Abstract:
According to one embodiment of the present invention, a method of gate keeping contact between a plurality of users is disclosed. The method includes: providing a central network to establish communication between the plurality of users; and each of the plurality of users having access to a facility to approve or disapprove of any of the plurality of users to permit communication between respective users.

Description:
[0001]     This application claims priority to related provisional patent application No. 60/497,273 titled “GATE KEEPER” filed Aug. 22, 2003 (Attorney Docket No. 4704.P023z), and is incorporated herein by reference. 
     
    
     COPYRIGHT NOTICE  
       [0002]     Contained herein is material that is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction of the patent disclosure by any person as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent files or records, but otherwise reserves all rights to the copyright whatsoever.  
       FIELD OF THE INVENTION  
       [0003]     The present invention generally relates to the field of electronic information access. More particularly, an embodiment of the present invention provides a technique for granting access to establish a communication channel with a service provider.  
       BACKGROUND  
       [0004]     Currently, consumers interested in acquiring services must first identify the service provider who is capable of providing the required services. This usually means perusing a telephone directory, which can become frustrating and time-consuming if the service providers telephoned are not immediately available. A phone book (whether a bound paper book or an electronic directory) is also not very effective if the service provider&#39;s business category is unknown.  
         [0005]     The availability of some telephone book services over the Internet has somewhat lessoned the time involved in finding a service provider. The present Internet-based systems, however, fail to address other issues such as facilitating the contact between the consumer and the service provider.  
         [0006]     Moreover, a service provider may receive many requests from various consumers at the same time, which may be humanly impossible to respond to individually. For example, a qualified tax consultant may be inundated with tax questions on April 14th. The tax consultant may have previous obligations (e.g., legal or personal) to existing consumers, which would have to take precedence over new consumers.  
         [0007]     Filtering through thousands of emails or phone calls is a cumbersome task, especially when there is limited time to respond. One solution would be to have different phone numbers and email addresses for different types of consumers. This presents obvious drawbacks associated at least with costs and the effort in sifting through the messages or calls.  
         [0008]     Another solution would be to hire employees for a temporary situation (e.g., tax day rush). However, the temporary employees may not be trained sufficiently or unavailable at the particular time. Hiring employees may also involve numerous overhead items, for example, additional taxes, additional space, etc.  
         [0009]     More generally though, the current state of the art allows anyone to call and at any time—telemarketers, ex-girlfriends, unwanted business partners. To deal with this problem, one can use human filters, such as secretaries or personal assistants, who “gate keep” for executives. One can also turn his or her phone off, but then the phone is off for everyone. For instance, one&#39;s spouse would not be able to call in an emergency.  
         [0010]     Another problem is that people have to file many phone numbers for a single person depending on whether they might be at home, work, or on their cell phone. Moreover, caller ID services generally do not provide a solution because they do not always have the caller&#39;s name. Additionally, for each of the telephone addresses, people have to remember the digits of a phone number, which in actuality are the digits of machine language.  
       SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION  
       [0011]     Novel systems and methods are disclosed to provide services more efficiently to various consumers based on the consumers&#39; needs and/or available resources. In one embodiment of the present invention, a method of facilitating contact between a service provider and a consumer is disclosed. The method includes: the consumer selecting the service provider; the consumer requesting immediate contact with the service provider; determining whether the service provider permits immediate contact by the consumer; and if it is determined that the service provider permits immediate contact by the consumer, establishing immediate contact between the service provider and the consumer.  
         [0012]     In an embodiment of the present invention, a method of gate keeping contact between a plurality of users is disclosed. The method includes: providing a central network to establish communication between the plurality of users; and each of the plurality of users having access to a facility to approve or disapprove of any of the plurality of users to permit communication between respective users.  
         [0013]     In another embodiment of the present invention, the service provider is selected by performing a search of a directory of service providers.  
         [0014]     In a further embodiment of the present invention, the search is performed by utilizing categories.  
         [0015]     In a yet another embodiment of the present invention, the immediate contact is established by a method selected from a group comprising a telephone call, an instant messenger, and a videoconference.  
         [0016]     In a different embodiment of the present invention, the determining act is performed by checking a consumer list of the service provider to determine whether the consumer is associated with a category, which may have immediate contact with the service provider.  
