Patent Publication Number: US-2012030016-A1

Title: Method and system for distributing revenue among user-authors

Description:
PRIORITY CLAIM/INCORPORATION BY REFERENCE 
     The present application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60/730,202 entitled “APPARATUS, SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR THE DISTRIBUTION OF REVENUE AMONG USER AUTHORS ON A NETWORK” filed on Oct. 25, 2005, the specification of which is expressly incorporated, in its entirety, herein. In addition, the present application also claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60/846,483 entitled “METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR DISTRIBUTING REVENUE AMONG USER-AUTHORS” filed on Sep. 22, 2006, the specification of which is expressly incorporated, in its entirety, herein. 
    
    
     BACKGROUND 
     Electronic marketing or “e-marketing” is a type of marketing that operates through various means of electronic communications. E-marketing may be used in conjunction with digital technologies such as Internet browsers, e-mail servers, online databases, digital television service, and web-enabled mobile phone service. Furthermore, a business may utilize an advertisement server for placing or embedding advertisements from various businesses onto or within the content displayed over a website in order to sell, promote, introduce, providing savings products and services. In exchange for advertising services, the ad server may collect revenue from the advertising businesses according to a variety of payment options. 
     A problem with online advertisement serving is that the ad server is unable to accurately project the amount of traffic the content of a website may generate. Typically, the ad server will attempt to project the cost and worth of an e-marketing campaign. This projection by the ad servers may use cost per thousands (or mille) (“CPM”) approximations to estimate the amount of web traffic to the advertising business. For example, a website that has a CPM rate of $10 and guarantees advertisers 500,000 viewers will charge $10,000 ($10×500) for an advertising business to place an ad (e.g., a banner ad, a sidebar ad, a hyperlink, etc.) within the content of the website. Based on the CPM approximations, an ad server will have to guarantee a certain number of viewer visits and/or downloads to the websites containing the ad. It is difficult to accurately project how much traffic the content on a website may generate. 
     A further problem is providing authors with incentive to contribute the content to websites featuring the advertisements. While revenue is generated from the advertising businesses and any subscription fees required from viewers, the ad server using CPM approximations are not able to promptly and accurately determine a compensation for any content provider. Thus, payments based on CPM approximations may limit any encouragement to the content providers. 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     A method for receiving user-authored content from one or more user-authors over a network, receiving at least one advertisement from one or more third-parties over the network, placing the at least one advertisement within the user-authored content, monitoring activities of one or more content viewers over the network and determining a compensation for at least one of the user-authors, wherein the compensation is based on the monitored activities of the one or more content viewers. 
     A system having a first receiving means receiving user-authored content from one or more user-authors over a network, a second receiving means receiving at least one advertisement from one or more third-parties over the network, a placement means placing the at least one advertisement within the user-authored content, a monitoring means monitoring activities of one or more content viewers over the network and a determining means determining a compensation for at least one of the user-authors, wherein the compensation is based on the monitored activities of the one or more content viewers. 
     A system having an application server for receiving user-authored content from one or more user-authors, and for receiving at least one advertisement from one or more third-parties, wherein the application server places the at least one advertisement within the user-authored content, a content database for storing the user-authored content, wherein the content database is accessible to a viewer over a network and a advertisement database for storing the advertisement. The system further implements a first algorithm for measuring at least one of the number of times the user-authored content is accessed by the viewer and the number of links to the user-authored content and a second algorithm for calculating the amount of revenue generated by the network to share with the user-author. 
     A method for receiving user-authored content from one or more user-authors, receiving at least one advertisement from one or more third-parties, associating the at least one advertisement with the user-authored content and determining a compensation for at least one of the user-authors, wherein the compensation is based on at least one of the number of advertisements associated with the user authored content and a number of associations made with the user-authored content by third parties. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         FIG. 1  shows an exemplary system for publishing and distributing content over a network for sharing revenue derived from the content according to the present invention. 
         FIG. 2  shows an exemplary method for publishing and distributing content over a network for the sharing of revenue derived from the content according to the present invention. 
