Method and system for posting ideas and weighting votes

• US 7,831,455 B2
• Filed: 03/08/2007
• Issued: 11/09/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 03/08/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Candela Corporation, Salesforce.com, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Salesforce.com, Inc.
• Inventors: Lin, Likuo, Lin, Justin, Yoshida, Norimasa
• Primary Examiner(s): DIXON, THOMAS A
• Application Number:
  US11/716,365
• Publication Number:
  US 20080222191A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,342 Days
• Field of Search: 705/7
• US Class Current: 705/7.32
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0203 Market surveys; Market polls

Abstract

A site is maintained that allows consumers to suggest, comment on and/or vote on ideas about a product or service. Some site embodiments can enable sponsoring organizations (customers) to maintain their own sites for displaying articles and allowing multiple viewers to vote on these articles. Site information for multiple tenants may be maintained in a common multi-tenant system. Votes may indicate a variety of different types of criteria, such as the importance, correctness, and/or user preference for the articles or other Qualitative Management Criteria (QMC) for determining the merit of an idea or an article. The votes may be tallied into an overall Total Qualitative Management Criterion (TQMC) for the idea or article. Newer votes may be adjusted according to an increasing function of time to enable the relative weightings of the older votes to diminish over time without having to compute a decaying time function to determine weightings for each vote.

Claims

1. A method for posting ideas from clients of tenants to a website, the method comprising:

sending a web page from a host system to a client machine, the web page including at least one of an option for posting an idea, an option for viewing an idea already posted, an option for casting a vote for an idea posted;

receiving from a client machine, at least one of a new idea for posting, a comment on a previously posted idea and a vote for a previously posted idea; and

determining, by the host system, a Total Qualitative Management Criterion (TQMC) for each posted idea for each tenant of the web site, by applying an increasing function of time to newer votes to enable relative weightings of older votes to diminish over time without requiring computing a decaying time function to determine weightings for each vote.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein applying an increasing function of time to newer votes to enable relative weightings of older votes to diminish over time without requiring computing a decaying time function to determine weightings for each vote includes:

applying a monotonically increasing function of time to each vote to obtain a plurality of Qualitative Management Criteria (QMC) for each idea;

summing the QMCs for each idea to determine the TQMC; and

providing the TQMC as an indication of votes for a posted idea associated with the TQMC, each vote of the TQMC having a value decaying with age of the vote.

3. The method of claim 2, at least one of the plurality of QMC being an accuracy associated with the idea.

4. The method of claim 2, at least one of the plurality of QMC being an importance associated with the idea.

5. The method of claim 1, the webpage including at least the option for viewing an idea, and the option for viewing an idea includes an option for viewing a collection of recently posted ideas, which are a subset of a set of viewable ideas, the subset has fewer ideas than the set of viewable ideas, the ideas of the set that are in the subset are more recent than ideas that are in the set but not in the subset.

6. The method of claim 1, the webpage including at least the option for viewing a collection of popular ideas, and the option for viewing a collection of popular ideas includes an option for viewing a collection of popular posted ideas, which are a subset of a set of viewable ideas, the subset has fewer ideas than the set of viewable ideas, the ideas in the set and in the subset are more popular than ideas that are in the set but not in the subset.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a vote for an idea from a client machine;

the applying includes multiplying the vote received by a weighting factor that is an increasing function of time to form a weighted vote;

adding the weighted vote to a number representing the TQMC of the idea to form an updated TQMC; and

sending the updated TQMC to the client.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

the weighting factor being dependent on a difference in time, which is a time at which the vote was received minus a time at which a most recent normalization was performed.

9. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

after a set period of time, dividing all TQMCs associated with a website associated with the tenant by a number that is large enough so that it is unlikely that an overflow error will occur prior to an end of a next period of time having a duration that is as long as the set period.

10. The method of claim 7, the weighting factor being a product of at least two weighting factors including at least a weighting factor that is dependent on time and a weighting factor that is associated with the client.

