WO2008040046A1

WO2008040046A1 - Method and apparatus relating to webpages and real estate information

Info

Publication number: WO2008040046A1
Application number: PCT/AU2006/001439
Authority: WO
Inventors: Christopher John Herrmann; Christopher Francis Parsons; Aaron Ivan Caesarowicz; Mark Allan Hacket
Original assignee: Thegofa Pty Ltd
Priority date: 2006-10-04
Filing date: 2006-10-04
Publication date: 2008-04-10

Abstract

A method of reconfiguring a webpage by parsing the information, determining formatting (tags) and textual elements and utilizing those elements to reconfigure the webpage to conform to a hierarchical structure. For example the conversion of a html webpage into a xml structure and back to a structured html webpage. Further disclosures includ the use of an object database of user rateable objects. Communicating with a user based on their selected method of communication. A method of information processing.

Description

METHOD AND APPARATUS RELATING TO WEBPAGES AND REAL ESTATE

INFORMATION FIELD OF INVENTION

The present invention relates to, in one aspect, the field of information retrieval and processing of information on web pages.

The present invention relates to, in another aspect, enabling information to be disseminated and shared regarding a wide variety of topics, such as real estate property, employment, cars, etc.

In one particular form, the invention relates to real estate property web pages, such as those used to convey tenancy and property information.

It will be convenient to hereinafter describe the invention in relation to both web pages and real estate property information, however it should be appreciated that the present invention is not limited to that use only. BACKGROUND ART The discussion throughout this specification comes about due to the realisation of the inventors and/or the identification of certain prior art problems by the inventors.

The internet has more than doubled in the last three years to contain more than 80 million web addresses. This has created an unprecedented and overwhelming mass of information to manage and also has created a valuable information resource. Harnessing and managing at least some of this information is becoming more desirable. Also desirable is the ability to automate the chore of gathering masses of data from large numbers of websites and to produce meaningful and usable data from the websites. Furthermore, consumers are bombarded with a huge amount of information and a large degree of choice for products and services. Their ability to make decisions on these choices is becoming more and more difficult and is leading to frustration and dissatisfaction with the prolific growth of choices , available. One of the main problems is gaining appropriate information about the options to make a choice.

With this in mind, there is a need to understand and retrieve data from a web page. It is has been found to be difficult to determine portions of a web pages that relate to text, advertising, formatting, language, character sets and / or other information and thus there is a further difficulty in retrieving or searching data, for example via an automated process, such as via a computer.

With regard to a specific market segment, such as real estate, there is a need to match potential tenants to suitable properties, and for real estate agents to also know whether a tenant is suitable for a property. However, there is also a desire of many tenants to maintain some degree of privacy. Therefore, there is a need for some form of communication system between tenant and agent which seeks to address these needs and desires.

Any discussion of documents, devices, acts or knowledge in this specification is included to explain the context of the invention. It should not be taken as an admission that any of the material forms a part of the prior art base or the common general knowledge in the relevant art in Australia or elsewhere on or before the priority date of the disclosure and claims herein.

An object of the present invention is to improve web page data retrieval. Another object of the present invention is to enhance communication on a wide variety of topics, such as between a tenant and an agent in relation to property.

A further object of the present invention is to alleviate at least one disadvantage associated with the prior art. SUMMARY OF INVENTION

The present invention provides, in one aspect, a method of and/or apparatus or system for reconfiguring selected information in a webpage, comprising parsing information in a webpage, determining formatting elements) and text(s) elements within the webpage information, and utilising at least one of the formatting elements) to reconfigure the webpage information based on hierarchy.

The present invention provides, in another aspect, a method of and/or apparatus or system for searching webpage information arranged and/or derived hierarchically, the method comprising parsing the information, determining those portions of the arranged hierarchy which are substantially repeated and returning as a result those determined portions.

The present invention provides, in still another aspect, a method of and/or apparatus, system or tool adapted to provide a rating of specified object(s), comprising a database for storing information regarding the object(s) and means to enable user access to the information, in which the user attributes a rating from a predetermined score to at least one of the object(s).

The present invention provides, in a further aspect, a method of and/or apparatus or system for enabling communication between a two parties involved in real estate, comprising providing a list of results of a search, the search being performed in accordance with selected criteria, selecting from the list at least one result, displaying at least one communications mode to a user, and enabling, upon selection of a communication mode, a communication to be sent based on the selected result.