         [0017]     In yet a different embodiment of the present invention, the consumer list includes consumer information organized by a category selected from a group comprising blocked, new consumer, and unassigned. 
     
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
       [0018]     The invention is illustrated by way of example and not limitation in the figures of the accompanying drawings, in which like references indicate similar or identical elements, and in which:  
         [0019]      FIG. 1  is a simplified exemplary block diagram of a computer system in which the present invention may be embodied;  
         [0020]      FIG. 2  illustrates an exemplary flow diagram of a service provider contact facilitation method  200  in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention;  
         [0021]      FIG. 3  illustrates an exemplary flow diagram of a service provider listing provision method  300  in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention; and  
         [0022]      FIG. 4  illustrates an exemplary graphical user interface (GUI)  400  in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.  
     
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION  
       [0023]     In the following detailed description of the present invention numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the present invention. However, it will be apparent to one skilled in the art that the present invention may be practiced without these specific details. In other instances, well-known structures and devices are shown in block diagram form, rather than in detail, in order to avoid obscuring the present invention.  
         [0024]     Reference in the specification to “one embodiment” or “an embodiment” means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic described in connection with the embodiment is included in at least one embodiment of the invention. The appearances of the phrase “in one embodiment” in various places in the specification are not necessarily all referring to the same embodiment.  
         [0025]     In addition, select embodiments of the present invention include various operations, which are described herein. The operations of the embodiments of the present invention may be performed by hardware components or may be embodied in machine-executable instructions, which may be in turn utilized to cause a general-purpose or special-purpose processor, or logic circuits programmed with the instructions to perform the operations. Alternatively, the operations may be performed by a combination of hardware and software.  
         [0026]     Moreover, embodiments of the present invention may be provided as computer program products, which may include machine-readable medium having stored thereon instructions used to program a computer (or other electronic devices) to perform a process according to embodiments of the present invention. The machine-readable medium may include, but is not limited to, floppy diskettes, optical disks, compact disc-read only memories (CD-ROMs), and magneto-optical disks, read-only memories (ROMs), random-access memories (RAMs), erasable programmable ROMs (EPROMs), electrically EPROMs (EEPROMs), magnetic or optical cards, flash memory, or other types of media or machine-readable medium suitable for storing electronic instructions and/or data.  
         [0027]     Additionally, embodiments of the present invention may be downloaded as a computer program product, wherein the program may be transferred from a remote computer (e.g., a server) to a requesting computer (e.g., a client) by way of data signals embodied in a carrier wave or other propagation medium via a communication link (e.g., a modem or network connection). Accordingly, herein, a carrier wave shall be regarded as comprising a machine-readable medium.  
         [0028]      FIG. 1  illustrates an exemplary block diagram of a computer system  100  in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. It is envisioned that the computer system  100  may be utilized to implement various embodiments of the present invention. The system  100  includes a computer  101 , which in turn includes a central processing unit (CPU)  102 , a main memory  104 , an input/output controller  106 , a keyboard  108 , a pointing device  110  (e.g., mouse, track ball, pen device, or the like), a display device  112 , and a mass storage  114  (e.g., hard disk, optical drive, or the like). Additional input/output devices, such as a printing device  116 , may be included in the computer  101  as desired.  
         [0029]     A communication device  118  may provide access to online services for example via the Internet or an intranet. The communication device  118  can be selected from a variety of devices such as an analog modem, a network card such as an Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, and Token Ring, a digital modem such as a digital subscriber line (DSL) and its varieties such as asynchronous DSL (ADSL), a wireless modem, and the like. The connection to the Internet and/or an intranet may provide access to a server  122  which can be any type of a server including a web server, file transfer protocol (FTP) server, Novell server, Microsoft Windows-based servers, and the like.  
         [0030]     As shown in  FIG. 1 , access to a peer-to-peer server  124  may also be provided through the Internet and/or an intranet. As illustrated, the various components of the computer  101  may communicate through a system bus  120  or similar architecture. In an embodiment, the computer system  100  includes an IBM-compatible personal computer utilizing an Intel microprocessor, which is available from several vendors (including IBM of Armonk, N.Y.). Those with ordinary skill in the art understand that any type of computer system may be utilized to embody the present invention, including those made by Hewlett Packard of Palo Alto, Calif. Also, instead of a single processor, two or more processors can be utilized to provide speedup in operations.  
