JP2012212438A - Facilitating content generation via participant interactions - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide techniques that facilitate generating useful content based on user interactions, by providing an answer-providing service for facilitating interactions between users who supply questions and users who supply responses to the questions of other users, as well as using the generated content in various ways.SOLUTION: In some situations, users are incentivized to participate in interactions with the answer-providing service in various ways, including by assessing and using levels of expertise of the users, such as in a manner to compare with other users for one or more categories. For example, at least some of users with the highest levels of expertise and past participation are assigned with one or more enhanced incentive levels, and then additional benefits of various types are provided to the users having such enhanced status.

Description

(Cross-reference of related applications)
This application claims the benefit of US Provisional Patent Application No. 60/784533, filed March 20, 2006, entitled “Content Generation Via Messaging System Interactions”.

  The following disclosure generally relates to techniques for generating useful content based on user interaction, and for the continued participation of the most frequently responding and experienced users who provide responses to certain categories of questions. Based on providing an incentive, the user of an answer-providing service that provides a response to another user's question is encouraged to generate useful content. User interaction may be provided via email or using other types of messaging.

  A common problem that arises is finding accurate and useful information of interest, such as answers to many different types of questions, quickly and inexpensively. As a result, various information sources and other methods for finding various types of information have been developed, but they are often time consuming and / or expensive to use and are limited There are other problems, such as providing only type of information, providing inaccurate and / or irrelevant information. For example, encyclopedias and reference librarians can be one possible source of answers, but they can be time consuming and expensive (even if they are available), and the types of information they can get are: Limited to history and other reference information of interest to the masses. Similarly, recently, online search engines that provide various types of information are available, but they often provide inaccurate or irrelevant information and are useful for many users. It is difficult or impossible, and again, their ability to retrieve various types of information is limited. For example, such an information source might list a specific type of restaurant at a given geographical location that provided good service during the last month, or a specific function of a new digital camera that was recently released. Answer questions on many topics and special interests, such as advice on how to best use, or identifying physical stores in a geographic area that currently stock certain products at prices that meet specified criteria May not be valid with respect to providing

  Other examples of sources of at least some types of information include mailing lists and newsgroups devoted to highly specialized topics, where people ask questions and later receive responses on those topics Can make it possible. However, such lists or newsgroups generally do not exist for many subjects of interest, and it is difficult or inconvenient for users with low usage to identify whether they exist. It may be possible. It is difficult for many users to submit questions in a format that fits the special culture of the list / news group, even if a suitable list or news group exists and the user with the question finds it Replies from other users may take a few days (if at all) and may be difficult to find among other activities on the mailing list or newsgroup. In addition, there is generally no feedback mechanism to identify trusted and experienced users (or penalize users who respond inappropriately for deliberate or other reasons) and participate and provide accurate information Such responses are often inaccurate or otherwise inadequate, as there is generally no financial or other reward for providing the most experienced and hard-working users with incentives for things. In recent years, professional response services have been developed on the Internet, which may allow questions to be submitted across a range of topics, answered by paid employers or partner investigators, Same experience as at least some mailing lists and newsgroups (for example, limited to certain topics, slow responses, sometimes inaccurate responses, most experienced users providing the most accurate and useful answers) Generally have little or no incentive to) and may be costly to use further.

US patent application Ser. No. 10 / 990,949 US patent application Ser. No. 10 / 894,350 US patent application Ser. No. 11 / 200,880

  Therefore, it is beneficial to provide a solution that allows people to easily find the information they are interested in (for example, answers to questions), such as obtaining accurate answers to a wide range of topic questions quickly and inexpensively. It is.

FIG. 2 illustrates interaction between participants as part of an example embodiment of a system for generating useful information and providing such information to a user. As part of an embodiment of a system for providing information of interest to a user based on the use of a graphical user interface provided by the system and / or based on a messaging interface provided by the system, It is a figure which shows the example of the dialogue between participants. As part of an embodiment of a system for providing information of interest to a user based on the use of a graphical user interface provided by the system and / or based on a messaging interface provided by the system, It is a figure which shows the example of the dialogue between participants. As part of an embodiment of a system for providing information of interest to a user based on the use of a graphical user interface provided by the system and / or based on a messaging interface provided by the system, It is a figure which shows the example of the dialogue between participants. As part of an embodiment of a system for providing information of interest to a user based on the use of a graphical user interface provided by the system and / or based on a messaging interface provided by the system, It is a figure which shows the example of the dialogue between participants. As part of an embodiment of a system for providing information of interest to a user based on the use of a graphical user interface provided by the system and / or based on a messaging interface provided by the system, It is a figure which shows the example of the dialogue between participants. As part of an embodiment of a system for providing information of interest to a user based on the use of a graphical user interface provided by the system and / or based on a messaging interface provided by the system, It is a figure which shows the example of the dialogue between participants. As part of an embodiment of a system for providing information of interest to a user based on the use of a graphical user interface provided by the system and / or based on a messaging interface provided by the system, It is a figure which shows the example of the dialogue between participants. As part of an embodiment of a system for providing information of interest to a user based on the use of a graphical user interface provided by the system and / or based on a messaging interface provided by the system, It is a figure which shows the example of the dialogue between participants. As part of an embodiment of a system for providing information of interest to a user based on the use of a graphical user interface provided by the system and / or based on a messaging interface provided by the system, It is a figure which shows the example of the dialogue between participants. As part of an embodiment of a system for providing information of interest to a user based on the use of a graphical user interface provided by the system and / or based on a messaging interface provided by the system, It is a figure which shows the example of the dialogue between participants. As part of an embodiment of a system for providing information of interest to a user based on the use of a graphical user interface provided by the system and / or based on a messaging interface provided by the system, It is a figure which shows the example of the dialogue between participants. As part of an embodiment of a system for providing information of interest to a user based on the use of a graphical user interface provided by the system and / or based on a messaging interface provided by the system, It is a figure which shows the example of the dialogue between participants. As part of an embodiment of a system for providing information of interest to a user based on the use of a graphical user interface provided by the system and / or based on a messaging interface provided by the system, It is a figure which shows the example of the dialogue between participants. As part of an embodiment of a system for providing information of interest to a user based on the use of a graphical user interface provided by the system and / or based on a messaging interface provided by the system, It is a figure which shows the example of the dialogue between participants. As part of an embodiment of a system for providing information of interest to a user based on the use of a graphical user interface provided by the system and / or based on a messaging interface provided by the system, It is a figure which shows the example of the dialogue between participants. As part of an embodiment of a system for providing information of interest to a user based on the use of a graphical user interface provided by the system and / or based on a messaging interface provided by the system, It is a figure which shows the example of the dialogue between participants. As part of an embodiment of a system for providing information of interest to a user based on the use of a graphical user interface provided by the system and / or based on a messaging interface provided by the system, It is a figure which shows the example of the dialogue between participants. As part of an embodiment of a system for providing information of interest to a user based on the use of a graphical user interface provided by the system and / or based on a messaging interface provided by the system, It is a figure which shows the example of the dialogue between participants. It is a figure which shows the example of allocation of the reward to the user who provides a reply to the question of another user. It is a figure which shows the example of allocation of the reward to the user who provides a reply to the question of another user. It is a figure which shows the example of allocation of the reward to the user who provides a reply to the question of another user. FIG. 6 illustrates an example of determining a portion of a continuous revenue stream that is distributed with a user who provided a response that is part of a useful answer. FIG. 6 illustrates an example of determining a portion of a continuous revenue stream that is distributed with a user who provided a response that is part of a useful answer. FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a computing system suitable for implementing one embodiment of the described rapid response system for providing information of interest to a user. 4 is a flowchart of an exemplary embodiment of a requester user interaction manager routine. 4 is a flowchart of an exemplary embodiment of a response provider user interaction manager routine. 4 is a flowchart of an exemplary embodiment of an answer reward assignment manager routine. 6 is a flowchart of an exemplary embodiment of a revenue stream distribution decision manager routine. 4 is a flowchart of an exemplary embodiment of an answer classification manager routine. 4 is a flowchart of an exemplary embodiment of an answer experience level incentive manager routine. 4 is a flowchart of an exemplary embodiment of an item provider user interaction manager routine.

  It only facilitates the generation of useful content based on user interaction, such as by providing an answer providing service that facilitates the interaction between the user supplying the question and the user supplying the answer to the other user's question Rather, techniques are described that also facilitate using the generated content in various ways. In at least some embodiments, for example, via a graphical user interface (“GUI”) from an answer provisioning service website and / or using a messaging interface based on email or other types of electronic messages. One or more interfaces are provided that allow the user to specify various types of questions for the answer providing service. Thereafter, various users of the answering service can view the provided questions and provide quick responses, and in at least some embodiments, the responses of multiple users can be aggregated or otherwise Combined to generate an answer to the question. In at least some embodiments, a response provider user who provides a response to a question is irrelevant to a question requester user who provides the question, and both sets of users are Other than being registered for the purpose of making a question request and / or for providing a question answer, it can be independent of the answer providing service.

  In at least some embodiments, the user can be provided with payment of rewards and other incentives for participating in the interaction with the answer providing service in various ways. For example, one or more response provider users, each providing one or more responses used as part of an answer to a question from another user, in at least some embodiments, In a manner specific to the question and its response, such as dividing the total monetary reward among the response provider users and / or dividing the experience point associated with the question among the response provider users Can be offered a reward. In addition, in at least some embodiments, the portion of the ongoing revenue stream that is later generated from the response or otherwise associated with the response is the response provider user who provided the response Can be distributed. As described in more detail below, dividing the monetary and / or experience rewards for answering a question among the response provider users who provided the response is, in various embodiments, a response provided. Based at least in part on other measures of the identity and / or usefulness of the provided response (eg, from the requester user who provided the question and / or other response provider user who provided the response to the question) Can be implemented in a variety of ways, including based in part on feedback. Similarly, as described in more detail below, the distribution of a continuous revenue stream associated with an answer, in various embodiments, is an assessment level of the expertise of the answer provider user who provided the answer used for the answer. Their response provider users in various ways, including based on (e.g., can be measured using the relative amount of experience assigned to those users based on having previously presented the responses to the question) Can be divided between. In addition, in at least some embodiments, those response provider users with the highest level of expertise and past participation (e.g., can be measured using experience values previously assigned to those users) Incentives are provided to give at least some such users one or more elevated incentive levels, and then various types of additional benefits to users with such elevated status. Providing (e.g., increasing the amount of revenue stream distribution for users with increased status, such as extending the period of revenue stream distribution, or providing questions that meet specified criteria) To respond to questions, for example, by providing users with raised status notifications By, etc.) to provide additional types of features that reduction, encourage continued participation in these users. In at least some embodiments, various other techniques can be used as well as high-quality responses and incentives for continued participation of the most beneficial users, as well as answering questions, as described in more detail below. It can also be used to generate different types of content.

  In at least some embodiments, the answers can be categorized in various ways and to allow the user to easily find and / or access previously answered questions within a particular category, It can also be categorized for various purposes, such as to help track and evaluate the expertise of response provider users in a manner specific to a particular category. In some embodiments, the classification of answers is provided by an input provided by a requester user who provided a question related to the answer and / or an answer provider user provided an answer used as part of the answer. Is performed based at least in part on the input being made. For example, in some embodiments, the requester user who supplied the question can indicate one or more tags associated with the question, which are user-specified for the question and subsequent answers. As a category (e.g., as part of a group of free-form categories that grow based on user input). Thereafter, the one or more categories for questions based on the requester-supplied tags help the response provider user identify questions that are interested in answering. In addition, the response provider user can supply a question and one or more other tags for the answer, which can be similarly (e.g., medium supplied by all response provider users Can be used as a user specified category (by selecting one or more of the most popular tags). In at least some embodiments, the classification of answers further compares the answers (and their component answers) with the answers of other questions to cluster or group similar answers, and is sufficiently similar It can be based on combining or otherwise grouping related tags or other category information for the answer being answered. Such grouped or otherwise related tags and other categorical information may further include suggested tags and / or answers associated with user-supplied tags in various embodiments. Various suggestions, such as suggesting appropriate tags to requester users and / or response provider users based on suggested tags associated with other information related to the (eg, question text corresponding to the answer) Can be used in the scheme. Further details regarding the classification of responses are included below.

  In some embodiments, the other users of the answer providing service may be an item provider user (eg, a merchant representative), or an answer or other information (eg, an advertisement) may be provided by the item provider user. Providing information related to specific questions and answers, such as by allowing payments to be made as part of the pay-per-response function for inclusion in the answers to selected questions In the pay-per-response function, the item provider user responds positively that the information indicated for each question of interest should be included in the answer to the question, after which the item provider user Will be charged for the inclusion of information. Item provider users who make payments to include information in answers to selected questions are generally different from response provider users who are rewarded or otherwise rewarded for providing responses to questions. , In some embodiments, a single user performs multiple roles at different times (eg, as a requester user, as a response provider user, or as one or more item provider There may be overlap between groups of users, such as acting as an item provider user and acting as a viewer user). Such items can be obtained from a physical real-world distributor at a specific geographic location, or through appropriate physical distribution such as electronic ordering and shipping of physical goods via postal services or private carriers. Web site or other type of online merchant (for distribution via channels or electronic delivery as required, such as digital music, video or e-book downloads over the Internet) Products, services, and / or information available for purchase, rental, lease, license, transaction, evaluation, sampling, subscription, etc. In contrast, item providers offer such items to others and can include product-oriented and / or service-oriented businesses, or other organizations or entities, and item provider users A representative user or a user acting on behalf of an item provider in other ways. In particular, in some embodiments, the item provider user can specify the criteria of interest used in automatically identifying matching questions and the assigned value or other amount used for the pay-per-response function. If the item provider user chooses to respond, the item provider user must match the option that can provide a response in exchange for the payment of the specified amount from the item provider user. You may wish to receive about each of the questions you ask. The question matching criteria is a keyword that matches the tag and / or category associated with the answer (or the corresponding question before the answer was generated), or instead directly matches the question content (eg, the question text), and Metadata associated with the requester user who provided the question (eg, the geographical location of the requester user) and / or one or more response provider users who respond to the question in a manner other than the pay-per-response manner Can be specified in a variety of ways, including keywords that match other information related to the question / answer, such as matching metadata related to. If a given question meets the criteria previously specified for one or more item provider users, at least some of the one or more item provider users that specified the criteria each Not only can you be informed about the question, but you may also be informed of the option to provide a reply to the question in exchange for payment (eg, an amount previously bid or provided by the item provider user). Further details related to item provider user actions and pay-per-response features are described in further detail below.

