Method and apparatus for improved referral to resources and a related social network

Abstract

A method and apparatus are provided for a user to construct a payload comprising content, such as multimedia, or references to content. The payload may be provided with further elements, such as a title or initial comments. The payload may be sent to any immediate contact of the user. Upon receipt by other users, the payload may be forwarded to any of the others' immediate contacts. Additionally, comments can be made by anyone in receipt of the payload for others in receipt of the payload to view. A social networking mechanism is provided, wherein a record is made for each forwarding of a payload and introductions can be made between individuals lying in the same forwarding chain of a payload. Immediate contacts can be collected into groups for ease in addressing. Teams of users can send and forward messages among themselves or to others outside of the team, according to predetermined rules and individuals' standing within the team. Users are provided with a sortable, filterable list of payloads sent to them. A thumbnail of each payload is provided to allow a user the opportunity to quickly assess the nature of the content. Payloads and invitations to join may be sent to people outside the system via email or as an instant message.

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0001]The present invention relates generally to a system and method for providing others with payloads that contain and / or reference information resources, such as multimedia content. More particularly, the invention relates to a system and method for initiating communication with other people on the basis of the payloads that they have indirectly provided to or received from each other.CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0002]Not Applicable.STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT[0003]Not ApplicableREFERENCE TO COMPUTER PROGRAM LISTING APPENDICES[0004]Not ApplicableBACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0005]The Internet is replete with information resources, multimedia and otherwise. Some are incredibly popular, being visited by millions of visitors per day. Examples include news-centric sites such as Fark.com by Fark.com, LLC of Lexington, Ky. and Digg.com by Digg, Inc. of San Francisco, Calif. which solicit audience references and reaction...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0026]The present invention allows an enrollee to provide a payload and then distribute the payload to specific individuals, to a personally selected group, or to a group defined by both the enrollee and others, herein called a team. In some embodiments of this invention, providing a payload and distributing to individuals, groups, or teams can be accomplished in seconds—far faster than with current methods.

[0031]It is a further goal of the present invention to make such sharing easy, independent of the source of the content.

[0032]Another goal of the invention is to allow a central contact database which allows the entry and import of others' contact information, without subsequently requiring the others to become an enrollee in the system.

[0033]It is a further goal of the invention to provide a convenient collection point for many kinds of content or references to content, and allow a convenient preview of such content so that browsing can be quickly and efficiently performed.

[0034]Yet another goal of the invention is the ability to manage masses of content and references to content provided by others whose ‘hit ratio’, or ratio of good content to bad content is not high, and thereby provide a means to easily winnow content more likely to be satisfying from that content less likely to be satisfying to the user.

Problems solved by technology

Cut-and-pasted links don't always survive the word-wrap of an email reader.

Images or formatting of an article don't reliably survive, even if the multimedia email makes it through corporate firewalls and SPAM screens.

However, any one social site is limited by the degree in which it succeeds in attracting enrollees who wish to communicate among themselves regarding content available within the site.

Digg, however, suffers from the drawback that their content is summarized as brief text extracts, or titles.

To a casual user, a drawback of sites which are so strongly rooted in uploading content, as are MySpace and Facebook, is that a vast majority of potential users do not have time or inclination to create content.

None of the above technologies facilitates conveniently expanding one's network of friends on the basis that you like content they've selected.

Further, none of these methods facilitates conveniently expanding one's network of friends on the basis that you like content they like.

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