WO2001011534A1

WO2001011534A1 - Event notification method using computer network

Info

Publication number: WO2001011534A1
Application number: PCT/KR2000/000884
Authority: WO
Inventors: Dong Keun Oh
Original assignee: Dong Keun Oh
Priority date: 1999-08-10
Filing date: 2000-08-10
Publication date: 2001-02-15
Also published as: AU6479100A; KR19990083806A

Abstract

The present invention relates generally to an event notification method, in particular, to a method in which various events are notified to a plurality of related subscribers rapidly and easily through computer network. The method comprises the steps of: receiving notification request contents from subscribers who wish to be notified of events (hereinafter, the 'notified subscriber') and event notification contents from subscribers who wish to notify events (hereinafter, the 'notifying subscriber') through computer network and storing said contents in a database; searching said database to retrieve event notification contents corresponding to the specific notification request contents among all event notification contents; and sending the retrieved event notification contents via electronic mail to notified subscribers who have requested said specific event notification. Accordingly, users can be notified of various events they wish to attend conveniently through computer network such as the Internet. On the part of the event organizers, the trouble of contacting each potential guest by letter or by telephone can be saved thanks to the simultaneous notifications to a plurality of relevant users.

Description

EVENT NOTIFICATION METHOD USING COMPUTER NETWORK

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates generally to an event notification method using computer network such as the Internet, in particular to a method which enables notification request contents from 'notified subscribers' desiring to be notified of the events and event notification contents from 'notifying subscribers' desiring to release events notification be entered, stored, and administered, and a notification of the events be transmitted to the specific subscriber with rapidity and with ease through computer network after searching and retrieving the relevant event information based on the requirements of said specific subscriber

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

At various family events, e g a wedding ceremony or a funeral, etc , a person who might be interested in said events cannot attend the events if the organizer of the events do not notify him Although various event information is published in newspapers and in a variety of other media, persons not using these media do not know of such events, and are likely to miss the events which might have significance for them

In particular, since the media such as newspapers or broadcastings are used rather locally in a large country such as the U S A , those who live apart from their hometown cannot be informed of the events in their hometown However, the Internet which is widely in use today can be accessed without restriction from any region of the world, so that the foregoing problem might be solved by utilization of such a computer network. To elaborate, a person who wishes to hold an event uploads information on the event on the Internet and many interested userscan know about said event by searching the Internet. On the other hand, an event organizer preparing an event such as alumni meeting, wedding ceremony, birthday party, funeral, etc. had to notify persons he wishes to invite one by one using telephone or by mail, which was burdensome and costly. Now, the event organizer can get through the work easily and simply by searching the Internet, listing up the potential guests, and sending electronic mail to each of the potential guests via the Internet.

Further, a person whose personal data such as address, telephone number, etc. had been changed had to notify such changes to every event organizer of his interest individually in order to be informed of the events by said organizer. In this case, too, notification of the changes in personal data to all related event organizers at once via an electronic mail would be convenient.

As described above, the rapid recent spreading use of the Internet and of electronic mail via the Internet can afford facility in event search and event notification and allow collective event notifications to interested parties, thereby provide convenience for both the organizer and the participant of an event. In spite of this merit, however, users should use a general search engine or should search different web sites such as those of the newspapers carrying events information to find out desired events, since events information is contained scattered in various web sites. This conventional mode of searching is costly, time-taking and, in addition, it is almost impossible to search for every event. Accordingly, the users can miss event information which might be important for them

The method conventionally used for providing information on the Internet such as advertising has been "information pull scheme" but in recent years, an information delivery method using "push technology" is used, in which information falling under the category as it was pre-selected by clients are automatically "pushed" to the clients by server without waiting for the clients' request As an example of said push technology, there is a mailing service in which an ISP (Internet Service Provider) or IP (Information Provider) provide the users with advertisement of sponsor company or specific information that the users want via electronic mail upon the users' request Such mailing service means broadening of the scope of appliance of the electronic mail from a mere person-to-person communication means, to one-to-mass communication means, or even to the level ofbroadcasting

Accordingly, the present invention has been conceived to reduce the cost and time of event notification by making the notification procedure easy and speedy through the use of computer network such as the Internet and the Internet mailing service

The present invention discloses a method wherein information from the users who wish to be notified of specific events and that from the event organizers who wish to notify their events are received via computer network, stored and administered in a server (or database), only the desired events are searched for and retrieved, and then subsequently notified to the specific user via electronic mail

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The present invention aims to provide an event notification method using computer network in which vaπous events information is notified to users interested in said events

It is another objective of the present invention to provide an event notification method using computer network in which both the demands of a user wishing to be notified of a specific event and those of a user wishing to notify an event such as an event organizer are confirmed and the events complying with the demands of the user wishing to be notified are retrieved and the information on the retrieved events are sent to said user by electronic mail

