PREPAYMENT METHOD USING WEB-BASED ADVERTISING BANNERS

Abstract: A computer-based method and system for tracking and rewarding a consumer's use of a web browser to view World Wide Web-based advertising banners. Consumers can accumulate money, goods or services as they browse the World Wide Web. Such goods and service rewards can be in the form of credit (either time or money) towards telecommunications costs.

Description: TITLE OF THE INVENTION PREPAYMENT METHOD USING WEB-BASED ADVERTISING BANNERS BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Field of the Invention The present invention is directed to a method and system for tracking and rewarding consumer activity, and more specifically to a method and system for tracking and rewarding a consumer's use of a web browser to view World Wide Web-based advertising banners. Discussion of the Background With the explosion of the Internet, an increasing number of consumers are using the Internet. Traditionally those consumers used an Internet service provider (ISP) that charged a monthly fee for the ability to create a dial-up connection (e.g., SLIP, TCP/IP or PPP) between the home and the ISP. Often the fee arrangements included an unlimited number of hours per month. Along with the explosion in consumer use came an explosion in the number of information services that were available to the consumers. Examples of such services include search engines, free web page storage, virtual communities, and on-line reviews. Often the information services were expensive to maintain since the information on the World Wide Web (WWW) is in a state of constant flux. However, although some of those information services were fee-based, many were free to the consumers. In the free services, service providers often use advertising revenue to offset the cost of maintaining the sites. Advertisers pay to the site owners a fee for displaying an advertising banner (hereinafter simply "an ad"), usually in the form of a small or medium sized graphic. The graphic may either be a static graphic or an animated graphic, and the graphic may be in any number of graphic formats (e.g., GIF, JPG, or PNG). (Text ads are also possible, but text ads appear to be much less frequent.) It is believed that the advertisers also pay a fee to the site owner when a consumer selects (i.e., clicks on) an advertiser's ad. One technique for tracking ad selection is the use of redirection. In redirection, the selection causes a message to be sent to the original site, which determines and records which ad was selected. Once the selection is recorded for accounting purposes, the site then passes back a message to the Web browser redirecting the Web browser to another site where the browser actually gets the information to be displayed to the customer. Thus, the site owner is believed to generate a portion of its revenue by the active selection process of the consumers. Altavista, which operates a free search engine that displays ads, has recently launched free access to the Internet. That is, Altavista acts as an ISP for clients using AltaVista's dialing and connection software. To offset the costs of providing the free ISP services, Altavista displays a series of ads on a specialized toolbar that is independent of the Web browser. In one embodiment, the toolbar always stays on top and the Internet connection is terminated if the user/consumer closes the toolbar. Information tracking and database access is presently possible using several methods. One such method is Active Server pages, as described in Professional Active Server Pages 2.0 by Francis et al. (hereinafter "Francis"), 1998, published by WROX Press Ltd, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to provide a method of tracking and rewarding a consumer's use of a web browser to view World Wide Web-based advertising banners. This object and other advantages are provided according to a computer-based reward tracking system. Rewards can be either in the form of money, goods or services. The outlay of actual money, however, does not tie back into the creation of brand-loyalty or service- loyalty. Moreover, if the rewards are generated in the form of goods or services, the company issuing the reward is only giving away the cost of the goods or services to the company, which is often very different than the cost to the consumer. Accordingly, the preferred embodiment utilizes rewards in the form of goods and services. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS A more complete appreciation of the invention and many of the attendant advantages thereof will be readily obtained as the same becomes better understood by reference to the following detailed description when considered in connection with the accompanying drawings, wherein: Figure 1 is a schematic illustration of a computer for performing the functions of the present invention; and Figures 2 to 4 are screen captures of an exemplary embodiment of a database structure according to the present invention showing how customers accumulate rewards. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Referring now to the drawings, wherein like reference numerals designate identical or corresponding parts throughout the several views, Figure 1 is a schematic illustration of a computer system for tracking and rewarding a consumer's use of a web browser to view World Wide Web-based advertising banners. A computer 100 implements the method of the present invention, wherein the computer housing 102 houses a motherboard 104 which contains a CPU 106, memory 108 (e.g., DRAM, ROM, EPROM, EEPROM, SRAM, SDRAM, and Flash RAM), and other optional special purpose logic devices (e.g., ASICs) or configurable logic devices (e.g., GAL and reprogrammable FPGA). The computer 100 also includes plural input devices, (e.g., a keyboard 122 and mouse 124), and a display card 1 10 for controlling monitor 120. In addition, the computer system 100 further includes a