WO2022255901A1

WO2022255901A1 - System and method for providing a social network service

Info

Publication number: WO2022255901A1
Application number: PCT/RU2021/000243
Authority: WO
Inventors: Павел Даниилович САВЧЕНКО; Валерий Евгеньевич ПЛАТОНОВ
Original assignee: Частное Учреждение "Библиотека Мастеров Интеллектуального Труда"
Priority date: 2021-06-04
Filing date: 2021-06-04
Publication date: 2022-12-08

Abstract

The present invention relates to a system for a social network service and a method for presenting and distributing digital content (electronic books), which provide novel opportunities for the way in which users work with publications and for the joint use of electronic books by means of a social network service, and which make it possible to jointly create and store (generate) collections of excerpts from digital content (quote books) based on read electronic books, while allowing the annotation of the excerpts (quotes) themselves or of the books as a whole, to formulate library references for the relevant read electronic books in accordance with formal guidelines, and to structure, systematize and analyze stored data and knowledge in personal quote books, and, more particularly, the invention relates to a system for the joint use of an electronic book by network users. The technical result is that of broadening the functional capabilities of a system and method for providing a social network service or other platforms for the presentation and distribution of digital content by making it possible to create user quote books with commentaries, to exchange stored information from personal quote books with other users, to generate system-wide quote books containing the cumulative secondary knowledge of an entire information community, and to collect, analyze and provide statistical information.

Description

SYSTEM AND METHOD OF PROVIDING SOCIAL NETWORK SERVICE

The present invention relates to a social networking service system, a method for providing and distributing digital content, including e-books, providing new opportunities for user management of publications and sharing of e-books through a social networking service.

Over the past decades, the pace of book digitization has begun to gain momentum. Nowadays, with the widespread use of digital devices, the popularity of electronic reading materials has become massive. E-books will gradually replace printed books as the preferred medium for delivering information. As a consequence of the digitization of books, the bookstores, public and private libraries that provide and provide access to books are also bound to change as the existing physical infrastructure for their distribution becomes redundant and uneconomical. Therefore, the way books are distributed will change dramatically to meet the demands of the digital world.

An electronic, or digital, book is a digital version of a traditional printed book (publication) that is distributed and provided for review by the user through various services, for example, on the Internet using various computer systems.

E-books can be read on various devices in the same way as in a real library. At present, systems such as electronic libraries are widespread, providing the user with the opportunity to read publications online on an electronic device or download electronic publications in the form of files with the possibility of viewing them later on user device, including with the help of specialized software products. Basically, these services are aimed at transferring textual and/or graphic information to the user in various display formats for review. In addition, the electronic library as a social networking service is an online service that connects through a network of people who have similar interests or are united by common activities.

To organize a full-fledged workflow with an electronic publication, it is not enough for a user to conveniently display the contents of an electronic book (sentence, word, expression, image, etc.) on his device. Sometimes the reader needs to quickly save in memory for future work part of the text of the e-book, forming a selection of certain fragments, excerpts from the material read, author's quotes from books.

In addition, in some cases, for productive work with an e-book, it is necessary to immediately receive a bibliographic reference to a specific fragment, drawn up in accordance with regulatory documents, as part of an electronic publication. Such an opportunity would be useful to the user of any library, especially an electronic one, for example, for compiling a bibliographic list (List of used literature) in his scientific, creative and author's works.

It should be noted that the reader of an e-book may need not only to form a quote based on the content of the e-book, but also to mark, highlight or leave a comment “in the margins” on a fragment of text that is significant for the user, write down their impression, opinion, and possibly even write an annotation for the entire publication. However, such actions may not always be performed on an e-book while it is being displayed.

The claimed system can be conditionally attributed to complex automated systems of social network services and, in particular, to the category of electronic library systems.