  FIG. 1 shows a rapid answer answer-providing system 111, a requester user 101 that provides a question request, and an answer provider user 105 that provides an answer to a question used to answer a question. By showing examples of various data flows between embodiments, between participants as part of an example embodiment of a system for generating useful information and providing such information to users Shows the dialogue. This exemplary embodiment includes an item provider user 107 that provides answers or other information for some questions and / or answers based on pay-per-response and answers previously provided for others' questions. Paying to provide an advertisement that is included with the browsing user 103 to access and review and at least some questions and / or answers (eg, those provided to the browsing user) Revenue generation that interacts with advertisers to generate revenue based on the generated answers and other generated content of the quick response system with an advertiser 121 that provides a continuous revenue stream related to their questions and answers Other participants, including system 113, are also shown. Revenue can be generated from advertisements provided by advertiser 121 in a variety of ways, such as displaying advertisements with questions and / or answers, and advertising revenue reflects a fixed fee or alternatively Reflect one or more types of usage-based models that reflect the use of advertisements. For example, the usage-based model includes a pay-per-click model (for example, an advertiser pays only for an advertisement selected by a viewing user), a pay-per impression model ( For example, an advertiser pays for all displayed ads), a pay-per-sales model (eg, an advertiser pays only for ads that have resulted in actual sales). To do). Revenue can also be generated in other ways, including payments received from requester users and / or item provider users, sponsor links, and the like.

  In this example, both the quick answer system 111 and the revenue generation system 113 are provided by the same entity as part of the provider's system 110, and in some embodiments the system 110 is for a payment system or other service. Additional systems or components not shown may be included, such as a system. Various messages can occur between the indicated system and the user, and in various embodiments, in various ways (eg, interactive methods based on one or more GUIs of the quick answer system, A scheme based on the exchange of messages using other types of electronic messaging such as email or IM (“instant messaging”), SMS (“short message service”), or MMS (“multimedia message service”), web services Etc., such as in a programmatic manner based on electronic communication transmitted via one or more APIs (“application programming interfaces”).

  In addition to providing a question request, each of the requester users further uses, in at least some embodiments, a quick answer system to receive an answer to the question, feedback associated with the answer (eg, a specific answer Interact with the quick response system in various ways, such as providing responses and / or positive or negative feedback related to the response provider user, viewing information about the user account of the requester user, etc. Can do.

  In addition to providing responses to other people's questions in exchange for rewards or other rewards, each of the response provider users, in at least some embodiments, provides interested questions that have not yet been answered ( For example, identifying a question in a category for which the response provider user has expertise or wants to expand expertise, feedback related to the question and answer (eg, a suggestion tag or other for the question being answered) Category information, other response provider user responses and / or proposal tags / category positive or negative feedback on the category), distribution of the continuous revenue stream generated for previously answered questions You can interact with the quick response system in various ways, such as by receiving.

In addition to making payments to include information in the answers to individually selected questions, the item provider user may, in at least some embodiments, respond or exchange in exchange for a specified payment. Categories or other criteria related to questions that you want to have the opportunity to choose whether to provide other information (eg, questions related to items that the item provider user sells or otherwise provides) Specify, receive notification of options to respond to specific questions, and optionally respond to those questions in exchange for specified payments from item provider users, provide responses to specific questions Quickly in a variety of ways, including providing payments for money or other valuable items, reflecting the choices made by the item provider user It is possible to interact with the answer system.
Item provider users can be distinguished from response provider users in a variety of ways, which allows item provider users to make payments to provide responses to others' questions, as opposed to Response provider users may be provided with payments or other rewards (eg, in obtaining experience) for providing responses to others' questions.

  Each viewing user interacts with the quick response system in various ways, such as by accessing and browsing previously answered other people's questions that may optionally be accompanied by advertisements in various embodiments. can do. Advertisers act on behalf of others (for example, by acting through an affiliate program or as a service that sells ads), as well as the actual parties that the advertisement is shown for that party Or other intermediaries, and each of the advertisers can interact with the quick answer system and / or associated system (eg, revenue generation system) in various ways in various embodiments.

  For the purpose of explanation, provide incentives to encourage response provider users to provide answers to questions, provide a pay-per-response feature that allows item provider users to make payments to provide responses to questions, Various specific types of content in various specific ways based on specific types of interactions with users, such as categorizing answers in various ways to facilitate access by various users Several embodiments that are generated are described below. However, the techniques described can be used in a wide variety of other situations, and the techniques of the present invention include generating other types of content based on other types of interactions with the user. It should be understood that it can be used in a wide variety of other situations.

  2A-2K illustrate examples of interaction between one embodiment of a quick answer answer providing system and various types of users, such as via a GUI provided by one embodiment of the quick answer system. . In particular, FIG. 2A shows a GUI screen or example page (eg, a web page) from which a requester user can initiate the submission of a answered question. An example display includes an information section 201 regarding the overall operation of the quick answer system, a section 203 in which the requester user can specify a question, a user selectable control 205 in which the requester user can submit the question specified in section 203, And summary information 207 for a number of popular user-supplied categories 209 (eg, based on recent questions). The information section 201 in this example includes the number of response provider users (also referred to as “agents”) who are currently online and can immediately answer a question, and the average response time to provide a complete answer to the question; Provide details about the display of the amount of transactions that have occurred, and in some embodiments also display additional relevant information (eg, number of viewers, or number of questions before deadline that can still be answered) Can do. Categories 209 can be organized in a variety of ways (eg, alphabetically, by popularity, etc.), and in some embodiments may be a single word only, while in other embodiments, “food” A phrase such as “and dining” can be used as a category. In addition, in at least some embodiments in which a user is allowed to specify a free-form category, the category is a misspelled word (eg, as part of a displayed “food & dining” category) or Although it may contain very unfamiliar words, such categories are generally quickly absorbed into other categories that are used more frequently in terms of relative popularity, and in other embodiments, such Unfamiliar categories may not be available (eg, by performing spell checking and / or other analysis of user-supplied categories, selecting categories from a predefined list or hierarchy, etc.).

  FIG. 2B shows an example GUI screen or page that is displayed to the requestor user to provide various details related to the question submitted, such as after selection of the user selectable control 205 of FIG. 2A. In addition, although not shown here, in some embodiments, the requester user can quickly respond to information about the user's financial information, past user activity in the system, user preferences, etc. If you have a setup account, you may be prompted to sign on to the quick answer system before or during submission of the question request. In this example, the question to be answered is specified in section 213 (may be filled in automatically using the question text entered in section 203 of FIG. 2A), and a summary of the question is provided in section 215 Provide a time limit for completing the answer to the question in section 217 and rewards provided to at least some response provider users who provided the response used in the answer to the question in section 219 Various sections of the GUI are displayed to prompt the requester user to provide various information including specifying. An example GUI is one or more used to classify a question, such as a tag used as a category in such an embodiment, or a tag used to select a related existing category in other embodiments. It also includes a section 221 that allows the requester user to specify multiple tags. In addition, in the illustrated example, the tags are based on the question text and / or words in the summary at section 223 (eg, reflecting popular existing tags or other categories). A user selectable control 225 can also be suggested and can be used to submit questions to the quick answer system and make them available to the response provider user.

  In at least some embodiments, if a time limit is specified by the requester user, the quick response system receives fewer than a predetermined or required number of responses to provide an answer within that time, Or the validity of the question for additional response provider users and responses at the end of the time limit or at the end, even if only a predetermined number (eg 10) or fewer response provider users are responding Various actions can be taken, such as closing. In addition, the requester user may provide rewards for answers to submitted questions in various embodiments, such as specifying the amount to be paid and / or the number of points in the quick answer system provided. Each question may or alternatively be categorized by a quick answer system (eg, using the same reward for each question, or alternatively, for the question and / or other information related to the question Monetary value and / or points may be assessed (using rewards that vary based on). As will be explained in more detail below, rewards that include quick response system points can provide various types of benefits to the response provider user, and the requester user can provide such points provided. , (Based on receiving the specified number of points for free, such as the initial number of points allocated or the number of points recurring every consecutive specified period, paying to purchase points, and other activities of the requester user Can be obtained in a variety of ways). In addition, in at least some embodiments, both questions and summaries may be limited to a predetermined number of characters (eg, 959 characters for questions, 85 characters for summaries), and in at least some situations (eg, If the question text is short enough), a summary other than the question may not be used. In some embodiments, the requester user's geographic location or criteria regarding which response provider user will provide a response (eg, the response provider user's specified desired or The required qualifications, the response provider user has responded to the indicated related predecessor question, such as an indication that the indicated task or action has been performed previously), and / or how the answer to the question is generated Additional information such as criteria on what to do can also be supplied or specified. In some embodiments, the requester user can be rewarded according to the time the answer is obtained, such as paying a premium for a faster answer given to the question rather than a slower answer. .

  FIG. 2C shows an example GUI screen or page that displays a portion of the answer to the question, such as to the requester user who submitted the question. In particular, the example information includes a status indicator 231 indicating the completion status of the answer, one or more graphical advertisements 233, one or more sponsor text links 235, and an image 237 of the requester user who submitted the question. , Question information 239, reward information 241, summary section 243 about the responses that make up the answer, user selectable controls 245 for sorting the answers, the first one of the question answers that make up the answers 247, And a user-selectable control 249 for providing feedback on the answer. In this example, the requester user is certain that a particular response is the best of all responses, insufficient (eg irrelevant, distant from the topic, poorly described), otherwise helpful Feedback indicating that it is not or abusive (for example, including offensive language, is totally unrelated to the question, or otherwise violates a rule or condition on the response provided) However, in other embodiments, the relative and / or absolute ranking of various responses with respect to one or more attributes that are measured, such as usefulness, one or more people based on the response Other types of feedback (e.g., ranking of response provider users) may be performed instead. In some embodiments, sponsor links and / or graphical advertisements can be from other sources, such as item provider users and / or advertisers, but in other embodiments, item offers instead The information provided by the provider user is similar or identical to the type of response received from the response provider user and can be displayed along with those other responses. In addition, in other embodiments, the displayed information displays the requested user image and / or various details of the question (eg, question text, or related metadata such as tags or other categories, summaries, etc.). It may be changed so as not to.

  In some embodiments, the requester user who asked the question can view the responses as they are received and incrementally increased by the quick response system, while in other embodiments the response information is , Until the question is fully answered (ie, all responses to the question have been received and the response aggregation process or other process is complete) are not provided to the requester user. In embodiments where other users, such as the viewing user, can view such answers, the display information may be similar, but the ability to provide feedback on the answers, or responses that increase as responses are received. You may lack some details, such as the ability to receive. In addition, in at least some embodiments, a question was submitted to prevent potential or actual response provider users from obtaining information about responses provided by other response provider users Users other than the requester user can obtain only the question and information about the answer after the answer is completed. Further, in some embodiments, at least some requestor users can receive only one response to a submitted question, the single response being provided by a single response provider user. A response, or alternatively, a single response is one response selected as the best, or one response that is preferred over other responses based on specified criteria (eg, by a quick response system) Run with the first response received, the response from the response provider user with the highest raised status, the response that the item provider user may pay the most, and / or the response provider user with the least reward One of a plurality of responses supplied by one or more response provider users, such as a response that can be .

  FIG. 2D shows an example GUI screen or page that allows a response provider user to identify a question before the current deadline that is available to the response provider user and can be selected to provide a response. Yes. In particular, in this example, the display information is for searching for available questions (such as based on a search for tags or other categories, question text, and / or any other metadata related to the question). Included in the display list 259 is a section 253 where information can be specified by the response provider user, a user selectable control 255 for sorting or arranging the questions before deadlines by tag or other category information, and any questions before deadlines User selectable controls 257 to control and the level of detail shown for each question (in this example, shows the amount of money that will be obtained from providing responses to questions made so far during the current month) A response provider user's account and / or a display 251 relating to past activity. . Each of the displayed questions is currently a summary, tag or other category information, the requester user of the question, the maximum associated reward for all responses to the question, and the time left to answer the question And various details including a user selectable control for initiating a process of providing one or more responses to the question. In at least some embodiments, the response provider user may depend on one or more categories, time left to answer a question, reward value, one or more geographic locations associated with the question, etc. Questions can be searched and / or sorted in various ways. In at least some embodiments, user selectable controls may also be available, and in some embodiments selected pre-deadline questions to control the level of detail displayed for each question. Can be automatically displayed to the response provider user by default (e.g., reflecting the expertise of the response provider user and / or specified areas of preference). In addition, if the question is currently unavailable (for example, because the maximum amount of time has elapsed or because the maximum number of response provider users who have selected the question to provide a response has been reached), In this embodiment, the question is no longer displayed to the response provider user; in other embodiments, the question is displayed, but the response provider user may not be allowed to choose to provide a response to the question. is there.

  FIG. 2E illustrates an example GUI screen or page that allows the response provider user to provide one or more responses to the question before the deadline. In particular, in this example, the display information includes various information 263 related to unanswered questions (question details, tag or other category information, related monetary rewards, time remaining before expiration, etc.) The example also provides status information about the current degree of completion of the answer process), the section 265 where question classification is requested and viewed, and the answer provider user for use as a possible category associated with the answer. A section 277 in which one or more tags can be specified, and information 261 relating to the current response provider user's account and / or past activity (in this example, from providing responses to questions made so far during the current month) Indicating the amount of money to be obtained). In addition, the display information includes a section 267 that allows the response provider user to specify the URL of a site that has information related to the answer, and a telephone number (eg, an item provider related to the question) that the response provider user has associated with the question. Section 269, which in this example includes the telephone number of the store in Los Angeles that stocks the product Xbox 360, and a section 271 indicating that the response provided is the opinion of the response provider user (An opinion is detailed in summary section 273 and detail section 275) and a user who can respond to the question, including a user selectable control 279 for submitting one or more specified responses. Or include various sections that can provide multiple responses.

  In some embodiments, various additional types of information sources or other types of responses can be provided, and the quick response system can further include (e.g., from previous responses having the same or similar categories). The response provider user can be assisted in various ways, such as by showing potentially useful websites (based on the URL of the URL or based on being a generally useful reference site). In addition, in some embodiments, a response provider user may have a specific phone number for each question if it can be presented by only one response provider user (eg, the response provider user may It may be possible to reserve a telephone number for use as a reply to the current question, such as while preparing additional reply information, or alternatively for future use in another reply. In this example embodiment, the quick response system is where the response provider user submits the question, such as when the requester user forgets to provide important information or the question is too broad to answer reasonably. It is also possible to ask the requester user about the classification, and the received classification can be made visible to all actual and / or potential response provider users.

  In this example, only a space for one URL and / or one phone number is provided, but in some embodiments, the response provider user can have multiple URLs, phone numbers, and / or other types. Other information sources may be provided such as content information (eg, street address and / or postal address, email address, etc.). Further, in some embodiments, the response provider user may wish to provide a group of multiple responses to a question at once, while in other embodiments, the response provider user You may be able to submit your response in several batches. In addition, in some embodiments, it may be desirable to standardize the response in a specific manner, such as stylizing the phone number as (##########, In such embodiments, an example may be provided and / or a client site script (eg, Java®) to dynamically monitor the response and modify it accordingly to take the correct form. Script) may be used. In some embodiments, the quick response system also provides certain responses, such as not accepting alias URLs that redirect the browser to a different URL for a variety of reasons (eg, limiting inappropriate responses). Can be limited. In addition, the system can have various security measures to prevent replies with advertisements away from the topic or spam of other replies.