         [0031]      FIG. 2  illustrates an exemplary flow diagram of a service provider contact facilitation method  200  in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. The method  200  starts in a stage  202 , which allows a consumer having access to a server (such as those discussed with reference to  FIG. 1 ) to search a directory of service providers. In an embodiment of the present invention, the directory may include information regarding the service providers&#39; experience, background, availability, preferences, and reviews (e.g., done by impartial third parties, previous consumers, entities specializing in verifying background information, and the like).  
         [0032]     In one or more embodiments of the present invention, the following techniques may be utilized to search for a service provider: 
        to receive advice on a particular topic, a predefined category may be selected by a consumer (e.g., which may further identify topics, and subtopics);     a search engine may be utilized by typing in the word or words that best describe the subject for which the consumer wishes to receive advice; and/or     a search may also be done for specific advisors by typing their name (e.g., member name, real name, expertise, and the like).        
 
         [0036]     It is envisioned that the search may be performed using Boolean, case-sensitive, wildcard-based, and the like. Once a consumer selects a service provider, a stage  204  determines whether the consumer would like to place an immediate call to the service provider. If it is determined that an immediate contact is requested, a stage  206  determines whether the selected service provider is available immediately. If the service provider is available immediately, the consumer is contacted in a stage  208  and the method  200  terminates. In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, the immediate contact is established by a telephone call, an instant messenger, a videoconference, or the like.  
         [0037]     In one embodiment of the present invention, the contact ( 208 ) may be established by calling the consumer after the consumer elects a call now option. The call may be placed through a regular phone system, over the Internet, a cellular phone, and the like. If the consumer&#39;s phone is busy, the system (such as that discussed with reference to  FIG. 1 , including the servers  122  and  124 ) may retry for a select number of times. A failure may be followed up with form of notification to the consumer such as an email, a voice call, a voicemail, a page, and/or an instant message. If a consumer only has a single phone line, the consumer may be instructed to hang up to receive the call in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. In another embodiment of the present invention, after the consumer receives the call, the consumer may be prompted to press a code (such as a digit or name) to acknowledge the consumer&#39;s intention to pay for the service provider&#39;s time.  
         [0038]     In yet another embodiment of the present invention, a recorded advice may be offered to the consumer instead of a live one for example, for a recipe, specific information, recurring advise, and the like. Moreover, provision of a recorded advice is envisioned to be especially beneficial in situations where live advice is unavailable (for example due to the time of day or a quiet period identified by, for example, the service provider). In a different embodiment of the present invention, the consumer can replay a recorded advice without incurring additional charges.  
         [0039]     In a further embodiment of the present invention, the availability of the service provider ( 206 ) is determined by contacting the service provider through voice call, voice mail, email, and the like. Once the availability of the service provider is successfully determined, a call (or other communication channel such as those discussed herein) may be established in accordance with the stage  208 .  
         [0040]     In accordance with another embodiment of the present invention, the service provider is envisioned to be in control of his/her contact (e.g., giving out home number, cell number, email address, etc.). The computer system may manage the specifics such as the phone numbers. In other words, the service provider may maintain his/her persona as a system entity instead of having to give out number, emails, etc. For example, if the service provider decides to drive somewhere, he/she may inform the system that his/her contact phone number should be his/her cell phone number for the next one hour and then the service provider will be unavailable or available at a different contact number, location, and so on. Such a solution is envisioned to also maintain certain sensitive information protected. For example, for personal matching services, a partner may not want to provide his/her home number to everybody who is interested in establishing contact with that person.  
         [0041]     In one embodiment of the present invention, the consumer joins a service to obtain access to service providers. The information required to join may include any combination of the following: an email address, a password, a phone number, whether the same phone number is used for accessing the Internet (i.e., a single phone line), and/or various option such as interest in receiving future mailings or information, agreeing with terms and conditions of a contract, and the like.  
         [0042]     In a further embodiment of the present invention, the consumer contact (the stage  208  of  FIG. 2 ) is established by emailing the consumer, visiting the consumer in person at the consumer&#39;s location, the service provider meeting the consumer at a determined location, and the like.  