         FIG. 3  shows an exemplary display of the published article of user-authored content as presented to the content viewer over the network according to the present invention. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
     The present invention may be further understood with reference to the following description of exemplary embodiments and the related appended drawings, wherein like elements are provided with the same reference numerals. The present invention is related to systems and methods used for allocating revenue derived from a network or system that publishes and distributes user-authored content. Specifically, the present invention is related to systems and methods for distributing revenue derived from a network that publishes and distributes user-authored content, wherein the distribution to the user-author is based on a predetermined formula. Thus, the present invention may provide users of an exemplary network with incentives in order to encourage the generation, publication, and distribution of user-authored content throughout the network. 
     According to exemplary embodiments, the present invention may be operable within a variety of network architectures and/or network architecture combinations. The term network may apply to all currently existing and future developed architectures. These network architectures may include local area networks (“LANs”), either wired or wireless. Exemplary LANs include peer-to-peer (“P2P”) networks, virtual private networks (“VPNs”), and client-server networks. Alternatively, the network architectures may include wide area networks (“WANs”), either wired or wireless. Regardless of the type of network architecture, or combination of architectures, used for the exemplary embodiments of the present invention, content may be generated by user-authors and made available to viewers over the network. 
     According to the exemplary embodiments of the present invention, the content available over the network may be user-authored content. The term user-author content may be defined as any content created by a subscriber, member, and/or user to the exemplary network of the present invention, wherein an article of user-authored content may be of any type, such as, for example, a written commentary, an editorial, a musical composition, a novel, an essay, a product review, a help guide (e.g., instructional information), educational material, medical information, a fine art composition, multimedia work, audiovisual work, and/or a movie. Furthermore, the various user-authored content may be placed in an exemplary format for publication and distribution throughout the network. The exemplary format may digitize the user-authored content, thereby placing the content in a standardized digital format. Once placed in the exemplary format, the user-authored content may then be made available to other users (e.g., consumers) of the network. 
     A common architecture, but not the exclusive architecture, for which the present invention may be useful is in the context of a publicly available website. For example, the owner of the website may have a web server (or a series of web servers) that includes various content. A source of revenue for the owner is through the sale of advertising space within the content. However, the cost associated with generating new and topical content (e.g., by having a staff of in-house writers) may not be commercially viable because the cost is too great or the desired quantity of content is so large that it would take too long to generate the content. Without the large amount of content, the website may not receive a sufficient amount of traffic in order to justify the advertising rates that it will take to make the website a commercially viable operation. Alternatively, the website may contain a mix of user authored content and non-user authored content, such as professionally authored contented. The percentage of one type of content to another may range anywhere between a very small percentage to 100%. 
     As described above, a solution is to have user authors contribute content to the website so that a desired amount of content is available. However, the user authors must be incentivized in some manner to contribute this content. The exemplary embodiments of the present invention provide a system and method for providing such incentives to user authors. Those skilled in the art will understand that the above example of a publicly available website is only exemplary and that the present invention may also be applied to any type of content providing system. 
       FIG. 1  shows an exemplary system  100  for publishing and distributing content over a network for sharing revenue derived from the content according to the present invention. The exemplary system  100  may operate over an exemplary network  101 , e.g., the Internet, in order to interact with at least one user-author  170 , at least one content viewer  180 , and at least one third-party business partner  190 . The exemplary system  100  may include an application server  105 , a content database  107 , a promotion database  109 , an advertisement database  111 , a monitoring server  113 , and a central processing unit (“CPU”)  115  for providing control data throughout the system  100 . Furthermore, the exemplary system  100  may also include an authentication server  120  in order to verify the access to the system  100  for the user-author  170 , the content viewer  180 , and/or the third-party business partner  190 . Those skilled in the art will understand that components included within the system  100  are only exemplary and that the present invention may be applied to any type of arrangements configured on a variety of network architectures. 
