Abstract:
A method of tiered promotion and distribution of a product comprises hosting a transactional applet accessible via the Internet; accessing the host to execute the applet for a first fan; enabling the first fan to process a voucher for the product; and enabling the first fan to propagate the applet to a terminal of a second fan wherein the propagated applet (i) renders content associated with the first fan and the product, (ii) accepts an input from the second fan to process a subsequent transaction relative to the product; (iii) credits the first fan with a credit, and (iv) generates a transactional record for delivery to the first fan. The generated record may include a notation of account credit, evidence of an entry ticket, or other information. The applet may be propagated to third or subsequent fans to provide further credits for the first, second, or subsequent fans.

Description:
This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/659,754, filed Mar. 19, 2010, now U.S. Pat. No. 8,131,589, and entitled “METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR CREDITING USERS BASED ON PROPAGATING A TRANSACTIONAL APPLET.” 
    
    
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     This invention relates to marketing and distribution, but more specifically, to a method and apparatus to enable a producer, supplier, promoter, and/or individual to promote, sell, and/or distribute a product or service over the Internet or other network. 
     In the past, certain products and services such as an entry ticket for an entertainment event have been sold through intermediary distributors having an established relationship with the producer or promoter. An event ticket for an entertainment or musical performance is used as an example in this disclosure. The cost of such tickets include intermediary or middleman service fees which are often shared with the producer, promoter, venue owner, and/or patrons. These service fees may add a significant cost to the ticket price and, in many instances, they exceed half of the ticket&#39;s price. 
     Increased costs cause many attendees to forego purchasing a ticket for an event that they otherwise would attend. Further, service fees diminish promoter profits, which profits might otherwise be used to book other events or for service improvements. Such middleman service fees may also injure venue owners because higher fees reduce ticket sales and reduce income. In addition, because online piracy of event productions, such as music recordings, is so prevalent, many performers have come to depend solely on live performances for their income. Higher patronage at shows increases revenue for these artists, which positively impacts their ability to continue performing. Therefore, reduction of middleman service fees would increase ticket sales, lower costs to the fans, and increase profits for promoters, venue owners, and the musical performers. 
     Prior attempts to use the Internet to promote, sell, and distribute tickets for musical performances provided only a limited success. Typically, a fan may purchase tickets to the event through a middleman&#39;s website, but each fan must separately access a particular website in order to purchase, reserve, and/or print an entry ticket. It would be beneficial to provide a system and method to increase the number of sites for ticket purchasing and distribution in order to increase ticket sales. 
     In the past, music event promoters have used email, mass messaging, and social networking sites to economically and quickly promote events and reach many individuals, but such techniques have had limited success due to a lack of credibility associated with the message originator. Accordingly, response rates for these types of promotion and distribution methods tend to produce a low number of actual ticket sales. In today&#39;s information-laden culture, individuals are bombarded with messages and very often ignore information from untrusted or unknown sources. Further, there is no assurance that the individual promoting the event has actually purchased a ticket or attended the associated event. Therefore, it would be beneficial to develop a system or method that provides a trusted source to promote and distribute credentials or tickets for musical and other events where the message originator is known or has purchased a ticket to the event. This would resolve the credibility problem and improve the chance that event information reaches a broader audience. 
     Music fans, for example, have less incentive to promote a musical event because there is no reward for doing so and present-day incentive methods are not well-suited for mass ticket sales or distribution. In other industries, tiered or multi-level marketing and distribution programs have been used to generate incentives to sell and recruit others to sell and distribute. But there are special challenges in the music industry that so far have made these methods impractical. Namely, musical events are time-sensitive events. Any multi-level promotion and ticket distribution program must be reset frequently, which currently is not done. In fact, most multi-level marketing programs are built and depend on a stable, non-changing structure. Therefore, it would be advantageous to provide a multilevel marketing and distribution method and system for ticket sales that would reset and propagate itself quickly. 
     Although a musical event was used as an example, one of skill in the art will appreciate that many of these solutions disclosed herein apply to other time sensitive events whose ticket sales and distribution may be enhanced through a credible promotion source and through providing multiple sales and distribution channels. For example, the airline industry, hotel industry, exhibition industry, sporting industry, theater industry, or an enthusiast gathering (e.g., 1970s muscle car club), and the like, are all examples of industries whose product has a temporal limit. 
     Accordingly, it would be beneficial to provide an Internet-based, multi-level marketing and distribution system and method that provide quick reset capabilities for new events. It would further be beneficial for such system and method to provide trusted information and to increase the number of points of sales/distribution for tickets. The present invention accomplishes these among other things in order to solve the above-mentioned problems. 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     According to the present invention, there is provided a method of promoting and distributing a product comprising the steps of providing a site to store a transactional applet accessible via a network; accessing the site via a network, such as the Internet, to render a transactional applet on a user interface associated with a terminal of a first fan; enabling the first fan to process at least one voucher for the product via the user interface; permitting the first fan to propagate the transactional applet from his or her site to a terminal of a second fan wherein the propagated applet is capable of (i) rendering content associated with the first fan and his or her purchase of the product and (ii) accepting an input from the second fan in order to process a subsequent transaction relative to the product; and generating a record or incentive credit of the transaction for delivery to the first fan. The record may include a notation of account credit, evidence of an entry ticket, or other information. 
