The present invention relates generally to the field of web publishing. More specifically, the present invention relates to publishing web documents using techniques that require little or no technical knowledge.
The online population continues to grow rapidly, and as penetration grows, those coming online now are largely made up of “late adopters.” As a result, the average technical capabilities of the average online user worldwide are diminishing, not growing with the age of the Internet, as intuition might suggest.
Today, there are limited options available to non-technical individuals who desire an easy, inexpensive web presence. To succeed with today's products, one must learn or already understand the mechanics of the web, or you can hire experts to do it for you. Even the simplest template-driven web site offerings require a basic knowledge of industry jargon, site construction, and how the Internet plumbing works.
A growing number of online users—who want or would benefit from even a basic web site—are left on the sidelines because there is no option simple enough. Domain registration statistics highlight this into stark relief—under .COM and .NET alone, over 250,000 domain names per month are being let go, many because their owners couldn't figure out how to use them. In addition, a significant share of currently registered domains (approximately 46%) remain unused—or if they have a web site at all, feature only a single page.
This is an un-served market today: those customers who don't know and don't care how it all works. Those who can't or don't want to learn highly technical authoring tools. Those who simply want to put simple information online that others can view with as little time/cost/effort as possible.
As in the early days of the consumer audio industry, a thriving competition in “components,” from hundreds of companies, exists today in the web-publishing world. Customers are able to pick from myriad domain registrars, hosting providers, authoring tools, template designers and more. With some knowledge of the industry—how the components tie together and interrelate—and a goal in mind for what you want to present, you can today create a unique personal or business web site in a couple of hours.
While this may be a relatively quick and easy process for some, it may not be quite so easy for others. For example, some people have no idea where to start and have no one to help them in the website creation/deployment process. Many people do not understand the jargon or how any of the technical pieces fit together. There is a confusing array of options and service providers. Time, money and other resources for use in maintenance & design are limited.
In some situations, a user wants to publish on the web, but does not want to learn a web authoring software tool. Moreover, the specific need may be temporary, or the contents may change frequently, demanding more effort and expense. In other cases, the content to be published may be very simple, and therefore not justify the currently required cost in time or effort.
Unlike consumer audio, there is no all-in-one integrated solution that you can simply bring home, plug in and enjoy. Yet, the evidence points to a growing audience and potential demand for a simple integrated service targeted to those who would like to:
Thus a need remains for systems and methods to enable a user, especially a non-technical user, or one who does not have a domain name registration, to publish content on the web using techniques that require little or no technical knowledge. Prior art products are known to facilitate generation of HTML web page content, but they do not provide a seamless, automated process from selection of a desired domain name through publication on the web.
Various aspects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description of preferred embodiments, which proceeds with reference to the accompanying drawings.
The present invention solves the above-identified problems and disadvantages by providing a level of service integration and ease of use that breaks new ground in the web hosting and domain registration industries. Literally anyone can succeed using the present invention with the most basic desktop computer skills.
The present invention relates to a tightly integrated combination of desktop software, domain registration service, file transfer software, file translation software and hosting service, that enables drag & drop publishing of Microsoft Office (and other) documents, photos, PDF files, and more. No HTML experience is required. No tools or knowledge other than what the customer already possesses are required.
In one embodiment, a customer simply visits a web site (e.g., www.namedropper.com), chooses a domain name for a personal site and selects a simple service plan. Software is automatically added to the desktop in the form of a simple drop folder that allows instant publishing of Office documents to the own personal Web site.
The present invention relies solely on a user's existing knowledge of how to manipulate the Windows desktop—drag & drop, use of folders—and basic Office applications like Internet Explorer, Word, Publisher, PowerPoint and Excel.