11. The method of claim 10, the weighting factor that is associated with the client being dependent on a voting pattern associated with the client.

12. The method of claim 10, the weighting factor that is associated with the client being dependent on whether the client is registered with one of the tenants.

13. The method of claim 7, the weighting factor being an exponentially increasing function of time.

14. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

sending advertisements to the client; and

computing revenues to send to one of the tenants based on the advertisements.

15. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

sending advertisements to the client; and

adjusting revenues that one of the tenants is requested to send to a host of the website based on the advertisements.

16. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

sending advertisements to clients of the plurality of tenants;

computing revenues exchanged between the host of the website and the plurality of tenants based on the advertisements;

receiving, from a client machine, a vote for an idea;

the method also includes

sending the TQMC to the client for display on the webpage;

after a set period of time dividing all TQMCs associated with a website associated with the tenant by a number that is large enough so that an overflow error is unlikely to occur prior to an end of a next period of time having a duration that is as long as the set period;

the applying of the increasing function of time to the newer votes to enable the relative weightings of the older votes to diminish over time without requiring the computing of the decaying time function to determine the weightings for each vote includes at least;

applying a monotonically increasing function of time to each vote to obtain a plurality of Qualitative Management Criteria (QMC) for each idea;

for at least one of the QMC, which is associated with the vote, the applying includes

multiplying the vote received by a weighting factor that is an increasing function of time to form a weighted vote;

adding the weighted vote to a number representing the QMC of the idea to form an updated QMC;

summing the QMCs for each idea to determine the TQMC; and

providing the TQMC as an indication of votes for a posted idea associated with the TQMC;

the method also includes

sending the TQMC to the client for display on the webpage; and

after a set period of time dividing all TQMC associated with a website associated with the tenant by a number that is expected to be large enough to prevent an overflow error from occurring prior to an end of a next period of time having a duration that is as long as the set period;

at least one of the plurality of QMC being an accuracy associated with the idea;

at least one of the plurality of QMC being an importance associated with the idea;

the webpage including

at least the option for viewing an idea, and the option for viewing an idea includes an option for viewing a collection of recently posted ideas, which are a subset of a set of viewable ideas, the subset has fewer ideas than the set of viewable ideas, the ideas of the set that are in the subset are more recent than ideas that are in the set but not in the subset;

at least the option for viewing a collection of popular ideas, and the option for viewing a collection of popular ideas includes an option for viewing a collection of popular posted ideas, which are a subset of a set of viewable ideas, the subset has fewer ideas than the set of viewable ideas, the ideas in the set and in the subset are more popular than ideas that are in the set but not in the subset;

the weighting factor being a product of at least three weighting factors including

at least a weighting factor that is dependent on time and at least two weighting factors that are associated with the client, the weighting factor that is dependent on time being an exponential function dependent on a difference in time, which is a time at which the vote was received minus a time at which a most recent normalization was performed;

at least one of the weighting factors that is associated with the client being dependent on a voting pattern associated with the client; and

at least one of the weighting factors that is associated with the client being dependent on whether the client is registered with one of the tenants.

49. The method of claim 1, the host system including at least a database system.

17. A machine-readable medium carrying one or more sequences of instructions for implementing a method for providing an interface for object relationships, the method comprising:

sending, from a host system, a web page to a client, the web page including at least one of an option for posting an idea, an option for viewing an idea already posted, an option for casting a vote for an idea posted;

receiving, from a client machine, at least one of a new idea for posting, a comment on a previously posted idea and a vote for a previously posted idea; and

determining, by the host system, a Total Qualitative Management Criterion (TQMC) for each posted idea for each tenant of the website, by applying an increasing function of time to newer votes to enable relative weightings of older votes to diminish over time without requiring computing a decaying time function to determine weightings for each vote.

