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Patent 2736282 Summary

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Claims and Abstract availability

Any discrepancies in the text and image of the Claims and Abstract are due to differing posting times. Text of the Claims and Abstract are posted:

  • At the time the application is open to public inspection;
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(12) Patent Application: (11) CA 2736282
(54) English Title: METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR DEVELOPING AND IDENTIFYING LEADERS FOR CHARITABLE AND SOCIAL JUSTICE CAMPAIGNS THROUGH THE USE OF SOCIAL NETWORKS
(54) French Title: PROCEDE ET SYSTEME CONCU POUR IDENTIFIER ET FORMER DES LEADERS POUR LES CAMPAGNES DE CHARITE ET DE LUTTE POUR LA JUSTICE SOCIALE, PAR LE TRUCHEMENT DE RESEAUX SOCIAUX
Status: Dead
Bibliographic Data
(51) International Patent Classification (IPC):
  • G06Q 10/00 (2012.01)
(72) Inventors :
  • KONG, STEPHEN POH-CHEW (Canada)
  • WARD, KAI GARMO (Canada)
(73) Owners :
  • THINKECO POWER INC. (Canada)
(71) Applicants :
  • THINKECO POWER INC. (Canada)
(74) Agent: NA
(74) Associate agent: NA
(45) Issued:
(22) Filed Date: 2011-04-04
(41) Open to Public Inspection: 2011-10-02
Availability of licence: N/A
(25) Language of filing: English

Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT): No

(30) Application Priority Data:
Application No. Country/Territory Date
61/320,340 United States of America 2010-04-02

Abstracts

English Abstract




A method and system for providing a social network for developing and
identifying
leaders for charitable and social justice campaigns is disclosed. The method
and
system determine a level of a user based upon a weighting of one or more
criteria
indicative of the user's leadership potential for charitable and social
justice campaigns,
and provide the user with one or more rewards in the social network based upon
the
level of the user and/or the rate of promotion of the user between levels.


Claims

Note: Claims are shown in the official language in which they were submitted.




CLAIMS

1. A system for providing a social network for developing and identifying
leaders for
charitable and social justice campaigns, the system comprising at least one
processor and at least one memory, the memory having stored thereon a
database for storing information respecting users and instructions for
execution
by the processor to provide the social network, the system configured to:

(a) determine a level of a user based upon a weighting of one or more criteria

indicative of the user's leadership potential for charitable and social
justice
campaigns; and

(b) provide the user with one or more rewards in the social network based
upon the level of the user and/or the rate of advancement of the user
between levels.

2. The system of claim 1, the system further configured to, in response to a
request
from a user having a predetermined minimum level, create a charitable or
social
justice campaign hosted on the social network and associated with the user.

3. The system of any one of claims 1 to 2, the system further configured to,
in
response to a request from a user, facilitate a financial contribution from
the user
to a charitable or social justice campaign hosted on the social network.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the financial contributions comprise
monetary
donations or loans.

5. The system of any one of claims 1 to 4, the system further configured to,
in
response to a request from a user, subscribe the user to a charitable or
social
justice campaign hosted on the social network.

6. The system of any one of claims 1 to 5, the system further configured to
provide
a marketplace for the sale of virtual items.


63



7. The system of claim 6, the system further configured to facilitate a
financial
contribution to a charitable or social justice campaign hosted on the social
network, the contribution comprising at least a portion of the proceeds
received
by a user from the sale of virtual items on the marketplace.

8. The system of any one of claims 1 to 7, the system further configured to
provide
a survey to a user and receive a completed survey from the user.

9. The system of any one of claims 1 to 8, the system further configured to
receive
self-promotional information provided by a user.

10. The system of any one of claims 1 to 9, the system further configured to
execute
a social network analysis tool to assess a user.

11. The system of any one of claims 1 to 10, wherein the system is further
configured
to execute Integrative Complexity (IC) pyschographic tools to assess a user.

12. The system of any one of claims 1 to 11, wherein the criteria comprises
the total
financial contributions made by other users to charitable or social justice
campaigns hosted on the social network and associated with a user.

13. The system of any one of claims 1 to 12, wherein the criteria comprises
the total
number of other users that subscribe to charitable or social justice campaigns

hosted on the social network and associated with a user.

14. The system of any one of claims 1 to 13, wherein the criteria comprises a
completed survey respecting a user, the survey completed by and provided to
the system by a user.

15. The system of any one of claims 1 to 14, wherein the criteria comprises a
completed survey respecting a user, the survey completed by and provided to
the system by another user.

16. The system of any one of claims 1 to 15, wherein the criteria comprises
self
promotional information provided to the system by a user.


64



17. The system of any one of claims 1 to 16, wherein the criteria comprises
results
obtained from the execution of social network analysis tools by the system to
assess a user.

18. The system of any one of claims 1 to 17, wherein the criteria comprises
results
obtained from the execution of Integrative Complexity (IC) pyschographic tools
to
assess a user.

19. The system of any one of claims 1 to 18, wherein the rewards comprise
permitting a user to create one or more charitable or social justice campaigns
on
the social network.

20. The system of any one of claims 1 to 19, wherein the rewards comprise
displaying a user level of a user in association with the user's activities on
the
social network, the user level awarded by the system to the user based upon
the
level of the user.

21. The system of any one of claims 1 to 20, wherein the rewards comprise
providing
a user with an accreditation, rank or title.

22. The system of any one of claims 1 to 21, wherein the rewards comprise
providing
a user with free access to the social network.

23. The system of any one of claims 1 to 22, wherein the rewards comprise
providing
a user with wares, services or opportunities.

24. The system of any one of claims 1 to 23, wherein the rewards comprise
providing
a user with virtual currency useable on the social network.

25. The system of any one of claims 1 to 24, wherein the rewards comprise
providing
a user with virtual items useable on the social network.

26. The system of claim 25, wherein the virtual item comprises displaying a
tag in
association with the user's activities on the social network.





27. The system of any one of claims 1 to 26, wherein the rewards comprise
permitting a user to sell virtual items on the social network.

28. The system of any one of claims 1 to 27, wherein the rewards comprise
permitting a user to create virtual items on the social network.

29. The system of any one of claims 1 to 28, wherein the rewards comprise
permitting a user to nominate other users as having leadership potential for
charitable and social justice campaigns.

30. The system of any one of claims 1 to 29, wherein the rewards comprise
permitting a user to upload and host user content on the social network.


66

Description

Note: Descriptions are shown in the official language in which they were submitted.



CA 02736282 2011-04-04

METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR DEVELOPING AND IDENTIFYING LEADERS FOR
CHARITABLE AND SOCIAL JUSTICE CAMPAIGNS THROUGH THE USE OF
SOCIAL NETWORKS

FIELD

The present disclosure relates to a method and system for developing and
identifying
leaders for charitable and social justice campaigns through the use of social
networks.
BACKGROUND

With the advances in social networking and more particularly in social
networking
platforms, there is an ongoing and increasing effort to develop and implement
effective
and sustainable support systems for social justice causes. Current systems
that are in
existence would normally tend to encourage charitable donations by individuals
who are
members of a social network. This would allow the user to create a campaign,
wherein
the created campaign is associated with one or more charities and a financial
goal,
allowing the user to send an invitation to one or more members or non-members,
allowing the one or more members or non-members to accept or decline the
user's
invitation.

While these social networking websites, for example, Kiva.com, generally
satisfy
the need for a universal service that allows individuals to connect together
and rally
around a charitable cause, they fall short in stickiness, raising up leaders
and identifying
potential youth change makers in society.

SUMMARY
The disclosure provides, in part, a method and system for developing and
identifying leaders for charitable and social justice campaigns through the
use of social
networks.

In one of its aspects, the disclosure provides a system for providing a social
network for developing and identifying leaders for charitable and social
justice
campaigns, the system comprising at least one processor and at least one
memory, the
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CA 02736282 2011-04-04

memory having stored thereon a database for storing information respecting
users and
instructions for execution by the processor to provide the social network, the
system
configured to:

(a) determine a level of a user based upon a weighting of one or more criteria
indicative of the user's leadership potential for charitable and social
justice
campaigns; and

(b) provide the user with one or more rewards in the social network based
upon the level of the user and/or the rate of advancement of the user
between levels.

The system may be further configured to, in response to a request from a user
having a
predetermined minimum level, create a charitable or social justice campaign
hosted on
the social network and associated with the user. The system may be further
configured
to, in response to a request from a user, facilitate a financial contribution
from the user
to a charitable or social justice campaign hosted on the social network. The
financial
contributions may comprise monetary donations or loans. The system may be
further
configured to, in response to a request from a user, subscribe the user to a
charitable or
social justice campaign hosted on the social network. The system may be
further
configured to provide a marketplace for the sale of virtual items. The system
may be
further configured to facilitate a financial contribution to a charitable or
social justice
campaign hosted on the social network, the contribution comprising at least a
portion of
the proceeds received by a user from the sale of virtual items on the
marketplace. The
system may be further configured to provide a survey to a user and receive a
completed
survey from the user. The system may be further configured to receive self-
promotional
information provided by a user. The system may be further configured to
execute a
social network analysis tool to assess a user. The system may be further
configured to
to execute Integrative Complexity (IC) pyschographic tools to assess a user

The criteria indicative of the user's leadership potential for charitable and
social justice
campaigns may comprise the total financial contributions made by other users
to
charitable or social justice campaigns hosted on the social network and
associated with
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CA 02736282 2011-04-04

a user. The criteria may comprise the total number of other users that
subscribe to
charitable or social justice campaigns hosted on the social network and
associated with
a user. The criteria may comprise a completed survey respecting a user, the
survey
completed by and provided to the system by a user. The criteria may comprise a
completed survey respecting a user, the survey completed by and provided to
the
system by another user. The criteria may comprise self promotional information
provided to the system by a user. The criteria may comprise results obtained
from the
execution of social network analysis tools by the system to assess a user. The
criteria
may comprise results obtained from the execution of Integrative Complexity
(IC)
pyschographic tools to assess a user

The rewards provided to the user may comprise permitting a user to create one
or more
charitable or social justice campaigns on the social network. The rewards may
comprise
displaying a user level of a user in association with the user's activities on
the social
network, the user level awarded by the system to the user based upon the level
of the
user. The rewards may comprise providing a user with an accreditation. The
rewards
may comprise providing a user with free access to the social network. The
rewards may
comprise providing a user with wares, services or opportunities. The rewards
may
comprise providing a user with virtual currency useable on the social network.
The
rewards may comprise providing a user with virtual items useable on the social
network.
The virtual item may comprise displaying a tag in association with the user's
activities
on the social network. The rewards may comprise permitting a user to sell
virtual items
on the social network. The rewards may comprise permitting a user to create
virtual
items on the social network. The rewards may comprise permitting a user to
nominate
other users as having leadership potential for charitable and social justice
campaigns.
The rewards may comprise permitting a user to upload and host user content on
the
social network.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The subject matter which is regarded as the invention is particularly pointed
out
and distinctly claimed in the claims at the conclusion of the specification.
The foregoing
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CA 02736282 2011-04-04

and other objects, features, and advantages of the invention are apparent from
the
following detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying
drawings in
which:

FIGURE 1 is a diagram illustrating a system architecture of a system for
developing and identifying leaders for charitable and social justice campaigns
through
the use of social networks according to one embodiment.

FIGURE 2 is an exemplary graphical user interface for the purchase of credits
through the system shown in Figure 1.

FIGURE 3 is a flow chart illustrating a method of creating a new member
account
through the system shown in Figure 1.

FIGURE 4 is a flow chart illustrating a method of managing a response of a
person to an invitation to join a group or campaign of a user through the
system shown
in Figure 1.

FIGURE 5 is a diagram illustrating a system architecture the portion of the
system shown in Figure 1 responsible for regulating the access of a user to
the system.
FIGURE 6 is a diagram illustrating an exemplary charitable campaign hosted by
the system shown in Figure 1.

FIGURE 7 is a flow chart illustrating a method of creating and managing a
campaign hosted by the system shown in Figure 1.

FIGURE 8 is a diagram illustrating an example of the webpage link interface
for
creation of a campaign hosted by the system through the system shown in Figure
1.
FIGURE 9 is a flow chart illustrating a method of creating and managing a
group
hosted by the system shown in Figure 1.

FIGURE 10 is a flow chart illustrating the operation of a tagging module of
the
system shown in Figure 1.

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CA 02736282 2011-04-04

FIGURE 11 is a diagram illustrating an example of the tagging interface
utilized
in the tagging module of the system shown in Figure 1.

FIGURES 12A and 16B are a flow charts illustrating the operation of various
aspects of the system shown in Figure 1.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EXEMPLARY EMBODIMENTS

The present invention may be understood more readily by reference to the
following detailed description of exemplary embodiments of the invention taken
in
connection with the accompanying drawing figures, which form a part of this
disclosure.
It is to be understood that this invention is not limited to the specific
devices, methods,
conditions or parameters described and/or shown herein, and that the
terminology used
herein is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments by way of
example only
and is not intended to be limiting of the claimed invention. Also, as used in
the
specification including the appended claims, the singular forms "a," "an," and
"the"
include the plural, and reference to a particular numerical value includes at
least that
particular value, unless the context clearly dictates otherwise. Ranges may be
expressed herein as from "about" or "approximately" one particular value
and/or to
"about" or "approximately" another particular value. When such a range is
expressed,
another embodiment includes from the one particular value and/or to the other
particular
value. Similarly, when values are expressed as approximations, by use of the
antecedent "about," it will be understood that the particular value forms
another
embodiment.

In one embodiment, systems and methods are provided that allow and motivate
users to "play a part" in social justice campaigns since they can continuously
track their
own and other user levels (including, rank and/or title) through the internet
and mobile
devices and determine which potential campaign will offer them the highest
points to
move to the next level (including, rank and/or title) so that they can outpace
their friends
and other users. Additionally, these systems and methods provide a
continuously
scalable charity vehicle.