The present invention provides, in a still further aspect, a method of and/or apparatus or system for determining a listing of potential customers for the sale of financial products, comprising obtaining a list of real-estate listed for sale, and processing the list of real-estate to determine contact information. The present invention provides, in yet another aspect, a method of and/or apparatus or system for transacting the sale of a financial product, comprising determining a listing of potential customers as disclosed herein, contacting at least one of the potential customers and offering the contact a financial product.

Other aspects and preferred aspects are disclosed in the specification and/or defined in the appended claims, forming a part of the description of the invention.

In essence, the present invention provides, in relation to the method of/apparatus for reconfiguring webpage Information, using the hierarchical nature of HTML to convert the data and/or formatting on a web page into a tree structure, which in turn facilitates searching.

In essence, the present invention provides, in relation to searching, finding repeating branches of web page data containing desired information, and then searching those branches for the information required.

In essence, the present invention also provides, in relation to ranking information for properties, enabling a user to rank a property, and using a self- tuning matching criteria to search for properties having a selected ranking. In essence, the present invention further provides, in relation to communication between users of the property information, a messaging console which provides a controlled communication between users.

The present invention has been found to result in a number of advantages, such as:

• Having up to date information - utilising information received from sources on the internet enables the user to determine the most timely opportunity to communicate with a customer, reduces the guess work and therefore cost of maintaining communication with customers. • Timeliness - the greater the timeliness of data, the greater the chance of successfully communicating with the customer before the threat of loss to competitors.

• Cost - There is a reduction in the cost and inefficiency of post processing the data and provides a transparent means of valuing the data. This comes about due to the use of automation, and also due to the Al.

• Efficiency - Improves post processing efficiency by customer based on standard based on standard property indexing fields (e.g. DPID for Australia), and provides a transparent means of valuing the data.

• Scope of search - Enables an increased scope of web sites to be searched and therefore increase the data results, as well as Increase the flexibility to readily search web sites in broad range of different industries. This is as a result of reviewing the hierarchy of the web search and finding new terms/websites to search.

• Time Saving - Offers the consumer significant convenience, saving the effort of continually checking back at web sites or dealing with different standards of each web portal. Looking for specific products or specific offers can be otherwise a continuous and arduous task.

• More Choice - Time constraints mean that consumers will not normally be able to review all websites through normal techniques. The use of the present invention will enable coverage of the appropriate sites. This increases the choice of offers which the user is able to see and therefore increase their entire choice satisfaction levels with their purchase. • Confidence In Decision Making ~ in reviewing major websites containing information on your products, the knowledge that up to date information has been extracted. This reduces any likelihood of post purchase dissonance and therefore increases confidence in your decisions and the satisfaction received by making that decision.

• Easier Choice -confidence that the majority of available choices have been appropriately considered, decision making becomes easier and more satisfying.

• Satisfaction - Replicates the normal human process of elimination by rating a short list of results against personal taste & "gut feel".

• Convenience - automation of searching for information a user might need.

• An increased scope of web sites searched and therefore increase the data results, as well as increase the flexibility to readily search web sites in broad range of different industries. « An automated system will be computationally efficient.

• Sales Management Tool - the automatic delivery of consumer information and no real need for manual data entry and therefore little, if any work required by the sales person to maintain the system.

• Scalable - The present invention is designed to be readily scaleable, for example to increase the scope of global searches.

• Operation - The present invention has been found to be able to be operated with relatively fewer staff;

• Database - the present invention has been found to provide a database of relatively highly qualified buyers and tenants that are pre-matched to agent's properties;

• Sales efficiency - The present invention reduces the need to spend time on email and phone enquiries.

Further scope of applicability of the present invention will become apparent from the detailed description given hereinafter. However, it should be understood that the detailed description and specific examples, while indicating preferred embodiments of the invention, are given by way of illustration only, since various changes and modifications within the spirit and scope of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from this detailed description. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Further disclosure, objects, advantages and aspects of the present application may be better understood by those skilled in the relevant art by reference to the following description of preferred embodiments taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, which are given by way of illustration only, and thus are not limitative of the present invention, and in which:

Figure 1 illustrates a data mining engine in accordance with an aspect of invention,

Figure 2 illustrates an example of a property rating as performed by a tenant in accordance with an aspect of invention, and

Figure 3 illustrates an example of initiating communication by email and/or SMS in accordance with an aspect of invention. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OUTLINE

The present invention gathers highly detailed attribute data from large numbers of websites with like products or services. The present invention has a unique, independent information broker technology feature to collate information from specific established sites. In essence the present invention seeks information for users and then brokers the information to a user's needs.