In order to accomplish the foregoing objectives, the event notification method according to the present invention comprises the steps of receiving notification request contents from a user who wishes to be notified of specific events (hereinafter, the "notified subscriber") and event notification contents from a user who wishes to notify events (hereinafter, the "notifying subscriber") through computer network and storing said contents in a database, searching said database to retrieve only the event information corresponding to specific notification request contents, from all the event notification contents stored in said database, and sending the retrieved event information via electronic mail to the notified subscriber who has requested information of said specific event The above notification request contents preferably comprise detailed specification of the desired event and/or personal data of the notified subscriber while the event notification contents preferably comprise title of the event, name of the organizer, venue and time of the event, etc BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Fig 1 shows simplified construction of the event notification system using computer network according to the present invention Fig 2 is an example of web site of a service provider using the event notification method of the present invention, wherein Fig 2a is an initial screen, Fig 2b is a screen to apply for a notification request, Fig 2c is a screen to apply for an event notification, and Fig 2d is an event notification screen sent to a relevant notified subscriber via electronic mail Fig 3 is a flow chart of the event notification method pursuant to the present invention

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

The event notification method and system according to the present invention is described in more detail, making reference to the accompanying drawings below

Fig 1 is a drawing showing a simplified construction of the event notification system 10 as per the present invention comprising an event notification web server 1 1, a database 12 connected to said web server, a plurality of client computer systems 14, 15 and a computer network connection channel 13 such as the Internet which connects the server to the client systems The client computer system comprises a multiple of computer systems 14 of the notified subscribers and a multiple of computer systems 15 of the notifying subscribers

The event notification web server 1 1 comprises preferably a database administration module which classifies, stores and administers the notification request applications and event notification applications entered, a transmit/receive (tx/rx) module which receives various applications entered and transmits relevant event notification to a specific subscriber via mail; and a control module which controls the above modules, searches for and retrieves relevant contents among the contents in the database. Further, said tx/rx module is linked preferably to a mail server embodied inside or outside, so as to send a mail to a corresponding subscriber.

Such a web server as above can be embodied in the hardware of a server computer using a variety of web server programs provided by the operation systems such as DOS, WINDOWSTM(WINDOWS™), LinuxTM(Linux™), UNIX, Macintosh, etc. of which Website and TTPS used in the WINDOW environment and CERN, NCSA, APPACHE, etc. used in the UNIX environment are typical examples However, said server should be understood rather comprehensively to include a series of application programs operating in the event notification web server and a predetermined system connecting and mediating the client system, database and each module, using a computer network such as the Internet

Further, each module constituting the web server is generally embodied as a software such as an independent application program or a program module (or a program procedure) included in a program, but it can also be embodied as a hardware. The 'client' as used herein means a computer system, linked to a web server, requesting the web server to perform a specific operation and receiving the results thereof, as well as the users using said computer system

Although the connection channel connecting the event notification web server and the clients (notifying subscribers and notified subscribers) may be a closed network such as LAN (Local Area Network), WAN (Wide Area Network), etc. the Internet would be preferable in view of the fact that the present service is to be provided to unspecified public. The Internet means the worldwide open computer network capable of providing TCP/IP protocol and higher level services such as HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol), Telnet, FTP (File Transfer Protocol), DNS (Domain Name System), SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol), SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol), NFS (Network File Service), and NIS (Network Information Service)

In the database 12, personal data of the notifying subscribers, and those of the notified subscribers as members, notification request contents, and event notification contents are classified, stored and administered. Said contents should preferably be stored with index for ready searching, and if required could be classified into member database, notification request database and/or event notification database.

The database as above, being data structure of meaningful information to be embodied in a storing means, can be embodied to comply with the objectives of the present invention by using a relational database management system(RDBMS) such as Oracle, Infomix, Sybase, DB2, or by using an object-oriented database management system(OODBMS) such as Gemston, Orion, 02, etc , and comprises some appropriate fields for performing its functions Further, said databases can either be embodied in a physically incorporated form in the event notification web server, or can also be embodied as a physically separate server, yet functioning in association with the web server

Said event notification web server 11 receives notification request applications and events notification applications through the computer network 13 and stores the applications thus received in the database 12 Then, the server searches the database periodically or upon request by the notification requester, retrieves the event notification contents corresponding to said specific request, processes said contents, and transmits them to the corresponding subscriber via electronic mail through the computer network Fig 2 is an example of a user interface of a web site of a notification service provider, wherein Fig 2a is an initial screen of the web site, Fig 2b is a screen for applying for a notification request, Fig 2c is a screen for applying for an event notification, and Fig 2d is a screen showing an event notification transmitted to a subscriber via electronic mail In the initial screen which describes the contents of the event notification service and the method for use thereof, is linked to pages for applying for a notification request, for an event notification, etc , and comprises additionally a menu for membership registration, in case the service is run as a membership system

