SYSTEM AND METHOD TO IDENTIFY, RANK, AND AUDIT NETWORK PROVIDED CONFIGURABLES

• US 20080046569A1
• Filed: 08/15/2006
• Published: 02/21/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 08/15/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Mazur, Leszek, Paron, Dean P., DePue, Adam C., Daniel, Sean
• Granted Patent: US 8,090,766 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/227
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0207 Discounts or incentives, e.g. coupons or rebates
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0208 Trade or exchange of goods or services in exchange for incentives or rewards
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0241 Advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0254 based on statistics
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0255 based on user history
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/4511 using domain name system [DNS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/51 Discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information

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.

Claims

1. A computerized method for identifying, ranking, and auditing configurable providers, the method comprising:

receiving and storing information about plural providers comprising provider name, provider URL, provider geographical locations, and descriptions of provider configurables;

receiving a request from a computer, the request comprising a geographic location;

searching the stored information about providers in order to identify a list of provider servers that auto-configure configurables in the geographic location;

sending the list of provider servers to the computer, the list including provider names, provider URLs, and descriptions of provider configurables; and

receiving auditing information from the computer comprising a provider server selected from the list and an indication of a selected configurable.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein receiving auditing information from the computer further comprises an indication of a transaction for the selected configurable and an indication that the selected configurable is operational.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising ranking provider servers based upon ranking factors comprising audit information received from plural computers.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein ranking factors further comprise ranking fees, performance of provider servers, or performance of provider'"'"'s configurables.

5. The method of claim 2 further comprising receiving subsequent auditing information from the computer indicating the selected configurable is inoperable.

6. The method of claim 2 wherein the selected configurable is domain name registration and dynamic DNS services, and the selected configurable is operational when a DNS server returns the proper IP in response to an inquiry using a registered domain name.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein subsequent to sending the list of provider servers, billing a referral fee to the account of each provider server on the list.

8. The method of claim 2 wherein subsequent to receiving audit information indication of the transaction, billing the provider server selected from the list.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the list further includes for each provider on the list:

TLDs supported, currencies accepted, and languages supported.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein the geographic location was obtained from memory at the client computer.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein the request further comprises a technical requirement and the geographic location was provide by a user at the computer via user input and the technical requirement was obtained from memory at the client computer.

12. The method of claim 1 wherein the stored information received about plural providers is stored in a database accessible via a network.

13. The method of claim 1 wherein the received and stored information about plural providers further includes at least one of:

provider icon, provider contact information, configurables offered by geographical locations, human languages supported, and prices of configurables.

14. The method of claim 1 further comprising testing a provider server in order to determine if offered configurables properly auto-configure.

15. On the Internet, plural communicating computers comprising:

a referral server;

plural provider servers;

the referral server receives information about configurables offered by the plural provider servers, the received information including one or more configurables that a provider server auto-configures to operate with client computers based upon a geographical region of a client computer;

the referral server responds to a request from a client computer wherein the request comprises a geographic region of the client computer and the response to the request includes a list of provider servers that auto-configure configurables in the geographic region, and the list includes for each provider server on the list, a provider name, a provider URL, and a description of a configurable;

the referral server receives auditing information from the client computer, the auditing information comprising a provider server selected from the list and an indication of time for an auto-configuration of the selected configurable to become operational; and

the referral server ranks provider servers based upon ranking factors comprising audit information received from client computers.

16. The plural communicating computers of claim 15 wherein the ranking factors further comprise timing metrics for performance of purchase and auto-configuration.

17. The plural communicating computers of claim 15, wherein the referral server stores the information about configurables offered by the plural provider servers in a database that includes more than ten providers, more than ten configurables, more than ten geographical regions, and more than two hundred client computers.

18. A computer readable medium having thereon computer-executable instructions comprising:

instructions for receiving and storing information about plural providers including provider name, provider icon, provider contact information, landing URL, configurables offered, geographical locations, and descriptions of configurables;

instructions for receiving a request from a computer, the request comprising a geographic location and a technical requirement and the technical requirement was provide by the computer via user input received via a user interface and the geographic location was obtained from memory at the client computer;

in response to the request, instructions for searching the stored information about providers in order to identify a list of provider servers that auto-configure configurables in the geographic location according to the technical requirement;

instructions for sending information and the list of provider servers to the computer, the sent information including provider name, provider rank, provider landing URL, and description of provider configurables;

instructions for receiving auditing information from the computer comprising a provider server selected from the list, a transaction for a selected configurable, and a timing metric for time to go operational; and

instructions for ranking provider servers based upon ranking factors comprising audit information received from plural computers with auto-installed configurables.

19. The computer readable medium of claim 18 wherein the selected configurables are domain name registration and dynamic DNS services, and the timing metric indicates time after selection that the selected configurable is operational when a DNS server returns the proper IP in response to an inquiry for the registered domain names.

20. The computer readable medium of claim 18 wherein the received and stored information about plural providers further includes, configurables offered by geographical locations, written languages supported in geographical location, and prices of configurables by geographical location.