         [0043]     Referring back to  FIG. 2 , if the stage  204  determines that the consumer has not requested an immediate call or the stage  206  determines that the service provider is unavailable immediately, the method  200  resumes in a stage  210 , which schedules a call with the selected service provider. In a stage  212 , it is determined whether the scheduling of the stage  210  has been successful. If the scheduling has been successful, a stage  218  facilitates the contact with the consumer and the method  200  terminates. Otherwise, a stage  214  suggests scheduling changes.  
         [0044]     After the stage  214 , a stage  216  determines whether the scheduling was successful. If the stage  214  is successful, the method  200  resumes with the stage  218 . Otherwise, a stage  220  suggests scheduling contact with a different service provider. In an embodiment of the present invention, the secondary choice of a different service provider may be made by the consumer during the original search (stage  202 ). Alternatively, the consumer may be directed (at stage  220 ) to select a secondary choice. After the stage  220 , the method  200  returns to the stage  212 .  
         [0045]      FIG. 3  illustrates an exemplary flow diagram of a service provider listing provision method  300  in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. The method  300  starts in a stage  302  wherein a service provider enters his/her contact information regarding the service providers preferred method of contact. For example, the service provider may provide his/her telephone number, email address, wireless telephone number, pager number, and other information such as whether the service provider utilizes the same phone number to access the Internet. In a stage  304 , the service provider selects the topics for which the service provider is willing to provide his/her services. In the stage  304 , the service provider may select one or more topics from a list of topics such as accounting, business, career and education, computing and Internet, counseling and health, dieting and fitness, legal, life-coaching, other, personal finance, psychics and astrology, social or entertainment, and/or taxes. It is envisioned that in accordance with various embodiments of the present invention each of the topics may also include subtopics, which the service provider may select in the stage  304 . For example, under a legal category, two subtopics may be provided such as business and/or personal.  
         [0046]     The method  300  then continues in a stage  306 , which creates a listing for the service provider. In the stage  306 , the service provider may be asked to provide additional information such as title, nickname, expertise, services, a sales pitch, price of advice from the service provider (such as a dollar amount per minute), and/or additional information such as copies of professional degrees, certificates, a logo, and/or pictures. After finishing the stage  306 , the service provider may be asked to confirm the created listing of the stage  306  in a stage  308 . The method  300  then terminates once the stage  308  is completed by the service provider.  
         [0047]      FIG. 4  illustrates an exemplary graphical user interface (GUI)  400  in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. The GUI  400 , in one embodiment, illustrates a web page that provides a service provider with detailed and sortable information about the service provider&#39;s consumers on a website such as www.keen.com (the assignee of the present application). The GUI  400  includes an availability field  402 , which indicates whether the service provider viewing the GUI  400  is available to provide advice to consumers presently. The GUI  400  includes an additional set of selectable icons  404 , which allows the service provider to either view all the service provider&#39;s consumers or their alphabetical listings.  
         [0048]     The GUI  400  is also envisioned to enable the service provider to enter a search criterion for a consumer name in a field  406  (e.g., followed by pressing on a search button  408 ). The service provider may also select a category associated with consumers through a field (e.g., pull-down fields)  410  (e.g., followed by selecting a button  412  to display the category of consumers). In an embodiment of the present invention, the categories associated with each consumer may be selected from a group including blocked, new, unassigned, and other categories that may be created by a service provider.  
         [0049]     In one embodiment of the present invention, the service provider can define categories with gradients such as hold all calls except mother, boss, and the like. Also, a consumer may be assigned to multiple categories. For example, an emergency privilege may be created for a select group of people such as family, immediate family, children, spouse, partner, boss, coworker.  
         [0050]     In a further embodiment of the present invention, it is envisioned that the techniques of the present invention may be applied to managing all contacts whether personal or business related. For example, certain categories may be created in accordance with scheduling considerations such as only the immediate family may contact the service provider during times determined as quiet or nap times.  
         [0051]     The GUI  400  includes a consumer list area  414 , which allows the service provider to select one or more consumers by selecting buttons  416  associated with each consumer. The consumer area  414  may also include a consumer name field  418  and one or more indicators to show whether the consumer is on the service provider&#39;s blocked list, the number of missed calls ( 420 ), the number of live contacts the consumer has had with the service provider ( 422 ), the number of recorded advices the consumer has listened to ( 424 ), the number of e-mails the service provider has sent to the consumer ( 426 ), last contact date ( 428 ), total earnings from the consumer ( 430 ), consumer type ( 432 ) (e.g., such as discussed with reference to filed  410 ), or the like.  