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CA 02736282 2011-04-04

In one embodiment, systems and methods are provided that can make use of
and be implemented with a mix of existing social networking processes and
websites
(such as Google, Ebay, Flicker and YouTube) that are already available.
Moreover,
such system can bolt onto existing social justice social networking sites such
as
Kiva.com. Additionally, such system can also include hardware to communicate
through
one or more media, such as power line communication or power line carrier
(PLC) or
power line networking (PLN), optical fibers, RF, BPL, Wi-Fi, WiMAX, and ADSL
lines
without requiring any standardization in protocol or standards. Additionally,
such
system can also include hardware to communicate over a network, such as but
not
limited to a local area network (LAN), a personal area network (PAN), a campus
area
network (CAN), a metropolitan area network (MAN), a wide area network (WAN) or
a
combination of any of the above. These networks may include but are not
limited to the
Internet, a telephone line using a modem (POTS), Bluetooth, WiFi, cellular,
optical,
satellite, RF, Ethernet, magnetic induction, coax, RS-485, and/ or other like
networks.

In one embodiment, a method is provided of encouraging individuals who are
members or non-members of a social network to support a charitable or social
justice
campaign wherein the created campaign is associated with one or more charities
or just
causes and a financial goal allowing the users to send a free invitation to
one or more
members or non-members, allowing that one or more members or non-members to
accept or reject the user's free invitation, wherein the one or more non-
members create
a member account in order to accept or decline the users invitation, allowing
the one or
more members the option to "level up", or move to the next level (including,
rank and/or
title), in recognition based on a weighting of one or more criteria. This
method will also
allow individuals to connect together and rally around a charitable cause,
increase
stickiness, raise up leaders as well as identify potential change makers in
society. As
such, this universal service not only provides users with a means for bringing
individuals
together to support and raise money for charitable causes, but helps to
empower them
and maximize their leadership potential.

In one embodiment, a method is provided of encouraging higher level members
(including, rank and/or title) of a social network to either support, lead
and/or co-lead a
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CA 02736282 2011-04-04

charitable or just cause wherein the created campaign is associated with one
or more
charities or just cause and a list of objectives allowing the users to send an
invitation to
one or more members of a certain level (including, rank and/or title),
allowing that one or
more members to accept or reject the user's invitation, allowing the one or
more
members the option to participate in the campaign or just cause and donate or
loan any
amount of money to a charity by way of token purchase or to post comments.
Further
leveling up (including, rank and/or title) will be determined based on
calculating a
weighting of one or more criteria associated with the new social justice
cause, wherein
the criteria are indicative of the user's leadership potential for charitable
and social
justice campaigns.

In one embodiment, a method is provided of encouraging individuals who are
members of a social network to suggest a new charitable or social justice
campaign
wherein the newly created campaign is associated with one or more charities
and a
financial goal and, when approved, allowing the users to send an invitation to
one or
more members of a certain level (including, rank and/or title), allowing that
one or more
members to accept or reject the user's invitation, allowing the one or more
members the
option to participate in the campaign or just cause and donate any amount of
money to
a charity or just cause by way of token purchase, or to post comments about
the user.
Leadership levels (including, rank and/or title) are determined based on
weighting one
or more criteria allowing that one or more members to accept or reject the
user's
invitation, allowing the one or more members reaching a predefined score the
option to
participate in the nomination and put forward their names on the website for
members to
review.

In one embodiment, a method is provided of selecting individuals who are at
the
highest level (including, rank and/or title) of a social network and provide
them the
authority to approve a new charitable or social justice campaign wherein the
newly
created campaign is associated with one or more social justice causes and a
financial
goal allowing the users to send an invitation to one or more members of a
certain level
(including, rank and/or title), allowing that one or more members to accept or
reject the
user's invitation, allowing the one or more members the option to participate
in the
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CA 02736282 2011-04-04

campaign and donate or loan any amount of money to a charity by way of token
purchase, or to post comments about the user. Such leadership levels
(including, rank
and/or title) are determined based on weighting one or more criteria allowing
that one or
more members to accept or reject the user's invitation, allowing the one or
more
members reaching a certain score the option to participate in the nomination
and put
forward their names on the website for members to review.

In one embodiment, a method is provided of encouraging families and their
children of a social network to become involved in a charitable or social
justice
campaign through a web application interactive game, wherein the campaign is
associated with one or more social justice causes and a financial goal
allowing the
users to send an invitation to one or more members of a certain level
(including, rank
and/or title), allowing that one or more members to accept or reject the
user's invitation,
allowing the one or more members the option to participate in the game and
donate any
amount of money to a charity by way of token purchase. Levels (including, rank
and/or
title) are determined based on calculating one or more scores based on the
game
scores, allowing the one or more members within these families reaching
certain score
(including, level, rank and/or title) the option to participate in boot camps,
online
psychometric tests or other activities for assessing the leadership potential
of the user
for charitable and social justice campaigns, and/or submit nomination for
promotion of
other users and put forward their names on the website for other members to
review.
Referring to Figure 1, a functional block diagram is provided illustrating the
system architecture of one embodiment of a system 100 for collecting and
storing
information about individuals in a social network, encouraging participation
by
individuals who are members of a social network, and developing and
identifying
leaders for charitable and social justice campaigns. The system 100 generally
comprises a graphic user interface 102, a universal module 104, a reward
transfer
module 106, a new member's module 108, a voting/leveling up module 110, a
monetization module 112, a charity module 114, a child protection module 116,
a
content generation module 118 and a tagging module 120. The graphic user
interface
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CA 02736282 2011-04-04

102, through use of various subsystems and user inputs, controls the flow of
content in
a social network that communicates with the other modules of the system 100.

The system 100 includes a server that enables the collection and storage of
information about individuals in a social network, encouraging participation
by
individuals who are members of a social network, and developing and
identifying
leaders for charitable and social justice campaigns.

The remote devices 150 to 158 that access the system 100 may each be located
at remote sites. Remote devices 150 to 158 include, but are not limited to, a
PLC, PC,
workstation, laptop, handheld computer, pocket PC, PDA, pager, WAP device, non-

WAP device, cell phone, palm device, printing device and/or the like. Included
with each
remote device 301-305 is a browser that is able to access a graphical user
interface
102.

Third party computer systems and databases (not shown) can be accessed by
the system 100 in order to access any needed information not found on the
primary
server. Data that is obtained from third party computer system and database
can be
stored on server and database in order to provide later access to the remote
devices
150 to 158. It is also contemplated that for certain types of data, the remote
devices
150 to 158 can access the third party computer systems and database directly
using a
network.

The system 100 comprises one or more servers, such as, for example, PCs,
workstations, laptops, PDAs, palm devices and the like. Generally, in terms of
hardware architecture, the server includes a processor, memory, and one or
more input
and/or output (I/O) devices (or peripherals) that are communicatively coupled
via a local
interface. The local interface can be, for example, one or more buses or other
wired or
wireless connections, as are known in the art. The local interface may have
additional
elements, which are omitted for simplicity, such as controllers, buffers
(caches), drivers,
repeaters, and/or receivers, to enable communications. Further, the local
interface may
include address, control, and/or data connections to enable appropriate
communications among the aforementioned components.

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The processor is a hardware device for executing software that can be stored
in
memory. The processor can be virtually any custom-made or commercially
available
processor, a central processing unit (CPU), a data signal processor (DSP) or
an
auxiliary processor among several processors associated with the server, or a
semiconductor-based microprocessor (in the form of a microchip) or a
macroprocessor.
Examples of suitable commercially available microprocessors include, but are
not
limited to, the following: an 80x86 or Pentium series microprocessor from
Intel
Corporation, U.S.A., a PowerPC microprocessor from IBM , U.S.A., a SparcTM
microprocessor from Sun Microsystems , Inc., a PA-RISCT"" series
microprocessor
from Hewlett-Packard Company, U.S.A., a 68xxx series microprocessor from
Motorola
Corporation , U.S.A. or a PhenomTM, AthlonTM, SempronTMor OpteronTM
microprocessor from Advanced Micro Devices , U.S.A.

The memory can include any one or combination of volatile memory elements
(e.g., random access memory (RAM), such as dynamic random access memory
(DRAM), static random access memory (SRAM), etc.) and nonvolatile memory
elements (e.g., ROM, erasable programmable read only memory (EPROM),
electronically erasable programmable read only memory (EEPROM), programmable
read only memory (PROM), tape, compact disc read only memory (CD-ROM), disk,
diskette, cartridge, cassette or the like, etc.). Moreover, the memory may
incorporate
electronic, magnetic, optical, and/or other types of storage media. Note that
the
memory can have a distributed architecture, where various components are
situated
remote from one another, but can be accessed by the processor.

The software in memory may include one or more separate programs, each of
which comprises an ordered listing of executable instructions for implementing
logical
functions. In an example, the memory includes a suitable operating system
(O/S) and
the system architecture of the system 100. As illustrated, the system
architecture of the
system 100 comprises numerous functional components including, but not limited
to, a
universal module 104, reward transfer module 106, new member's module 108,
voting/leveling up module 110, monetization module 112, charity module 114,
child
protection module 116, content generation module 118 and tagging module 120.



CA 02736282 2011-04-04

A non-exhaustive list of examples of suitable commercially available operating
system is as follows (a) a WindowsNista operating system available from
Microsoft
Corporation; (b) a Netware operating system available from Novell, Inc.; (c) a
Macintosh/OS X operating system available from Apple Computer, Inc.; (e) an
UNIX
operating system, which is available for purchase from many vendors, such as
but not
limited to the Hewlett-Packard Company, Sun Microsystems, Inc., and AT&T
Corporation; (d) a LINUX operating system, which is freeware that is readily
available
on the Internet; (e) a run time Vxworks operating system from WindRiver
Systems, Inc.;
or (f) an appliance-based operating system, such as that implemented in
handheld
computers or personal data assistants (PDAs) (such as for example Symbian OS
available from Symbian, Inc., PalmOS available from Palm Computing, Inc., and
Windows CE available from Microsoft Corporation).

The operating system essentially controls the execution of other computer
programs, such as the system architecture of the system 100, and provides
scheduling,
input-output control, file and data management, memory management, and
communication control and related services. However, it is contemplated that
the
system architecture of the system 100 is applicable on all other commercially
available
operating systems.

The system architecture of the system 100 may be a source program, executable
program (object code), script, or any other entity comprising a set of
instructions to be
performed. When a source program, then the program is usually translated via a
compiler, assembler, interpreter, or the like, which may or may not be
included within
the memory, so as to operate properly in connection with the O/S. Furthermore,
the
system architecture of the system 100 can be written as (a) an object oriented
programming language, which has classes of data and methods, or (b) a
procedure
programming language, which has routines, subroutines, and/or functions, for
example
but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Pascal, BASIC, API calls, HTML, XHTML, XML,
ASP
scripts, FORTRAN, COBOL, Perl, Java, ADA,.NET, and the like.

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CA 02736282 2011-04-04

The I/O devices may include input devices, for example but not limited to, a
mouse (not shown), keyboard (not shown), scanner (not shown), microphone (not
shown), etc. Furthermore, the I/O devices may also include output devices, for
example
but not limited to, a printer (not shown), display (not shown), etc. Finally,
the I/O
devices may further include devices that communicate both inputs and outputs,
for
instance but not limited to, a NIC or modulator/demodulator (not shown), a
radio
frequency (RF) or other transceiver (not shown), a telephonic interface (not
shown), a
bridge (not shown), a router (not shown), and/or the like.

If the server is a PC, workstation, intelligent device or the like, the
software in the
memory may further include a basic input output system (BIOS) (omitted for
simplicity).
The BIOS is a set of essential software routines that initialize and test
hardware at
startup, start the O/S, and support the transfer of data among the hardware
devices.
The BIOS is stored in some type of read-only memory, such as ROM, PROM, EPROM,
EEPROM or the like, so that the BIOS can be executed when the server is
activated.

When the server is in operation, the processor is configured to execute
software
instructions stored within the memory, to communicate data to and from the
memory,
and generally to control operations of the server pursuant to the software.
The system
architecture of the system 100 and the O/S instructions are read, in whole or
in part, by
the processor, perhaps buffered within the processor, and then executed.

When the system architecture of the system 100, as is shown in Figure 1, is
implemented in software it should be noted that the system architecture of the
system
100 can be embodied in any computer-readable medium for use by or in
connection
with an instruction execution system, apparatus, or device, such as a computer-
based
system, processor-containing system, or other system that can fetch the
instructions
from the instruction execution system, apparatus, or device and execute the
instructions.

In the context of this document, a "computer-readable medium" can be any
means that can store, communicate, propagate, or transport the program for use
by or
in connection with the instruction execution system, apparatus, or device. The
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CA 02736282 2011-04-04

computer readable medium can be, for example but not limited to, an
electronic,
magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system,
apparatus,
device, propagation medium, or other physical device or means that can contain
or
store a computer program for use by or in connection with a computer related
system or
method.

More specific examples (a non-exhaustive list) of the computer-readable medium
would include the following: an electrical connection (electronic) having one
or more
wires, a portable computer diskette (magnetic or optical), a random access
memory
(RAM) (electronic), a read-only memory (ROM) (electronic), an erasable
programmable
read-only memory (EPROM, EEPROM, or Flash memory) (electronic), an optical
fiber
(optical), and a portable compact disc memory (CDROM, CD RJW) (optical). Note
that
the computer-readable medium could even be paper or another suitable medium,
upon
which the program is printed or punched (as in paper tape, punched cards,
etc.), as the
program can be electronically captured, via for instance optical scanning of
the paper or
other medium, then compiled, interpreted or otherwise processed in a suitable
manner if
necessary, and then stored in a computer memory.

