1. The Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed generally to a system and method for electronically and anonymously conducting and participating in a referendum served on a subscription based content.
2. Background Art
U.S. Pat. No. 7,813,963 discloses a method and system for increasing the yield of response to an electronic solicitation to take action by presenting direct action links within the solicitation itself. It was disclosed that these direct action links are distinguished by the ability to initiate a transaction when a user interacts with them. It was further disclosed that the enhanced program has the capability of storing information about the user of the system for authorizing future transactions. FIG. 1 of the '963 patent depicts a referendum interface for a transaction that does not maintain anonymity. In fact, column 6 lines 52-53 and column 8 lines 22-23 of '963 teach a referendum that is contrary in nature to the one of the benefits offered by the present invention, i.e., anonymity. The '963 patent discloses an interface that allows a user to enter email addresses of his/her friends such that they may receive and weigh in on the same referendum.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,175,833 discloses an online voting system which provides a standardized database architecture that integrates editorial and production processes. The voting system has a survey database to store multiple surveys and a server to serve the surveys over a network to readers. Column 7 lines 41 to 53 discloses a mechanism by which a request is identified, i.e., the GUID. As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, a GUID is traceable to the computer which creates it.
However, a mechanism which enables tracing may not be tolerated by users concerned by privacy issues. Therefore, such a mechanism fails to inspire confidence amongst would-be referendum takers and therefore lacks the appeal to attract referendum participation.
U.S. Pat Pub. No. 2007/0192179 discloses systems and methods for survey based qualification of keyword searches and survey based qualification of keyword advertising. A searcher provides a search query to a search engine and is presented with at least one query-specific survey question. The searcher's original query and/or response to the query-specific survey question(s) are then used to generate search results. Although the concept of utilizing a survey result for refining a search process is disclosed, this disclosure however does not teach a referendum system that is anonymous, simple to use and a system and method in which referendums are standardized to promote sharing of referendum data.
Thus, there arises a need for a referendum system and method that are truly anonymous and simple to use such that referendum participation can be improved. Further, there arises a need for a referendum system and method where disparate referendum systems may be combined to increase sample size for providing statistically reliable information.
The present invention is directed toward a system and method for conducting a referendum, the system comprising:
In one embodiment, the system further comprises an advertisement banner served within the subscription based application. In another embodiment, the system further comprises a referendum statistics banner served within the client system. The subscription based application can include Really Simple Syndication (RSS), Internet Relay Chat (IRC) and microblogs.
Accordingly, it is a primary object of the present invention to provide a referendum system and method that is presented in a targeted area.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a referendum system that has a simple user interface and one that does not require an end user to navigate away from the user interface in order to respond to the referendum system.
Whereas there may be many embodiments of the present invention, each embodiment may meet one or more of the foregoing recited objects in any combination. It is not intended that each embodiment will necessarily meet each objective. Thus, having broadly outlined the more important features of the present invention in order that the detailed description thereof may be better understood, and that the present contribution to the art may be better appreciated, there are, of course, additional features of the present invention that will be described herein and will form a part of the subject matter of this specification.
In order that the manner in which the above-recited and other advantages and objects of the invention are obtained, a more particular description of the invention briefly described above will be rendered by reference to specific embodiments thereof which are illustrated in the appended drawings. Understanding that these drawings depict only typical embodiments of the invention and are not therefore to be considered to be limiting of its scope, the invention will be described and explained with additional specificity and detail through the use of the accompanying drawings in which:
The present referendum system provides a system and method for anonymously submitting a referendum result to a server. The present referendum provides a client system for an end user, the client system having an interface which enables fetching and submission of a referendum at the same interface without directing the end user to a second interface. In one embodiment, the client system is a subscription based application which enjoys increased viewership as compared to untargeted presentation of information. The present referendum system also provides a server system which is configurable to avoid redundant referendum result entry from a client system. The present referendum system further provides a mechanism to cause sharing of information between disparate referendum pools possible, thereby increasing statistical sample size.
A referendum as used herein connotes a type of survey requiring selection of one out of two choices presented. As an example, when presented with a question:
Referendum 1: “Do you drink Coca-cola in the morning?
Choice 1: Yes.
Choice 2: No.
A respondent to this referendum is expected to select a choice of either “Yes” or “No.” A survey on the other hand can be viewed as a superset of referendums. For example, a combination of referendums may constitute a survey. A survey question covering the above referendum may resemble the following:
Survey: Do you drink Coca-cola during the day?
Choice 1: Yes, in the morning.
Choice 2: Yes, in the afternoon.
Choice 3: No, not during the day.