     According to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the at least one user-author  170  may be in communication with the exemplary system  100  via the network  101 . Optionally, the user-author  170  may be requested to log onto the system  100  via the authentication server  120 . The authentication server  120  may require the user-author  170  to register with the exemplary system  100 , wherein the registration may request personal information regarding the user-author for verification purposes. Once verified, if needed, the user-author  170  may generate one or more articles of user-authored content  175  and transmit the content  175  to the exemplary system  100  in order to be uploaded and stored onto the content database  107 . Furthermore, the user-author  170  may be a member of a particular organization or professional affiliation, wherein access to the network  101  may be limited to members of the organization or professional affiliation. Those skilled in the art will understand that access to the system  100  by the user author  170 , content viewer  180  and/or the third party business  190  may be restricted or controlled in a variety of manners and that the authentication server  120  may be used to control such access. 
     Furthermore, the content viewer  180  may be in communication with the exemplary system  100  via the network  101 . Similar to the optional verification of the user-author  170 , the content viewer  180  may be requested to provide personal information and/or payment information to the authentication server  120 . The content viewer  180  may be a member of a particular organization or professional affiliation. Alternatively, the system  100  may operate on a subscription basis, wherein content viewers pay a structured fee  185  in order to access user-authored content  175  over the network  101 . The structured fee  185  may be a daily, weekly, monthly, or annual subscription fee payable by the content viewer  180  or by the organization of the content viewer  180 . Alternatively, the structured fee  185  may be a predetermined payment based on the number of viewings or downloads of the user-authored content  175 . The amount of the structured fee  185  may vary from content to content based on the respective subject matters of the user-authored contents. 
     In addition, at least one third-party business partner  190  may be in communication with the exemplary system  100  via the network  101 . The third-party business partner  190  may supply advertisements  191  and/or promotional incentives  193  to the exemplary system  100  to be stored within the promotion database  109  and advertisement database  111 , respectively. The application server  105  may use placement algorithms to place selected advertisements  191  of the third-party business partner  190  within the selected articles of user-authored content  175 . For example, the advertisements  191  placed within the articles of user-authored content  175  may be an embedded “banner ad” or “sidebar ad” within a web page displaying the user-authored content  175  over the Internet. Banner ads and sidebar ads may be described as a web-based advertising means for a business to attract web traffic from viewers to a specific website of the advertising business. Exemplary banner/sidebar ads may be in the form of static images as well as multimedia objects using animation and/or sound. Alternatively, the advertisement  191  may simply be a hyperlink directing the content viewer  180  to a specific address on the Internet. 
     Once the banner ad, sidebar ad, hyperlink, or any alternative form of advertising, is embedded within, or placed adjacent to, the articles of user-authored content  175  on the network  101 , the ad may be viewed and “clicked-through” by the content viewer  180 . A click-through may be described as the process of directing a viewer to an intended web address upon receiving instructions from a viewer&#39;s pointing device, e.g., mouse pointer, stylus, touch screen, etc. The monitoring server  113  may track the number of times the advertisement  191  is displayed, the number of times a viewer clicks-through the advertisement  191 , the number of times a sale by the third-party business partner  190  is the result of a click-through, etc. The functions of the monitoring server will be described in greater detail below. Furthermore, exemplary embodiments of the system  100  may utilize a predetermined schedule to determine which of the advertisements  191  from the advertisement database  111  will be placed within or adjacent to selected articles of user-authored content  175 . 
     Also contemplated within the disclosure of the present invention is a system and method for the distribution of promotional incentives  193  along with allocation of revenue to the user-authors of the network  101 . The promotional incentives  193  may include pre-purchased promotional coupons or codes, gift certificates, discounts, reductions in shipping cost, free trial memberships, and other special offers provided from various third-party business partners. The promotional incentives  193  may include offers from a wide variety of interests and third-party business partners in order to appeal to a wide variety of interests of the user-authors. Thus, the exemplary system  100  may be used as an incentive procedure to generate greater user participation over the network  101 . Greater user participation may encourage the user-author  170  to provide various user-authored content  175 , as well as encourage additional user-authors to join the system  100  and contribute further user-authored content  175 . 