The present invention is adapted to various industries which are considered to be too large to track or review via conventional means. The present invention is adapted to extract information from industries that have several key characteristics, namely:

• They are regularly reviewed and presented on the internet

• There is a iarge amount of information on the web on a variety of sites.

• They are high value and high involvement decisions for the market, in that they have an important and lasting effect on the consumer purchasing. • The products or services are individual and generally have limited supply (eg a house purchase)

The present invention has been found particular useful in industries such as real estate, cars and jobs, but is equally applicable to many other industries. These markets are also important to many consumers. In these example industries, the consumer wants the best house, car and job possible, etc, but it is difficult to review the market with a reasonable time commitment.

The present technology produces initially four products, each a key innovation to the market: 1. Current Market Data

Knowing the right time to contact customers can mean the difference between retaining a customer and losing a customer to a competitor. The Current Market Data product provides timely data that allows major companies to directly talk to their customer at a time when their customers are most vulnerable to competitive threat, or provides an opportunity for the proactive marketer to gain new customers.

As an information broker, the present invention visits key sites and collects data in manageable portions from a large number of websites. The data is collected using the various aspects of invention disclosed herein, including reconfiguring the webpage information and search the reconfigured information, The criteria for the data collected is:

• the major details defining and identifying the item of interest.

• The details required for filtering before transmission to the client, • Any other details that may be useful and are easy to capture.

For example with real estate, it may be important to capture:

• Address

• Bedrooms, bathrooms and carparks.

• Allows pets (for rental properties) ♦ the script detailing the property.

This allows identification of the property as well as enough details to filter to the consumer's requirements.

The present invention then seeks to clean the data so there is no duplication or redundancy and presents in a highly usable format. This creates a direct marketing list of high quality. Of even greater value, the list is that the list is extremely recent. That is, this information is current to the point that a daily or weekly list may be produced. In one particular application, that is as applied to the real estate industry, the lists may not need to have people's names, only addresses.

One application of the present invention is as applied to resource of public domain information, and the information which can be obtained from those resources, such as the collection of residential real estate property information in Australia. Information from the major real estate websites, such as www.realestate.com.au , www.domain.com.au , www.homehound.com.au , etc may be collated. One benefit is that the inventor(s) have realised that if a house is on the market, the finance, if any, related to the house will soon come to an end (once the house is settled and transacted to a new owner) and the current owners will presumably be seeking new finance for a new house. Other services may also be needed, such as insurance, legal services, removal services and the present invention may be applied to other appfications and based on public domain information such as obituaries and estate planning. Hence, this type of information may be considered valuable, if made available to brokers who offer new finance, This type of information may also be of great value to finance or other companies. One way of providing this information, in accordance with an aspect of invention is to utilise the present invention to obtain real estate addresses from the real estate web sites (Market Data product) and process data (for example sort, clean, removes duplications, adds identification code, such as standard property indexing fields (e.g. DPID for Australia), etc, for example in accordance with the disclosure herein). The data may be provided on a regular basis, for example to recipients e.g. weekly or fortnightly.

The recipient may then match this data to their client database to determine which of their clients (could be a client with a mortgage product or any other client with any other financial product) has just put their property on the market (by virtue of the property being listed on the internet). The recipient may then use their call centres or direct mail departments to contact these customers to 1 ) retain that mortgage client, or 2) if not a mortgage client, to seek to obtain them as a new mortgage client, or 3) sell another product while they are communicating to them.

