Patent Application
20150088624
The following disclosure relates generally to techniques for providing functionality and information to users of mobile devices, such as to provide promotional information and opportunities in manners that are based at least in part on activities and locations of the users.
The use of mobile devices has become increasingly common, with many different types of mobile devices that have differing types of connectivity options and other differing types of capabilities. However, difficulties exist with techniques for engaging users of mobile devices and providing relevant information at appropriate times.
FIGS. 4B1 and 4B2 are a flow diagram of an example embodiment of a Dynamic Notification routine.
Techniques are described for providing functionality and information to users of computing devices. In at least some embodiments, the described techniques include providing promotional information and opportunities to users of mobile devices in manners that are based at least in part on activities and locations of the users, including in some situations based on games played by the users on their mobile devices and/or based on user satisfaction of system-directed activities. At least some of the promotional information and opportunities may be made available in at least some embodiments by various companies or entities that provide products and/or services (e.g., retailers, merchants, wholesalers, distributors, etc.) and/or by various companies or entities that provide advertising for available products and/or services, with such companies or entities that make promotional information and opportunities available being referred to generally as “vendors” herein. Various types of activities may be defined and used to provide promotional information and opportunities to users of mobile devices in particular embodiments and situations. Additional details related to the providing of functionality and information to users of mobile devices are included below, and in at least some embodiments are performed by automated operations of a computer-implemented Location-based Task-Game (“LTG”) server system.
As noted above, promotional information and opportunities may be provided to users of mobile devices by the LTG server system in manners that are based at least in part on activities and locations of the users. Such promotional information and opportunities (also referred to as “offers”) may have various forms in various embodiments, including to have one or more associated eligibility criteria for a matching user to be eligible to receive a reward associated with the offer, such as for rewards that may include vouchers, coupons, discounts of various types (e.g., a specified percentage discount, a specified monetary amount discount, a buy-N-and-get-M-free offer (where N and M are numbers of items or monetary quantities, whether the same or different), etc.), give-away items, a gift card or other monetary amount, etc. that are issued by or otherwise correspond to particular retailers and/or to particular products or services, such as may be specified by vendors who are clients of the LTG server system. In other embodiments and situations, promotional information and opportunities that are available to users may have associated rewards with other forms, such as points or virtual currency offered by the LTG server system. Furthermore, a promotional offer for a vendor may correspond to one or more items (e.g., products and/or services) available from the vendor—while the term “product” is used in some places of the following discussion, it will be understood that the term “product” also means service items in addition to physical items unless the context precludes a service in a particular circumstance (e.g., discussion of current inventory of a vendor for a product, storage or transportation of a product, etc.). In addition, the term “user” refers to one or more people, unless otherwise indicated by the context.
In addition, various types of activities may be defined and used to provide promotional information and opportunities to users of mobile devices in particular embodiments and situations, with such activities optionally being defined by vendors, other users of the LTG server system (e.g., consumer users of mobile devices who are potential customers of the vendors), and/or by the LTG server system itself (e.g., to provide benefits to users, to fulfill requests by vendors, etc.). A non-exclusive list of types of activities that may be used include the following: a defined event, in which one or more users satisfy defined criteria for the event, optionally based on one or more of location of the user(s), quantity of the user(s), characteristics of the user(s), timing-related aspects, etc.; a defined end user task (also referred to herein as a “mission” or a competitive “challenge”), in which one or more users perform one or more defined actions, optionally in competition with other users for a limited number of promotional opportunities; a defined game, in which one or more users participate in a game, optionally in a coordinated distributed manner (whether by competing against each other in the same game or by interacting cooperatively for the game), and optionally concurrently, with the games in at least some situations being “mini-games” that may be completed quickly (e.g., in seconds or minutes); etc.
The LTG server system may further provide various functionality as part of the described techniques. Such functionality may include tracking locations of users, such as to determine when a user's location may satisfy aspects of an event, task or game. Such functionality may further include providing notifications to particular users, such as notifications that are defined by vendors and provided in accordance with particular events, tasks or games (e.g., to notify selected or all users of current or future availability of a particular event, task or game; to notify particular users of completion of a particular event, task or game; etc.). Such functionality may further include enabling vendors to define information about promotional campaigns of interest (e.g., to provide coupons, vouchers or other promotional opportunities for one or more specified products or services), which may then be implemented by the LTG server system by using one or more selected events, tasks or games (whether specified by the vendor or automatically selected by the LTG server system), such as from system-provided groups of predefined games, predefined types of events, and/or predefined types of tasks. When selected by the LTG server system for a vendor to implement a campaign, the selection may be performed in various manners, such as based on information input by the vendor, information about past interactions with the vendor, information about past tasks, games and/or events used for similar campaigns and/or promotional opportunities, etc. Additional details are included below regarding the described techniques.
For illustrative purposes, some embodiments are described in which particular types of functionality are provided to groups of mobile devices in particular manners. These examples are provided for illustrative purposes and are simplified for the sake of brevity, and the inventive techniques can be used in a wide variety of other situations, some of which are discussed below, including in some embodiments in which some or all of the members of a group are not mobile devices or otherwise differ from the example in one or more manners.
In the example of
In the example of
In this example of
In this example, the mobile devices 150 are inter-connected as a group to perform the coordinated and distributed execution of the game 1 application, via one or more inter-connections 170 between the various mobile devices 150. In particular, as discussed in greater detail elsewhere, each mobile device 150 may be currently connected to at least one other mobile device 150 via one or more connections, with some mobile devices being connected to multiple other mobile devices (e.g., mobile device 3 150c may be connected in a 1-to-1 manner to mobile device N 150n via a first connection, and may separately be connected to both mobile device 1 and mobile device 2 150b via a distinct second connection). Thus, each of the mobile devices 150 includes one or more types of connection capabilities, although local connection capability types (e.g., Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, infrared, wired Ethernet, etc.) are not separately shown in this example. In addition, mobile devices 1 and 3 each includes capabilities 160 to remotely connect to the LTG server 100 (e.g., 3G wireless, 4G wireless, etc.) via remote connections 180 over one or more networks 190, such as the Internet, one or more cellular networks, etc. While not illustrated in this example, in some situations, some or all mobile devices 150 of the group may be connected to one or more other mobile devices 150 of the group via only remote connections 180 (e.g., if mobile device 1 was not connected directly to any other mobile device 150, and instead was only indirectly connected to client device 3 via remote connections 180a and 180c via the LTG server 100), including to optionally have one or more other mobile devices (not shown) that are part of the group but are separated from the illustrated mobile devices 150 via one or more networks 190. Alternatively, in embodiments and situations in which some or all of the functionality of the LTG Server 100 is instead provided locally to a group of mobile devices by one or some or all of those mobile devices, the network 190 and any remote connections 180 may not be present or used. Additionally, in some embodiments, one or more of the client devices 150 may not be mobile (e.g., may be a desktop computer) and/or may be connected to one or more other client devices 150 via a wired connection.
In at least some embodiments, the client mobile devices may include, for example, a smart phone or other cellular phone, a tablet computer, a slate computer, a PDA (“personal digital assistant”), a laptop or netbook, etc. A non-exclusive list of example types of mobile devices includes the following: an iPhone, an iPad, an iPod Touch, an Android OS (“operating system”) device, a Windows Phone OS device, a Kindle Fire device, a Nook Tablet device, a Blackberry device, a Nintendo DS device, a portable Sony PlayStation device, etc. In certain embodiments, the client devices may be GPS-enabled devices containing GPS receivers, and/or may include other location-aware technology such as Wi-Fi location services. Moreover, in at least some embodiments, a particular client device may store various information (whether in a volatile or non-volatile manner), such as relating to the location of the device, including the current location of the device, the location history of the device over a certain period of time, a record of particular Wi-Fi networks with which the device has communicated or which have been available for communication, etc. In addition, various information may be stored relating to the prior activities of the user associated with the device, such as a record of locations that the user has visited. In addition, in some situations, a user may use multiple computing devices at various times, whether serially or simultaneously.
In the example embodiment, the LTG client software 155 on the mobile devices 150 may include at least a subset of the LTG server 100 functionality (e.g., may include local copies of some or all of the modules 101-109 and 131-137), although in other embodiments the LTG client software 155 may instead lack some or all such modules and instead enable interactions between a mobile device 150 and the LTG server 100 so that the modules 101-109 and 131-137 that are part of the LTG server 100 may provide functionality to the mobile device 150 as appropriate. In addition, a particular mobile device may store some or all of the information 121-130 locally to the mobile device, including information specific to the device and its one or more users and its one or more applications.
Automated matchmaking operations may be performed to select a host mobile device 150 to provide a connection to the LTG server 100 in some embodiments and situations, whether operations that are performed in whole or in part by a LTG Server 100 that is remote from the mobile devices 150 and/or operations that are performed in whole or in part by one or more of the mobile devices 150 that are providing functionality of the LTG Server 100 using LTG client software 155. For example, the LTG client software 155a on mobile device 1 may have previously established remote connection 180a with the LTG server 100, and/or the LTG client software 155c on mobile device 3 may have previously established remote connection 180c with the LTG server 100, and if so the manager module 101 of the LTG server 100 may perform the automated matchmaking operations. In particular, in this example the mobile device 1 and mobile device 3 may be candidates to serve as a current host for the group based on their respective remote network connectivity capabilities 160, optionally along with one or more other mobile devices 4 through N-1 (not shown), and thus the matchmaking operations may select one of those candidate mobile devices. After the selection is made, the LTG server may notify the LTG client software 155 on one or more of the mobile devices of the group (e.g., the LTG client software 155 on the selected host), and the LTG client software 155 on the selected host may perform further operations to convey information between the LTG server 100 and/or an application server (not shown) and the mobile devices of the group. Such application-specific information may in some situations include information from other storage 128, such as application-specific content to be provided to users, application-specific data generated by users, other application-specific state for particular applications and groups, etc. Other storage 128 may further store other types of information, including information specific to particular users (e.g., photos, social networking posts, social networking profile messages, etc.), available types of content (e.g., audio clips or files, video files, images, etc.); etc. In addition, in at least some embodiments, the manager module 101 of the LTG server 100 (or similar functionality of the LTG client software 155) may provide functionality to coordinate or provide a distributed canvas display among the mobile devices of the group, although in other embodiments the game 1 application may perform some or all such activities.
In other embodiments, if no remote connections 180 between the mobile devices of the group and the LTG server 100 exist at a time of performing automated matchmaking operations, or based on other configuration of the LTG client software 155 on one or more of the mobile devices of the group, the LTG client software 155 on one or more of the mobile devices of the group may instead perform such automated matchmaking operations, such as temporarily until the LTG server 100 is available to make a regular host selection, or instead in place of the LTG server 100. Such client-side automated matchmaking operations may include, for example, using locally stored information (not shown) on one or some or all of the mobile devices 150 of the group, such as to correspond to some or all of the information 121-130—since such locally stored information may be less complete in at least some respects than information available to the LTG server 100, a host selection made locally by the LTG client software 155 may be temporary until the LTG server 100 is available to make a selection based on other such information 121-130. Such client-side automated matchmaking operations may further include, for example, one of the LTG client software copies performing the operations (e.g., after being elected by other LTG client software copies as a current leader, or otherwise being selected or configured to act as a current leader), or by multiple of the LTG client software copies performing the operations in a distributed manner. During times when no remote connections 180 between the mobile devices of the group and the LTG server 100 exist, the LTG client software 155 and/or local application copies 161 may nonetheless continue to provide at least some functionality of the application to the group, and may further locally store information on one or more of the mobile devices 150 about output generated, activities performed and other current status information—if so, when a host (or optionally all member of the group) is later able to establish a remote connection 180 to the LTG server 100, some or all such locally stored information may be sent to the LTG server 100 to enable update of the information 121-130. As one example, information about performance of particular users within the application may be stored as part of leader board information 127, such as for a game application. In other embodiments, no remote LTG Server 100 may be provided, and all functionality of the LTG Server 100 may instead be provided by the mobile devices of the group using the LTG client software 155.
As previously noted, functionality of the LTG server 100 (whether provided via one or more remote computing systems and/or by the mobile devices of the group) may use various types of information when performing automated matchmaking operations. For example, the LTG server 100 may have stored various information 121-130 regarding the mobile devices 150, their users, their locations and the application in use, such as based on previous registration activities and/or interactions with the LTG server 100, and may use such information as part of performing the automated matchmaking operations. Such information may be stored in, for example, one or more of the following: device profile information 122 (e.g., device hardware type; device OS type; device software, such as application programs, libraries, utilities, etc.; device capabilities, such as connection type(s), processing power, memory amount and type, storage amount and type, etc.; device status, such as current battery level and connection strength; etc.); user profile information 121 (e.g., account information; activity patterns, such as how long a user has played a particular application or applications generally on average in the past; user preferences, such as whether the user is will to allow his or her device to serve as a host; social network information, such as information about friends and followers; prior activities of the user, such as whether he or she has acted as a watcher or spectator to an application, by receiving access to at least some of a distributed canvas display functionality for the application without being able to modify or affect the performance of the application; etc.); application profile information 123 (e.g., information about levels, a textual description, types of data usage patterns during application execution, etc.); location information 124 (e.g., current location, such as expressed in latitude and longitude and optionally bearing or heading and optionally altitude; a history of past locations, such as to reflect a previously traveled path; etc.); etc. In addition, in at least some embodiments, the LTG server 100 may gather some or all such information to be used in automated matchmaking operations and include it as part of separate matchmaking information 125, such as to facilitate rapid access to particular information of use, to track current hosts that have been selected, to track previous hosts that have been selected, to track current alternative candidates for hosts for particular groups, etc.)—the matchmaking information 125 may further include additional information specific to the automated matchmaking operations, such as information about particular factors that are configured to be used (e.g., for all groups and applications, for particular applications, for particular groups, etc.), information about how to combine particular factors (e.g., ways to weight or otherwise combine information may multiple factors), information about when to perform automated matchmaking operations (e.g., upon request, upon a change in a currently selected host that prevents that mobile device from continuing to act as a host, upon other defined criteria, etc.), etc., and with particular such information being specified for an application by the application provider and/or by a distinct operator of the LTG Server 100 functionality, or being specified for multiple applications (e.g., all applications) by a distinct operator of the LTG Server 100 functionality. As one specific example in which a group of multiple mobile devices selects a host device without using a remote LTG Server 100, the selection may be made without consideration of any remote connections by the mobile devices to remote server computing systems and/or without consideration of remote network connectivity capabilities—instead, the selection may be made by one or more of the mobile devices based on one or more of the following types of factors: capabilities of the selected host mobile device (e.g., processing speed, network transmission speed to other mobile devices of the group via local inter-connections, etc.); information about the selected host mobile device relative to other mobile devices of the group (e.g., relative location, such as to select a centrally located device based on distance to other of the mobile devices; orientation, such as to select a location of the host device so that some or all of the other mobile device users face that host device, possibly to allow those users to see each others' displays as part of a distributed canvas display functionality; etc.); information about the user of the selected host mobile device (e.g., willingness of the user to use the mobile device to act as the host; past behavior of the user in remaining as a host until an application is completed or otherwise remaining in groups for long or short periods of time; a preferred status of the user, such as to enable users who have reached a preferred status or level within an application or with respect to the LTG Server to have the first opportunity to act as a host and receive corresponding benefits that are provided; etc.); etc. In other situations, some or all of these types of factors may instead be considered in situations in which a remote LTG Server 100 is used and/or the host selection is made based in part on consideration of remote connections by the mobile devices to remote server computing systems and/or of corresponding remote network connectivity capabilities.
In some embodiments and situations, the automated matchmaking operations may further use analytics information, which includes information of various types corresponding to different types of events of interest that occur—at least some of the information may correspond to or reference, for example, user profiles 121, device profiles 122, application profiles 123 and location information 124. For example, an application may provide information about a variety of types of events (e.g., application start, application end, application phase or stage start or end, particular user action, particular group achievement, etc.), with the information being of various types. The automated matchmaking operations may further include matching particular users to defined tasks, events, notifications, and campaigns in particular manners, as discussed in greater detail elsewhere. In addition, the various modules 101-109 and 131-137 may perform various analyses of the analytics information, such as to perform data mining or otherwise determine patterns from or other aggregations of multiple events, and resulting information that is generated may be stored in various manners (e.g., in other storage 128, as other analytics information 126 events, etc.). A non-exclusive list of types of information that may be stored for an event includes the following: a particular activity; one or more users (e.g., via a unique user ID), such to enable corresponding information to be accessed from the user profiles 121; one or more devices (e.g., via a unique device ID), such to enable corresponding information to be accessed from the device profiles 122; a particular application (e.g., via a unique application ID), such to enable corresponding information to be accessed from the application profiles 123; a location (e.g., via a set of location coordinates or other information that uniquely identifies a location), such to optionally enable corresponding information to be accessed from the location information 124; a state of the application (e.g., a current stage, level, group score, etc.); one or more application-specific tags (e.g., text or other information that is meaningful to the application); etc.