As compared to the survey, had the answer to the above example referendum been Choice 1: Yes, there is still the ambiguity of whether the referendum taker drinks Coca-cola in the afternoon. If the answer had been Choice 2: No, the question of whether the referendum taker drinks Coca-cola in the afternoon remains unanswered. However, had there been another referendum as follows used in conjunction with the earlier referendum, the combined outcomes of the referendums would have been equivalent to the answer to the survey.
Referendum 2: “Do you drink Coca-cola in the afternoon?
Choice 1: Yes.
Choice 2: No.
If Referendums 1 and 2 both return the answers of Choice 2, then the answers are logically equivalent to Choice 3 of the survey question. The answers of Referendum 1 and Referendum 2 mirror Choices 1 and 2 of the survey question respectively. Although Referendums 1 and 2 may or may be presented as a group simultaneously, for statistical purposes, the answer to the survey question can be deduced from the answers to Referendums 1 and 2 taken as a whole. Therefore, although the present referendum system is designed to be simple and non-intrusive, as will be described elsewhere herein, surveys of increased sophistication can be deduced from referendums. Further, as will also be described herein, the present referendum system provides a means for standardizing referendums so that referendum servers of various sources can be synchronized to increase statistical sample size. As referendums represent surveys in their most basic form, the ease with which referendums are synchronized is increased.
A “user” as applied herein, defines a person who responds to a referendum, a respondent, a person who administers, designs, controls a referendum or receives results of a referendum or an administrator.
An administrator first selects a referendum he/she desires to set up (step 14). The interface of the software program of client2 receives this request and its software program transmits this request for a setup interface of a referendum as identified by a refID (step 16). The software program of the server 2 receives this request, performs a lookup of a referendum identified by refID and transmits a setup interface associated with this refID to client2 (step 18). The setup interface includes a means by which a parameter called countOnce is set. The parameter countOnce specifies whether or not multiple referendum results from a unique client should be considered. If countOnce is set, only one referendum result from a unique client will be considered. Otherwise, all referendum results from a unique user client will be tallied. The provider then sets and executes one or more parameters on the setup interface (step 20). The updated setup interface is then transmitted to the server (step 22). Upon setting up countOnce, the present referendum system is ready for use. Setup is performed only once for each referendum until new parameters are desired. If new parameters are desired, the aforementioned process is again invoked and completed. Alternatively, all referendums may be configured with most commonly used or preferred default parameters at upload to avoid running the aforementioned setup procedure.
An end user may then make a selection of a referendum through an interface of a software program (step 24). An interface can take many forms, for instance web browser, internet search engine, online newspaper, browser-controlled environment (e.g. Java applet), an interface coded in browser-supported language (e.g. Javascript) combined with a browser-rendered markup language such as HTML, social network interface and mobile gaming interface. It shall be noted that although the present invention is implementable in various interfaces, the ensuing example will be explained in the context of basic elements commonly available to each of these interfaces. The act of making such selection comes in the form of invoking a web browser, executing a search at an internet search engine, opening an email at an email client software or another interface. A common feature for each of these acts lies in the ease with which a referendum is presented to the end user. For instance, by invoking a web browser, a web page set as the home page of the web browser is automatically served. A referendum having properties (refID, geoID and keyword) matching those of a request from the web browser is transmitted to client1. In another instance, a search string is entered in an internet search engine and a search request is invoked. The request which contains a geolocation data can be automatically sent as a result of opening the interface or it can be a request that is sent upon clicking a button on the interface. Upon receiving the search request, a server of the internet search engine compares properties (geoID and/or at least one keyword) of the referendum and identifies a referendum matching those of the search request and transmits it along with the search result to the internet search engine at a client system. Therefore, an end user is not required to navigate away from an interface he/she is currently using. In contrast, U.S. Pat. Pub. No. 2007/0192179 discloses a system that is cumbersome to use as a user of such a system is redirected as evidenced in paragraph 19 of the '179 application, thereby discouraging the use of such a survey system:
“Success Criteria—shall mean any criteria defined by the advertiser indicating that a searcher has successfully performed an activity. These activities could be, but are not limited to (i) purchasing something from the advertiser's website (ii) filling out a survey on the advertisers website (iii) seeing the advertisers advertisement or (iv) going to the advertiser's or another sponsored link or website.”
In the '179 application, the user is redirected to an advertiser's website where one or more additional actions are expected.
