Facilitating content generation via paid participation
First Claim
1. A method for a computing system of an answer-providing service to enable third-party users who provide services in a geographic area to elect on a pay-per-response basis to provide responses to questions submitted by other third-party users regarding services in the geographic area, the method comprising:
- for each of multiple third-party service providers who each perform services for others in a geographic area as a business, receiving one or more pay-per-response requests that each indicate a category of services, a geographic area, and a monetary amount that the service provider is willing to pay to the answer-providing service to provide a response to a question from a user regarding that category of services in that geographic area if the service provider affirmatively selects that question;
receiving from a third-party requester user a question for information regarding a category of services in a geographic area;
obtaining one or more responses to the question from each of multiple third-party response provider users who are rewarded for providing the responses;
identifying previously received pay-per-response requests from a first service provider and a second service provider that each match the received question such that the category of services and the geographic area for the question match the indicated category of services and the indicated geographic areas for those pay-per-response requests;
in response to the identifying, presenting the question to each of the first and second service providers as being available for paid response such that the first and second service providers can each affirmatively select to pay to be able to provide a response to the presented question; and
in response to a paid response provided by the first service provider as part of an affirmative selection by the first service provider and to an absence of a paid response provided by the second service provider, obtaining payment from the first service provider but not obtaining payment from the second service provider, the obtained payment being based on the indicated monetary amount for the identified pay-per-response request received from the first service provider; and
providing an answer to the question to the requester user, the answer including the paid response provided by the first service provider and at least some of the obtained responses from the answer-provider users.
1 Assignment
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
Techniques are described that facilitate generating useful content based on user interactions, such as by providing an answer-providing service that facilitates interactions between users who supply questions and users who supply responses to the questions of other users, as well as using the generated content in various ways. In some situations, some users of the answer-providing service are provided with pay-per-response functionality in which the user is allowed to elect on a per-question basis to include a paid response or other indicated information (e.g., advertisements) in an answer for a question in exchange for payment from the user, such as for use by merchants with questions that are related to products and/or services provided by the merchants.
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Citations
49 Claims
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1. A method for a computing system of an answer-providing service to enable third-party users who provide services in a geographic area to elect on a pay-per-response basis to provide responses to questions submitted by other third-party users regarding services in the geographic area, the method comprising:
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for each of multiple third-party service providers who each perform services for others in a geographic area as a business, receiving one or more pay-per-response requests that each indicate a category of services, a geographic area, and a monetary amount that the service provider is willing to pay to the answer-providing service to provide a response to a question from a user regarding that category of services in that geographic area if the service provider affirmatively selects that question;
receiving from a third-party requester user a question for information regarding a category of services in a geographic area;
obtaining one or more responses to the question from each of multiple third-party response provider users who are rewarded for providing the responses;
identifying previously received pay-per-response requests from a first service provider and a second service provider that each match the received question such that the category of services and the geographic area for the question match the indicated category of services and the indicated geographic areas for those pay-per-response requests;
in response to the identifying, presenting the question to each of the first and second service providers as being available for paid response such that the first and second service providers can each affirmatively select to pay to be able to provide a response to the presented question; and
in response to a paid response provided by the first service provider as part of an affirmative selection by the first service provider and to an absence of a paid response provided by the second service provider, obtaining payment from the first service provider but not obtaining payment from the second service provider, the obtained payment being based on the indicated monetary amount for the identified pay-per-response request received from the first service provider; and
providing an answer to the question to the requester user, the answer including the paid response provided by the first service provider and at least some of the obtained responses from the answer-provider users. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
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11. A method for enabling users to selectively pay to provide responses to questions of others, the method comprising:
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for each of multiple users, receiving a request from the user to be notified of questions matching indicated criteria such that the user will have an option to provide a response to a matching question in exchange for a payment from the user; and
for each of multiple questions supplied by multiple requesters, responding to the supplied question by, identifying one or more of the multiple users based on the supplied question matching the indicated criteria in the received request from each of the identified users;
notifying each of the identified users of the question such that the identified user can select to provide a paid response to the question in exchange for a payment from the identified user;
for each of the identified users who selects to provide a paid response to the question, obtaining a payment from the identified user;
obtaining one or more other responses to the question from one or more response provider users who do not provide payment for providing the other responses; and
providing an answer to the question to the requester, the answer being based at least in part on each paid response provided by one of the identified users and on at least one of the obtained other responses. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34)
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35. A computer-readable medium whose contents cause a computing device to enable users to selectively pay to provide responses to questions, by performing a method comprising:
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receiving an indication of a question from a requester;
identifying one or more users to each receive an option to elect to pay to provide a response for the question;
receiving an indication from each of at least one of the identified users that is specific to the question and that indicates that the identified user has elected to pay for an indicated response to be used in an answer to the question; and
generating an answer to the question based at least in part on the indicated responses for the at least one identified users. - View Dependent Claims (36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42)
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43. A computing device configured to enable users to selectively pay to provide replies to requests, comprising:
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a first component configured to receive an indication of a request from a requester, and to respond to the requester in a manner based on multiple replies received from multiple users; and
a second component configured to identify one or more users to each receive an option to elect to pay to provide one of the multiple replies for the request, to receive an indication from each of at least one of the identified users that is specific to the request and that indicates that the identified user has elected to pay for an indicated reply to be included as one of the multiple replies, and to obtain a payment from each of the at least one identified users for the indicated reply from the identified user. - View Dependent Claims (44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49)
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Specification