Computer method and system for publishing content on a global computer network

• US 20070118802A1
• Filed: 11/07/2006
• Published: 05/24/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 11/08/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Rakuten Group, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Gather, Inc.
• Inventors: Gagnon, Francois, Barbour, Russell, Marstall, Christopher, Gerace, Thomas
• Granted Patent: US 10,740,723 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/738
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/245 Query processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/248 Presentation of query results
• 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 30/0204 Market segmentation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0269 based on user profile or attribute
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0273 Determination of fees for advertising

Abstract

A computer system for publishing content includes a categorization member, a rating module, a user profiling assembly and a suggested-reading engine. The categorization member enables an author-user and reader-users of an authored work to categorize content of the authored work using a fixed taxonomy, keywords, tags and/or keyword combinations. The rating module enables reader-users to rate authored works and makes a determination of quality of each authored work in the system. Rating includes reader-user response activity such as number of times the reader recommends, forwards or otherwise effectively promotes the authored work. The user profiling assembly measures words and word combinations used (written or read) by a user and generates therefrom a profile of the user. The suggested-reading engine is responsive to the rating module and provides a ranked list of suggested reading (authored works) for a user. The suggested reading is based on the user'"'"'s ratings of authored works, respective relevance of authored works to the user and editorial promotion of certain articles/authored works.

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;

a categorization member coupled to the computer means and for each authored work produced through the computer means, enabling a respective author-user of the authored work to categorize content of the authored work, the author-user assigning one or more keywords to the authored work.

2. A computer system as claimed in claim 1 wherein the categorization member further enables reader-users to re-categorize authored works by suggesting alternative taxonomical categories and/or alternative keywords including new categories.

3. A computer system as claimed in claim 2 wherein the recategorization must be suggested a threshold number of times.

4. A computer system as claimed in claim 1 wherein the computer means displays a taxonomical categorization of a given authored work in a manner that enables users to select any level of that categorization;

and

in response to said user selection, the computer means enables display of other authored works similarly categorized as each other.

5. A computer system as claimed in claim 1 wherein the categorizer member enables content of an authored work to be categorized by one or more keywords or one or more key phrases, and

the computer means enables users to search by or navigate by the one or more keywords and key phrases.

6. A computer system as claimed in claim 5 wherein a keyword is assigned to a bookmarked authored work such that the keyword enables subsequent searching for the authored work.

7. A computer system as claimed in claim 5 wherein keywords assigned to an authored work are stored as meta data of the authored work.

8. A computer system as claimed in claim 5 wherein the computer means displays in rank order keywords assigned to an authored work.

9. A computer system as claimed in claim 8 wherein a default rank is given to author-user assigned keywords.

10. A computer system as claimed in claim 5 wherein the computer means displays the keywords of an authored work and is responsive to a user operating on a displayed keyword, the computer means in response initiating a search and displaying search results.

11. A computer system as claimed in claim 10 wherein the search results include a list of other keywords;

and

wherein the computer means enables a user to utilize the other keywords for narrowing or adjusting the search.

12. A computer system as claimed in claim 1 wherein the authored work is categorized by the author-user according to geography.

13. A computer system as claimed in claim 12 wherein geography categories include common geographic boundaries, culturally expressed boundaries, distances from a certain location, author-user'"'"'s hometown, author-user'"'"'s current location and/or author-user'"'"'s areas of frequent travel.

14. A computer system as claimed in claim 13 wherein the computer means automatically provides a list of the geography categories in total or part.

15. A computer system as claimed in claim 1 wherein the authored work is categorized by the author-user according to demographics of audience of interest.

16. A computer system as claimed in claim 1 wherein the authored work is categorized by the author-user according to target audience maturity level.

17. A computer system as claimed in claim 16 wherein the computer means further allows users to search for authored works based on maturity level category.

18. 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

publication distribution means coupled to the computer member, for each authored work, the publication distribution means enabling the respective author to designate which users are allowed to view the authored work.

19. A computer system as claimed in claim 18 wherein for a given authored work where the respective author is a member of a group, the publication distribution means allows other members of the group to view the authored work.

20. A computer system as claimed in claim 18 wherein the respective author designates users allowed to view the authored work as a function of degree of connection to the author.

21. 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; and

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

22. A computer system as claimed in claim 21 wherein the rating module employs an average rating across all readers of an authored work to determine quality of the authored work.

23. A computer system as claimed in claim 22 wherein a threshold number of readers must rate the authored work before the rating module makes a determination of quality of the authored work.

24. A computer system as claimed in claim 22 wherein the rating module normalizes the ratings based on reader population.