Examples of known library systems:

1. EBS "Bookmate" (https://www.bookmate.com) [2007-2021] 2. ELS "NRU HSE" (https://library.hse.ru) [2021]

3. EBS "ALDEBARAN" (http://aldebaran.ru) [2021]

4. ELS "National Electronic Library" (https://rusneb.ru) [2021 federal state information system]

5. ELS "MooBook" (https://mybook.ru/) [2021 LLC "Living Library"]

5. EBS "LitRes" (https://www.litres.ru) [2005-2021]

Some of the well-known electronic library systems have a number of technical and organizational limitations that do not allow full interaction with the content of electronic books and do not provide effective interaction between readers within the system:

- some systems display electronic documents and books in certain non-text formats, which does not allow copying or quoting the context in text form;

- in some systems, users do not have (or are extremely limited) the ability to copy, quote, comment on content while viewing it;

- not all digital libraries allow obtaining statistics on the real popularity of electronic books, for example, based on the citation of their context;

- in a number of systems, there is no possibility for readers to interact in terms of e-book catalogs, and / or content of publications, and / or the created expert context, etc.

Various technical solutions in this field are known from patent documents.

For example, in US patent 9098173, publication date 08/04/2015, where the devices are mainly designed to read and make simple notes in the process of reading books for a reader without experience. They do not disclose or contain information that indicates any additional features for the experienced reader to use for educational or research purposes. In addition, the proposed devices provide functions broadly classified as navigation, display, editing and content management. At the same time, any tools and functions necessary to create a secondary layer of user knowledge on the content of the book (source of primary knowledge), create notes and quotes, compile and accumulate limited copying of your own material for future use, including for joint work on books are not considered or disclosed.

Patent KR20140140202 A "ELECTRONIC BOOK SOCIAL NETWORK SERVICE SYSTEM WITH THE POSSIBILITY OF RECORDING READER COMMENTS AND THE METHOD OF ITS IMPLEMENTATION" describes a system that provides the possibility of written commenting, annotating in the process of reading electronic books using the advantages of a social networking service. However, such a system does not imply separate saving and accumulation of fragments of the context of the book, which include the created comment or annotation, but only binds the annotation information to a specific place on the e-book page. This patent, as the closest in terms of essential features, is taken as a prototype.

Also, in the process of working with the publication, the user is interested not only in saving fragments of the e-book, his notes, comments and annotations, but also in their structuring, systematization of the accumulated data with the ability to easily view all his developments. Such opportunities for creating, accumulating data and knowledge as a layer of user context would allow readers of an electronic library to quickly and efficiently navigate large amounts of information obtained from electronic publications, improve the quality of their information activities in terms of general and professional competence. Thus, it becomes possible to create a personal user quote book - an additional layer of secondary knowledge based on books read - sources of primary knowledge.

One of the important functions of the social networking service is the formation of interpersonal relationships and their structure in accordance with the original task of the social network. The user identifies other network users who are somehow connected with him, which allows you to expand your social connections through network and interact within it. So, for example, through the electronic library, some users can publish the information they have accumulated and their opinions, and other users, including those associated with this user, can publish other opinions and / or their information in response. Thus, such a unique structure of connections as interpersonal relationships is created. In such a structure, electronic books and the user layer of accumulated secondary knowledge related to them on the materials of a particular book become the reason for the formation of reader relationships within the electronic library. In this case, it is important to provide users of the system, when impregnating the corresponding context of the e-book, with the opportunity to simultaneously view their accumulated data array formed by various readers, the knowledge layer - personal user quotes. This will allow readers to discuss and collaborate with e-books, productive cooperation with each other and, as a result, increase the overall potential of the e-library information community through the creation and exchange of additional knowledge.

On the basis of all accumulated user content in relation to each specific book, the electronic library system can quickly accumulate statistical information, in particular, generate reader ratings for the entire library fund, and provide similar analytics to system users in any form. In addition, based on the analysis of all user quotes, the system can create a cumulative quote for each work, or a smart book, which will contain the most popular quotes marked by readers.