Another feature which may be provided is that using this aspect of invention, financial institutions or other vendors sometimes find the contact θ details, such as phone number, of their non mortgage clients are out of date. The present invention may also provide an automated facility that will auto look up (say) the white pages (or other directory services) to update the contact numbers. The data provided wiil have address (provided by Market Data of the present invention) and person name (added by the clients matching). Further details are disclosed herein. 2. Consumer Information Broker

In dealing with the problem of being bombarded with a huge amount of information, as a consumer, a user may describe the type of product/service offering they are looking for and the present invention may then seek to gather information from specific websites and to gain the most appropriate information to match the request. So, for example, if a user is looking for a house, in using the present invention, the user provides the requirements for the search such as type of house, number bedrooms, location, car ports, pricing, etc. and then the present invention only examines websites with information on houses. From there, the user may request the present invention to search specific websites and/or with the aid of Artificial Intelligence (Al), the present invention may search for various relevant websites itself. For example, the present invention may perform an automated Google™ search using the provided Google™ API's, find various websites of interest. Once a website is found from Google™, the present invention may test the site to confirm it contains relevant information to the requested search, send its results to the user to confirm the decisions made by the Al and/or then proceed to include the website in its searches.

Following a search, the information may be provided to a user in bite sized, manageable pieces. The present invention seeks to identify, sort and manage search results. For example, the results may be provided in date order. Other delivery criteria may be specified by the user. Furthermore, in one embodiment, new website, new information or website and information that has changed may be provided. For example, a lower price, but not old or deleted properties may be provided.

Results, such as real estate properties if that was the search criteria, that suit the search criteria across various websites may be then delivered to the user, for example via email, in continued operation, as new properties come on the market, the present invention may continue to email the user with the additional information, say, every morning (or whenever the user specifies). The present invention may also keep a user informed about various offers on the market and enables the user to review and make a possible purchase decision. For example, offers may be sent either an email or SMS from an agent, through a website associated with the present invention).

The present invention has been found to work on any major market with large amount of information on the Internet. Further details are disclosed herein.

3. Sales Management Tool The present invention also provides an information system for sales and sales management.

One benefit of the present invention Sales Management Too! is the automatic delivery of consumer information into a Sales Tool system. There is no real need for manual data entry and therefore little, if any work required by the sales person to maintain the system.

In an application of the present invention, for example to real estate, one feature of the present system is the ability to track the degree in which tenants & buyers are active in the market. This is reported on an agent's report which allows the agent to filter out non active tenants and buyers, leaving a short list of highly qualified people to follow up. Product features then allow the agent to bulk contact potential buyers either by email or SMS simply by pressing a button. Further details are disclosed herein.

4. Purchase Intention Data

Contemporary market information is based solely on historical data. That is, they look at the sales that have occurred in the past and use this to make predictions about the future. The present invention does not rely on past data but can be seen to track future purchase intention. It should be noted that purchase intention data derived from a Consumer Information Broker feature of the present invention is not a survey of purchase intention but an actual view of consumers prior to and up to purchase. Thus the present invention does not have the inaccuracies of attempting to predict future sales from past sales activities, but is tracking people's buying intentions as they are actually doing it. Further details are disclosed herein. A number of aspects of the present invention have been identified, such as:, A. Data Mining Engine

The present invention uses a specialised data mining engine on specific sites to examine and retrieve relevant information. The data mining engine uses a number of aspects of the present invention to do the data mining. Preferably, this aspect of invention downloads the required webpages, converts them into a tree format and then searches the tree formatted data for required information.

Whether the goal is for current market data or acting as an information broker on behalf of the consumer, the technology used is identical. The system is designed to be readily scaleable to increase the scope of global searches.

The data mining engine (GDM) technology is one aspect of the intelligence of the present system. By use of various aspect of the present invention, such as reconfiguring webpage information and then searching the reconfigured information, the present invention seeks to retrieve desired search results from deep inside target website databases, and also provides unique consumer-to- product matching and reporting. The GDM is divided into five key functional modules, designed to provide efficiency of multiple requests. These modules incorporate web parsing techniques and utilise a combination of a multi-thread architecture and a predefined set of language rules utilising a technique known as pattern matching using regular expressions. Further details are disclosed herein.

The five key modules of the GDM are, and as illustrated in Figure 1 : • 101 Web Page Download Module: Downloads target web pages^' and stores them in a memory buffer. • 102 HTML Parsing Module: Utilising a combination of multi-thread architecture and HTML parsing techniques, each web page is decoded to retrieve each page of data. In this regard, the disclosure of the reconfiguring of webpage information provides an example of implementing this feature. • 103 Data Analysis Module: Searches al! the HTML parsed data and identifies relevant data for retrieval. In this regard, the searching methods as disclosed herein provide an example implementation of this feature. • 104 Data Parsing Module: This module uses a predefined set of language rules and techniques to analyse and extract the relevant data. Specially developed formulas are used to . match data strings that follow a set pattern, utilising a technique known as pattern matching using regular expressions.