In the illustrated example, the initial host selection for the group may include, for example, selecting mobile device 3 to act as the host, such as to use remote connection 180c to provide application-related capabilities to other mobile devices of the group from one or more remote computing systems. The initial host selection may be made, for example, based on one or more of the following factors: remote connection 180c being preferred to remote connection 180a, such as based on it having higher bandwidth, lower latency, lower monetary cost of use, greater reliability or stability (e.g., less likely to have lost packets or dropped connections), etc.; mobile device 3 being preferred to mobile device 1, such as based on it having faster computing capabilities and/or greater computing-related resources, greater reliability or stability (e.g., less likely to fail; more likely to operate longer, such as based on battery life remaining; etc.), etc.; the user of mobile device 3 being preferred to the user of mobile device 1, such as based on being expected to remain as part of the group for longer; etc. If mobile device 3 is selected as the initial host, but later it is determined to change hosts (e.g., based on mobile device 3 shutting down or leaving the group), mobile device 1 may be selected at that time to replace mobile device 3 as the current host, such as based on mobile device 1 being the only remaining group device with a remote connection 180 to the LTG server 100 and/or other remote computing systems, or based on performing the same type of selection process as for the initial selection between multiple candidate hosts.
In addition, in some embodiments a particular mobile device and a particular group may be matched (e.g., if multiple alternative groups are available for that mobile device) based on consideration of one or more factors that may include some or all of the same factors as discussed above with respect to host selection. Furthermore, in some embodiments, such matching may be performed to increase or decrease diversity of particular types of mobile devices and/or device capabilities within a group, such as to combine multiple devices of the same or similar types (e.g., devices that have the same or similar capabilities) to enable different users to receive the same or similar user experience, and/or to provide a group with a device having preferred capabilities (e.g., to add a device having remote network capabilities to a group that lacks such capabilities in some or all of its current members). In other embodiments, such matching may be based in part or in whole based on one or more defined tasks, events, notifications or campaigns, such as if a group of mobile devices are interacting with respect to a particular defined task, event, notification or campaign (e.g., were selected for such participation), or are otherwise each participating (e.g., without inter-device interaction) in a particular defined task, event, notification or campaign.
As one specific example of interactions that may occur, mobile device 1 may be an iPhone device that has 3G wireless remote connectivity capabilities 160a and also Wi-Fi wireless local connectivity capabilities, and mobile device 2 may be an iPod Touch device that has only Wi-Fi wireless local connectivity capabilities. The user of mobile device 1 (referred to as “User A” in this specific example) may invite the user of mobile device 2 (referred to as “User B” in this specific example) to participate in chat activities using an application with corresponding capabilities (e.g., APNS, or “Apple Push Notification Service”, capabilities), and User B accepts and joins a corresponding chat room with User A. Subsequently, User A launches game 1 on mobile device 1, and then navigates to a friends list provided by game 1 and locates User B. User A then toggles a button provided by game 1 that looks like a chat bubble, to indicate to send an invitation to chat with User B. Game 1 then sends a notification to User B indicating that User A has requested to chat with User B. Using the Wi-Fi connection on mobile device 2, User B accepts User A's request, and taps a button that launches game 1 and that performs automated matchmaking operations for User A and User B based on User A's request to chat. The result of the matchmaking operations is to select mobile device 1 as the current host, such as because User A initiated the request, and mobile device 2 acts as a client of mobile device 1. Both devices are communicating with each other across different types of networks (3G and Wi-Fi), while leveraging User A's mobile device 1 as a centralized server to engage with each other. As a second specific example of interactions that may occur, a user of one of the mobile devices could have the mobile device with him or her without currently using it (e.g., it is in a pocket or holster), but the mobile device could nonetheless be part of a group, including to act as a host for the group (e.g., without the user's current knowledge, such as based on previous approval given by the user for the mobile device to be used in such a manner)—if so, the user may receive benefits (e.g., monetary fees, “points” within an application or for the LTG Server, etc.) for providing a hosting server that others can use. Such functionality enables the providing of computing connectivity and services for a fee, leveraging payments and transacting based upon digital goods/currency, while the owner is not even paying attention and/or is using other applications on their mobile device.
In addition to the operations of module 101, the LTG Server 100 may further in some embodiments include one or more additional modules 103-109 and 131-137. In the illustrated embodiment, the additional modules include an advertisement server module 103 that may provide advertisements for display or other presentation on particular mobile devices 150 at particular times, including in conjunction with particular applications (e.g., at particular locations within an application; at particular times within an application, such as upon request by the application for display at a particular part of the application functionality; etc.)—such advertisements may, for example, be stored as part of the other storage 128 or instead on other remote storage (not shown), and may be selected in various manners (e.g., using some or all of the information 121-128 to personalize or otherwise direct particular advertisements to particular recipients and situations). While different users and mobile devices within a group may receive different advertisements in a particular embodiment and situation, in other embodiments and situations a single advertisement may be sent to some or all mobile devices within a group. In some embodiments, the advertisement server module 103 may further provide information about promotional opportunities in accordance with defined tasks, events, notifications and campaigns, including to use promotional opportunity information from information 129.
In the illustrated embodiment, the additional modules also include a messaging server module 105 that may be used to send messages to particular mobile devices and/or all mobile devices within a group, such as from the LTG Server 100 and/or from a particular application. As one example, a third-party application owner or provider distinct from an operator of the LTG server may request that a specified message be sent to all current and/or prior users of the application, such as to provide promotional content related to that application or to other products or services (e.g., another application from that application owner or provider). In some embodiments, the messaging server module 103 may further provide information about notifications in accordance with defined tasks, events, and campaigns, including to use notification-related information 130 and/or campaign information 129.
In the illustrated embodiment, the additional modules also include a payment module 107 that may be used to exchange payments with users and/or with application owners or other providers. For example, users may be charged various fees by application providers and/or may be charged various fees by the LTG Server 100 for particular functionality that it provides, and if so the payment module 107 may be used to obtain those fees (e.g., one-time fees, on-going subscriptions, usage-based fees, etc.). In some embodiments, the payment module 107 or other module 109 may further perform activities related to tracking the redemption of particular coupons, vouchers, discounts or other promotional opportunities provided to particular users, such as based at least in part on tracking activities of those users and/or their mobile devices.
In the illustrated embodiment, the additional modules may also optionally one or more other modules 109 that may be used to provide other types of functionality of interest. As one example, a third-party application owner or provider distinct from an operator of the LTG server may request that a specified message be sent to all current and/or prior users of the application, such as to provide promotional content related to that application or to other products or services (e.g., another application from that application owner or provider). As one example, in some embodiments, the manager module 101 may be separated into multiple modules, such as one module that provides functionality related to host selection for a group, and another module that provides functionality related to dynamic canvas display functionality for a group. In addition, the other modules 109 may optionally include a user-initiated generation module that provides functionality to enable clients and other users to initiate the generation of various types of information to be used by the LTG server 100, including related to tasks, events, notifications and campaigns. Additional details related to modules 131-137 and a user-initiated generation module are included elsewhere herein, including with respect to
It will be appreciated that various of the details provided in
For illustrative purposes, some examples of particular types of functionality that may be provided by the LTG server system are included below. These examples are provided for illustrative purposes and are simplified for the sake of brevity, and the inventive techniques can be used in a wide variety of other situations, some of which are discussed below, including in some embodiments in which some or all of the members of a group are not mobile devices or otherwise differ from the example in one or more manners.
Thus, the LTG server system may perform various operations and provide various benefits in various embodiments. In at least some embodiments, the LTG server system acts as a location-based service (LBS) that combines a coupon generation framework with a game engine. End users may be provided with tasks (e.g., daily) to complete in order to trigger and redeem dynamically generated coupons and vouchers; to earn badges and achievements; to climb LTG server system leader boards versus various other users; etc. The LTG server system may thus be used to enhance user interaction at physical locations, and increase brand awareness for business clients.
As a location-based service, the LTG server system may act as an information and entertainment service, accessible from mobile devices via a mobile connection to the Internet and utilizing the ability to leverage the geographical positioning enabled on such mobile devices. The LTG server system may enable a user to “check-in” at local restaurants and favorite spots, and earn achievements and points that are displayed to your friends and other users—checking-in means to physically be at a location, making note that you were there at a specific point in time. Users may also leave notes and reviews of the place that was visited. The points and achievements that are earned drive a competitive aspect to these applications. Points and achievements mark and display your accomplishments to others; it's a “proven track record,” if you will, allowing the community to respect other users and celebrate the individual expertise and opinions. In addition, users may be prompted to travel to many different physical locations to be rewarded with real, dynamically generated coupons and vouchers as well as virtual rewards such as achievement points and badges. As one example, Starbucks may create a task for a user that requires them to “check-in” at five different physical locations. By doing so, the LTG server system will dynamically generate a coupon that appears on the user's mobile device for a 15% off coupon for any participating Starbucks.
As a game engine, the LTG server system may act as a software system designed for the creation, development and deployment of video games. For example, with respect to a particular game, users may be able to complete in-game jobs in order to receive experience points, money and job mastery, but at the same time may decrease energy and/or health points (e.g., by fighting other game players). Various types of inter-user interactions may occur during particular games. The game engine for the LTG server system will enable users to earn points, badges, and achievements for completing challenges and missions. When coupons, vouchers, achievements, badges are earned, users, may, for example, see a splash takeover with a corresponding image, the title of the item with a brief description, and a corresponding sound to stimulate the users' response, as well as encourage users to accomplish more challenges and missions as they use the system more.
Tasks, including challenges and missions, are things that can be created by the LTG server system, by users, and by vendors. Typically, tasks created by users will be for achievements, badges, and overall LTG server system points, while tasks created by the LTG server system and/or vendors will be for some sort of monetary value (e.g., coupons, vouchers, and/or LTG server system bucks). User-created tasks are a type of user-generated content (UGC), and may enable users to delegate challenges or missions to other users to spur system usage and engagement. Challenges and missions may be differentiated by their attributes, with a challenge being a type of task that has a limit in terms of redeemability (e.g., the first 20 people to complete x, y, z), and with a mission being available to everyone who wishes to participate until it ends (e.g., if it expires, if a user/client who created it decides to end it, etc.).
Users have the ability to seek out challenges and/or missions that have been created by other users and vendors. For example, vendors such as Starbucks could have a free drink voucher available for users who accept and complete the “Starbucks Daily Challenge.” By taking on a challenge, the user may be presented with the title of the challenge, what the criteria are to complete the challenge, and what the rewards are for completing the challenge. The vendor may specify when the voucher becomes available, as well as when the voucher ends, or if the voucher reaches a certain limit. Associating real monetary value with a reward that is obtainable by a user from completing a challenge or mission may spur users into desiring more rewards. However, challenges and missions without associated monetary value for users are also of use for various reasons.
Dynamic coupon/voucher generation is the act of creating a coupon or voucher based on certain actions, events and user metadata. For example, for an LTG server system user that travels to a particular neighborhood 4-5 times a week and has interests for “burgers”, the LTG server system may parse this information while also tracking the user's location, enabling it to dynamically generate coupons and vouchers about “burgers” associated with locations in that neighborhood (or along a route to or from that neighborhood).
Vendors may also be allowed to create multiple coupons and vouchers that are set to start and end at specific dates, as well as be triggered based on certain criteria. For example, if Starbucks in the Belltown neighborhood sets Voucher A to be activated when at least 50 people check-in at this location, and the moment that the 50th user checks-in, a notification will be sent out to all users within the area that Voucher A has been unlocked by the 50th user. In addition, particular users (here the 50th user) may be featured as the voucher “unlocker.” By allowing vendors to specify multiple pre-generated coupons, they are able to create a list of coupons and vouchers that match a particular marketing schedule. If changes are desired, the vendors may use a graphical user interface (e.g., a Web-based GUI, a mobile device GUI, etc.) where they will be able to manage their coupons and vouchers.
Predictive analysis leverages dynamic coupon and voucher generation by data-mining different information corresponding to coupons or vouchers. For example, a voucher that is set off to activate 50 people check-in at Starbucks may take the information of each user that checked-in, the time of day, and the day of the month, and store that information for further analysis by the LTG server system and/or the vendor that provides the voucher (here Starbucks). Such information may also be used by the LTG server system in providing appropriate promotional information and opportunities to user, including to enable advertisers to purchase advertising space via the LTG server system.
Predictive analysis components (PACs) include, but are not limited to, the following:
Volume Limits (e.g., 50 vouchers per day)
User Characteristics/Metadata (e.g., age, interests, sex, etc.)
Location (whether approximate or exact)
Altitude (whether approximate or exact)
Direction/Heading (whether approximate or exact)
Previous and subsequent “check-ins”
The LTG server system may provide a GUI to enable vendors to generate coupons and vouchers and/or to manage existing ones. If a vendor makes a change related to a coupon, for example, the GUI page displaying the coupon will change as well. In addition to providing a game engine, the LTG server system enables local and/or non-local vendors to offer dynamically generated coupons for users trying to earn achievements and badges. Such vendors may, for example, manage an account that has the ability to dynamically generate coupons for users to redeem, which may stimulate physical user interactions with the vendors and increase business, and may further be able to manage their “location” to indicate where the vendor is currently located. If the vendor is a multi-location business (e.g., a chain of stores), that vendor can manage more than one location within the LTG server system. Vendors may also be able to send mobile notifications to all users in a specified vicinity. For example, a coffee store vendor may initiate mobile notifications to all users satisfying specified criteria (e.g., in a specified geographic area) that says, “Come in and show this coupon to receive 10% off of any size coffee!”, with a recipient user having the option to “view” or “cancel” for the notification. View causes a new GUI page to open to enable presentation of the coupon to the coffee store vendor, while Cancel causes the mobile notification to be closed (e.g., so that the user continues with other prior interactions with the LTG server system), although the coupon may still be available later for selection by the user.
An example of completing a challenge or mission corresponding to the coffee store vendor may cause a mobile notification indicating, “Please check in at three different participating <vendor> locations to unlock this mystery coupon!”. A recipient user would have the option to “activate challenge (or mission)” or “cancel.” If the user activates the challenge (or mission), the LTG server system receives a signal from the user's mobile device (e.g., from the LTG client software 155 of
The LTG server system may thus provide a system for vendors to manage their coupons, deals and mobile notifications, optionally while charging corresponding fees (e.g., a monthly fee) based on different offerings. For example, there could be monthly subscription plans, flat rate plans, partial package plans, usage based plans, etc. Such plans would be managed by LTG server system and may be adjustable at any point in time, including to meet usage demands on the LTG server system. The LTG server system may offer promotional tiers and different options for future vendors. Furthermore, content provided by the LTG server system may be offered for purchase in a marketplace managed by the LTG server system.
As previously noted, one type of vendor may be advertisers who advertise products and services, and they may optionally pay the LTG server system a fee to be displayed to all or a concentrated area of the users. An advertiser may have the option to pay an additional amount to advertise at any area or region they choose. Other vendors may be retailers or other companies that want to drive traffic to physical storefronts. The vendors may initiate user-generated content (UGC) by means of offering coupons and deals for users to redeem. Coupons and deals may be as simple as displaying their information to a user on a mobile device, optionally along with information about challenges or missions that are associated with the vendor.
Users may create an LTG server system profile, such as with a username and password, a personal biography (e.g., date of birth, location, phone number, gender, status, etc.) which the system may use to determine eligibility of the user for particular tasks, events, notifications and campaigns. Users may generate new content on a day-to-day basis by uploading pictures, issuing inter-user challenges (e.g., to compete in a particular game), completing challenges and tasks, etc.
As one example, a vendor client system may access the LTG server system and define a piece of content (e.g., a coupon or voucher that can be redeemed at some point in time). The content may have vendor-specified criteria regarding which users can redeem it, such as, for example, one or more of the following: current user location (e.g., longitude, latitude); user gender; user age; user interests; user hobbies; prior user check-in's, user purchase history, time of day, etc. For a matching user, a push notification may be sent to the user's device (e.g., a message with multiple options).
