WO2011063122A1 - A graphical communications user interface for use on computer systems and mobile devices - Google Patents

Abstract

A Live Spot is an interactive windowless, browserless, video that plays on a user's screen on, for example a computer or mobile device. It is typically partially transparent giving the appearance of being on top of the user's desktop. It may be animated. Thus, a person may appear to walk onto the screen and talk to the user. This may be prompted by an alert from a provider. Clickable hot spots are typically provided, that when selected allow users to select, request, or accept content from content providers. This is integrated into a system where users opt-in to content providers and providers select the users to push their content to, providing selective bi- directional communications between providers and users.

Description

A GRAPHICAL COMMUNICATIONS USER INTERFACE FOR USE ON COMPUTER

SYSTEMS AND MOBILE DEVICES

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims priority to co-pending United States Patent Application Serial Number 12/948,123, filed November 17, 2010, which claims priority to co-pending United States Provisional Patent Application Serial Number 61/262,519, filed November 18, 2009, the entirety of both of which are incorporated by reference herein.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to computer software and, more specifically, to a method and system for providing a graphical communications user interface for use on computer systems and mobile devices.

2. The Prior Art

Many examples of two-sided markets exist: Videogame platforms, such as Atari,

Nintendo, Sega, Sony Play Station, and Microsoft X-Box need to attract gamers or users in order to recruit game developers to design, port or produce games for their platform while also needing games in order to induce gamers to buy and use their product. Similarly, software producers need both users and application developers. Portals, web-sites, T. V. and radio networks, newspapers and other print media compete for advertisers as well as "eyeballs".

Advertiser-consumer markets are another example of two-sided markets because both sides have information, products, services, content or data that are valuable to the other side. However, the expense and difficulty of communications between providers and users prevents establishing a fully functional direct market, between the two.

In the advertising-consumer markets, problems persist in enabling communications between the advertiser and the consumer. The costs in terms of time and labor to collect data on individual consumers are high. Typically there is no reward for collecting or making the information available because no-one is willing to pay for it or once it becomes available the provider loses any competitive advantage they had in collecting the information. On the other hand, consumers continue to face a daunting array of Web sites, unsolicited e-mails, spam, and other information. Finally, consumers and to some extent businesses are concerned about privacy and overload since junk e-mail and identity theft are major threats. Once the database is collated there is no effective way to continue communications unilaterally.

Ultimately, however, there remain substantial benefits for both advertisers and consumers to participate in building long-term relationships by exchanging information through a platform that they both control. The goal of advertisers is to target marketing communications to individual consumers based on demographic and behavior data while the goal of consumers is to receive as much information as they want to make informed choices without being inundated or losing their privacy. The goal of both parties is to avoid high costs and minimize time and expense of participating and to not be contacted by unwanted or uneconomical solicitations.

Within the advertising industry a long-standing goal is to provide individualized ads that are targeted to selected consumers in a non-offensive manner. Traditional radio, T.V., newspaper, and other print media advertising reach a large audience. While the target is large, the efficiency of these mass media is low. Moreover, there is no way for the provider to identify from the mass audience those individual consumers who are most likely to respond to the message.

In mass media advertising campaigns, the individual consumer has little or no influence on the content or targets of the advertising campaigns. Even if consumer data is collected at the point of sale or the consumer fills out a questionnaire, there is little opportunity for the advertiser or provider to modify their campaign in time to respond effectively to input or feedback from the user. Thus, significant opportunities for interaction between advertisers and consumers never materialize, 'thus, there is a need in the industry for a bi-directional communications medium for advertisers to send content to users, for users to consume the message and respond to the providers, and then for providers to send further targeted marketing communications, especially outside the world of emails.

The traditional advertising models have been grafted onto the on-line world. However, mass e-communications of e-mail and indiscriminate use of pop-up ads turn off consumers just as effectively as traditional mass mailings. Nonetheless, the Internet still presents great opportunities for matching buyers with sellers and providers of information with consumers.