     According to exemplary embodiments, user-author  170  may receive points for creating user-authored content  175  that is approved by a network editor. These points may be exchanged for the above-mentioned exemplary promotional incentives  193  for goods and/or services provided the third-party business partner  190 . For example, the application server  105  may designate specific user-authors, such as user-author  170 , as the recipient of one or more promotional incentives  193 , such as free shipping on any online purchase, provided by the third-party business partner  190 , wherein third-party business partner  190  is an online retailer. Therefore, the system  100  may function as a lead-generator for the exemplary third-party business partner  190 , wherein the system  100  may promote usage of the goods and/or services provided by the third-party business partner  190  as well as potentially drawing increased online traffic to websites of the third-party business partner  190 . In addition, the system  100  may also aggregate valuable promotional incentives  193  from the third-party business partner  190  for the user-author  170 , wherein the user-author  170  may be otherwise unable to have access to such promotional incentives  193  without generating articles of user-authored content  175  for the system  100 . 
     It is important to note that while  FIG. 1  illustrates each of the user-author  170 , the third-party business partner  190 , and the content viewer  180  as respective single entities, one of skill in the art would understand that each of these components may include multiple entities. Thus, for example, several different content viewers may access the same user-authored content  175 . Furthermore, it should be noted that a single entity may act as multiple components. Accordingly, the user-author  170  of content  175  may act as a content viewer for a different user-authored content within the content database  107 . 
     The monitoring server  113  may be in communication with the CPU  115  in order to monitor the activities of the content viewer  180  over the network  101 . According to exemplary embodiments of the present invention, the monitoring server  113  may run one or more monitoring algorithms that monitor the number of times the user-authored content  175  is viewed and/or downloaded by the content viewer  180 . A predetermined formula may be utilized to determine an amount of revenue generated by the system  100  that will be allocated to any of the user-authors. The use of the monitoring algorithms and predetermined formulas will be described in greater detail below. 
     According to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the system  100  may further include an indexing server  117 . The indexing server  117  may index various articles of user-authored content  175  according to predetermined content properties or attributes of each of the articles of content. Once indexed, the user-content  175  may be searchable by the content viewer. For example, the predetermined content attributes of the article may include subject matter, category, genre, field of study, and other characteristics. In order to allow the content viewer  180  to search for specific articles of user-content  175  over the network, the indexed content attributes may be included as search criteria within a network search engine. Those skilled in the art would understand the functionalities of the network search engine. 
     In addition to the user-authored content  175 , the advertisements  191  of the third-party business partner  190  may also be indexed by the indexing server  117  based upon predetermined advertising attributes, such as, for example, a type of business. As discussed above, the application server  105  may run placement algorithms in order to embed, or place, advertisements  191  of certain goods and/or services within, or adjacent to, the articles of user-authored content  175 . Similar to the indexing of the user-authored content  175 , the indexing server  117  may index the advertisements  191  according to predetermined properties of the advertisements  191  and/or the supplying third-party business partner  190 . According to exemplary embodiments of the present invention, at least one of the properties of the user-authored content  175  may be related to at least one of the properties of the advertisements  191 , wherein the term related may be defined as sharing at least one common property between the content and one of the advertisement  191 . 
     The application server  105  may determine whether one of the indexed content attributes is related to any one of the indexed advertising attributes. For example, a content attribute may be the subject matter of the user-authored content  175 , while an advertising attribute may be the business field of the advertising third-party business partner  190 . Under this example, the user-authored content  175  may be a medical article pertaining to new cancer treatments and an advertising third-party business partner may be a pharmaceutical company or a hospital. Accordingly, an advertisement  191  may be embedded within the user-authored content  175 , wherein the advertisement  191  relates to hospitals specializing in cancer treatment. Alternatively, the advertisement may relate to a pharmaceutical company and include information about cancer treatment drugs provided by the company. 