With respect to
Thus, the described techniques include performing tasks that are based on the current location of the mobile device. As described in
In addition to the above-described technique of a task, a game may be performed, as described in
In addition to each of the described operations that have been described thus far, analytics activities may track and analyze various information based on users of mobile devices engagement patterns (e.g., number of times a certain button was pressed, number of people within an approximate locations radius, number of users who have completed a certain task, etc.). This is seen in part in blocks 409, 422, 435, 447, and 453. In addition, in some embodiments, when tasks and/or game routines are triggered, users of mobile devices may be rewarded with points or badges (e.g., 10 points for completing a task and an associated image with a title that signifies a sense of accomplishment, or otherwise known as an achievement). This is described in
The described techniques include user-initiated actions to generate content or other information of some sort that can be accessed by mobile devices that access the LTG server system, as described in
Additional techniques are described herein, but are not illustrated in the flow charts of FIGS. 3 and 4A-4E for the sake of brevity.
In the illustrated embodiment, the Location-based Task-Game server system 200 has components that include one or more CPU processors 205, various I/O components 210, storage 220, and memory 230. The illustrated I/O components include a display 211, a network connection 212, a computer-readable media drive 213, and other I/O devices 215 (e.g., a keyboard, a mouse, speakers, etc.). In addition, the mobile computing devices 250, client computing systems 270, storage systems 260 and/or other computing systems 280 may also each include similar components to some or all of the components illustrated with respect to Location-based Task-Game server system 200, but at least some such components are not illustrated in this example for the sake of brevity. For example, the illustrated mobile computing devices 250 may each have one or more CPU processors 251, I/O components 252 such as a display device 253 and other components 254, storage 255, and memory 257. In the illustrated embodiment, a client LTG software module 258 is executing in memory 257, along with one or more optional other programs 259 (e.g., corresponding to one or more applications).
An embodiment of a LTG Server system 240 is executing in memory 230, and it interacts with client mobile computing devices 250 and client computing systems 370, and optionally other computing systems 280 and/or storage systems 260 over one or more of the networks 290. The other computing systems 280 may, for example, provide applications, application functionality and/or content to mobile computing devices, such as in a manner coordinated by the system 240. The system 240 may create and/or use various information during operation, such as information 121-130 of
It will be appreciated that computing systems 200, 270 and 280, devices 250 and storage systems 260 are merely illustrative and are not intended to limit the scope of the present invention. The systems and/or devices may instead each include multiple interacting computing systems or devices, and may be connected to other devices that are not illustrated, including through one or more networks such as the Internet, via the Web, or via private networks (e.g., mobile communication networks, etc.). More generally, a device or other computing system may comprise any combination of hardware that may interact and perform the described types of functionality, optionally when programmed or otherwise configured with particular software instructions and/or data structures, including without limitation desktop or other computers (e.g., tablets, slates, etc.), database servers, network storage devices and other network devices, smart phones and other cell phones, consumer electronics, digital music player devices, handheld gaming devices, PDAs, wireless phones, pagers, electronic organizers, Internet appliances, television-based systems (e.g., using set-top boxes and/or personal/digital video recorders), and various other consumer products that include appropriate communication capabilities. In addition, the functionality provided by the illustrated LTG Server system 240 may in some embodiments be distributed in various modules. Similarly, in some embodiments, some of the functionality of the LTG Server system 240 may not be provided and/or other additional functionality may be available.
It will also be appreciated that, while various items are illustrated as being stored in memory or on storage while being used, these items or portions of them may be transferred between memory and other storage devices for purposes of memory management and data integrity. Alternatively, in other embodiments some or all of the software modules and/or systems may execute in memory on another device and communicate with the illustrated computing systems via inter-computer communication. Thus, in some embodiments, some or all of the described techniques may be performed by hardware means that include one or more processors and/or memory and/or storage when configured by one or more software programs (e.g., the LTG Server system and/or LTG client software) and/or data structures, such as by execution of software instructions of the one or more software programs and/or by storage of such software instructions and/or data structures. Furthermore, in some embodiments, some or all of the systems and/or modules may be implemented or provided in other manners, such as by consisting of one or more means that are implemented at least partially in firmware and/or hardware (e.g., rather than as a means implemented in whole or in part by software instructions that configure a particular CPU or other processor), including, but not limited to, one or more application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), standard integrated circuits, controllers (e.g., by executing appropriate instructions, and including microcontrollers and/or embedded controllers), field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), complex programmable logic devices (CPLDs), etc. Some or all of the modules, systems and data structures may also be stored (e.g., as software instructions or structured data) on a non-transitory computer-readable storage mediums, such as a hard disk or flash drive or other non-volatile storage device, volatile or non-volatile memory (e.g., RAM or flash RAM), a network storage device, or a portable media article (e.g., a DVD disk, a CD disk, an optical disk, a flash memory device, etc.) to be read by an appropriate drive or via an appropriate connection. The systems, modules and data structures may also in some embodiments be transmitted via generated data signals (e.g., as part of a carrier wave or other analog or digital propagated signal) on a variety of computer-readable transmission mediums, including wireless-based and wired/cable-based mediums, and may take a variety of forms (e.g., as part of a single or multiplexed analog signal, or as multiple discrete digital packets or frames). Such computer program products may also take other forms in other embodiments. Accordingly, embodiments of the present disclosure may be practiced with other computer system configurations.
In some embodiments, the described techniques further include coordinating the inter-connection of multiple mobile devices in particular manners, such as for multiple mobile devices of multiple distinct types, and optionally using multiple different types of inter-connections. As one illustrative example, first and second mobile devices of different first and second types may be inter-connected using a first local wireless networking protocol (e.g., Bluetooth), the second device may be interconnected with a distinct third mobile device of a third type using a distinct second local wireless networking protocol (e.g., Wi-Fi), and the third mobile device may be inter-connected with one or more fourth remote server computing systems using a distinct third remote networking protocol (e.g., 3G wireless or 4G wireless using one of various underlying implementation technologies; WiMAX; etc.). To continue the illustrative example, functionality that is available from the fourth remote server computing systems may be provided to a group of some or all of the first, second and third mobile devices via the connection between the third mobile device and the fourth remote server computing systems, and the other inter-connections between the mobile devices of the group. Accordingly, to support this illustrative example, the described techniques may in some embodiments include coordinating the inter-connections between the mobile devices of the group and/or the fourth remote server computing systems in various manners, such as by selecting a particular type of inter-connection to use between two devices or systems when multiple alternatives are available, selecting one or more particular mobile devices to perform a particular type of operation on behalf of the group and/or provide a particular type of functionality to the group, etc. Additional details related to coordinating inter-connections between mobile devices of a group and/or other remote computing systems are included herein, and examples of such inter-connections are further described in provisional U.S. Patent Application No. 61/580,615, filed Dec. 27, 2011 and entitled “Distributed Functionality On Mobile Devices,” which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.
The described techniques include performing matchmaking operations in at least some embodiments to determine whether and/or how a group of multiple inter-connected mobile devices will provide functionality to each other and/or will access functionality from one or more remote server computing systems, including to select a host mobile device for the group, such as from multiple candidate mobile devices within the group. The host mobile device may in some embodiments and situations host various functionality that is made available to other mobile devices of the group, such as with respect to an application that is being executed and/or used in a distributed and coordinated manner by the mobile devices of the group—such situations may include those in which a connection to remote server computing systems is not currently available or in use, and the host mobile device may be selected from multiple candidate mobile devices within the group that are options for hosting the functionality for the group. In addition, the host mobile device may in some embodiments and situations provide a connection to one or more particular remote server computing systems, such as to enable functionality to be provided to the mobile devices of the group corresponding to an application that is being executed and/or used in a distributed and coordinated manner by the mobile devices of the group—in such situations, the host mobile device may be selected from multiple candidate mobile devices within the group that are options for providing such a connection. As a first illustrative example, a particular remote server computing system may be a game server that provides, sponsors or otherwise supports one or more game applications that are playable in a coordinated manner on each of multiple inter-connected mobile devices of a group, and the matchmaking operations may include selecting at least one mobile device of the group to be a host that provides a connection to the game server, to enable the game functionality to be provided to the group of mobile devices in a coordinated and distributed manner by the game server. As a second illustrative example, a particular remote server computing system may be an application server that provides, sponsors or otherwise supports one or more groupware applications that are usable in a distributed collaborative manner on a group of multiple inter-connected mobile devices (e.g., a distributed document creation application; an application that allows inter-communications between multiple users, such as video conferencing; etc.), and the matchmaking operations may include selecting at least one mobile device of the group to be a host that provides a connection to the application server, to enable functionality of the groupware application to be provided to the group of mobile devices in a coordinated and distributed manner. In either of the first and second illustrative examples, if a connection to the remote server computing system is not currently available or in use, the host mobile device may attempt to provide some or all of the functionality that would otherwise have been provided by the remote server computing system with respect to providing distributed functionality for a application to the mobile devices of the group, such as by using information that is stored locally to the host mobile device or that is otherwise accessible to the host mobile device (e.g., is stored on one or more other mobile devices of the group). The matchmaking operations may include considering one or more of a variety of factors when selecting a particular host, such as factors corresponding to the mobile devices that are part of the group, to the users associated with those mobile devices, and/or to the application being accessed. In addition, in some embodiments and situations, multiple host mobile devices may be selected for a particular group to provide distributed functionality for an application to the mobile devices of the group, such as to operate together in a distributed manner, or instead at different times or in different roles.
The described techniques further include providing a distributed display canvas functionality in at least some embodiments, by using the displays of multiple inter-connected mobile devices of a group to display some or all of the graphical user interface of an application, such as by displaying on each mobile device a distinct portion of the graphical user interface that is specific to a user of that mobile device. As discussed in greater detail with respect to
The described techniques further include providing capabilities to accommodate changes to a group of mobile devices, including with respect to a current host of the group and/or to distributed dynamic canvas functionality being provided for the group. With respect to a current host, the described techniques may include providing host migration capabilities in at least some embodiments that enable changing a host for a group of multiple mobile devices when one or more criteria are satisfied, including in some situations when a current host for the group leaves the group or otherwise becomes unavailable to serve as the host for the group (e.g., loses connection capabilities to one or more remote server computing systems, leaves a geographic location or area of the group of mobile devices, requests to no longer be the host, etc.). Such host migration capabilities may include performing additional matchmaking operations to select a new host for the group of mobile devices, whether in the same manner or a different manner from prior matchmaking operations that were previously performed to select the current host that is being replaced. In addition, when the mobile devices of the group are being used to provide a distributed display canvas, the described techniques may further include dynamically modifying the displays on one or some or all of the mobile devices of the group to reflect a modified distributed display canvas, such as to distribute the display canvas across a different group of mobile devices when the group membership changes (e.g., a mobile device leaves the group, a mobile device joins the group, etc.). In at least some embodiments and situations, the host change operations and/or distributed display canvas modification operations may be performed dynamically while a game or other application continues to be in use by the mobile devices of the group, including to make any changes in a manner that is transparent to some or all of the mobile devices and/or their users. The host change operations and/or distributed display canvas modification operations may be performed or coordinated in some situations by one or more mobile devices of the group (e.g., by a current host device, by all of the mobile devices of the group in a distributed manner, etc.), including in situations in which a remote connection to a remote server computing system is not available or is otherwise not in use, and may also be performed or coordinated in some situations by a remote server computing system (e.g., the server 100 of
In addition, in at least some embodiments, a group of multiple mobile devices may be formed with respect to a particular application, such as based on those mobile devices participating in that application in a distributed manner. In such embodiments, the group membership may change as users join or leave the distributed use of the application, even if a particular mobile device that joins or leaves has not changed its location or current use of mobile device capabilities. Thus, if a number of mobile devices are in a given geographic location or area (e.g., in a room or building), different subsets of the mobile devices may be joined together into different groups, and the group memberships may change not only based on the locations of the mobile devices (e.g., based on mobile devices joining or leaving the geographic location or area), but also based on changes in activities of users of the mobile devices. In some embodiments and situations, a mobile device may simultaneously be part of multiple groups, including in situations in which the mobile device is executing multiple different applications corresponding to the different groups (e.g., playing a distributed game as part of a first group of mobile devices, and participating in a distributed communication application as part of a second group of mobile devices), whether the multiple groups are distinct other than for that mobile device being in both groups, or instead have other overlapping member devices. In addition, in some embodiments and situations, particular users and/or mobile devices may be invited to join a particular group and/or may be provided with information that enable the user and/or mobile device to perform actions to initiate joining a group. For example, a particular user may be provided with information about one or more other users that are geographically nearby, such as to enable the particular user to join those other users and participate in a group with them if so desired, or the particular user may be provided with information about one or more other users that are geographically remote but participating in particular activities of interest (e.g., using a particular application), such as to enable the particular user to logically join those other users over one or more computer networks and participate in a group with them if so desired. The information provided to the particular user may in some embodiments and situations be only partial information about the other users and/or mobile devices, such as to protect private information of the other users (e.g., as specified by those other users, such as in previously specified preferences or access controls) or for other reasons (e.g., to limit an amount of bandwidth used, to provide only information that is currently most relevant, etc.)—as one example, the provided information may indicate a general location and activities of other users, without providing information about identities of the other users.
In the example of
Thus, in this example, the user of mobile device 1 may repeatedly select a vehicle chassis (shown in this example as a rectangle) from a storage bin section 310a of the GUI, and place the selected vehicle chassis on the portion 320a of the conveyor belt displayed on the GUI portion on mobile device 1, such as by using a drag-and-drop action on a touch-sensitive screen of mobile device 1. In this example, the user of mobile device 1 has currently placed two vehicle chasses on the portion 320a of the conveyor belt, and has previously placed other vehicle chasses on the conveyor belt that have since moved to the right and are now displayed on one of the other portions 320b, 320c and 320d of the conveyor belt. In this example, the user of mobile device 2 similarly adds a steering wheel to each vehicle chassis on the conveyor belt portion 320b from a storage bin section 310b of the GUI, the user of mobile device 3 similarly adds four wheels to each vehicle chassis on the conveyor belt portion 320c from a storage bin section 310c of the GUI, and the user of mobile device 4 similarly adds a front seat to each vehicle chassis on the conveyor belt portion 320d from a storage bin section 310d of the GUI. It will be appreciated that other variations and types of games may be used in other embodiments—as one example, if the placement of wheels takes longer than other tasks, two different users and mobile devices may receive the same or substantially similar portions of the GUI, such that they both see the conveyor belt portion 320c and a storage bin section 310c of the GUI, and can perform the same types of tasks on the same or different vehicle chasses. In addition, other users may be performing other tasks at other earlier or later portions of the conveyor belt that are not displayed in this example.
As previously noted with respect to
Accordingly, in the example of
It will be appreciated that various of the details provided in
As previously noted, various entities may participate in interactions with or otherwise receive functionality provided by a LTG server system, including vendors that provide promotional information and opportunities via the LTG server system, other advertisers that may use information gathered via the LTG server system to provide functionality of interest (e.g., uses metadata about users of the LTG server system to advertise products and/or services via push notifications, branding opportunities within a user interface of the LTG server system, advertising spaces within the user interface of the LTG server system, etc.), end users that interact with the LTG server system via their mobile devices or other computing devices, and an operator of the LTG server system. In some embodiments and situations, other entities may also participate in activities and functionality provided by the LTG server system, optionally for a fee, such as for researcher users who use metadata about users of the LTG server system for purposes of evaluation and study, for redeemer users who work at point-of-sale locations for a vendor and may perform actions with the LTG server system related to redeeming a coupon or voucher provided via the LTG server system, etc. In addition, in some embodiments, non-user entities such as vendors and other advertisers and the operator of the LTG server system may each define and use one or more administrative accounts within the LTG server system that may each have different access privileges. As one example, each vendor entity may have one or more administrative accounts, including an overall account for the vendor, and optionally sub-accounts for particular administrative users that perform actions on behalf of the vendor (e.g., for a particular type of functionality provided by the vendor, for a particular brand and/or set of physical stores for a vendor, etc.). As another example, when the operator of the LTG server system is an organization, the operator may have different accounts or levels of access for different users within the organization, such as, for example, a sales department, an executive who is in charge of some or all of the organization, etc. These various entities that participate in interactions with or otherwise receive functionality provided by the LTG server system may each be thought of as playing different roles within the LTG server system, such as an end user role, a vendor role, an administrative user of a vendor role, a non-vendor advertiser role, a researcher role, a redeemer user role, one or more roles associated with the operator of the LTG server system, etc.
In addition, promotional information and opportunities (e.g., coupons, vouchers, etc.) that are provided to a user of the LTG server system may in some embodiments be shared by that user with others in various manners, including in some situations with others who are not yet users of the LTG server system. Such promotional information and opportunities may be shared, for example, via social networking sites and systems, via person-to-person interactions, etc. Depending on the eligibility criteria associated with a particular promotional opportunity, that promotional opportunity may be available for use by only a single user (e.g., the user of the LTG server system to whom the promotional opportunity was provided, the first user to use the particular promotional opportunity, etc.), may be available for use by all users that redeem that promotional opportunity, or may be available for circumstances between those first two types (e.g., for a specified quantity of users, for a specified period of time, etc.). Furthermore, in at least some embodiments and situations, information about particular offers may be provided to particular users based at least in part on prior requests from those users to be notified of offers in specified conditions (e.g., when I am in a specified location or in a location other than my typical location, and the offer is associated with a quiz-type game).