18. The machine-readable medium of claim 17, wherein applying an increasing function of time to newer votes to enable relative weightings of older votes to diminish over time without requiring computing a decaying time function to determine weightings for each vote includes:

applying a monotonically increasing function of time to each vote to obtain a plurality of Qualitative Management Criteria (QMC) for each idea;

summing the QMCs for each idea to determine the TQMC; and

providing the TQMC as an indication of votes for a posted idea associated with the TQMC, each vote of the TQMC having a value decaying with age of the vote.

19. The machine-readable medium of claim 18, at least one of the plurality of QMC being an accuracy associated with the idea.

20. The machine-readable medium of claim 18, at least one of the plurality of QMC being an importance associated with the idea.

21. The machine-readable medium of claim 17, the webpage including at least the option for viewing an idea, and the option for viewing an idea includes an option for viewing a collection of recently posted ideas, which are a subset of a set of viewable ideas, the subset has fewer ideas than the set of viewable ideas, the ideas of the set that are in the subset are more recent than ideas that are in the set but not in the subset.

22. The machine-readable medium of claim 17, the webpage including at least the option for viewing a collection of popular ideas, and the option for viewing a collection of popular ideas includes an option for viewing a collection of popular posted ideas, which are a subset of a set of viewable ideas, the subset has fewer ideas than the set of viewable ideas, the ideas the set and in the subset are more popular than ideas that are in the set but not in the subset.

23. The machine-readable medium of claim 17, the method further comprising:

receiving, from a client machine, a vote for an idea;

the applying includes multiplying the vote received by a weighting factor that is an increasing function of time to form a weighted vote;

adding the weighted vote to a number representing the TQMC of the idea to form an updated TQMC; and

sending the updated TQMC to the client.

24. The machine-readable medium of claim 23, the method further comprising:

the weighting factor being dependent on a difference in time, which is a time at which the vote was received minus a time at which a most recent normalization was performed.

25. The machine-readable medium of claim 23, the method further comprising:

after a set period of time dividing all TQMCs associated with a website associated with the tenant by a number that is expected to be large enough to prevent an overflow error from occurring prior to an end of a next period of time having a duration that is as long as the set period.

26. The machine-readable medium of claim 23, the weighting factor being a product of at least two weighting factors including at least a weighting factor that is dependent on time and a weighting factor that is associated with the client.

27. The machine-readable medium of claim 26, the weighting factor that is associated with the client being dependent on a voting pattern associated with the client.

28. The machine-readable medium of claim 26, the weighting factor that is associated with the client being dependent on whether the client is registered with one of the tenants.

29. The machine-readable medium of claim 23, the weighting factor being an exponentially increasing function of time.

30. The machine-readable medium of claim 17, the method further comprising:

sending advertisements to the client machine; and

computing revenues to send to one of the tenants based on the advertisements.

31. The machine-readable medium of claim 17, the method further comprising:

sending advertisements to the client machine; and

adjusting revenues that one of the tenants is requested to send to a host of the website based on the advertisements.

32. The machine readable medium of claim 17, the method further comprising:

sending advertisements to clients of the plurality of tenants;

computing revenues exchanged between the host of the website and the plurality of tenants based on the advertisements;

receiving a vote for an idea;

the method also includes

sending the TQMC to the client machine for display on the webpage;

after a set period of time dividing all TQMC associated with a website associated with the tenant by a number that is expected to be large enough to prevent an overflow error from occurring prior to an end of a next period of time having a duration that is as long as the set period;

wherein applying an increasing function of time to newer votes to enable relative weightings of older votes to diminish over time without requiring computing a decaying time function to determine weightings for each vote includes;

applying a monotonically increasing function of time to each vote to obtain a plurality of Qualitative Management Criteria (QMC) for each idea;

for at least one of the QMC, which is associated with the vote, the applying includes

multiplying the vote received by a weighting factor that is an increasing function of time to form a weighted vote

adding the weighted vote to a number representing the QMC of the idea to form an updated QMC;

summing the QMCs for each idea to determine the TQMC; and

providing the TQMC in place of a summation of votes, each vote of the TQMC having a value decaying with age of the vote;

