Content generation revenue sharing

• US 20070219863A1
• Filed: 03/31/2006
• Published: 09/20/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 03/20/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Inventors: Park, Joseph, Leong, Kian
• Granted Patent: US 8,930,282 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/14.110
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0208 Trade or exchange of goods or services in exchange for incentives or rewards
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0214 Referral reward systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0235 constrained by time limit or expiration date
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0251 Targeted advertisements

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, users are compensated for participating in interactions with the answer-providing service in various ways, including by sharing a portion of an ongoing revenue stream generated from an answer to a question with users who provided responses that are used as part of the answer. In some situations, the sharing of an ongoing revenue stream related to an answer may be split between the users who provided the responses for the answer in various manners, including based on assessed levels of expertise of those users.

Claims

1. A method for a computing system of an answer-providing service to compensate third-party users who provide responses used in answers to questions submitted by other third-party users, the compensating being based at least in part on an ongoing revenue stream generated from the answers over a period of time, the method comprising:

receiving multiple requests from third-party requester users that each specify a question to be answered and one or more tags associated with the question for use in identifying a category for the question;

for each question specified by a request,

obtaining multiple responses to the question that are provided by multiple third-party response provider users;

completing the request by identifying multiple of the obtained responses to be used as an answer to the question and by providing an indication of the answer to the requester user from whom the request was received; and

automatically allocating experience points specific to the question as a reward to each of the multiple third-party response provider users who provided the identified responses, the allocated experience points being associated with the identified category for the question such that a total number of experience points allocated to a response provider user in a category represents a level of experience of that response provider user in that category;

using at least some of the answers to the questions to generate an ongoing revenue stream from one or more revenue sources other than the requester users from whom the requests were received that specified those questions; and

for each of the answers used to generate the ongoing revenue stream, automatically periodically compensating the response provider users who provided the responses used as the answer in such a manner as to split a portion of the revenue stream between those response provider users in such a manner as to reflect levels of experience of those response provider users for the identified category of the question for the answer, the levels of experience of those response provider users for an identified category being represented by the total number of experience points allocated to each of those response provider users for that identified category,

so that response provider users who provide responses used in answers to questions of requester users are compensated at least in part by periodic portions of ongoing revenue streams generated using the answers that are split to reflect levels of experience of the response provider users.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the using of the at least some answers to generate the ongoing revenue stream involves presenting those answers along with one or more advertisements to users other than the requester users from whom the requests were received that specified the questions for those answers, and receiving one or more revenue payments for the presented advertisements.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein one of the multiple requests from a requester user specifies a monetary reward from the requester user for answering the question specified by the one request, and wherein the method further comprises compensating the response provider users who provided the identified responses for the answer to the question in such a manner as to split at least a portion of the monetary reward between those response provider users in such a manner as to reflect at least one of a level of uniqueness of the responses provided by those response provider users, a level of quality of the responses provided by those response provider users, and a level of timeliness of the responses provided by those response provider users.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein one of the multiple requests from a requester user specifies a number of experience points from the requester user as a reward for answering the question specified by the one request, and wherein the automatic allocating of the experience points to the multiple third-party response provider users who provided the identified responses for the answer to the question involves splitting the specified number of experience points between those response provider users in such a manner as to reflect at least one of a level of uniqueness of the responses provided by those response provider users, a level of quality of the responses provided by those response provider users, and a level of timeliness of the responses provided by those response provider users.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein for each of the answers used to generate the ongoing revenue stream, the portion of the revenue stream that is split among response provider users who provided the responses used as the answer is a portion of the revenue stream that is generated specific to the answer.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the automatic periodic compensating of the response provider users who provided responses used as an answer to a question occurs for a predetermined period of time after the answer is generated.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein the response provider users who provided the responses used as the answer have distinct levels of expertise for an identified category of the question, and wherein the predetermined period of time during which the response provider users are compensated for the answer varies for each of the response provider users depending on the level of expertise of the response provider user.

8. The method of claim 1 further comprising, for at least some of the questions, receiving one or more indications of feedback from the requester user who specified the question regarding responses to be used as part of the answer to the question.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein at least some of the questions are each associated with multiple categories, wherein the automatic allocating of the experience points for each of the at least some questions includes splitting the experience points among the multiple categories for the question such that each of the response provider users who provided the identified responses for the answer to the question is allocated experience points in each of the multiple categories for the question, and wherein the automatic periodic compensating of the response provider users who provided responses used as the answer to one of the at least some questions is performed in such a manner as to split a portion of the revenue stream for the answer among the multiple categories for the question such that those response provider users reach compensation for each of the multiple categories so as to reflect relative levels of experience of those response provider users for the category.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein at least some of the questions are related to local searches for availability of one or more services and/or one or more products.