In particular, the illustrated example user interface screen 600 includes various tabs 605 that enable the user to access different types of information and functionality, with a “Dashboard” tab being currently selected (e.g., by default). The user interface screen 600 also includes information and user-selectable controls 610 related to the vendor, which in this example indicates that the vendor has two distinct businesses that are separately tracked within the LTG server system, has 131 physical point-of-sale locations between the two businesses, has 155 defined administrative users with varying levels of access privileges, has 1,251 employees, and has 5,123 vouchers that have been sold to end users of the LTG server system for later redemption by those end users (e.g., via mobile devices of those end users). It will be appreciated that the illustrated details may not correspond to any actual business that may be discussed as part of these examples, such as the Starbucks Coffee Company. The information on the user interface screen 600 also includes various financial report information and controls 615, information and controls about recent transactions 620, and information and controls 630 about current active offers for this vendor. The active offer information in this example includes a selection box 635 via which the vendor may select a particular one of multiple groups of business locations (e.g., by geographic territory, or as otherwise grouped by the vendor), and shows a map corresponding to a geographic area in which various offers are currently active. The various offers 650 that are illustrated each have a shape corresponding to a geographic subarea of the map to which the offer applies, which in some cases may be overlapping. Additional information 640 is shown for a particular one of the offers 650, such as based on the vendor performing a mouse-over or other selection of that offer, including information about terms of the offer, an activity within the LTG server system which users may engage in to receive the offer (which in this example is a quiz), information about time remaining for the offer, and information about a total number of promotional opportunities or benefits (here referred to as prizes) and user contestants for the offer.
In particular, with respect to
The map-related information 1905 includes user-selectable controls to enable the vendor to specify particular times and other filter or attribute information, and to see corresponding information 1915 as part of a map. In particular, in this example, the map information 1915 includes a path or trace of activity of this selected customer user during the specified time period, and that further corresponds to any other vendor-specified criteria. In this example, other vendor-specified criteria enables vendor selections to also illustrate information about the customer user's favorite places (e.g., based on a quantity of visits and/or frequency of visits, based on the customer user performing check-ins while at or near the location, based on the customer user indicating that he/she likes the location, etc.), hangouts (e.g., based on an amount of time spent there, such as on average and/or cumulatively), friends (e.g., to show when and where the customer user was interacting with particular friends during the illustrated path or trace, to show locations and activities of particular friends of the customer user during the selected time period even if the friends are not interacting with the customer user, etc.), and redemptions (e.g., of offers from the current vendor via the LTG server system, of offers from any vendor or advertiser via the LTG server system, etc.). It will be appreciated that in other embodiments, other types of controls may be provided to enable selection of other types of information (including any type of information available to the LTG server system), whether instead of or in addition to the illustrated types of information. In addition, similar information may be tracked and displayed for other types of entities, such as employees of the vendor, as illustrated in
Such types of map-related information may provide a variety of types of benefits to the vendor and to the customer user. For example, the vendor may observe that the customer user (and possibly one or more friends of the customer user) pass by one or more business locations of the vendor on a regular basis (e.g., once a day, multiple times a day, at least once a week, etc.), or alternatively are currently near a particular business location of the vendor—if so, the vendor may determine to dynamically generate and provide an offer to the customer user (and possibly one or more friends of the customer user) for one or more particular business locations of the vendor.
In addition, while the information illustrated in
Such groups of users may be specified by the vendor in various manners, including to dynamically specify a user group at the time of information display, or to predefine one or more user groups and to then select a particular predefined user group for which to display aggregated group-level information. As one example, the vendor may specify a user group by interactively selecting users to add to the user group, in a manner analogous to adding business locations to a business group as illustrated with respect to
In particular, the illustrated example user interface screen 2000 of
The use of the illustrated types of game-related functionality within the LTG server system provides a variety of types of benefits to vendors and to end users. For example, a variety of vendors may be able to create a variety of games of one or more types within the LTG server system (and a single vendor may be able to create multiple games, such as different games for different business locations), and those games may be made available to end users of the LTG server system without those end users having to download different game applications for each vendor—such functionality may be provided by, for example, each end user executing a single client-side application for the LTG server system on a computing device of the end user that receives the various configuration information for the defined games and that presents particular games as selected by the end users and/or as determined by vendors or the LTG server system. In addition, in some embodiments and situations, a game or other activity specified by a vendor may be specific to the vendor in one or more manners (e.g., a quiz that is configured to ask questions related to the vendor, such as to identify names of redeemer employees of the vendor at one or more business locations; an end user task that involves visiting specified business locations of the vendor and optionally performing other related activities, such as to visit at least 5 of the vendor's business locations in this geographic area within a month and to optionally engage in a purchase transaction at each; etc). Moreover, a game or other activity specified by a vendor (or by the LTG server system) for end users may involve the end users supplying questions to later use as part of a quiz game, or specifying other information of a specified type (e.g., configuring a new game level for an existing game) to later use as part of games—such functionality enables end users to contribute to content with the LTG server system in a crowdsourcing manner.
In addition, the availability of offers and corresponding games may be triggered based at least in part on location of an end user, such that an end user that enters a new geographical location (e.g., goes on vacation or a business trip to a new city in a different part of the country) may automatically receive offers and the ability to play corresponding games that are specific to that location (as configured by vendors in that location, as defined by an operator of the LTG server system, etc.). Furthermore, in some embodiments and situations, the vendor configuration for a game may allow the vendor to require or allow end users that play the game to enable the game (as implemented by the LTG server system) to have access to one or more social networking site accounts of the end user, such as to enable updates to automatically be made to those account(s) by the LTG server system on the end user's behalf related to the end user's activities for the game (e.g., that the end user just beat one or more other non-identified users at the game, that the end user just beat one or more other users at the game who are identified by name or other social network account identifier for those other users, that the end user challenges one or more friends of the end user to a competition within the game, etc.).
Such functionality provides a variety of benefits to the vendor, including to enable the vendor to focus on their monetary return from a candidate offer rather than on merely their advertising cost for creating and disseminating the offer. Furthermore, when using functionality of the LTG server system to estimate the value of current and/or future revenue to the vendor from putting a candidate offer into use, the LTG server system may in some embodiments employ a variety of types of user-specific information as part of calculating a revenue projection—such types of user-specific information may include, for example, a past history of actions of a particular end user (e.g., information about a historical offer usage rate of the end user, optionally tailored to particular factors such as location and/or time and/or offer type, such as to determine the likelihood that the end user will accept and/or redeem the candidate offer if made available to him/her; information about historical activities and proclivities of the end user to being a repeat customer to a business location to which the end user has accepted an offer, optionally tailored to particular factors such as location and/or time and/or offer type, such as to determine the likely future revenue stream or value of repeat business from the end user if the candidate offer is made available to him/her; etc.), a status of a particular end user as a new user to the LTG server system, etc.
In particular,
Furthermore, in some embodiments, the vendor may further be provided functionality to request notification if a specified set of conditions become true at a future time and/or are projected at a first future time to become true at a second future time, such as via a trigger control 3620. When the vendor receives such a notification, the vendor is able to dynamically create one or more offers at that time, such as to target a group of users that correspond to criteria for the defined trigger. Alternatively, the vendor may specify conditions and criteria under which offer notifications are to be automatically sent to matching users, if those conditions and criteria are satisfied in the future. While various types of conditions and related criteria are displayed in greater detail with respect to other user interface screens, including for candidate offers, such conditions and criteria may similarly be specified for such notification triggers. For example, notification triggers may be based on a quantity of users (e.g., a specified minimum quantity of customer users if they are within the geographic area 3605 at the same time, or over a period of time of a specified length), an amount of potential revenue for the vendor from an offer may under the specified conditions (e.g., a minimum revenue threshold), current inventory levels of the vendor, etc.
Thus, with respect to the functionality of
In particular,
It will be appreciated that the details illustrated with respect to the user interface screens of
The illustrated embodiment of the routine 4800 begins at block 4805, where information or instructions are received. It will be appreciated that such information or instructions, including to reflect a determination to perform a particular activity, may be received in various manners, such as based on periodic processing such as by the LTG Server system, based on a request from an end user, vendor user, and/or operator of the LTG Server system, based on other information received or other determinations made by the LTG Server system, etc. After block 4805, the routine continues to block 4810 to determine if information has been received that is based on actions of users or vendors or that is based on activities of the LTG Server system. If so, the routine continues to block 4815 to obtain corresponding information about one or more vendors, one or more users, one or more mobile devices, one or more offers, one or more end-user tasks, and/or one or more transactions that occur via the LTG Server system or otherwise involve the system, and store the information for later use. Transactions may be of various types, including the following: a transaction involving redemption of an offer by a user with a vendor; a transaction involving a user becoming qualified to receive one or more rewards associated with an offer, such as based on completing one or more associated tasks; a transaction involving a new offer being defined by a vendor within the LTG Server system or otherwise involving advertising specified by a vendor to be provided to one or more users, such as based on receipt of corresponding information in block 4805 from interactions of the vendor with the LTG Server system; etc. In other embodiments, other types of information may similarly be obtained and stored, and the types of information that are obtained and stored with respect to block 4815 may reflect various activities of vendors and/or users (e.g., including user movements to, from, and/or through particular geographical locations), occurrences of defined events, interactions of third-party applications with the LTG Server system (e.g., mobile applications developed by third-party entities that are distinct from an entity operating the LTG Server system, and that may optionally be affiliated with the LTG Server system and/or its providing entity in one or more manners, or instead may not be affiliated in any such manner), etc. The information obtained in block 4815 may be stored in various manners, including as discussed elsewhere herein, such as with respect to stored data 121-130 and database storage 260 illustrated in
After block 4815, or if it is instead determined in block 4810 that the information or instructions received in block 4805 do not include information to be stored, the routine continues to block 4820 to determine whether to currently identify any related users, related vendors, and/or related offers, including in some situations based on information just received with respect to block 4815, or instead in other embodiments based at least in part on information that was previously received and stored. If so, the routine continues to block 4825 to analyze stored information related to one or more users, vendors, and offers in order to identify groups of related users, related vendors, and/or related offers that have common attributes or otherwise have common associated information (e.g., with respect to activities performed by users or vendors). The determination of sufficient similarity between two or more users to be part of a related user group, between two or more vendors to be part of a related vendor group, and/or between two or more offers to be part of a related offer group may be performed in various manners in various embodiments. As one example, in some embodiments, an operator of an LTG Server system and/or one or more end users or vendor users of the system may specify one or more attributes to be used to identify such a related group, or otherwise define one or more criteria to be used in such identification.
In other embodiments, the LTG Server system may automatically identify some or all such related groups. As one example, for each of a plurality of defined attributes (e.g., any attribute, tag, or other information associated with any user, vendor, or offer in the LTG Server system), the system may create a hierarchy of related groups for each of users, vendors, and/or offers. In such a situation, for example, each attribute or other piece of information may initially be used as the basis for forming a related group, such as that all users, all vendors, or all offers that have that attribute are considered to be part of that related group, and with such related group formation activities being performed for each of the available attributes or other pieces of information. Similarly, each combination of two attributes or other pieces of information may be used to form an additional related group of users or of vendors or of offers, such as by grouping all such users/vendors/offers that include both of those two attributes or other pieces of information (or either of those two attributes or other pieces of information), and further performing such additional related group formation activities for each such combination of two attributes or other pieces of information. It will be appreciated that a related group formed for a combination of two particular attributes will be a subset of the related groups for each of those two attributes individually (unless all users/vendors/offers that have one of the two attributes also currently has that other attribute, in which case all three of those related groups will be co-extensive at the current time, but could differ later if other users/vendors/offers enter the system with only one of the two attributes, or if attribute information changes for one or more users/vendors/offers already in the system). Such creation of related groups may similarly continue with some or all combinations of three attributes or other pieces of information, four attributes or other pieces of information, five attributes or other pieces of information, etc., until a maximum number of attributes or other pieces of information (e.g., all of the plurality of attributes or other pieces of information) are reached. Information about such identified related groups may be stored for later use, with examples of such use being described later with respect to routine 4800. It will further be appreciated that existing related groups may be updated as new information becomes available to the routine 4800, including to add and/or remove users/vendors/offers from existing related groups as appropriate, as well as to create new related groups and/or to remove previously existing related groups (e.g., if no users/vendors/offers remain in the related group). In other embodiments, such related groups may further be defined and used for other types of information described herein, whether instead of or in addition to the related groups for users, vendors, and offers. In addition, in some embodiments, related groups may be formed that include two or more of users, vendors and offers that are determined to share particular attributes or other pieces of information for those related groups (e.g., to have location-based related groups that may each include users, vendors and offers associated with a particular geographical location).
After block 4825, or if it is instead determined in block 4820 that the information or instructions received in block 4805 are not to identify related users, vendors, and/or offers, the routine continues to block 4830 to determine whether the information or instructions received in block 4805 are to identify whether one or more defined notification triggers are satisfied, such as for any notification triggers previously defined by vendors (e.g., as discussed with respect to FIG. 36 and elsewhere herein). The determination of whether a notification trigger is satisfied may be based, for example, on information concurrently or previously received and stored with respect to block 4815, and in some situations with respect to related user groups defined or updated with respect to block 4825.
If the information or instructions received in block 4805 are to identify whether any defined notification triggers are satisfied, the routine continues to block 4835 to retrieve any such defined triggers (e.g., unless one or more particular notification triggers are indicated to be used), as well as information about users or other objects or activities that relate to any defined criteria with respect to those notification triggers. The routine further determines in block 4805 if any of the notified triggers are currently satisfied by corresponding users or other information. While the illustrated embodiment performs the determination in block 4835 with respect to current information, it will be appreciated that in some embodiments such a determination may be made with respect to predicted future information for users and/or objects and activities, whether instead of or in addition to determinations made based on current information. Similarly, in some embodiments and situations, past information may be analyzed to determine whether and when defined notification triggers were satisfied, including as part of automated activities of the LTG Server system in generating suggested offers to provide to vendors or for other types of automated systems by the LTG Server system, as described elsewhere herein—such analysis of past information (e.g., prior locations of users that are now in different locations, prior activities of users that are now completed, etc.) may be made instead of or in addition to determinations made based on current information and/or predicted information.
After block 4835, if any of the defined notification triggers are satisfied, the routine continues to perform one or more types of automated activities in block 4840, such as based on information associated with the defined triggers, preferences of corresponding vendors, and/or a configuration of the LTG Server system. Such automated activities may include, for example, providing a corresponding notification for a satisfied trigger to one or more vendors associated with the trigger (e.g., one or more vendors that define the trigger). In other embodiments, other vendors that did not define a trigger may nonetheless be notified of some or all of the same types of information as the trigger-defining vendors, such as for other vendors that are similar to those trigger-defining vendors (e.g., as may be determined based on the other vendors and the trigger-defining vendors being in one or more common related vendor groups). A vendor that is notified based on a defined trigger may, for example, receive functionality that enables the notified vendors to immediately take a corresponding action (which may optionally be suggested by the LTG Server system to those vendors), including to dynamically initiate a corresponding offer to users who are determined to satisfy the defined criteria for the trigger and/or to make such an offer to other users, whether instead of or in addition to those satisfying users. As another example, automated activities by the LTG Server system for a satisfied trigger may include the system proceeding to automatically initiate a corresponding offer for the defined trigger to one or more users, such as to users who were determined to satisfy the defined criteria for the trigger, or to other users, whether instead of or in addition to the identified satisfying users.
After block 4840, or if it is instead determined in block 4830 that the information or instructions received in block 4805 are not to identify satisfied notification triggers, the routine continues instead to block 4845 to determine whether the information or instructions received in block 4805 are to determine suggested offers to indicate to vendors, such as based on information concurrently or previously received with respect to block 4815, or in other manners. If so, the routine continues to block 4850 to, for each vendor of interest (e.g., one or more indicated vendors, all vendors, etc.), analyze defined criteria associated with one or more prior offers made by that vendor (such as expired prior offers and/or prior offers that are still active) and/or to analyze defined criteria associated with prior and/or current offers of other vendors similar to that vendor (e.g., based on common membership in one or more related vendor groups). Such an analysis of offer criteria may include determining if any such offer criteria are currently satisfied by users relevant to the vendor, such as users in the same or similar location as the vendor (e.g., for a vendor that has one or more location-based businesses). While not illustrated in this example embodiment, in other embodiments such a determination may similarly be made with respect to predicted future information about end users, whether instead of or in addition to using current information about such end users (e.g., based on predicted future locations of end users).