The screen for applying for a notification request as illustrated in Fig 2b is preferably divided into two columns, l e one for "personal data" which shall accommodate all possible personal data of the users and one for event search" which specifies the desired event The notified subscriber can either fill in the both columns or one of these two If only the "event search" column is filled in, only the events corresponding to the contents entered in the "event search" column are retrieved among the event notification applications stored in the database and the retrieved contents are sent to the notified subscriber via electronic mail If, on the contrary, only the ' personal data" column is filled in, all the events having relevancy to the filled-in personal information are retrieved among the event notification applications and the results are sent to the corresponding notified subscriber The foregoing search and notification procedure is not terminated in one time, but repeated periodically until the notified subscriber cancels his notification request (or resigns his membership)

In other words, the present invention allows a user to make a notification request either, in an active manner, by specifying the events in detail (for example, such as "wedding ceremonies to be held in August, 1999, in Kangnam-Gu area in Seoul city), or, in a rather passive manner, by providing only his personal data (such as the schools he visited, occupation, hobbies, etc ) and requesting notification of the events that might be relevant to him

The "personal data" column and the "event search" column should preferably contain instructions for obtaining information as detailed as possible (for example, X X high school, school year of 19X X, xth grade x class, X X electronic company X X branch X X division X X department, etc ) The attached drawing provides items to be filled in such as name, electronic mail address, ID, address, telephone number gender, date of birth, hobbies, alma mater, place of work, memberships in associations, etc , but the items to be entered are not restricted thereto, and may contain other desired information However, a user needs not enter all the items as above and items not attracting his interest may be skipped (e g the alma mater) The user may, on the other hand, enter an association of his interest even if he is not a member of that association In this case, however, a use of the "event search" column would be more desirable than a use of the "personal data" column Since the event notification as per the present invention is preferably made via electronic mail, entering of the name and electronic mail address of the notified subscriber is indispensable The notification request contents so entered are parsed or indexed by items and stored in the database per each subscriber Fig 2c is a screen for applying for an event notification in which the items such as title of the event, name of the organizer, venue and time of the event, key words for searching, etc are to be entered without restricting the items for entry thereto Further, in case where the event organizer does not enter a key word or the like the service provider may also enter a key word, etc in the server or the server can be made so as to select a key word for searching The same applies to cases where a notified subscriber fills only the "event search" column

A notifiable event according to the present invention includes family events such as wedding ceremony, birthday party, funeral and school-related events such as alumni meeting, but not restricted thereto, and shall be understood rather should broadly to include all events which can be notified off-line That is, an "event" as used herein means a commonplace activity committed generally in everyday social life, and does not mean an electric signal or a process triggering a specific operation in computer system as it is used in the fields of electricity or communication The event notification contents thus entered are also classified by categories and/or by notifying subscribers, transformed into a search-compatibleable format (e g indexing), and then stored and managed in the database

Fig 2d, an event notification screen transmitted to a relevant notified subscriber via electronic mail or the like, may contain title of the event, name of the organizer, venue and time of the event, and other particulars

As described above, using an electronic mail via computer network in transmitting an application for event notification request and an event notification to a relevant notified subscriber would be most effective However, such transmission can also be made by sending short message or voice message to a cellular telephone or mobile communication terminal such as PCS phone, or by leaving a voice message to telephone through ARS service Other communication means such as facsimile or postal service can be used for the purpose as well A real time message service in form of "memo" can also be used between members who are subscribers of a specific communication service

Further, the present notification procedure can also be constructed to allow a notified subscriber receiving an event notification to indicate as to whether he will attend the event In this case, the event notification server can recognize the attendance signal, compute the related statistics such as the estimated number of attendants, and send this data to the notifying subscriber.

As the above event notification is made by electronic document transmission (such as electronic mail) on computer network such as the Internet, the service provider of the present service may also provide an additional service by providing an electronic mail account free of charge to the user (notified subscriber and notifying subscriber) who has no electronic mail account

An application for event notification by an event organizer and an application for notification request by a notified subscriber are most commonly made by using computer network such as web page on the Internet However, other communication means like telephone, postal service, facsimile, etc can also be used, and in such case, a further procedure should be employed in which the service provider of the present service enters the notification request contents and the event notification contents into database