         [0052]     The GUI  400  may also include a ledger area  434  indicating what each of the icons in the consumer area  414  means. In an embodiment of the present invention, the consumer information area  414  is presented as a table that has sortable columns (except the check box column  416 ). Accordingly, the consumer information may be sorted based on various fields presented in the GUI  400  (e.g., in descending or ascending order).  
         [0053]     In accordance with another embodiment of the present invention, the GUI  400  allows a service provider to select various consumers and perform certain functions by selecting or clicking on buttons such as compose mail  436 , block  438  (e.g., which blocks the user from contacting the service provider directly by associating that consumer with a blocked list as discussed with respect to the field  410 ), delete  440 , and/or assign to list  442  (e.g., by selecting a consumer type from field  410 ).  
         [0054]     In a further embodiment of the present invention after selecting a consumer through the buttons  416  and clicking on the assign to list button  442 , the service provider is presented with a separate page which will let the service provider assign the selected consumer(s) to a given consumer list. The GUI  400  also includes a button  444 , which allows the service provider to obtain further information about the service provider&#39;s consumers. For example, if the consumer has a photo on his or her photo page, it will appear at the top of the page beside the consumer&#39;s name or clicking on the consumer&#39;s name may send the service provider to the consumer&#39;s member page.  
         [0055]     In accordance with one embodiment of the present invention, a service provider may categorize his or her consumers (e.g., by utilizing the GUI  400  of  FIG. 4 ) and allow the consumers to contact the service provider through different methods. For example, a service provider may indicate whether a given consumer may perform the stage  204  of  FIG. 2  (i.e. place an immediate call to the service provider). Alternatively, the service provider may (e.g., depending on the consumer&#39;s category) permit the consumer to access the service provider&#39;s calendar (such as that discussed with reference to stage  210  of  FIG. 2 ).  
         [0056]     It is envisioned that in various embodiments of the present invention the consumer&#39;s categories may be provided through personal data management (PDA) applications such as an address book, or otherwise through databases which the service provider selects for providing such information to the GUI  400 . For example, a service provider may prioritize his/her consumers based on previous contacts with the consumer, and based on the consumer&#39;s category allow the consumer to edit the service provider&#39;s calendar (i.e., have read and write access to the service provider&#39;s calendar), call the service provider immediately, not allow the consumer to contact the service provider via email, not allow the consumer to contact the service provider via phone and the like.  
         [0057]     In one embodiment of the present invention, a central network is provided that empowers each individual to gate keep and/or better communicate with others on the network. Each person can approve or disapprove of each other person, thereby only permitting a certain person(s) to ring their respective phone, for example, at certain times.  
         [0058]     For instance, when taking a nap, one could inform the system (e.g., through placing a call to an automated system and/or selecting options on a web page, cell phone, etc.) to hold all calls unless it is from spouse or children. Alternatively, one may issue instructions to hold all calls unless it is from spouse or children and they have indicated to the system that the call is regarding an “emergency.” In this case the phone would be rung, for example.  
         [0059]     In accordance with various embodiments of the present invention, no unwanted telemarketers could get through or, for example, after breaking up with a boyfriend or girlfriend, they could be blocked. In a further embodiment of the present invention, one can schedule calls to happen at certain times only. The applied filters may include one or more items such as time period, even type, condition, categories, and the like. In yet another embodiment of the present invention, the requirement to remember any machine-language telephone numbers is circumvented.  
         [0060]     For example, one would just see the entity “Bob Smith” trying to get in touch. Bob Smith may organize the routing and gate keeping on his end. Also, a buddy list could organize the gate keeping. And, a back-and-forth communications handshake may get one on to the buddy list such as discussed with various embodiment of the present invention.  
         [0061]     Whereas many alterations and modifications of the present invention will no doubt become apparent to a person of ordinary skill in the art after having read the foregoing description, it is to be understood that any particular embodiment shown and described by way of illustration is in no way intended to be considered limiting.  
         [0062]     For example, the techniques discussed with reference to various embodiments herein may be applied to any matching process such as matching singles, business or personal partners, buyers and sellers, and the like. Therefore, references to details of various embodiments are not intended to limit the scope of the claims which in themselves recite only those features regarded as essential to the invention.