Patent ID: 8751309

Claim:
A method of operating a system that distributes, on behalf of one or more promoters, messages via the system to one or more consumers associated with one or more personal interest identifiers, each personal interest identifier indicating a personal interest of a consumer and indicating a request by a consumer to receive, via the system from the one or more promoters, messages relating to the personal interest, the method comprising: receiving, at the system, a request from a first consumer of the one or more consumers to receive, via the system from the one or more promoters, messages relating to a first personal interest of the first consumer, the request comprising a first personal interest identifier indicating the first personal interest; and storing, in at least one data store of the system, information associating the first personal interest identifier with the first consumer in a case that the first personal interest identifier was not previously stored in the at least one data store; and for a message of a promoter that is to be distributed via the system to one or more consumers: identifying, based on at least one characteristic of the message and a set of one or more personal interest identifiers stored in the at least one data store of the system and associated with one or more consumers, a selected set of personal interest identifiers for the message, the selected set of personal interest identifiers comprising one or more personal interest identifiers, wherein the set of one or more personal interest identifiers based on which the selected set is identified comprises the first personal interest identifier that was stored following receipt from the first consumer in the case that the first personal interest identifier was not previously stored by the at least one data store; identifying, based on information in the at least one data store associating the one or more consumers and the set of one or more personal interest identifiers, at least one consumer to whom to distribute the message based at least in part on the selected set of personal interest identifiers; and making the message available to the at least one consumer via at least one server of the system having a user interface by which consumers can receive the message.