     In a further embodiment, the method includes registering a third fan providing an input to an applet propagated from the second fan&#39;s site, and, based on the input, granting a third fan permission to again propagate the applet to at least other site wherein the at least other site may be the same or different than the second fan&#39;s site. The method also includes providing the second fan credit from a second credit layer and providing the first fan credit from a first credit layer and a second credit layer of a credit database. 
     In other embodiments, the site may comprise a social networking site, a mass messaging site, a website, a blog, or an email. In yet further aspects of the invention the product may be an entry ticket to a musical event, a theatrical event, a party, a sporting event, an enthusiast gathering, a merchandise promotion, a hotel room, an airline flight, or an exhibition. In yet another aspect of the invention, the input or transaction may comprise a purchase of a good, ticket, or service. And in yet further embodiments, different credit amounts may be granted the respective fans for each credit layer. In some embodiments, different credit amounts may be granted for each said credit layer depending on the number of copies of the applet rendered on the at least one site. In a further aspect of the invention, different credit amounts may be granted to a fan for each credit layer depending on the number of applet propagations that emanate from a fan and that are rendered on a site. In another aspect of the invention, the credit may include cash, a promotional product, or a concession at an event. 
     In another embodiment of the method invention, said product may have a temporal limit. And in yet another aspect of the method invention, permission for a fan to render an applet or copy of an applet is removed after the product&#39;s temporal limit. 
     Another aspect of the invention comprises a system to promote and/or distribute a product via a user interface terminal in communication with a network wherein the system comprises a credit database to store credit layers associated with completed fan transactions; a transactional applet of the site that is accessible via a network to enable a first fan to process at least one voucher relative to the product; a processor module of the applet to permit the first fan to propagate execution of the applet from the site to a terminal of a second fan in order to (i) render content associated with said first fan and the product, (ii) accept an input from the second fan in order to process a subsequent transaction relative to the product, and (iii) credit the first fan with a credit from the credit database upon completion of subsequent transactions by at least one other fan; and an output device to produce a record of a transaction of the processor module for delivery to the first fan. 
     In one embodiment, the system includes a credit database for storing transactional records related to product vouchers, for storing a second fan transactional activity, and for storing a third or subsequent fan transactional activity. This embodiment may also provide a database for storing at least one permission from a fan to propagate the applet on at least one site. This embodiment may also provide a transactional applet capable of displaying content associated with a previous fan and the product, accepting at least one input from a subsequent fan, accepting a permission indication, and being rendered on at least one site. This embodiment may also comprise a database for storing data including at least one credit layer and a server for rendering or effecting execution of the transaction applet on a site, the server further tracking inputs from a second fan and from a third fan and the server further relaying a credit from the at least one credit layer to the first fan and the second fan. 
     In another aspect of the invention, the transactional input may include purchasing a product, ticket, or service. In another aspect of the invention, the product is an entry ticket for a musical event, a theatrical event, a party, a sporting event, an enthusiast gathering, a merchandise promotion, a hotel room, an airline flight, or an exhibition. 
     Other aspects of the invention will become apparent upon review of the following description taken in connection with the accompanying drawings. The invention, though, is pointed out with particularity by the appended claims. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWINGS 
         FIG. 1  describes an exemplary embodiment of a method for providing an applet on a site for affiliate and multi-level marketing. 
         FIG. 2  describes a further exemplary embodiment of a method for providing an applet on a site for affiliate and multi-level marketing;  FIG. 2A  describes another exemplary embodiment of a method for providing an applet on a site for affiliate and multi-level marketing; and  FIG. 2B  describes yet another exemplary embodiment of a method for providing an applet on a site for affiliate and multi-level marketing. 
         FIG. 3  describes an exemplary embodiment of a method for removing permission for rendering an applet on a site for affiliate and multi-level marketing. 
         FIG. 4  describes an exemplary embodiment of a system for performing affiliate and multi-level marketing over the Internet using applets. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
     The present invention relates to a method and a system to provide an applet on a site for affiliate and multi-level marketing. Although the following description provides several embodiments of the invention, one of skill in the art will readily see various modifications to the preferred embodiments depicted herein. Accordingly, the present invention and illustrated embodiments are not meant to limit the invention to less than the full scope defined by the appended claims. 