From the very beginnings of the internet, using dial-up access has made the lives of consumers better by creating an online experience that informs and delights. With the increasing popularity of the Internet and the World Wide Web, it has become common to buy, sell, and advertise on the Internet. To date, the conventional advertising and retailing models have been adapted to the Internet with some success in terms of ease of use and sales. However, one remaining problem for providers is that there is no easy means for sellers and buyers to establish a relationship before and no mechanism for building the relationship post-sale based on the individual preferences of the consumer.

AOL created unique channel navigation and improved Internet search features, including audio/video and local search while providing original content. AOL bridged the gap between the providers and consumers by creating on-line communities. Although a pioneer in making online communications easy and fun, including on-line advertising, the AOL model of using banner ads and clickable ads is limited. A significant problem remained that there was no way to establish continuous relationships between the advertisers and consumers because once the consumer clicked on a banner advertisement, there was little to hold him to the site of the advertiser.

Even as e-commerce grew tremendously, buyers and sellers were still separated, until eBay developed an online person-to-person trading community. Buyers and sellers are brought together through online auctions in which sellers list items for sale and buyers bid. EBay users browse through listed items and the items are arranged by topics, where each type of auction has its own category. EBay's online format provides continuous dialogue between buyers and sellers and facilitates easy offering and bidding, both globally and locally. Still, there is little reason or capacity for either party to establish a long-term relationship beyond that of buyer and seller or extending beyond the trading arena.

In an attempt to allow relationship building, eBay and other companies now provide entire platforms for operating businesses with feedback forums. However, eBay's method for obtaining information from consumers is limited to registered sellers and buyers. The focus remains with on-line trading and the exchange of goods and services, with no mechanism to facilitate the exchange of information from sellers and preferences of buyers that would lead to longer-term relationships. Thus, there remains a need in the industry for a means for exchanging information between providers and users well before a transaction takes place, and even between parties which may never transact business in the traditional sense.

As the number and type of e-commerce transactions continued to grow, there were only limited means for using the information from one transaction to generate another, until Amazon started tracking user buying patterns in order to cross-sell users a wide range of items suited to their personal tastes. Amazon's method for obtaining information from consumers is limited to cross-selling where sales and purchases have already taken place. The merchant's ability to glean information about a potential customer is limited still to the data collected by the website. Thus, there is a need in the industry for enabling communication between sellers and buyers along the entire continuum of interactions, from actual sales and purchase transactions to expressions of interest in products and brands by consumers to focus group marketing by sellers.

Finding information and websites on the internet has always been easy, but presenting the results in a useful format has always been difficult. In the absence of the bid-for-placement mechanism, ad pricing is inefficient. Hence, on-line advertising had limited potential, until Overture pioneered the bid-for-placement mechanism that allowed advertisers to change the rank of their ads. However, the bid-for-placement mechanism was limited to subscribers, and there was no means for storing information pertaining to the bid and the targeted consumer over a long period of time. The bid-for-placement model was an innovation because it enabled the pricing of ads based on perceived value, but its scope is limited to on-line advertisers and buyers who participated in Internet search. Thus, there remains a need in the industry for a means for providers to allow users to opt-in to receive marketing messages, while allowing either side to bear the costs through making payments or participating in the program.

Google pioneered context-based advertising. Google's profitability comes from its search technology combined with text ads and an ad placement mechanism. Advertisers bid for placement of their ads (bid-for-placement mechanism). Goto.com created a system for influencing a position of a search in a result list. Bid-for-placement frees up extensive resources that would otherwise be required to set ad prices, and it allows advertisers to charge ad sponsors in proportion to the value added by the advertiser. However, the full value added of advertising that reflects the input of both advertisers and users remains to be realized because the consumer plays no part directly. In its various forms, bid-for-placement still does not enable continuous communication between the provider and user, or the advertiser and consumer or maximizing of value added in the advertiser-consumer market.

Google pioneered the link between search results and advertising. Google focuses on delivering contextual based advertising through the AdWords program. Google reaches people when they are actively looking for information about products and services online by offering a link to or sending users to targeted web sites and pages. AdWords enable providers to control costs by charging only when people click on their ads. Google AdSense.TM. automatically delivers text and image ads that are precisely targeted to an advertiser's site and content. However, this technology does not allow users to establish a relationship with the provider that is independent of the web browser.