• 105 Database Module. The relevant extract data is stored into specific database fields.

B. Artificial Intelligence

The present invention may also incorporate the use of artificial intelligence (Al). The Al may be used to more readily identify like products that may be represented in different formats. For example in real estate, at a basic level the Al may be used to identify like property addresses represented in slightly different formats, (eg "Bellevue Heights 5/37 Eve Road"; "Bellevue Heights Unit 5, 37 Eve Road"; "Bellevue Heights 5/37 Eve Road"). More advanced levels of artificial intelligence will allow the invention to

'read* a broader range of web sites by 'training' the invention to read different styles and formats of web sites. This would include implementing advanced pattern recognition using supervised machine learning methodologies. One option is to utilise a backward propagating neural network, or a Bayesian filter. The system would identify the patterns (via known techniques) in the web sites to be searched, and then intelligently extract the data from within. This means that when the invention comes across a new web site format, it will be able to use its trained intelligence to independently implement the appropriate "trained skills" to analyse and extract the required information. C. A method of reconfiguring webpage information

The inventors have realised that, in respect of web page information:

• There is a need to understand and retrieve data from at least one web page;

« Web pages are a form of document where the content and the formatting is interspersed within the page. The formatting may or may not give clues to the material contained within the document. By looking at the text of the document, there is generally no clue to how different pieces of text are related nor their importance on the page; • Because of the formatting data being with the text, the text may be split up or dispersed by the formatting data;

• Web pages can contain a lot of unrelated information and advertising that needs to be ignored; • The webpage may be in different languages or character sets; and

• The webpage will possibly be formatted in unconventional and unexpected ways that still need to be understood.

In this regard, the inventors have also realised that HTML, which is the language used in web pages, is hierarchical. Objects on a webpage are marked out by tags, which exist as a child of a higher tag, or of the webpage itself. These markings can be used to convert the data and formatting into a tree, so that the hierarchical information of this data is better represented and able to be searched. In a tree format, the page is much easier to search.

In accordance with this aspect of invention, a webpage which may look like this:

j<html><head><title>A basic page</title></head> i <body><Hl>A simple Heading on this page</Hl> I <p>A paragraph of information</ρ> j<p>Another paragraph of information <B>but with some bolded

!text.</B> may be represented as the following:

Page

In a further example, a webpage which looks like the following:

may be represented as the following:

By representing the data in a tree, it is possible to see the relationship between a formatting element, and the text associated with that formatting element. This aspect of invention will allow for searching of repetitive patterns, such as the two paragraphs which are considered most likely to be the main content of the webpage document.

The tree will have two types of elements. A formatting element (which directly maps to a HTML Tag) or a text element. An element will always have a parent element, except for the page element. An element may have one or more child elements but never more than one direct parent. D. A method of searching (the reconfigured information)

As noted above, there is a need to understand the information in the reconfigured web page as noted above. The inventors have realised that the webpage will contain repetitive data and the information required will likely be repeated in specific patterns that need to be recognised. The information considered to be unrelated to the search will need to be ignored. There is also usually a lot of formatting information that ultimately will need to be ignored once the required information has been retrieved from the page.

With this in mind, this aspect uses a depth first search to begin at the bottom of the left most branch of the hierarchy, and then step upwards, comparing each branch below the current search point. Once there are multiple branches below our current search point, a comparison is made for similarity.

There will be some constraints on a branch for it to be valid, and for it to contain vaiid information it must be of a certain length, contain certain details, etc. Using these criteria, a number of branches will probably be ruled out before having to perform a comparison with other branches. For example, in application to real estate, a property must contain price, location, number of bedrooms and number of bathrooms. If a branch does not contain all of these details, then this aspect considers it necessary to step one step up tine tree and begin the search on the newly found branches. What comprises a 'similar' branch may be specified by the user and/or be predefined. Branches may differ because of the content that they contain. Different formatting may appear which will affect the size and shape of the branch and all this needs to be taken into consideration,