In an alternative embodiment, where the system architecture of the system 100
is
implemented in hardware, the system architecture of the system 100 can be
implemented with any one or a combination of the following technologies, which
are
each well known in the art: a discrete logic circuit(s) having logic gates for
implementing
logic functions upon data signals, an application specific integrated circuit
(ASIC) having
appropriate combinational logic gates, a programmable gate array(s) (PGA), a
field
programmable gate array (FPGA), etc.

The software in memory may include one or more separate programs, each of
which comprises an ordered listing of executable instructions for implementing
logical
functions. The software in the memory includes a suitable operating system
(O/S) and
a browser. As illustrated, the remote devices 150 to 158 each include
components that
are similar to components for server described with regard to Figure 1.

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All new members have to register into the website through the new members
module but the system 100 will incorporate a crawler that will allow friends
and contents
from their existing Facebook, Twitter, Myspace sites to be dragged over.
Children from
9-18 years of age will be protected through a child protection module 116 that
will filter
and alert web administrators if there are any criminal or pedophiliac
activities.

In one embodiment, the system 100 incorporates a broad range of web
applications and games suitable for Children and families and an API will be
provided to
developers so as to encourage game development. In order to motivate children
to be
enthusiastic about social justice and change, parents and other family members
are
allowed to transfer credits earned through the reward transfer module 106. In
addition,
the system 100 incorporates a metaspace or marketplace (virtual cities,
virtual
buildings, virtual islands, virtual rooms) within the web application that
will allow tokens
and goods to be traded across the different social network sites. One
embodiment could
include a marketplace where artist and other musicians can showcase their
goods and
monetize this through a module that will automatically calculate the part that
will go to
charity, and those that will be considered revenue for the company and also
the part
that gets returned to the artist or publisher.

The voting/level-up module 110 assesses and determines if the member has
achieved the minimum points needed to unlock rewards and to level up
(including, rank
and/or title). This module 110 will rely on levels (including, rank and/or
title) or
calculation of aggregated points based on social network analysis, personality
test, peer
appraisal and ranking, as well as financial contributions, loans and tokens
raised
through the charity module 114. Apart from the charity module 114, other
modules will
also play a part in determining member points. For instance, through the use
of social
network analysis tools, user who participates in polls, campaigns and
activities may
have an increased level (including, rank and/or title).

In the event that the member decides to either purchase tokens or purchase or
donate an item and donate the proceeds to charity, the monetization module 112
will
automatically calculate the commission to the merchants as well as indicate
the points
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that members will earn to level-up (including, rank and/or title) and unlock
rewards. In
addition, members who are actively tagging through the tagging module 120 or
constantly adding new tags and inviting friends to be part of their "tag team"
will also be
rewarded through bonus points through the use of social network analysis
tools.

The universal module 102 is technically not a module, but rather intends to be
a
hybrid application that provides a little bit of everything for all the other
modules. The
universal module 104 is linked with the other social network sites, and
converts
currency exchange into tokens that can be used on all the web applications
throughout
the universe. For example, some social network sites may use only a specific
currency
and the center of the universe site may allow providing a conversion between
center of
the universe dollars and currency used. In addition, the universal module 102
will
provide cross site advertising. The tokens can be used in various ways,
including the
possibility of exchanging this to the currency of choice on any other social
network site
in the universe. For example, these other social networking sites may each use
their
own specific form of virtual cash or tokens. The tokens may be convertible
into other
social networking sites through an agreed formula. Alternatively, these tokens
may also
act as universal virtual cash that can be used directly on any of those sites.

The tokens can also be used to purchase reward items directly on the universal
module 104, including items that are exclusive items that can be used on other
sites,
but are exclusive in the sense that they cannot be purchased on the other
sites
themselves. Therefore the user can send these items to either themselves or to
someone else on a different site by addressing the recipient by username or
through a
feature code that can be emailed to the user and/or then emailed to the
intended final
recipient.

Apart from token sale, the universal module 102 may also be financed through
advertising or membership subscription fees. It will also allow users to use
real money
to purchase items on the universal module 102, particularly for those users
who do not
want to invest the time to earn the virtual cash or do not desire to purchase
virtual cash
or tokens. For example, referring to Figure 2, an exemplary graphical user
interface


CA 02736282 2011-04-04

200 for purchasing credits is shown. This feature may also appeal to anyone
who
knows anybody else who enjoys any of the other universe sites. The user can
also
purchase limited only gifts; either real or virtual, for themselves or for
someone else, it
forms a cross-demographic draw. Moreover, since the intent of the universal
module
102 is to appeal to literally every different possible demographic and
interest,
presumably everyone will know someone who is interested in one of the partners
of this
universal module 102. Instead of needing to visit multiple different sites or
multiple
different stores to find multiple different gifts, the website could
facilitate the purchasing
gifts for a myriad of different people all at the same place.

The tokens can alternatively be earned by engaging in activities on universal
module 102. For example, tokens can be obtained by reading, obtaining
information, or
simply visiting some of these sites, for example. Other activities on the site
can also be
used for obtaining such rewards.

The user can also include personalized information about themselves, such as
their interests, picture, age, or other types of information that might be
found on
MySpace or Facebook type web applications. In addition, however, each of the
sites
in universal module 102 will have its own format of a social network that is
specific to
the specific site.

According to these features, the universal module 102 may allow trading items
and or selling items for different currency, and currency conversion. The
virtual currency
can also be stored in a virtual "bank account" or virtual wallet.

The universal module 102 may operate to link a real world item or product with
a
virtual copy of that item. Some of the products in this gallery or marketplace
may be
limited editions-that is, that limited numbers of the products that are
produced, after
which, the products can no longer be obtained from the manufacturer. Also, the
universal module 102 may also accommodate the trade or sell their possessions
through a "garage sale" option; be they virtual or real possessions in
exchange for
tokens or cash to support a just cause. Other web applications may also be
added to
the universe that do not include some or all of these features.

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The new members module describes the method for collecting and storing
information about individuals in a social network. This module will create a
member
account by verifying a user's identity and collecting user identity data from
the user. The
module 102 allows the user to send an invitation to one or more members or non-

members.

The invitation may be one or more of the following: an invitation to join a
user
group or an invitation to create a member account. This module 102 also allows
members or non-members to accept or decline the user's invitation, wherein the
one or
more non-members may create a member account order to accept or to decline the
user's invitation. In addition, the module 102 allows one or more members to
post
comments.

Referring to Figure 3, a flowchart is illustrates a method 300 of creating a
new
member account through the new members module 108, according to one embodiment
of the present disclosure. In block 302, the user enters his/her user identity
data. In
block 304, the system 100 checks to see if the user's identity data is valid.
For example,
the system 100 checks the user's entry to verify that the syntax is correct
and/or that
there is no information missing from any required field. The user identity
data may
include the user's full name, email address, nickname, date of birth, home
address, date
of birth, home address, work address, high school, college, degree, place of
employment, work history, maiden name, country or any information that the
user
history to identify himself. If the user identity data is not valid then the
system 100 will
keep looping back for a fixed number of times and then lock-out the account.
If the user
identity data is valid then the system 100 checks to see if the user's email
address
already exist. If the email address exist, the method 300 loops back to the
sign in
screen and the user re-enters the user identity data. If the email does not
exist, the user
enters his/her credit card information. The system 100 then checks to see if
the credit
card information is valid. If the user's credit card is not valid, the system
100 loops back
for a fixed number of times and then locks-out the account. If the user's
credit card is
valid the system 100 checks to see if the user name matches the name on the
user's
credit card. According to this embodiment, verifying a user's identity
comprises a zero-
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value transaction on a credit card owned by the user. If a minor-seeks access
to the
system 100 the child's parent or guardian may be required to explicitly
approve the
minor's use of the system 100, and the system 100 conducts a zero value
transaction
on a credit card owned by a parent or guardian with the same last name as the
minor. If
the names do not match, the system 100 loops back and will lock out the
account after
a fixed number of tries. If the names match, the system 100 provides the user
with an
agreement outlining the terms of use. If the user declines to accept the
terms, the
system 100 sends the user a "thank you for your interest" message and exits.
However,
if the user accepts the terms, the system 100 sends the user a validation
email. After
this validation email is received, the member is created and the user identity
is stored in
the repository. With a credit card, a user may deposit a specified amount of
money into
his/her prepayment account and use that money to post comments, provide micro
finance and buy tokens.

The member account may comprise the user's level (including, rank and/or
title),
the charities a user has contributed or helped provide micro finance to and
the account
balance. The user may edit his/her user identity data after it is entered. A
user may
enter the new user identity data and the system 100 will check to see if input
is valid.
For example, the system 100 may check the user's entry to verify that the
syntax is
correct and/or that there is no information missing from any required field.
If the user
identity data is valid, the method 300 advances to block 306 where the system
100
updates and store the data in a repository. The method 300 then proceeds to
block 308
where the system 100 displays the new user identity data. The method 300 then
proceeds to block 310 where the user is allowed to further edit the data. If
the user
chooses to edit the data again, then the system 100 loops back to block 302.
However,
if the user chooses not to further edit the information, the method 300
proceeds to block
312 and the method 300 is terminated.

Referring to Figure 4, a flow diagram is shown of a method 400 of permitting a
user to invite members or non-members to join his/her user group through the
new
members module 108. An invitation may be sent by email or any other means of
notification, such as mail, text message, fax or phone. In block 402, the user
enters
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individual information for a person and the systems 100 checks to see if the
person is a
member. If the person is a member and "existing member invite message" may be
displayed to send to the member. The message may be automatically input by the
system 100 or manually input by the user. The system 100 also checks to see if
the
input is valid. If the input is valid, the system 100 sends an email
invitation to the
existing member and acknowledges that the invitation was sent. However, if the
person
is not a member, the "prospective member" invitation message may be displayed
to
send to the prospective member. The message may be automatically input by the
system 100 or manually input by the user. The system checks to see if the
input is valid.
If the input is valid, the system sends an email invitation to the prospective
member and
acknowledges that the invitation was sent. The invited members or non-members
may
accept the invitation into the user's group, reject the invitation, or not
respond to the
invitation. The member or non-members may have a predetermined time in which
to
accept the invitation to join the user group. For example, a member or non-
member may
have six months to respond. In addition, a member or non-member who fails to
respond
or rejects the invitation may change his/her mind any time within the first
year.

After a certain period of time, for example, one year, an invitation may
automatically be removed from the system. In order for the non-member to
either accept
or reject the invitation, he/she may be required to become a member by
creating a
member account. The system 100 determines whether the invitee is a member. If
it is
determined that the invitee is not a member, the method 400 proceeds to block
404
where the system 100 executes method 300 described above. If the invitee is
member,
the method proceeds to block 406 where the system 100 the member enters
whether
he accepts or declines the user invitation.

If the member accepts the user's invitation, the method 400 proceeds to block
408 where the system 100 updates the records to show that the member accepted
the
user's invitation. The method 400 then proceeds to block 410 where the system
100
notifies the user (inviting member) by email of the acceptance by the invitee.
The
method 400 then proceeds to block 412 where the system 100 provides and
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acknowledgment of the accepted invitation to the invitee. The method 400 then
proceeds to block 414 and its terminated.

If in block 406, the member declines the user's invitation, the method 400
proceeds to block 416 where the system 100 updates the records to show that
the
member declined the user's invitation. The method 400 then proceeds to block
418
where the system 100 notifies the user (inviting member) by email of the
decline by the
invitee. The method 400 then proceeds to block 420 where the system 100
provides
and acknowledgment of the accepted invitation to the invitee. The method 400
then
proceeds to block 422 and its terminated. If the member declines to accept the
user's
invitation the system will update the records to show that the member declined
the
user's invitation, notify the user by email and acknowledge the declined
invitation. The
system may store invitation data which comprises a member's name, status of
the
member's invitation, date and the time the invitation was sent, the total
number of
invitations accepted, not responded or rejected, and if applicable, the date
and time the
invitation was accepted or rejected.

The system 100 may store invitation data which comprises a member's name,
status of the member's invitation, date and the time the invitation was sent,
the total
number of invitations accepted, not responded or rejected, and if applicable,
the date
and time the invitation was accepted or rejected.

In one embodiment, the system 100 develops and manages social age-specific
user networks for children between the ages of 9 and 18. Users may include any
age-
appropriate registered individual which interacts with system 100 to
communicate with
other age-appropriate registered users, to plan events, schedule events, view
scheduled events, register for participation, receive news updates, play
streaming
music, play online games, share ideas and interests, and the like.

Referring to Figure 5, a system diagram 500 is shown of a communication
system 502 comprising a personalized user interface 504 and a child predator
secure
management component 506. Various users 551 to 554 may attempt to access the
system 100 through the communication system 502.



CA 02736282 2011-04-04

If a user attempts to access the system 100 and is unauthorized or is not
affiliated with the system 100, then the communication system 502 transmits a
message
to the user notifying the user that access to the system 100 is not
authorized. The
communication system 500 aborts the network session and the process ends. If
the
user or affiliation is verified, then system utilities are invoked to retrieve
the user's
personalized user interface 504. Personalized information and data includes
information
all electronic links connected to the personalized user interface 504
previously selected
and/or saved.

Once a registered user logs into the system 100, the system 100 implements
algorithms and computational tools through the child predator component 506 to
monitor the actions of each registered and active user. If the child predator
component
506 detects improper, inappropriate or other conduct that falls within
parameters
defining a person with criminal, pedophiliac or other conduct characterized to
be a risk
to children using the system 100, the child predator component 506 identifies
the
suspicious user and transmits a warning, notification or other alert to the
system
administrators and/or appropriate personnel. The child predator secure
management
component 506 then advises the administrators and/or appropriate personnel of
the
conduct observed and prompts further investigation of the suspicious user. The
investigation may constitute further electronic monitoring and/or a full
investigation of
the suspicious user.

If the identified suspicious user poses a risk, substantial or otherwise, as
determined by the system administrators and/or appropriate personnel, the
suspicious
user is removed from having access to the system 100 and blocked from further
attempts to become a registered user.