Amazon pioneered an internet-based customer referral system. Individuals and businesses ("associates") market and sell products in return for a commission.

In today's environment, with searches and ads integrated with user preferences and past behavior and with so many options open to the consumer and so many on-line transactions, it has become difficult for consumers to keep track of all their past transactions and current points of interest in products and providers. Thus there is a need in the industry for a consolidated single point of access to all providers as well as a common communication platform between providers and users.

With so many providers making so many types of information available, making all content available through a single platform has become impossible. Thus there is a need in the industry for a single platform and format for creating content, soliciting and storing data from users and consumers, and enabling users to access providers through a single access point.

Although information on consumers from prior searches and sales are now routinely gleaned and amalgamated, there remains a need in the industry to extend the scope of such data mining beyond sales data to all aspects of pre- and post-sales, including exchanging information about brands and products along with consumer data and preferences. There is also a need in the industry for providers and consumers to exchange information, and for each party to analyze and respond accordingly.

Push. The transfer of information between providers and consumers has become both widespread and pervasive. Today advertisers and brand managers have a plethora of content distribution channels, but also rising costs and inefficiencies. Consumers increasingly are able to dynamically communicate with brand managers through games and promotions, but have little influence on the information they receive.

Transferring information over computer networks is an increasingly important means for institutions and individuals to do business and become informed. Such information transfers occur both publicly on the Internet, which is a worldwide interconnection of computer and computer networks using a common protocol, and privately through virtual private networks (VPNs), which are smaller, propriety internets. Taken together, the Internet and VPNs are evolving into a global electronic market place of goods and services and ideas and information.

Providers and advertisers of products, information, and services find the Internet to be an attractive new communication medium. Consumers and users are also increasing their use of the Internet. Mechanisms such as directories and search engines index and organize the information on the web. The search engines then allow users to search the Internet for a listing of web sites and pages based on a specified topic, product, service or word or group of words.

Search services offer advertisers extensive reach into the Internet audience and provide opportunities to target consumers based on their use of keywords and search topics. The search engines and web site directories of the prior art, although now used extensively with by advertisers, still provide no interactive means for the brand managers and providers to stay in touch with the users and consumers.

Pull. Today's consumers obtain information on products and services through a variety of media. Traditional means include newspaper advertising, magazine ads, and other print media. Free product samples entice the user to try and later buy. CDs are used to describe a product using visual and audio.

Despite the multitude of entertaining and informative advertising methods targeted to and used by today's consumers, there is still no interactive way for a consumer to communicate or stay in touch with the provider or brand manager.

Search services are the most frequently used tools on the internet after e-mail. Search services have offered advertisers significant penetration into the internet audience while providing targeting opportunities through keyword and topical search requests. However, the information derived from search requests and any subsequent purchases fail to establish a full and equal relationship between the provider and the consumer. Thus, there is a need in the industry to extend the relationship beyond the initial search and subsequent purchase so that the user may tailor the content and choose the permitted senders.

One problem with existing advertising model is their indiscriminant broadcasts of unsolicited communications. Once a user buys on-line, they are then potentially subjected to dozens or hundreds of following ads. A related problem is that there is no easy way for the user to signal their willingness to receive such communications within their own specified limits or to influence their content. Hence, there is a need in the industry for a means for communicating in both directions between providers and users the preferences and information that each has.

The web advertising model extends traditional media broadcast models. The broadcaster, i.e. a web site, provides content— usually for free— and services such as email, chat and blogs— mixed with advertising messages in the form of banner ads. The banner ads may be the major or sole source of revenue for the broadcaster. The broadcaster may be a content creator or a distributor of content created elsewhere. The advertising model works best when the volume of viewer traffic is large or highly specialized. However, current paradigms for internet advertising fail to utilize the unique attributes of the internet or provide a means to sustain the relationship between providers and users outside of the web browser.

Data about consumers and their consumption habits are valuable, especially when that information is carefully analyzed and used to target marketing campaigns. Independently collected data about producers and their products are useful to consumers when considering a purchase. Some firms function as infomediaries (information intermediaries) by assisting buyers and/or sellers to help them understand a given market. However, current technology fails to provide sufficient information in a timely manner that could help the provider to tailor content and target based on results and user response.