11. A method for compensating users who provide responses to questions from other users based at least in part on revenue streams from the responses, the method comprising:

receiving indications of multiple questions supplied by multiple users;

for each of the questions, responding to the question by

obtaining multiple responses to the question that are provided by multiple users other than the user who supplied the question; and

identifying at least some of the obtained responses to be used as part of an answer to the question, the answer being associated with one or more categories;

obtaining a revenue stream; and

for each of one or more answers, compensating at least some of the users who each provided a response used in the answer in a manner based at least in part on a portion of the revenue stream and on assessed experience of each of the at least some users with respect to the one or more categories associated with the answer.

12. The method of claim 11 further comprising, for each of the questions, automatically allocating experience points for the question as a reward to each of at least some of the users who provided a response used in the answer for the question.

13. The method of claim 12 wherein the experience points allocated for a question to a user are each associated with at least one of the one or more categories for the answer to the question, such that a total number of experience points allocated to a user for a category represents assessed experience of the user in that category.

14. The method of claim 11 wherein the compensating of users who provided responses used in answers occurs periodically.

15. The method of claim 11 wherein the compensating of the at least some users who each provided a response used in an answer ends after a predetermined period of time.

16. The method of claim 15 wherein at least some users have varying levels of experience for a category such that one or more of the users each have a preferred level of experience for the category, and further comprising extending the predetermined period of time for the one or more users who have the preferred level of experience.

17. The method of claim 11 further comprising, for each of at least some of the answers, providing a reward specific to the answer to at least some of the users who each provided a response used in the answer, the provided reward being distinct from the compensating based on a portion of the revenue stream.

18. The method of claim 17 wherein each of the multiple questions supplied by the multiple users has an associated reward specified by the user who supplied the question, and wherein, for each of the at least some answers, the providing of the reward to the at least some users who each provided a response used in the answer includes splitting the associated reward for the question corresponding to the answer such that each of the at least some users receives a portion of the associated reward.

19. The method of claim 11 wherein obtained responses are each of at least one of multiple types that include one or more URLs, one or more phone numbers, one or more opinions, one or more email addresses, and one or more offline citations, one or more photos, one or more maps, one or more image files for images of types other than photos or maps, one or more audio files, one or more video files, one or more pieces of active content, and one or more links to external content, and wherein the obtained responses for one of the questions include multiple responses from one user.

20. The method of claim 11 further comprising, for each of at least one of the questions, receiving feedback from the user who supplied the question related to at least one of the responses obtained for the question, and altering the assessed experience of at least one user who provided the at least one responses based on the feedback.

21. The method of claim 20 wherein received feedback for a response includes at least one of that the response is best among responses received for a question, that the response is unhelpful, and that the response is abusive.

22. The method of claim 11 further comprising, for each of at least one of the questions, receiving feedback from the user who supplied the question related to at least one of the responses obtained for the question, and wherein the identifying of the at least some obtained responses for use with the answer for the question includes excluding at least one of the obtained responses from the answer based on the feedback.

23. The method of claim 11 further comprising, for each of at least one of the questions, receiving feedback from the user who supplied the question related to at least one of the responses obtained for the question, and altering an amount of compensation of at least one user who provided the at least one responses based on the feedback.

24. The method of claim 11 further comprising, for each of at least one of the questions, receiving feedback from the user who supplied the question related to at least one of the users who provided one of the responses obtained for the question, and altering the assessed experience of the at least one users based on the feedback.

25. The method of claim 11 wherein at least some of the supplied questions each have additional information associated with the question, the additional information including at least one of a time limit for the question to be answered, one or more tags associated with the question for use in determining the one or more categories associated with the answer, and information about the user that supplied the question.

26. The method of claim 11 wherein the obtaining of the revenue stream is based on use of at least some of the answers to the questions, and wherein the one or more answers for which the compensating is performed are each one of the at least some answers used for the obtaining of the revenue stream.

27. The method of claim 26 wherein the obtaining of the revenue stream based on use of at least some of the answers involves presenting to numerous users one or more of the at least some answers along with one or more advertisements.

28. The method of claim 27 wherein the revenue stream is provided by one or more advertisers who supply the advertisements.