  Although not shown here, in some embodiments, the response provider user can provide multimedia content (e.g., images, etc.) provided by one or more sources external to the response providing service of the quick response system. Audio, video, etc.), active content (e.g., implemented by applets, plug-ins, scripts, or other executable code), and / or links to content or other instructions of content (e.g., URL links, content) A response utilizing various types of additional types of content, such as instructions for discovering / acquiring data, access information used to gain access, etc.). Various technologies can be used to provide such functionality, including, but not limited to, Java® Script, Java® Applet, Macromedia Flash, ActiveX, and AJAX. Such additional types of content include interactive maps, weather forecasts, traffic conditions, calendars, reservation services (eg, restaurants, entertainment, travel, etc.), community-based content (eg, wikis, online communities, etc.), rankings And other reputation-related services, etc. can be used in a variety of ways. Such additional types of content may be identified in various ways, including in some embodiments using a set of standardization tools, modules, and / or development environments provided by the quick answer system. It can also be generated by a response provider user for the response. For example, in some embodiments, a rapid response system provides a specific portion of a specific type of content as part of a response so that each can be selected and configured by a response provider user, a map module, calendar A plurality of specific content modules such as a module and a restaurant reservation module can be provided. Other embodiments allow response provider users (and / or third party developers) to implement and provide custom content modules that are used by response provider users and included as part of the response. A toolkit and / or API can be provided. In some embodiments, a third-party developer providing a custom content module may automatically receive a fee from a response provider user using the module (eg, a reward given to such a response provider user using the module). A mechanism for generating and transferring a license fee for a custom content module can also be provided.

  Incorporation of various types of content into a response by a response provider user may cause various legal issues, including copyright and trademark rights, based on how and when the content was generated. For example, if the response provider user includes one or more defined types of content (eg, images, audio, or video clips, etc.) as part of the response, in some embodiments the quick response system is An attempt can be made to obtain a guarantee that the response provider user has the right to provide content. Such a guarantee is, for example, a period for using a quick response system where only authorized content can be provided by a positive indication by the response provider user that he is authorized to provide the content and By specifying the conditions, it can be provided by a guarantee or other guarantee contract provided by the response provider user. Other embodiments may allow potential rights holders to respond to the response provider user and / or the quick response system operator to allow unauthorized content to be quickly deleted or otherwise processed. Mechanisms can be provided that can provide notification of potential infringement.

  FIG. 2F illustrates the priority status of a response provider user (eg, based on reaching one or more incentive levels with respect to the amount of expertise of the response provider user), or an increased status. FIG. 5 illustrates an example GUI screen or page that displays various details about an account for a response provider user's quick response system, including a display. In particular, in this example, the display information includes a navigation section 281 with links to various groups of information, a reward section 283 that contains information about monetary and expertise rewards earned by the user, and various information about the user. A profile section 285 that contains information, an award section 287 showing the user's raised status based on incentive levels reached with respect to several categories of expertise, and a type of pre-deadline question that the user is interested in Various notification sections 291 that can specify criteria (e.g., criteria for identifying matching questions, including categories and / or keywords, and criteria for when / how notification of matching questions occurs); User in category And a ranking section 289 showing the relative ranking of gates knowledge. In this example, several elevated status levels, called “Silva” and “Gold”, are available, with a higher “Gold” level giving other benefits to all of the lower “Silva” level benefits. Providing a plus profit. For example, the response provider user's level of expertise in the top 25% for a particular category allows the response provider user to obtain “Silva” status and various benefits (eg, response provider user participation) Extend the 12-month default period to share a continuous revenue stream for completed responses to 18 months, specify notifications, receive notifications when questions that meet specified criteria become available, etc.) By providing the top 10% of the level of expertise of the response provider user for a particular category, the response provider user gains a “gold” status and various additional benefits (eg, response provider 24 12-month default period for sharing a continuous revenue stream for answers the user participates in It is extended to the moon, and specify the notification, can receive capability, etc.) that are more sophisticated receive notification when a question that matches is available to the specified criteria.

  In some embodiments, similar types of information can be displayed to different types of users, such as requester users and / or item provider users. For example, the requester user is provided with information to enable searching of questions that the requester user has previously asked or viewed, information to see the points and / or money spent to ask questions. The item provider user may be able to see the response and / or the amount spent to provide an answer including the response. In addition, if individual users play different roles in the system, users may be able to see all account information at once, or switch between roles as directed instead Good.

  FIG. 2G shows an example GUI screen or page that allows a viewing user to identify answered questions of interest, such as by browsing categories. In particular, in this example, the display information includes an answer section 295 and an associated category section 293, where the answer section provides various details (eg, question questions) for each of several question / answer pairs in the “J2EE” category. , The requester user who supplied the question, and the category associated with the answer). The answer section, in other embodiments, includes additional information such as an indication of the response provider user who provided the response used for the answer, and / or one or more various details associated with the answer. Can do. The related category section 293 may also be of interest to the viewing user, and in various embodiments based on sharing duplicate tags in various ways (eg, where each category may have multiple related tags). Indicates a category related to the current category that can be determined (based on answers and / or other information related to sufficiently similar categories based on related categories as part of a hierarchy or correlation) .

  FIG. 2H shows information related to a question of interest that an item provider user may pay to include information as part of the answer to the question if he chooses to do so on a per-question basis. An example GUI screen or page example 200 is shown that allows the user to specify. In particular, in this example, the display information includes a profile section 202, a question match criteria section 206, and a question match notification mechanism section 212. The profile section 202 includes contact information 204a and payment information 204b in this example. In some embodiments, at least some contact information is automatically provided as part or all of the response with payment of the item provider user to the question. The billing information 204b displays a cumulative fee that reflects the amount paid and / or promised to be paid by the item provider user in response to the response that the item provider user has chosen to provide for the provided question.

  The question matching criteria section 206 includes a plurality of groups 210a-210e of question matching criteria, each identifying a different set of questions of interest in this example, each criteria group comprising a category field 208a, a keyword field 208b, , And a bid (Bid) field 208c. In this example, if the question matches one of the criteria groups, and the bid is high enough (eg, X is the highest bid in the item provider user's match criteria group, X is a predetermined number. The criteria is used to determine to notify the item provider user of the given question provided by the requester user if it falls within the top X of such bids) In other embodiments, other factors (e.g., whether the item provider user has a preferred or premium status based on past interaction with the quick answer system and / or payment for such status, item provider (E.g., whether the user has frequently chosen to perform the notified selection right) may also be used. In the exemplary embodiment, the category displayed in the category field 208a is the same as the category of the supplied question, and all keywords displayed in the keyword field 208b include the question text, metadata related to the question, A given reference group matches a question when it appears anywhere in the metadata (eg, geographic location, demographic information, etc.) associated with the requester user who supplied the question. For example, in criteria 210a, the item provider user has expressed interest in any category of questions (indicated by the use of “<any>”) that matches the keywords “Seattle” and “plumber”. At 210b, the item provider user has expressed an interest in a question in the “Plumbing” category that also matches the keyword “Seattle”. In criterion 210c, the item provider user expresses interest in any category of questions that match the keywords “plumping” and “leak”. In criterion 210d, the item provider user has expressed interest in questions in the “Plumbing” category. In criterion 210e, the item provider user expresses interest in any category of questions that match the keyword “pipes”.

  Various approaches for matching a question with a question match criterion are contemplated. For example, in various embodiments, supplied categories and / or keywords may be matched individually and combined in various ways to determine potential matches. Some embodiments provide a hierarchy of categories (eg, a super category includes one or more subcategories) and the category specified by the item provider user is the same as or specified by the question category. Only when the selected category is a super category of the question category, it is determined that the category matches. Such an embodiment can indicate that the specified category is a question category, since specifying more specialized categories can indicate that the item provider user is not interested in questions that include general subjects. If it is a subcategory, it may be selected not to determine that the category matches. In addition, various embodiments may include word stemming, approximate matching, regular expression matching, etc. when comparing the keywords specified by the item provider user with the provided questions. Various techniques can be used. In addition, various approaches are contemplated for combining multiple keywords, keyword matches, and / or category matches, such as using various logical operators such as “and”, “or”. In addition, the various techniques described above are used to provide item provider users with the ability to specify keywords using regular expression syntax and / or to combine various categories and keyword matches. It may be configurable and / or selectable by the item provider user, such as by allowing the user to select from various logical operators to be performed.

  Each of the indicated criteria 210a-210e also includes a bid field 208c. In an exemplary embodiment, if the item provider user chooses to provide a response to a question that meets the relevant criteria, the bid field 208c is utilized to assert the amount that may be paid. be able to. For example, if a question meets criteria 210b (category “Plumbing”, keyword “Seattle”), the item provider user may pay $ 0.70 if he chooses to provide a response to that question. It expresses that it doesn't matter. On the other hand, if the question meets criteria 210e (any category, keyword “pipes”), the item provider user may pay $ 0.10 if he chooses to provide a response to the question. Expresses that there is no. The difference in values expressed in the various criteria will reflect the fact that a given item provider user will value a more specific match higher than a more general match. For example, questions that meet criteria 210e can include not only plumbing-related questions, but also automotive-related (eg, “exhaust pipes”) and tobacco-related (eg, “cigarette pipes”) queries, and thus plumbing businesses. It is not so valuable for the item provider user.

  The amount indicated that a given item provider user may pay to provide a reply can be used in a variety of ways. For example, some embodiments may preferentially notify an item provider user who has a higher bid for a given criterion. For example, assuming that each of a plurality of item provider users is bidding on a criterion that matches a given question, some embodiments may provide a bid made by each item provider user. Based at least in part on the amount of money, may choose to notify only some subset of those item provider users. The subset of item provider users should select the bidder with the highest bid, and select some of the bidders with higher bids, with the number of people selected as a predetermined number or a predetermined percentage of the total number of matching bidders. (E.g., the probability of selecting a given item provider user, weighted by the amount of the bid, so that the bidder with the higher bid is more likely to be selected. Can be selected in a variety of ways, including, but not limited to, randomly selecting some of the bidders. In addition, the amount actually charged for providing an answer by the item provider user can be based at least in part on the amount of the bid made against the match criteria. For example, in some embodiments, the item provider user who provides information in the answer is charged the amount of the bid made for the criteria that matched the question, while in other embodiments such an Item provider users charge other amounts (for example, the minimum or average amount of bids from all item provider users who have chosen to present information that is matched, notified, or included in the answer) May be.

  The query match notification mechanism 212, in this example, includes a plurality of selectable notification mechanisms 214a, including those via email, IM, and telephone (eg, automatically answered by an IVR or automated voice response system, etc.). -214c are included. By specifying and selecting at least one notification mechanism, the item provider user can control how notifications are received for questions that meet at least one question matching criteria 210a-210e. Additional notification mechanisms are also contemplated, including via text messages (eg, short message service messages sent to mobile phones), paging, news feeds, and the like.

  FIG. 2I shows a GUI screen or example page 220 that allows the item provider user to select whether he / she wishes to provide a response with payment for a particular question provided by the requester user. ing. The response provided by the item provider user can be included in an answer that can also include one or more responses from various response provider users, as shown in FIG. 2K. In this example, the display information is a question section 222 having information about questions that meet the criteria previously provided by the item provider user (in other embodiments, at least some such questions are instead To provide information included in the answer to the question in various ways, and may be automatically identified for the item provider user without explicitly supplied criteria) And a reply section 224 that can optionally select to make a payment. In this example, the question section 222 includes a question summary (“Desperately seeking plumber”), a geographical area indication (“Ballard, Seattle”), tags or other category information, and an indication of the requester user's identity. Indication of the question text details and the time remaining for the item provider user to choose to provide a response with payment (which may be the same as the question expired or the first item provided Provide a shorter time limit for item provider users to provide one or more additional item provider users with the option to respond to a question when a supplier user declines a response And so on. The response section 224 provides user interface controls that allow the item provider user to select whether to provide a paid response to the indicated question.

  The reply section 224 includes an instruction message 226a, a user selectable reply field 226b, and a submit button 226c in this example. In this example, the user is limited to provide response information with payment included in the answer to the question, in particular to respond by providing the profile information specified ahead of the item provider user. Provided only ability. Such profile information can be default contacts and / or other information provided by the item provider user, such as allowing the requester user to contact the item provider user. The reply section 224 is, in this example, an item that if you choose to submit a reply, you will be charged $ 0.75 based on one or more bids described with reference to FIG. 2H. Further notify the provider user. The item provider user can select that an answer be submitted by selecting the appropriate answer ("Yes") in the answer field 226b and activating the submit button 226c. If the item provider user selects the “No” option in the answer field 224 and activates the submit button, or the item provider user has not activated the submit button (eg, within a specified period of time) If no action is taken (by at least some embodiments), the item provider user is not charged and the response information is not included in the answer to the question. As previously mentioned, in at least some embodiments, a response or other information with a payment provided by such an item provider user to be included in the answer to the question with a payment is other May be accompanied by responses with multiple other payments from multiple item provider users and / or may be accompanied by responses without multiple payments from one or more response provider users .

  FIG. 2J may be provided to allow the item provider user to provide a response with a detailed payment to the question provided by the requester user if the item provider user so chooses. A GUI screen or page alternative 230 is shown. In particular, in this example, the display information includes a question section 232 and a response section 234, which is included in the answer to the question by the item provider user if the item provider user so selects. Allows you to specify various details. The reply section 234 includes an instruction message 236a, a contact information field 236b, an information field 236c, and a submit button 236d. If the item provider user chooses to provide a reply, not only can the contact information field 236b provide contact information, but the information field 236c can also provide other information. Other information may include other details regarding the goods or services indicated by the question (eg, price quotes, warranty information, surcharges, schedule information, business hours, disclaimers, etc.). If the item provider user activates the submit button 236d, the information entered in the contact information field 236b and the information field 236c is provided as part of the answer to the supplied question, and the item provider user has $ 0 .75 is charged. If the item provider user does not activate submit button 236d, or if the item provider activates submit button 236d after the period specified in question section 232, the user will not be charged and what Submission information is also not provided as part of the answers to the questions provided.

  Other embodiments may utilize an alternative mechanism to allow providing answers with payment for questions submitted by the requester user. For example, some embodiments allow an item provider user to save various pre-configured responses and then select from those responses when the item provider user provides a user response in a notification can do. Such pre-configured responses can include text, audio, images, multimedia, active content, and other forms of content that specify addresses, advertisements, URLs, price quotes, and the like. Various embodiments further provide for a response provided after the indicated period for submitting a response, simply discarding such response and not charging the item provider user, or such response. Processing can be selected in various ways, such as providing as part of an answer that can be viewed by a later viewer. Such an embodiment is that the item provider user submits a response after the indicated period for reply, but is usually charged to the item provider user for submitting a certain price (eg, submitting a response). Interactively to make such choices, such as notifying the item provider user that they may choose to include such a response for later viewers) be able to.

  In a manner similar to FIG. 2C, FIG. 2K shows a GUI screen or example page 240 that can display a portion of the answer to the question, such as the requester user who submitted the question, but in this example, the display information is , Including a reply with payment provided by the item provider user. In particular, in this example, the display information includes a question section 242, a summary section 244, and a response 252. The question section 242 provides details related to the question submitted by the requester user, and an example question in this case is a request for information related to a digital camera purchase. Summary section 244 shows that so far three agents have provided a total of 10 responses and one camera vendor has provided a response with payment. Examples of the response 252 include a response 246 with payment from the item provider user and a portion of the response 250 from the response provider user. Examples of responses with payments 246 include current availability (eg, 11 popular model XYZ digital cameras in stock) and price (eg, available for $ 199.95 each as of a given date) ) Including an example of information about a specific camera vendor. The answer is otherwise similar to the answer described in more detail with reference to FIG. 2C.