Thus, thanks to the intellectual activity of readers and the internal exchange of knowledge on the platform, each book in the library will gradually acquire a secondary layer of generalized knowledge - a systemic quotation book of the entire information community with the most significant, vivid fragments of the text. Such an opportunity of the electronic library system will provide the readers with the fastest possible formation of an idea about each book and high productivity of work with each edition.

As a result, the proposed technical solution overcomes the shortcomings and limitations of previous systems and methods (including the technology described in patent KR20140140202A), at least in part, by providing an architecture for organizing a social networking service system or other platforms that provide the provision and distribution of content, as well as: ways for a user to generate a collection of certain fragments (citations) of digital content, such as, for example, electronic books, with the possibility of commenting, annotating and formatting according to the rules in accordance with regulatory documents; methods for collecting, structuring, analyzing and systematizing the data accumulated in this way as a user layer of secondary knowledge associated with the electronic content of the book and obtained in the course of the reader's work with the electronic book; ways of demonstrating, providing the created layer of knowledge, as well as organizing its sharing and interaction by users of the social networking system.

In view of the foregoing, the objective of the claimed invention is to expand the service capabilities of the electronic library system: providing the ability to quote the context and comment on it, collect, analyze and provide the generated data, including for sharing within the social networking system. The architecture of the interactive organization of the social networking system for reading the context, in accordance with the present invention, is a significant improvement over the existing prior art.

The technical result consists in expanding the functionality of the system and the method of providing a social network service or other platforms for the provision and distribution of digital content by providing the ability to create custom quotes with comments, exchange accumulated information from personal quotes with other users, form system quotes with generalized secondary knowledge of everything information society, collect, analyze and provide statistical information. Accepted terms and definitions

The goals of writing a book can be different: to tell a story, describe an event or offer a new worldview, evoke emotions and experiences, convey knowledge and experience, or share ideas and thoughts. The main task of the author of the work is to convey new knowledge or sensations to the reader, to encourage him to new achievements, to search for new ideas, solutions and truth.

Quote - a relatively short excerpt from a literary, scientific or any other published work, which is used with a mandatory reference to its author and the source of quotation by the reader already in his work in order to more fully reveal his thought, make his statements clearer or to refer to the views of another the author in an authentic formulation.

To convey the exact information content or the complete thought of the author without distortion, it is customary to quote the text of the book verbatim. When using quotations, it is not recommended to cut off the integral information or the author's thought contained in them, to cite only part of the text, to synthesize a quotation from disparate fragments of the text, thereby pulling the words out of context. In order to prevent such anomalies as "selective" or "false" quotations, a sentence is taken as the main unit of quoting information content - a unit of coherent speech, which is a grammatically organized compound of words with semantic and intonational completeness.

In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, the minimum unit of a user-selectable piece of digital content - a quote - is a sentence. From the point of view of punctuation, the sentence, as a complete unit, is drawn up at the end with a dot or ellipsis, exclamation or question marks.

The maximum number of sentences in one quote is limited by the number of sentences in a certain paragraph - a unit of division of the work, which serves to group homogeneous units of presentation, exhausting some of its moments (thematic, plot, etc.).

The present invention relates to a social network service system for sharing electronic books between users, and a method providing and distributing digital content (electronic books), ensuring the joint creation and accumulation (formation) of collections of digital content fragments (citations) based on read electronic books with the ability to annotate both the content fragments (citations) and books in general, the design of library links to the relevant e-books read in accordance with regulatory documents, structuring, systematization and analysis by the system of accumulated data and knowledge in personal citations, and, in particular, to the system for sharing an e-book by network participants.

The essence of the invention is illustrated by the following drawings:

Figure 1 is a block diagram schematically illustrating the above-described general configuration of the e-book social network service system with the possibility of co-creating, accumulating (forming) collections of digital content fragments (quotes) based on read e-books, recording user annotations, structuring and systematizing the accumulated data , in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

Where: 1 - server, 2 - user database, 3 - e-book database, 4 - user comments database, 5 - user quotes database, 6 - statistical information database, 7 - controller, 8 - e-book delivery unit , 9 - block for processing user comments, 10 - block for processing fragments of context and generating quotations according to regulatory rules, 11 - block for generating certain collections of quotations (citations) and corresponding comments, 12 - block for processing statistical information, 13 - communication network, 14 - user terminals.

