Patent Grant
8402357
The present invention relates generally to software applications for annotating web pages. In particular, the present invention is a system and method for use by web site operators to facilitate user posting of public and private comments at a web site.
Although web site blogs that provide commentary on a variety of topics are very popular, they typically emphasize the web site owner's or blogger's comments. Many bloggers do not allow readers to comment on posts for fear of the readers submitting inappropriate comments. As a result, reader interaction with blogs and other web sites is limited. If readers were permitted to post private rather than public comments, bloggers could allow readers to comment on posts without the fear that inappropriate comments will be read by other readers. However, blogs and web sites typically do not support posting of private comments.
Another problem with current web technology is that adapting blogs and other web pages for annotations and comments is very cumbersome and difficult. Even if a blogger would like to invite his or her readers to comment on the blogger's posts, adapting the blog or other web site content to allow such interactivity is difficult and requires programming skills. Details related to web page layout and content can also make it difficult to adapt pages for comments. Because of the difficulties in facilitating comments on individual web pages, many web site operators maintain a single blog for the entire site. Comments regarding unrelated content appear in the same area of the web site simply because a blog is supported in only one area of the site that users can visit to post. If a blogger would like to support private as well as public comments, additional programming is required to allow such postings on web pages. There is a need for a software system and method that allows web site operators to easily adapt web pages to facilitate posting of comments at web sites. There is also a need for a system and method that supports posting of private as well as public user comments at sites.
The present invention is a software system and method that allows web site operators to easily adapt web page content to support posting of public and private user comments at web sites. Web site operators can support interactivity with their web site visitors centering on public reader comment areas as well as private visitor journals.
Reader comment areas according to the present invention allow web site visitors to comment on the content found on the particular web pages where the reader comment areas appear. Examples of such pages are ones containing articles, newsletters, photographs, quotes, news commentaries, etc. An important design feature of the present invention is the ability to create a “mini-blog” out of every single content-oriented web page of an owner's web site. Reader comment areas are added easily to all types of web pages and in fact, may be added to literally thousands of web pages, requiring just a minute or two of time for each new page.
To prevent publication of inappropriate comments, the web site owner or an administrator has a variety of controls to maintain the privacy of comments. One such control is a “hide incoming posts” control that allows the administrator to review posts before permitting them to be published. Other controls allow the administrator to hide or delete posts that have already been published. Every reader who makes a comment on a web page enabled according to the present invention may be automatically added to the web site owner's subscriber list (if the web site owner so chooses, and if the reader approves via typical double opt-in methods). Every end user who makes a comment on the web site owner's site also has the opportunity to sign up for a personal journal. This option further enrolls the end user to return to the owner's site and become part of the web site owner's community and subscriber list.
A variety of personal journal features are also supported. Personal journal features include keeping comments private for the user's personal viewing only, posting comments to other public web pages containing the specialized reader comment areas, and creating a unique page with the user's own individualized URL that mimics the public web page to which he or she has posted a comment. The end user comment is always displayed most prominently (e.g., at the top of all other comments entered by other end users, and/or highlighted in some way such as in bold or in a different color or any number of other highlighting techniques that may be selected. The end user may also be permitted to choose to eliminate all the other comments posted on the original web page so his or her comment is the only one featured.)
Additionally, from the personal journal page, the end user may print all or pre-selected journal entries in various design formats (such as mini-books or ebooks or on-line or off-line greeting cards), create a public blog out of posts he or she chooses to make public under a private domain or sub-domain name, create his or her own web pages or a web site using additional formatting features or simply publish his or her posts as text under a private domain or sub-domain name, enter audio comments to a journal, enter video comments to a journal, create podcasts of these audio and video comments, and make actual saleable products of these written, audio and/or video posts, which will be available collectively on a common commercial web site.
The features and functionality of the present invention are made available to web site owners in a “prepackaged” and ready-made, ready-to-install system. The present invention allows web site owner to avoid hiring programmers to create each individual feature. The system enables the web site owner to be the administrator of the entire system. The administrator may perform the following functions:
The present invention facilitates eliciting reader comments to engage readers in the blogger's or web site owner's writings. It also provides greater search engine optimization resulting from specialized keyword utilization associated with the incoming posts, as well as list building advantages.
FIGS. 23A-23OO are a flow diagram illustrating the web site administration, user administration, and end user components for an example embodiment of the present invention;
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Posting data fields are in the middle section of the screen. The end user may provide a title for his or her post in a post title field 180. A comment field 182 is where the end user enters his or her actual post. An enlarge writing area option 184 results in a popup that provides the end user with an enlarged writing area to compose his or her comment. The end user can adjust this writing area to any comfortable size including full screen. It automatically adjusts the writing area field proportionately to whatever size the end user desires the page to appear on his screen. A choose icon pull down menu 186 allows the end user to choose from the icons the administrator entered in the “add icons for posts” field of the administrator page creator screen (
Post fields appear at the bottom of the screen. The newsletter/miscellaneous title 194 listing reflects which newsletter or miscellaneous page the end user selected previously. The title listing reflects the title the end user chose from post title field 196. The comment field has the content entered previously by the end user. Next to the comment field is the icon selected by the end user. The identifier reflects the name option selected previously 198.