29. The method of claim 11 wherein the compensating of at least some users who each provided a response used in an answer includes:

determining an amount of the portion of the revenue stream for the answer; and

for each of the one or more categories associated with the answer,

determining a percentage of the revenue stream portion amount for the category;

determining a relative ranking of the at least some'"'"'users with respect to the category; and

automatically allocating the determined percentage of the revenue stream portion amount between the at least some users based at least in part on the determined relative ranking of those users.

30. The method of claim 29 wherein the determining of the amount of the portion of the revenue stream for the answer includes determining a portion of the revenue stream that is attributable to the answer.

31. The method of claim 11 wherein the compensating of at least some users who each provided a response used in an answer includes providing to those users an amount of money.

32. The method of claim 11 wherein each of the users who supplies a question is a requester user, and wherein at least some of the users who provide a response to a question are each a response provider user.

33. The method of claim 11 wherein at least some of the questions supplied by the multiple users includes questions relating to local availability of at least one of one or more products and one or more services.

34. The method of claim 11 wherein the method is automatically performed by one or more computing systems of an answer-providing service.

35. The method of claim 11 wherein at least some of the multiple questions supplied by multiple users include at least one of a question that does not end with a question mark, a question that contains multiple inquiries, a question that is a statement inviting a response, and a question that is a description of a problem to be solved.

36. The method of claim 11 wherein the responding to each of the questions includes providing the answer to the question to the user who supplied the question.

37. A computer-readable medium whose contents enable a computing device to compensate users who provide responses to requests from other users based at least in part on revenue generated from the responses, by performing a method comprising:

receiving an indication of a request supplied by a first user;

responding to the request by generating a reply based on one or more responses obtained from one or more users other than the first user;

generating revenue from one or more sources other than the first user; and

compensating at least some of the users who provided the identified responses in a manner based at least in part on a portion of the generated revenue and on assessed experience of each of the at least some users.

38. The computer-readable medium of claim 37 wherein the request includes a question and the reply includes an answer to the question, and wherein the reply includes multiple responses received from multiple users other than the first user.

39. The computer-readable medium of claim 38 wherein the generating of the revenue from the one or more sources other than the first user is based on use of the reply, and wherein assessed experience of each of the at least some users is based at least in prior on prior responses obtained from those users for other requests.

40. The computer-readable medium of claim 37 wherein the reply is associated with one or more categories, and wherein the method further comprises automatically allocating one or more experience points as a reward to each of the users who provided a response used as part of the reply, the allocated experience points being associated with the one or more categories for the reply.

41. The computer-readable medium of claim 37 wherein the computer-readable medium is a memory of a computing device.

42. The computer-readable medium of claim 37 wherein the computer-readable medium is a data transmission medium transmitting a generated data signal containing the contents.

43. The computer-readable medium of claim 37 wherein the contents are instructions that when executed cause the computing device to perform the method.

44. The computer-readable medium of claim 37 wherein the contents include one or more data structures for use in determining the assessed experience of each of the users within categories, the data structure comprising one or more entries that each correspond to a category and contain information comprising a number of experience points associated with the category that are awarded to at least one user.

45. A computing system configured to compensate users who provide responses to questions from other users based at least in part on ongoing revenue generated from the responses, comprising:

a first component configured to respond to each of multiple questions that are each supplied by a user, by

obtaining one or more responses to the question from one or more users other than the user who supplied the question; and

identifying at least one of the one or more obtained responses to be used as an answer to the question; and

a second component configured to, for each of one or more answers used to generate ongoing revenue, compensate at least some of the users who each provided at least one response used in the answer with at least a portion of the ongoing revenue.

46. The computing system of claim 45 wherein each of the answers is associated with one or more categories, and wherein the compensating of the at least some users who each provided at least one response used in an answer is based at least in part on an assessed experience of each of the at least some users with respect to the one or more categories associated with the answer.

47. The computing system of claim 46 wherein, for at least some of the multiple questions, multiple responses are obtained from multiple users other than the user who supplied the question, and wherein the first component is further configured to respond to each of the at least some questions by generating the answer to the question based on combining the multiple responses obtained for the question.

48. The computing system of claim 45 wherein the first and second components each include software instructions for execution in memory of the computing system.

49. The computing system of claim 45 wherein the first component consists of a means for responding to each of multiple questions that are each supplied by a user, by obtaining one or more responses to the question from one or more users other than the user who supplied the question, and identifying at least one of the one or more obtained responses to be used as an answer to the question, and wherein the second component consists of a means for, for each of one or more answers used to generate ongoing revenue, compensating at least some of the users who provided a response used in the answer with at least a portion of the ongoing revenue.