Figure 2 is a schematic diagram illustrating a method for providing a social network service for reading digital content (e-books), providing the creation and accumulation of collections of digital content fragments with the ability to comment on both quotes themselves and books as a whole, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention .

Figure 3 shows a screen view for generating a quote consisting of one sentence. Figure 4 shows a screen view for generating a quotation consisting of several sentences and a comment highlighting the generated quotation.

Figure 5 shows a screen view of filling out the form to add a quote and comment.

Figure 6 shows a screen view for adding a comment without specifying a quote.

Figure 7 shows a screen view of the result of adding a quote and/or comment.

In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, a method for generating quotes is provided to solve the above problems. The user selects a piece of digital content of the e-book as part of it. The selected piece of content is recorded in a personal quotation book in such a way as to fix the logical connection between the quotation and part of the volume of digital content. The user can additionally create a comment on a quote or on the book as a whole so that both he and another reader can, while viewing the corresponding part of the electronic book, see certain quotes and comments recorded and saved earlier. If it is necessary to add new fragments of digital content to the quote book, the actions of the reader in the system are repeated by sequentially adding new entries. Thus, in the process of working on digital content, users of the system form personal quotes for the corresponding digital content. Under certain conditions, users of the system may be given access to personal quotes to view them with the ability to leave feedback on the relevant quotes and comments. On the basis of all quote books of different users, the system can create its own systematized quote book for certain digital content (electronic book).

To implement the present invention, the following are provided: a database of system users; an electronic book database storing the contents of one or more electronic books in the form of text data; a database of a collection of quotes selected by users (quotes), for storing one or more information about a quote defined in the content of an e-book, with the ability to reader identification; a comment database for storing one or more information about a unique comment associated with a specific quotation from the e-book or related to the e-book itself as a whole, with the possibility of identifying the reader; a database of statistical information that stores summary data about the workflow of system users to form a layer of secondary knowledge.

A method including: providing at least one electronic book content to a user terminal via a communication network; receiving information from the reader about quoting the context of the electronic book from the user terminal, with the correlation of the cited information of the reader with his ID; receiving information from the reader about commenting on a quote from the context of the electronic book or the electronic book as a whole from the user terminal with the correlation of the commented information of the reader with his ID; a library server for providing cited and/or commented reader information specified in the content of the electronic book or the electronic book as a whole to the user terminal along with the content of the electronic book when impregnating the content of the electronic book; displaying the content of an e-book provided from the library server on the screen, with the ability to select and determine the cited context of the e-book using the reader citation function, enter a reader comment on a quote from the e-book context or on the e-book as a whole using the reader comments function when viewing the content e-book; a user terminal that is provided with information about quotes and comments created by the user, other readers in the e-book content, and the system itself.

The communication network may include, for example, a local area network, an intranet, and/or a wide area network such as the Internet. Remote devices (user terminals) may communicate with the server and/or with each other via wireless or wired communication.

The library server provides the user terminal with an e-book viewer with the ability to view the context of the e-book on the screen. For example, the server may host a website portal that can be accessed by user terminals. The user terminal can access the context of the e-book using the installed e-book viewer to play and display them on the screen. User terminals may be implemented as various computing devices having a display screen, such as a desktop or laptop personal computer, smartphone, or other device.