After block 4850, the routine continues to block 4855 to, for some or all such offer criteria that are determined to be satisfied, suggest to the vendor to make a corresponding offer now and/or in the future, such as to the current relevant users who satisfy the criteria, to other users similar to those satisfying users (e.g., based on common membership in one or more related user groups), etc. In doing so, the routine may optionally in some embodiments provide information to the vendor that identifies information about the relevant users who satisfy the criteria (e.g., demographic information, locations, etc.), and in some cases may further identify particular such users to the vendor (e.g., if such identity-based notifications are approved by such users based on previously or concurrently provided user instructions or indications). After block 4855, if any such vendor who has been notified with a suggested offer confirms to proceed with the offer (such as currently and/or in the future), the routine in block 4860 initiates the creation of a corresponding offer within the LTG Server system with appropriate information about when the offer is available. It will be appreciated that such confirmations in block 4860 may occur at a time substantially after a notification is made in block 4855, and that at least some embodiments of the routine continue to perform other types of operations in an asynchronous manner while waiting for any such vendor confirmations to be received.
After block 4860, or if it was instead determined in block 4845 that the information or instructions received in block 4805 are not to determine suggested offers for vendors, the routine continues instead to block 4862 to determine whether the information or instructions received in block 4805 are to provide offer and/or task information to users. Such a determination may be made, for example, in response to a request from a user (e.g., based on the user displaying a GUI of a client-side application executing on a mobile device or other computing device of the user, such as an application provided by the LTG Server system or an affiliated game application, an external third-party application, etc.), or based on an automated determination of an offer and/or task being relevant for the user (e.g., based on previously expressed interests of the user, a current determination of a match between a user and an offer and/or task, etc.). If it is determined in block 4862 that the information or instructions received in block 4805 are to provide offer and/or task information to users, the routine continues to block 4864 to retrieve information about any relevant offers or other tasks and, for each such user (e.g., one or more indicated users, every end user, etc.), retrieve corresponding user information. The routine then determine offers (if any) for which the user is eligible and/or tasks (if any) for which the user may have an interest, including for offers and/or tasks automatically matched to the user, and provides corresponding information to the user (e.g., by initiating a display of corresponding information within a LTG Server system application GUI).
After block 4864, the routine continues to block 4866 to optionally receive information about one or more such tasks that are completed by one or more such users or other activities performed by one or more such users to qualify for one or more such offers, and if so, to initiate providing offer rewards or other benefits to the user based on those activities, as discussed in greater detail elsewhere herein. It will be appreciated that the indication of task performance or other offer qualification actions by users may occur at a time substantially later after activities performed with respect to block 4864, and that at least some embodiments of the routine continue to perform other types of operations in an asynchronous manner while waiting for any such indications of offer qualification actions by users to be received.
After block 4866, or if it is instead determined in block 4862 that the information or instructions received in block 4805 are not to provide offer and/or task information to users, the routine continues instead to block 4868 to determine whether the information or instructions received in block 4805 are to provide offer and/or task information to an external application, such as based on a received request from the external application or other automated determination by the LTG Server system to perform such information providing activities at this time (e.g., for a periodic or other scheduled activity). If so, the routine continues to block 4870, where in the illustrated embodiment a request has been received from the external application via an API provided by the LTG Server system, with the API in this example embodiment allowing external applications to request various types of information from the LTG Server system and/or to provide various types of information to the LTG Server system. In this situation, the received request is for information about offers and/or tasks defined within the LTG Server system that meet one or more specified criteria, such as based on a type of task, a type of offer, being currently available, etc. As one example, the external application may provide game functionality to its end users or otherwise enable its end users to perform particular types of tasks, and may retrieve corresponding task information from the LTG Server system—the external application may then enable its end users to perform such tasks (e.g., play particular mini-games) within the external application, such as to allow the end users to qualify for corresponding offers within the LTG Server system based on those activities within that external application. Such end users of the external application may, for example, also be end users of the LTG Server system, or instead some or all such end users of the external application may not be end users of the LTG Server system at a time of task performance (but may be allowed to register as users of the LTG Server system in order to receive corresponding benefits, such as to receive an offer reward after such an end user qualifies for an offer based on activities that occur via the external application). In addition, the external application may in some embodiments be affiliated with the LTG Server system before the request is received, while in other embodiments the API may allow any external application to request and obtain such information.
After block 4870, the routine continues to block 4872 to determine tasks and/or offers (if any) within the LTG Server system that correspond to the received request, and to provide corresponding response information to the external application via the API. In block 4874, if the routine later receives any indications or other confirmations via the API from the external application of an end user of the external application completing a task or otherwise qualifying for an offer, the routine may further take actions to initiate providing offer rewards for that offer to the user, including to optionally register the end user within the LTG Server system as appropriate. It will be appreciated that the indication of task performance or other offer qualification actions by end users of an external application may occur at a time substantially later after activities performed with respect to block 4872, and that at least some embodiments of the routine continue to perform other types of operations in an asynchronous manner while waiting for any such indications of task completion or other offer qualification actions by users to be received.
After block 4874, or if it is instead determined in block 4868 that the information or instructions received in block 4805 are not to provide offer and/or task information to an external application, the routine continues to block 4876 to determine whether the information or instructions received in block 4805 are to match users, vendors, and/or offers with each other, such as to match users and corresponding offers, users and corresponding vendors, vendors and corresponding offers, etc. If so, the routine continues to block 4878, where it retrieves information about groups of related users, vendors, and/or offers, such as those defined with respect to block 4825, and then analyzes such information to enable the matchmaking activities to be performed. Such matchmaking activities may include identifying current or past relationships between particular users, vendors, and/or offers in one or more manners, such as to include one or more of the following: based on users and vendors that have previously interacted; based on users that match criteria defined by vendors for offers or otherwise; based on vendors that match requests or other information specified by users; based on users that have been or are currently eligible to receive particular offers and/or that have qualified for particular offers; based on users that have redeemed such offers; based on vendors that have made such offers (and optionally further based on corresponding benefits received by the vendors, such as to identify commercially successful offers); etc. Such identification of current or past relationships may further be performed with respect to similar users, vendors, and/or offers by using corresponding identified related groups.
After current and/or past relationships are identified, matchmaking activities may be performed in block 4878 for additional possible relationships that could be managed by the LTG Server system, such as based at least in part on identified related groups. As one example, if a user and a vendor are identified as having a past or current relationship, a possible additional relationship may be determined for that user and one or more other vendors who are similar to that vendor (e.g., other vendors who are in a common related vendor group with that vendor), may be determined for that vendor and other similar users (e.g., other users who are in a common related user group with that user), and/or may be identified for both other similar users (who are related to that user) and other similar vendors (who are related to that vendor). When one or more such other similar users and one or more such other similar vendors are both identified for a particular possible relationship, it will be appreciated that users and vendors that have previously had no interactions or otherwise have not previously been identified as being related may be determined to be a good match for a new relationship based on current and/or predicted future information, thus enabling such users to receive useful information about vendors that may be of interest to the user, and enabling such vendors to obtain information about (or business from) users that may be of interest to the vendor and have interest in the vendor's product items and/or service items.
As one non-limiting example, if a user lives in a first geographical area and likes to interact with one or more types of businesses of a given type in that geographical area, but the user is currently in a second geographical area or plans to be in that second geographical area, related businesses in that second geographical area that are in a related vendor group with those businesses in the first geographical area may be of interest to that user. Thus, if a first user in a first geographical area has previous activities or other preferences for interacting with first businesses in that first geographical area (such as to establish relationships between the firs user and the first businesses), an identified similar second user in a second geographical area may be interested in interacting with second businesses in the second geographical area that are similar to those first businesses, even if the first and second users have not had any interactions or associations with each other (other than being identified as being related by the LTG Server system, such as in a common related user group), and/or even if the first and second businesses have not had any prior associations or interactions with each other (other than being identified as being related by the LTG Server system, such as in a common related vendor group). In this manner, relevant information for both vendors and users may be identified, with corresponding benefits provided to both.
After block 4878, the routine continues to block 4880 to, for one or more such possible additional relationships that are identified, provide suggestions to corresponding users and/or to corresponding vendors about the other, and/or to provide suggestions to corresponding users and/or corresponding vendors about a corresponding offer. Thus, if a current or past relationship is identified between a particular vendor and a particular offer, such as based on that vendor previously making that offer and receiving beneficial commercial results, additional possible relationships may be identified between that vendor and other related offers, between that offer and other related vendors, and/or between both other similar offers (based on a common related offer group) and other similar vendors, in a manner similar to the example described with respect to users and vendors. Similarly, if an existing or current relationship is identified between a particular user and a particular offer (such as based on prior or current user eligibility for the offer, prior user satisfaction of requirements for the offer, and/or prior user redemption of the offer), additional possible relationships can be identified for that user and other similar offers, for that offer and other similar users, and/or for both similar users and similar offers, such as in a manner similar to that previously described with respect to users and vendors.
After block 4880, or if it is instead determined in block 4876 that the information or instructions received in block 4805 are not to match users, vendors, and/or offers, the routine continues instead to block 4881 to determine whether the instructions or information received in block 4805 relate to associating task information with an offer from a vendor. If so, the routine continues to block 4882 where, if the vendor has indicated one or more task types or one or more tasks for the offer, to associate those indicated task type(s) or indicated task(s) with the offer. Otherwise, the routine in block 4882 automatically determines one or more task types or one or more tasks for the offer, and associates those determined task type(s) or determined task(s) with the offer—when determining and/or associate a task or a task type with an offer, the routine may in some embodiments and situations do so for a particular indicated user (e.g., a user to whom task-related information for the offer is to be made available) or instead for any user (or for users in a group of related users). The determining of one or more task types or one or more tasks for the offer (e.g., one or more preferred task types) includes retrieving and analyzing information about prior actions performed related to task performance, including one or more of the following: information about the vendor, information about the offer, information about an indicated user (if any), information about one or more groups of related users corresponding to the indicated user (if any), information about one or more groups of related vendors corresponding to the vendor, and information about one or more groups of related offers corresponding to the offer. The analysis of the retrieved information may include using information about past task-related actions performed for the vendor, offer, indicated user and/or one or more corresponding groups, such as to identify a most popular or most successful or otherwise preferred one or more task types for use with the current offer. As one example, one or more of a variety of types of information about prior activities with respect to tasks may be used as part of such an analysis, including from the following non-exclusive list: a rate and/or quantity of user viewings (or other review) of information about a task, a rate and/or quantity of user selections to obtain additional information about a task, a rate and/or quantity of user selections (or other user activities) to initiate performance of a task, a rate and/or quantity of user attempts to perform a task, a rate and/or quantity of successful user completions of a task, a rate and/or quantity of user redemptions of rewards associated with completing a task, etc.
It will be appreciated that the determination in block 4881 and corresponding automated activities of blocks 4882 and/or 4883 may be performed at various times in various embodiments and situations. For example, in some embodiments and situations, the activities of blocks 4882 and/or 4883 may be performed at the time that an offer is submitted by a vendor to the LTG Server system or otherwise associated with the vendor (e.g., based on an automated suggestion or determination to use the offer for the vendor)—alternatively, the actions performed with respect to blocks 4882 and/or 4883 may in some embodiments and situations be performed at other times, such as at a time that an indicated user expresses an interest in obtaining additional information about the offer or in performing activities necessary to quality for the offer (e.g., by performing one or more tasks associated with the offer), including with respect to block 4864. In addition, when associating one or more task types with the offer in block 4882, the routine may in some embodiments associate all defined task types within the system with the offer (e.g., if so specified by the vendor; if automatically determined by the LTG Server system, such as in the absence of other task-related information specified for the offer by the vendor; etc.). When multiple task types or tasks are associated with an offer, they may be used in various manners—for example, a user that later takes actions to qualify for the offer may be allowed to select a particular one of the associated task types for the offer, or the LTG Server system may instead later automatically select a particular one of the associated task types or associated tasks to be used with a particular user in order to qualify for the offer (including to potentially select different task types and/or different tasks for different users).
When using some or all of the retrieved information to determine one or more task types for the offer, the associated determination may be performed in various manners in various embodiments, and in some embodiments and situations may retrieve and use only one or a subset of the various possible types of information. As one example, if the determination is being made for a particular indicated user, the routine in block 4882 may retrieve information about types of tasks previously performed by that user in order to determine a preferred task type for the user (e.g., amongst all defined task types within the system; within a subset of the defined task types that are available for use with the offer, such as based on a corresponding indication from the vendor and/or a type of the offer and/or an automated determination by the LTG Server system; etc.), or may otherwise determine such a preferred task type for the user (e.g., based on explicit prior user preferences). If so, such a preferred task type for the user may be selected as the only determined task type for the offer and the indicated user, or may be selected as one of multiple determined task types for the user with respect to that indicated user (e.g., to enable a selection by the user).
As another example, if the determination is being made for a particular indicated user, information about that user and about the offer and about the vendor may be retrieved, such as to determine one or more preferred task types for the offer and the indicated user based on the task types that are most often performed by one or more of the following: by that user for any offer and vendor, by that user for that offer, by all users for that offer, by all users for that type of offer (e.g., based on defined offer types within the LTG Server system or on one or more identified groups of related offers), by that user for that vendor, by all users for that vendor, by all users for that type of vendor (e.g., based on defined vendor types within the LTG Server system or on one or more identified groups of related vendors), by that user for that offer and that vendor, by all users for that offer and that vendor, by all users for that type of offer and that type of vendor, etc. When combining information about past task performance of multiple types or from multiple sources, the combination may be performed in various manners, such as by aggregating each prior task performance with equal weighting, by weighting some types of sources of task information in certain manners (e.g., weighting more recent information more highly than less recent, or weighting information associated with the specific indicated user more highly than for other users), etc. If so, one or more such preferred task types may be selected for use with the offer and indicated user. Alternatively, if the determination is not being made for a particular indicated user, a similar analysis may be performed using vendor and/or offer information, such as to determine one or more preferred task types for any user that may perform the offer.
As yet another example, information about one or more corresponding groups of related vendors and/or related offers (and/or, if the determination is being made for a particular indicated user, one or more corresponding groups of related users) may be retrieved and analyzed, whether in addition to or instead of information about the vendor and/or offer and/or any indicated user. Thus, information about prior activities performed with respect to types of tasks for those related groups may be analyzed in order to determine one or more preferred task types for the offer (and optionally any indicated user), such as by weighting information from multiple related groups about prior task types, optionally in combination with information about the vendor and/or offer and/or any indicated user. It will be appreciated that the information about past activities with respect to task types may be of one or more types in various embodiments and situations, including for task performances of particular task types that are initiated and/or attempted and/or completed in the past, for selections by users to perform tasks of particular task types (e.g., from multiple available task type options), etc.—additional details related to task type information that may be stored, retrieved and used is included elsewhere herein, including with respect to block 4888.
In addition, the defined task types within the system may have various forms in various embodiments, as discussed elsewhere herein—as one example, defined task types may be one or more of the following non-exclusive list of task types: taking and submitting a photo (e.g., at an indicated time; at an indicated location; of an indicated subject, such as a person or location or activity; of an indicated type of subject, such as a type of person, type of location or type of activity, or to satisfy indicated criteria such as unusual, funny, or happy; etc.); taking and submitting a video (e.g., in a manner similar to that for taking a photo); answering a question and submitting the answer, such as by selecting from multiple enumerated possible answers, or instead by supplying a freeform response; writing and submitting a question and optionally supplying a correct answer and/or one or more incorrect answers (e.g., a question of an indicated type or related to an indicated topic); voting on an indicated topic, such as from an enumerated list of possible choices; sharing an indicated type of information with one or more other users, such as on a social networking site (e.g., Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc., such as a ‘like’ or other indication of approval or interest, or other type of content), or instead in another manner (e.g., via one or more emails or other electronic communications); inviting one or more friends or other users to join the LTG Server system; succeeding in convincing one or more friends or other users to join the LTG Server system; completing an indicated level of a game, or otherwise playing some or all of a game, including in some embodiments to compete with other users playing that game or other games; creating a user-specified group, such as by identifying other particular users (e.g., other users of the LTG Server system), by specifying criteria that allow one or more users to be identified within the LTG Server system that satisfy those criteria, etc.); none (no task); etc. In situations in which a task is associated with a particular vendor (e.g., specified by a vendor for use with an offer from the vendor), the task may correspond to that vendor (e.g., a business location, one or more product or services, a brand, etc.)—for example, a photo task for a user from a vendor may involve taking a photo (optionally including the user or one or more other users) at a business location of the vendor or using a product or service of the vendor, while question-writing task for a user from a vendor make include the question involving content about the vendor (e.g., information available at a business location of the vendor or from using a product or service of the vendor).