     Optionally, the system  100  may utilize one or more system administrators (e.g., staff members) that may also determine whether one of the indexed content attributes is related to any one of the indexed adverting attributes. The system administrators may perform functions similar to the various algorithms performed by the application server  105 . In addition, the system administrators may include network moderators, staff writers and content editors. The network moderators and content editors may review and alter the user-authored content  175  and may administer the distribution of the revenue and/or promotional incentives  193 . The staff writers may contribute additional content to the system  100 . Thus, the system  100  may include a mixture of user-authored content  175  and staff-authored content. The staff writers may be salaried individuals that may be compensated directly by the system administrators for the generation of staff-authored content. The compensation received by the staff writers may be made separate from the revenue shared by the user-authors of the system  100 . 
     According to further exemplary embodiments of the present invention, the system  100  may also allow for revenue sharing between multiple user-authors, wherein income derived from multiple third-party business partners may be proportioned and distributed as compensation to the user-authors. In order to calculate a revenue sharing proportion, the system  100  may utilize a predetermined revenue formula to determine how revenue derived from the third-party business partner  190  will be allocated to any particular user-author for any of their content that is made available to the system  100 . The revenue formula for compensating the user-author  170  may be based on numerous factors. For instance, the user-author  170  may receive compensation based on factors such as: the number of times a particular article of user-authored content  175  is viewed and/or downloaded by the exemplary content viewer  180 ; or whether the particular article of user-authored content  175  has an embedded, or adjacent, advertisement from a sponsoring third-party business partner and the content  175  is viewed by the content viewer  180 ; or whether the content viewer  180  clicks through to the advertisement (e.g., banner/sidebar ad, hyperlink, etc.) that is associated with the user-authored content  175 . Furthermore, the user-author  170  may also receive compensation based on the number of articles of user-authored content  175  generated by the user-author  170 . 
     Compensation may further be based on a particular attribute (e.g., topic, genre, field of study, etc.) of the user-authored content  175 . Optionally, compensation may be based on the number of hyperlinks within the system  100  that are made to the user-author content  175  by other user-authors, by the user-author  170 , and/or by the content viewer  180 . The exemplary system  100  may used any combinations of these factors, or additional factors, for determining compensation received by the user-author  170 . It is important to note that the revenue need not be shared evenly amongst each of the user-authors within the network  101 . In addition, the multiple revenue formulas may be applied to varying types of content. For example, an article of user-authored content directed to the subject matter of health care may determine revenue through a different formula than a formula used for user-authored content directed to fine art. Any formula that shares revenue generated by the system  100  containing articles of user-authored content is contemplated by the exemplary embodiments of the present invention. In addition to each compensation option, the user-author  170  may optionally exchange digital copyrights in perpetuity for the user-authored content  175 . 
       FIG. 2  shows an exemplary method  200  for publishing and distributing content over a system  100  for the sharing of revenue derived from the content according to the present invention. The exemplary method  200  will be described with reference to the exemplary system  100  of  FIG. 1 . According to the present invention, the method  200  may provide incentive to the user-author  170  to generate user-authored content  175 . As described above, the present invention may operate with all currently existing and future developed network architectures and/or network architecture combinations. In addition, the content available via the network  101  may be user-authored content and/or staff-authored content. The exemplary embodiments of the present invention provides for the use of revenue algorithms to accurately calculate the proportion of the revenue that the user-author  170  may share with operators of the present invention. 
     In step  210 , an exemplary system  100  may authenticate and/or verify the user-author  170  over the network  101 . If the user-author  170  is a new user-author to the network  101 , the system  100  may require the user-author  170  to register as a member prior to submitting the user-authored content  175 . The registration process may require the user-author  170  to submit identifying information. If the user-author  170  is an existing member, the system  100  may simply verify the identity of the user-author  170  using information received during an earlier registration. The verification process may include, for example, logging on the system  100  via a user name and password. 
     In step  220 , the exemplary system  100  may receive the user-authored content  175  from the user-author  170 . The exemplary system  100  may store the user-authored content in a content database  107 . Optionally, upon receiving the user-authored content  175 , the indexing server  117  may determine content attributes within the user-authored content  175  and index the content attributes within the content database  107 . 