In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, the library server contains: a system user database; an electronic book database and an electronic book providing unit for transmitting the contents of the electronic books to a plurality of terminals including a user terminal; a user comment database and a user comment processing unit for receiving reader comments from the user terminal; a database of user quotations and a block for processing, generating quotations for receiving from the user terminal an indication of the cited context of the electronic book and determining the context quotation unit in accordance with the citation rules; a database of statistical information and a block for processing statistical information for collecting data on the workflow of system users, generating ratings, system quotes based on them and summarizing information about the electronic books provided in the database; block for generating quotes for creating, at the request of users, collections of quotes saved by them and comments created by them; a database interconnecting controller, corresponding information processing units, and communicating with user terminals via a communication network to provide a social network service that allows users to share their accumulated content information of electronic books.

Figure 1 is a block diagram schematically illustrating the above-described general configuration of the e-book social network service system with the possibility of co-creating, accumulating (forming) collections of digital content fragments (quotes) based on read e-books, recording user annotations, structuring and systematizing the accumulated data, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. While the invention is susceptible to various modifications and alternative forms, specific embodiments of the invention are shown by way of example and will be described in detail below. However, it should be understood that this invention is not limited to specific variants of its implementation, but includes all modifications, equivalents and alternatives, without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention.

Figure 2 is a schematic diagram illustrating a method for providing a social network service for reading digital content (e-books), providing the creation and accumulation of collections of digital content fragments with the ability to comment on both quotes themselves and books as a whole, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention . 2, in the social network service system according to the embodiment of the present invention, the server 1 provides social network services including an e-book to the user terminal 14 (S210).

Then, the user terminal 14 requests the electronic book via the communication network in accordance with the user's selection (S220).

Thereafter, the server 1 provides the requested contents of the electronic book to the user terminal 14 (S230). Thus, the server 1 reads the requested e-book content from the e-book database 3 and transmits the content to the user terminal 14.

In the event that the user terminal 14 points to a part of the context of the electronic book in accordance with the user input (S240), the server 1 transmits (S250) the received information from the reader to the citation processing and generation unit 10, which determines and generates the context citation unit according to certain rules. Thereafter, the server records the finished quotation in the user quotation database with matching to the user ID (S260).

In case the user enters a quote comment (S270), the user terminal 14 enters and records reader annotation information. Meanwhile, the reader's comment information includes symbols, images, speech recording, photographs, and moving images input from the user terminal 14 to express an impression, graffiti, comment, reader's remark on the content of the displayed e-book. In such a case, the server 1 stores (S290) the reader's annotation information in the user comment database 4 via the annotation information processing unit 9 with the corresponding quote and the user's PR (S280).

If the user through the terminal 14 during the input process did not specify a part of the context of the e-book for commenting, then the storage of such annotation information in the comment database will occur with reference to the e-book as a whole, without being associated with any particular quotation.

After that, the server 1 provides the content of the e-book already with the display of information about a single quote and comments in the context of the e-book to the user terminal 14 or other user terminals (S290). It should be understood that a different number of terminals may be used in the system.

Thus, if permission is obtained from users who have previously cited and commented, readers can view the contents of the e-book while viewing the citation and comment information recorded by previous readers in the context of the e-book as a user accumulated secondary knowledge layer.

In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, a method for generating personal quotes is provided. As soon as the user creates (copies) the first citation of the context of a certain e-book, a corresponding library link to the publication is formed in the created citation book according to the rules of normative documents. All quotes selected by the user, generated by the system on the basis of the specified part of the context according to the citation rules, are stored in the database of user quotes in the process of working with the e-book . The user can also create a comment on a quote, which is stored in the user comment database 4 with metadata associated with a specific quote from the quote database 5. The user also has the ability to record thought comments that are not tied to a specific location in the content volume. Similar comments is stored in the database of user comments 4 without linking metadata to a specific quote, but maintaining a connection with a specific work.

Thus, in the process of a user working on an e-book, in addition to it, a user layer of knowledge can be accumulated - a quote book - a supplemented and editable list of quotations and comments to them or to the entire work as a whole. The formation of such a list by the system can be compared with the usual process of writing out quotes or highlighting them on the pages of a publication, writing notes in the margins of a book, creating memos, writing in a notebook or workbook.

