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

Encourages charitable donations by boosting user reputation ratings and supporting charitable causes, thereby promoting social networking for altruistic activities.

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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