Methods for encouraging charitable social networking

Abstract

A method of encouraging charitable donations by individuals who are members of a social network is disclosed. A user creates a member account by supplying user identity data from the user and creates a campaign, wherein the created campaign is associated with one or more charities and a financial goal. The user sends invitation to one or more members or non-members and the one or more members or non-members may accept or decline the user's invitation. The one or more members are given the option to donate any amount of money to a charity to post comments about the user, where the monetary value of the donation is associated with the comments posted such that a higher amount donated represents a higher trustworthiness of the comments. The one or more members or non-members may support the campaign by donating money to the one or more charities to help reach the financial goal. One or more user weight values are calculated based at least on a total volume of members or non-members who support the campaign by donating money to the one or more charities and / or a total monetary value of the money donated by the one or more members or non-members, where the one or more user weight values represent reliability of a user's reputation.

Description

REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]The present disclosure is based on and claims the benefit of Ser. No. 11 / 328,752 filed Jan. 10, 2006, entitled “Method And Apparatus For Collecting And Storing Information About Individuals In A Social Network,” the entire contents of which are herein incorporated by reference.FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0002]The present disclosure relates generally to social networking and, more particularly, to methods for encouraging charitable social networking.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0003]The Internet provides enterprises and individuals with the ability to communicate with a world-wide audience. In the past few years, there has been an explosion in the popularity and volume of use of the Internet, facilitating interaction among individuals. A number of services have been developed and offered over the years which allow individuals to network socially over the Internet for specific purposes. These services are uniformly referred to as “social networking.” F...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0005]This application describes methods and apparatuses for collecting and storing information about individuals in a social network and encouraging charitable donations by individuals who use the social network. A method of encouraging charitable donations by individuals who are members of a social network, according to one embodiment of the present disclosure includes, allowing a user to create a member account by supplying user identity data from the user, allowing a user to create a campaign, wherein the created campaign is associated with one or more charities and a financial goal, allowing the user to send an invitation to one or more members or non-members, allowing the one or more members or non-members to accept or decline the user's invitation, wherein the one or more non-members create a member account in order to accept or decline the user's invitation, allowing the one or more members the option to donate any amount of money to a charity to post comments about the user, wherein the monetary value of the donation is associated with the comments posted such that a higher amount donated represents a higher trustworthiness of the comments, allowing the one or more members or non-members to support the campaign by donating money to the one or more charities to help reach the financial goal, and calculating one or more user weight values based at least on a total volume of members or non-members who support the campaign by donating money to the one or more charities, wherein the one or more user weight values represent reliability of a user's reputation.

[0006]A method of encouraging charitable donations by individuals who are members of a social network, according to an embodiment of the present disclosure includes, allowing a user to create a member account by supplying user identity data from the user, allowing a user to create a campaign, wherein the created campaign is associated with one or more charities and a financial goal, allowing the user to send an invitation to one or more members or non-members, allowing the one or more members or non-members to accept or decline the user's invitation, wherein the one or more non-members create a member account in order to accept or decline the user's invitation, allowing the one or more members the option to donate any amount of money to a charity to post comments about the user, wherein the monetary value of the donation is associated with the comments posted such that a higher amount donated represents a higher trustworthiness of the comments, allowing the one or more members or non-members to support the campaign by donating money to the one or more charities to help reach the financial goal, and calculating one or more user weight values based at least on a total monetary value of the money donated by the one or more members or non-members, wherein the one or more user weight values represent reliability of a user's reputation.

[0010]A method of encouraging charitable donations by collecting and storing information about individuals in a social network and valuing the information according to a value of charitable donations associated with the information, according to one embodiment of the present disclosure, includes creating a member account by verifying a user's identity and collecting user identity data from the user, allowing the user to send an invitation to one or more members or non-members, wherein the invitation comprises an invitation to post paid comments, allowing the one or more members or non-members to accept or decline the user's invitation within a predetermined time, wherein the one or more non-members create a member account in order to accept or decline the user's invitation, allowing one or more members the option to pay to post comments about the user in any amount, wherein a higher amount paid represents a higher trustworthiness of the comments and wherein proceeds or a portion of the proceeds from paid comments are donated to one or more selected or default charities, calculating one or more user weight values based at least on a total value of posted paid comments about the user and volume of posted paid comments about the user, wherein the one or more user weight values represent reliability of a user's reputation, and allowing the user to post a reply to a posted comment by the one or more members.

Problems solved by technology

There is a need, however, that remains unfulfilled by these existing services, a need for a universal service that allows individuals to connect together and rally around a charitable cause.

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