  Other embodiments may display multiple responses from the item provider user to the provided questions in various ways. For example, some embodiments provide for items with higher bids based on the amount of bids made by each item provider user against the criteria initially used to match the questions. The response provided by the provider user precedes or is more prominent (e.g., using a different font size and / or color) than the response provided by the item provider user who made the lower price bid. Line up such replies as listed. In some embodiments, only responses provided by the item provider user making the highest payment can be displayed by default, other responses can be the requester user or other users viewing the response. (E.g., by clicking on a link or activating some other user-selectable control that allows the user to access or otherwise view such other responses) It can be optionally displayed only if it indicates that it is desired to view other responses.

  In addition, in some embodiments, various additional types of functionality can be provided by the quick answer system via one or more such GUI screens or pages. For example, in addition to providing feedback on a particular response that is provided as part of an answer to a submitted question, the requester user who supplied the question may further include various related to the response provider user who submitted the response. Any type of feedback (e.g. pointing out a particularly useful and / or useless response provider user based on the provided response and / or based on classification or other interaction with the response provider user), And / or one or more item provider users who submitted responses with payments, or various types of feedback related to responses with those payments (e.g., future useless from item provider users or Quick response system to limit or prevent responses with abusive payments Therefore, in order to use, it is possible to provide that) to point out a reply with such payments. Similarly, a response provider user can use a particular response provided by another response provider user for a submitted question to be useful (eg, best answer) and / or useless (eg, insufficient or abusive) ) And providing feedback on tags or other category information submitted by other response provider users and / or requester users (eg, pointing out or helping to identify the best tag or category) Various types of feedback may also be provided regarding questions that the response provider user is participating in providing one or more responses (such as pointing out non- or abusive tags or categories). In addition, in some embodiments, viewing users and / or item provider users can supply tags and other categories and / or provide feedback on others' tags, categories, responses, and participation. Users other than the requester user submitting the question and the response provider user providing the response to the question may be able to provide a similar type of feedback to the question. Further, in some embodiments, the user prevents others from displaying the requester user's location information unless it relates to a question, or the user's username or other identity information is provided to others. Various security and / or privacy preferences and other information may be specified to prevent this from happening.

  In addition, examples of various interactions with the quick answer system by various users have been described using the GUI provided by the quick answer system, but in other embodiments these and other related types of The interaction may be performed in a variety of other ways. For example, question submission, response submission, and other types of interactions are provided by the quick answer system in some embodiments, such as via one or more web services provided by the quick answer system. May be programmatically provided to the quick answer system via one or more APIs. Alternatively, in some embodiments, some or all of such types of interactions with various user rapid response systems may instead be based on email or other types of electronic messages, or other May be implemented using a messaging interface (eg, based on an automated voice-based messaging system, such as via a telephone message). Further, in some embodiments, submitting questions via email and a quick answer system (eg, via automated voice calls, via IM or SMS messages, via GUI or programmatically) Multiple modes of interaction are used by a particular user for a particular question, such as receiving a reply for an answer using one or more other modes of communication (such as by interacting with) Good. In embodiments that utilize IM to receive questions and replies, and to provide answers, the quick answer system is for the purpose of sending instant messages containing questions, replies, and / or answers to the quick answer system, and Has an IM identity indicated by a handle or username (eg, “RapidAnswers”) that a user can add to a contact list (eg, a buddy list) for the purpose of receiving from a quick answer system be able to.

  2L-2R illustrate examples of various interfaces between participants using an example messaging interface with a quick response system based on email communications. In particular, in this example, the quick answer system provides one or more email addresses (or other electronic message addresses) from which the requester user can submit questions, and answers to the questions are submitted by the questions Can be sent back to the requester user in the account and / or sent back to another designated account. The submitted questions can then be provided to the response provider user and / or the item provider user in various ways, and the corresponding responses are described from those users previously in FIGS. 2A-2K. Can be received in a variety of ways, such as via a GUI such as, or alternatively, based on an email message or another type of messaging interface.

  In particular, FIG. 2L illustrates an exemplary requester user UserABC providing an email address (in this example, "" for a quick answer system for receiving such a question in order to submit the question to the quick answer system. ask rapid@answer.com "), an exemplary email message 291 is shown. In this example, a question requesting information about an Italian restaurant in Boston is specified as part of the email subject line 291d and other information related to the question (eg, tag or other category, related to the question). Other metadata to do) is not specified. FIG. 2M shows an alternative exemplary email message that requester user UserABC has sent to submit a question to the quick answer system, but in this example, the body of the email message is a tag or Information 291e-291g to specify additional relevant information, such as other category information, the geographic location associated with the question, and information about rewards provided by UserABC for providing answers to the question Including. In other embodiments, each requester user is charged the same amount (eg, 10 cents) for presenting a question, and / or provides the same number of experience points as rewards for each such submitted question If so, such question-specific rewards indicated by the requester user may not be used. Additional information such as tag and / or category information, reward information, etc., in the indicated email, by placing a text indicator in front of the information to identify the type of subsequent information (eg, the specified tag Are identified (by using “tags:” to indicate) in other embodiments, but may be specified in other ways. For example, FIG. 2N shows in line 291h an example where a character-based indicator (in this example, the symbol “@”) is used instead to identify the supplied tag information. In other embodiments, the various types of information about the questions submitted may instead be included by including the question text in the body of the email, submitting the question via multiple related emails, etc. Can be submitted in the form.

  FIG. 2O shows several responses provided to UserABC for the provided questions, in this example each response is sent in a separate email message. For example, the first email 292 includes the telephone number of a particular restaurant supplied by the response provider user UserDEF, and in this example the response text is included in the subject line 292d. As shown, in this example, the reply email is sent from the quick reply system, not directly from the reply provider user, and the reply information is sent by the reply provider user UserDEF via the quick reply system GUI. It may have been supplied to the quick response system. An exemplary response email 293 from the response provider user UserGHI includes an opinion response using summary information shown in the subject line 293d and additional information 293e included in the body of the email message. The example response email 294 includes a second response from the response provider user UserDEF, which in this example includes a website URL. In other embodiments, multiple responses from a single response provider user or all response provider users are provided together in a single response email message, and the actual response in various other ways. Various other types of response information can be provided in other ways, such as by specifying information.

  In addition, in this example, the quick reply system further automatically includes additional information in the reply email sent to UserABC, which in this example is shown in the reply email lines 292e, 293f, 294e. A tracking identifier that is unique to the submitted question. In this example, the tracking identifiers are different even if they are related (eg, by including an identifier with a common base identifier “23497293293” appended with a unique suffix identifier for each reply email) In other embodiments, it may instead be related in other ways, such as being the same for all response emails for a particular question, or (eg, each is generated randomly and the corresponding response email They may be unrelated to each other (by being associated). The tracking identifier is provided in this example to provide additional security with respect to several types of actions taken by the requester user. For example, UserABC may, in this example, provide a tracking identifier or other information (eg, UserABC password or other identifying information) used in verifying the authenticity of emails with which questions are submitted. Although questions can be provided without including at least some other types of interactions by UserABC in this example (for example, to provide feedback and / or feedback regarding the response provider user) Tracking identifier from email provided for tracking, or tracking from any email (eg, to provide a quick answer system with commands related to UserABC accounts that are not specific to the submitted question) Additional verification may be required, such as by including an identifier. By including a tracking identifier from a prior email sent from the quick reply system to the requester user, a malicious user who has no access to such prior email will be able to use a valid email for the quick reply system on behalf of UserABC. Provides additional security in that it cannot be transmitted.

  FIG. 2P illustrates multiple examples where requester user UserABC uses such tracking information to provide additional messages, such as for feedback and other commands. For example, FIG. 2P illustrates that in this example, information and user selectable controls 292f (e.g., HTML-based e-mail Including an alternative embodiment of the response email 292 described above, including controls that are links displayed in the viewer). The example email 295 is then generated in an automated manner without further interaction or input by UserABC when the requester user UserABC selects the “Unhelpful” feedback control in the reply email 292. Shows a feedback email that can be sent to. In this example, the generated email is sent to a different email address in the quick answer system (eg, “feedback@rapid-answer.com”), with the actual feedback and tracking identifier from the reply email 292 The associated (eg based on) tracking identifier is included in the subject line of the feedback email. In other embodiments, the feedback email can include other types of information and / or can be specified in another manner (eg, the tracking identifier included in the feedback email is instead The tracking identifier that can be the same as or included in the response email 292 is included in the “Unhelpful” control in the response email 292 previously generated by the quick response system and sent to the requestor user. If associated, it can be irrelevant).

  The example feedback email 296 provides an alternative to the feedback email from the requester user UserABC associated with the prior response email 294, and in particular, the use of special feedback related controls provided to UserABC. FIG. 9 shows an example of a feedback email generated by UserABC without. Instead, in this example, UserABC provides feedback related to the reply email 294 by using the reply email function, and the reply email 294 (the tracking identifier present in the reply email 294). Included in the response feedback email in a typical manner, and the response email is sent back to the sender of the response email 294 (in this example, the same “ask@rapid-answer.com” email address But in other embodiments, a different response email address, such as “response@rapid-answer.com”, may be used for each of some or all of the response email addresses), “Unhelpful” feedback is manually entered by UserABC in line 296e of the feedback email body. In other embodiments, the tracking identifier and / or other tracking features may be used in other ways, in this example the tracking identifier is labeled, but in other embodiments it is malicious The tracking identifier may be unlabeled and / or otherwise obscured to prevent identification of information by the user. Such obfuscation is typically placed in an email message header that is not displayed by the email client, or placed in a hidden portion of a rich-text message body (eg, in a message body in HTML format). As a comment), embedded in binary message content, or otherwise encoded (eg, as a comment field or watermark in binary image data).

  FIG. 2Q uses the tracking identifier from the email previously sent to UserABC by the quick reply system, but the preceding email is supplied to the quick reply system by UserABC in a manner unrelated to the current command. An example of a command electronic mail is shown. In particular, in this example, each question submission by UserABC is paid by UserABC based on previously purchased question credits or points, and UserABC is used to submit 10 additional questions. Want to pre-purchase credit. Thus, UserABC, in this example, meets specified criteria, such as any email previously sent to UserABC by the quick response system (or in other embodiments, within a certain period of time and / or certain types) Any such previously sent email) is selected and configured to use the desired command (eg, when UserABC is first registered with the quick answer system and / or using a message-based interface) Generate a reply e-mail to the quick response system that includes one of a predefined set of commands provided to UserABC in advance, etc. In this example, UserABC generates a command email message 297 by replying to the advance reply email 294 and adds 10 (eg, using the previously specified payment information from the UserABC account). Command ‘Buy 10’ is included in the line 297e of the reply mail body. When the quick response system receives the command email, it verifies that the command email contains a tracking identifier from the email that the quick response system previously provided to UserABC, and whether to authorize the indicated action. To determine (e.g., checking previously specified preferences or other configuration information for UserABC, the current status of UserABC's account, and some debt or other issues exist Additional checks can also be performed (for example, by checking them). In this example, the quick reply system provides further confirmation by UserABC to ensure that the incoming command email is actually from UserABC (eg, for some or all types of command messages). Only in certain cases decide to accept the command. Thus, the quick response system generates and sends a confirmation request email 298 requesting that UserABC reply to confirm the command in the subject line 298d in the example shown, where the confirmation request email 298 A new tracking identifier that is related to, but different from, the tracking identifier used in UserABC's command email 297 (for example, by sharing the first six digits, but the subsequent four digits are randomly generated) In line 298e. In this example, after receiving the confirmation request e-mail, UserABC replies using the confirmation e-mail 299 including the command “Confirm” in the line 299e of the e-mail message body. Upon receipt of the confirmation email (and optionally verifying that the reply email contains a tracking identifier from the confirmation request email), the quick response system gets payment from UserABC for 10 additional question credits And execute the command by associating those prepaid credits with the UserABC account. Various other types of commands can be provided, such as to reflect any action that the requester user can take by interacting with the GUI and / or programmatic interface of the quick answer system instead, and others It will be appreciated that in this embodiment, various types of command information may be specified in other manners instead (eg, using XML or other types of data formats). Additional details regarding other examples of commands are described below. In addition, examples of the use of message-based interfaces have been shown exclusively for requester users, but in at least some embodiments (including response provider users, item provider users, and viewing users) It will be appreciated that any user can use such a message-based interface with the appropriate type of message.

  Although FIG. 2R shows two additional exemplary types of messages that can be used in a messaging-based interface, various other types of messages can be used in other embodiments. In this example, message 281 represents a clarification message to requester user UserABC reflecting a clarification request from a potential or actual response provider user regarding a question previously submitted by UserABC, In this example, the clarification question is included in the subject line 281d, but could alternatively be specified in other ways. Although not shown, UserABC can then provide clarification information by replying to the clarification request email in the manner previously shown for other types of reply emails. In addition, the exemplary email message 282 represents a reply with payment for a question previously submitted by UserABC. More specifically, in the example shown, a representative of an item provider, Restaurant RRR, responds to a UserABC question in exchange for payment from Restaurant RRR (eg, after receiving and reviewing the question). Choose to provide. Accordingly, the subject line 282d in this example includes information specified by the proxy of the restaurant RRR used for this reply. In this example, the response is shown as a response with payment, but in other embodiments the response with such payment or other payment information from the item provider user is the response from the response provider user. Need not be explicitly identified so that they can be distinguished from each other.

  Thus, the quick answer system can perform different types of interactions with different types of users. Additional details regarding an exemplary system for interacting with a user to provide tasks to be performed and receive corresponding results are provided in “Providing An Electronic Marketplace To Facility Human Performance” filed Nov. 16, 2004. It is contained in Patent Document 1 entitled “Of Programmably Submitted Tasks”.

  As previously mentioned, the response provider user may receive ongoing revenue in response to a particular question with a monetary reward and / or one or more answers contributed by the response provider user. As part of the distribution of the stream, payments or other rewards can be received from the quick answer system at various times. In some embodiments, such monetary rewards are associated with a response provider user's account in a quick response system, and the response provider user can be used as cash (eg, for use as part of an e-commerce transaction). Specified to obtain access to accumulated revenue (such as to acquire) (for example, when the accumulated revenue reaches a minimum threshold, or at a highly specified access frequency, or instead at any point in time) Account (at a specified time or in specified circumstances). In other embodiments, the revenue is otherwise determined by the payment component that is part of the quick response system or alternatively based on the interaction of the quick response system with one or more third party payment systems ( For example, it may be automatically provided to the response provider user (e.g., regularly such as monthly). In addition, in some embodiments and situations, other types of users can interact with one or more third-party payment systems by interacting with, or instead of, such payment components of the quick response system as well. Based on the interaction, payment can be received and / or payment can be made. Additional details regarding an exemplary system for paying for users and tracking relevant information can be found in US Pat. No. 6,057,028, entitled “Performing Automatic Authorized Programmatic Transactions,” filed July 19, 2004, and 2005. It is contained in Patent Document 3 entitled “Performing Providing Payments Automatic In Accuracy With Predefined Instructions” filed on August 9.