With reference to an example application of. the present invention to real estate, a results page following a website search may display around 30 results. Each of these results usually has a similar format, and hence will form its own similar branch in the tree that the webpage has been reconfigured to (as disclosed above). This aspect of invention seeks to search for the branches that are repeated and highlight these as containing property information. Once these branches have been completed, they can then be searched for the required details. By finding the repeating branches of the tree, we can limit our search to the exact areas of the data, that contain the information we are looking for. E. Feedback feature relating to ranking which can be used by agent of user in its application as a marketing tool, such as for example, in real estate, there is a need to connect and match potential tenants to their ideal properties, as well as to give users of the system useful information, such as learning from previous matches that have been made, tuning the results of the matching engine based on previous matches, improving the system's matching ability over time, keep track of potential tenants and to know the appropriateness of a tenant for a particular match. In accordance with this aspect of invention, there is a rating system that users may adjust. The system will then:

• Mark that property with that rating.

• Preferably, find and mark similar properties with the same rating.

• Use the rating to self tune the matching system. If it's a positive rating, then enhance the matching system with the goal of producing similar matches. If it's a negative rating, then tune the matching system to reduce the occurrence of similar matches. This allows us to more favourably match a property due to the high rankings of surrounding properties or properties with similar features such as pool, ensuite, games room etc. in this way, this aspect of invention similarly enables a feedback system that allows agents to provide a ranking of tenants.

Figure 2 shows an illustration of a rating system according to the present invention, in which a property that has been rated by a tenant. A user is matched to one or more properties. They are sent a list of their matches. With each property that they are matched to, they are given the option of giving that property a rating. Once a rating has been given, that rating wili be stored in the database, along with the match. Each time the user checks the properties, they will be shown that rating. The rating will be from, for example, 1 to 5 with 1 being the worst quality, 3 being neutral and 5 being best quality. The ratings will be represented by the tenant as from 1 to 5 stars.

Similarly, an agent may rate a tenant in a similar fashion. These ratings may be displayed to the tenant and agent, whenever the iist of matches are viewed, however, more importantly, they will be fed back to the matching system. Before the ratings are input into the matching system, the ratings may be scaled from -2 to +2 and added in sum.

The matching engine will rank properties by a 'quality score¹ which will be indicating the quality of the match. A higher figure for the quality score, indicates a better match with the tenants requirements. The matching engine will look at similar properties that have been rated previously, take the sum of the ratings of these properties, and scale it, by an amount to be defined and add this total to the existing 'quality score.' Hence if similar properties have been ranked positively, this will increase the quality score, and if matches have been ranked negatively, this will reduce the quality score. Properties wili be considered a 'match' if the quality score exceeds a predefined amount. Hence the rating system will become a critical component in regards to the matching system.

Further to this, a tenant may be automatically rated for an agent by the system, by how recent their last update has been. A potential tenant's account may be marked every time they access the system. If they do not access the system for over a week, they will be sent an email, which will ask them to update. By clicking a link on their email, their account will be marked as updated. When an agent views the matches to their properties, they will see the last time each potential tenant has been updated. Potential Tenants will also be ranked by whether or not they have paid to use the present invention, as it is considered that a tenant who has paid, Is much more serious than someone who hasn't. F. A method of enabling communication between a vendor and purchaser of real estate. In accordance with this aspect of invention, when there is a need for communication between two parties to a real estate transaction, for example when an agent has made a match of a tenant to a property for rental, the agent is given the option of sending that match as email or SMS advising the possible tenant with various details as upcoming open inspections, or other similar properties being managed by the agent. There is also provided a messaging console, that may allow agents to message the tenants of their choice. The communication may limit agents to only messaging tenants that have been matched to their properties. This aspect may also keep tenant's details private while still allowing agents to message them through a website. Preferably, this aspect of invention will also support various known web browsers.

In operation, a list of matches attributed to each of an agent's properties is provided to each agent. These matches may be derived in accordance with a number of other aspects of invention as herein disclosed, or in accordance with other means. For each property, they may be provided with an "email all" and "sms ail" link. For each match to a property, they may be provided with an email and sms link,

The "email all' and 'sms all' links, may allow an agent to send a bulk message (via sms or email) to all of the tenants matched to that property. The 'email' and ^!sms' links may allow an agent to send a single message (via sms or email) to a single tenant matched to that property.