Each user can create, supplement and view their quotes for any e-book presented in the e-library. At the request of the user, the author-creator of a particular layer of knowledge, access to his developments can be provided for familiarization with a list of other readers of the electronic library determined by him. This provides an opportunity for users to participate in a wider collaborative discussion of the work in a free format.

In addition, each author's comment in a personal quotation book, at the discretion of the user, can have the status of a public one for its demonstration and/or corresponding quotation to an unlimited number of system users. This creates a richer collaborative experience than simply reading another person's review of a book or other content. Filtering can be used to allow users to select specific users whose notes they would like to view.

Other elements that provide useful storage that can be included in the metadata associated with citations and comments include: when the entry was created, the author who created the citation or comment, associated users, note type, etc.

The quote book can be accessed in an open e-book and can be viewed in context. In other words, while the user is viewing a certain piece of content, he has access to marks about his quotes and comments, about quotes and comments of other users related to this piece of content. In addition, if necessary, the user can upload his quote book associated with a particular electronic book, save it as a separate file on a machine-readable medium for use in further work in other systems with third-party software products.

Such a system and method for generating quotes can be applied to various forms of digital content, including video and audio files, allowing the user to mark and save a piece of content, as well as write a note on a specific passage or part of a video and audio file (for example, by associating a note with a timestamp in video or audio file). Thus, the user can refer to a specific timestamp in a video or audio file. Quote creation can also be applied to multimedia formats that include text and images. Thus, the user can save and accumulate not only text but also graphic information.

A custom quote book filled with all the significant fragments of the work upon completion of reading it by a specific user will eventually become a sublimation of selected information, interesting thoughts and essential knowledge of both the author of the book (the carrier of primary knowledge) and the reader of the e-book forming secondary knowledge.

On the basis of all quotes of different users, the system can form a database of statistical information and create its own generalized quotes for a particular e-book. Such a system quotation book in the form ranked by the popularity of quotations is provided for viewing by all users of the electronic library with the ability to view public comments of users.

In addition, the information accumulated in the database of statistical information about the number of views of the e-book, the number of user quotes created by users, the quotes in them and comments can serve as a system for collecting statistical information for each publication. Based on the analysis of the information received, the system can generate public or service ratings of both e-books and users according to various parameters.

The following describes examples of user interfaces in accordance with embodiments of the present invention in relation to electronic books. These exemplary interfaces may be shown as a graphical user interface window on a display screen of a user's device, which may be, for example, a computer, portable device, or dedicated e-book reader. Elements displayed on the display (for example, buttons, tabs or links) can be accessed and used using the mouse cursor and/or keyboard and, in some cases, physical touch or gestures made by the user using the appropriate interface. You can also use the keyboard to enter text. It should be understood that embodiments of the present invention may be applied to other types of content and to other methods of displaying digital content. Figure 3 shows a view of the screen for the formation of a quote, consisting of one sentence, with the selection of the generated quote. Figure 4 shows a screen view for generating a quotation consisting of several sentences and a comment highlighting the generated quotation. Figure 5 shows a screen view of filling out the form to add a quote and comment. Figure 6 shows a screen view for adding a comment without specifying a quote. Figure 7 shows a screen view of the result of adding a quote and/or comment.

One part of the display screen (hereinafter referred to as the "content window") is used for viewing content. In this case, the content is an e-book whose text is displayed on the left side of the display. In addition, there are arrow buttons to the right and left of the text that can be used to scroll through the text. The name of the work and its authorship are indicated on the top bar, which is located directly above the displayed text. The second part of the display screen is used to display information related to the formation and display of work quotations and comments. This part is called "Notes in the margin" and is located on the right side of the display. This part of the display screen shows saved quotes and comments, as well as a title, with a "Settings" button. The "Settings" button opens an additional options menu where you can select the view mode for viewing quotes and comments. This choice affects what data the user sees. The timestamp shows the date and time the note was created. The name of the user who left the quote and/or comment may be displayed next to the timestamp. It may take the form of a link that launches a browser window, which then sends to the portal and opens a window showing that user's profile. The information block about the time and the author of the note is located directly above the text of the note. In addition, on the right side of this portion of the display area, there may be a scroll bar that can be used to view all of the displayed information.