In another embodiment, the user interface 102 in conjunction with the
communication system 502 may perform background checks on new users and
periodically run background checks on current users. Users could be screened
through
a background checking service to determine if they are "safe" users. For
example, the
communication system 502 may interface with or obtain data from criminal
records,
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employment or business data, credit checks, civil litigation checks, other
memberships,
etc.

The communication system 502 performs background checks on new users to
determine if they are safe users using the child predator secure management
component 506. The personalized user interface 504 interacts with the child
predator
secure management component 506 to monitor users' activity and detect behavior
that
is indicative of child predator conduct.

The system 100 and child predator secure management component 506
function together to keep ineligible users (too young or too old) from
registering and
using the system 100. As part of this function, the system 100 and/or the
child predator
secure management component 596 requires a unique user ID and/or password
and/or
additional personal identification information to register with system 100 and
access the
network. Personal identification information may include identifiers such as
credit card
information, social security information, and/or date of birth, etc. Personal
identification
may also include biometric devices such as retinal scanner, a fingerprint
scanner, a
magnetic card reader, a Radio Frequency Identification ("RFID") tag reader, or
other
biometric scanners known in the art or later developed.

The personalized user interface 504 enables user to manage their personal
social activities within a social network. The interface 504 may be presented
in relation
to the type of device used to access and interact with the system 100. For
example, if
the connecting device is a kiosk, the interface may include large interface
elements to
enable user greater control through a touch-screen. However, if the connecting
device
is a cellular telephone or personal digital assistant, interface elements may
be
configured to enable larger amounts of data to be viewable from a small LCD
screen, or
the interface may be divided between two or more specific interfaces.

The personalized user interface 504 may include a unique greeting to ensure
user that he/she is viewing the proper personalized user interface 504.
Moreover, the
personalized user interface 504 may include an electronically linked text or
graphic to
identify and connect to a specific social network sphere

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The system 100 can also make use of a collaborative filtering algorithm (see,
e.g., Daniel Lemire, Anan Maclachlam, Slope One Predictors for Online Rating-
Based
Collaborative Filtering, In SIAM Data Mining (SDM '05), Newport Beach,
California, April
21-23, 2005) to transmit to the personalized user interface 504 spheres (e.g.,
music, TV
shows, movies/film, romance/dating/relationships, sports, online games, art,
photography, fashion, computers, technology, video creation, fitness, travel,
meeting
other boys/girls, weather updates, directions to events, sale of complementary
products,
ideas, groups, interests, chat rooms, lists, products, services, etc.) for the
user to
investigate and integrate into his/her personalized user interface 504, based
on the
user's prior input and activity within the system 100. Other algorithms or
technology may
be utilized to achieve matching scenarios for users based on interests and
prior online
conduct accessible to system 100.

The system 100 may allow authorized third party retailers, organizations,
educational institutions, etc., full or limited access to the system 100
database, or a
component thereof, to directly access users to allow a 1 : 1 marketing ratio
between
merchant and user using the collaborative filtering algorithm.

Because the social network groups individuals into spheres of like, interests,
ideas, gender, age, etc., personalized user interface 504 but may further
include
additional information and electronic links to enable businesses to closely
target their
prime demographic by selecting specific networks to place advertising.

The system 100 may enable users to schedule events with other users or
authorized third parties using an automated calendaring component. For
example, a
university may schedule an in person or virtual campus tour with users. When
such an
event is scheduled and the user is invited to such event, it will appear as a
pending
invitation within the personalized user interface 504.

The charity module 114 may be used to implement a method for encouraging
charitable donations or micro loans through a social network where a user may
raise
money and awareness for a favorite charity or non-profit organization by
organizing
groups and campaigns and linking the two together. The more money and the more
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members or non-members who support the user's charitable campaign, the higher
a
user's level (including, rank and/or title) may be. For example, the method
may be used
to organize groups of members so that they can achieve social goals, such as
raising
money or loans for a charity, organizing volunteers, orchestrating alumni
activities, or
keeping in touch. According to one embodiment, the concept of a charity
donation may
be merged with a Blog entry and associated with a charitable campaign, acting
as a
running commentary on the concept or progress of the charitable campaign
through
video streaming or reality television. The more a user utilizes the system,
the higher the
user's level (including, rank and/or title) will be. The user's level
(including, rank and/or
title) acts as an indicator of the use's leadership potential for charitable
and social
justice campaigns. Persons who are altruistic and who encourage altruism, i.e.
charitable donations or micro financing, are trustworthy and tend to have
greater
leadership potential for such charitable and social justice campaigns.

Referring to Figure 7, a flow diagram is shown of a method 700 of allowing a
user
to create and managing a campaign. In block 702, the user may create a member
account by supplying user identity data to the system 100, which is then
verified by the
system 100. In block 704, the user may create a campaign and associate the
created
campaign with one or more charities or social justice events and a goal, such
as a
financial goal or a participation goal. A campaign is a specific charitable
cause (or
individual) that the user is passionate about and seeks to support. For
example, a user
may create a campaign to raise money to support the Girls Scouts, AIDS
research,
Cancer research, victims of 9/11, or any other charitable or social justice
cause. The
campaign may be created by describing the campaign and by selecting a name for
the
campaign and a date to reach the financial goal for the charitable campaign.
For
example, a user may create a campaign to save Burma and may choose a financial
goal in any amount, for example, $3,000.00, donating all proceeds from the
campaign to
United Way of America. Alternatively, the user may be able to access an
individual's
"wish list" and decide to send the proceeds to that individual, for example,
Sam Broke
who is in need of a new drum set for his band. The user may select the name
"Sam
Broke" set a goal deadline of Dec. 15, 2008 and describe the campaign by
providing the
history of Sam Broke and his band. The user may upload one or more images or
video
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to associate with the campaign. In addition, the user may associate the
campaign with a
link to an external web page. For example, a link may be provided to a web
page that
lists facts about drum sets. The user may create one or more campaigns, which
all may
be active simultaneously at any given time. Referring to Figure 6, an example
is shown
of a webpage 600 containing a charitable campaign that is hosted by the system
100.
Referring again to Figure 7, in block 706, the user may send an invitation to
one
or more members or non-members upon the approval of the campaign by either
peers
or a select group of individuals. The one or more members may accept or
decline a
users invitation, where the one or more non-members may create a member
account in
order to accept or decline the users invitation. In block 708, the one or more
members
have the option to donate or provide micro loans of any amount of money to a
charity.
The user may then invite one or more members or non-members to support the
campaign by donating time, resources and money to the one or more charities or
social
justice activities to help reach financial or other targets. The members or
non-members
may be invited through, for example, email or any other communication means.
For
example, invitations may be sent to all the members of a users group to
support the
users campaign. According to an embodiment, the invited one or more members or
non-members may invite one or more additional members or non-members to donate
money or time and resources to the campaign. The one or more invited non-
members
may be required to create a member account in order to participate, according
to an
embodiment.

The one or more invited members or non-members may support the campaign
by purchasing tokens or supporting the one or more charities or just cause to
help reach
their different objectives. According to one embodiment, the one or more
invited
members or non-members may make posts. For example, the one or more members or
non-members may post a comment about how great they think the campaign is.
According to one embodiment, the one or more invited members or non-members
may
continue to support the one or more charities and just causes, even after the
financial
and other objectives are reached.



CA 02736282 2011-04-04

If the targets are specifically financial ones, the value of each donation or
microloans by the one or more members or non-members is deducted from the
financial
goal and displayed. In addition, the running total may be displayed. For
example, the
user or any other member or non-member may want to see the details of all the
donations made to the campaign to date. One view may show the donation by each
member or non-member listed, for example, in date order or order of value,
with the
highest donation appearing first.

In block 710, if the goals are strictly financial in nature, one or more user
levels
(including, rank and/or title) may be calculated based on (1) a total volume
of the
members or non-members who support the campaign by donating or loaning money
to
the one or more charities or just causes, and/or (2) a total monetary value of
the money
donated by the one or more members or non-members. The user's level
(including, rank
and/or title) represents an indication of the user's leadership potential for
charitable and
social justice campaigns. For example, the more money that the members or non-
members donate or provide loans through the campaign to the one or more
charities or
just causes, the higher the user's level (including, rank and/or title) may
be. Similarly,
the higher the number of members or non-members who donate or provide loans
through the campaign to the one or more charities or just causes, the higher
the user's
level (including, rank and/or title) might be. In other words, the user's
reputation is more
reliable if the user can encourage social good by procuring a large number of
charitable
donations or microloans.

The user may enter a campaign name, description, a link to an external web
page, a deadline, a financial goal, a charity, and an image file. Referring to
Figure 8, a
form 800 is shown for entering information by the user to create a campaign.

The method of the present disclosure may allow a user to post a message to a
message board in the form of, for example, a blog, and encourage charitable
donations
by allowing members to donate money or provide microloans to charity when
posting to
the message board. A blog refers to a website where users post comments on a
particular subject, and the comments are displayed in reverse chronological
order,
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according to the date on which the comment was posted. The method may allow a
user
to link the posted message to one or more of the user's campaigns, according
to one
embodiment.

The user of the social network may form a group, where the group is associated
with a message board, such as a blog. The user may donate or provide
microloans of
any amount of money to one or more charities to post a message to the group
message
board. According to one embodiment, a user may identify any topic of his/her
choosing,
or may choose a topic from a predetermined list of topics. The user may invite
members
or non-members to join the group or post a reply to the message. One or more
members or non-members may donate or micro loans of any amount of money to one
or more charities or just cause. According to an embodiment, the user or the
one or
more members or non-members may make an anonymous donation to the one or more
charities if they do not want to be identified.

One or more user levels (including, rank and/or title) may be calculated based
at
least on a total monetary value associated with the posted message and the
user's
leadership potential for charitable and social justice campaigns. For example,
the higher
the monetary value, the higher the user's level (including, rank and/or title)
may be. A
higher user level (including, rank and/or title) could also be obtained if the
user has
encouraged members or non-members to do a good act and support a just cause.
Indeed, the more support the user elicits, the higher the user's level
(including, rank
and/or title) would be. According to an embodiment, the value and number of
users who
support the use's campaigns may be displayed together with the total value of
all
donations or loans.

For example, a member may identify a topic relating to "solar panels" and post
a
message requesting whether anyone knows a solar panel supplier in Oyster Bay,
N.Y.
The posted message may include a hyperlink to one or more of the user's
campaigns.
One or more other members or non-members may then reply to the posted message.
The posted replies also may include a hyperlink to one or more of the members'
or non-
members' campaigns. According to an embodiment, the member may require members
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or non-members to participate in his campaign in order to reply to the
member's posted
message.

Referring to Figure 9, a method 900 of allowing a user to create and manage a
group is shown. In block 902, a campaign group may be created and associated
with
one or more charities through a campaign to allow connections of people to
stay in
touch and connected to each other to collaborate toward a just cause, for
example,
raising money for a charity, a club, or a workgroup within a company. An
authorized
user may create a campaign group and associate the group with one or more
charities
through one or more campaigns. The authorized user may create this campaign
group
by entering a group name and a mission for the campaign group. In addition,
the user
has the option of setting a group's privacy by designating the campaign group
public or
private. If the campaign group is designated as public, anyone may join, even
non-
members. If the campaign group is designated as private, only members may
join. The
user also may choose whether to allow only invited members to join or whether
to allow
any other members to join. The user may also designate whether a joining
member or
non-member may need approval to join. For example, before a member or non-
member
joins the campaign group they may need the user's approval, majority approval,
or
unanimous approval from the other members of the group, or may need to be
sponsored by a predetermined number of members. The user has the option to
edit the
group name, mission, privacy, joining features, inclusion features and group
campaign
at any time. The user who creates the campaign group may become the moderator
of
the campaign group or another group member may be chosen or elected. In
addition,
the authorized user may resign as moderator of the campaign group at any time,
reassign a new moderator, or delete the campaign group.

Once the campaign group is created and approved, in block 904, a user may
invite one or more members or non-members to join the created campaign group
and to
donate or provide microloans to the one or more charities through the one or
more
campaigns. For example, the authorized user may send an invitation to join the
campaign group to any member of the public by providing the recipient's email
address.
In addition, if the authorized user has created other campaign groups, the
authorized
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user may invite the members of those campaign groups to join the newly created
campaign group. Alternatively, an authorized user may invite one or more
members
who are saved in an address book or all members who are located by an
automatic
search of the member database. The description of an automatic search is
further set
forth below. In block 906, the one or more invited members or non-members may
join
the campaign group and donate money to the one or more charities through the
one or
more campaigns.

In block 908, similar to the concept of the user level (including, rank and/or
title)
described above, a level or "group score" may be assigned to the group as a
whole.
That value will be referred to herein as the "group level." A group level may
be
calculated based at least on the number of invited members or non-members of
the
social network who join the group and, if financial goal is the target, a
total monetary
value of the money donated or loaned to the one or more charities through the
one or
more campaigns by all of the members of the group. The group level may be used
as
an indicator of the impact that the group is making collectively, for example,
in
connection supporting this just cause through a campaign.

In addition, a level or "group score" may be assigned to the charities or
other
companies or entities who participate in the social networking site. This
level may be
referred to as an "entity level value." For example, a charity which
participates in a
campaign to raise money will receive an entity level which may correspond to
the
amount and/or number of donations it encourages. Entities which keep users
informed
and up-to-date about the status of a campaign, for example, may be rewarded by
having their entity level increased according to the level and/or frequency of
such
updates. If users can view the success of the campaigns, they may be more
likely to
donate money or provide microloans.

