Patent ID: 8271987

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for providing access to tasks that are available to be performed, the method comprising: identifying, by one or more configured computing systems of a task exchange system that facilitates performance by a plurality of task performer users of tasks supplied by multiple task requester users, a group of multiple task performer users who are associated with a first computing node of multiple alternative computing nodes of the task exchange system, each of the plurality of task performer users and each of the multiple task requester users being associated with one of the multiple computing nodes that stores data for that user, and each available task to be performed being associated with one of the multiple computing nodes that controls performance of the task; and providing, by the one or more configured computing systems, a supply of available tasks to the first computing node for later performance by the identified group of task performer users, by: determining one or more types of tasks that the identified group of task performer users has an affinity for performing, the determining being based at least in part on prior performance of tasks by those task performer users via the task exchange system; identifying tasks of the determined one or more types that are available to be performed and that are currently associated with one or more computing nodes of the multiple computing nodes other than the first computing node; before any of the multiple task performer users have requested to perform any of the identified tasks, initiating a transfer of the identified tasks to the first computing node, to enable the transferred identified tasks to be accessible for later performance by the group of multiple task performer users via interactions with the first computing node to request the performance, the transfer such that the transferred identified tasks become associated with the first computing node; and after the initiating of the transfer of the identified tasks, receiving a request from one of the multiple task performer users to perform one or more of the identified tasks, and providing information to the one task performer user related to the one or more identified tasks.