  In some embodiments, reward providers users who provide responses to other requester user questions can be assigned rewards, and FIGS. 3A-3C illustrate examples of such reward assignments. Yes. In particular, FIG. 3A shows an example of reward allocation for answering a question, with 100 points of experience assigned to the answer to the question. The table shows the total number of responses 301, response provider user 1 303, response provider user 2 305, response provider user 3 307, response provider user 4 309, response provider user 5 311 There is a column for 313. Each of rows 315a-315e represents an individual unique response. In this example, the number of responses is equal to the number of response provider users, but the number is exemplary, and in other situations, the number of responses may be different from the number of response provider users.

  In this example, there are 5 unique responses and 100 points for the question, so each unique response is assigned an equal number of 20 points. Once the points for each response are determined, points can be allocated to the response provider user by dividing the number of points by the number of response provider users who have given the response. Therefore, in the case of link A 315a, the point of link A is 20 points, and four response provider users give responses, so each response provider user has 5 points (20 points / 4 response responses) User). The process is repeated for all remaining responses, and the results are shown in rows 315b-315e. In addition, some types of responses may be considered inherently unique, such as when all opinions are considered unique. Thus, if multiple response provider users provide opinions, each opinion may be counted as a separate response. In addition, some types of responses (eg, phone numbers) may be considered unique if the system does not receive duplicate additional responses. The total number of response provider users 317 can be calculated by adding the number of points in each response provider user's column (ie, for all responses supplied by the response provider user). Accordingly, the response provider user 1303 receives a total of 15 points (5 points for link A and 10 points for link B) for the answer to this question. These newly assessed experience values assigned to the response provider user are then added to the newly assigned experience value or otherwise (eg, recently assigned) to determine the current assessment experience score. Can be combined with any previous experience value of the user or other relevant information, such as by combining new experience values with existing experience values (in a weighting manner, such as giving more weight to experience values or historical experience values) it can.

  In other embodiments, other algorithms may be utilized to assign experience values to responses and / or response provider users. In some embodiments, the quality of the response (e.g., measured by feedback from the requester user who supplied the corresponding question and / or feedback from other response provider users who provided the response to the question). , And / or other than the uniqueness of the response, including the timeliness of the received response (eg, providing more points for promptly provided responses and / or responses provided by the indicated deadline) A variety of factors may be used to assign points to responses. In addition, rather than assigning a fixed number of experience values to the answers, in some embodiments, each response and / or response provider user can measure the quality that each can be measured in different ways in different embodiments. A variable number of experience values may be assigned based on metrics such as and / or timeliness. For example, quality can be based on feedback received from one or more users and / or compared to other responses (such as responses known or believed to be at a certain level of quality). One or more people, as well as an automatic evaluation method based on and / or other factors such as completeness of response or other objectively measurable manner Based on feedback received from users and / or in an automated evaluation manner. As an example, each response is given the highest rating, 20 points of experience, given a good rating, 10 points of experience given an acceptable rating, or explicit -20 points of experience if 5 points of experience are given a rating of not useful if not enough, -10 points of experience are given a rating of abusive A value can be assigned. As another example, such as in an embodiment that allows a response provider user to see responses from other response provider users, the response provider user who originally provided the response is favored and more Many points may be given (eg, 1/2 of the points of reply). In some embodiments, if a question is associated with multiple categories, the experience value provided can be divided by the number of categories in order to provide experience values for each category. Thus, for questions related to two categories, the response provider user 1 receives 7.5 points for each category. In other embodiments, the experience value of each response is not divided for each category, and the same number of experience values as the experience value of the response is given to each category. In some embodiments, the points are rounded to the nearest integer point, but in other embodiments, fractional experience values may be given.

  FIG. 3B shows an example of an experience reward assignment similar to that shown in FIG. 3A, but the assignment has been modified to reflect the requester user's feedback on insufficient response responses. The question is the same 100-point question as in FIG. 3A, but in this example, the requester user who made the question identifies the link A response as insufficient. Similar to the table of FIG. 3A, a response 331, a response provider user 1 333, a response provider user 2 335, a response provider user 3 337, a response provider user 4 339, and a response provider user 5 341 And there is a column for total points 343. Each of rows 335a-335e similarly represents a response, and row 337 represents the total number of points of the response provider user. Link A's reply was marked as inadequate, so it was not identified as the reply used in the reply, and the points were answered in a manner similar to that described above with respect to FIG. 3A. Are reassigned among the four responses in Thus, each remaining response is now worth 25 points (100 points / 4 responses), and the points are divided among the response provider users who gave the same response. In addition, the response provider user who supplied an inadequate response is deducted as a penalty in this example by a predetermined number of experience points (eg, 10 points).

  FIG. 3C shows an example of an experience reward assignment similar to that shown in FIG. 3A, but the assignment has been modified to reflect the requester user's feedback on abusive answer responses. The question is the same 100 point question as in FIG. 3A, but in this example, the requester user who made the question identifies link C's response as abusive. Similar to the table of FIG. 3A, the response 351, the response provider user 1 353, the response provider user 2 355, the response provider user 3 357, the response provider user 4 359, and the response provider user 5 361 And there is a column for total points 363. Each of rows 355a-355e similarly represents a response, and row 357 represents the total number of points of the response provider user. As a result of the link C response being marked as abusive, the link C response and all other responses provided by the response provider user who supplied the link C as a response are deleted from the response, Experience values are reassigned among the remaining answers in a manner similar to that described above with respect to FIG. 3A. Now there are only three valid responses (because link C is deleted as abusive and the response provider user 3 also deletes the opinion because of supplying an abusive response), so each response has 33 points Valuable, rows 355a-355c reflect the numerical value of the experience value assigned to each response provider user for each response. In addition to not being able to earn any points for a question, a response provider user who provided an abusive response may be deducted as a predetermined number of points, in this example, the predetermined number of points is 50 points It is. Row 357 shows the total number of points for each of the response provider users after reassignment.

  In other embodiments, penalties and award assignments may be performed in different ways, and the examples shown are for illustration only. Thus, in some embodiments, if a response is marked as abusive, only abusive responses may be deleted, resulting in a penalty, and other responses in the response provider user still yield experience. It's okay. In some embodiments, the requester user can identify multiple responses as deficient and / or abusive, and the predetermined number of experience values deducted as a penalty is a rolling time period or It may increase in steps based on the number of inadequate or abusive responses received from the user within a period such as a fixed period. In some embodiments, various information may be further displayed, such as the percentage of responses marked as inadequate and / or abusive. In some embodiments, the response provider user can also identify other response provider user's responses as inadequate or abusive, and in some embodiments, the item provider user's response can be Can be marked as full and / or abusive. Further, in some embodiments, by prohibiting such users from receiving questions temporarily or permanently, providing answers, or attempting other actions, the response provider user may experience Penalties may be imposed in ways other than decreasing the value.

  In addition, in some embodiments, experience values may be utilized to provide incentives or otherwise control the activities of the item provider user. For example, the item provider user is given experience based on positive feedback obtained from the requester user and / or other users of the quick answer system. Such feedback may include the usefulness of the response (eg, the accuracy and / or responsiveness of the information provided) and / or the evaluation of the goods and / or services provided by the item provider user (eg, provided Quality of service provided, speed of delivery of goods provided, value of goods provided, etc.). In addition, by providing additional benefits to item provider users with a high level of expertise to continuously obtain higher levels of expertise (eg, measured by experience accumulation) The item provider user can be provided with an incentive. Such benefits can be valuable to favorable payment terms (eg, discounts on the amount paid by the item provider to provide a response, longer account payment periods), item provider users. This may include increased access to higher questions (eg, requests for information about expensive goods and / or services) and the like. In addition, a penalty may be utilized to provide a negative incentive to the item provider user for attempting undesirable activities. Such undesired activities can be, for example, useless or otherwise unrelated responses (eg, advertisements or solicitations for goods and / or services unrelated to the goods and / or services indicated by the question ), Providing non-conforming goods and / or services (defective goods, poor quality service, time consuming delivery, non-compliance with honorary guarantees, etc.). Such penalties may be based on reducing the item provider user's cumulative experience so that the penalized item provider user may lose a status raised based on the experience value accumulation. it can. In addition, such as temporarily or permanently prohibiting certain activities of the item provider user to be penalized (eg, providing any response or prohibiting providing a response to certain categories of questions) Other penalty mechanisms may be used.

  4A-4B illustrate an example of determining a portion of a continuous revenue stream for an answer that is distributed with a user who provided an answer that is part of the answer. In particular, FIG. 4A illustrates one embodiment of determining a distribution portion of a revenue stream for a question for which an answer has been determined, and in this example, the answer has a single related category (not shown). The table of FIG. 4A has columns 401, 403, 405, 407, and 409 representing the five response provider users who provided responses, and column 411 represents the total. The number of response provider users is exemplary only, and a larger or smaller number of response provider users can answer any individual question. In order to determine the percentage of revenue sharing among response provider users, the relative ranking of response provider users in the category associated with the answer to the question may be determined based on the experience gained for that category. it can. Row 413 shows each user's current experience score in the category associated with the answer (represented here by the raw number of the user's total experience value in the category) and is based on those experience values The relative ranking of users is shown in row 415 (in this example there are 5 response provider users, so the response provider user with the highest number of experience values in the category has the highest relative ranking). The response provider user who receives 5 and has the lowest ranking receives a relative rank of 1). Thereafter, in this example, the percentage of the revenue share is determined for each response provider user in a manner that is weighted by the user's relative ranking, in particular, in this example, the total relative ranking is 15 (1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5). The percentage is determined by dividing the relative ranking by the total ranking. The results are shown in row 417 for each of the response provider users.

  In other embodiments, different allocation algorithms may be utilized. For example, in some embodiments, a response provider user who provided a response marked as inadequate or abusive may not receive a share of revenue for the response. In some embodiments, response provider users who have only provided inadequate responses may instead receive a revenue share with the percentage adjusted down, but provide the response that provided the best response The respondent user may receive a portion of the revenue deducted from the response provider user who provided an insufficient response. If multiple categories are associated with the answer, revenue stream determination will first determine the amount of revenue for each category (eg, by dividing the total revenue stream portion by the number of categories) and then relative based on each category Ranking can be performed.

  FIG. 4B shows an example of a revenue stream sharing decision similar to that shown in FIG. 4A, but the decision is made at a later point in time during the extended revenue sharing period of the response and raised incentives. Users who lack level status will no longer receive a portion of the revenue stream distribution during the extended period. The question is the same question shown in FIG. 4A. The table of FIG. 4B is similar to FIG. 4A and has columns 421, 423, 425, 427, 429, 431 representing the five response provider users and totals that provided responses, respectively. However, at a later point in time, the value of the experience value of the response provider user may be changed based on, for example, the response provider user answering a further question and receiving a further experience value. Once again, users are ranked relative to this category based on the empirical values and calculated percentages for each category, but now the response provider user 1 responds in relative ranking. The provider user 3 is overtaken. Row 433 shows the current experience score of the response provider user based on the accumulated experience value, and row 435 shows the current relative ranking of the response provider user. However, if the response provider user does not have a raised status, the actual percentage obtained will be zero. Thus, for this category, as shown in the revenue payment percentage row 437, only one response provider user receives a percentage payment, and in this example, the remaining revenue is retained by the quick response system.

  Priority or other raised status may also change over time, resulting in gain or loss of additional time for revenue sharing. In some embodiments, if the revenue share is lost, it is lost forever, and earning a raised status later cannot recover the revenue share. In other embodiments, if the response provider user achieves an elevated status, the response provider user may respond to the response provided when the previous response provider user does not have the elevated status during the extension period. In contrast, responses that enter an extended period when the response provider user does not have a raised status are also eligible for revenue sharing. However, after a period of time, even users with raised status cannot receive continuous payments.

  FIG. 5 illustrates various requester user computing systems, response provider user computing systems, and quick as well as a quick answer computing system 500 suitable for performing one embodiment of the described quick answer system. FIG. 6 is a block diagram that also illustrates another computing system for performing various interactions with the answering system. In the illustrated example, the quick answer computing system 500 includes a CPU 505, various I / O devices 510, storage 540, and memory 520. Various I / O devices 510 may include a display 511, a network interface 512, a computer readable media drive 513, and other I / O devices 515.

  In the illustrated embodiment, the quick answer system 530 and the revenue generation system 525 operate within the memory 520 of the quick answer computing system 500. The quick answer system 530 interacts with other computing systems via the network 580 (eg, via the Internet and / or the World Wide Web) to perform at least some of the described techniques. The quick response system 530 includes a requester user interaction manager component 531, a response provider user interaction manager component 532, an item provider user interaction manager component 533, an answer reward assignment manager component 534, and an answer revenue stream distribution determination manager component. 535, an answer classification manager component 536, an answer experience level incentive manager component 537, a payment component 538, and optionally other components 539. In other embodiments, the components may instead be configured in other ways. The response reward allocation manager component 534, the response revenue stream distribution determination manager component 535, the response classification manager component 536, and the response experience level incentive manager component 537 may be used internally, and various security measures may be used. Can prevent external access to these components. In addition, in the illustrated embodiment, various data structures (eg, databases) 541, 542, 543, 544, 545 exist in the storage 540 for use by the quick answer system 530 and the revenue generation system 525. However, in other embodiments, some or all of such databases may instead be located elsewhere and / or configured in other ways.

  The revenue generation system 525 interacts with a plurality of advertiser computer systems to generate revenue and store details about the revenue generated. The revenue details can be stored in the data structure of the revenue database 546. In those embodiments that determine or estimate the revenue generated for each question, the revenue generation system may also keep track of the factors used in estimating the revenue or revenue generated for the question. The revenue generation system can also interact with the item provider computer system. In some embodiments, the revenue generation system may also cache or store advertisements for placement on a graphical user interface for viewing users and potential other types of users.

  Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the computing system shown is merely illustrative and is not intended to limit the scope of the invention. The quick answer computing system 500 may be connected to other devices not shown, such as via one or more networks, such as the Internet, the Web, or a LAN (“Local Area Network”). More specifically, quick answer computing systems, requester user computing systems, response provider user computing systems, and other computing systems are computers, network devices, Internet devices, PDAs ("personal digital assistants") ), Including any combination of hardware and software capable of interacting in the manner described, including wireless telephones, pagers, electronic organizers, television-based systems, and various other consumer products including intercommunication capabilities be able to. In addition, the functionality provided by the quick answer system component shown in FIG. 5 may be combined with fewer components in some embodiments and distributed with additional components. Similarly, in some embodiments, some functions of the illustrated components may not be provided and / or other additional functions may be available.

  Although various items have been described as being stored in memory or on storage during use, these items or portions thereof are between memory and other storage devices for memory management and data integrity purposes. Those skilled in the art will also understand that they can be transferred. Alternatively, in other embodiments, some or all of the software modules and / or components operate in memory on another device and communicate with the indicated computing device via mutual computer communication. Also good. Some or all of the components or data structures of the quick answer system are stored (eg, as instructions or structured data) on a computer readable medium, such as a portable article that is read by a hard disk, memory, network, or appropriate drive. You can also. Access manager components and data structures can also be transmitted as generated data signals (eg, as part of a carrier wave) over a variety of computer readable transmission media including wireless and wired / cable based media. Thus, the present invention may be implemented using other computer system configurations.