After block 4882, the routine continues to block 4883 to, if there is an indicated user for the offer that is currently interested in the offer, and if there is only one associated task or task type for the offer, to provide information to the user about the associated task or task type, such as by displaying the information to the user. Otherwise, if there is an indicated user for the offer but there is more than one associated task or task type for the offer, the routine in block 4883 provides information to the indicated user about the multiple associated tasks or about the multiple associated task types, and receives an indication of one task or task type from the multiple that is selected by the user. The routine may further in block 4883, if a task type is selected by the user or the only task-related information for the offer, optionally provide further information to the user about a particular task of that task type for the offer. A particular task of a task type may be determined in various manners, including based on information specified by the vendor for the offer, information otherwise associated with the offer, information associated with the indicated user, based on a random selection from multiple tasks of that task type by the LTG Server system, etc. Such a determination of a particular task may further be performed in a manner similar to the retrieving and analyzing steps described with respect to block 4882, such as to determine a most popular or otherwise preferred task of the task type (whether in a manner specific to the particular user, or instead by combining information for multiple related users or all users). If some or all of the activities of block 4883 are performed at a time corresponding to block 4864, the user may further elect (e.g., in block 4864, or after block 4864 and before block 4866) to proceed to initiate performance of a task that is indicated to the user for a particular offer, or to initiate performance of a task of a task type that is indicated to the user for a particular offer, such as to attempt to obtain a corresponding offer or reward in a manner similar to that discussed with respect to block 4866, although such task performance activities are not illustrated with respect to block 4883. In addition, as described in greater detail elsewhere herein, in some embodiments and situations, an offer, reward or other benefit may be provided related to task performance in various manners, such as to only some users who complete the task performance (e.g., for a competition with a limited number of winners; only if resulting task results are approved by a corresponding vendor or otherwise validated, as discussed with respect to blocks 4884-4888; etc.), to all users who complete the task performance, to some or all users who attempt the task even if the performance is not completed, etc.
After block 4883, or if it is instead determined in block 4881 that the information or instructions received in block 4805 are not to determine a task for an offer from a vendor, the routine continues instead to block 4884 to determine whether the information or instructions received in block 4805 are to perform activities to validate completion of a task by a user, for each of one or more such user task performance completions. Such task completion validation activities may be performed at various times in various embodiments and situations, including as part of block 4866 (or after block 4864 and before block 4866).
If it is determined in block 4884 to perform activities to validate completion of a task by a user, for each of one or more such user task performance completions, the routine continues to block 4885 to, if the task (or an associated offer) is determined to have vendor-based validation (e.g., as specified by a vendor that submitted the offer, as automatically determined by the LTG Server system, etc.), the routine in block 4885 provides information about the task results from the completed task performance(s) to the vendor, and receives information about zero or more validated task results that are identified by the vendor. Information about such task results from one or more users may be provided to a vendor in various manners in various embodiments, including by providing a GUI of the LTG Server system via which the vendor may receive and display task results from one or more users for one or more offers of the vendor (e.g., photos taken by the users, questions that are written and submitted by the users, votes taken by the users, information about activities by the user in sharing information with others or in inviting other users to join the LTG Server system or in successfully having other users join the LTG Server system, information about the users completing game levels or otherwise playing games, information about the users creating user-specified groups, etc.). In this manner, the vendor may obtain crowdsourced data from various users, including crowdsourced data corresponding to the vendor and its products and/or services (e.g., photos, written text, videos, etc.) if the performed tasks relate to the vendor. In addition, as part of providing task results information to a vendor, the routine may in some embodiments and situations in block 4885 retrieve various types of information from one or more external sources (e.g., to retrieve information from a specified social networking site to determine whether the user shared information via that social networking site in a specified manner, such as a ‘like’ of the vendor or of products or services of the vendor, whether the user followed the vendor on Twitter or another such site, whether the user reviewed the vendor on Yelp or another such site, etc.).
After block 4885 (or if vendor-based validation is not used for the task or its associated offer), the routine continues to block 4886 to, if the task (or an associated offer) is determined to have automated system-based validation by the LTG Server system (e.g., as specified by a vendor that submitted the offer, as automatically determined by the LTG Server system, etc.), the routine performs automated determinations for each completed task performance of whether resulting task results satisfy one or more specified validation criteria for the task or corresponding offer, in order to identify zero or more validated task results. Such specified validation criteria and associated automated determinations may be performed in various manners in various embodiments, including based on an amount of time taken to perform a task, a number of attempts to perform a task before it is successfully completed, a score or other rating on performance of a task (e.g., successfully answering X out of Y questions that are asked by the LTG Server system; successfully submitting a photo or video of at least a specified size or a specified length of time, or that includes a specified type of subject, such as a human face based on automated face recognition or other automated processing; etc.). In addition, as part of performing the automated determination of whether the specified validation criteria are satisfied, the routine may in some embodiments and situations in block 4886 retrieve various types of information from one or more external sources (e.g., to retrieve information from a specified social networking site to determine whether the user shared information via that social networking site in a specified manner, such as a ‘like’ of the vendor or of products or services of the vendor, whether the user followed the vendor on Twitter or another such site, whether the user reviewed the vendor on Yelp or another such site, etc.).
After block 4886 (or if vendor-based validation and/or automated system-based validation is not used for the task or its associated offer), the routine continues to block 4887 to, if the task (or an associated offer) is determined to have LTG Server system user-based validation (e.g., as specified by a vendor that submitted the offer, as automatically determined by the LTG Server system, etc.), provide information about task results from each completed task performance to some or all users of the LTG Server system, to enable user voting or other user feedback about those task results, and to accordingly identify zero or more validated task results from the user feedback—such identification may be based, for example, on one or more task results with the highest quantity of positive votes and/or with the highest percentage of positive votes, on particular task results receiving at least a minimum threshold of positive votes or other types of positive user feedback, etc. By enabling other users of the LTG Server system to vote or otherwise provide user feedback about such task results for other users, user community aspects of the LTG Server system may be enhanced. In addition, as part of providing task results information to other users, the routine may in some embodiments and situations in block 4887 retrieve various types of information from one or more external sources (e.g., to retrieve information from a specified social networking site to determine whether the user doing the completed task performance shared information via that social networking site in a specified manner, such as a ‘like’ of the vendor or of products or services of the vendor, whether the user doing the completed task performance followed the vendor on Twitter or another such site, whether the user doing the completed task performance reviewed the vendor on Yelp or another such site, etc.).
In addition, the providing of information to such users in block 4887 may be performed in a manner similar to that described with respect to blocks 4885 and/or 4864, including by providing a user-facing GUI of the LTG Server system that enables a user to display on a client device information of various types about that user's activities or other information of interest within the LTG Server system. For example, as discussed with respect to block 4864 and elsewhere herein, the information that is displayed to a user may include one or more of the following non-exclusive types of information: information about items or objects that are available to the user (e.g., tasks that are available to be performed, offers for which the user is eligible and are available to be qualified for by the user, rewards that are available based on previously satisfied offers or other activities, etc.); information about things that have already been earned or are otherwise associated with the user (e.g., rewards from completed tasks or otherwise for offers whose criteria have been satisfied, positions on leaderboards associated with games or other types of activities, etc.); information about suggestions from the LTG Server system regarding items of possible interest′ to the user, such as indications of users, vendors, offers, and/or tasks, including based on matchmaking types of activities and other automated suggestions as discussed elsewhere herein—as one illustrative example, a suggestion may be made to a user (e.g., based on corresponding prior activities or other expressed preferences of the user and/or other related users) of a possible interest of the user in a restaurant that the user has not yet visited, such as based on the type of restaurant and it being in a particular location and providing a particular type of service or activities (e.g., providing trivia-based games); other types of information (e.g., community-based information, including information about user results or other activities of other users within the LTG Server system, such as comments or voting results or other information supplied by such users); etc. As discussed in greater detail elsewhere herein, the routine 4800 may in some embodiments perform additional activities with respect to blocks 4864 and/or 4866, including to validate the completion of a task and/or task results from such task completion in various manners.
The user to whom information is provided in block 4864 may further perform a variety of types of activities with respect to tasks or other displayed information, and information about activities that the user takes may be tracked and used in various manners, as described herein. Examples of such tracking and use of such information include tracking activities by a user and viewing information about an offer or a task, viewing additional details about an offer or a task, selecting a task or otherwise selecting an offer to begin task performance in order to qualify for the offer, performing one or more attempts to complete such a task or otherwise qualify for an offer, completing such a task or otherwise qualifying for such an offer, etc. Such tracked user activity may further be associated with information specific to the user, offer, and/or associated vendor, and/or with one or more related groups for corresponding users, vendors, and/or offers.
After block 4887, the routine continues to block 4888 to store information about any identified validated task results from one or more of blocks 4885-4887, and to initiate a corresponding update to records of the LTG Server system. Such an update to records of the LTG Server system may include, for example, one or more of the following: updating information associated with a user whose task results were validated to identify such successful performance and optionally to initiate providing a corresponding reward to the user (in a manner similar to that discussed with respect to block 4866), as well as enabling other uses of the information (e.g., so that later activities performed with respect to block 4882 in selecting tasks and/or task types for the user may include or emphasize corresponding tasks or task types for the validated task results; to enable tracking of corresponding aggregate task performance success information for the user; etc.); updating information associated with a user whose task results were not validated (e.g., so that later activities performed with respect to block 4882 in selecting tasks and/or task types for the user may remove or deemphasize corresponding tasks or task types for the non-validated task results; to enable tracking of corresponding aggregate task performance failure information for the user; etc.); updating information associated with the offer and/or associated vendor of the task results that were validated or not validated, such as to enable tracking of corresponding aggregate task performance success and/or failure information; updating information associated with related user groups and/or related vendor groups and/or related offer groups for the user, offer and vendor involved, such as to enable tracking of corresponding aggregate task performance success and/or failure information; updating information associated with the task type for the task results that were validated or not validated, such as to enable tracking of corresponding aggregate task performance success and/or failure information; etc.
After block 4888, or if it is instead determined in block 4884 that the information or instructions received in block 4805 are not to validate task results from completion of task performance, the routine continues instead to block 4816 to determine whether the information or instructions received in block 4805 are to use completed task results information in one or more manners. Such task results usage activities may be performed at various times in various embodiments and situations, including as part of block 4866 (or after block 4864 and before block 4866).
If it is determined in block 4816 to use completed task results information in one or more manners, the routine continues to block 4817 to optionally make the task results available to the vendor who provided a corresponding offer for the task, such as per vendor preferences and/or if the completed task relates to the vendor. Such task results may be provided to the vendor individually or in aggregate, and in some embodiments and situations may include additional information about how the performance of the task occurred (e.g., a location of the task performance, a time of the task performance, a gender of the user who performed the task, actual resulting data such as a photo, video, written question, question results, etc., an identity of the user and/or other information about the user such as demographic information, etc. In other embodiments and situations the task results may not be provided to the vendor, such as based on an indicated choice of the vendor, for tasks that are not associated with a vendor-specified offer, for tasks that involve providing information for use by the LTG Server system rather than for the vendor, etc. For task results provided to the vendor, the resulting information may enable the vendor to receive crowdsourced data based on user activities, including for tasks related to the vendor (e.g., take a photo of yourself or another user at a business location of the vendor or with a product of the vendor or using a service of the vendor, provide a written question that asks trivia information or other types of information about the vendor or about a product or service of the vendor, based on user voting or other feedback on information about the vendor and/or about products or services of the vendor, etc.). In addition, in some embodiments and situations, some or all such task results information may be provided to entities other than the vendor (e.g., to provide aggregate or summary information about how task performance occurred for one or more tasks, but not to provide actual content or data from particular task results), such as if the vendor agrees (e.g., in exchange for receiving corresponding information from other vendors, and/or for a fee or other benefits provided to the vendor making the information available) or does not opt out of such sharing, or as otherwise may be automatically determined and/or directed by the LTG Server system. Such other entities may include, for example, other vendors in one or more related vendor groups, any user or entity within the LTG Server system, one or more third-party entities external to the LTG Server system (e.g., advertisers), etc.
After block 4817, the routine continues to block 4818 to optionally aggregate information about user tasks results and other user task performance for multiple related users, vendors, offers, and/or task types, and to make such aggregated information available to one or more entities by the LTG Server system (e.g., any user or entity within the LTG Server system, one or more third-party entities external to the LTG Server system, etc.). For example, information may be aggregated in one or more of the following non-exclusive manners: for multiple users that perform any tasks for a particular offer; for multiple users that perform a particular task for a particular offer; for multiple users that perform any tasks of a particular task type for a particular offer; for multiple users that perform a task of any task type and/or any task of a particular task type and/or a particular task for any offers from a particular vendor and/or for a particular offer from a particular vendor; for any such combination of users, offers, vendors, tasks and task types for one or more groups of related users and/or one or more groups of related vendors and/or one or more groups of related offers. After block 4818, the routine continues to block 4819 to, for each offer by a vendor with completed task results by a user that is currently being considered for use, determine one or more related user groups for the user, one or more related vendor groups for the vendor, and/or one or more related offer groups for the offer, and to update corresponding task completion information for the related user, vendor, and/or offer groups, such as in a manner similar to that discussed with respect to block 4888, and for later use in a manner as discussed with respect to block 4882 and elsewhere herein.
While corresponding information is being tracked at this time for tasks who have been completed, a variety of other types of task-related information may be tracked for such users, vendors, offers, and/or related groups at other times and in other manner, including for one or more of the following non-exclusive list: based on users who have viewed information about a task; based on who have chosen to view additional information about a task (e.g., task details); based on users who have chosen to begin performance of a task; based on users who have done one or more attempts at completion of the task; based on users who have completed the task; corresponding to an amount of time or other attribute based on performance of the task, etc. —furthermore, for one or more of such types of information, a variety of types of statistical and other information may be gathered and determined, including to calculate a total quantity of such activities, a percent of some activities with respect to other activities (e.g., a number of users who have attempted performance of a task and who have completed it in one time, a number of users who have attempted performance of a task and who have completed it in any number of attempts, a number of users who have attempted performance of a task and who have never completed it, etc.).
In addition, as discussed in greater detail elsewhere (including with respect to block 4825), related groups of users, offers, and/or vendors may be determined in various manners, including based on various types of attributes about those entities and items, and with information about such entities and items being able to be obtained by the LTG Server system in various manners in various embodiments. For example, information about users and/or vendors may be gathered by the LTG Server system having some or all such users and/or vendors engage in a registration process with the LTG Server system in which some or all such information is supplied by the user and/or vendor, by tracking activities of particular users and/or vendors within the LTG Server system, by retrieving information about particular users and/or vendors from one or more external systems that have such information (e.g., from Facebook or another social networking site with which a user or vendor has registered and supplied some or all such information), etc. —information about users and/or venders may include, for example, one or more of location (e.g., by neighborhood or city or county or state or country or other division, etc.), age, birth month, gender, birth date, political affiliations, interests, relationship status, email domain, location), friend data (e.g., from an external social networking site or other external site, as specified by a user to the LTG Server system, as determined by the LTG Server system due to inter-user activities within the LTG Server system, etc.); etc.
After block 4819, or if it is instead determined in block 4816 that the information or instructions received in block 4805 are not to use completed task results in one or more manners, the routine continues instead to block 4841 to determine whether the information or instructions received in block 4805 are to perform activities related to validation of one or more offer redemption occurrences. If so, the routine continues to block 4842 to, for each offer that a user has earned an associated reward with a vendor, provide instructions to the vendor and/or to the user about one or more steps to be performed to validate the redemption of the offer by the user (e.g., at a business location of the vendor by an in-person visit of the user). It will be appreciated that the activities of blocks 4841-4843 may be performed at various times and in various manners, including with respect to block 4866 when a user satisfies criteria to qualify for an offer, at a time when a user attempts to redeem an offer with the vendor, or at any time in between.
In some embodiments, the information may be provided to a vendor system (or associated with an account of the vendor with the LTG Server system that will be accessible to the vendor at a time of a user attempt at offer redemption), such as to identify a particular unique identifier for the offer redemption (e.g., a bar code, a unique number, etc.), a photo or other identifying information for the user (e.g., biometric information), a name or other identifying information for the user, etc. The provided information may further include instructions to the vendor about a suggested or required process to use to verify that a person attempting to redeem an offer is actually the user who qualified for the offer, such as to instruct the vendor to view the provided photo of the user and to verify that the person attempting the redemption is the same person, to view the name of the user and to verify that the person attempting the offer redemption has the same name (e.g., via official identification of the person), to view or otherwise access information about the identifier associated with the offer and to verify that the person attempting to redeem the offer has the correct identifier (e.g., by scanning a barcode that the person provides on paper or on a display screen of a mobile device of the person), etc. In a similar manner, some or all such information may be provided to a user mobile device or other client device (or associated with an account of the user with the LTG Server system that will be accessible to the user at a time of an attempt by the user at offer redemption), such as to provide a bar code or other identifier for an offer to a user who is qualified for the offer, and/or to provide information to the user about activities that the user may be asked perform as part of the offer redemption validation (e.g., to provide a photo ID or other identifying information regarding the user's name and/or image), etc.