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Each end user post may be displayed in a separate portion of the screen. The icon the end user selected appears with his or her post 210. The title 210 selected by the end user is displayed as well as the end user's comment 210. Also shown is the identifier 212 (name, initials, user name) selected by the end user. A publish option 214 enables the administrator to allow the end user's post to appear on the display page if the administrator had previously chosen to hide this post either via a hide post option 216, or the hide new posts option above 208. The hide post option 216 enables the administrator to hide any individual end user post from appearing on a display page. The entire post appears with a grey background when it is hidden so the administrator knows at a glance it is hidden. A delete post option 218 permanently deletes the post. An email-a-friend option 220 results in a popup that enables the administrator to email the end user who wrote the post (e.g., to thank them for posting, to ask permission to quote his or her post, etc.)
Posts may be selected (e.g., by selecting a checkbox next to each post) for printing, to appear in an ebook, or for other functions. A post counter may be used to tell the administrator how many total posts were received for each newsletter or miscellaneous web page.
Reader comments areas defined by administrators and comments entered by end users are hosted on a server and stored in database remote from the administrator's web site server. An “iFrame” substitution process is used to allow this remote hosting of the reader comments. The iFrame substitution of the present invention provides a simple “window” to the server and database where all reader comments are actually entered, stored, and posted. However, they are also a part of the local site. It is important for the actual text of the posts to be a part of the local site (i.e., the administrator's web site) rather than just being reflected there so that the administrator gets the benefit of using incoming posts for search engine optimization. The administrator does not receive this benefit if the text in the posts is not actually on the local site and remains solely in the remote database.
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The display page comprises a reader comment input section 230. The reader enters comment data in this section of the display page. In the title field 232, the end user provides a title for his or her post. The end user enters his or her actual comment in the comment field 236. The end user can select an icon from the icon pull down menu 238 which has the icons the administrator originally uploaded in the administrator page creator. The end user enters a name in the name field and an email address 240. The end user can select an option for publishing his or her full name, first name only, or initials 242. The user name options from the personal journal page are not available on the display page because end users coming to the display page may not yet have signed up for a personal journal, and therefore, do not have a user name.
If the end user then chooses an option to create a personal journal 244, Javascript Show-Hide Layer Code allows the appearance of the otherwise invisible user name and password fields 248. The end user chooses a use name for logging onto his or her personal journal and a password. These user name and password fields 248 remain hidden if the end user chooses a “just post my comments below without creating my personal journal” option 246. The end user's comments are posted with the selection of a post comments option 250.
The display page also comprises a reader comment output section 252. The post fields appear at the bottom of the display page in the reader comment output section. The most recent end user's post is posted first on the page rather then last. The advantage of publishing the most recent end user's post first is the immediate gratification it gives the end user of being “headlined,” versus stuck at the bottom of the webpage. An RSS option 254 enables web site visitors to create RSS feeds of the incoming posts on his or her own web sites if they like, or to view in other RSS-viewable places (e.g., choosing different RSS feeds is one of various preferences available to Yahoo.com's users). This option support further promotion of the administrator's web site.
The icon 256 for the post reflects the icon selected by the user from the icon pull down menu 238. The title 258 reflects the title entered by the end user previously in the title field 232. The comment 260 reflects the content entered by the end user in the comment field 236. The identifier 262 reflects the end user's choice for identifying his or her posts 242. Because the posts here also reflect posts made by end users in their personal journals, the identifier may reflect the end user's user name per that option uniquely available to end users posting from a personal journal. The date and time labels 264 reflect the date and the time the end user's post was made. The keyword label 266 reflects the keywords the administrator chose in the administrator page creator screen (
A tell-a-friend option 268 displayed next to each post results in a tell-a-friend popup. This feature enables the end user to email any post to multiple friends, which brings more traffic to the site. A rating option 268 may also be added next to each post to allow the end user and other visitors to rate every post on the page (e.g., 1=I didn't like this post; 2=I liked this post; and 3=I loved this post!). This option enables the administrator to create a contest for web page postings. As an incentive to get end users to write more posts, the administrator can award prizes to the top-winning end user poster for a given period of time.
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A “look-at-me page” may be virtually identical to the display page of—
A contest generator page hosts the results of end-user post rankings using web site visitors' ratings of the various posts via the ratings feature on the display page of
A “create blog” feature allows each end user to create a blog that displays just his or her posts, and just the ones they choose to make public via checkmark boxes that appear next to each of his or her posts. The end user performs the functions of a “secondary administrator,” and promotes greater use of the primary administrator's web site thereby greatly increasing the primary administrator's traffic.
An ebook feature allows each end user to create an ebook of all his or her unique “look-at-me” pages. The end user chooses which posts to include in the ebook. This feature automatically puts all selected posts into an MS Word format or a pdf. format, per his or her own choosing. It also includes various cover template designs, table of content designs, and overall book designs. The administrator may also be ebook creator by creating ebooks of reader comments. The ebooks may be sold or distributed as a “virtual marketing tool.” End users whose comments appear frequently in an ebook may be inclined to distribute the ebook to others.