floppy disk drive 1 14; other removable media devices (e.g., compact disc 1 19, tape, and removable magneto-optical media (not shown)); and a hard disk 112, or other fixed, high density media drives, connected using an appropriate device bus (e.g., a SCSI bus, an Enhanced IDE bus, or a Ultra DMA bus). Also connected to the same device bus or another device bus, the computer 100 may additionally include a compact disc reader 1 18, a compact disc reader/writer unit (not shown) or a compact disc jukebox (not shown). Although compact disc 1 19 is shown in a CD caddy, the compact disc 119 can be inserted directly into CD- ROM drives which do not require caddies. In addition, a printer (not shown) also provides printed listings of rewards accumulated by consumers. As stated above, the system includes at least one computer readable medium. Examples of computer readable media are compact discs 119, hard disks 1 12, floppy disks, tape, magneto-optical disks, PROMs (EPROM, EEPROM, Flash EPROM), DRAM, SRAM, SDRAM, etc. Stored on any one or on a combination of computer readable media, the present invention includes software for controlling both the hardware of the computer 100 and for enabling the computer 100 to interact with a human user. Such software, may include, but is not limited to, device drivers, operating systems and user applications, such as development tools. Such computer readable media further includes the computer program product of the present invention for tracking and rewarding customers The computer code devices of the present invention can be any interpreted or executable code mechanism, including but not limited to scripts (including Active Server pages), interpreters, dynamic link libraries, Java classes, and complete executable programs. As shown in Figure 2, the present invention enables one or more Web sites to track and reward consumers for selecting advertising banners on Web sites. The creation and maintenance of ad banners is described in Chapter 6 of Francis. The illustrative embodiment enables a consumer to accumulate long distance minutes (e.g., for domestic calling) and/or credit toward other long distance services (e.g., international phone calls, conference calls, or facsimile services). As would be readily understood by one of ordinary skill in the art, instead of minutes, a user can collect other goods as well. Moreover although the goods (i.e., minutes) are shown to be accumulated in whole units, it is possible to accumulate fractional units as well (e.g., 1/100th of the value of a good). According to the illustrative embodiment, each ad is tracked by an identifier (labeled "AdID") which entitles the consumer selecting the ad to accumulate minutes, money or both. In addition, the database indicates where the user is to be redirected once the accounting has been performed. For example, as shown in Figure 2, an existing customer, Howard Jonas, initially has 50 minutes of domestic long distance but no accumulated credit in his telephone rewards account. (Such an account may be coupled to one or more existing calling card plans or may be coupled to a specialized account created for the rewards program.) After Howard selects the first ad (AdID=999), his number of domestic long distance minutes increases to 53 minutes, as shown in Figure 3. Similarly, as shown in Figures 2 and 4, a second customer, Adam Snukal, increases from 25 minutes and $1.25 credit to 26 minutes and $1.30 credit by selecting the third ad (AdID=1002). In order to track customers and their ad selection, the system of the present invention utilizes any of the presently used mechanisms for Web browser tracking. Those techniques include the use of identifiers known as "cookies" as described in Chapter 10 of Francis. A single cookie can be utilized to track a consumer across multiple web sites if the cookie is shared between web sites. If the cookie is not shared between web sites, then each database will maintain a mapping from cookie to consumer. In an embodiment in which multiple databases are collecting information on rewards of customers for different web sites, the information in the multiple databases is aggregated periodically (e.g., daily, weekly, or monthly) to provide the consumers with their rewards. The aggregation can be performed in either a push mode (sending the data to a central database) or a pull mode (where a central database requests the data from plural sites). Obviously, numerous modifications and variations of the present invention are possible in light of the above teachings without departing from the intended scope of the present invention.

Claims: CLAIMS: 1. A computer program product, comprising: a computer storage medium and a computer program code mechanism embedded in the computer storage medium for causing a computer to tracking and rewarding a consumer's use of a web browser to view World Wide Web-based advertising banners, the computer program code mechanism comprising: a first computer code device configured to establish a reward for selecting a banner; a second computer code device configured to receive an indication of when the banner has been selected; a third computer code device configured to determine which consumer selected the banner; and a fourth computer code device configured to send the reward to the consumer. 2. The computer program product as claimed in claim 1, wherein the reward established by the first computer code device is a telecommunications money credit. 3. The computer program product as claimed in claim 1, wherein the reward established by the first computer code device is a telecommunications time credit. 4. The computer program product as claimed in claim 1, wherein the third computer code device comprises a database for storing a mapping between a web cookie and a user.

Inventors: JONAS HOWARD, JONAS, HOWARD
Applicants: IDT CORP, IDT CORPORATION
Application year: 2000
Main classification: G06F17
IPC codes: G06Q30