Referring again to
Referring back to
A web bot is a software application designed to fetch, analyze and file information from web servers at a much higher rate than would be possible for a human alone. There always exists a possibility where web bots can be adversely used to affect the outcome of the referendums served by the present referendum system. In situations where referendum response contamination by web bots is a concern, a CAPTCHA or Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) is used in conjunction with the interface on which a referendum is presented to a human respondent in step 40. Reference is made to U.S. Pat. No. 7,929,805 for an implementation of CAPTCHA, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. In one embodiment, a CAPTCHA is served alongside a referendum that is being served with the referendum displayed in its entirety. In another embodiment, a CAPTCHA is configured to supersede a referendum to be displayed. In the latter embodiment, the referendum is served upon having met the CAPTCHA requirement (such as by entering the required CAPTCHA letters and/or numbers or verification answer and a button click). In use, a CAPTCHA corresponding to a verification answer and requiring a user-entered answer is provided before a referendum result can be transmitted to a server system. Upon receiving a user-entered answer, it is compared to the verification answer. If the user-entered answer matches the verification answer, the referendum result is transmitted to the server system and if the user-entered answer does not match the verification answer, the referendum result is not transmitted to the server system.
The Applicant further discovered that by allowing a respondent of a referendum to access and respond to a referendum only during a specific period of time, the amount of contamination due to web bots can be cut down even without the implementation of CAPTCHA. In use, a user is informed in step 27 of the availability of a referendum and the details for accessing it via a means such as an email, a notification within a secured online environment such as a member area of a social networking service and TV advertisements, and the like. The user can then access the pre-announced referendum at a specified future time period via a specified client interface. The Applicant further discovered that, by restricting access of a referendum to a pre-announced time period, referendum participation is increased in certain circumstances as the limited time period of access to a referendum urges users to take deliberate action to respond to the referendum.
In one embodiment, hashing of at least a portion of messages from a client system to a server system is performed according to FIPS 180-3 standards as disclosed in the Federal Information Processing Standards publication regarding Secure Hash Standard (SHS) of October 2008 by National Institute of Standards and Technology.
I2: What color do you like for your car, dark or light?
Choice 1: Dark.
Choice 2: Light.
I4: Do you prefer “Obsidian Black” to “Jet Black?”
Choice 1: Yes.
Choice 2: No.
I6: Do you prefer “Pearl White” to “Metallic White?”
Choice 1: Yes.
Choice 2: No.
I4 is configured to include only one criterion and the criterion is “Dark” while I6 is configured to also include only one criterion and the criterion is “Light.” Assuming I2 is selected as the starting referendum and if the answer to I2 is Choice 1, I4 will be selected. If Choice 2 of I2 is selected, I6 will be served instead.
In the context of a survey having two or more linked members, upon receiving a request for referendums, the present referendum system serves the very first referendum of the survey based upon the method an unlinked referendum is served, as it was disclosed elsewhere herein. In one embodiment, the ensuing referendums of the survey are served based on the concept of matching the criteria of a current referendum and the response to a previously served referendum. In another embodiment, the referendums of a survey are placed in a prefixed order and served based on a time schedule. Referring back the example of
Referring to
If the current referendum is not equivalent to any member of the global list, the current referendum is added to the global list (step 66). The current referendum is broadcast to the plurality of referendum pools B, C (step 68). The local identifier of the current referendum is replaced with the global identifier of the current referendum (step 70). The current referendum is added to all external and local lists of the other referendum pools of the plurality of referendum pools B,C (step 72). Upon completing step 72, all referendum pools that subscribes to the index pool server 50 now includes the new referendum created in referendum pool A and a common ID, i.e., which references the new referendum.
The following example illustrates a situation where manual deliberation may be required. Referendum 1: “Would you vote for Prime Minister Julia Gillard in 2014? Yes or No”
Referendum 2: “Re-elect Prime Minister Julia Gillard in 2014? Yes or No”
Although Referendums 1 and 2 share several keywords, manual deliberation may be required to ensure that the two referendums are equivalent.
As a second example, consider the following referendum:
Referendum 3: “I will not vote for Prime Minister Julia Gillard in 2014? Yes or No”
Logically, Referendum 3 is the inverse of Referendums 1 and 2. In one embodiment, an inverse operator may be applied to Referendum 3 to produce an equivalent referendum such as Referendum 1 or 2.
The benefit of the present method of sharing referendum information across multiple referendum pools becomes apparent for referendums in different languages.
As a third example, consider the following referendum:
Referendum 4: “Quieres votar por el Primer Ministro Julia Gillard en 2014? Si o No”
Referendum 4, which is expressed in Spanish, can be translated to a phrase that is equivalent to Referendums 1 or 2. The benefits of the ability to link referendums of various referendum pools become apparent when such linkages increase the size of a referendum pool to include other referendum pools subscribing to the same index pool server.