25. A computer system as claimed in claim 21 wherein the rating module further rates an author within a taxonomical category and/or within a keyword combination based on average rating of authored works by that author.

26. A computer system as claimed in claim 25 wherein the rating module obtains ratings from experts in addition to or instead of readers.

27. A computer system as claimed in claim 26 wherein the experts are a top certain number of authors on a taxonomical category and/or within a keyword combination.

28. A computer system as claimed in claim 27 wherein the top certain number is any of an absolute number, a fraction of all authors on a taxonomical category or all users.

29. A computer system as claimed in claim 26 wherein an expert is an author-user having (i) authored a threshold number of authored works, (ii) a threshold number of other users who have rated his authored works, or (iii) a threshold number of subscribers.

30. A computer system as claimed in claim 26 wherein an expert is a user who remains in a top certain percent of most popular authors on a taxonomical category.

31. A computer system as claimed in claim 26 wherein the rating module identifies an expert as a general expert or a site-wide expert.

32. A computer system as claimed in claim 26 wherein expert ratings are recorded and/or displayed separately from other reader ratings.

33. A computer system as claimed in claim 26 wherein the rating module rates an author based on how many times readers tip the author.

34. A computer system as claimed in claim 26 wherein one or more editors or experts promote certain ones of the authored works.

35. A computer system as claimed in claim 34 wherein the promotion may be done at variable levels across different experts or editors.

36. A computer system as claimed in claim 34 wherein a total of the promotion of a subject authored work is determined by a sum of activities by each promoting expert or editor.

37. A computer system as claimed in claim 34 wherein a total of the promotion of a subject authored work is determined by an average of activities by the promoting experts or editors.

38. A computer system as claimed in claim 21 wherein the rating module further offers an authored work for sale based on number of times other readers have paid to read the authored work.

39. A computer system as claimed in claim 21 wherein the rating module further determines popularity of an authored work based on any combination of how many times the authored work is read, bookmarked, forwarded, recommended among readers, commented on and/or subscribed to.

40. A computer system as claimed in claim 39 wherein the rating module ranks popularity within taxonomical categories, sitewide and within keyword combinations.

41. A computer system as claimed in claim 39 wherein authors and authored works are ranked by popularity within taxonomical categories and within keyword combinations.

42. A computer system as claimed in claim 41 wherein the rating module determines popularity of an author based on average popularity of his authored works.

43. A computer system as claimed in claim 41 wherein author popularity is further used to determine expert status of an author.

44. A computer system as claimed in claim 21 wherein the reading module includes in obtained ratings from a given reader, number of times the given reader recommends the authored work to other readers.

45. A computer system as claimed in claim 21 further comprising a suggested-reading engine coupled to the computer member and responsive to the rating module, the suggested-reading engine generating a ranked list of suggested authored works for a user based on at least one of users ratings of authored works, experts ratings of authored works, respective relevance of authored works to the user, and editorial promotion of certain authored works.

46. A computer system as claimed in claim 45 wherein the suggested-reading engine employs weights.

47. A computer system as claimed in claim 46 wherein the weights are automatically adjusted based on a measure of likelihood of the user to respond to the generated list.

48. A computer system as claimed in claim 45 wherein the list of suggested authored works may be with respect to (i) all authored works of the system, (ii) authored works within one taxonomical category, (iii) authored works of one keyword or keyword combination, (iv) authored works by a certain author, or (v) a user-selected subset of authored works.

49. A computer system as claimed in claim 45 wherein the suggested-reading engine generates the ranked list based on authored works viewed by one or more other users each having a respective profile similar to the profile of the user.

50. A computer system as claimed in claim 45 further comprising a compensation module coupled to the computer member for compensating a respective author based on quality, popularity and/or value to advertisers of the authored work.

51. A computer system as claimed in claim 21 wherein the rating module further ranks each author, for a given author, the rating module defining author'"'"'s rank based on an average of the ratings of all of his authored works;

and

the rating module making a determination of appropriateness of each author for each reader.

52. A computer system as claimed in claim 51 wherein, for a new authored work by a given author, the rating module initially assigns said average of the ratings.

53. A computer system as claimed in claim 52 wherein the rating module replaces the initial assignment for a new authored work with a subsequent determination of quality.

54. A computer system as claimed in claim 51 wherein the computer member provides to a reader access to authored works by an author based on the author'"'"'s rank and the determined appropriateness of this author for this reader.

55. A computer system as claimed in claim 51 wherein for a new author, the rating module initially ranks the new author based on (i) an average of author'"'"'s ranks of users related to or connected to the new author or (ii) a predefined default.

56. A computer system as claimed in claim 21 wherein the computer member alerts a user of an authored work achieving a total rating above a predefined threshold.

