Patent ID: 8180852

Claim:
An apparatus, comprising: a processing device; and a memory coupled to the processing device comprising instructions executable by the processing device, the processing device operable when executing the instructions to: determine when a user of a social networking website communicates with another user of the social networking website; wherein the social networking website comprises a plurality of social networking webpages that are hosted by a server and configured to provide real time interaction between the users; determine when the user rates content uploaded to the social networking website by the another user; award points to the user initiating the communications and rating the content, the points controlling what functionality of the social networking website is available to the user; receive an input requesting initiation of a temporary period for the social networking website; responsive to receiving the input, select a start time and an end time for the temporary period; and temporarily modify at least one of the social networking webpages of the server to identify a particular one of the users that sponsers the temporary period for a duration corresponding to the selected times, wherein the temporarily modified webpage displays at least one of contact information for the particular one of the users and a visual representation of the particular one of the users; wherein according to said temporary modifying, user interactions sent using the social networking website before the start time or after the end time are scored at a first non-zero rate and user interactions sent using the social networking website within the duration are scored at a second non-zero rate that is greater than the first non-zero rate.