In order to view a quote from the list of saved ones, the user will need to point to it in the notes viewing area. In the content window, the user preferably sees highlighted, highlighted text (if applicable) to which the quote is attached.

Obviously, various changes in form and detail are possible without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention as defined by the following claims and their equivalents. The scope of the present invention is defined by the appended claims and not by the detailed description, and all changes or modifications arising from the spirit and scope of the claims and their equivalents are to be construed as being within the scope of the present invention.

It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that throughout the description, discussions using terms such as "processing" or "determining" or "displaying" and the like refer to the activities and processes of a computer system or the like. an electronic computing device that manipulates and converts data in computer system memory or other similar storage, transmission, or display devices.

This technology also refers to a device, platform or system for performing the described operations. Such a device, platform, or system may be specifically designed for the desired purpose, or may include one or more mainframe computers (whether in a distributed architecture or otherwise) selectively activated or reconfigured by one or more computer programs stored on the computers. Such a computer program may be stored on a computer-readable storage medium such as, but not limited to, any type of disk, including floppy disks, optical disks, CD-ROMs and magnetic disks, read-only memory devices. (ROM), random access memory (RAM), EPROM, EEPROM, magnetic or optical cards, flash memory, including non-volatile memory USB keys, or any type of storage medium suitable for storing electronic commands, each connected to the system computer bus.

The technology may be in the form of an all-hardware implementation, an all-software implementation, or an implementation that contains both hardware and software components. In some embodiments, this technology is implemented in software, which includes, but is not limited to, firmware, resident software, microcode, etc.

In addition, this technology may take the form of a computer program product accessible from a computer or machine-readable storage medium, providing program code for use by or in connection with a computer or any command execution system. For purposes of this specification, a computer or machine-readable storage medium can be any device that can contain, store, transmit, distribute, or transport a program for use by, or in connection with, an instruction execution system, apparatus, or device.

A data processing system suitable for storing and/or executing program code will include at least one processor in direct or indirect communication with memory elements via a system bus. The memory elements may include local memory used during actual execution of program code, external memory, and cache memory that provides temporary storage of at least some program code to reduce the number of times code must be retrieved from external memory during execution.

I/O devices (including but not limited to keyboards, displays, pointing devices, etc.) may be connected to the system either directly or through intermediate I/O controllers.

Network adapters may also be connected to the system so that the data processing system can communicate with other data processing systems or remote printers or storage devices through intermediate private or public networks. Modems, cable modem, and Ethernet cards are just some of the types of network adapters currently available.

So, the algorithms presented here are not really associated with any particular computer or other device. Various general-purpose systems may be used with programs in accordance with the teachings herein, or it may be convenient to develop more specialized devices to carry out the method. In addition, the present invention is not described in relation to any particular programming language. It should be appreciated that a variety of programming languages, such as high-level programming languages such as "C", "Java" or "Pascal", can be used to implement the idea of this technology according to the present description. Computers may be specially programmed and have specialized hardware. Each computer may have one processor, multiprocessor, or may contain multiple computers, each of which may include one processor or multiprocessor, with the ability to connect via a computer network (one or more). Each computer can run one of a variety of operating systems, including Microsoft Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Unix, or a Java-based operating system, to name but a few. Each computer in the system may include one or more input and output (I/O) units, a memory system, and one or more processing units. The I/O units of each computer can be connected to various I/O devices such as a mouse, keyboard, video card (video monitor), sound card (with speakers), network card, and printer. The memory system in a typical, general purpose computer system typically includes a computer-readable and writable non-volatile storage medium, some examples of which are magnetic disk, flash memory, and tape storage. The memory system contains the operating system, utilities, and application programs.