  FIG. 6 is a flowchart of an exemplary embodiment of a requester user interaction manager routine 600. The routine is provided, for example, by execution of the requester user interaction manager component 531 of FIG. 5, and can receive a request for a question from the requester user and display the results after receiving a response. In some embodiments, the routine also allows the user to provide feedback on the response and reply to the request for clarification.

  In step 605, the routine receives questions, one or more tags, and optionally rewards and additional information from the requester user as needed. Additional information may include information that the requester user does not normally provide, such as the location of the requester user or the operating system in the case of computer related questions. Additional information can also include the time at which the question should be answered and a summary of the question. After step 605, in step 610, a reward for each question is determined. If the user did not specify the reward for the question in points (eg, instead specified in monetary units), the quick response system would then assign the reward to the corresponding number of points for later use by the response reward assignment manager routine 800 Convert to Points are awarded from purchasing a point from a quick response system and / or from a quick response system (eg, if all requester users receive an initial assignment of points and / or receive additional points on a regular basis). Can be obtained by the requester user in various ways, and in some embodiments, a simple exchange rate between government currency and points (eg, 100 points = $ 1.00) is utilized. May be.

  In step 615, the requester user's account is updated to reflect the reward. For example, if the reward is money, in step 615, the requester user can be charged for the total amount, and if the reward is in points, the points used to make the request can be deducted. it can. Thereafter, in step 620, the routine can await a response to the question. In some embodiments, since there are many response provider users, the response may be provided within minutes. However, if the question is about a service in a limited area and the area is midnight, the response may take longer. In some embodiments, the requester user may be asked to clarify the question while waiting for a reply. For example, if the requester user does not provide the location of the requester user, the clarification can include asking the requester user where the requester user is located. After waiting for a response at 620, at step 625, the response is provided to the requester user. In some embodiments, such replies can be provided to the requester user via one or more electronic messages (eg, each reply is sent in a separate email message) and can be quickly The answering system can further include a tracking identifier (eg, a unique tracking identifier for each electronic message that can be randomly generated and associated with the requester user) in some or all electronic messages. After providing the reply, in step 630, the requester user can provide feedback received by the routine. The feedback can take the form of indicating that one or more responses are inadequate, abusive, or excellent. In some embodiments, feedback may be provided to the answer reward assignment manager routine 800 so that the point assignment can be adjusted appropriately. In step 635, other operations may optionally be performed. For example, if a question is not answered, or if all responses are useless or abusive, the requester user's account update for rewards may be rolled back. In step 640, the routine determines whether to continue. If so, the routine continues to step 605. If not, in step 645, the routine ends.

  FIG. 7 is a flowchart of an exemplary embodiment of a response provider user interaction manager routine 700. The routine is provided, for example, by execution of the response provider user interaction manager component 532 of FIG. 5, where the response provider user views open questions and as potential answers to the questions before the deadline. It can be possible to receive a reply. This routine is described with reference to FIG. 12 such that, in some embodiments, the response provider user provides a response to the question at the same time that the item provider user provides a response with the payment to the question. Can be run in parallel with the item provider user interaction manager routine 1200. The routine begins at step 705 and receives a request from a response provider user for information about a question before the deadline. After receiving the information, at step 710, the routine determines whether the request is a request to identify an appropriate question. If the request is to identify an available question that matches the appropriate question, at step 715, the routine determines a question that matches the user request and proceeds to step 730. If not, the routine proceeds to step 720 and identifies expertise areas of interest to the response provider user. For response provider users who have previously answered many questions, the region can be identified based on the value of experience gained in each category. If the response provider user is relatively new, in some embodiments, the expertise area may be determined based on a category self-selected by the response provider user when registering with the quick response system. After determining the domain of expertise, at step 725, the routine identifies questions that match the domain of expertise of the answer provider user. After identifying the pre-deadline question, the routine proceeds to step 730.

  In step 730, the routine provides an indication of the identified question to the response provider user and receives a response to the indicated question and optionally one or more categories. In some embodiments, the response from the response provider user may include multiple items (eg, multiple URLs that are sources of information, URLs and phone numbers). After receiving the response, in step 735, the response is stored, such as storing the response in the data structure of the response database 545. In step 740, the routine determines whether the question is complete. When the response period expires, after a predetermined number of responses have been received, after a predetermined number of response provider users have responded to the question, or the requester user who submitted the question After indicating completion, the question can be completed. If the question is complete, at step 745, the routine displays that the question is complete and proceeds to step 750. An indication that the question is complete may also be provided to other components, such as the answer reward assignment manager 534 of FIG. 5, for the purpose of determining reward assignments for the completed question. If it is determined that the question is not complete, the routine proceeds to step 750.

  In step 750, the routine optionally performs additional processing. In some embodiments, the optional additional processing may include adding additional expertise areas to the response provider user's expertise. In addition, in some embodiments, in step 750, the routine receives feedback from the response provider user, such as voting for the best response, best category, and suggested tag. The routine may also determine whether additional rewards are awarded, such as those specified by the requester user, and if so, additional processing may be performed that provides an appropriate display. After optional additional processing, in step 755, the routine determines whether to continue. If so, the routine proceeds to step 705. If not, at step 760, the routine ends.

  FIG. 12 is a flowchart of an exemplary embodiment of an item provider user interaction manager routine. The routine can be provided, for example, by execution of the item provider user interaction manager component 533 of FIG. The illustrated routine processes item provider user requests, such as specifying question matching criteria and / or contact information. In addition, the routine responds to notifications that present questions to the item provider user by providing questions to the item provider user and receiving a response from the item provider user. In some embodiments, the routine can operate in parallel with other routines, such as the response provider user interaction manager routine of FIG.

  The item provider user interaction manager routine 1200 begins at step 1205 and receives a notification that presents the item provider user request or optional response question to the item provider user. In some embodiments, the item provider user request may be received from a user interface component that displays a GUI screen, such as that described with reference to FIG. 2H, for example. In some embodiments, a notification that presents a question to the item provider user may be received from the response provider user interaction component 531 of FIG. 5, for example, when a question provided by the requester user is received. In step 1210, the routine determines whether an item provider user request has been received or a notification has been received. If it is determined that an item provider user request has been received, the routine proceeds to step 1215. The item provider user request can be received by a user interface, such as that described with reference to FIG. 2H. In step 1215, the routine determines whether the item provider user request specifies question matching criteria. If so, the routine proceeds to step 1220 and obtains and stores the query matching criteria (such as those described with reference to FIG. 2H) for the requesting item provider. In step 1215, instead, if it is determined that the item provider user request does not specify question matching criteria, or after step 1220, the routine proceeds to step 1225, where the item provider user request is Decide whether to specify user contact information. If so, the routine proceeds to step 1230 where the item provider user contact information is obtained and stored. If, instead, at step 1225, it is determined that the item provider user request is not to specify contact information, or after step 1230, the routine proceeds to step 1235 where some other action is provided by the item Determine if directed by user request. If so, the routine proceeds to step 1240 and performs other indicated actions as necessary. Other actions may include item provider user account operations, such as setting up or modifying payment mechanisms, modifying one or more preconfigured responses.

  If, instead, at step 1210, it is determined that a notification has been received, the routine proceeds to step 1250 and presents the question and answer options to the indicated item provider user at step 1205. In step 1255, the routine waits to receive a timeout or to receive an indication from the item provider user. As described in more detail elsewhere, the item provider user may have a predetermined period of time during which he should accept or reject the option to provide a response to the question. During a given period, the item provider user explicitly accepts or rejects (eg, by activating appropriate user interface controls, such as those described with reference to FIG. 2I or FIG. 2J). Can be shown. Alternatively, if the item provider user does not respond within a predetermined period, or responds after a predetermined period, it is generally treated as a denial of choice. In step 1260, the routine determines whether a timeout or an option denied indication has been received. If no time-out or option denial has been received, the routine proceeds to step 1265 and provides a response from the item provider user for answering the question. The response provided by the item provider user may be incorporated as part of the answer provided to the requester user or otherwise displayed, for example as shown in FIG. 2K. In step 1270, the routine obtains payment from the item provider user. Payment may be obtained by various techniques including electronic funds transfer between bank accounts (eg, debiting from an item provider account), credit card payment processing. In some embodiments, the actual payments for individual responses can be aggregated in the account, periodically (eg, monthly) or otherwise (eg, account value reaches or exceeds a predetermined threshold amount) Can be charged to the item provider user. Other embodiments may be used when the requester user is actually provided with a response (eg, by providing a web page that displays an answer including the response) or when the requester user actually selects (eg, provides an item). Conditions are met, such as when the user clicks on a URL provided by the user, or when he / she has indicated that he / she has viewed or otherwise indicated interest in a response and / or an answer containing a response provided in another manner You can choose to delay the acquisition of payment until

  Alternatively, if it is determined in step 1235 that the request is indicating some other action, or if it is determined in step 1260 that a timeout or a denial of choice has been received instead, or step 1265. And after step 1240, the routine proceeds to step 1295 and determines whether to continue. If so, the routine continues to step 1205 and continues processing. If not, the routine proceeds to step 1299 and ends.

  FIG. 8 is a flowchart of an exemplary embodiment of an answer reward assignment manager routine 800. The routine is provided, for example, by execution of the answer reward assignment manager component 534 of FIG. 5, where award assignment can be determined, and the assignment can be modified after feedback from the requesting user who asked the question. The routine begins at step 805 and receives an indication of requester user feedback for a completed answer or an indication of an answer to a question and an answer reward. In step 810, the routine determines whether the display is feedback from the requester user. If so, the routine continues to step 850. If not, the routine proceeds to step 815 where the total number of experience values for the question is determined. If the requester user uses points to ask questions, in some embodiments, those points are used as the total number of experience points for the question. Otherwise, the question experience value may be, in some embodiments, a predetermined number of points per dollar of monetary reward or a predetermined number of points for each request.

  After determining the total number of experience points for the question, at step 820, the routine identifies the number of response provider users that provided the unique response and the response used in the response. After identifying the unique response and the number of response provider users, the routine proceeds to step 825 to determine one or more categories associated with the response. The category determination is described in more detail with reference to the answer classification manager routine 1000 of FIG. After determining the categories, at step 830, the number of points for each category is determined. In some embodiments, the number of points per category may be determined by dividing the total number of points by the number of categories, as described in more detail with reference to FIGS. 3A-3C.

  In step 835, the routine assigns points for each category among the response provider users to reflect their contribution to the unique response. The routine proceeds to step 840. In step 840, the routine optionally performs additional processing, such as updating the expertise of the response provider user in some embodiments. In some embodiments, additional processing is performed by the response provider user account DB 542 for use by other components, such as the response experience level incentive management 537 or payment component 538 of FIG. Indication of the bonus given to you may be provided. After optionally performing additional processing, in step 895, the routine determines whether to continue. If so, the routine continues to step 805. If not, at step 899, the routine ends.

  If, at step 810, the routine determines that the request is for feedback from the requester user, the routine proceeds to step 850 to determine whether one or more responses are marked as useless. If so, the routine proceeds to step 855 where the useless response is removed from the reward assignment and the points are reassigned appropriately. A description of one embodiment of how to reassign useless reply points is shown in FIG. 3B. After properly adjusting the point allocation, or if no reply is marked as useless, the routine proceeds to step 860 and determines whether any reply is marked as abusive. If so, at step 865, an appropriate penalty is given to the response marked as abusive and the points are reallocated. Appropriate penalties may include deleting responses marked as abusive, giving no points to other responses from the response provider user who provided the abusive response. A description of an exemplary embodiment of how to reassign abused response points is shown in FIG. 3C. After deleting the abusive response and reassigning points, or if there are no responses marked as abusive, the routine proceeds to step 870. In step 870, the routine determines whether other feedback has been received. Additional feedback can include best responses, best response provider users, and other positive feedback. If the response is selected as the best answer, in some embodiments, many bonus points may be awarded to the response provider user who provided the response. For example, the best answer information may be used to determine the order in which previously answered questions in the category are displayed to the viewing user.

  FIG. 9 is a flowchart of an exemplary embodiment of an answer revenue stream distribution determination manager routine 900. The routine is provided, for example, by the execution of the answer revenue stream distribution determination manager component 535 of FIG. 5, and can determine the revenue stream distribution that each eligible response provider user will receive for an eligible answer. The revenue stream itself can be generated, for example, by the revenue generation system 525 of FIG. The routine begins at step 905 and receives a display of revenue eligible answers and a revenue stream to be distributed. In step 905, the routine also determines a revenue stream for each question. In some embodiments, the revenue stream can be the actual revenue generated for the answer or an estimate of revenue, while in other embodiments, a predetermined percentage of the revenue stream is divided by the number of revenue eligible responses. Thus, the revenue stream per answer can also be determined. Many factors may be used to estimate the revenue generated for each question, including the number of times the answer has been viewed, the number of unique users who have viewed the answer, and the popularity of the category. Not all responses can be eligible for revenue because responses can only provide a continuous source of revenue for a limited period of time. In addition, in some embodiments, an answer that is initially seeded into a quick response system, an answer that does not include any response from a revenue-eligible response provider user, or a requester user is also an answer provider user Some of the answers, such as those that are, cannot be eligible for revenue at all. The revenue eligibility of the response provider user is the increased status of the response provider user and / or the response provided by the response provider user is negative (eg, marked as insufficient or abusive) It can be based on various factors, such as whether feedback has been received. Also when the routine is executed if only less than all currently eligible responses are processed (eg, the routine is run on the answer anniversary and the current is not the deadline for the question) Some answers cannot be eligible for revenue.

  In step 910, the next answer is selected. If this is the first question, that first question may be selected. After selecting an answer, at step 915, the routine provides a reply for the answer and identifies a response provider user who is eligible to receive a revenue share. After the period for distributing revenue to non-priority users has passed, a response provider user cannot be eligible unless an elevated status is given for at least one category associated with the answer. Thus, the routine may check the raised status of the response provider user. After determining the response provider user that provided the response for the answer at step 915, at step 920 the category of the question is identified. In some embodiments, the category may be determined automatically by a routine such as the answer classification manager routine described with reference to FIG. In step 925, the next category is selected, and in step 930, the portion of the revenue stream for the category can be determined. In some embodiments, the amount for each category is determined by dividing the revenue determined for the answer by the number of categories associated with the answer, whereas in other embodiments, the revenue is relative to the category. It may be adjusted according to popularity. After the amount for the selected category is determined, in step 935, the routine determines the response provider user's relative experience ranking for the selected category. In step 940, the routine allocates the determined amount of category among the response provider users based on the relative ranking. In step 940, the routine may determine whether the response provider user is indeed eligible to receive revenue sharing for this category. Response provider users who do not have an elevated status for this category cannot qualify after a predetermined period of time when regular users can no longer receive ongoing revenue sharing. In step 945, the routine determines whether there are more categories. If so, the routine returns to step 925 to select the next category. If not, the routine continues to step 950.

