Patent ID: 6594638
Filing Date: 2003-07-15
Classification: G06Q

Abstract:
An on-line method for collecting demographic information from a user of a home world-wide-web (WWW) site and for dynamically selecting questions to present to the user, comprising the steps of:(A) displaying a plurality of sponsor symbols for the user on the home WWW site, wherein each of the sponsor symbols corresponds to an entity that has paid an owner of the home WWW site for the right to present information to the user on the site; (B) receiving, at the home WWW site, a signal from the user indicating a selection of one of the sponsor symbols by the user; (C) displaying a first set of one or more prize symbols for the user on the home WWW site in response to the selected sponsor symbol, wherein each prize symbol corresponds to a prize that the user can register to win at no cost to the user; (D) receiving, at the home WWW site, a signal from the user indicating a selection of one prize symbol from the first set of prize symbols by the user; (E) determining whether the user is a registered user of the home WWW site and, if the user is not a registered user of the home WWW site, collecting demographic information about the user during registration of the user on the home WWW site; (F) selecting, in response to the demographic information, a question from a first plurality of candidate questions, wherein each of the first plurality of candidate questions is associated with the entity corresponding to the selected sponsor symbol; (G) displaying the selected question to the user on the home WWW site; (H) receiving a signal from the user indicating an answer of the user to the selected question, and storing the answer in a database; (I) after step (H), redirecting the user from the home WWW site to a further WWW site associated with the sponsor symbol selected in step (B).