System and method for automatic, real-time delivery of personalized informational and transactional data to users via high throughput content delivery device

• US 6,671,715 B1
• Filed: 01/21/2000
• Issued: 12/30/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 01/21/2000
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Microstrategy Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Microstrategy Incorporated
• Inventors: Langseth, Justin, Talwar, Ajay, Fishman, Phillippa J.
• Primary Examiner(s): Thompson, Marc D.
• Assistant Examiner(s): VU, THONG H
• Application Number:
  US09/488,923
• Time in Patent Office: 1,439 Days
• Field of Search: 709/200, 709/203, 709/202, 709/225, 709/223, 709/231, 370/329, 705/35, 705/26, 379/27, 379/211.02, 379/88, 707/200
• US Class Current: 709/203
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/51 Discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/55 Push-based network services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols

Abstract

A delivery system for a personal intelligence network that actively delivers highly personalized and timely informational and transactional data collects and distributes e-mail and other content from a hub-and-spoke style source architecture, with a control server managing a set of output servers. The output servers may transmit messages of topical interest to a subset of the subscribers, concurrently. The content may be generated by an OLAP based channel database system, and the output may also be communicated to individuals via spreadsheet programs data, pager, telephone, mobile phone, fax, personal digital assistants, HTML e-mail, WAP and other formats.

Claims

1. A system for generating and delivering personalized intelligence to a plurality of subscribers, comprising:

a distribution control server, the distribution control server communicating with a processing facility for processing at least one service for each of the plurality of subscribers using the information from one or more of a plurality of channel databases containing informational data; and

a plurality of output servers, communicating with the control server, each output server automatically forwarding output from the at least one service associated with each of the subscribers to at least one output destination specified for each subscriber;

wherein the control server divides the at least one service into a plurality of jobs, and each of the output servers processes a plurality of jobs divided by the control server for improved scalability and load balancing wherein content delivery throughput is enhanced;

wherein the plurality of jobs processed by each of the output servers comprises the assembly of the output to be delivered to a subset of the subscribers associated with that server; and

wherein the assembly of the output to be delivered to the subset of the subscribers associated with each output server comprises a mid-tier slicing of common information from the at least one channel databases.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the service comprises an alert service, and wherein the at least one output server automatically forwards output from an alert service only when at least one criterion is satisfied.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein a subscriber may select personalization features to be applied to the service.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the personalization features include selection of an output device to which the output is sent.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the subscriber may specify the output to be delivered to at least one of an electronic mailbox, facsimile, mobile phone, telephone, PDA, WAP device, and pager.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein a first subscriber and a second subscriber create different personalization options for the at least one service.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein non-personalized information is processed the same for each of the subscribers.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein each output server further communicates with a message mail formatting server to add mail transmission data to the service.

9. A method for the generation and delivery of personalized intelligence to a plurality of subscribers, comprising:

a) processing at least one service for each of a plurality of subscribers using the information from one or more of a plurality of channel databases containing informational data about a subject matter of interest for the plurality of subscribers; and

b) automatically forwarding output from the at least one service associated with each of the subscribers to at least one output destination specified for each subscriber wherein the output is provided by a plurality of output servers;

c) dividing a service into a plurality of jobs, and each of the output servers processes a plurality of the divided jobs for improved scalability and load balancing wherein content delivery throughput is enhanced; and

d) assembling the output to be delivered to a subset of the subscribers associated with each of the output servers using a process of mid-tier slicing of common information from the at least one channel databases.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the service comprises an alert service, further comprising a step of automatically forwarding output from an alert service only when at least one criterion is satisfied.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein a subscriber may select personalization features to be applied to the service.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the personalization features include selection of an output device to which the output is sent.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the subscriber may specify the output to be delivered to at least one of an electronic mailbox, facsimile, mobile phone, telephone, PDA, WAP device, and pager.

14. The method of claim 9, wherein a first subscriber and a second subscriber create different personalization options for the at least one service.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein non-personalized information is processed the same for each of the subscribers.

16. The method of claim 9, further comprising a step of communicating with a message mail formatting system to add mail transmission data to the service.