the method also includes

sending the TQMC to the client for display on the webpage; and

after a set period of time dividing all TQMC associated with a website associated with the tenant by a number that is expected to be large enough to prevent an overflow error from occurring prior to an end of a next period of time having a duration that is as long as the set period;

at least one of the plurality of QMC being an accuracy associated with the idea;

at least one of the plurality of QMC being an importance associated with the idea;

the webpage including

at least the option for viewing an idea, and the option for viewing an idea includes an option for viewing a collection of recently posted ideas, which are a subset of a set of viewable ideas, the subset has fewer ideas than the set of viewable ideas, the ideas of the set that are in the subset are more recent than ideas that are in the set but not in the subset;

at least the option for viewing a collection of popular ideas, and the option for viewing a collection of popular ideas includes an option for viewing a collection of popular posted ideas, which are a subset of a set of viewable ideas, the subset has fewer ideas than the set of viewable ideas, the ideas in the set and in the subset are more popular than ideas that are in the set but not in the subset;

the weighting factor being a product of at least three weighting factors including at least a weighting factor that is dependent on time and at least two weighting factors that are associated with the client, the weighting factor that is dependent on time being an exponential function dependent on a difference in time, which is a time at which the vote was received minus a time at which a most recent normalization was performed;

at least one of the weighting factors that is associated with the client being dependent on a voting pattern associated with the client; and

at least one of the weighting factors that is associated with the client being dependent on whether the client is registered with one of the tenants.

33. A system for posting ideas from clients of a system to a website, the system comprising:

a host system having

a processor system,

volatile memory, and

non-volatile memory;

the non-volatile memory including at least one machine readable medium carrying one or more sequences of instructions for which when implemented causes the processor system to implement a method comprising;

sending a web page from the host system to a client machine, the web page including at least one of an option for posting an idea, an option for viewing an idea already posted, an option for casting a vote for an idea posted;

receiving from a client machine, at least one of a new idea for posting, a comment on a previously posted idea and a vote for a previously posted idea; and

determining, by the host system, a Total Qualitative Management Criterion (TQMC) for each posted idea for each tenant of the website, by applying an increasing function of time to newer votes to enable relative weightings of older votes to diminish over time without requiring computing a decaying time function to determine weightings for each vote;

the processor system implementing the method stored on the machine readable medium.

34. The system of claim 33, wherein the processor system

applies a monotonically increasing function of time to each vote to obtain a plurality of Qualitative Management Criteria (QMC) for each idea;

sums the QMCs for each idea to determine the TQMC; and

provides the TQMC as an indication of votes for a posted idea associated with the vote.

35. The system of claim 34, at least one of a plurality of QMCs being an accuracy associated with an idea.

36. The system of claim 34, at least one of a plurality of QMCs being an importance associated with an idea.

37. The system of claim 33, the webpage includes at least the option for viewing an idea, and the option for viewing an idea includes an option for viewing a collection of recently posted ideas, which are a subset of a set of viewable ideas, the subset has fewer ideas than the set of viewable ideas, the ideas of the set that are in the subset are more recent than ideas that are in the set but not in the subset.

38. The system of claim 33, the webpage includes at least the option for viewing, a collection of popular ideas, and the option for viewing a collection of popular ideas includes an option for viewing a collection of popular posted ideas, which are a subset of a set of viewable ideas, the subset has fewer ideas than the set of viewable ideas, the ideas in the set and in the subset are more popular than ideas that are in the set but not in the subset.

39. The system of claim 33, the method further comprising:

receiving, from a client machine, a vote for an idea;

the applying includes multiplying the vote received by a weighting factor that is an increasing function of time to form a weighted vote;

adding the weighted vote to a number representing the TQMC of the idea to form an updated TQMC; and

sending the updated TQMC to the client.

40. The system of claim 39, the method further comprises:

the weighting factor being dependent on a difference in time, which is a time at which the vote was received, by the host system, minus a time at which a most recent normalization was performed by the processor system.