An example implementation of this feature is illustrated in Figure 3, where it can be seen that a user has an option of initiating communication by email (represented by the envelope shape) and/or SMS (represented by the phone shape). In operation, by clicking on either or both the phone or envelope shape(s), the appropriate communication is enabled. As an alternative, other indicia may be used to represent the communication (or other communication) methods applicable with this invention. When an agent clicks on a send message link, they will be prompted to submit a message. For SMS, there may be limit of 160 characters. For emails, HTML formatted mail may be used, by use of a formatted text box, much like a mini word processor. When a user clicks send, the message will be sent to the potential tenant, and placed into the log, so that all messages that have been sent, can be viewed at a later time.

This wifi also have the capability to be extended to other communication methods in the future, such as instant messaging using Google Gmail™, Microsoft's MSN Messenger™, AOL IM™ or other services that may appear in the future. Other possibilities include RSS or Atom feeds, and Web Clips. To send an SMS, the message will be passed via http to an external message providing gateway. Emails may be sent directly via a local smtp mail server. While this invention has been described in connection with specific embodiments thereof, it will be understood that it is capable of further modification(s). This application is intended to cover any variations uses or adaptations of the invention following in general, the principles of the invention and including such departures from the present disclosure as come within known or customary practice within the art to which the invention pertains and as may be applied to the essential features hereinbefore set forth.

As the present invention may be embodied in several forms without departing from the spirit of the essential characteristics of the invention, it should be understood that the above described embodiments are not to limit the present invention unless otherwise specified, but rather should be construed broadly within the spirit and scope of the invention as defined in the appended claims. Various modifications and equivalent arrangements are intended to be included within the spirit and scope of the invention and appended claims. Therefore, the specific embodiments are to be understood to be illustrative of the many ways in which the principles of the present invention may be practiced. In the following claims, means-plus-function clauses are intended to cover structures as performing the defined function and not only structural equivalents, but also equivalent structures. For example, although a nail and a screw may not be structural equivalents in that a nail employs a cylindrical surface to secure wooden parts together, whereas a screw employs a helical surface to secure wooden parts together, in the environment of fastening wooden parts, a nail and a screw are equivalent structures.

"Comprises/comprising" when used in this specification is taken to specify the presence of stated features, integers, steps or components but does not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, integers, steps, components or groups thereof." Thus, unless the context clearly requires otherwise, throughout the description and the claims, the words 'comprise', 'comprising', and the like are to be construed in an inclusive sense as opposed to an exclusive or exhaustive sense; that is to say, in the sense of "including, but not limited to".

Claims

THE CLAJMS DEFINING THE INVENTION ARE AS FOLLOWS:

1. A method of reconfiguring selected information in a webpage, the method comprising the steps of: parsing information in a webpage determining formatting element(s) and text(s) elements within the webpage information utilising at least one of the formatting element(s) to reconfigure the webpage information based on hierarchy.

2. A method as claimed in claim 1, wherein at least a portion of the information resides in an associated document, link and/or webpage.

3. A method as claimed in claim 1 or 2, wherein the hierarchy is based on at least one tag.

4. A method as claimed in claim 1 or 2, wherein at least one formatting element is the location of at least one tag

5. A method as claimed in claim 1 or 2, wherein at least one formatting element is the location of at least one tag relative to other tag(s).

6. A method as claimed in claim 3, 4 or 5, wherein the tag is a XML tag.

7. A method as claimed in claim 3, 4 or 5, wherein the tag is a HTML tag.

8. A method as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 7, wherein parent element(s), page element(s) and/or child element(s) are also identified.

9. A method of searching webpage information arranged hierarchically, the • method comprising the steps of: parsing the information determining those portions of the arranged hierarchy which are substantially repeated returning as a result those determined portions.

10. A method as claimed in claim 9, further comprising the step of performing a depth first search and starting the search at the bottom of the left most branch of the portion of the hierarchy to be searched.

11. A method as claimed in claim 10, wherein the search step upwards, comparing each branch below a current search point.

12. A method as claimed in claim 11, wherein multiple branches below the current search point are compared for specific criteria applicable to the information.

13. A method as claimed in claim 12, wherein the specific criteria include length and content of the information.

14. A method as claimed in any one of claims 9 to 13, wherein the hierarchical information is derived in accordance with the method as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 3,

15. A method as claimed in any one of claims 9 to 14, wherein,, in determining a repeated branch, criteria are used that are selected by a user.

16. A method as claimed in any one of claims 9 to 14, wherein, in determining a repeated branch, criteria are used that are preselected.