A document 404 is either imported or created on the user machine 400. The term “document” is used here in its broadest sense; referring to almost any electronic file. Typically, it is likely to comprise a word processing document, a PowerPoint presentation, an image, a video clip, etc. In this simple illustration, document 404 includes an image of a coffee cup. In
In operation, a user can publish any desired document by depositing the file into the virtual folder 402 on the desktop. This can be done, for example, using the familiar “drag and drop” user interface. Here, the arrow 406 indicates that the user drops the document 404 into the virtual folder 402. When this occurs, the client program detects a change in the contents of folder 402 and automatically communicates that change using a message or session 410, transmitted via the Internet 412 to an operations platform 414. In some embodiments, the operations platform 414 corresponds to the operations platform described below with reference to
The operations platform 414, which can be implemented as a web server, receives the information through any electronic network and automatically prepares the content, in this case file 404, for web browser display. This may require some transformation, as discussed later. The content file, potentially translated or transformed to an alternative format, is then made available on a virtual web server 418 which could be co-located with the operations platform 414 or deployed at some other location or network having a communication link to the operations platform 414. The web server 418 is of course coupled to the Internet 412. Once the content is published on the customer's virtual website, it becomes accessible to the general public, via the Internet 412 and a suitable web browser. A remote user with a browser can see the published content (corresponding to document 404—the coffee cup image) on the website immediately as indicated at web browser display 420. The remote user is of course connected to the Internet via 422 (typically via an ISP).
Another remote user might access the web server 418 from a smart phone, camera or other PDA 430. This device might access the web server 418 via the Internet 412 or through an alternate network, for example a private network, illustrated as 432. The website content will be displayed at the wireless device 430. The content may be modified for display on a wireless device, for example using the WAP methods and protocols. Conversely, a smart phone, PDA or other mobile device can be used to transmit text messages, photos and other content to the web site for automatic posting. In this scenario, the web server is programmed, through scripting or the like, to forward the incoming content to the operations platform for processing and posting to the web site as if it had originated at the user's desktop. This feature is especially useful for a mobile customer. The operations platform preferably is arranged to receive information through any electronic network. Further, the user's account can be configured at the operations platform to forward incoming information to the user's desktop virtual folder. In this way, the user can conveniently receive and store content from remote devices, including but not limited to her own mobile devices.
While the present description refers to a single customer or user publishing content via the web, the invention is not limited to a single user or desktop publication folder. The system can be configured to enable multiple users, or more specifically multiple client instances, to publish on the same site, as well as effect updates or revisions. An appropriately configured client application is downloaded and installed, as further described below, to each user's desktop. Each instance is configured to “point to” the same site. The users can share access to the same pages, with due regard to coherency. Alternatively, or in addition, they can each have exclusive pages for their use. The automatic table of contents, described later, can distinguish by user, or generate one unified table of contents.
The setup of this system in one embodiment and its operation are discussed next, with reference to
The account creation process is described further below with reference to
Referring again to
Additionally, the platform 100 provides billing, auto-responders and other account status indicators 112 and it can be configured to provide external services such as site statistics, search engine listings, etc. 116. Various known billing methods can be used, some of which are effected online, and which can include credit card charges, ETF from a bank account, and so on. These functions are described by way of illustration and not limitation. In general, the publishing operations platform 100 provides all of the services necessary for the customer to enjoy the benefits of publishing on the Internet without involving himself in the technical details.
Returning to the functional set 130, it includes storefront production and staging operations 132, registry communications component 134, client software provisioning and downloading component 136, hosted domains database 138, customer database 140. In a presently preferred embodiment, this platform also includes account status and usage statistics component 146, name servers 144 and accounting and reporting functions 142.
Alternatively, the customer or potential customer is seeking to establish a regular account. A query 210 determines whether or not the customer already has a registered domain name. If a domain name is needed, the system can conduct a search, step 212, and assist the customer in selecting an available domain name. For example, software is known for checking domain name availability and for suggesting alternatives that are similar to a desired domain name that is not currently available. After a domain name is selected, the system attends to credit card authorization for payment, step 214, and then registers the desired domain name, step 216. Typically, the registration process is carried out through the auspices of an authorized domain name registrar. After domain name registration is completed, or if the customer already has a domain name, branch 218, the system sets up a customer account, step 220. It may be recalled in the discussion above that an illustrative publishing operation platform (100) includes a customer database and related functionality, described above with reference to
In 222, the new account is provisioned according to a selected plan. For example, various plans could be implemented, at various price points, to accommodate the size of the customer website, number of email accounts, document translation services, etc. Next, in 224, the registered domain name is assigned to the virtual web server. In step 226, the virtual web server is set up to implement the customer's website. Email accounts such as pop mail accounts are established, step 228.