41. The system of claim 39, the method further comprising:

after a set period of time dividing all TQMCs associated with a website associated with the tenant by a number that is expected to be large enough to prevent an overflow error from occurring prior to an end of a next period of time having a duration that is as long as the set period.

42. The system of claim 39, the weighting factor being a product of at least two weighting factors including at least a weighting factor that is dependent on time and a weighting factor that is associated with the client.

43. The system of claim 42, the weighting factor that is associated with the client being dependent on a voting pattern associated with the client.

44. The system of claim 42, the weighting factor that is associated with the client being dependent on whether the client is registered with one of the tenants.

45. The system of claim 39, the weighting factor being an exponentially increasing function of time.

46. The system of claim 33, the method further comprising:

sending advertisements to the client machine; and

computing revenues to send to one of the tenants based on the advertisements.

47. The system of claim 33, the method further comprising:

sending advertisements to the client machine; and

adjusting revenues that one of the tenants is requested to send to a machine of a host of the website based on the advertisements.

48. The system of claim 33, the method further comprising:

sending advertisements to clients of the plurality of tenants;

computing revenues exchanged between the host of the website and the plurality of tenants based on the advertisements;

receiving, from a client machine, a vote for an idea;

the method also includes sending the TQMC to the client machine for display on the webpage;

after a set period of time dividing all TQMCs associated with a website associated with the tenant by a number that is expected to be large enough to prevent an overflow error from occurring prior to an end of a next period of time having a duration that is as long as the set period;

the applying of the increasing function of time to the newer votes to enable the relative weightings of the older votes to diminish over time without requiring the computing the decaying time function to determine the weightings for each vote includes at least;

applying a monotonically increasing function of time to each vote to obtain a plurality of Qualitative Management Criteria (QMC) for each idea;

for at least one of the QMC, which is associated with the vote, the applying includes

multiplying the vote received by a weighting factor that is an increasing function of time to form a weighted vote;

adding the weighted vote to a number representing the QMC of the idea to form an updated QMC;

summing the QMCs for each idea to determine the TQMC; and

providing the TQMC in place of a summation of votes, each vote of the TQMC having a value decaying with age of the vote;

the method also includes

sending the TQMC to the client machine for display on the webpage; and

after a set period of time dividing all TQMC associated with a website associated with the tenant by a number that is expected to be large enough to prevent an overflow error from occurring prior to an end of a next period of time having a duration that is as long as the set period;

at least one of the plurality of QMC being an accuracy associated with the idea;

at least one of the plurality of QMC being an importance associated with the idea;

the webpage including

at least the option for viewing an idea and the option for viewing an idea includes an option for viewing a collection of recently posted ideas, which are a subset of a set of viewable ideas, the subset has fewer ideas than the set of viewable ideas, the ideas of the set that are in the subset are more recent than ideas that are in the set but not in the subset;

at least the option for viewing a collection of popular ideas, and the option for viewing a collection of popular ideas includes an option for viewing a collection of popular posted ideas, which are a subset of a set of viewable ideas, the subset has fewer ideas than the set of viewable ideas, the ideas in the set and in the subset are more popular than ideas that are in the set but not in the subset;

the weighting factor being a product of at least three weighting factors including at least a weighting factor that is dependent on time and at least two weighting factors that are associated with the client, the weighting factor that is dependent on time being an exponential function dependent on a difference in time, which is a time at which the vote was received minus a time at which a most recent normalization was performed;

at least one of the weighting factors that is associated with the client being dependent on a voting pattern associated with the client; and

at least one of the weighting factors that is associated with the client being dependent on whether the client is registered with one of the tenants.