Traditional models of advertising and search engine technology have failed to effectively deliver relevant information to interested users. Ideally, providers should be able to control their placements so as to maximize effectiveness while minimizing annoyance. Similarly, consumers should be able to control the flow of content and advertisements sent to them. Thus, there is a need in the industry for a bi-directional communications platform between providers, mainly advertisers, and users, mainly consumers.

With proper tools; advertisers should be able to customize their content for a select group of consumers and then communicate their targeted advertisements solely to those users who are most interested in receiving them. Ideally, the provider should be able to adjust the content of their campaigns based on results and user input, while consumers should be able to adjust the amount and type of communications targeted and sent to them. There is a need in the industry for a systems and means for enabling interactive or intelligent communications between providers and consumers.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION A Live Spot is an interactive, windowless, browserless, video that plays on a user's screen on, for example a computer or mobile device. It is typically partially transparent giving the appearance of floating on top of the user's desktop. It may be animated. Thus, a person may appear to walk onto the screen and talk to the user. This may be prompted by an alert from a provider. Hot spots are typically provided, that when selected, allow users to select, request, or accept content from content providers. This is integrated into a system where users opt- in to content providers and providers select the users to push their content to, providing selective bidirectional communications between providers and users.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a drawing showing a web page or other initial user interface in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a drawing showing the initial user interface shown in FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a drawing showing the initial user interface shown in FIG. 1;

FIG. 4 is a drawing showing a Live Spot, in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 5 is a drawing showing the animated person in FIG. 4;

FIG. 6 is a drawing showing the Live Spot in FIG. 4;

FIG. 7 is a drawing showing the animated person in FIGS. 4 and 5 walking off of the screen;

FIG. 8 is a drawing showing an interactive windowless video from a windowless Live

Spot;

FIG. 9 is a drawing showing the animated person in front of the windowless Live Spot; FIG. 10 is a drawing showing the windowless Live Spot of FIG. 9 without the animated person;

FIG. 11 is a block diagram illustrating a General Purpose Computer, such as utilized as a server or by users to display the web pages and Live Spots, in accordance with the present invention; and

FIG. 12 is a block diagram showing an exemplary configuration in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION Live Spots are interactive windowless, browserless, videos that play on a user's screen on, for example a computer or mobile device. They are typically partially transparent, giving the appearance of floating on top of users' desktops. They may be animated. Thus, a person may appear to walk onto the screen and talk to a user. This may be prompted by an alert from a provider. Hot spots are typically provided, that when selected, allow users to select, request, or accept content from content providers. This is integrated into a system where users opt- in to content providers and providers select the users to push their content to, providing selective bidirectional communications between providers and users.

FIG. 1 is a drawing showing a web page 110 or other initial user interface in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention. This web page 110 shows what will ultimately be a Live Spot, but as a portion of a Web page. The initial user interface provides for an alert indicator 112, navigation option buttons 114, a sliding options panel 116, and an action area 118 within the Live Spot. In this embodiment, the Action Area 118 is where content may be delivered. It may be videos, text, document, survey, Live Offers, etc. The sliding options panel may slide up or down to give users dynamic options on the Menu option they select. In this example, the Navigation Option buttons 114 provide the user the options of getting information on an upcoming event, playing videos, getting tickets to the upcoming events, following a blog, or telling a friend about this Life Spot. While this FIG. shows installation from a Web page, other methods are also within the scope of the present invention, such as, for example, installation from a CD, DVD, or Blu-Ray Disc.

FIG. 2 is a drawing showing the initial user interface shown in FIG. 1. After a user clicks on the action area 118, a Live Offer solicits the user to download a desktop interactive system for a vendor. The user clicks on the solicitation, and the installation process begins.

FIG. 3 is a drawing showing the initial user interface shown in FIG. 1. The user may be greeted with an initial alert where the user is solicited to play a windowless video by an animated person. After the video ends, the Live Offer suggests that the user sign up for a product or service. The animated person or object then may fade out. In any case, the user is typically allowed to continue exploring the Live Spot.