In the context of an internet search engine, the present referendum system cooperates with internet search engines to improve search results. One key component affecting the presentation of a search result (such as web position) is the popularity of a web page. One key component affecting the popularity of a web page lies in the number of quality clicks it receives. Although various internet search engines may define their quality clicks differently, most are configured to treat clicks from human users as quality clicks while clicks from robotic users are frowned upon. It is contemplated by the present invention that a robotic user may be any non-human operator (i.e., an internet bot, web bot program, virus, robot, web crawler, web spidering program, or any software applications that run automated tasks over the Internet), which is an artificial agent that, by its actions, conveys a sense that it has intent or agency of its own. A human user is contemplated as being a human, but also, an entity (virtual or physical) acting under the present intent of a human operator. Typically the web position of a web page is proportional to the number of quality clicks it receives. The present referendum system provides referendums that may be presented as results of an internet search. As a content enhancer, a referendum is served alongside main contents of a web page. The referendum aids in the web position of the web page by serving as a means to verify that the user of the web page is a human user. By providing an interface for human user interactions, the present referendum system allows the use of the referendum as a means for an internet search engine to tally quality clicks. Further, an internet search engine may further utilize the results of referendums to determine the web position of a web page. For instance, a web page associated with a referendum having a higher number of votes may be web positioned more favorably than a referendum that garners a lower number of votes.
More specifically, the internet search engine includes a search method for determining the web position of a referendum relative to other web pages indexed by the internet search engine. The search method first indexes the referendum. The search method then determines the number of quality clicks the referendum received before normalizing it to a normalized value. A normalized value indicates the degree of relevance of an indexed web page as compared to a search target of an internet search and it may include factors such as the number of quality clicks to a web page, the amount of changes to a web page over a period of time, the number of highly ranked incoming links and the like. The search method then compares the normalized value to normalized values corresponding to the other web pages indexed by the internet search engine. If the normalized value is higher than the normalized value corresponding to at least one of the other indexed web pages, the referendum is assigned a more favorable web position relative to the at least one of the other indexed web pages. If the normalized value is lower than the normalized value corresponding to at least one of the other indexed web pages, the referendum is assigned a less favorable web position relative to the at least one of the other indexed web pages.
Referring to
Applicant discovered there are at least three factors affecting the increased effectiveness of serving referendums in a subscription based applications. A referendum may be served based on a geoID and keywords relevant an article. For instance, the geoID of a referendum belonging to a referendum pool server is compared against the location associated with a router through which an HTTP request is routed. If the geoID matches a property associated with the location of the router, the referendum is considered relevant in terms of its proximity to the display on which the subscription based application is run. As an example, in the article “Tidal Waves Resurgence off Hokkaido,” the selection of the referendum: “I prefer Sumo or Baseball” may be based on an HTTP request that originates in Japan as Sumo is a uniquely Japanese sport. In this example, the geoID associated with a referendum may have only played a partial role in causing the referendum to be selected as the text of the article may also have provided keywords which are considered relevant to the referendum as Hokkaido is the name of an island in Japan. In this example, an advertisement banner 94 is displayed alongside an article 92 to further maximize the opportunity to advertise to users of the subscription based content 90. In this example, a referendum statistics banner 98 is displayed to further entice the user to vote as the display of referendum statistics banner 98 creates urgency in the part of the user to either strengthen or change the outcome of the referendum statistics. If the user feels strongly about baseball and desires to change the outcome of the banner that reads “69% Chose Sumo and 31% Chose Baseball. What about U?,” the user will most likely select the answer “Baseball” in order to cause an uptrend in the percentage vote associated with Baseball. A referendum statistics banner 98 has been found to improve participation in its corresponding referendum. If an article looks interesting to the user, the user can click on the article 92 or a link 106 provided within the article 92 to go to the originating website of the article 92 and read the full article. Similarly, the user can click on the referendum banner 96 or a link 104 to go to the originating website of the referendum 96 and read the referendum as presented within the context of the originating website. One notable feature of the present system deals with the ability to urge users to engage in the subscription based content. As the subscription based content is time limited, i.e., new feeds are provided periodically, the users feel more compelled to engage in reading feeds and interact with the referendums or advertisements.
Another notable feature of the present system deals with the means by which a subscription based content is engaged. Typically, a feed is manually selected by a user who finds a subject interesting. Alternatively, a user may automatically be presented with a feed as a result of having entered a code identifying a feed source. The code includes a quick response (QR) code, barcode or other non-text coding means. The code may also indicate a privilege granted as a result of making the purchase of a service, goods, etc. For instance, a code may be provided on a sports game or concert ticket such that a feed source can be arranged to provide a feed along with a referendum.
This continuation-in-part application claims the benefit of priority from provisional application U.S. Ser. No. 61/484,996 filed May 11, 2011 and non-provisional application U.S. Ser. No. 13/211,397 filed Aug. 17, 2011. Each of these applications is incorporated by reference in its entirety.
Number | Date | Country | |
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61484996 | May 2011 | US |
Number | Date | Country | |
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Parent | 13211397 | Aug 2011 | US |
Child | 13325018 | US |