     The embodiments described herein use the Internet as the preferred network, but other communication networks may effectively be substituted for use with this invention. For example, a cellular telephone network, wide area network, or an Ethernet network may effectively be implemented with the invention described herein. 
       FIG. 1  depicts an embodiment of a method  100  to provide a sales/distribution applet implemented in a user interface of a site for use in affiliate or multi-level marketing/distribution of a product or service. The site may comprise, for example, a social networking site, a mass messaging site, a website, a blog, or an email server. Marketing and distribution may be performed through various electronic media via the Internet, such as a mobile phone or a computer. Affiliate and multi-level marketing may be directed to an event, such as a musical event, a theatrical performance, a party, a sporting event, an enthusiast gathering, an exposition, a merchandise promotion, or the like. Marketing and distribution may also be directed to a service, such as a hotel room or an airline flight. In many instances, such events and products have a temporal limit, e.g., a concert ends at a certain time and date and a hotel room cannot be rented for a date in the past. Such temporal limitations often create an urgency to sell and distribute such products and services, a problem that the present invention advantageously ameliorates. 
     In step  120 , a first fan initiates a voucher transaction applet for a product (e.g., a ticket purchase), and the transaction is registered. For sake of illustration, the voucher transaction is directed to a ticket and the product a concert. The first fan purchases a ticket to the concert and the purchase is registered. In step  130 , the transaction applet grants permission for the first fan to render a copy or notation of the transaction applet on at least one site. In some embodiments of the invention, the first fan may render as many copies or notations of the transaction applet as he/she desires. The transaction applet may display content associated with the product and may accept an input from the fan. In some embodiments, the fan may customize the transaction applet to suit his or her taste. A site may include the first fan&#39;s social networking site or an email server or a chat room or a mass messaging site or even a blog. The content displayed via the transaction applet, for example, may include an advertisement for an upcoming concert and the input accepted may be a ticket purchase or a message to the musical artist. 
     In step  140 , the transaction applet registers the input of a second fan. Again, as an example, this input may include the fan purchasing a ticket or sending a message to the musical artist. Based on this input, in step  150 , the transaction applet grants the second fan permission to render a copy or notation of the applet on at least one other site, wherein the other site may be the same as the first fan&#39;s site or different than the first fan&#39;s site. Again, in certain embodiments, the copy or notation of the transaction applet may be the same as the first fan&#39;s, including whatever customization the first fan may have made to the applet, or the copy or notation may be a “clean” copy of the transaction applet without any customization. Further, in some embodiments of the invention different types of copies or notations of the applet may be available to a fan to render. For example, there may be three different applets for a musical concert. All such copies are considered the same “copy” of the applet because all three relate to the same event, and all such copies will be simply referred to as a copy of the applet. In step  160 , the applet grants the fan a credit from a first credit layer. Some embodiments of the applet comprise multiple credit layers, and the invention contemplates that the applet may grant different credit amounts for each credit layer. The invention also contemplates granting different credit amounts for each credit layer depending on the number of copies of an applet on a site. For example, if a first fan has over a certain number of copies of the applet on a particular social networking site or email provider, the first fan will receive a higher credit amount. In some aspects of the invention, the credits can comprise cash, promotional products, or concessions at a concert event. 
       FIG. 2  describes another embodiment of the invention of a method  200  for providing transactional applet on a site for affiliate and multi-level marketing. In step  210 , the transaction applet registers an input to an applet copy on the second fan&#39;s site from a third fan. As discussed in the examples above, the input may include any number of actions, such as a ticket purchase or a message to a musical artist. Based on the input, in step  220 , the applet grants the third fan permission to render at least one copy of the applet on a site. Similar to step  150 , the site may be the same as the second fan&#39;s site or the first fan&#39;s site or it may be different than all of these sites. Also similar to step  150 , the site could be, for example, a third fan&#39;s social networking site or an email or a mass messaging site or even a blog. The content displayed via the applet, for example, may include an advertisement for an upcoming concert and the input accepted may be a ticket purchase instruction or a message to the musical artist. In step  230 , the applet grants the second fan a credit from a second credit layer. And in  240  the applet grants the first fan a credit from a first credit layer and a second credit layer. The amount of credit granted from the first and second credit layers may be different or the same. 
     In some embodiments of the invention, as illustrated in  FIG. 2A , the amount of credit granted by the transactional applet may be different depending on the number of applet copies or transactional notations that are rendered on a site. In step  250 , the applet checks to determine whether the number of applet copies on a site are at or above a particular amount. If the number of applet copies or transaction notations is at or above a particular amount, the transaction applet grants the first fan a larger credit. If the number of applet copies or notations is below a certain amount, the transactional applet grants the fan a different credit. For illustration, the number of applet copies or transaction notations on a particular email system or a social networking site may be counted. If the total number of applet copies or transactional notations on the site exceeds a target amount, the first fan is granted a larger credit. 