An end user greeting card creator feature enables the end user to send his or her posts as virtual greeting cards. This feature may be used in addition to or instead of the tell-a-friend emails and provides another dynamic marketing tool for the administrator's web site.
A comment rotator and emailer feature allows an administrator to rotate posts appearing at the top of each web page. The posts may be rotated daily or more frequently throughout the day. An email may be sent automatically to each particular end user at the time his/her post is headlined. This feature creates a reason for the end user to revisit the web page and to refer friends to it.
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The end user's comment is displayed in the reader comment output section at the bottom of the screen 376. The comment is displayed 380 along with a time stamp indicating when it was entered. The user may select an option to hide the comment once it has been entered 382. The end user can also choose to see only his or her comment or all of the comments entered by other users 384. Referring to
Technical details related to the category/sub-category feature of the present invention are as follows. AJAX framework (HTML_AJAX) controls AJAX functionalities for the present invention. The code <?php $utils->get_category_list(‘slt_category’,“onchange=\“sendSub-category(this.value);showOther( )\””);?>loads a list of categories in the Manage Sub Category page (manage_sub_category.php) page. A utility class is defined in a classes folder (root_folder/classes/utils.class.php) which is a collection of utility functions. This class has many functions including redirecting and displaying JavaScript message, and listing many other functions. The above function get_category_list( ) is defined in a root_folder/classes/utils.class.php file which will that takes some parameters and lists the all the categories made by the current administrator.
When the selection of items listed in the category dropdown list is changed, an onchange event (onchange=\“sendSub-category(this.value)) is called in this function and this sendSub-cateory(this.value) sends the selected item id to sendSub-category(cat_id) javascript function defined in the current page. After the a value is passed to sendSub-category(cat_id) function and parameter values are passed to the function, it hides the Options Panel and sub category Panel if the passed parameter value is 0. Otherwise it creates an instance of object of review class defined in root_folder/ajax_classes/review.class.php.
After the instance of object of review class is created using javascript, a last line of code defined in the function sendSub-cateogry(cat_id) registers a php function loadSub-category(cat_id,″) defined in review.class.php class file. While using HTML_AJAX framework in our program we have to register our user defined class to the ReviewServer defined in root_folder/ajax_claases/auto_server.class.php. After the loadSub-category(cat_id) is called this function connects to the database and loads all the sub-categories under selected category and return to the JavaScript. Again there is a function called loadSub-category: function(result) which is a part of HTML_AJAX. This retrieves the HTML and reloads the sub category drop down box. The options panel is also visible.
Referring to FIGS. 23A-23OO, a flow diagram illustrating the web site administration, user administration, and end user components for an example embodiment of the present invention is shown. The present invention comprises an iFrame substitution solution to provide features and functionality related to reader comment areas. The embedded technologies in the iFrame substitution solution include HTML, PHP, Javascript, MySQL, CSS, and AJAX methods.
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Referring to FIG. 23AA, beginning at 452, the following steps are performed.
Referring to FIG. 23BB, beginning at 454, the following steps are performed.
Referring to FIG. 23CC, beginning at 456, the following steps are performed.
Referring to FIG. 23DD, beginning at 458, the following steps are performed.
Referring to FIG. 23EE, beginning at 460, the following steps are performed.
Referring to FIG. 23FF, beginning at 462, the following steps are performed.
Referring to FIG. 23GG, beginning at 464, the following steps are performed.
Referring to FIG. 23HH, beginning at 464, the following steps are performed.
Referring to FIG. 23II, beginning at 468, the following steps are performed.
Referring to FIG. 23JJ, beginning at 470, the following steps are performed.
Referring to FIG. 23KK, beginning at 472, the following steps are performed.
Referring to FIG. 23LL, beginning at 474, the following steps are performed.
Referring to FIG. 23MM, beginning at 476, the following steps are performed.
Referring to FIG. 23NN, beginning at 480, the following steps are performed.
Referring to FIG. 23OO, beginning at 482, the following steps are performed.
The present invention comprises an “iFrame solution” to add reader comment areas to web pages. The “iFrame solution” of the present invention may be implemented with an existing web page framework. In the following example, the www.wealthysoul.com domain is used. An iFrame is a webpage element that creates an inline frame that contains another document. An iFrame functions as a document within a document, or like a floating FRAME. It just loads another HTML document within the <iframe> tags. Syntax <IFRAME> . . . </IFRAME>. The following example uses the IFRAME element and an HTML fragment to create a frame containing the page sample.htm as shown in
The embedded technologies into iFrame solution are HTML, PHP, Javascript, MySQL, CSS and AJAX methods.
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The iFrame substitution solution of the present invention allows the reader comments to be stored at a web site remote from the administrator's hosting web site resulting in many benefits for the web site administrator and the readers who enter comments on the administrator's web site. While certain exemplary embodiments are described in detail above, the scope of the application is not to be considered limited by such disclosure, and modifications are possible without departing from the spirit of the invention as evidenced by the following claims.
This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/813,982 filed Jun. 15, 2006, which is incorporated herein by reference.
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