Patent ID: 7725833

Claim:
A community providing system for providing a personalized community environment to user terminals connected to the internet, wherein the community environment allows various users to present information and communicate with other users online, the community providing system comprising: a goods server having a storage device operable to store community configuration items including at least one of a template and at least one of a background image of the community environment; an item shop server operable to allow a user to select at least one of the community configuration items via a user terminal connected to the internet and comprising a display device; an item database operable to sort and store URL information, said URL information indicating a memory location on a storage device containing the at least one of the community configuration items selected by the user; a bridge server operable to deliver the URL information from the item database to a community server for generating a personalized community web page when the user terminal requests the bridge server to apply the at least one of the community configuration items selected by the user to the community environment; and the community server operable to generate the personalized community web page to which the at least one of the community configuration items selected by the user is applied to information content supplied by the community server and operable to provide the generated personalized community web page to the user terminal to be displayed on the user terminal display device based on the URL information on the at least one of the community configuration items selected by the user and delivered by the bridge server, wherein the community server provides to the user terminal a cookie including the URL information on the at least one of the community configuration items selected by the user, the community server determines whether the user is a host of the community environment or a visitor of the community environment, when the user is determined a host the community server deletes, when present, the cookie as previously stored on the user terminal and again receives the URL information on the at least one of the community configuration items selected by the user from the bridge server to provide the personalized community web page based on the received URL information, and when the user is a visitor and the cookie is present on the user terminal, the community server provides the personalized community web page based on the URL information on the at least one of the community configuration items selected by the user stored in the cookie.