Business Social Network Advertising
First Claim
1. A method of enhancing participation in a web-based business network, the method comprising:
- maintaining a web-based social network of businesses, the social network comprising a plurality of relationships among a plurality of members, the plurality of members comprising a first member that is associated with a first business having a first physical location, the web-based social network further comprising a network web site, the network web site comprising a network web page associated with the first member, the first member further having associated therewith a commercial web site separate from the network web site;
placing paid advertisements on one or more web pages;
charging a fee for the placement of each paid advertisement;
providing an interface to allow each member to invite additional businesses to join the web-based social network;
allocating, to the first member, a first allocation of one or more advertisements for the first business, based on a determination that the first member has invited an additional business to joint the web-based social network;
periodically crawling, with a spider component, the commercial web site to identify content on the commercial web site;
analyzing a quality of content of the commercial web site;
based on an analysis of the quality of the content of the commercial web site, calculating an advertising value of the commercial web site; and
allocating, to the first member, a second allocation of one or more advertisements for the first business, based on the calculated advertising value of the commercial web site;
wherein allocating, to the first member, the first and second allocations of one more advertisements for the first business comprises placing the one or more allocated advertisements on one or more web pages without charging the first member a fee for placement of the one or more advertisements.
1 Assignment
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
Tools for enhancing participation in an web-based social network of businesses. For instance, such tools may encourage members of such networks to invite other members, providing viral growth of the network. As another example, the tools may encourage members of such networks to improve their web sites, which effectively will produce more traffic at such web sites. Because, in an aspect, some embodiments also include serving advertisements on web pages at members'"'"' web sites, increased traffic at such web sites results in additional “hits” on the served advertisements, producing additional revenue for the member and for the provider that maintains the business social network and/or serves the advertisements.
-
Citations
31 Claims
-
1. A method of enhancing participation in a web-based business network, the method comprising:
-
maintaining a web-based social network of businesses, the social network comprising a plurality of relationships among a plurality of members, the plurality of members comprising a first member that is associated with a first business having a first physical location, the web-based social network further comprising a network web site, the network web site comprising a network web page associated with the first member, the first member further having associated therewith a commercial web site separate from the network web site; placing paid advertisements on one or more web pages; charging a fee for the placement of each paid advertisement; providing an interface to allow each member to invite additional businesses to join the web-based social network; allocating, to the first member, a first allocation of one or more advertisements for the first business, based on a determination that the first member has invited an additional business to joint the web-based social network; periodically crawling, with a spider component, the commercial web site to identify content on the commercial web site; analyzing a quality of content of the commercial web site; based on an analysis of the quality of the content of the commercial web site, calculating an advertising value of the commercial web site; and allocating, to the first member, a second allocation of one or more advertisements for the first business, based on the calculated advertising value of the commercial web site; wherein allocating, to the first member, the first and second allocations of one more advertisements for the first business comprises placing the one or more allocated advertisements on one or more web pages without charging the first member a fee for placement of the one or more advertisements. - View Dependent Claims (2)
-
-
3. A method of enhancing participation in a web-based business network, the method comprising:
-
maintaining a web-based social network of businesses, the social network comprising a plurality of relationships among a plurality of members, the plurality of members comprising a first member that is associated with a first business having a first physical location, the web-based social network further comprising a network web site, the network web site comprising a network web page associated with the first member; providing an interface to allow one or more members to invite additional businesses to join the web-based social network; determining that the first member has invited a non-member to join the web-based social network; and allocating, to the first member, an allocation of one or more advertisements for the first business, based on a determination that the first member has invited a non-member to join the web-based social network. - View Dependent Claims (4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14)
-
-
15. A method of enhancing participation in a web-based business network, the method comprising:
-
maintaining a web-based social network of businesses, the social network comprising a plurality of relationships among a plurality of members, the plurality of members comprising a first member that is associated with a first business having a first physical location, the web-based social network further comprising a network web site, the network web site comprising a network web page associated with the first member, the first member further having associated therewith a commercial web site separate from the network web site; periodically crawling, with a spider component, the commercial web site to identify content on the commercial web site; analyzing a quality of content of the commercial web site; based on an analysis of the quality of the content of the commercial web site, calculating an advertising value of the commercial web site; and allocating, to the first member, an allocation one or more advertisements for the first business, based at least in part on the calculated advertising value of the commercial web site. - View Dependent Claims (16, 17, 18, 19, 20)
-
-
21. A method, comprising:
-
maintaining a web-based social network of businesses, the social network comprising a plurality of relationships among a plurality of members; placing, on one or more web pages, paid advertisements for businesses associated with members of the social network; and charging a fee for the placement of each paid advertisement. - View Dependent Claims (22)
-
-
23. A computer system for enhancing participation in a web-based business network, the system comprising:
-
a processor; and a computer readable medium in communication with the processor, the computer readable medium having encoded thereon a set of instructions executable by the computer system to perform one or more operations, the set of instructions comprising; instructions for maintaining a web-based social network of businesses, the social network comprising a plurality of relationships among a plurality of members, the plurality of members comprising a first member that is associated with a first business having a first physical location, the web-based social network further comprising a network web site, the network web site comprising a network web page associated with the first member; instructions for providing an interface to allow each member to invite additional businesses to join the web-based social network; instructions for determining that the first member has invited a non-member to join the web-based social network; and instructions for allocating, to the first member, an allocation of one or more advertisements for the first business, based on a determination that the first member has invited a non-member to join the web-based social network.
-
-
24. An apparatus, comprising:
-
a computer readable medium having encoded thereon a set of instructions executable by a computer system to perform one or more operations, the set of instructions comprising; instructions for maintaining a web-based social network of businesses, the social network comprising a plurality of relationships among a plurality of members, the plurality of members comprising a first member that is associated with a first business having a first physical location, the web-based social network further comprising a network web site, the network web site comprising a network web page associated with the first member, the first member further having associated therewith a commercial web site separate from the network web site; instructions for periodically crawling, with a spider component, the commercial web site to identify content on the commercial web site; instructions for analyzing a quality of content of the commercial web site; instructions for calculating an advertising value of the commercial web site, based on an analysis of the quality of the content of the commercial web site; and instructions for allocating, to the first member, an allocation one or more advertisements for the first business, based at least in part on the calculated advertising value of the commercial web site.
-
-
25. A system, the system comprising:
-
one or more computers, each computer comprising a processor; and a computer readable medium in communication with the one or more computers, the computer readable medium comprising instructions executable by at least one of the one or more computers to provide an advertising network web site for members of an affinity network, the advertising network web site comprising at least an advertising network web page for providing members an advertising service to serve network advertising on web pages on a web site associated with a member of the affinity network, the advertising service comprising; a spidering service configured to determine member web page content data, the member web page content data comprising information about one or more locations of network advertisements within each member web page; an advertising value calculation engine for calculating an advertising value of a member web page based on one or more factors selected from the group consisting of; a number of network advertisements on the member web page, one or more locations of network advertisements on the member web page; and a quality of content on the member web page; and a network advertising server that serves advertisements to member web pages based on relevance of each advertisement to member web page content data, the network advertisements comprising paid advertisements sourced from commercial advertisers, and member advertisements sourced from one or more members of the affinity network to promote businesses associated with the one or more members of the affinity network; wherein an earned number of member advertisements that are served by the network advertising server on behalf of a member depends on the advertising value of the member web pages as calculated by the advertising value calculation engine. - View Dependent Claims (26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31)
-
Specification