     In step  230 , the exemplary system  100  may receive advertisements  191  and/or promotional incentives  193  from at least one third-party business partner  190 . The exemplary system  100  may store the advertisements  191  in an advertisement database  111 , and likewise, store the promotional incentives  193  in a promotion database  113 . Optionally, upon receiving the advertisements  191 , the indexing server  117  may determine advertising attributes within the advertisements  191  and index the advertising attributes within the advertisement database  111 . This index may also be correlated to the index of the user authored content so that advertising may be targeted to relevant user authored content. This indexing of advertising may be based on attributes that the system  100  (or system administrators) select from the advertising, e.g., product/service offered, type of company, etc. In a further embodiment, the third party business  190  may be able to select the type of user authored content with which its advertising will be correlated. This correlation may be related or unrelated to the user authored content. For example, if the particular system  100  has user authored content on a variety of topics (e.g., sports, news and opinion, movies, etc.), a third party business  190  that s a car manufacturer may request that their ads be correlated to the sports content. Similarly, the third party business  190  may request that their ads be correlated to a particular user author. The owner of the system  100  may use such requests as a factor in setting advertising rates (e.g., the most requested type of correlation by third party businesses may have a higher rate). Similarly, when the owner of the system  100  compensates user authors  170  for contributions of user authored content  175 , the compensation may be biased toward those user authors  170  that contribute to topics that have higher advertising rates. 
     In step  240 , the application server  105  may query the advertisement database in order to determine whether any advertising attributes are related to any of the content attributes. Also during step  240 , the application server  105  may either place the one or more advertisements adjacent to the user-authored content  175  or may embed the one or more advertisements within the content  175 . According to the results of one exemplary query, a single advertisement may be embedded within the user-authored content  175 , or multiple advertisements may be embedded within the user-authored content  175 . Thus, the user-authored content  175  may have advertisements  191  (e.g., banner/sidebar ads, hyperlinks, etc.) to related companies, products, services and/or other additional user-authored content within the network  101 . Finally, during step  240 , the application server  105  may place at least one of the third-party business partner advertisements  191  and publish the user-authored content  175  with the advertisement(s)  191 . Those skilled in the art will understand that the act of placing an advertisement  191  within a particular piece of user authored content  175  may be a dynamic process. For example, each time a content viewer  180  selects the particular piece of user authored content  175 , the system  100  may place a different advertisement  191  with the user authored content  175 . 
     In step  250 , the exemplary system may authenticate and/or verify the content viewer  180  and may monitor the viewing of the user-authored content  175  by the content viewer  180 . Similar to the authentication and verification processes used on the user-author  170 , the system  100  may require new content viewers to register and may verify any content viewers that are existing members. As described above, the registration of the content viewer  180  may be limited to members of a particular organization or professional affiliation (e.g., medical doctors, attorneys, etc.). Alternatively, the system  100  may operate on a fee or subscription basis, wherein the content viewer  180  may pay a structured fee (e.g., monthly fee, pay per download, etc.) for access to the user-authored content  175 . Thus, access to the system  100  may be granted to the content viewers  180  by means of fee, wherein the fee may generate additional revenue to the system  100 . The user-author  170  may be further compensated with a portion of the revenue derived from subscription fees. However, the system  100  may also be freely available to content viewers  180 , thereby eliminating the need for verification. It is also noted that there are other types of revenue models that the owner of the system  100  may implement to make the system  100  a commercially viable operation in addition to advertising revenue, subscription fees and download fees. The exemplary embodiments of the present invention may be implemented on any system without reference to the revenue model used by the system owner. The exemplary embodiments of the present invent are directed to manners of compensating user authors for contributed content. The manner in which the owner generates revenue to compensate the user authors is not relevant. 