A Live Spot is an interactive windowless, browserless, video that plays on a user's screen, such as a computer screen or a wireless communications device such as a smart phone, iPad, etc. The Live Spot is preferably at least partially transparent, so that the desktop or contents of the screen can be seen through the part of the Live Spot that does not contain the animated person or object. Thus, it appears to the user in this embodiment that a fighter 102 is walking out onto the screen, and then talking to the user. The user may be solicited to respond, and that may include clicking at certain locations. Then, the Live Spot may respond to the user, through, for example, the animation.

One method of constructing a Live Spot video is to film the action against a "blue screen" or a "green screen". Then, the blue or green screen can be made transparent in the video. The result is that only the person or object(s) being recorded are displayed, with the underlying computer screen, phone display, etc., showing through the portions of the video that captured the blue or green screen. Other graphics can be added to overlay the video, such as the cracks in the monitor shown in FIG. 7.

FIG. 4 is a drawing showing a Live Spot, in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention. The Live Spot in this case is animated with an animated person 102 standing and walking around in front of the web site from which the Live Spot and associated software had been downloaded.

FIG. 5 is a drawing showing the animated person 102 in FIG. 4. However, the animated person is now smaller. This can be accomplished by zooming out during the filming, or later, during editing. Also, while actual people are shown in these FIGs., it should be understood that the present invention is not limited to live people and actual objects, but may also include animation or artificially constructed people and/or objects. For example, in one embodiment, a vehicle appears to drive onto a user's screen, and two people get out of the vehicle than then walk around and talk to the user.

FIG. 6 is a drawing showing the Live Spot in FIG. 4. This FIG. shows the progress of a download 162 of the Live Spot for the content provider that provided the Live Spot.

FIG. 7 is a drawing showing the animated person 102 in FIGS. 4 and 5 walking off of the screen. In FIG. 7, the animated person 102, a fighter in this embodiment, appears to strike the glass of the monitor, leaving cracks 170 in the user's monitor, and within the cracks 170 is "Click Here". The user can then click at the designated spot to receive marketing information or to activate other functions. The fighter in this FIG. appears to be in the process of walking off of the user's screen 104. FIG. 8 is a drawing showing an interactive windowless video 180 from a windowless Live Spot 106. The windowless video 180 may have a progress indicator bar 182, as well as command buttons that may, for example, start and stop the windowless video 180. The windowless video 180 may be generated from a vendor, it may be part of an interactive session with other users, or may be generated by other means and be utilized for other purposes, all of which are within the scope of the present invention.

This FIG. shows an exemplary Apple Macintosh screen. This is exemplary, and other visual interfaces are also within the scope of the present invention. For example, the user may be utilizing a computer system running another operating system or graphical user interface, such as Microsoft Windows or Linux. Another alternative is that the user may be utilizing a mobile device such as a smart phone such as a Blackberry or an iPhone. Other smart phones, mobile devices, computer systems, and interactive systems are also within the scope of the present invention.

FIG. 9 is a drawing showing the animated person 102 in front of the windowless Live Spot 106. In this FIG., the animated person 102 is seen talking to the user. This is one mechanism supported by the present invention for relaying marketing information to users. Other such mechanism are also within the scope of the present invention.

FIG. 10 is a drawing showing the windowless Live Spot 106 of FIG. 9 without the animated person. This Live Spot is almost identical to the initial user interface shown in FIGs. 1- 3. Henceforth, while this desktop interactive system is active, whenever an alert is received from the provider, the Alert 112 flashes, suggesting that the user click on the Alert area in order to see the alert.