     In  FIG. 2B , step  260  illustrates a further aspect of the invention where the transactional applet checks to determine if the number of applet copies or notations on a site that emanate from a first fan exceed a target amount. If so, the first fan is granted a larger credit from a first credit layer. If the number of applet copies or notations emanating from a first fan is below a certain amount, the first fan is granted a different credit from a first credit layer. In other embodiments of the invention, the above-described aspect is extended to a second fan and a third fan and to various permutations of the credit levels. As mentioned earlier, the credits may comprise cash, promotional products, concessions at a concert event, and the like. 
       FIG. 3  describes an embodiment of the invention involving a temporal limit to the product or service. As mentioned, many events have a temporal limit to them, e.g., a hotel room or a musical concert. As such, it may be desirable to remove a copy of the transactional notation from sites after the event&#39;s temporal limit is reached. In step  310 , one embodiment of the invention, the transactional applet checks to see if the temporal limit for the product or service has expired. If so, the transactional applet removes permission for the first fan, second fan, and third fan to have or propagate the applet or transactional notation on or from his or her site. Such permission removal may remove the applet notation from the site or remove the ability to accept an input. If the temporal limit has not been reached, the first fan, second fan, and third fan are permitted to continue to render the applet or transactional notation on at least one site. 
       FIG. 4  describes an exemplary embodiment of the system  400  to provide transaction applet or notation on a site for affiliate and multi-level marketing. In this embodiment, the system  400  includes a host processor  410 . The host  410  may comprise a server  460  for rendering a copy of an applet or notation thereof on a site, for tracking inputs from fans, and for relaying credit from a credit layer database  430  that contains credits. The host may also contain a tracking unit  450  that tracks the amount of credit a first fan, a second fan, or a third fan has received or that tracks at least one credit layer. Host processor  410  also may include or access a database  420  that registers fan transactions for a voucher for a product/service, an input of a second fan, or an input of a third fan. Further, the host  410  may also contain or access a database  440  that stores permissions for a fan, a second fan, or a third fan to render an applet or notation thereof on at least one site. Although databases  420 ,  430 , and  440  are described as separate databases, one of skill in the art would readily recognize that they may be housed within a single physical database structure. Likewise, although only one tracking unit  450  is disclosed in this embodiment of the invention, one of skill in the art could easily locate the two functions described therein to separate tracking units. 
     Site  470  describes a social networking site of a fan on which a copy or notation of an applet  475   a  has been rendered. In the depicted embodiment, the applet  475   a  is capable of displaying content associated with a product/service, accepting at least one input, accepting a permission indication, and being rendered on a site. The applet  475   a  is associated with a first credit layer  465 , because the fan who is associated with this site  470  made a transaction of a voucher for a product. Such a transaction could be purchasing a ticket. Site  480  describes a web page site of a fan on which a copy of an applet  475   b  has been rendered. Site  480 , too, is associated with a first credit layer because the fan associated with this site  480  made a transaction of a voucher for a product. 
     Sites  490  (a mass messaging site),  491  (an email),  492  (another email), and  493  (a social networking site) all have applets  476   a - d , respectively, rendered on their site that are copies of the transactional applets  475   a - b  on the  470  and  480  sites. The applets on the  490 ,  491 , and  492  sites are copies of the applets or notations thereof on the  470  site and the applet on the  493  site is a copy of the applet on the  480  site. For each of these applets  476   a - d , a fan provided an input to applet  475  in order to receive permission to render a copy of applet  476  on the fan&#39;s site. Once the fan receives permission, in one aspect of the invention, the fan may render as many applet copies  476  as he or she pleases. Applet  476  is associated with a second credit layer  497  because the fan or fans associated with sites  490 ,  491 ,  492 , and  493  provided an input to applet  475 , which is associated with a first credit layer  465 . 
     Sites  494  (a blog),  495  (a web page), and  496  (a mass messaging site) all have applets  477   a - c , respectively, rendered on their site that are copies of the applets  476   a - d  on the  490 ,  491 ,  492 , and  493  sites. The applet on the  494  site is a copy of the applet on the  490  site. The applet on the  495  site is a copy of the applet on the  491  site. And the applet on the  496  site is a copy of the applet on the  492  site. In some aspects of the invention, a copy or group of copies of applets may be different from another copy or group of copies if they are copies from different parent applets. For each of the applet  477 , a fan had to provide an input to applet  476  in order to receive permission to render a copy of applet  476  on the fan&#39;s site. After the fan receives permission, in one aspect of the invention, the fan may render as many copies of the applets  477  as he or she desires. Applet  477  is associated with a third credit layer  498  because the fan or fans associated with sites  494 ,  495 , and  496  provided an input to applet  476 , which is associated with a second credit layer  497 . In some embodiments of the invention, one site may contain multiple copies of an applets or notations thereof, and each copy may be associated with a different credit layer.