     Once the content viewer  180  has been registered and/or verified and/or simply accesses the system  100 , the application server  105  of the system  100  may run one or more monitoring algorithms that monitor activity by the content viewer  180 . The monitored activity may include the number of times the content viewer  180  views and/or downloads the user-authored content  175 . The monitored activity may further include whether the content viewer  180  clicks through an embedded or adjacent advertisement  191  of the third-party business partner  190 , and whether the content viewer  180  subsequently purchases a good or service offered by the advertising third-party business partner  190 . Thus, the monitoring algorithm may determine each service purchase, good purchase, and any other actions that the content viewer  180  may take that originates as result of the content viewer  180  viewing the user-authored content  175 . 
     In step  260 , the application server  105  of the exemplary system  101  may determine a revenue amount received from the viewing of the user-authored content  175  and may determine a portion of the revenue amount to share with the user-author  170 . The application server  105  may utilize one or more revenue algorithms having predetermined formulas for determining the portion of the revenue amount to share. The revenue algorithms may incorporate information derived from the monitoring algorithms in order to determine the portions of the revenue amount to share with the user-author  170 . In addition to incorporating the monitored activities (e.g., viewings, click-throughs, purchases, etc.) made by the content viewer  180 , the revenue algorithms may also include other factors based on the user-author  170 . The other factors may include the number of total articles by the user-author that are approved and published on the system  100 , one or more particular content attributes of the user-authored content  175 , the number of hyperlinks made to the user-authored content  175  by other user-authors, content viewers, and/or the user-author  175 , and any combination of factors. Additionally, subscription fees and/or revenue derived directly from downloading the user-authored content  175  may be a factor for determining a revenue amount to share with user-author  170 . 
     According to exemplary embodiments of the present invention, the user-author  170  may be provided with a predetermined dollar amount for every viewing of one or more advertisements embedded in, or placed adjacent to, the user-authored content  175 . For example, the user-author may receive a fixed fee amount or percentage of a sales price for a purchased made by the content viewer  180 . Furthermore, the revenue generated from the system  100  may be shared with the user-author  170  based on an aggregate number of individual advertisement viewings by a plurality of content viewers, wherein the aggregate number relates to a total number of viewings between multiple articles of user-authored content  175  created by the user-author  170 . 
     According to a further embodiment of the present invention, revenue generated from the system  100  may be shared with a user-author  170  based on the content environment accompanying and/or surrounding the user-authored content  175 . The term content environment may refer to all content served and/or presented with the user-authored content  175  that is not the user-authored content  175  queried by the content viewer  180 . For example, each time a content viewer  180  views user-authored content  175 , the system  100  may display and/or present additional content and/or links to additional content while presenting the user-authored content  175 . The additional content and/or links to additional content may also include additional user-authored content. The content environment accompanying the user-authored content  175  may be presented, for example, by an advertising server. The application server  105  may log the content environment accompanying and/or surrounding each article of user-authored content. Thus, any revenue generated by the content environment accompanying and/or surrounding the user-authored content  175  may be shared with the user-author  170  based on the logged content environment. The exact revenue algorithm used for determining the revenue share for the user-author  170  may depend in part on how each of the advertisements  191  is negotiated with the advertising third-party business partner. 
     In step  270 , the exemplary system  100  may provide the user-author  170  with the portion of the revenue amount to share and/or a promotional incentive  193  provided by the third-party business partner  190 . As described above, the revenue amount may be percentage of a purchase made by a content viewer  180  over a product or service offered by advertising third-party business partner  190 . Alternatively, the user-author  170  may receive promotional points as incentive for generating user-authored content  175 . According to this exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the points may be exchanged by the user-author  170  for goods and services of value as provided by the third-party business partner  190 . For example, a user-author  170  may receive a point for every article of user-authored content  175  that is submitted to the network and approved by a network administrator. Upon accumulating a certain number of points, the user-author redeem promotional incentives  193  such as gift certificates and promotional codes from any of the third-party business partners that provide the incentives. Accordingly, the user-author  170  may receive more valuable promotional incentives  193  by accumulating and redeeming additional points. 