Charities or other entities which participate in the system 100 site also may
sponsor polls or post message boards which solicit commentary from the users
of the
system 100. The polls may survey members on any topic of interest. The message
boards allow users to use words to convey a message. The entries may be posted
on
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the virtual message board for all users of the social network to see. For
example, a
charity or other entity may query users as to how they perceive the work being
done by
the charity. When users of the social network participate in the polls and/or
post
comments on the message boards, and donate money or provide microloans to one
or
more charities, the entity level may increase because charitable contributions
have
been encouraged by the charity.

Peer ranking can be achieved using tools such as social network analysis.
Social
network analysis software (SNA software) facilitates quantitative or
qualitative analysis
of social networks, by describing features of a network, either through
numerical or
visual representation. Networks can consist of anything from families, project
teams,
classrooms, soccer teams, legislatures, nation-states, disease vectors,
membership on
networking websites like Twitter or Facebook, or even the Internet. Network
features
can be at the level of individual nodes, dyads, triads, ties and/or edges, or
the entire
network. For example, node-level features can include network phenomena such
as
betweeness and centrality, or individual attributes such as age, sex, or
income. SNA
software generates these features from raw network data formatted in an
edgelist,
adjacency list, or adjacency matrix (also called sociomatnx), often combined
with
(individual/node-level) attribute data (See Robert A. Hanneman and Mark
Riddle,
"Introduction to social network methods", available online,
http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/-hanneman/nettext/). Though the vast majority of
network
analysis software uses a plain text ASCII data format, some software packages
contain
the capability to utilize relational databases to import and/or store network
features.

Some SNA software can perform predictive analysis. This includes using network
phenomena such as a tie to predict individual level outcomes (often called
peer
influence or contagion modeling), using individual-level phenomena to predict
network
outcomes such as the formation of a tie/edge (often called homophily models)
or
particular type of triad, or using network phenomena to predict other network
phenomena, such as using a triad formation at time 0 to predict tie formation
at time 1.



CA 02736282 2011-04-04

Network analysis software generally consists of either packages based on
graphical user interfaces (GUls), or packages built for scripting/programming
languages. GUI packages are easier to learn, while scripting tools are more
powerful
and extensible. Widely used and well-documented GUI packages include UCINet
for
statistical analysis of networks with easy-to-use visualization capabilities,
Pajek which is
free and for which exists extensive documentation, GUESS, ORA, and Cytoscape,
the
most feature-rich and extensible of these GUI-based software packages. Private
GUI
packages directed at business customers include: Orgnet, which provides
training on
the use of its software, and KXEN, Other SNA platforms, such as Idiro SNA Plus
are
also possible software platforms.

One of the features of the social network analysis software is to allow a user
easily to find other users who have similar interests, goals, skills, etc. For
example, if a
user wants to find all members who are interested in a specific just cause or
charity, he
may search the social network manually by entering in, for example, "green
energy"
Such a search would locate all the members who have listed "green energy" as
an item
on their wish list. However, since new members are always joining the social
network, it
would be tedious to perform this search manually each time a user wanted to
locate
new members with shared interests. According to one embodiment, an automatic
search may be performed. A user lists one or more user identity data search
terms. The
user identity data search terms relate to user identity data or other
criteria, such as
skills, interests, age, race, gender, location, employment, favorite
charities, group
memberships, languages spoken, etc. The user identity data search terms may be
automatically compared to the user identity data of one or more members. The
user
may save the user identity data search terms and the system will automatically
run the
search during predetermined time intervals, such as every three hours, to
locate any
new members who have joined the social network and who match the user identity
data
search terms. If one or more user identity data search terms match the user
identity
data of one or more members, those one or more members may be placed in a
list,
such as, for example, a "recommended" list, which may be a data file
associated with
the user, a database or any other means to store information relating to the
user. The
user's "recommended" list may automatically be updated to add the one or more
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members. This feature enables a user to save time by automatically running
searches
to keep track of members who meet a user's specified criteria. For example, if
a user
wants to find all members who are interested in green energy, the system 100
will find
all newly joining members who have listed green energy as one of their
interests and
automatically add the new members to the user's "recommended" list. This
provides the
user with a comprehensive list if the user needs to invite all the members to
participate
in a campaign, join a group, or take a poll.

According to one embodiment, a user may export his or her calculated user
level
(including, rank and/or title) to any email, web page, advertisement, message
board,
blog, or any other electronic medium, simply by exporting computer code
containing the
user's level information (including, rank and/or title) into such medium. This
exported
data may be referred to as a "Tag," which allows the user to inform others
outside the
social network about their reliable and trustworthy reputation.

The tagging module 120 refers to a method by which customized tags can be
created by a user in an online system environment and distributed to
facilitate social
networking. The tags represent new communities of interest with users of the
online
system environment. By utilizing a computer or graphic user interface (GUI)
that
enables an authorized user to create and customize tags, the user can create a
specific
tag according to instructions from the specific user and make the specific tag
available
for use by the specific user. The steps of allowing the user to create the
customized
tags may include defining the tag parameters, e.g. a name, a graphic icon, and
a
category, etc.

Once a person registers using the new member's module 108, he can fill out his
profile and invite all of his friends to join his tag Team or community. The
user can
continue to add people to his team, see who's in other people's tag teams, and
check
out other people's profiles by clicking on their names.

Tags represents the interest of the user. For example, if the user is a great
host,
she can select a hospitality tag, or if a dancer, painter or a writer, select
the Arts tag. A
user can give her friends tags (like "Best Friend," etc.) to let them know
what she thinks
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about them. If the user wants to nudge his friends to give him tags, he can
ask them by
going to his tag Team page and clicking the hand icon next to each person on
his team
to ask for tags.

Tags can be created by the user via the provider's user interface by defining
various tag parameters, e.g. name, graphic icon, etc. In one embodiment, a
system and
method are provided for creating customized tags that represents personal
characteristics and preferences, by users of a social network website, to
facilitate online
social networking, as well as advertisement method in the online system
environment
by using sponsored tags.

Tags can be embeddable in that they could be inserted in a website GUI for
display by a user. Also, tags may have embedded contents, e.g. a photo, a
song, a
location of a profile page, a shout out, an expression of feelings, tags, or
presents. Also,
tags can sponsored in the system environment by celebrities, the creators of
tags, and
sponsors.

An user of an online social network can Log on, and choose one of the options
available from the online system provider's GUI. In one embodiment, the user
can
request to create tags, or request to display predefined tags, or request
other tasks.
After the user opts to create customized tags, a provider GUI enables the user
to create
customized tags by defining the tag parameters, e.g. a name, a graphic icon, a
category, etc. Once the customized tags are defined, the tag data can be
stored and
associated with the creator (user) for future use. If the user instead chooses
to display
the list of tag library, the provider GUI shows predefined tags for the user
to browse.
The user can select tags among the predefined tags displayed, or opt to create
customized tags if he does not want to use the predefined tags. If the user
has chosen
to request other tasks from the provider GUI, he can perform the tasks and end
the
session.

Referring to Figure 10, a method 1000 of creating and managing tags is shown.
The method 1000 starts at block 1002. In block 1004, a user of the system 100
logs
into the system 100. In block 1006 the use may choose one of the options
available
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from the online system provider's GUI. In block 1008, the user can request to
create
embedded tags. In block 1010, the user can request to display predefined
embedded
tags. In block 1012, the user can request other tasks and then perform such
tasks in
block 1018.

In block 1014, the user opts to create customized embedded tags. The method
1000 then proceeds to block 1020 where a provider GUI enables the user to
create
customized embedded tags by defining the tag parameters, e.g. a name, a
graphic icon,
embedded content, a category, etc. The method 1000 then proceeds to block 1022
where the tag data can be associated with the user for future use. The method
1000
then proceeds to step 1026 where the user can select embedded tag options,
e.g.
recipient list, buddy list, external distribution, a category, etc.

Alternatively, instead of creating an embedded tag, in block 1016 the user
chooses to display the list of embedded tag library and the provider GUI shows
predefined embedded tags for the user to browse. The method 1000 then proceeds
to
block 1024 where the user can select embedded tags among the predefined
embedded
tags displayed, or opt to create customized embedded tags if he does not want
to use
the predefined tags. If the user select predefined embedded tags, the method
proceeds
to step 1026 where the user can select the embedded tag options, e.g.
recipient list,
buddy list, external distribution, a category, etc.

A GUI provided to a user that enables the user to work with tags, invite
friends,
create teams, and accomplish other system 100 tasks as will be appreciated by
those
skilled in the art. The GUI includes a statistics window that allows the user
to review and
edit personal statistics. The GUI may also include the user's photos. The tag
represents
personal characteristics and preferences. The GUI further includes a tag team
window,
a 'friends' management window, and a URL management window. The personal
profile
page GUI may be customized to show personal style, and also traded or
sponsored in
the system environment. Referring to Figure 11, an example of a tag GUI 1100
is
shown.

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The content generation module 118 deals with user generated content,
particularly those that are fragmented across many websites. For example,
ratings and
reviews for hotels are available from Yahoo!TM Travel, Frommer'sTM, ExpediaTM,
etc. In
the restaurant area, ratings and reviews are available from Yahoo!T"" Local,
YelpTM, etc.
In the online shopping area, product ratings and reviews are available from
Yahoo!TM
Shopping, EpinionsT"", CNETTM, etc.

A method to access trusted user generated content (UGC) is provided in this
module 118. User registration information containing one or more identities is
obtained.
The identities correspond to different internet social networks that are
facilitated by
social network service providers, where each service is associated with an
internet
social network site. The social relationships in each social network are
collected using
the provided user identities and user extended social networks are created for
each
user by joining the social relationships collected. Joining social
relationships includes
identifying the multiple identities of a single user in the different social
networks and
then merging the user's social networks into one extended social network that
includes
all the relationships scattered throughout the different social networks.

Then, UGC is collected from the plurality of social network sites and the
collected
UGC is correlated with the extended social networks, including identifying the
owners of
content according to the extended social networks of registered users. The
correlated
UGC is filtered according to the user configuration of a user making a
request, and then
the results are presented to the requesting user. The results can be shown to
the user
in a variety of ways, such as on a display using a web browser, email, instant
messaging, etc. The display can be, for example, part of a computer system or
a mobile
phone.

A search function is provided to enable users to obtain information on demand.
Alternatively, users can subscribe to feeds of information according to a
configuration
regarding the user's extended social network.

In another embodiment, the system 100 may access trusted UGC. The system
100 includes a plurality of social network sites, and a registration server to
receive user


CA 02736282 2011-04-04

registration information. The registration information including one or more
identities for
each user in a plurality of social network sites. The system 100 also includes
a crawler
to collect UGC and social relationships corresponding to the identities for
each user
from the plurality of social network sites, and a user metadata database that
contains
user extended social networks. The user extended social networks are created
by
joining the collected social relationships, and the collected UGC is
correlated with the
extended social networks.

The system 100 further includes a user content database including the UGC
obtained by the crawler, a search engine to filter the correlated UGC, and a
display to
provide the content to the requesting user.

Extended Social Network Server allows users to register their identities from
the
different social networks and merge the different social groups into one large
extended
social network. Users create content in the different social network sites.
Ratings,
reviews, and wish lists are some of the popular ways of creating user
generated
content. For example, in the areas of photo sharing and blogs, FlickrTM and
XangaTM
both have built-in social networks. To share FlickrTM photos or XangaTM blogs,
potential
viewers need to be registered users and need to either be flagged as friends
of the
author or have subscribed to the author's content on each site. This procedure
may be
repeated on every closed content system. In contrast, in this embodiment, the
social
relationship only needs to be registered once. In the example mentioned above,
each
user registers his FlickTM and XangaTM identities and the sharing happens
automatically.
Furthermore, a user's friends are not required to register on Flickr or Xanga
in order to
subscribe to updates of the user's content. Once the relationship is
established once, all
the content generated by a user in any social network site is made available
to her
friends, or in other words, all those that are linked to the user via any
social network.
Typically users access content via browser running on a computer display. In
other embodiments, content may be available via a mobile phone, laptop,
handheld
computer, etc., via browser, email, blogs, feeds, etc.

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User generated content that is currently fragmented across disparate websites
can now be access through this module 118. User can search or browse the
content
generated by his friends, friends of friends, etc., or any subset thereof. In
this example,
user can access content from user friends, such as AmazonTM wish list, YelpTM
review,
Wall Street JoumalT'" (WSJ) review, Yahoo!TM Shopping review, etc., or content
from
friends-of-friends such as the one created by user, San Jose Mercury News
(SJMN)
review, or Yahoo!TM Travel trip plan.

Each user registers her identities in one or more social sites. Users can
subscribe to feeds of content according the users interests, or do ad-hoc
searches on
the user generated content across all or any subset of the user generated
content
hosting websites known to the system 100. Ongoing feeds of information are
saved in
the system 100 as Access Rules, which define parameters related to authoring,
category, keywords, site, origin, etc.

Privacy is an important consideration for many users. The system 100 allows
the
user (owner of user generated content) to specify what and to whom to share.
In one
embodiment, sharing is specified by the following parameters: content, sharing
target,
and identification option. The content component specifies a subset of the
user's
content and can include all content, content in a given category (e.g. all my
restaurant
reviews), or content in one site (e.g. all my Yelp reviews). Sharing target
specifies the
friends to share the given content with, e.g. "all friends of friends", "all
friends", or "Alice
and Bob". Identification option specifies whether to display the content
owners identity
to the sharing target. Suppose Bob is sharing his yelp.com reviews with Alice.
If Bob
chooses not to share his identity, then Alice will see Bob's yelp.com reviews
marked as
reviews of a friend. Also, if Alice searches for content authored by Bob, then
no results
will be returned. If Bob chooses to share his identity, then Alice will see
Bob's identity
associated with Bob's reviews.

These limitations on sharing are stored as Share Rules. Additionally, rules
can
enable sharing within a category of content generated by the user, such as
"make public
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all my book purchases," or impose specific restrictions on what can not be
shared, such
as "do not share my purchase on a book related to cancer in Yahoo! Shopping."