FIG. 11 is a block diagram illustrating a General Purpose Computer 20, such as utilized as a server or by users to display the web pages and Live Spots, in accordance with the present invention. The General Purpose Computer 20 has a Computer Processor 22 (CPU) and Memory 24, connected by a Bus 26. Memory 24 is a relatively high speed machine readable medium and includes Volatile Memories such as DRAM, and SRAM, and Non- Volatile Memories such as, ROM, FLASH, EPROM, EEPROM, and bubble memory. Also connected to the Bus are Secondary Storage 30, External Storage 32, output devices such as a monitor 34, input devices such as a keyboard 36 with a mouse 37, and printers 38. Secondary Storage 30 includes machine- readable media such as hard disk drives, magnetic drum, and bubble memory. External Storage 32 includes machine -readable media such as floppy disks, removable hard drives, magnetic tape, CD-ROM, and even other computers, possibly connected via a communications line 28. The distinction drawn here between Secondary Storage 30 and External Storage 32 is primarily for convenience in describing the invention. As such, it should be appreciated that there is substantial functional overlap between these elements. Computer software such as operating systems, utilities, user programs, and software to implement the present invention can be stored in a Computer Software Storage Medium, such as memory 24, Secondary Storage 30, and External Storage 32. Executable versions of computer software 33, such as defragmentation software and operating systems can be read from a Non- Volatile Storage Medium such as External Storage 32, Secondary Storage 30, and Non- Volatile Memory and loaded for execution directly into Volatile Memory, executed directly out of Non- Volatile Memory, or stored on the Secondary Storage 30 prior to loading into Volatile Memory for execution.

FIG. 12 is a block diagram showing an exemplary configuration in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention. At the center of the configuration is a cloud 52, which may include the Internet. Connected to the cloud 52 are a provider warehouse server 54 with one or more provider data warehouses and a user warehouse server 56 with one or more user data warehouses. The provider warehouse server 54 and user warehouse server 56 are shown coupled together allowing them to communicate. This is exemplary. The provider warehouse server 54 and user warehouse server 56 may reside in the same physical machine, or one or both may utilize multiple servers.

Also connected to the cloud 52 are provider servers 62. They provide marketing and other information to the provider warehouse server 54. They also may receive marketing response information from the provider warehouse server 54. A provider computer 64 is shown coupled to a provider server 62 in order for personnel 66 from providers control the distribution of their marketing and other information to users. A dashed line 68 is shown logically connecting each of the provider servers 62 with the provider warehouse server 54.

Also connected to the cloud are user computer systems 72 and smart phone or mobile devices 74. The smart phones or other mobile devices 74 are shown connected to the cloud 52 through a radio tower 75. This communications may utilize cellular telephone technology, WiFi, WiMAX, or other wireless technologies. Utilizing the computer systems 72 and mobile devices 74 are users 76, who are the typical recipients of the marketing material from the providers, including Live Spot advertising. Dashed lines are shown logically connecting 78 each of the user computers 72 and wireless devices 76 to the user warehouse server 56.

It should be understood that in a preferred embodiment, the provider warehouse server 54 and the user warehouse server 52 operate together to provide bi-directional communications between providers and users. In this embodiment, users 76 opt-in to selectively receive material from specific providers and providers provide content for specific users. Thus, both sides of the communications opt-in to the conversations.

When a user 76 decides to download a desktop interactive system for a specific provider, as shown in FIGs. 1-3 above, a check is made whether the Live Spot software has already been installed on the user's system 72, 74. If not, then it is installed. In any case, the Live Spot plug- ins, graphics, and other provider information, software, and material, is acquired, through download, loading from some memory, or by any other means, and the Live Spot software system is configured to support this provider. Thus, any given user 76 may have Live Offer material installed form multiple providers. He can easily control his interactions with each of these providers through, for example, pull-down menus from a system tray. He can also effectively detach from any given provider at any time, which may involve deinstalling the software and other material for that provider that was installed earlier.

When a provider wishes to push content to users, he may select which users to push the content through communications with the provider warehouse server 54. Meanwhile, the users 76 have notified the user warehouse server 56 of which content from which providers they wish to receive. For each user 76 selected by the provider and opting-in to receiving the material being pushed by the provider, the material will be downloaded or pushed to the user's system 72, 74. If it consists of a Live Spot, it may be displayed on the user's screen 104 or through some other mechanism. It may ask the user whether he wishes to receive or see the material being pushed, and if he agrees, by, for example, clicking on an Live Offer, then it will be displayed for the user 76 on his screen 104.

The Live Spot may launch a windowless video 180 (see FIG. 8), or may launch any other application on the user's system 72, 74. For example, a URL for a web page may be provided to the Live Spot software on the user's system 72, 74, and a web browser window or tab may be launched with that URL to link to and load the web page. Any of these actions may be accomplished through Live Spot desktop animation. For example, an animated person 102 may open a movie screen to play a windowless video 180 or launch a web page in a web browser. Other animations are also within the scope of the present invention.