After block 4842, the routine continues to block 4843 to, for any validated offer redemptions, update corresponding records of the LTG Server system, and optionally initiate providing an offer or reward for an offer to one or more corresponding users. For example, if an offer or reward includes points within the LTG Server system or other non-monetary system recognition, the routine in block 4843 may initiate the providing of such rewards, or may otherwise take actions to authorize or direct the vendor to provide monetary-based or other commercial rewards to the user. Furthermore, after a completed task has been validated (or if such validation is not performed), the providing or otherwise initiating providing of an offer or reward to the user may be performed in various manners, including providing physical or electronic coupons or other promotional codes or information to a user, such as to be available via a client-side GUI as described with respect to block 4864 and elsewhere, to be displayed on a mobile device of a user (e.g., for presentation to a vendor as part of validating an offer redemption), etc. In addition, the updating of the records may include updating various statistical information associated with one or more users, vendors, and/or offers (including for related groups of such users, vendors, and/or offers), as discussed in greater detail elsewhere.
After block 4843, or if it is instead determined in block 4841 that the information or instructions received in block 4805 are not to perform validation of an offer redemption, the routine continues instead to block 4889 to determine whether one or more other requests or indications are received in block 4805. If so, the routine continues to block 4890 to perform one or more other indicated operations as appropriate. For example, such other indicated operations may include any other actions or activities described herein, including other actions and activities by the LTG Server system to support or enable other activities described with respect to routine 4800, or more generally described with respect to any of
After block 4890, or if it is instead determined in block 4889 that other indications or instructions are not received, the routine continues to 4895 to determine whether to continue, such as until an explicit indication to terminate is received. If it is determined to continue, the routine returns to block 4805, and otherwise continues to block 4899 and ends.
It will also be appreciated that in some embodiments the functionality provided by the routines discussed above may be provided in alternative ways, such as being split among more routines or consolidated into fewer routines. Similarly, in some embodiments illustrated routines may provide more or less functionality than is described, such as when other illustrated routines instead lack or include such functionality respectively, or when the amount of functionality that is provided is altered. In addition, while various operations may be illustrated as being performed in a particular manner (e.g., in serial or in parallel) and/or in a particular order, those skilled in the art will appreciate that in other embodiments the operations may be performed in other orders and in other manners. It will similarly be appreciated that data structures discussed above may be structured in different manners, including for databases or user interface screens/pages or other types of data structures, such as by having a single data structure split into multiple data structures or by having multiple data structures consolidated into a single data structure. Similarly, in some embodiments illustrated data structures may store more or less information than is described, such as when other illustrated data structures instead lack or include such information respectively, or when the amount or types of information that is stored is altered.
Non-exclusive example embodiments described herein are further described in the following clauses.
A1. A computer-implemented method comprising:
receiving, by one or more configured computing systems, information about a promotional offer for a vendor, the promotional offer having one or more associated eligibility criteria and having an associated reward corresponding to one or more items commercially available from the vendor;
determining, by the one or more configured computing systems, that one or more users satisfy the eligibility criteria based at least in part on one or more geographical locations of the users;
providing, by the one or more configured computing systems, information to one or more client devices of the users that identifies a task to be completed by the one or more users in order to obtain the reward associated with the promotional offer;
receiving, by the one or more configured computing systems, an indication of completion of the task by the one or more users; and
initiating, by the one or more configured computing systems, providing the reward associated with the promotional offer to the users based at least in part on the completion of the task.
A2. The method of clause A1 wherein the one or more configured computing systems are part of a location-based task-game server system, and wherein the vendor is one of multiple vendor clients of the location-based task-game server system that each provide fees to the location-based task-game server system for activities of the location-based task-game server system that include providing information to eligible users about promotional offers.
A3. The method of clause A2 wherein the one or more users are a subset of a plurality of users of the location-based task-game server system that each execute a software application from the location-based task-game server system on a mobile client device of the user, and wherein the providing of the information to the one or more client devices of the one or more users includes providing that information via the software application that is executing on each of the one or more client devices.
A4. The method of clause A3 further comprising monitoring, by the one or more configured computing systems, information about geographic locations of the plurality of users based at least in part on information from the software application, and wherein the determining that one or more users satisfy the eligibility criteria is based at least in part on the monitored information.
A5. The method of any of clauses A2-A4 wherein the location-based task-game server system is provided by a first entity, wherein the promotional offer is associated with at least one of multiple task types defined within the location-based task-game server system, and wherein the method further comprises:
providing, by the one or more configured computing systems, a programmatic interface of the location-based task-game server system;
receiving, by the one or more configured computing systems, a request from an executing application via the programmatic interface for information about promotional offers having associated tasks of one or more indicated task types that include the at least one task type, the application being provided by a second entity distinct from the first entity and having a plurality of additional users; and
providing, by the one or more configured computing systems, information about the promotional offer to the application in response to the request, to enable one or more of the additional users of the application to complete tasks of the at least one defined task type in order to obtain the reward associated with the promotional offer.
A6. The method of any of clauses A1-A5 wherein the received information is from the vendor and includes information about a defined notification trigger of the vendor, and wherein the method further comprises, after the determining that one or more users satisfy the eligibility criteria and before the providing of the information to the one or more client devices of the users:
notifying, by the one or more configured computing systems, the vendor that one or more users are determined to satisfy the eligibility criteria; and
in response to the notifying, receiving, by the one or more configured computing systems, an indication from the vendor to proceed with making the promotional offer available to the one or more users,
and wherein the providing of the information to the one or more client devices of the users is performed in response to the indication from the vendor to proceed.
A7. The method of clause A6 wherein the determining that one or more users satisfy the eligibility criteria includes identifying the one or more users, and wherein the notifying of the vendor includes providing information specific to the one or more users to the vendor.
A8. The method of any of clauses A1-A7 further comprising, before the receiving of the information about the promotional offer for the vender:
receiving, by the one or more configured computing systems, information about a plurality of prior promotional offers that were previously made to multiple users, each of the prior promotional offers having an associated reward corresponding to one or more commercially available items and having one or more associated eligibility criteria for use in identifying users eligible to obtain the associated reward;
identifying, by the one or more configured computing systems, at least one user that currently satisfies the eligibility criteria for one of the prior promotional offers;
determining, by the one or more configured computing systems, and in response to the identifying, a suggested offer for the vendor to currently make to users that include the identified at least one user, the suggested offer being based on the one prior promotional offer; and
notifying, by the one or more configured computing systems, and in response to the determining, the vendor about the suggested offer, and
wherein the receiving of the information about the promotional offer for the vender includes receiving an indication from the vendor to proceed with the suggested offer based at least in part on the notifying.
A9. The method of clause A8 wherein the notifying of the vendor about the suggested offer includes providing information specific to the at least one user to the vendor, and wherein the one or more users include the at least one user.
A10. The method of any of clauses A1-A9 wherein the one or more configured computing systems provide a location-based task-game server system, and wherein the providing of the information to the one or more client devices of the users includes providing, by the one or more configured computing systems, information to a client device of a first user of the one or more users as part of a graphical user interface provided by the location-based task-game server system.
A11. The method of clause A10 wherein the providing of the information to the client device of the first user includes displaying, to the first user, first information associated with the first user within the location-based task-game server system, the first information indicating one or more offers within the location-based task-game server system for which the first user is eligible, one or more rewards that have been earned by the first user within the location-based task-game server system, and one or more suggestions for the first user that are automatically determined by the location-based task-game server system about at least one vendor registered with the location-based task-game server system.
A12. The method of any of clauses A1-A11 wherein the one or more users include a first user, and wherein the method further comprises:
before the providing of the information to the one or more client devices of the users that identifies the task, determining, by the one or more configured computing systems, the task for the promotional offer for the first user in a manner specific to the first user; and
enabling the first user to perform the task for the promotional offer.
A13. The method of clause A12 wherein the determining of the task for the promotional offer for the first user includes obtaining information about prior activities of the first user related to performance of tasks, and selecting at least one preferred task type for the first user based at least in part on an analysis of the obtained information, and wherein the task for the promotional offer is of a type that is one of the selected at least one preferred task type.
A14. The method of any of clauses A1-A13 wherein the one or more users include a first user, wherein the completion of the task by the one or more users is performed by the first user, and wherein the method further comprises, after the receiving of the indication of the completion of the task:
providing to the vendor information about task results that are generated by the completion of the task by the first user; and
receiving information from the vendor to validate that the task results are acceptable, so as to qualify the first user to obtain the reward associated with the first promotional offer,
and wherein the initiating of the providing of the reward associated with the promotional offer to the users includes performing the initiating of the providing of the reward to the first user based at least in part on the received information from the vendor.
A15. The method of any of clauses A1-A14 wherein the one or more users include a first user, wherein the completion of the task by the one or more users is performed by the first user, and wherein the method further comprises, after the receiving of the indication of the completion of the task:
providing information to the vendor about one or more steps to be performed as part of a validation process for a later attempt by a person to redeem the reward associated with the promotional offer, the provided information including two or more of a group including a photo of the first user and a name of the first user and a unique identifier associated with the promotional offer and the first user.
A16. The method of any of clauses A1-A15 wherein the providing of the information to the vendor further includes providing instructions for the vendor to use the provided information as part of the validation process.
A17. The method of any of clauses A1-A16 wherein the one or more users include a first user, wherein the completion of the task by the one or more users is performed by the first user and includes the first user providing information that is related to the vendor, and wherein the method further comprises, after the receiving of the indication of the completion of the task:
providing, to the vendor, task results that are generated by the completion of the task by the first user, the provided task results including the information related to the vendor that is provided by the first user.
A18. The method of clause A17 wherein the providing of the task results to the vendor further includes providing one or more types of information to the vendor about performance of the task by the first user.
A19. The method of any of clauses A1-A18 wherein the one or more users include a first user, wherein the completion of the task by the one or more users is performed by the first user, and wherein the method further comprises, after the receiving of the indication of the completion of the task:
analyzing, by the one or more configured computing systems, one or more types of information about performance of the task by the first user, to enable use of the analyzed one or more types of information during future interactions with the first user.
A20. The method of clause A19 wherein the analyzing of the one or more types of information includes determining one or more preferences of the first user based at least in part on the analyzed one or more types of information, and wherein the method further comprises performing the future interactions with the first user, the performing of the future interactions including automatically generating one or more suggestions for the first user based at least in part on the determined one or more preferences and including providing information to the first user based on the automatically generated one or more suggestions.
A21. The method of any of clauses A1-A20 wherein the one or more configured computing systems provide a location-based task-game server system, and wherein the method further comprises:
identifying, by the one or more configured computing systems, at least one related group with multiple members, the identified at least one related group including a user group that includes multiple related users of the location-based task-game server system that share at least one common attribute or a vendor group that includes multiple related vendors registered with the location-based task-game server system that share at least one common attribute or an offer group that includes multiple related offers available via the location-based task-game server system that share at least one common attribute; and
using information about one or more members of the multiple members of the identified at least one related group to provide functionality that benefits one or more other additional members of the multiple members of the identified at least one related group.
A22. The method of clause A21 wherein the identified at least one related group includes at least two of the user group and the vendor group and the offer group, and wherein the method further comprises combining information from at least two to identify information to suggest to a user in the user group or to identify information to suggest to a vendor in the vendor group.
A23. The method of any of clauses A21-A2 wherein the identifying of the at least one related group includes identifying multiple of the vendor groups and identifying multiple of the user groups and identifying multiple of the offer groups.
A24. The method of any of clauses A1-A23 wherein the one or more configured computing systems provide a location-based task-game server system, and wherein the task is of a task type that is selected from multiple defined task types within the location-based task-game server system and has one or more specified criteria to be satisfied, the multiple defined task types including having a user take and submit a photo, having a user take and submit a video, having a user submit an answer to a question, having a user write a submit a question, having a user vote on an indicated topic, having a user share an indicated type of information with one or more other users, having a user invite another user to join the location-based task-game server system, having a user play at least a portion of a game, and having a user create a user-specified group.
A25. A non-transitory computer-readable medium having stored contents that configure a computing system to perform a method, the method comprising:
receiving, by the configured computing system, information about a promotional offer for a vendor, the promotional offer having an associated reward corresponding to one or more items commercially available from the vendor;
participating, by the configured computing system, in performance of an identified task by an eligible user based at least in part on one or more interactions of the eligible user with a mobile device in one or more specified locations, wherein completion of the identified task by the eligible user qualifies the eligible user to obtain the reward associated with the promotional offer; and
after the completion of the identified task by the eligible user, initiating, by the configured computing system, providing the reward associated with the promotional offer to the eligible user based at least in part on the completion of the identified task.
A26. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of clause A25 wherein the configured computing system is part of a location-based task-game server remote from the mobile device of the eligible user, wherein the promotional offer further has one or more associated eligibility criteria that include the one or more specified locations, and wherein the participating in the performance of the identified task by the eligible user includes:
determining, by the configured computing system, that one or more users satisfy eligibility criteria for the promotional offer based at least in part on one or more geographical locations of the users that match the one or more specified locations, wherein the one or more users include the eligible user;
providing, by the configured computing system, information to the mobile device of the eligible user about the identified task; and
receiving, by the configured computing system, an indication from the mobile device of the completion of the identified task by the eligible user.
A27. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of any of clauses A25-A26 wherein the configured computing system is the mobile device of the eligible user, wherein the promotional offer further has one or more associated eligibility criteria that include the one or more specified locations, and wherein the participating in the performance of the identified task by the eligible user includes:
presenting, by the configured computing system, information to the eligible user via the mobile device that enables the eligible user to perform at least one of the one or more interactions of the eligible user with the mobile device;
receiving, by the configured computing system, information from the eligible user as part of the one or more interactions of the eligible user with the mobile device; and
sending, by the configured computing system, information to a remote location-based task-game server that includes the received information from the one or more interactions of the eligible user with the mobile device.
A28. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of clause A27 wherein the method further comprises, before the receiving of the information from the eligible user:
presenting, by the configured computing system, information to the eligible user via the mobile device about the identified task; and
receiving, by the configured computing system, an indication from the eligible user to proceed with the performance of the identified task.
A29. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of any of clauses A25-A28 wherein the computer-readable medium is a memory of the configured computing system, and wherein the contents are instructions that when executed program the configured computing system to perform the method.
A30. A computer-implemented method comprising:
receiving, by one or more configured computing systems of a location-based task-game server system provided by a first entity, information about a plurality of promotional offers, each of the promotional offers having an associated reward corresponding to one or more items commercially available from at least one vendor and having one or more associated tasks to be completed by a user in order to obtain the associated reward;
providing, by the one or more configured computing systems, a programmatic interface of the location-based task-game server system to enable access to information about at least some of the plurality of promotional offers;
receiving, by the one or more configured computing systems, a request from an application via the programmatic interface for information about promotional offers having associated tasks of one or more indicated task types, the application being provided by a second entity distinct from the first entity;
determining, by the one or more configured computing systems, a subset of the plurality of promotional offers having associated tasks of the one or more indicated task types; and
providing, by the one or more configured computing systems, information about the promotional offers of the determined subset to the application in response to the request, to enable users of the application to complete the tasks associated with the promotional offers of the determined subset and to obtain the rewards associated with the promotional offers of the determined subset.
A31. The method of clause A30 wherein the method further comprises, after the providing of the information about the promotional offers of the determined subset to the application:
receiving, by the one or more configured computing systems, additional information from the application via the programmatic interface that indicates a specified user has completed a task associated with one of the promotional offers of the determined subset; and
initiating, by the one or more configured computing systems, providing the reward associated with the one promotional offer to the specified user based at least in part on the received additional information.
A32. A non-transitory computer-readable medium having stored contents that configure a computing system to perform a method, the method comprising:
sending, by an application executing on the configured computing system, a request to a programmatic interface provided by a location-based task-game server system operated by a first entity, the request being for information about promotional offers available via the location-based task-game server system that have associated tasks of one or more indicated task types, the application being provided by a second entity distinct from the first entity;
receiving, by the executing application, information in response to the sent request, the received information indicating one or more promotional offers that each have an associated reward corresponding to one or more items commercially available from at least one vendor and each have one or more associated tasks of the one or more indicated task types to be completed by a user in order to obtain the associated reward;
participating, by the executing application, in performance by an eligible user of one of the one or more associated tasks for one of the indicated one or more promotional offers, the performance by the eligible user including one or more interactions of the eligible user with a mobile device; and
after the performance by the eligible user of the one associated task, initiating, by the executing application, providing the reward associated with the one indicated promotional offer to the eligible user based at least in part on the performance of the one associated task.