Continuing, in step 230, a download package is configured for the customer. This download package will include client software for implementing a virtual folder or publishing folder on the desktop, for web publishing operations as described above with regard to
Referring now to
When there is a change to the content, the process branches via 250, as discussed shortly. Until there is a content update event, the client software continues periodic checks for self-updates, in other words, updates to the client software itself, step 246. When it detects such an update, the client software will download its own update distribution, step 248. As noted, when a content change is detected at step 244, the process branches via 250. For example, in 252, the customer has modified the content of the publishing folder. At step 254, the client software automatically converts the new file, as necessary for publication.
Next, step 256, the client software checks to determine whether customer account limits will be exceeded by publication of the update. Indicia of the customer account limits or parameters can be maintained at the client side, as well as at the host side (the publishing operations platform of
Referring now to
To summarize, in one presently preferred embodiment, an implementation of the invention can provide an active drop folder on the user's desktop—tightly integrated with a hosting service and user—s choice of domain name—that enables instant online publishing. It lets anyone, regardless of technical ability, instantly publish documents—using tools they are already familiar with—to the World Wide Web. Thus aspects of the invention can be described as a simple to use, tightly integrated replacement for a number of products and services that in prior art must be purchased discretely and configured manually; eliminating the need for significant technical know-how, time, cost, and/or outside support.
The NameDropper platform invites the customer to input a desired name or key word. From that, it generates potential domain names, and may present various alternatives to the customer for selection. Before or after tentative selections, the platform queries the DNS system, for example using a WHOIS command, to determine availability of the selected name(s). The interactive process continues until the user selects a desired name that is available for registration. Customer contact information, billing information, and service plan options are collected to setup the customer's automated web publishing account.
Next the storefront platform communicates with a NameDropper Operations system. These communications preferably are “behind the curtain” meaning essentially that they occur with little or no exposure to the customer. In some embodiments, the storefront platform may display encouraging messages to the customer, e.g. “We are now setting up your web site domain name” or the like. The operations platform and its functionality were described earlier with regard to
Referring again to
As illustrated, the operations platform (which need not be one computer or physical location but may be distributed) sets up the customer account in name servers, web servers and email servers to provide the respective services, illustrated at label (4).
Next, at label (5) in
Additional representative subtasks are shown in
A customer might also request a “restore” of their folder, i.e. the client software, from a customer management web interface. The operations platform will configure a new client software download package. After install, the platform can populate the folder with backup data (if it exists). The platform will recognize going forward that this new folder/PC is now the authorized client.
Referring again to
Customer requests web stats for their site through account management interface. Their logs are submitted to analysis tool, and pages are displayed for the customer. Log data is accumulated subject to the customer's account settings. The customer manually elects to erase <date range> of log data. None of this requires technical expertise on the part of the user.
When a document is added for publication, the client software in one embodiment converts the document, or more specifically its content, to a standard markup language, e.g. HTML. Then, the HTML document, rather than the original source document, is uploaded to the web site. There is no actual link to the source document. In the web site server or at the operations platform, a table of contents is created/updated automatically. The TOC links to the HTML documents, not to the original source. The operations platform will also perform necessary graphics conversions and assemble content for distribution to the web servers. Thereafter, any remote user can visit the site via the Internet to view the customer's content (label 4).
Logically intermediate the network services and the user interface are various functional elements 720. Examples shown in the drawing for one embodiment include account and network settings or configuration data; details of which were described earlier. A software update manager module attends to updating the client software by receiving and installing updates from a remote server, for example the operations platform, with little or no customer interaction. For example, functional improvements or patches may be downloaded. Or, the user may upgrade to a different service level which, in turn, requires an update to the client software.
It will be obvious to those having skill in the art that many changes may be made to the details of the above-described embodiments without departing from the underlying principles of the invention. The scope of the present invention should, therefore, be determined only by the following claims.
This application is a continuation of and claims priority from U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/545,408 filed Feb. 18, 2004.
Number | Date | Country | |
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60545408 | Feb 2004 | US |