keyword or topic area is commented on;

and

the scarcity determination member determines author user supply in the topic area or keyword based on number of authored works published in the computer member under the topic area or keyword.

90. A global computer network system as claimed in claim 88 wherein the reader user demand and author user supply may be according to media type.

91. A global computer network system as claimed in claim 88 wherein reader user demand includes ad demand.

92. A global computer network system as claimed in claim 88 wherein the scarcity determination member determines and displays to members of a group topic areas of authored works or keywords of authored works for which group member demand is greater than group member supply.

93. A global computer network system as claimed in claim 88 wherein the computer member provides traffic reporting for authored works by a user, the traffic reporting includes indications of number of times his authored works have been viewed by reader users, number of times his authored works have received comments, number of times his authored works have been forwarded in an email message, number of bookmarks to his authored works, ratings of his authored works, number of times his authored works have been rated and rewards generated by his authored works, the rewards noted individually or collectively.

94. A computer system for publishing content in a global computer network, the system comprising:

a computer member providing to users on-line reading access to a plurality of authored works, different authored works having different respective authors, the computer member having an authoring subsystem in which authors compose respective authored works; and

an ad targeting module coupled to the authoring subsystem, the ad targeting module identifying to authors authored works for attracting reader users that are most easily monetized and for bringing the greatest return, such that the ad targeting module provides an incentive for authors.

95. A computer system as claimed in claim 94 further comprising a compensation module coupled to the computer member, the compensation module providing variable compensation to an author of an authored work based on the value of the authored work to advertisers.

96. A computer system as claimed in claim 94 wherein the ad targeting module enables authors to determine topic categories or keywords with greatest financial return.

97. A global computer network system for enabling user browsing of published content, comprising:

a relations module for defining relationships among users including authors, each given user having a relationship with at least one other user or being within an arbitrarily defined number of degrees of separation of another user, and a relationship being defined by a user subscribing to a certain author and becoming a subscriber thereof; and

a computer module providing to users on-line reading access to a plurality of authored works, different authored works having different respective authors, wherein the computer module determines popularity of authors and displays to a given user an indication of the most popular author overall or within a topic area or keyword.

99. A computer system as claimed in claim 97 wherein the computer module displays an indication of any combination of (i) an indication of authors that are rising or falling in popularity most quickly overall or within a topic area, (ii) an indication of authors who have fastest growing subscriber base;

(iii) an indication of authored works that are rising or falling in popularity most quickly overall or within a topic area;

(iv) an indication of keywords that are rising or falling in popularity most quickly overall or within a topic area;

(v) an indication of author or authored work with jump in rank; and

(vi) an indication of change in rankings of authored works.

100. A computer system as claimed in claim 97 wherein the relations module notifies the subscriber of updates made by the certain author on the computer module or within any topic or keyword classification on the system.

101. A computer system as claimed in claim 97 wherein the relations module enables each author to see a list of his subscribers.

102. A computer system as claimed in claim 97 wherein each subscriber has a subscription with a respective author, the relations module displaying an indication of each user'"'"'s subscriptions.

103. A computer system as claimed in claim 97 wherein the relations module enables a user to subscribe to an authored work, and the relations module alerts the user when the authored work is updated, said alerts being by email or alternative messaging means.

104. A computer system as claimed in claim 103 wherein an authored work is sent alongside the alerts, the authored work being prioritized based on quality, popularity, closeness of the user relationship to the author, or interest rankings of the user with the author.

105. A computer system as claimed in claim 97 wherein the relations module allows an arbitrary group for defining relations among a subset of users.

106. A computer system as claimed in claim 105 wherein the group is personal and users do not know they are a member of the group.

107. A computer system as claimed in claim 105 wherein the group is public, members confirming their membership before they are members of the group;

and

the group is searchable by any of a group name, tag or keyword, authored works of the group, number of members, publishing rate of the group and commenting rate.

108. A computer system as claimed in claim 107 wherein membership of the group is viewable by all group members.

109. A computer system as claimed in claim 107 wherein each group is allowed to publish authored works into a respective location for the entire group to view and each group member is allowed to comment on the authored works.

110. A computer system as claimed in claim 107 wherein creator of the group may disable the ability for group members to publish to the group to control group content, and

wherein the creator of the group may have approval authority to approve authored works submitted to the group before such authored works are published for viewing by group members.