A33. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of clause A32 wherein the configured computing system is part of a game server system remote from the mobile device of the eligible user and from the location-based task-game server system, and wherein the participating in the performance by the eligible user of the associated task includes:
determining, by the executing application, that one or more end users of the application satisfy eligibility criteria for the one indicated promotional offer based at least in part on one or more geographical locations of the one or more end users, wherein the one or more end users include the eligible user;
providing, by the executing application, information to the mobile device of the eligible user about the one associated task; and
receiving, by the executing application, an indication from the mobile device of the performance by the eligible user of the one associated task.
A34. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of any of clauses A32-A33 wherein the configured computing system is the mobile device of the eligible user, and wherein the participating in the performance by the eligible user of the associated task includes:
presenting, by the configured computing system, information to the eligible user via the mobile device that enables the eligible user to perform at least one of the one or more interactions of the eligible user with the mobile device;
receiving, by the configured computing system, information from the eligible user as part of the one or more interactions of the eligible user with the mobile device; and
sending, by the configured computing system, information to the location-based task-game server system that includes the received information from the one or more interactions of the eligible user with the mobile device.
A35. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of clause A34 wherein the method further comprises, before the receiving of the information from the eligible user:
presenting, by the configured computing system, information to the eligible user via the mobile device about the one associated task; and
receiving, by the configured computing system, an indication from the eligible user to proceed with the performance of the one associated task.
A36. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of any of clauses A32-A35 wherein the computer-readable medium is a memory of the configured computing system, and wherein the contents are instructions that when executed program the configured computing system to perform the method.
A37. A computer-implemented method comprising:
receiving, by one or more configured computing systems, information about a plurality of prior promotional offers that were previously made by multiple vendors to multiple users, each of the prior promotional offers having an associated reward corresponding to one or more items commercially available from at least one vendor and having one or more associated eligibility criteria for use in identifying users eligible to obtain the associated reward;
identifying, by the one or more configured computing systems, one or more users that currently satisfy the eligibility criteria for one of the prior promotional offers;
determining, by the one or more configured computing systems, and in response to the identifying, a suggested offer for at least one of the multiple vendors to currently make to the identified one or more users, the suggested offer being based on the one prior promotional offer; and
notifying, by the one or more configured computing systems, and in response to the determining, the at least one vendor about the suggested offer, to enable the at least one vendor to indicate to currently make the suggested offer to the identified one or more users.
A38. The method of clause A37 wherein the notifying of the at least one vendor about the suggested offer includes providing information specific to the identified one or more users to the at least one vendor.
A39. The method of any of clauses A37-A38 further comprising:
receiving, by the one or more configured computing systems, an indication from the at least one vendor to proceed with the suggested offer based at least in part on the notifying;
providing, by the one or more configured computing systems, information to one or more client devices of the identified one or more users that identifies a task to be completed by the identified one or more users in order to obtain a reward associated with the suggested offer; and
after receiving an indication that one of the identified users has completed the identified task, initiating, by the one or more configured computing systems, providing the reward associated with the suggested offer to the one identified user.
A40. A non-transitory computer-readable medium having stored contents that configure a computing system to perform a method, the method comprising:
providing, by the configured computing system, information about one or more promotional offers to a location-based task-game server system operated by a first entity, wherein the location-based task-game server system makes a plurality of offers available to a plurality of end users of the location-based task-game server system, wherein the configured computing system is operated by a vendor distinct from the first entity, and wherein the one or more promotional offers each has an associated reward corresponding to one or more items commercially available from the vendor and has one or more associated eligibility criteria for use in identifying users eligible to obtain the associated reward;
during a first period of time, providing, by the vendor, the associated rewards for the one or more promotional offers to multiple end users of the location-based task-game server system based on the location-based task-game server system determining that the multiple end users are eligible in accordance with the associated eligibility criteria for the one or more promotional offers;
at a time after the first period of time when the one or more promotional offers are no longer valid, receiving, by the configured computing system, a notification from the location-based task-game server system of a suggested new offer to make to one or more additional end users of the location-based task-game server system, the suggested new offer being automatically determined by the location-based task-game server system based at least in part on comparing current information about the plurality of end users to the associated eligibility criteria for the one or more promotional offers that are no longer valid; and
in response to the notification of the suggested new offer, sending, by the configured computing system, a response to the location-based task-game server system that indicates to currently make the suggested new offer to the identified one or more users.
A41. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of clause A40 wherein the method further comprises:
providing, by the configured computing system, information to the location-based task-game server system about a defined notification trigger for use with one or more additional promotional offers, wherein the notification trigger has multiple associated trigger criteria for use in identifying matching users, the trigger criteria including an indication of one or more geographical locations and including information about one or more types of users; and
receiving, by the configured computing system and a time after the providing of the information about the defined notification trigger, a further notification from the location-based task-game server system that indicates that the defined notification trigger has been automatically determined by the location-based task-game server system to be satisfied by one or more identified end users of the location-based task-game server system, to enable the vendor to dynamically determine to make at least one of the one or more additional promotional offers to the identified one or more users.
A42. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of clause A41 wherein the further notification includes information specific to the identified one or more users, and wherein the method further comprises sending, by the configured computing system, a response to the location-based task-game server system that indicates for the location-based task-game server system to make the at least one additional promotional offer to the identified one or more users.
A43. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of any of clauses A40-A42 wherein the further notification includes information about a projected monetary profit to the vendor from making the at least one additional promotional offer to the identified one or more users, the projected monetary profit being determined at least in part by the location-based task-game server system, and wherein the method further comprises sending, by the configured computing system, a response to the location-based task-game server system that indicates for the location-based task-game server system to make the at least one additional promotional offer to the identified one or more users.
A44. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of any of clauses A40-A43 wherein the computer-readable medium is a memory of the configured computing system, and wherein the contents are instructions that when executed program the configured computing system to perform the method.
A45. A computer-implemented method comprising:
receiving, by one or more configured computing systems, information about a notification trigger defined by a vendor for use with one or more promotional offers, the notification trigger having multiple associated eligibility criteria for use in identifying matching users, the eligibility criteria including an indication of one or more geographical locations and including information about one or more types of users;
obtaining, by the one or more configured computing systems, information about monitored locations of a plurality of users;
identifying, by the one or more configured computing systems, one or more users of the plurality of users who currently satisfy the eligibility criteria for the defined trigger, the identifying being based in part on the obtained information about the monitored locations; and
notifying, by the one or more configured computing systems, and in response to the identifying, the vendor about the identified one or more users, to enable the vendor to dynamically determine to make at least one of the one or more promotional offers to the identified one or more users.
A46. The method of clause A45 further comprising:
determining, by the one or more configured computing systems, a projected monetary profit to the vendor from making an indicated promotional offer to the identified one or more users; and
determining, by the one or more configured computing systems, to perform the notifying of the vendor in response to the determining of the projected monetary profit.
A47. The method of clause A46 wherein the notifying of the vendor includes suggesting to the vendor to make the indicated promotional offer to users that include the identified one or more users, and includes indicating the determined projected monetary profit to the vendor.
A48. A computer-implemented method comprising:
receiving, by one or more configured computing systems, information about a plurality of promotional offers made by multiple vendors to multiple users, each of the promotional offers having an associated reward corresponding to one or more items commercially available from an associated vendor and having one or more associated eligibility criteria for use in identifying users eligible to obtain the associated reward;
receiving, by the one or more configured computing systems, an indication of completion of a task by a first user of the multiple users, wherein the completion of the task is performed by the first user as part of qualifying to obtain the reward associated with a first promotional offer of the plurality of promotional offers, and wherein the first user satisfies the eligibility criteria associated with the first promotional offer; and
performing, by the one or more configured computing systems, one or more actions from a group of actions (A)-(I) including:
A49. The method of clause A48 wherein the performing of the one or more actions includes performing at least two of the (G) identifying of the user group and of the (H) identifying of the vendor group and of the (I) identifying of the offer group, and wherein the method further comprises combining information from at least two of the identified user group and the identified vendor group and the identified offer group to identify information to suggest to a user in the identified user group and/or to a vendor in the identified vendor group.
A50. The method of any of clauses A48-A49 wherein the performing of the one or more actions includes performing the (G) identifying of the user group and the (H) identifying of the vendor group and the (I) identifying of the offer group, wherein the multiple related users of the identified user group include the first user, wherein the multiple related vendors of the identified vendor group include the associated vendor for the first promotional offer, wherein the multiple related offers of the identified offer group include the first promotional offer, and wherein the method further comprises combining information from the identified user group and the identified vendor group and the identified offer group to suggest to the first user an indicated offer in the identified offer group from a first vendor in the identified vendor group, wherein the indicated offer is automatically identified for the first user based at least in part on information about one or more other second users in the identified user group that are associated from prior activities with one or more second vendors in the identified vendor group distinct from the first vendor.
A51. The method of any of clauses A48-A49 wherein the performing of the one or more actions includes performing the (G) identifying of the user group and the (H) identifying of the vendor group and the (I) identifying of the offer group, wherein the multiple related users of the identified user group include the first user, wherein the multiple related vendors of the identified vendor group include the associated vendor for the first promotional offer, wherein the multiple related offers of the identified offer group include the first promotional offer, and wherein the method further comprises combining information from the identified user group and the identified vendor group and the identified offer group to suggest to a first vendor in the identified vendor group to make an indicated offer in the identified offer group to at least one user in the identified user group, wherein the indicated offer is automatically identified for the first vendor based at least in part on information about one or more other second vendors in the identified vendor group that are associated from prior activities with one or more second users in the identified user group distinct from the at least one user.
A52. The method of any of clauses A48-A51 wherein the one or more configured computing systems provide a location-based task-game server system, and wherein the task is of a task type that is selected from multiple defined task types within the location-based task-game server system and has one or more specified criteria to be satisfied, the multiple defined task types including having a user take and submit a photo, having a user take and submit a video, having a user submit an answer to a question, having a user write a submit a question, having a user vote on an indicated topic, having a user share an indicated type of information with one or more other users, having a user invite another user to join the location-based task-game server system, having a user play at least a portion of a game, and having a user create a user-specified group.
A53. The method of any of clauses A48-A52 wherein the performing of the one or more automated actions includes performing all of the providing of the information to the client device of the first user that identifies the task, the determining of the task to be performed by the first user for the first promotional offer, the providing of the information about the task results to the associated vendor for the first promotional offer for validation, the providing of the information to the associated vendor for the first promotional offer about the one or more steps to be performed as part of the validation process, the providing of the task results to the associated vendor for the first promotional offer, the analyzing of the one or more types of information about the performance of the task by the first user, the identifying of the user group and the identifying of the vendor group and the identifying of the offer group
A54. The method of clause A53 further comprising:
before the receiving of the indication of the completion of the task, determining, by the one or more configured computing systems, that the first user satisfies the eligibility criteria associated with the first promotional offer based at least in part on one or more geographical locations associated with the first user; and
initiating, by the one or more configured computing systems, providing the reward associated with the first promotional offer to the first user based at least in part on the completion of the task.
A55. A computer-implemented method comprising:
receiving, by one or more configured computing systems of a location-based task-game server system, information about a plurality of promotional offers available via the location-based task-game server system, wherein each of the promotional offers has an associated retailer that is one of a plurality of retailer clients of the location-based task-game server system and has one or more associated eligibility criteria that include one or more specified eligible user locations and has an associated reward corresponding to one or more products sold by the associated retailer, and wherein a first offer of the plurality of promotional offers having an associated first retailer further has an associated defined notification trigger with instructions related to an action to take when the eligibility criteria for the first offer are satisfied by at least one matching end user of the location-based task-game server system;
determining, by the one or more configured computing systems, that one or more first users of the location-based task-game server system satisfy the eligibility criteria for the first promotional offer based at least in part on one or more geographical locations of the first users that match the one or more specified eligible user locations for the first promotional offer, the first users being a subset of a plurality of end users of the location-based task-game server system;
determining, by the one or more configured computing systems and based at least in part on the instructions for the associated defined notification trigger of the first offer, to perform the action in association with the first users;
providing, by the one or more configured computing systems, information to one or more mobile client devices of the first users that identifies a task to be completed by the first users in order to obtain the reward associated with the first promotional offer;
receiving, by the one or more configured computing systems, an indication of completion of the task by the first users; and
initiating, by the one or more configured computing systems, providing the reward associated with the first promotional offer to the first users based at least in part on the completion of the task.
A56. The method of clause A55 wherein the action includes notifying the associated first retailer with information about the at least one matching end user, and wherein the method further comprises:
notifying, by the one or more configured computing systems, the associated first retailer that the first users satisfy the eligibility criteria for the first promotional offer, the notifying including making information specific to the first users available to the associated first retailer; and
in response to the notifying, receiving, by the one or more configured computing systems, an indication from the associated first retailer to proceed with making the first promotional offer available to the first users, and wherein the providing of the information to the one or more mobile client devices of the first users is performed in response to the indication from the associated first retailer to proceed.
A57. The method of any of clauses A55-A56 wherein the action includes making the first promotional offer to the at least one matching end user without further confirmation from the associated first retailer, and wherein the providing of the information to the one or more mobile client devices of the first users is performed in response to the determining to perform the action.
A58. The method of any of clauses A55-A57 further comprising:
retrieving, by the one or more configured computing systems, information about multiple prior promotional offers that were previously made by the plurality of retailer clients to the plurality of end users, each of the prior promotional offers having an associated reward and having one or more associated eligibility criteria for end users eligible to obtain the associated reward;
identifying, by the one or more configured computing systems, that multiple second users of the plurality of end users currently satisfy the eligibility criteria for a second promotional offer of the prior promotional offers;
determining, by the one or more configured computing systems, and in response to the identifying, a suggested offer for at least one of the plurality of retailer clients to currently make to the second users, the suggested offer being based on the second promotional offer; and
notifying, by the one or more configured computing systems, and in response to the determining the suggested offer, the at least one retailer client about the suggested offer, to enable the at least one retailer client to indicate to currently make the suggested offer to the second users.
A59. The method of clause A58 wherein the notifying of the at least one retailer client about the suggested offer includes providing information to the at least one retailer client about the second users.
A60. The method of clause A59 wherein the location-based task-game server system is provided by a first entity, wherein the first promotional offer is associated with at least one of multiple task types defined within the location-based task-game server system, and wherein the method further comprises:
providing, by the one or more configured computing systems, a programmatic interface of the location-based task-game server system;
receiving, by the one or more configured computing systems, a request from an executing application via the programmatic interface for information about promotional offers having associated tasks of one or more indicated task types that include the at least one task type, the application being provided by a second entity distinct from the first entity and having a plurality of additional end users; and
providing, by the one or more configured computing systems, information about the first promotional offer to the application in response to the request, to enable one or more of the additional end users of the application to complete tasks of the at least one defined task type in order to obtain the reward associated with the first promotional offer.
B1. A configured system comprising:
one or more hardware processors of one or more computing systems; and
one or more modules that are configured to, when executed by at least one of the one or more hardware processors, perform the method of any of clauses A1-A60.
C1. A non-transitory computer-readable medium having stored contents that, when executed, configure a computing system to perform the method of any of clauses A1-A60.
From the foregoing it will be appreciated that, although specific embodiments have been described herein for purposes of illustration, various modifications may be made without deviating from the spirit and scope of the invention. Accordingly, the invention is not limited by the exemplary details. In addition, while certain aspects of the invention may be now or later presented in certain claim forms, the inventors contemplate the various aspects of the invention in any available claim form. For example, while only some aspects of the invention may be initially recited as being embodied in a computer-readable medium, other aspects may likewise be so embodied.
This application is a continuation of International Application No. PCT/US2013/034175, filed Mar. 27, 2013 and entitled “Location-Based Task And Game Functionality;” and is also a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/843,804, filed Mar. 15, 2013 and entitled “Location-Based Task And Game Functionality;” each of which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety. U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/843,804 claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61/616,340, filed Mar. 27, 2012 and entitled “Location-Based Task And Game Functionality,” which is also hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 61616340 | Mar 2012 | US |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Parent | PCT/US2013/034175 | Mar 2013 | US |
| Child | 14498767 | US |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Parent | 13843804 | Mar 2013 | US |
| Child | PCT/US2013/034175 | US |