Search options can be entered via pull-down menus, input fields, buttons, etc.
In
other embodiments, search options can be provided in different formats,
according to
the requirements of the developer. In other embodiments, search windows for on-

demand searching have different interfaces than feed subscription windows. A
user
requesting 'monthly' in frequency field will cause the Extended Social Network
Server to
create a feed subscription for the user. On the other hand, a user selecting
'Search now'
will cause the Server to perform an instant search according to the given
parameters.

It should be noted that this system 100 can be implemented as a component of
an existing social network (e.g. Yahoo! Mash, Facebook, etc), or as a light
weight social
network. If the system 100 is part of an existing social network, then the
system 100 is
already aware of the social network structure. The user would register his
identities on
external content sites in registration server and specify what type of content
from the
user to be shared with what subset of friends (e.g. share all my content with
all my
immediate friends; allow only Alice and Bob to subscribe to my content; share
only my
content on Yelp to friends of friends and do not show my identity with the
content), etc.
If the system is not part of an existing social network, then a new social
network is
created and users would also register their friends, which could for example
be
identified by their email addresses.

Registration server generates user metadata that incorporates the different
user
identities in the plurality of social networks. Crawler accesses the different
social
networks and finds the friends of the registered user. The information is
joined together
to form an extended social network, as described below with respect to Crawler
also
accesses content sites searching for content. For each piece of content
retrieved, the
site specific author identity (e.g. yelp id of the author of a yelp review) is
extracted and
associated with the content. Crawler also schedules itself to crawl regularly
in order to
detect new content. Some content sites have Application Program Interfaces
(API) that
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can be used to retrieve content rather than running a brute force web crawl on
the site.
The content found by crawler is stored in User Content database.

A Search/Browse Engine provides a user interface to search or browse the UCC
collected by the crawler. In a first mode, Search/Browse Engine performs
general
searches of UGC that do not make use of the user's social network.
Search/Browse
Engine works with the full collection of UGC collected by the crawler. The
user may
perform keyword queries (e.g. "Geothermal sites", "solar energy"), optionally
include
parameters such as categories (e.g. energy), content creation date (e.g. 6
month old or
less), site sources (e.g. only Y Travel and Yelp), etc., as previously
described. If the
UGC is shared by a friend, the friend's identity is shown next to the content.

In a second mode, Search/Browse Engine only searches UGC produced by the
user's social network. The user has the option of being more or less
restrictive (e.g.
friends of friends, or only specific immediate friends). It should be noted
that in this
mode, the system would only show content that has been shared by the content-
producing friend with this user.

Subscription Server enables users to subscribe to content and receive feeds
containing UGC of interest. Interest can be indicated by a keyword query (e.g.
"San
Francisco hotels", "apple iphone"), a category (e.g. hotels), a social network
range (e.g.
all content, all friends, specific friends), and site or sites. After the
crawler completes a
regularly scheduled crawl, the subscription server executes all the user
interest
requests. If a given request produces new content results, the new results are
saved in
a database, or transmitted to the subscriber.

Subscription Server can also generate recommendations using collaboration
techniques. Traditional collaborative filtering techniques work by finding
users among a
large set of users deemed to be "similar" to the requester, and then looking
at what the
"similar" users prefer to make recommendations to the requester. For example,
Yahoo!
Music compares music preferences and ratings from millions of users in order
to
compute recommendations. These millions of users are anonymous, and hence
untrustworthy. A person is often more interested in recommendations from known
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people rather than recommendations from strangers. Subscription Server is able
to
efficiently narrow down the set of users to be used for recommendation
computation to
those users relatively close to the requester in real life (e.g. friends, or
friends of
friends). Hence, recommendations may be more relevant, as well as more
authoritative.
For example, it is more relevant if friends of a requester suggest that the
requester
might like Uganda, than if millions of anonymous Yahoo! users suggest that the
requester might like Uganda.

Subscription server can also compute trend information by analyzing user
activities. For example, a user may be alerted than two of her friends
recently wrote
reviews about Uganda, or that Calcutta is the highest rated village by the
user's friends.

The Extended Social Network Server can also generate behavioral data. The
components previously described rely on user generated content that is
publicly
available on the Internet. If Server is operated by the same entity as a
content website,
then Server can leverage non-publicly available behavioral information logged
by the
content website servers. If Server has access to product reviews in a shopping
site,
then Server can access user behavior data in shopping site, such as product
purchase
or page-viewing history. Server utilizes this information and makes the
information
available to users in the social network of a given user. For example, the
system 100
could show trends (three friends recently looked at the Apple iPhone product
page), and
the system would allow users to do searches related to purchasing in the
shopping site
(find friends who have purchased the Apple iPhone). This is also available for
non-user
generated content sites. For example, if users allow sharing their news story
browsing
history, then the system can recommend news stories to other users based on
user
friends' browsing histories.

Three social networks, Facebook , Yahoo! Groups, and Google Groups have
users and content to be captured by the Extended Social Network Server. Users
have
one or more identities in the social networks. For description purposes only,
user ids
have been formed by adding a name to a number. Those ids with the same name
but
different number attached to the name represent different identities the same
user in


CA 02736282 2011-04-04

different social networks. For example, Bob has identities Bob in Facebook ,
Bob in
Yahoo! Groups, and no identity in Google Groups.

Below each user, those users that have been registered as friends are placed.
For example, Bob has friends Al, Carl, and Dan, all of them in the same social
network.
Additionally, some users have created content that is associated with their
id, such as
Bob's UGC. In this case, users Bob, Al, Carl and Pam have registered into the
extended
social network. Pam has two ids, Pam1 and Pam2 but wishes to keep her identity
Pam2
private so Pam only registers Pam 1.

A crawler collects the different relationships for the registered users and
joins
them together under the unique identity, as seen in user metadata table. For
example,
Bob has registered identity Bob from Facebook (noted as F.Bob ) giving his
password
("whocares"), and Bob from Yahoo! Groups. Al has registered identities Al from
Yahoo!
and Al from Google Groups.

During the join process, the system 100 uses the information related to
multiplicity of identities from users, and their social networks, to create an
extended
social network. Here, Bob's network includes Carl (that has registered and
listed all his
identities, so there is no need to list all of Carl's identities), F.Hugh
(found in Facebook,
but since Hugh has not registered, the identity from Facebook is used), Al
(registered),
and Y.Dan (unregistered user found in Yahoo). Pam's network consists only of
Al,
which was found in Google. Pam is not in the system 100; therefore Pam has
privacy
with respect to that identity. F.Hugh was found because he is a friend of Bob
in
Facebook, resulting in F.Hugh being added to the system 100, and F.Hugh's
network in
Facebook is also recorded (Carl and Lee). It should be noted, that this
example
assumes that the system 100 is not symmetrical, that is, a friend of a user
does not
imply that friend has user as a friend. Or simply put, just because Hugh is a
friend of
Bob does not mean that Bob is a friend of Hugh. In another embodiment, the
relationships are symmetrical, and in our example it would mean that Bob would
be
added as one of the friends of Hugh because Hugh is a friend of Bob.

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In another embodiment, users can identify their friends when registering if
the
crawler does not have access to existing relationships in the social networks.
In another
embodiment, the user provides the password used for each of the different
identities to
enable the crawler to access their information in the social network.

In addition to the User Metadata, the user also collects UGC via Crawler, as
described previously. The content is correlated to the owners according to the
identities
and relationships available in user metadata.

In operation, the user registration is received, such as for example the
process
previously described with respect. The registration information includes one
or more
identities for each user in the different social networks. The social networks
are hosted
by social network sites.

A crawler collects the social relationships corresponding to the identities
registered in operation by accessing the social network sites. The collected
information
is processed in operation and extended social networks are created.

The crawler collects UGC in operation by accessing the social network sites.
As
previously mentioned, the crawler may use an API or a brute force scan to
gather the
UGC. The user information and the UGC collected is correlated, attributing
authorship
to registered users independently of where the content was created, and giving
access
to other users, independently of where their social relationship was
established.

Users define what kind of UGC they wish to access and the UGC is filtered
according to their definitions in operation. Access can be made on demand, or
feeds of
information can be delivered to requesting users periodically. The filtered
content is then
presented to the requesting user in operation, such as for example in a
browser window
of the user's computer.

Embodiments in this disclosure may be practiced with various computer system
configurations including hand-held devices, microprocessor systems,
microprocessor-
based or programmable consumer electronics, minicomputers, mainframe computers
and the like. Embodiments can also be practiced in distributed computing
environments
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where tasks are performed by remote processing devices that are linked through
a wire-
based or wireless network.

In the monetization module 112, the system 100 will compute the commission on
money passing through the "marketplace". It is often desirable to charge the
commission as money leaves rather than enters the marketplace, to avoid
discouraging
money from entering the marketplace. For example, the flow of money within the
purchase of token occurs from the users to the merchants; therefore the
merchants pay
the commission to the providers. Similarly, the flow of money within credit
card networks
is from the users (e.g. card holders) to the merchants; therefore the
merchants pay for
the use of the credit cards to the credit card provider. Additionally,
providers can add
paid or free add-on services. For example, a credit card provider may charge
an annual
fee for the ability to earn perks (e.g. frequent flier miles), or may offer
credit card holders
free perks. Both types of incentives further increase the value of the network
for users
and thereby for merchants as well.

Additionally, there is a two-sided networking effect for computer implemented
platforms as well. One side consists of the developers and the other side
consists of the
users. If there are more users of a platform, then developers are more likely
to develop
applications, and if there are more applications, then more users are likely
to adopt the
platform.

Additionally, the developers can use the APIs to develop client side
applications
for the users. A current issue with social networking is friction on the user
side. A user
generally has to visit a website to fully enjoy the social network. The client
side
applications can decrease user friction by making the social network always
available
(e.g. similar to how Outlook makes email readily available).

Moreover, some developers sell digital content. Obviously, it may be
unfeasible
or undesirable to display advertisements in some digital content. However, the
developers charge the users for the digital content, and the system may charge
a fee as
a commission from the developer. One example of the digital content a
developer might
sell could be an icon expressing a social event (e.g. a birthday gift icon),
or charity gift
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icon, or a social campaign icon. A birthday gift icon is a commercialized
icon, and it may
be desirable for the system to charge the developer a commission.
Additionally, a
special icon will be created for each charitable project, (e.g. an earthquake
or a flood). A
user of a certain level (including, rank and/or title) or authority will earn
the right to
create and display the icon in their profile. Examples of social campaign icon
could be
an organ donor icon or a green earth icon. It may be undesirable for the
system 100 to
charge a commission on a charity icon or a social icon. Another example of
digital
content a developer might sell includes music which can flow through a social
network.
A user can buy music and place it in their profile. Visitors to the profile
page can stream
the music from the user's profile page. This can be one by a separate app
which could
be either a paid app or a free app. Additionally, the user may have to pay an
additional
fee to move the song to a portable device.

In the family rewards and transfer module 106, activities on the gaming
application website will allow participants to unlock "rewards" after certain
scores are
attained for these activities. The rewards can be points, virtual money, or
virtual items
that can be used on the website. It may also be possible to purchase these
rewards on
the website through the universal module 102.

For example, the virtual money or tokens can be used to buy food which can be
used to feed a virtual pet or purchase other virtual character on the website.
The virtual
money may be usable to buy additional things such as clothing, furniture, room
decorations, interactive objects, additional virtual pets, medical care, or
other, on the
website.

Website participants often take actions to increase their scores that will
lead to
rewards by either buying food for their virtual pets, and other fun activities
on the
website.

During the day when the children are at school or at other times when the
children are busy, parents and other relatives could also visit the site, and
play on the
site in order to get rewards for their children. For example, the mother of a
six-year-old
might have logged on to the website, and carried out some of the activities on
the
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website. This may be done in order to get rewards for her child. If done, the
game
and/or activities may be uninteresting for the parent(s), but their children
appreciate the
increased rewards for their virtual pets.

An aspect of the application describes a second website, such as for instance,
a
"parent website" having different kinds of activities intended for a different
group of
individuals, but that is linked to the first website. Here, the first gaming
website is a
website intended for children, for example children between 2 and 13 years
old, where
rewards are earned, and these rewards can be used by the users on the first
website.
The second gaming website has social justice or trivia activities intended for
adults. The
activities may be either age- or gender-specific or both. For instance, such
gaming
activities can be tailored for interest to a woman of the 30 to 40-year-old
age range. The
website may charge a fee for entry, or may be supported by advertising.

When an activity of a certain type is successfully carried out on the second
website, the user (e.g., the parent) or other adult in the child's life (e.g.,
a teacher) gets
certain kinds of points for carrying out this activity on the second website
(e.g., parent
website). The points can be transferred to the child's account on the child
website.

The child's site may include, for example, a virtual pet or avatar, which is a
virtual
representation of an animal or person that interacts within a room, chat room,
or other
activities within an activity center. The child may interact with the virtual
pet within the
activity center. The activity center may also include virtual furniture,
clothing, equipment,
as well as other virtual and animated virtual objects.

A status bar shows the accumulated rewards and level (including, rank and/or
title). The child can accumulate rewards both on the child's site and also on
the parent
site, which can include points received from his/her own activities on the
child's site and
points transferred from others. The rewards can also include earned and
transferred
items. The items can include, for example, food to feed to the virtual pet,
clothing or
other items that can be used to dress the virtual pet, or toys or other items
that facilitate
interaction with the virtual pet within the activity center.



CA 02736282 2011-04-04

The parent site may hosts different activities that are more appropriate for
an
adult to carry out, such as crossword puzzles and other puzzles, trivia
information,
information on parent issues and school issues, child health issues, pregnancy
issues,
first aid and medical issues, and other family issues. The parent site may
provide points
as a reward for carrying out certain activities. For example, a parent can
take a training
course about proper child education and receive points for completing the
course.