  In step 950, the routine provides an indication of the allocated amount. In some embodiments, the routine passes the indicated amount to the payment component 538 of FIG. 5, but in other embodiments, the amount is the response provider of FIG. 5 until the payment reaches a predetermined amount. It may be stored in the user account DB 542. In step 955, the routine determines whether there are more revenue eligible answers. If so, the routine continues to 910. If not, at step 960, the routine ends.

  In some embodiments, at least a portion of the revenue stream is distributed on an ongoing basis to response provider users that provided the responses used in the answers to a particular question. However, the continuous revenue stream distribution can end after a certain period, such as 12 months. In some embodiments, the user can extend the period by obtaining an increased incentive level status. The elevated status is based on the total number of experience accumulated by a given response provider user within a category, or the relative ranking (eg, top 10%) of response provider users in a particular category, or Instead, it may be determined in many ways, such as in a non-category manner. The raised status receives notification of new questions related to one or more categories and automatically receives questions answered by the response provider user (for example, if the questions meet the indicated criteria) There are many benefits that you can do. In some embodiments, the raised status also allows a preferred response provider user with the raised status to continue to receive continuous payments for responses over a longer period of time than a non-priority response provider user. can do. Accordingly, the response provider user is conveniently provided with an incentive to continue to provide answers in order to continue to receive the revenue stream share for the response provider user's response performance. In some embodiments, there may also be multiple levels of elevated status. In some embodiments, if the response provider user is selected in a vote as having made the best response for an answer or as being the best response provider user for that question, the raised status May be given a quasi-enhanced status where the user only gains for that answer, so that the quasi-enhanced response provider user has an extended period of time Over time, allowing you to continue to receive revenue share for that answer. As a result, irregular response provider users can also receive incentives to provide high quality responses. Further details regarding the determination of the incentive level status of the response provider user are provided with reference to FIG.

  FIG. 10 is a flowchart of an exemplary embodiment of an answer classification manager routine 1000. The routine is provided, for example, by the execution of the answer classification manager component 536 of FIG. It can also make it possible to acquire knowledge. This routine can be invoked in a variety of ways, such as by the answer reward assignment manager routine of FIG. 8, or periodically, and can be invoked in parallel with other routines described herein. In step 1005, the routine begins and an indication for classifying one or more answers is received along with optional additional information used in the classification. Additional information is described in more detail below. After step 1005, the routine proceeds to step 1020 and determines whether the display for classification is based on the tag supplied by the requester user. If so, at step 1025, the routine determines one or more categories based on the question text including the summary and / or tags supplied by the requester user. In some embodiments, at least one tag is a category, while in other embodiments, the system determines the category based on which category the previous answer tagged with the same tag was classified. . After determining one or more categories, the routine proceeds to step 1050.

  If, in step 1020, instead, it is determined that the display is not to classify based on the tag supplied by the requester user, the routine proceeds to step 1030 and determines whether the display for classification is based on a reply. To decide. If so, at step 1035, the routine determines one or more categories based on the response. In some embodiments, the routine examines whether the reply was previously given and, if so, checks the reply by checking which category it is associated with. Can be classified based on. In some embodiments, this can be performed based only on certain types of responses, such as links or phone numbers, other than opinions. In some embodiments, a category is associated with an answer only if two or more responses are associated with the same category. After determining one or more categories based on the reply, the routine proceeds to step 1050.

  If the request is not to classify based on the response, the routine proceeds to step 1040 to determine whether the request uses a tag from the response provider user to classify the response. If so, the routine proceeds to 1045 and determines one or more categories based on tags supplied by the response provider user. The routine can do this in a manner similar to categorizing based on tags supplied by the requester user. After determining one or more categories based on tags supplied by the response provider user, or if the request is not to use tags from the response provider user, the routine proceeds to step 1050.

  At step 1050, the routine may use other category feedback to adjust the category associated with the answer. For example, in some embodiments, the response provider user can vote for the best category. If a reply previously used to determine a category was deleted because it was useless or abusive, the routine should make one or more categories unrelated to the resulting answer You can decide whether or not. Conversely, if a response is marked as the best response, all categories associated with that best response from the previous response can be related to the response. After using other feedback to adjust the category, at step 1060, the routine optionally performs additional processing. Additional processing may send an indication to the answer reward assignment manager routine 800 (e.g., to begin reward assignment since the category was determined) or update the index used to browse the answers. Can be included. After performing additional processing, in step 1095, the routine determines whether to continue. If so, the routine returns to step 1005. If not, in step 1099, the routine ends.

  FIG. 11 is a flowchart of an exemplary embodiment of an answer experience level incentive manager routine 1100. The routine may be provided, for example, by execution of the answer experience level incentive manager component 537 of FIG. 5 to determine the revenue stream share that each eligible response provider user receives for eligible questions. In some embodiments, the routine may be executed periodically to determine the level of expertise of the response provider user for use by other system components, such as the answer reward assignment component 534 of FIG. At 1105, the routine begins and receives a display of response provider users and an experience value by category for each response provider user. In step 1110, the next category is selected, or if this is the first category, the first category is selected. In step 1115, the routine identifies response provider users who have expertise in a category based on having at least a determined experience threshold in that category. In step 1120, the next user (or the first user if this is the first user) is selected. After the user is selected, in step 1125, the routine determines the relative ranking of the user in a category (eg, arranged in ascending numerical order of experience values). In some embodiments, the relative ranking is stored in the data structure of the response provider user DB 542 so that it can be displayed in an account graphical user interface as shown in FIG. 2F. Using the user's relative ranking, then in step 1130, the routine determines the current incentive level status in the category.

  After determining the current status, at step 1135, the routine determines whether the current incentive level status has changed from the previous incentive level status. If so, the routine proceeds to step 1440 and provides an indication of incentive level status changes in the category (eg, providing the indication to the answer revenue stream distribution decision manager component 535 of FIG. On and off). If the current incentive level status has not changed, or after providing the appropriate notification, at step 1145, the routine optionally performs additional processing. Additional processing can include checking whether any bonus has been obtained. After performing the optional processing, at step 1150, the routine determines whether there are additional response provider users with expertise in the category. If so, the routine continues to step 1120. If not, at step 1155, the routine optionally performs additional processing. Optional processing may include an indication of saving the ranking or changing the size of the category based on popularity. After performing additional processing, in step 1160, the routine determines whether there are more categories. If so, the routine returns to step 1110. If not, the routine proceeds to step 1165 and performs additional processing that may include identifying whether any bonus is awarded based on cumulative points milestones or total points earned within the time period. Thereafter, in step 1199, the routine ends.

  In some embodiments, at least some types of users can sign up for a quick answer system and receive a user account. In some embodiments, the account may be a more general account as part of other sites and / or services provided by the quick answer system, or as part of a site association in which the quick answer system participates. it can. In addition, in some embodiments, at least some types of users may register to receive a dedicated account, such as a special account for receiving or making payments. In some embodiments, each type of user (eg, response provider user, requester user) has a separate account, while in other embodiments, the same account can be all or some types of users. It may be shared with. The account can then hold information about the user, including a username and password for user authentication, the amount of points earned, payment information, a category associated with the user, an elevated status, and a ranking.

  The requester user can ask questions and receive a response from the response provider user. One or more responses can be used as an answer to the question, and some responses (eg, abusive responses) cannot be used as part of the answer. A potential response can be a network-accessible resource site (e.g., a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) or a site where the response provider user has found information, book / magazine citations, database citations, phone numbers, email addresses, and opinions). Including, but not limited to, one or more representations of a URI (Uniform Resource Identifier). In addition, in some embodiments, an item provider user who provides a product or service can pay money to provide additional responses associated with the product or service. The browsing user can review answers to previously answered questions. However, the user types are not mutually exclusive. Accordingly, in some embodiments, a user who has asked about a plumber in Seattle can still answer questions about martial arts and / or solve a margin problem in a Microsoft Word ™ document processing application. You can review previously answered questions. In some embodiments, a given user has access to an appropriate graphical user interface for interacting with a quick answer system and / or a role that the user is currently performing (eg, to receive a graphical user interface). Requester user, response provider user, item provider user, viewing user, etc.). However, for ease of understanding, different types of users are mentioned as if the different types of users were different. Further, in some embodiments, at least some users may be organizations (eg, businesses, groups, associations, etc.) and may not be individuals.

  Questions and answers to those questions can be collected via a quick answer system. Various types of questions may be asked via a quick answer system. In some embodiments, the questions may vary, such as finding a product or service in a particular area, determining which food is healthy, and finding a reason to clean the fuel injector. A question includes any request for information whether the request ends with a question mark or whether multiple queries are made within a single question. In addition, in some embodiments, at least some question topics may be restricted. For example, in some embodiments, only questions about one or more predetermined topics (eg, local products and / or services) may be asked and answered. In other embodiments, questions deemed inappropriate (eg, topics that include adult topics and / or potentially illegal activities) are optionally enforced (eg, age restrictions on access to adult content) May be prohibited or restricted.

  The requester user can indicate a question and one or more tags for the question. In some embodiments, the quick response system suggests tags based on terminology in the question text, tags indicated by the requester user, and / or metadata associated with the question and / or requester user. To do. In some embodiments, additional information (eg, summary text, time periods during which questions can be available and / or active for the user providing the response, etc.) can be provided by the requester user. . The questions can be presented to the response provider user in the order in which the responses to the questions are received. Questions can be sent to the user in a variety of ways, including email, programmatic notification via instant messaging, or other appropriate methods based on the terminology in the question and / or the category associated with the promising answer to the question. May be presented. In addition, the presented questions may be arranged by terminology category, initial reward type, reward value, time when the question was asked, and / or time when the question expires. In some embodiments, the user can access the question via a full text search. In some embodiments, at least some response provider users may not have the ability to have themselves present questions in all of the previously described manners. In addition, the number of response provider users may be limited to a predetermined number, so in some embodiments, the response provider user can indicate that he / she is involved in a response.

  The response provider user can then provide a response to the question. In some embodiments, the factual response requires the response provider user to show gratitude to the information source. If clarification is desired to answer a question, in some embodiments, the response provider user or item provider user can ask the requester user for clarification. In some embodiments, previous responses from other response provider users may be hidden from other response provider users. When the question is over, at least some of the responses can be answers to the question, and an experience value may be given to the unique response to the question. In some embodiments, at least some responses, such as abusive or inadequate (ie useless) responses, cannot be used in the response. A question can be considered to have ended in a variety of ways, such as after a designated time has elapsed for the question, after a predetermined number of responses, or after responses from a predetermined number of response provider users.

  The experience value may be given for each category. In one embodiment, the experience value of a question can be determined and then divided by the number of unique responses. Thereafter, the unique response point can be divided by the number of response provider users who provided the response. In some embodiments, the determined point allocation for each response provider user is divided by the number of categories associated with the answer. In some embodiments, the category can include one or more related tags, automatically generated from the response and / or tags supplied by both the requester user and / or the response provider user. be able to. In addition to providing experience points, in some embodiments, the response provider user is at least a portion of the requester user-specified reward or one (e.g., best answer, best answer provider user). Alternatively, multiple bonus rewards may be provided. Further details regarding experience value assignment are provided elsewhere.

  The response can be presented to the requester user and / or the viewing user. In some embodiments, the user can view the response when the response is provided by the response provider user or received from the response provider user. Various other items may also be displayed with the response, including advertisements, responses from item provider users, and / or sponsor links. Other methods of generating revenue other than advertising can also be used to generate a revenue stream.

  In some embodiments, the requester user may mark the response as inadequate (eg, not departing from the topic but not helpful) or abusive (eg, a response that deviates from the topic), etc. Can provide feedback on responsive responses. In addition, in some embodiments, if the response to a question is an opinion, the requester user can request one or more follow-ups to that opinion. In some embodiments, the response provider user who provided a response to the question also provides various types of feedback about the question and / or its associated response before and / or after the experience is assigned be able to. For example, in some embodiments, the response provider user can suggest tags, vote for the best (or even primary) tags for answers used in identifying answer categories, It can be pointed out that voting for responses, voting for the best response provider user for a given question, or insufficient or abusive responses. In some embodiments, other users who did not provide a response to the question may also provide feedback. As a result of user-provided feedback, the expertise point allocation for responses may be changed accordingly. Further details regarding feedback are described below.

  In some embodiments, for example, at least some individual cash payments to the response provider user may be small, so that the acquisition amount is exceeded until a predetermined amount (eg, $ 5.00) is exceeded. The amount may be aggregated. In some embodiments, the amount that must be paid to the response provider user can be associated with the response provider user's account, whether from revenue sharing or from the initial reward (if any). All income, whether from any cash bonus, can be included. In addition, in some embodiments, instead of giving cash, a non-cash equivalent value, such as a gift certificate or mileage service mileage (or other loyalty point), may be given as an alternative. Some or all of the bonuses, such as receiving some milestones of experience in the category, may be added to the money that must be paid to the response provider user or given as a non-cash gift (eg, gift certificate).

  In some embodiments, when the requester user submits a question, the quick answer system can perform a check to see if the same question was recently asked and answered. If the system determines that a question was previously asked and answered, the quick answer system may provide an answer to the previously asked question and may not present the question to the answer provider user. In some embodiments, as a result, no experience is given, but in other embodiments, a response provider user who has previously answered a previously asked question may be given a bonus, or revenue related to that question. Stream distribution may be adjusted (eg, more revenue is allocated to that question).

  As described above, some embodiments may interact with a system that interacts with a human user to provide work to be performed and receive corresponding results, or otherwise utilize the system. . As described in more detail in the literature (see, for example, US Pat. No. 6,057,049), some such systems allow other users to identify and / or specify the type of user doing the transaction. Functions related to obtaining and using information about the user's credentials, such as In some embodiments, response provider user entitlements may be determined automatically and may be utilized to determine which response provider users may be provided with access to a particular question. it can. For example, entitlements may be associated with tags and / or categories that are utilized in conjunction with questions, answers, and answers. A response provider user can be given qualifications related to those categories when providing answers, thereby gaining experience and corresponding expertise levels in specific categories, such qualifications being , It may be possible for the response provider user to gain access to questions that require such qualification. In addition, in at least some embodiments, the requester user further associates a credential with the providing question so that the provided question can only be accessed and / or answered by a response provider user who has obtained the appropriate qualification. be able to. In addition, entitlements can be automatically associated with questions based at least in part on tags and / or categories associated with such questions (eg, Java (registered for questions using the tag “Java”)). Trademark) programming qualification). Embodiments can associate a qualification with a question based on other factors, such as when the reward provided for a particular question is greater than a predetermined amount (e.g., for questions with a reward greater than $ 5 Associate qualifications whose type is based on one or more tags associated with the question).

  In some embodiments, a system that interacts with a human user to supply work to be performed and receive corresponding results specifies work related to questions, responses, and answers, and such It can be used to assign work to human users. For example, a task consisting of classifying a question may be specified and a human classifier user selects an appropriate category for questions and / or answers based on relevant content, metadata, and / or tags By doing so, such work can be performed. Such classifier users may be rewarded in a variety of ways, such as by money and / or by obtaining experience or qualifications related to performing a classification task. Other types of work performed by human users are also contemplated, including work that consists of editing the questions and / or answers provided or otherwise improving their quality. For example, human performing tasks may be generated, including selecting or otherwise editing tags associated with a question, or editing the content of questions and / or responses to improve grammar or other characteristics. It's okay.