57. A computer system as claimed in claim 56 wherein the user is alerted by e-mail, pager or site notification.

58. A computer system as claimed in claim 21 wherein an editor may override the determinations of quality of authored works made by the rating module in favor of one or more subject work pieces.

59. A computer system as claimed in claim 58 wherein the computer member is responsive to the override and displays the subject work pieces recited at a top of a list to a current reader-user or grouped under a common header.

61. A computer system for profiling users 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 profiling assembly measuring (i) words and word combinations an author-user uses, and (ii) words and word combinations a reader-user reads, the profiling assembly generating a profile of a user based on said measured words and word combinations.

62. A computer system as claimed in claim 61 wherein the profiling assembly weights each word and word combination based on one of frequency of the word and word combination and recency of the word and word combination.

63. A computer system as claimed in claim 61 wherein the profiling assembly weights each word and word combination as a function of (i) a user bookmarking, forwarding, e-mailing or recommending an authored work that he is reading or (ii) a user tipping or subscribing to an author of authored works that he is reading.

64. A computer system as claimed in claim 61 wherein the computer means further identifies to each user other users with similar profiles.

65. A computer system as claimed in claim 61 further comprising a suggested-reading engine for generating a ranked list based on authored works viewed by one or more other users each having a respective profile similar to the profile of the user.

66. A computer method for publishing content comprising:

providing 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;

for each authored work produced through the computer means, enabling a respective author-user of the authored work to categorize content of the authored work by the author-user assigning one or more keywords to the authored work.

60. A computer system as claimed in claim 69 wherein the computer member allows the subject work pieces to remain visible to readers until either replaced or a predefined amount of time expires.

67. The method as claimed in claim 66 further comprising the step of enabling reader-users to re-categorize authored works by suggesting alternative taxonomical categories and/or alternative keywords including new categories.

68. A computer method as claimed in claim 66 wherein the authored work is categorized by the author-user according to geography and/or demographics.

69. A computer method as claimed in claim 66 wherein the step of providing includes using the computer means providing to users on-line reading access to a plurality of authored works, different authored works having different respective author-users;

and

further comprising the step of enabling the respective author-user to designate which users are allowed to view the authored work.

70. A computer method as claimed in claim 66 further comprising the steps of:

for each authored work, (i) obtaining ratings from each reader-user of the authored work and (ii) making a determination of quality of the authored work based on the obtained ratings across reader-users.

71. A computer method as claimed in claim 70 wherein the step of making a determination of quality employs an average rating across all readers of an authored work to determine quality of the authored work.

72. A computer method as claimed in claim 70 further comprising the step of rating an author-user within a taxonomical category and/or within a keyword combination based on average rating of authored works by that author-user.

73. A computer method claimed in claim 70 wherein the step of obtaining ratings obtains ratings from experts in addition to or instead of reader-users, and

wherein one or more experts are allowed to promote certain ones of the authored works.

74. A computer method as claimed in claim 70 further comprising the step of determining popularity of an authored work based on any combination of how many times the authored work is read, bookmarked, forwarded, recommended among reader-users, commented on and/or subscribed to.

75. A computer method as claimed in claim 74 wherein author-users and/or authored works are ranked by popularity within taxonomical categories and within keyword combinations.

76. A computer method as claimed in claim 74 wherein popularity of an author-user is determined based on average popularity of his authored works.

77. A computer method as claimed in claim 70 wherein the step of obtaining ratings from a given reader-user includes counting a number of times that the given reader-user recommends the authored work to other reader-users.

78. A computer method as claimed in claim 70 further comprising the step of generating a ranked list of suggested authored works for a reader-user based on at least one of reader-users ratings of authored works, experts ratings of authored works, respective relevance of authored works to the reader-user, and editorial promotion of certain authored works.

79. A computer method as claimed in claim 78 wherein the list of suggested authored works may be with respect to (i) all authored works of the system, (ii) authored works within one taxonomical category, (iii) authored works of one keyword or keyword combination, (iv) authored works by a certain author-user, or (v) a reader-user-selected subset of authored works.

80. A computer method as claimed in claim 66 further comprising the step of:

for a given reader-user, generating a ranked list of suggested reading based on authored works viewed by one or more other reader-users each having a respective profile similar to the profile of the given reader-user.

81. A computer method as claimed in claim 66 further comprising the step of measuring (i) words and word combinations an author-user uses, and (ii) words and word combinations a reader-user reads, and

generating a profile of a network user based on said measured words and word combinations.

82. A computer method as claimed in claim 81 further comprising the step of generating a list of suggested reading for the network user based on authored works viewed by one or more other users each having a respective profile similar to the profile of the network user.