The parent site may allow using or redeeming the points or rewards on the
parent site, but also includes a transfer function. Selection of the transfer
function brings
up a separate transfer page. The user can select one of multiple different
sites, or
some other site, here referred to as "new site". Many of the parents may have
multiple
children, and any or all of these children can be registered in advance on the
parent site
and allows selection of the recipient for the transfer. A list of the existing
registered
children or the possibility of adding a new child is also provided. It will
also allow an
entry of, a personalized message to send along with the transfer.

The transfer screen also includes the ability to decide what specifically will
be
transferred. A points or virtual cash transfer is possible, where the user
enters the
number of points they want to transfer into the box. An item transfer may
bring up a
separate window such as which allows buying an item for transfer. This
provides a list of
the different items that the parents can buy, the number of points it will
take to buy it,
and allows purchase and transfer of that item to the child.

When the child has received a transfer, the next time they log in, a pop up
transfer notification is displayed. For instance, the notification says "you
have received a
reward transfer from parent". The transfer may say the number of points or may
provide
further detail about what the child has received. In this way, the parent can
carry out
activities that are more interesting to the parent. The actions, however, may
still provide
rewards to their child.

A specific way in which this is carried out may also use a prize pack which
can
be awarded or purchased at specified intervals. For example, the adult may be
able to
purchase or subscribe to a monthly "prize pack". The prize pack allows the
adult to send
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some number of gifts, for example 10 gifts, to the children on the site of
their choice.
The prizes are presented by the parent to the child. For example, the parents
may
encourage good off-line activities and good behavior in the children. In one
example,
the parent may tell the children that if they go outside and play for an hour,
or brush
their teeth all week, or clean their room, then they will get a reward. The
next time the
child logs onto their account, they receive the gift and the message.

As described above, the parent may also receive free rewards such as loyalty
points for playing on or otherwise using the parent site. In addition to
playing games, the
parent site may provide points for completing surveys, clicking on ads, or
other
conventional website actions. Using the parent site provides loyalty points
for the
parents. The points can be exchanged for virtual money or special items.

In one embodiment, the items that can be purchased at may be exclusive items
that can only be received from the parent site and cannot be obtained at all
from the
child's site. In this case, the child's site may display the exclusive items,
but may appear
grayed or faded out, or have some other indication to demonstrate that the
items cannot
be obtained from the child's site. The child's site may indicate that they can
only receive
these items by a transfer from the parent site. This may provide further
motivation for
the parent to carry out actions on the parent site, since the rewards will be
even more
special. The embodiment may allow cash from one site to be exchanged for cash
from
another site, as part of the rewards transfer.

Another embodiment may allow a user to block rewards from being received. For
example, if the recipient does not want to receive a reward or gift from the
transferring
person, they can click the "block" button when the message pops up indicating
that a
reward transfer was received. This can add, for example, the transferee to the
user's
permanent block list. As a result, the user can effectively block the receipt
of gifts or
rewards from someone that they do not like or do not want to receive gifts
from, or the
like.

In this embodiment, a number of different websites allow different activities.
Reward presentations can be transferred from any of these websites to any
other
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website, and used on that other website. As in the above embodiments, the
rewards
can be used to take an action that could not be taken without the reward,
e.g., to
purchase an item, or change some aspect of a character or other virtual item
on the
website. The preschool site is a site intended for younger children, such as
preschool
age, and more generally can be any site intended for preschool age children.
The
preschool site intends to allow user interaction with virtual pets and other
activities
without requiring reading. These sites described above can generically be
considered
as sites intended for preschool and elementary school children, e.g. sites
which have
activities that are intended for preschool and elementary school age children,
and as
sites which more specifically allow and facilitate interfacing with virtual
pets. Apart from
such child-specific sites, other sites designed for parental age users who
have or care
for preschool or elementary school children can operate cooperatively with
such child-
specific sites.

The competitive matches site enables competitions, where points, bonuses,
incentives or other virtual prizes are awarded. Recipients of such rewards can
convert
and/or apply their rewards earned on the competitive matches site to another
site (e.g.,
another parent's site or a child's site). Other sites described herein may
carry out
analogous operations for other types of characters, e.g. baseball players, or
others.
These sites may also allow training and competitions among the trained
characters.
Statistics are maintained on any of these sites, for example the win-loss may
be
recorded. One advantage of a rewards transfer in this kind of site (e.g.,
virtual collection
site) is that multiple friends can pool their rewards to buy something that
they could not
otherwise pay for with their individual rewards, for example, and arrange a
sharing
agreement.

With schools, the educators are presented with different things of interest to
professional educators. This also allows the educators to provide rewards to
the
children in their classes. For example, once a teacher registers on the school
site, and
registers the names of their children, they may be allowed to provide
specified kinds of
rewards to the children participating on some other sites based on their
grades,
homework or class behavior. Any of these sites may allow the rewards earned
thereon
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to be either used on the same site, or to be transferred either as virtual
cash, points, or
a purchase to another site.

The predetermined privileges can be based on the user's level (including, rank
and/or title). In an example embodiment, entry level users will be provided
with free
access. Members can explore, invite friends, purchase items, plan and attend
events.
There will be a wall that members can post their comments and there will be a
virtual
room/game environment where members can buy virtual goods with tokens that
will
gain them points to level up (including, rank and/or title). They can also buy
and
exchange goods, decorate and hang virtual items up on their rooms which they
can
dynamically drag and drop. There will be bonus points if these virtual goods
go towards
a good and just cause. In the case of tokens with a charity component, the
members will
need a real cash contribution and only these special tokens will be able to
unlock these
virtual goods. As in any social network site like Facebook, the members should
be able
to perform all other task i.e. upload videos, photos, text, music etc.

As the users advances further new "unlocked" doors will be opened and it will
offer additional rewards and new opportunities to level up (including, rank
and/or title).
Tagging features will be more prominent as users get with similar interest are
bunched
into similar communities and they will appear in the user's homepage page as a
"recommended" or "suggested" friend. Users in at this level (including, rank
and/or title)
can also start to make use of the content module to produce wiki's or blogs by
filling in
the form which will be vetted, approved and posted. Using the content module,
users
can also sell their own personal goods or User generated content (UGC) through
a
garage sale option and receives loyalty points for doing so.

As the user advances to the highest level (including, rank and/or title)
additional
unlocked doors will be available and users can start to gain access to closed
door
events including meeting with celebrities and inviting them as friend. Users
at this level
can be allowed to create multiple new campaigns and send out invitations to
one or
more members or non-members. Using a standard form, the user can enter a
campaign
name, a link to an external web page, a deadline, a financial goal, an image
file, and
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send this out to be approved. Users will gain access to free rewards and will
receive
financial sponsorship for expenses and may be even offered a stipend if
overseas travel
is needed. In addition peer ranking and competition with some form of bar
chart or pie
chart that will unlock vacations, plasma TV, concert tickets, vouchers etc

In order to level a person up to the highest levels (including, rank and/or
title),
psycho graphic tools such as Integrative Complexity (IC) scorecards can be
used to
assess and understand users leadership and conflict management styles. One
example of this Conflict style tool is known and the Kraybill Conflict style
Inventory and
was designed by Professor Ronald Kraybill, Centre for Justice and
Peacebuilding,
Easter Mennonite University in Harrisburg, Virginia USA.

Referring to Figures 12A and 12B, a flow diagram depicting various aspects of
one embodiment of the system 100 is shown. In block 1200, the user will input
his
password and user Id and the system 100 will display the user's level
(including, rank
and/or title), the charities a user has contributed or helped provide micro
finance to and
the account balance.

If the user is not already registered as a member, in block 601, the user will
input
his identity data and the system 100 will check to see if input is valid. For
example, the
system 100 may check the user's entry to verify that the syntax is correct
and/or that
there is no information missing from any required field. If the input is
valid, the system
100 will update and store the data in a repository.

If the user had received an invitation from another friend, in block 1202,
such an
invitation may be sent by email or any other means of notification, such as
mail, text
message, fax or phone. If the new user accepted the friend request and the
input is
valid, the system 100 sends an email invitation to the existing member and
acknowledges that the invitation was sent and accepted to acknowledge his
contribution. However, if the person did not accept the membership, the
"prospective
member" invitation message may still be displayed on the existing member's
account.



CA 02736282 2011-04-04

Once a registered user logs into the system 100, in block 1203, the system 100
checks the user to see if he or she is considered a child. If this is true, in
block 1204, the
system 100 implements algorithms and computational tools to monitor the
actions of
each registered and active user. If the system 100 and/or any component
thereof
detects improper, inappropriate or other conduct that falls within parameters
defining a
person with criminal, pedophiliac or other conduct characterized to be a risk
to children
using the system 100, the system 100 identifies the suspicious user and
transmits a
warning, notification or other alert to the system 100 administrators and/or
appropriate
personnel. The system 100 then advises the administrators and/or appropriate
personnel of the conduct observed and prompts further investigation of the
suspicious
user. The investigation may constitute further electronic monitoring and/or a
full
investigation of the suspicious user. If no suspicious behavior is detected,
in block
1205, the user is cleared.

In block 1207, the members may make posts. For example, the one or more
members may post a comment about how great they think the campaign is. They
can
also create blogs where users post comments on a particular subject, and the
comments are displayed in reverse chronological order, according to the date
on which
the comment was posted. In block 1209, the system 100 provides a method to
generate trusted user generated content (UGC). While most of these UGC is
collected
from the plurality of social network sites and the collected UGC is correlated
with the
extended social networks, including identifying the owners of content
according to the
extended social networks of registered users, some of these UGC could be
generated
by the user. The system 100 will provide a GUI to allow users to upload
videos, audio,
text and also a crawler to import contents hosted from other social network
websites.
The content is correlated to the owners according to the identities and
relationships
available in user metadata. The crawler collects UGC in operation by accessing
the
social network sites. As previously mentioned, the crawler may use an API or a
brute
force scan to gather the UGC. The user information and the UGC collected is
correlated, attributing authorship to registered users independently of where
the content
was created, and giving access to other users, independently of where their
social
relationship was established. Users can define what kind of UGC they wish to
access
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and the UGC is filtered according to their definitions in operation. Access
can be made
on demand, or feeds of information can be delivered to requesting users
periodically.
The filtered content is then presented to the requesting user in operation,
such as for
example in a browser window of the user's computer.

In block 1210, the user can select to a virtual gaming application offering
various
online games.

In block 1213, the monetization module 112 will then compute the commission on
money passing through the "marketplace". It is often desirable to charge the
fees as
money leaves rather than enters the marketplace, to avoid discouraging money
from
entering the marketplace. For example, the flow of money within the purchase
of token
occurs from the users to the suppliers; therefore the suppliers will pay the
commission
to the providers.

Occasionally, there may also be virtual auctions for limited editions-that is,
that
limited numbers of the products that are produced, after which, the products
can no
longer be obtained from the manufacturer. Also, the universal module 102 may
also
accommodate the user to trade or sell their possessions through a "garage
sale" option;
be they virtual or real possessions in exchange for tokens or cash to support
or finance
this just cause. Other web applications may also be added to the universe that
do not
include some or all of these features.

In block 1214, if the user decides to make a microloan to the just cause, the
system 100 will work with a microfinance institution to provide these loans to
people
without access to traditional banking systems. One hundred percent of the loan
is sent
to these microfinance institutions, known as Field Partners, who administer
the loans in
the field. There will be a network of volunteers who work with these Field
Partners, who
will edit and translate the borrower stories, and ensure the smooth operation
of these
programs. 100% of every dollar that is loaned goes directly towards funding
loans and
there will be no interest charges made to the Field Partners, who will
administer these
loans.

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If the charity or project is new, then in block 1215, the user may create a
campaign and associate the created campaign with one or more charities or
social
justice events and a goal, such as a financial goal or a participation goal. A
campaign is
a specific charitable cause (or individual) that the user is passionate about
and seeks to
support. For example, a user may create a campaign to raise money to support
solar
panels in a village in India. The campaign may be created by describing the
campaign
and by selecting a name for the campaign and a date to reach the financial
goal for the
charitable campaign. Alternatively, in block 1215 the user may also be able to
access
an individual's "wish list" and decide to send the proceeds to that
individual, for
example, Sam Broke who is in need of a wheelbarrow for the farm. The user may
select
the name "Sam Broke" set a goal deadline of Dec. 15, 2011 and describe the
campaign
by providing the history of Sam Broke and his farm. According to an
embodiment, the
user may upload one or more images or video to associate with the campaign. In
addition, the user may associate the campaign with a link to an external web
page. For
example, a link may be provided to a web page that lists facts about his work.
According
to an embodiment, the user may create one or more campaigns, which all may be
active simultaneously at any given time.

In block 1216, the system 100 will compute the peer ranking of each member
and there will be an option to vote for each member within the user's
community. Users
may also post message on bulletin boards to solicit commentary from other
users of the
system 100. These message boards allow users to use words to convey a message.
The entries may be posted on the virtual message board for all users of the
social
network to see. When users of the social network participate in the polls
and/or post
comments on the message boards, and donate money to one or more charities,
their
score may also increase.

In block 1217, peer ranking scores can be achieved using tools such as social
network analysis, although, typically, users ranking will be based on a total
monetary
value associated with the posted message and the reliability of a user's
reputation. A
higher user score could also be obtained if the user has encouraged members or
non-
members to do a good act and support a just cause. Indeed, the more support
the user
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elicits from the voting process, the higher the user score would be. Social
network
analysis software (SNA software) facilitates quantitative or qualitative
analysis of social
networks, by describing features of a network, either through numerical or
visual
representation. Networks can consist of anything from families, project teams,
classrooms, soccer teams, legislatures, nation-states, disease vectors,
membership on
networking websites like Twitter or Facebook, or even the Internet. Network
features
can be at the level of individual nodes, dyads, triads, ties and/or edges, or
the entire
network. For example, node-level features can include network phenomena such
as
betweeness and centrality, or individual attributes such as age, sex, or
income . SNA
software generates these features from raw network data formatted in an
edgelist,
adjacency list, or adjacency matrix (also called sociomatrix), often combined
with
(individual/node-level) attribute data (See Hanneman's chapter on network data
for
further detail). Though the vast majority of network analysis software uses a
plain text
ASCII data format, some software packages contain the capability to utilize
relational
databases to import and/or store network features.

