System and method to identify, rank, and audit network provided configurables
First Claim
1. A computerized method for identifying, referring, and auditing providers of configurable computer-related goods and services, the method comprising:
- receiving and storing information about plural providers of configurable computer-related goods and services, the information comprising provider names, provider URLs, geographical areas in which providers provide configurables, and descriptions of configurables available from providers;
receiving a request from a computer, the request comprising a geographic location of the computer;
searching the stored information about providers in order to identify a list of providers or provider servers that provide automatic configuring of configurables in the geographic area;
sending the list of providers or provider servers to the computer, the list including provider names, provider URLs, and descriptions of configurables available from the providers or provider servers in the list;
receiving auditing information from the computer comprising an indication of a provider or provider server selected from the list, an indication of a selected configurable, and an indication that the selected configurable has become operational on the computer, and an amount of time from when the selected configurable was selected until when the selected configurable became operational on the computer, wherein the amount of time comprises one or more update periods indicating a length of time between the computer receiving an IP address from the selected provider and updating a server with the IP address; and
based at least in part on the received amount of time, sending to the computer a query message to be displayed at the computer, the query message comprising an explicit offer to change to another configurable from a different provider.
2 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A computerized method for identifying, ranking, and auditing configurable providers is described. The method receives and stores information about plural providers including provider name, provider icon, provider contact information, landing URL, configurables offered, geographical locations, and descriptions of configurables. The method receives a request from a computer that includes a geographic location. The method searches the stored information about providers in order to identify a list of provider servers that auto-configure configurables in the geographic location. The method sends information and the list of provider servers to the computer, and the sent information includes provider names, provider rank, provider landing URL, and descriptions of configurables. The method receives auditing information from the computer including a provider server selected from the list, a transaction for a selected configurable, and an indication that the selected configurable is operational. The method ranks provider servers based upon ranking factors including audit information received from plural computers.
-
Citations
20 Claims
-
1. A computerized method for identifying, referring, and auditing providers of configurable computer-related goods and services, the method comprising:
-
receiving and storing information about plural providers of configurable computer-related goods and services, the information comprising provider names, provider URLs, geographical areas in which providers provide configurables, and descriptions of configurables available from providers; receiving a request from a computer, the request comprising a geographic location of the computer; searching the stored information about providers in order to identify a list of providers or provider servers that provide automatic configuring of configurables in the geographic area; sending the list of providers or provider servers to the computer, the list including provider names, provider URLs, and descriptions of configurables available from the providers or provider servers in the list; receiving auditing information from the computer comprising an indication of a provider or provider server selected from the list, an indication of a selected configurable, and an indication that the selected configurable has become operational on the computer, and an amount of time from when the selected configurable was selected until when the selected configurable became operational on the computer, wherein the amount of time comprises one or more update periods indicating a length of time between the computer receiving an IP address from the selected provider and updating a server with the IP address; and based at least in part on the received amount of time, sending to the computer a query message to be displayed at the computer, the query message comprising an explicit offer to change to another configurable from a different provider. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
-
-
16. A computer-readable storage device having stored thereon computer-executable instructions comprising:
-
instructions for receiving and storing information about plural providers of configurable computer-related goods and services, the information including provider names, provider icons, provider contact information, landing URLs, configurables offered, geographical areas in which providers provide configurables, and descriptions of configurables; instructions for receiving a request from a computer, the request comprising a geographic location of the computer and a technical requirement of the computer, wherein the technical requirement was provided by the computer via user input received via a user interface and the geographic area was obtained from memory of the computer; instructions for searching the stored information about providers, in response to the request, in order to identify a list of providers or provider servers that auto-configure configurables in the geographic location of the computer according to the technical requirement; instructions for sending information and the list of providers or provider servers to the computer, the information to be sent including provider name, provider rank, provider landing URL, and description of provider configurables; instructions for receiving auditing information from the computer comprising a provider or provider server selected from the list and a time it took for a selected configurable to go operational after the selected configurable was selected; instructions for ranking provider servers based upon ranking factors comprising audit information received from plural computers with auto-installed configurables; and instructions for excluding one or more selected providers or provider servers from the list based on the received time it took for the selected configurable to go operational after being selected, wherein the time it took for the selected configurable to go operational indicates an amount of time from selection of the selected configurable until a server returns a proper IP address in response to an inquiry. - View Dependent Claims (17, 18)
-
-
19. A method comprising:
-
sending information comprising at least one technical requirement of a computer to a referral server; receiving a list of configurable computer-related goods and services from the referral server, the configurables in the list meeting the at least one technical requirement of the computer; sending information comprising a configurable selected from the list of configurables to the referral server; receiving a ranked list of providers or provider servers that provide the selected configurable, the providers ordered according to a rank based at least on provider configuration performance; sending information comprising a selected provider to the referral server, wherein the selected configurable is a domain name registration and dynamic DNS service; after the selected configurable has been initially configured or installed on the computer, sending auditing information to the referral server, the auditing information comprising a time elapsed from when the information comprising the selected provider was sent to the referral server until when the selected configurable was initially configured or installed on the computer and further comprising one or more update periods indicating a length of time between the computer receiving a different IP address from the selected provider and updating a DNS server with the different IP address; based on the time elapsed, receiving from the referral server a query message to be displayed at the computer, the query message comprising an offer to change to a configurable from a different provider; responsive to the explicit offer, sending to the referral server an affirmative request to change to another configurable from a different provider; and responsive to the affirmative request, receiving from the referral server a list of alternative configurables available from alternative providers. - View Dependent Claims (20)
-
Specification