Presenting an interview question and answer session over a communications network

• US 20060257840A1
• Filed: 04/13/2006
• Published: 11/16/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 04/15/2005
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Jumbuck Entertainment Limited
• Original Assignee: Jumbuck Entertainment Limited
• Inventors: Risch, Adrian Paull, Richards, Timothy Gerard
• Application Number:
  US11/404,228
• Publication Number:
  US 20060257840A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 434/323
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising

Abstract

The present invention relates to presentation of an interview question and answer session over a communications network, particularly over a wireless network such as a 3G mobile telephone network. In one form, the invention allows multiple mobile telephone users to remotely supply questions to a specific interview topic, and to view or listen to the answers to supplied questions as part of an interview question and answer session at a prescribed session time. The questions are submitted to and stored by a computer application for central access and review by an interviewee. Answers to selected questions are input at a single time or over several points in time, and question and answer sets are stored, edited and queued by a system operator. At the prescribed session time, the computer application then serves to mobile telephone users, in sequence, the question and answer sets with a suitable time delay between each question and its respective answer in order to simulate a real time interview session. The invention has particular application in ‘celebrity chatrooms’, involving question and answer interview sessions with persons in the public eye (politicians, celebrities, etc).

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method of presenting an interview question and answer session over a communications network, comprising the steps of:

retrieving, from a database of pre-stored sets of questions and respective answers, a plurality of question and answer sets; and

forwarding said question and answer sets to one or more selected communications network users.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the communications network is a wireless network and the users are mobile network users each equipped with a mobile device.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising the steps, carried out before the retrieving and forwarding steps, of:

receiving, from multiple communication network users, respective questions over a communications network;

storing said questions;

providing said questions to an interviewee;

receiving answers to selected questions from the interviewee; and

storing the sets of questions and respective answers in the database.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising the step of queuing the stored question and answer sets by specifying the order in which the questions and answer sets are forwarded to said communication network users.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein the step of storing said questions comprises storing an associated user identification for each question.

6. The method of claim 3, further comprising the step, after the answer receiving step, of selectively editing the answers.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of advising said communications network users of a predetermined session time, wherein the forwarding step is commenced at said predetermined session time.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the forwarding step comprises delaying, for a prescribed time after which a particular question is forwarded, the forwarding of the respective answer.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the step of delaying forwarding a respective answer is performed by an instruction contained in or forwarded with the question, said instruction causing a device used by the communications network user to access the communications network and request, after said prescribed time, forwarding of the respective answer.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the step of delaying forwarding a respective answer is performed by waiting for the prescribed time after the forwarding of a question before forwarding the respective answer.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the question and answer sets are forwarded to the communications network users in text form, such as SMS or MMS format.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of, before the forwarding step, using a client formatter device to convert the question and answer sets into an appropriate format, and the forwarding of the question and answer sets is conducted by way of a server selected from the group of a markup language server, an SMS/MMS server, and a wireless server.

13. A computer-implemented system for presenting an interview question and answer session over a communications network, comprising:

a question receiver unit configured to receive questions from a plurality of system users;

a question storage unit configured to store said questions;

an interviewee interface unit configured to allow an interviewee to access said questions and input respective answers to one or more of said questions;

an answer receipt and storage unit configured to receive and store answers submitted by the interviewee in response to said questions, and to associate each stored answer with a respective stored question, to provide a queue of stored question and answer sets;

a broadcast unit configured to forward, to multiple system users, at a predetermined question and answer session time, successive questions and their respective answers.

14. A computer software product for presenting an interview question and answer session over a communications network, the software product comprising:

computer program code which, when executed, causes retrieval from a database of pre-stored sets of questions and respective answers at least one question and answer set; and

computer program code which, when executed, causes said set to be forwarded to one or more selected communications network users.

15. The computer software product of claim 14, comprising computer program code which, when executed, specifies the order in which the questions and answers are forwarded to the communications network users.

16. The computer software product of claim 14, further comprising computer program code which, when executed, delays the sending of an answer to a respective question for a predetermined time from the forwarding of the question.

17. The computer software product of claim 16, wherein the computer program code comprises an instruction that is contained in or forwarded with a question to a user device, and which when executed causes said device to access the communications network after the predetermined time and request the respective answer to be forwarded.

18. The computer software product of claim 14, further comprising:

computer program code which, when executed, causes storage of questions received from multiple communications network users;

computer program code which, when executed, causes provision of said questions to an interviewee;

computer program code which, when executed, causes storage of questions and respective answers in said database.

19. The computer software product of claim 14, further comprising computer program code which, when executed, causes the storage of an associated user identification for each question.