111. A computer system as claimed in claim 109 wherein the authored works are viewable by group members according to any of:

tag or keyword;

rank in quality;

rank in popularity;

rank in number of subscriptions;

rank in quality of author;

rank in popularity of author;

rank in number of subscriptions to author.

112. A computer system as claimed in claim 107 wherein creator of the group may make the group'"'"'s authored works available for viewing by non-group members.

113. A computer system as claimed in claim 107 wherein members of the group can invite others to join the group, and creator of the group may set preferences allowing users who are non-members to apply for group membership.

114. A computer system as claimed in claim 97 wherein the computer module further receives authored work by a given user published elsewhere and includes the authored work in that user'"'"'s set of authored works on the computer system.

115. A computer system as claimed in claim 97 wherein the relations module measures strength of one user'"'"'s connection to another user by evaluating any combination of:

frequency of the one user sending instant messaging/email to the other user;

time between receipt of message and opening of the message;

time between receipt of message and reply to the message;

time between when the one user sends a message to the other user and that other user opens the message; and

time between when the one user sends a message to the other user and that other user replies.

116. A computer system as claimed in claim 115 wherein the relations module defines asymmetrical strength of connection between two users.

98. A computer system as claimed in 97 wherein the computer module determines popularity of authored works and displays to the given user an indication of the most popular authored work overall, within a topic area, by media type or per keyword.

117. A computer system for enabling user browsing of published content, comprising

a computer module providing to users on-line reading access to a plurality of authored works, different authored works having different respective authors;

and

means for enabling a reader user to indicate on an authored work that he has read the authored work, resulting in an indication that is visible to any combination of other users and author of the authored work.

118. A computer system as claimed in claim 117 wherein the means allows the reader user to selectably indicate on the authored works.

119. A computer system as claimed in claim 117 wherein reports to an author generated by the computer module shows the indications of reader users reading authored works by the author, the reports allowing an author to browse profiles of reader users.

120. A computer system as claimed in claim 119 wherein the reports aggregate the profiles of reader users showing aggregated data for those users.

121. A computer system as claimed in claim 119 wherein the author is able to substantially automatically target advertising based on profiles of reader users.

122. A computer system as claimed in claim 117 wherein the indications are shown on a reader user'"'"'s profile such that others can see what that user has read.

123. A computer system as claimed in claim 117 wherein the computer module further enables users to subscribe to the indications of other users, to see what people they like or have an interest in are reading most frequently.

124. A computer system as claimed in claim 117 wherein authors can see keywords most often used by reader users of their authored works.

125. A computer system for enabling user browsing of global computer network published content comprising:

a computer module providing to users on-line reading access to a plurality of published content including authored works, different authored works having different respective authors; and

bookmarking means for enabling a user to earmark published content of the computer module, said earmarking resulting in a respective bookmark indication per published content, each bookmark indication being visible to any combination of the user, other users and authors.

126. A computer system as claimed in claim 125 wherein the bookmarking means enables the user to selectably make visible to other users and authors each bookmark indication.

127. A computer system as claimed in claim 125 wherein the computer module enables users to comment on and rate quality of bookmark indications.

128. A computer system as claimed in claim 125 wherein the computer module further measures popularity of bookmark indications.

129. A computer system as claimed in claim 125 wherein the computer module further displays lists of bookmark indications based on popularity and/or quality rating.

130. A computer system as claimed in claim 129 wherein the computer module further provides (i) an indication of bookmark indication having greatest increase in popularity and/or quality rank, and (ii) an indication of bookmark indication having greatest decline in popularity and/or quality rank.

131. A global computer network system for publishing content comprising:

computer means operable in a global computer network, for enabling network users to produce respective authored works that are viewable by other network users, a network user being an author-user in connection with producing a respective authored work and a network user being a reader-user when viewing an authored work;

a data store coupled to the computer means for storing authored works and user preferences; and

content saving means responsive to authored works being produced in the computer means, the content saving means automatically storing to the data store authored works being produced, said automatic storing being either on a timed schedule or based on amount of content, to avoid losing content.

132. A global computer network system as claimed in claim 131 wherein the content saving means includes automatically storing to the data store network user preferences or other content expressed by network users in the computer means to avoid loss of user-indicated preferences.