It should also be understood that the present invention is not limited to the particular input devices, output devices, or memory systems used in conjunction with a computer system or described herein. Also, the present invention should not be limited to any particular computer platform, processor, or high-level programming language.

Claims

Claim

1. The system of a social network service or other platforms for the provision and distribution of digital content (e-books), including a server with a user database, an e-book database and a content providing unit, a user comment database, a user comment processing unit, a controller and user terminals , equipped with data input-output devices that are connected to the server through a communication network, characterized in that the server additionally contains a database of user quotations, a block for processing context fragments and generating quotations according to regulatory rules, a block for generating certain collections of quotations (quotes) and corresponding comments , as well as a statistical information database and a statistical information processing unit.

2. The system according to claim 1, characterized in that the electronic book database contains one or more electronic books in the form of text data.

3. The system according to claim 2, characterized in that the electronic book providing unit provides the transfer of the content of the electronic book to the user upon his request.

4. The system according to claim 3, characterized in that the database of user comments contains information about one or more unique user comments related to any quote, part of the e-book or the entire book.

5. The system according to claim 4, characterized in that the block for processing user comments allows you to identify the user, save the comments left by the user, process them and provide other users at their request and with the permission of the user who left it, for viewing along with the contents of the e-book.

6. The system according to claim 5, characterized in that the database of user citations contains information about one or more fragments of the context of the electronic book saved by the user.

7. The system according to claim 6, characterized in that the block for processing context fragments and generating quotations allows you to select a certain fragment of an electronic book (one or more sentences), store it in the user citation database in accordance with the citation rules and provide it to other users along with the content of the e-book when it is impregnated.

8. The system according to claim 7, characterized in that the block for generating quotes allows, based on information from the database of quotes and from the database of comments, to create and provide the user in one form or another with a selection of saved quotes and comments created by him in accordance with the rules of quoting and drawn up in accordance with regulatory documents for each e-book from the library database at the request of each library user.

9. The system according to claim 8, characterized in that the database of statistical information contains information about the number of views of the e-book, the number of user quotes created, the quotes themselves in them and comments.

10. The system according to claim 9, characterized in that the statistical information processing unit allows, based on the accumulated statistical data in the database of statistical information, to form public or service ratings of both e-books and users according to various parameters, systematize, rank by the popularity of the quote, provide them and comments to them for viewing by all users of the electronic library.

11. A method for providing a social network service and distributing digital content (electronic book), including providing at least the content of one electronic book to a user terminal via a communication network, creating comments on the text of the electronic book using the user terminal, receiving information with user comments by the server, entered by the user on any fragment of the book, storing this information in a database of comments, correlating this information with a specific user and the context of the book, processing this information and providing it to other users with the permission of the user who made these comments, characterized in that the user, in addition to making comments on the text of digital content using the user terminal selects a certain piece of digital content of the e-book as its parts, the selected piece of content is recorded in the citation database in such a way that fix the logical connection between the quote and part of the volume of digital content, if it is necessary to add new fragments of digital content to the quotes database, the system actions are repeated by sequentially adding new records, the block for processing and generating quotes accumulates this information and provides it upon request either to the user who created these records, or to other users with the permission of the original user.

12. The method according to claim 11, characterized in that, at the request of the user, a selection of saved quotes and comments created by him, the so-called. quotation book on the text of the e-book, designed according to the rules of citation and in accordance with the regulatory documents for the design of bibliographic references, and is provided to the user in one form or another.

13. The method according to claim 12, characterized in that saving quotes and writing comments can be carried out through user terminals using a keyboard, a manipulator, audio recording, handwriting.

14. The method according to claim 13, characterized in that on the basis of all quotes and comments from different users, public or service ratings are formed, generalized quotes for a particular electronic book, which, ranked by the popularity of quotes, are provided for viewing by all users of the electronic library with the ability to view allowed user comments.

15. The method according to claim 14, characterized in that information about the number of views of the e-book, the number of user quotes created, the quotes themselves and comments are stored in the database of statistical information.