17. A method as claimed in any one of claims 9 to 16, wherein a further search of result is preformed to identify information, such as words, phrases, indicia.

18. A marketing tool adapted to provide a rating of specified object(s), the marketing tool comprising: a database for storing information regarding the object(s) and means to enable user access to the information, in which the user attributes a rating from a predetermined score to at least one of the object(s).

19. A marketing tool as claimed in claim 18, wherein the rating is also attributed automatically to other similar object(s).

20. A marketing tool as claimed in claim 19, further comprising a matching system adapted to provide the similar object(s).

21. A marketing tool as claimed in claim 20, wherein, if the rating is considered a positive rating, the matching system will be enhanced to find similar matches.

22. A marketing tool as claimed in claim 20 or 21, wherein if the rating is considered a negative rating, the matching system will be biased to reduce the occurrence of similar matches.

23. A marketing tool as claimed in claim 20, 21 or 22, wherein the matching system ranks objects) in accordance with a quality score.

24. A marketing tool as claimed in any one of claims 18 to 23, wherein the user is rated according to frequency of access to the information.

25. A marketing tool as claimed in any one of claims 18 to 24, wherein the objects) are real estate property.

26. A marketing tool as claimed in claim 25, wherein the user is an agent seeking a rating from a tenant.

27. A method of enabling communication between a two parties involved in real estate, the method comprising the steps of providing a list of results of a search, the search being performed in accordance with selected criteria, selecting from the list at least one result, displaying at least one communications mode to a user, enabling, upon selection of a communication mode, a communication to be sent based on the selected result.

28. A method as claimed in claim 27, wherein the communication made is at least one of SMS, email, Google Gmail™, Microsoft's MSN Messenger™, AOL IM™, RSS, Atom feeds, and / or Web Clips.

29. A method as claimed in claim 27 or 28, wherein the communication made is a communication based on all results.

30. A method as claimed in claim 27 or 28, wherein the communication made is a communication based on at least one selected result.

31. A method as claimed in any one of claims 27 to 30, wherein the result is a person.

32. A method as claimed in claim 31 , wherein the person is a tenant.

33. A method of determining a listing of potential customers for the sale of products and/or services, the method comprising the steps of: obtaining information from a public domain information resource, processing the information to determine contact information.

34. A method as claimed in claim 33, wherein the information is further processed, for example by any one or any combination of:

• Sorting

• Cleaning • Removing duplication

• Adding identification code(s)

35. A method of transacting the sale of a financial product, comprising the step of: determining a listing of potential customers as claimed in claim 33 or 34, contacting at least one of the potential customers and offering the contact a financial product.

36. Apparatus adapted to reconfiguring selected information in a webpage, said apparatus including: processor means adapted to operate in accordance with a predetermined instruction set, said apparatus, in conjunction with said instruction set, being adapted to perform the method as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 8.

37. Apparatus adapted to searching webpage information arranged hierarchically,- said apparatus including: processor means adapted to operate in accordance with a predetermined instruction set, said apparatus, in conjunction with said instruction set, being adapted to perform the method as claimed in any one of claims 9 to 17.

38. Apparatus adapted to enable communication between a two parties involved in real estate, said apparatus including: processor means adapted to operate in accordance with a predetermined instruction set, said apparatus, in conjunction with said instruction set, being adapted to perform the method as claimed in any one of claims 27 to 32.

39. Apparatus adapted to determine a listing cf potential customers for the sale of financial products, said apparatus including: processor means adapted to operate in accordance with a predetermined instruction set, said apparatus, in conjunction with said instruction set, being adapted to perform the method as claimed in claim 33 or 34.

40. Apparatus adapted to transact the sale of a financial product, said apparatus including: processor means adapted to operate in accordance with a predetermined instruction set, said apparatus, in conjunction with said instruction set, being adapted to perform the method as claimed in claim 35.

41. A system comprising the apparatus as claimed in anyone of claims 36 to 40.

42. A system adapted to operate in accordance with the method as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 17 or 27 to 35.

43. A computer program product comprising: a computer usable medium having computer readable program code and computer readable system code embodied on said medium for enabling the method as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 17 or 27 to 35 in conjunction with processing system.

44. A method as herein disclosed.

45. An apparatus, system, tool and/or device as herein disclosed.