In order to provide the notified subscribers with information on still more events, the service provider of the present service can search other media (such as bulletin board in newspapers or other web sites with event notice, etc ) and store the searched events information in the database, in addition to the event notification contents received from the events organizers who actively applied for the event notification Fig 3 is a flow chart of the event notification method according to the present invention Clients (notified subscribers and notifying subscribers) access the web site of the service provider (S310) Then, the notified subscribers wishing to be informed of a specific event enter the contents of a desired event and/or his personal data as described above and the notifying subscribers wishing to notify an event enter the contents of the event to be held, whereby the procedure of applying for a notification request and that for an event notification are completed (S320) The notification request contents and event notification contents so entered are received by the event notification web server (S330) and then classified by items and stored in the database (S340) The server searches the database, retrieves the contents of an event corresponding to a notification request (S350), arranges the contents (including title of the event, name of the organizer, venue and time of the event, etc ), and transmits the arranged contents to the corresponding notified subscriber through computer network (S360)

Here, in order to inform the notified subscribers of still more events, the service provider of the present service can search other media (newspapers, broadcasters, or other web sites) and store the searched events in the database in addition to the event notification applications entered as aforementioned (S370)

The foregoing procedure is described below in more detail, making reference to an example If a subscriber wishes to be notified of a wedding ceremony to be held in a specified area on a specified date, he enters such contents to the web site of the service provider. On the other hand, an organizer of an event enters the contents of his event to the same web site Then, among the numerous event notification applications, only applications relevant to said specific wedding ceremony desired by the above subscriber are retrieved and transmitted to the notified subscriber via electronic mail This is an event notification method carried out based on an active request on the side of a notified subscriber.

On the other hand, a notified subscriber can make an event notification request in a rather passive manner by entering the place of birth, schools visited, place of work, surname, hobbies, an association of his interest or in which he entered, etc. upon request of the service provider, while a user who wishes to organize an alumni meeting of X X high school makes an application for event notification by entering the event contents to the home page of the service provider Then, the database is searched to retrieve such subscribers who graduated from x x high school or who are interested in said high school

Although the notification means used here is preferably electronic mail through computer network as aforementioned, other communication means such as postal service, facsimile, telephone, etc can possibly be used where needed (for example, in case the subscriber does not have an electronic mail account) In particular, SMS for transmission of short message to a cellular telephone or ARS for transmission of voice message to a telephone can also be used In case of using the voice message transmission via ARS, the server should have a TTS (Text-To-Speech) function by which the search results in form of a text can be converted to voice signals

Further, the event notification apparatus and method according to the present invention can also employ a personal schedule administration service which is usually provided in a membership type system on the Internet in addition to the event notification service. That is, additional services providing notification of birthdays or other anniversaries according to the member data stored or providing ads or news of the member's interest to said member, can be included as well.

The event notification service of the present invention is preferably run by a pre-registration (membership) system for securing reliability of information provided and management of the personal information. Further, the service provider can provide the service free of charge by collecting fees from advertisers and displaying banner advertisements or the like on the event notification mail screen.

The foregoing home page can be endowed with user information change function and application withdrawal function in addition to the above-mentioned pages for applying for a notification request and applying for an event notification. In cases of information change and application withdrawal, a procedure for user identification such as entering of member ID or password should be pre-implemented.

A member using the service of the present invention can attend events of his interest by checking his electronic mail at any time, while the organizer of an event can notify his event to a plurality of members simultaneously through a single application, and if necessary, can also check the estimated number of guests for better preparation of the event.

INDUSTRIAL APPLICABILITY

By using the event notification method according to the present invention, the users, on the one hand, can be notified of various events they wish to attend via electronic mail through computer network at any time without burdensome search of different web sites on the Internet or other media, the organizer of events, on the other hand, can save the trouble of contacting each potential guest by letter or by telephone thanks to the simultaneous notification to a plurality of relevant users and can increase the numbers of the attendants in case a sufficient number of the members are collected.

Claims

WHAT IS CLAIMED IS:

1. An event notification method using computer system consisting of a server and a database, which method comprises the steps of: receiving the notification request contents from notified subscribers who wish to be notified of events and the event notification contents from notifying subscribers who wish to notify events through computer network and storing said contents in a database by said server; searching said database and retrieving only the event notification contents corresponding to said notification request contents among all event notification contents by said server; and transmitting the retrieved event notification contents to said notified subscriber who requested said specific event notification by said server.

2. The event notification method using computer network as set forth in

Claim 1, wherein said notification request contents consist of one or more of the information on the specified event and the personal data of the notified subscriber.

3. The event notification method using computer network as set forth in any one of Claims 1 and 2, wherein said computer network is the Internet and said application for a notification request and application for an event notification are made through inputs in a web site provided by the service provider.

4. The event notification method using computer network as set forth in any one of Claims 1 and 2, wherein event notification is made by one or more of the means electronic mail transmission to a notified subscriber's computer system, short message transmission to a mobile communication terminal, voice message transmission to a mobile communication terminal using ARS service, voice message transmission to a conventional telephone using ARS service; postal delivery; and facsimile transmission.