Live Spots may reside on a user' s desktop or screen for an extended period of time, may only appear when there is content that may be downloaded, or any other time, as determined by the providers and users. In one embodiment of the present invention, Live Spots may be moved around on the screen or desktop, as required by the user. They may also be resized by the user in one embodiment. They will typically, but not necessarily, have one or more areas on which to click or select in order to respond to offers by providers, or to make requests of providers. For example, the Live Spots shown in these FIGs. provided areas to click to for: getting information; downloading videos; getting tickets; receiving blogs; and telling a friend about the Live Spot.

Those skilled in the art will recognize that modifications and variations can be made without departing from the spirit of the invention. Therefore, it is intended that this invention encompass all such variations and modifications as fall within the scope of the appended claims.

Claims

CLAIMS What is claimed is:

1. A method for providing interactive bi-directional communications between a content provider system and a user system comprising:

accepting a choice by a user to opt-in to receiving content from a content provider;

receiving an interactive windowless video from the content provider system; and playing the interactive windowless video on a screen on the user system.

2. The method in Claim 1 wherein:

the user system is from a set consisting of a computer and a mobile device.

3. The method in Claim 1 wherein:

the user system and the content provider system communicate bi-directionally through one or more servers containing a user data warehouse and a provider data warehouse;

the user selects which of a plurality of content providers to accept content from; and the content providers select which of a plurality of users to push content to.

4. The method in Claim 1 wherein:

the windowless video is partially transparent showing at last one of a set consisting of an animated person and an animated vehicle moving around over the screen.

5. The method in Claim 4 which further comprises:

creating a video with a video camera used with a single-color background; and converting the single color background in the video to transparent in order to create the partially transparent windowless video.

6. The method in claim 1 which further comprises:

launching the windowless video in response to receiving content from the content provider system.

7. The method in Claim 6 wherein:

the content received from the content provider system includes an alert.

8. The method in Claim 1 which further comprises:

providing at least one location on the screen for the user to select;

identifying the at least one location to the user; and communicating with the content provider system in response to the user selecting the at least one location on the screen.

9. The method in Claim 8 wherein:

the identifying includes displaying a set of cracks on the screen.

10. The method in Claim 8 wherein:

the communicating with the content provider system includes requesting content be downloaded for the user.

11. A system for providing interactive bi-directional communications between a content provider system and a user system comprising:

the user system comprising:

a processor capable of executing instructions;

a screen; and

a memory containing instructions executable by the processor, said instructions comprising instructions for:

accepting a choice by a user to opt-in to receiving content from a content provider;

receiving an interactive windowless video from the content provider system; and

playing the interactive windowless video on the screen.

12. The system in Claim 11 wherein:

the user system is from a set consisting of a computer and a mobile device.

13. The system in Claim 11 wherein:

the user system and the content provider system communicate bi-directionally through one or more servers containing a user data warehouse and a provider data warehouse;

the user selects which of a plurality of content providers to accept content from; and the content providers select which of a plurality of users to push content to.

14. The system in Claim 11 wherein:

the windowless video is partially transparent showing at last one of a set consisting of an animated person and an animated vehicle moving around over the screen.

15. The system in Claim 14 which further comprises:

a video camera;

a memory containing instructions executable by a processor for:

creating a video with the video camera used with a single-color background; and converting the single color background in the video to transparent in order to create the partially transparent windowless video.

16. The system in claim 11 wherein the instructions further comprise instructions for:

launching the windowless video in response to receiving content from the content provider system.

17. The system in Claim 16 wherein:

the content received from the content provider system includes an alert.

18. The system in Claim 11 wherein the instructions further comprise instructions for:

providing at least one location on the screen for the user to select;

identifying the at least one location to the user; and

communicating with the content provider system in response to the user selecting the at least one location on the screen.

19. The system in Claim 18 wherein:

the identifying includes displaying a set of cracks on the screen.

20. The system in Claim 18 wherein:

the communicating with the content provider system includes requesting content be downloaded for the user.