50. A method for posting ideas from clients of tenants to a website, the method comprising:

sending one or more web pages from a host system to a client machine, the one or more web pages including at least one posted idea and

a current value for a Total Qualitative Management Criterion (TQMC), the TQMC representing a popularity of the posted idea, the current value of the TQMC being computed by weighting a plurality of previously received votes that are weighted according to an increasing function of time;

an option to post a new idea, and

an option to vote on the posted idea;

receiving from the client machine, at least one new vote for a previously posted idea; and

determining, by the host system, a new value for the TQMC, by

determining a weighting for the new vote according to the increasing function of time, such that the new vote is weighted greater than any of the plurality of previously received votes in the current value of the TQMC, and

combining the new vote, weighted according to the weighting for the new vote, with the current value of the TQMC to arrive at the new value of the TQMC.

51. A machine-readable medium carrying one or more sequences of instructions for implementing a method for providing an interface for object relationships, the method comprising:

sending, from a host system, a web page to a client, the web page including at least one posted idea and

a current value for a Total Qualitative Management Criterion (TQMC), the TQMC representing a popularity of the posted idea, the current value of the TQMC being computed by weighting a plurality of previously received votes that are weighted according to an increasing function of time;

an option to post a new idea, and

an option to vote on the posted idea;

receiving from the client machine, at least one new vote for a previously posted idea; and

determining, by the host system, a new value for the TQMC, by

determining a weighting for the new vote according to the increasing function of time, such that the new vote is weighted greater than any of the plurality of previously received votes in the current value of the TQMC, and

combining the new vote, weighted according to the weighting for the new vote, with the current value of the TQMC to arrive at the new value of the TQMC.

52. A system for posting ideas from clients of a system to a website, the system comprising:

a host system having a processor system, volatile memory, and non-volatile memory;

the non-volatile memory including at least one machine readable medium carrying one or more sequences of instructions for which when implemented causes the processor system to implement a method comprising;

sending one or more web pages from a host system to a client machine, the one or more web pages including at least one posted idea and

a current value for a Total Qualitative Management Criterion (TQMC), the TQMC representing a popularity of the posted idea, the current value of the TQMC being computed by weighting a plurality of previously received votes that are weighted according to an increasing function of time;

an option to post a new idea, and

an option to vote on the posted idea;

receiving from the client machine, at least one new vote for a previously posted idea; and

determining, by the host system, a new value for the TQMC, by

determining a weighting for the new vote according to the increasing function of time, such that the new vote is weighted greater than any of the plurality of previously received votes in the current value of the TQMC, and

combining the new vote, weighted according to the weighting for the new vote, with the current value of the TQMC to arrive at the new value of the TQMC.

53. A method for rating posted ideas on a website, the method comprising:

sending a web page from a host system to a plurality client machines, the web page including at least a posted idea and a control for casting a vote for said posted idea;

receiving from at least one of said plurality of client machines, a vote for the posted idea, wherein said vote is input via the control for casting the vote; and

determining, by the host system, a Total Qualitative Management Criterion (TQMC) for the posted idea by weighting each vote based on when a vote is received, wherein a newer vote is weighted more than an older vote.

54. A machine-readable medium carrying one or more sequences of instructions for implementing a method for rating posted ideas on a website, the method comprising:

sending a web page from a host system to a plurality client machines, the web page including at least a posted idea and a control for casting a vote for said posted idea;

receiving from at least one of said plurality of client machines, a vote for the posted idea, wherein said vote is input via the control for casting the vote; and

determining, by the host system, a Total Qualitative Management Criterion (TQMC) for the posted idea by weighting each vote based on when a vote is received, wherein a newer vote is weighted more than an older vote.

55. A system for rating posted ideas on a website, the system comprising:

a host system having a processor system, volatile memory, and non-volatile memory;

the non-volatile memory including at least one machine readable medium carrying one or more sequences of instructions for which when implemented causes the processor system to implement a method comprising;

sending a web page from a host system to a plurality client machines, the web page including at least a posted idea and a control for casting a vote for said posted idea;

receiving from at least one of said plurality of client machines, a vote for the posted idea, wherein said vote is input via the control for casting the vote; and

determining, by the host system, a Total Qualitative Management Criterion (TQMC) for the posted idea by weighting each vote based on when a vote is received, wherein a newer vote is weighted more than an older vote.