     It should also be noted that the user author  170  may have the option of selecting the type of incentive that the user author desires for contributing content. That is, the system  100  may be able to individualize the incentive for each particular user author  170 . For example, a first user author  170  may desire to strictly receive cash payments for each contribution of content, while a second user author  170  may desire to receive promotional offers from a predetermined list of third party businesses  190 . The system  100  may keep track of these requests by the user authors  170  and reward each user author  170  accordingly. 
       FIG. 3  shows an exemplary display  300  of the published article of user-authored content  175  as presented to the content viewer  180  according to the present invention. The exemplary display  300  will be described with reference to the exemplary system  100  of  FIG. 1 . According to exemplary embodiments of the present invention, the display  300  may be a website display presented to the content viewer  180  over the network  101 . The display  300  may include the user-authored content  175  and the plurality of advertisements  191 . As described above, one or more advertisements  191  may be embedded within, or placed adjacent to the display of the user-authored content  175 . The content viewer  180  may click on any of the advertisements  191  in order to be directed to, for example, a website of the advertising third-party business partner  190 . 
     In addition, the display  300  may also include content hyperlinks  320 , a content index  330 , and a search bar  340 . Each one of these display components may be activated by the content viewer  180 . The content hyperlinks  320  may direct the content viewer  180  to various related articles of user-authored content. The articles may be considered to be related if, for example, the articles are created by the same user-author  170 , or the articles pertain to the same subject matter. By activating the content index  330 , the content viewer  180  may be directed to a listing of the various content attributes and any of the articles of user-authored content that relate to each of the content attributes. Thus, the content index  330  may provide the content viewer  180  with access to each of the content attributes available over the network  101 . The search bar  340  may receive search criteria from the content viewer  180  and activate a search engine. The search engine may search the information stored in the content database  107  and provide the content viewer  180  with a list of references to user-generated content that meet the search criteria. 
     Finally, the display  300  may also include an invitation to become a third-party business partner  350  and an invitation to become a user-author  360 . An exemplary embodiment of the invitation to be a third-party business partner  350  may be a command button or hyperlink displaying the phrase “Place Ad Here.” By clicking on the command button or hyperlink  350 , the viewer may be notified of the benefits presented to third-party business partners for placing an advertisement  191  or providing a promotional incentive  193 . Thus, this information may encourage a relationship between a third-party business  190  and the system  100 . An exemplary embodiment of the invitation to be a user-author  350  may be a command button or hyperlink displaying the phrase “Get Paid to Become an Author.” By clicking on the command button or hyperlink  360 , the viewer may be notified of the benefits presented to the user-authors of the system  100 . Thus, this information may encourage the content viewer  180  to become a user-author  170 . 
     According to one application consistent with exemplary embodiments of the present invention, the system  100  may be developed around instructional information, i.e., information related to instructing laypersons about how various technologies operate and/or “walk-throughs” for operating a program or device. The user-authors  170  may be members of the system  100  and may publish user-author content  175  such as articles to the network based on the personal expertise or personal interests of the user-author  170 . The articles are published and indexed based on user provided information and/or indexing algorithms stored on the network. 
     According to another application consistent with exemplary embodiments of the present invention, the system  100  may be developed around educational materials, i.e., materials related to teaching students. The user-authors  170  may be members of the system  100  and may publish user-author content  175  such as educational materials. The user-authored content  175  may be indexed based on user provided information and/or indexing algorithms stored on the network. For example, materials related to the teaching of mathematics would be indexed as math with a sub-index based on the particular category within mathematics, for example, calculus/partial derivatives. 
     According to further application consistent with exemplary embodiments of the present invention, the system  100  may be developed around maternity information, i.e., educational and personal accounts relating to pregnancy, baby and childbirth matters. The user-authors  170  may be members of the system  100  and may publish user-author content  175  to new or expecting mothers. The user-authored content  175  may be indexed based on user provided information and/or indexing algorithms stored on the network. 
     It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various modifications may be made in the present invention, without departing from the spirit or the scope of the invention. Thus, it is intended that the present invention cover modifications and variations of this invention provided they come within the scope of the appended claimed and their equivalents.