  As previously described, in some embodiments, electronic messages may be used to send commands to the quick answer system. In one exemplary embodiment, a non-exclusive list of such commands is as follows:

  In the table, x and y that follow the command are parameters, but in some cases, the parameters may be optional. For example, in some embodiments, “confirm” may not require a parameter. This list of commands is merely exemplary, and in other embodiments, more or fewer commands may be available.

  In some embodiments, the command may further be used as part of a message authentication process. For example, if the requester user sets up an account with payment information and wants to purchase more questions, the requester user sends a message to “buy@rapid-answer.com” The text can be typed as “buy XX”, where XX is the number of questions that the requester user wants to purchase. After receiving a message from the requester user, the quick response system can reply a confirmation request message with a tracking identifier to confirm the purchase. Upon receiving the confirmation request message, the user can respond to the message by typing “confirm ####”, where #### is the user's 4-digit PIN. In order to prevent a transaction from occurring if the number of questions to purchase is entered incorrectly, the user can also send a message with a “reject” command. Upon receipt of this message, the quick response system verifies the tracking identifier and 4-digit PIN and completes the transaction if both match. Such a combination of tracking identifier and PIN knowledge facilitates user authentication.

  In some embodiments, the command may be used in other ways. For example, a user can search for and purchase merchandise via a mobile device. Initially, the user signs up for one or more mobile services, selects a preferred payment option (eg, by registering a credit card), and a preferred delivery address (eg, home address) and delivery method (eg, 2 days after arrival). The user can then send a message typed “find item” to the quick response system to find a particular item, where item is a description of the item (eg, ISBN or SKU number). Unique product number). The quick response system can receive a message from the user and send a list of one or more products that match the description and the price of each product to the user. The result can include a product identifier and a tracking identifier for each product. The user can select one of the products to purchase after receiving the message including the search result. The user purchases a product by responding to the message by typing “buy item XXXX”, where XXXX is a product identifier supplied by the quick response system. The quick reply system then receives the message and attempts to match the tracking number. If the tracking number matches the transmitted tracking identifier for the user, the system sends a confirmation request message specifying the future purchase. The confirmation request message may have another different tracking identifier, or alternatively may have the same tracking identifier as the search result message. After receiving the confirmation request message, the user can reply by typing “confirm ####”, where #### is the user's 4-digit PIN. When the quick reply system receives the confirmation message response returned from the user, the quick reply system tries to match the tracking identifier for the user and the 4-digit PIN, and if both match, the user's merchandise purchase processing proceeds. Thereafter, the merchandise is sent to a delivery address (for example, home address) preselected by the user by a preselected delivery method (for example, land transportation two days later). Additional functions may also be performed, such as allowing a mobile user to specify a delivery address and / or delivery method.

  In some embodiments, a user can also pay another user via a mobile device. In such a person-to-person model, the user can sign up for a payment service. After signing up for a payment service and providing at least one payment method, a user can send money to another user via a message using a quick response system. For example, the user transmits a message including the text “pay otheruser@domain.com 10” to the quick answer system (for example, “pay@rapid-answer.com”). After receiving the message, the system can send back a confirmation request message with a tracking identifier. The user can respond to the message by receiving a confirmation request message from the system and typing “confirm ####”, where #### is the user's 4-digit PIN . When the system receives a return confirmation message from the user, it attempts to verify the tracking identifier and the four digit PIN. If both the tracking identifier and the four-digit PIN match, the system deposits $ 10 into the other user's account and earns $ 10 from the user making the payment (possibly with additional processing fees).

  Although the previous scenario has been described as occurring via a quick answer system, in other embodiments, some or all of the functionality may be provided by other systems, such as an online merchant system. In addition, some embodiments provide a maximum amount that can be transferred per transaction (e.g., up to $ 50 per transaction) and / or a maximum amount that can be transferred per period (for example, to increase the security of such payment transactions). It will also be appreciated that various mechanisms may be utilized including, for example, providing up to $ 100 per day. Other security mechanisms may include verifying that the generated command message contains information that is likely to be seen by a valid user but less likely to be seen by a malicious user. Such information may include a valid tracking identifier (described in further detail with reference to FIG. 2Q), a shared secret (eg, personal information such as a password and / or mother's pre-marital last name), and / or Or it can include a reference token that indicates a predefined payment instruction (described in more detail in the literature (see, eg, US Pat. No. 6,096,049)). Also, the message can be securely sent by HTTP / S or by encryption and hashing before sending to / from the quick answer system.

  As previously mentioned, in embodiments where rewards can be assigned to a response provider user who provided a response to a question, rewards can be calculated in various ways. For example, rewards may be assigned based at least in part on feedback from the requester user who asked the question and / or the response provider user who provided the answer to the question. A response provider user who provided a response to a question may provide feedback on responses from other response provider users who provided a response to the question.

  As a specific example, feedback from a requester user and a response provider user regarding a response can consist of ranking the response as excellent, good, no problems, useless, or abusive. The feedback from the various users is that the numbers used in generating the normalized rating of the response are excellent = + 2, good = + 1, no problem = 0, insufficient = −1, and abusive = −2. Can be converted as follows. These numbers can then be put into the following formula to calculate the normalized rating of the response.

In this formula, RUR represents the rating supplied by the requester user who provided the question, RPUR _n represents the rating from response provider user n, and n is the response provider who provided feedback on the response The number of users. As officially shown, in this example, the rating of the requester user who asked the question is twice as much as the rating of the response provider user. For example, assume that the ratings are as follows:

  After that, the normalized rating of the response provider user 1 is

It becomes. As a result, the normalized rating is

It becomes. Therefore, according to the following table that maps normalized ratings to experience values, the response provider user 1 is given +5 points of experience values for responses.

  In answers with multiple categories, the same numerical experience value may be given for each category, but in other embodiments, the experience value may be divided between the categories. In addition, in some embodiments, the categories proposed by the response provider user can be based on votes by the response provider user and / or in other ways (eg, based on requester user feedback), Unless the category is determined to be the best category, it may not be used for reward allocation. However, in such cases, all suggested categories may be used for other purposes (eg, available for searching).

  Continuing with the previous example, response provider user 2 receives a normalized rating of −0.4, and thus +5 points of experience despite the response being marked as abusive by the requester user. Receive. However, in some embodiments, the response was marked as abusive, so the abusive response was nevertheless tracked and the response provider user 2 was marked as abusive by the requester user too much. If a large number of responses are given, the response provider user 2 is used in a different manner, such as temporarily or permanently shutting out the response provider user 2. Continuing to apply the formula to this example, the response provider user 3 receives a normalized rating of −0.75 and is deducted 10 points of experience for the response (ie, is assigned −10 points of experience). ).

  In some embodiments, if at least a predetermined number (e.g., 3) ratings are not received, the response is considered no problem by default and is given +5 points of experience. Accordingly, the response provider user 4 may be given +5 points for the response provider user 4 response to the question. In addition, the response provider user with the highest normalized rating—determined to be the best response—assuming it is above a predetermined normalized rating (eg, +0.5) —experience value of +10 points You may be given a bonus. In the case of a tie, the rating of the requester user is used to determine superiority or inferiority, but if there is still a tie, neither response may be determined to be the best response. In some embodiments, a penalty for failing to provide a response after receiving a question (eg, a response provider user for possible exclusion from a quick response system that deducts 50 points of experience by category) Tracking, etc.) may also be assessed. In some embodiments, the response from the item provider user may also be rewarded with experience based on feedback about the item provider user's response and / or the item provider user may: Feedback used to assign experience points can be provided.

  In some embodiments, various security and / or fraud countermeasures can be utilized. For example, in some embodiments, a user can sign in to the quick answer system using a username and password. Various logs of activity are available to prevent and deal with fraud and security breaches. There may be a limit on the number of questions from the same requester user, and the response provider user can answer within a defined time period. In addition, the same person must not be allowed to ask a question as a requester user and answer the question as a response provider user.

  One skilled in the art will appreciate that in some embodiments, the functionality provided by the routines described above can be provided in alternative ways, such as dividing into a larger number of routines or integrating into a smaller number of routines. Let's be done. Similarly, in some embodiments, the described routine is described when each of the other described routines alternatively lacks or includes such functionality, or when the amount of functionality provided is changed. More or fewer functions than provided may be provided. In addition, various operations may be described as being performed in a particular manner (eg, serially or in parallel) and / or in a particular order, although those of ordinary skill in the art will understand that in other embodiments, It will be appreciated that may be performed in other orders and other manners. A person skilled in the art can use the data structure described above in different ways, such as by splitting a single data structure into multiple data structures or consolidating multiple data structures into a single data structure. It will be understood that it can be configured. Similarly, in some embodiments, the described data structure may be modified when the other described data structures each lack or contain such information instead, or the amount or type of information stored is altered. If so, more or less information than described may be stored.

  From the foregoing, it will be understood that although particular embodiments have been described herein for purposes of illustration, various modifications may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. Accordingly, the invention is not limited except as by the appended claims and the elements described therein. In addition, while certain aspects of the invention are presented in certain appended claims, the inventors contemplate the various aspects of the invention in any available claim. For example, while only some aspects of the invention have been described as being implemented on a computer-readable medium, other aspects can be implemented as such.

Claims (23)

A method for an answer providing service, executed on a computing system having a processor and a storage, for providing an incentive to a response provider user for responding to a question from a question requester user, comprising:
The processor receiving a request from a question requester user, wherein the request includes one or more tags, the one or more tags provided by the question requester user, and in the request Steps related to the included questions,
The processor determines one or more initial categories for the question based on the one or more tags provided by the question requester user;
Obtaining one or more responses to the request from one or more response provider users, wherein the obtaining of the one or more responses is in the determined one or more initial categories. Being based at least in part, wherein the obtained response further comprises one or more additional tags provided by the one or more response provider users;
The processor generates a response to the request based on the obtained response;
The processor is at least partially in the one or more tags provided by the question requester user and the one or more additional tags provided by the one or more response provider users. Determining a category for the request based on:
The processor determining an experience level of the one or more response provider users based at least in part on the one or more responses, the experience level of a given response provider user Is determined for the determined category and stored in the storage unit, and the experience level of the given response provider user is determined by the given response with one or more other response provider users. Determined based on a determination of the relative ranking of the provider user for the determined category, the relative ranking previously submitted by the given response provider user and one or more other response provider users Steps based at least in part on the feedback provided for the response of
The processor determines information about one or more benefits to any response provider user having a stored experience level of a first status level for the determined category to provide incentives for continued participation. Storing in the storage unit;
The processor displaying an advertisement with questions and / or responses, wherein the provided one or more benefits are based in part on revenue generated from the displayed advertisement; A method characterized by comprising.   The method of claim 1, wherein the response includes a plurality of responses received from a plurality of response provider users different from the question requester user.   The response is associated with a plurality of categories including the determined category, and the determination of the experience level of the one or more response provider users provided a response that was used as part of the response The method according to claim 2, further comprising: assigning one or a plurality of experience values to each of the plurality of categories as an award for storing the results in the storage unit. The processor identifying a first response provider user whose experience value of the determined category stored in the storage unit exceeds a threshold;
The processor identifies information about an incentive to the identified first response provider user to provide a future additional response to the determined additional questions of the category indicated by the received request, and stores in the storage unit Memorizing step;
The method of claim 1, further comprising:   The method of claim 4, wherein the determined category is identified for the additional question based on a tag for the determined category associated with each of the additional questions. One of the additional questions is associated with a plurality of categories including the determined category, the method comprising:
Receiving an additional tag for the one additional question from a response provider user;
Identifying an additional category for the one additional question corresponding to the additional tag;
The method of claim 5, further comprising:   The processor further comprising identifying another category for the one additional question based on a response used in an answer to another question similar to a response to one of the additional questions. The method according to claim 6.   Reward information for the processor to provide a reward to the response provider user based on a continuous revenue stream generated from the displayed advertisement for the response to the response used as the response. And providing the response provider user with the one or more benefits to the response provider user in response to the response previously provided by the response provider user. The method of claim 1, comprising extending a period of time for continuously receiving rewards from a revenue stream.   The providing of the one or more benefits includes providing a notification regarding a new request from a question requester user to a response provider user having an experience level of the first status level. Item 2. The method according to Item 1. The processor obtaining a plurality of responses to the request from at least one response provider user;
The processor identifying at least one of the replies used in the response generated for the request;
The method of claim 1, further comprising:   The determination of the information about the one or more benefits to the response provider user is determined by the processor determining a monetary continuous reward value to be provided to the response provider user, and determining the determined reward value. The method according to claim 1, comprising storing in the storage unit.   The method of claim 1, wherein the determination of information about the one or more benefits to a response provider user includes determining an increased reward for a previous response.   13. A method according to claim 11 or 12, wherein the determination of information about the one or more benefits to a response provider user includes determining an incremental reward for future responses.   Each of the determined experience levels corresponds to an experience score, the experience score determined by the processor based in part on a previous response obtained from the response provider user and associated with the determined category. The method according to claim 1, wherein the first status level corresponds to an experience score that exceeds a predetermined threshold.   The determination by the processor of the information about the one or more benefits to the response provider user is that the response provider user experience score stored in the storage unit is at least a predetermined amount during a predetermined period. 15. The method of claim 14, comprising determining information about profits when increased.   The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more benefits correspond to one or more status levels.   The experience level determined based on the response is further based at least in part on one or more of the uniqueness of the response and the speed with which the response is provided, and the uniqueness of the response The method of claim 1, wherein the method is established when a response is not a duplicate, and the quickness of the response is established based on the instantaneous nature of the provided response.   The method of claim 1, wherein the request is received in an email message and the response is sent in an email message.   The method of claim 18, wherein the email message response includes a tracking identifier associated with the question requester user and the email message response is sent to the question requester user. Receiving the request includes receiving an indication of the question included in the request and a plurality of other questions each having an associated tag, the associated tag being provided by the question requester user; The method includes:
For each of the plurality of other questions,
Determining one or more initial categories to be used for the question based on the associated tag for the question;
The question can be used for reply by a response provider user so that the one or more initial categories are available to other users for use in selecting whether to answer the question Step to
Obtaining a plurality of responses to the question from a plurality of response provider users, wherein at least one of the plurality of response provider users provides one or more additional tags used for the question Step,
Determining one or more additional categories to be used for the question based on at least one of the one or more additional tags;
Generating a response from at least one of the obtained plurality of responses used as at least part of an answer to the question;
Providing an indication of the response to the question requester user;
The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of responding to the question.   For each of at least some of the plurality of other questions, the processor may include the one or more initial categories for the question and the one to help other users identify the answer. 21. The method of claim 20, further comprising making the answer to the question available to the other user in a manner related to or multiple additional categories.   A computer program for executing the method according to any one of claims 1 to 21.   A computer readable recording medium storing a set of instructions for performing the method of any of claims 1 to 21.

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