In block 1219, a user may invite members or non-members to join his/her user
group. An invitation may be sent by email or any other means of notification,
such as
mail, text message, fax or phone. The user enters individual information in
1220 for a
person and the system 100 checks to see if the person is a member. If the
person is a
member and "existing member invite message" may be displayed to send to the
member. According to the embodiment of the present disclosure, the message may
be
automatically input by the system 100 or manually input by the user. The
system 100
also checks to see if the input is valid. If the input is valid, the system
100 sends an
email invitation to the existing member and acknowledges that the invitation
was sent.
However, if the person is not a member, the "prospective member" invitation
message
may be displayed to send to the prospective member. According to the
embodiment,
the message may be automatically input by the system 100 or manually input by
the
user. The system 100 checks to see if the input is valid. If the input is
valid, the system
100 sends an email invitation to the prospective member and acknowledges that
the
invitation was sent. The invited members or non-members may accept the
invitation into
the user's group, reject the invitation, or not respond to the invitation. The
member or
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CA 02736282 2011-04-04

non-members may have a predetermined time in which to accept the invitation to
join
the user group. For example, a member or non-member may have six months to
respond. In addition, a member or non-member who fails to respond or rejects
the
invitation may change his/her mind any time within the first year.

In block 1221, once a person registers using the New Member's module, he can
fill out his profile and invite all of his friends to join his tag Team or
community. The user
can continue to add people to his team, see who's in other people's tag teams,
and
check out other people's profiles by clicking on their names. Tags represents
the
interest of the user. For example, if the user is a great host , she can
select a hospitality
tag, or if a dancer, painter or a writer, select the Arts tag. A user can give
her friends
tags (like "Best Friend," etc.) to let them know what she thinks about them.
If the user
wants to nudge his friends to give him tags, he can ask them by going to his
tag Team
page and clicking the hand icon next to each person on his team to ask for
tags.

In block 1222, the user may choose to transfer some of his points to their
children to encourage them to be socially minded. In block 1223, In the family
rewards
and transfer module 106, activities on the gaming application website will
allow
participants to unlock "rewards" after certain scores are attained for these
activities. The
rewards can be points, virtual money, or virtual items that can be used on the
website. It
may also be possible to purchase these rewards on the website through the
universal
module 102. For example, the virtual money or tokens can be used to buy food
which
can be used to feed a virtual pet or purchase other virtual characters on the
website.
The virtual money may be usable to buy additional things such as clothing,
furniture,
room decorations, interactive objects, additional virtual pets, medical care,
or other, on
the website. Website participants are encouraged to take actions to increase
their
scores that will lead to rewards by either buying food for their virtual pets,
and other fun
activities on the website. During the day when the children are at school or
at other
times when the children are busy, parents and other relatives could also visit
the site,
and play on the site in order to get rewards for their children. For example,
the mother of
a six-year-old might have logged on to the website, and carried out some of
the
activities on the website. This may be done in order to get rewards for her
child. If done,


CA 02736282 2011-04-04

the game and/or activities may be uninteresting for the parent(s), but their
children
appreciate the increased rewards for their virtual pets. An aspect of the
application
describes a second website, such as for instance, a "parent website" having
different
kinds of activities intended for a different group of individuals, but that is
linked to the
first website. Here, the first gaming website is a website intended for
children, for
example children between 2 and 13 years old, where rewards are earned, and
these
rewards can be used by the users on the first website. The second gaming
website has
social justice or trivia activities intended for adults. The activities may be
either age- or
gender-specific or both. For instance, such gaming activities can be tailored
for interest
to a woman of the 30 to 40-year-old age range. The website may charge a fee
for entry,
or may be supported by advertising. When an activity of a certain type is
successfully
carried out on the second website, the user (e.g., the parent) or other adult
in the child's
life (e.g., a teacher) gets certain kinds of points for carrying out this
activity on the
second website (e.g., parent website). The points can be transferred to the
child's
account on the child website. The child's site may include, for example, a
virtual pet or
avatar, which is a virtual representation of an animal or person that
interacts within a
room, chat room, or other activities within an activity center. The child may
interact with
the virtual pet within the activity center. The activity center may also
include virtual
furniture, clothing, equipment, as well as other virtual and animated virtual
objects. A
status bar shows the accumulated rewards and level (including, rank and/or
title). The
child can accumulate rewards both on the child's site and also on the parent
site, which
can include points received from his/her own activities on the child's site
and points
transferred from others. The rewards can also include earned and transferred
items.
The items can include, for example, food to feed to the virtual pet, clothing
or other
items that can be used to dress the virtual pet, or toys or other items that
facilitate
interaction with the virtual pet within the activity center.

If the user is interested to purchase more tokens, in block 1224, the
universal
module 102 will serve to converts any currency into tokens that can be used on
all the
web applications throughout the universe. These tokens can also be exchange to
the
currency of choice on any other social network site in the universe, even in
other social
networking sites that use their own specific form of virtual cash or tokens.
The tokens
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CA 02736282 2011-04-04

may be converted into other social networking sites through an agreed formula.
Alternatively, these tokens may also act as universal virtual cash that can be
used
directly on any of those sites.

As shown in block 1226, the predetermined privileges can be based on the user
level (including, rank and/or title). In an example embodiment, entry level
users will be
provided with free access. Members can explore, invite friends, purchase
items, plan
and attend events. There will be a wall that members can post their comments
and
there will be a virtual room/game environment where members can buy virtual
goods
with tokens that will gain them points to level up (including, rank and/or
title). They can
also buy and exchange goods, decorate and hang virtual items up on their rooms
which
they can dynamically drag and drop. There will be bonus points if these
virtual goods go
towards a good and just cause. In the case of tokens with a charity component,
the
members will need a real cash contribution and only these special tokens will
be able to
unlock these virtual goods. As in any social network site like Facebook, the
members
should be able to perform all other task i.e. upload videos, photos, text,
music etc.

In block 1227, as the users advances further new "unlocked" doors will be
opened and it will offer additional rewards and new opportunities to level up
(including,
rank and/or title). Tagging features will be more prominent as users get with
similar
interest are bunched into similar communities and they will appear in the
user's
homepage page as a "recommended" or "suggested" friend. Users in at this level
can
also start to make use of the content module to produce wiki's or blogs by
filling in the
form which will be vetted, approved and posted. Using the content module,
users can
also sell their own personal goods or User generated content (UGC) through a
garage
sale option and receives loyalty points for doing so.

As the user advances to the highest level (including, rank and/or title)
additional
unlocked doors will be available and users can start to gain access to closed
door
events including meeting with celebrities and inviting them as friend. Users
at this level
can be allowed to create multiple new campaigns and send out invitations to
one or
more members or non-members. Using a standard form, the user can enter a
campaign
57


CA 02736282 2011-04-04

name, a link to an external web page, a deadline, a financial goal, an image
file, and
send this out to be approved. Users will gain access to free rewards and will
receive
financial sponsorship for expenses and may be even offered a stipend if
overseas travel
is needed. In addition peer ranking and competition with some form of bar
chart or pie
chart that will unlock vacations, plasma TV, concert tickets, vouchers etc

In order to level a person up to the highest levels (including, rank and/or
title),
psycho graphic tools 1228 such as Integrative Complexity (IC) scorecards can
be used
to assess and understand users leadership and conflict management styles. One
example of this Conflict style tool is known and the Kraybill Conflict style
Inventory and
was designed by Professor Ronald Kraybill, Centre for Justice and
Peacebuilding,
Easter Mennonite University in Harrisburg, Virginia USA.

The foregoing embodiments disclose a system for providing, amongst other
things, a social network for developing and identifying leaders for charitable
and social
justice campaigns by determining a level of a user (including, rank and/or
title) based
upon a weighting of one or more criteria indicative of the user's leadership
potential for
charitable and social justice campaigns, and providing the user with one or
more
rewards in the social network based upon the level of the user (including,
rank and/or
title) and/or the rate of advancement of the user between levels (including,
rank and/or
title).

The system may be further configured to provide one or more of the following:
in
response to a request from a user having a predetermined minimum level
(including,
rank and/or title), create a charitable or social justice campaign hosted on
the social
network and associated with the user; in response to a request from a user,
facilitate a
financial contribution from the user to a charitable or social justice
campaign hosted on
the social network (the financial contributions may comprise monetary
donations or
loans); in response to a request from a user, subscribe the user to a
charitable or social
justice campaign hosted on the social network; provide a marketplace for the
sale of
virtual items; facilitate a financial contribution to a charitable or social
justice campaign
hosted on the social network, the contribution comprising at least a portion
of the
58


CA 02736282 2011-04-04

proceeds received by a user from the sale of virtual items on the marketplace;
provide a
survey to a user and receive a completed survey from the user; receive self-
promotional
information provided by a user; execute a social network analysis tool to
assess a user;
execute an Integrative Complexity (IC) pyschographic tool to assess a user,
and other
features and functions described or referenced in this disclosure.

The criteria indicative of the user's leadership potential for charitable and
social justice
campaigns may comprise one or more of the following: the total financial
contributions
made by other users to charitable or social justice campaigns hosted on the
social
network and associated with a user; the total number of other users that
subscribe to
charitable or social justice campaigns hosted on the social network and
associated with
a user; a completed survey respecting a user, the survey completed by and
provided to
the system by a user; a completed survey respecting a user, the survey
completed by
and provided to the system by another user; self promotional information
provided to the
system by a user; results obtained from the execution of social network
analysis tools
by the system to assess a user; results obtained from the execution of
Integrative
Complexity (IC) pyschographic tools to assess a user; the recruitment of well
known
celebrities to support the campaign; a boot camp may be held where trained
mentors
and staff will observe the user and determine the user's ability to lead
charitable and
social justice campaigns; the current position of the user in society and a
determination
if the user has achieved any success in that position; selection by a group of
judges
(e.g. people who are credible like current youth leaders and change makers);
selection
by trained ethnographers to study users of the system to identify leaders;
interviews of
users; selection by other users (e.g. other users can be randomly selected);
and other
criteria described or referenced in this disclosure.

The level of a user (including, rank and/or title) may be determined based
upon a
weighting of one or more criteria indicative of the user's leadership
potential for
charitable and social justice campaigns. The weighting of criteria can be
performed
based upon any weighting scheme known in the art. For example, one or more of
the
criteria could be compared against one or more predetermined thresholds and
the
degree to which the criteria exceeds these thresholds could then be scaled by
a
59


CA 02736282 2011-04-04

weighting factor. The weighting factor could be a fixed value or a dynamic
value
dependent on characteristics of the criteria. For example, if the criteria is
the financial
contributions made by users of the system 100 to a user's campaigns hosted by
the
system 100, the weighting factor may vary depending on the source of the
contribution
(e.g. financial contributions made by users having a higher degree of
separation from
the user in the social network may receive a lower weighting than financial
contributions
made from users having a lower degree of separation from the user). This
example can
be represented mathematically as follows:

Weighting of financial contributions to a user campaigns = (monetary
contribution to user's campaigns) x (degree of separation of contributor from
user) x (weighting factor)

It will be apparent to one skilled in the art that various weighting schemes
may be
provided to the weighting each criterion individually, as well as, the
weighting of all
relevant criteria as a whole. The value resulting from the weighting all of
the relevant
criteria for a user may be compared against one or more fixed thresholds, or
one or
more values resulting from the weighting of other users of the system 100, in
order to
assign a level to the user (including, rank and/or title).

[0002] In another example, social network analysis tools may be applied to
develop and identify leaders for charitable and social justice campaigns.
These tools
may assess a user based upon one or more criteria and assumptions. For
example,
people who are not active in the social network will have very few connections
in the
system, however, this may have no reliable relation to their connectedness and
influence in the "real world". Also, social networking "evangelists" may send
as many or
more invitations as they receive to join a social network. They can be
detected because
they have both a high number of contacts and high acceptance rates. Further,
members who automatically invite their entire address book may have a high
number of
connections but may have lower than average acceptance rates and low average
strength of connections. When members accept the invitations of people they do
not
know well, acceptance rates go up. However, this kind of acceptance is may not
be a


CA 02736282 2011-04-04

good measure of influence in the "real world". When strength of connections is
not
readily measurable in the on-line community, this can be very hard to detect.
Also,
highly influential and popular people who automatically invite their entire
address books
may have low acceptance rates, and low average strength of connections, but
may also
have a large number of strong connections. Thus their invitation acceptance
rates may
be higher than the majority of "invitation spammers" who are typically not as
influential.
In addition, invitations sent to people who are currently not members of the
social
networking system will usually have lower acceptance rates than invitations
sent to
people who are already members, thus this factor may also be taken into
account.

[0003] Thus, based upon the foregoing, the criteria for developing and
identifying
leaders for charitable and social justice campaigns may include one or more
of: people
with a large number of mutually confirmed connections tend to be influential
and well
connected; people who receive large numbers of invitations tend to be more
influential
than people who receive few invitations; people who receive more invitations
than they
send tend to be more influential than people who send more invitations than
they
receive; people whose total invitations received and accepted are larger than
the
number of invitations sent and accepted tend to be more influential (By not
counting
invitations that are not accepted by either party, this metric removes
variances in
invitation acceptance rates that are not related to levels of influence and
popularity, for
example influential people who automatically invite their entire contact list
without
filtering it for relationship strength); people with larger number of
invitations accepted
are more popular than those with lower numbers; and people whose invitation
acceptance rate is closer to 1 (determined by a ratio of total invitations
sent by target
and accepted by recipients/total invitations sent by target (ISA/IS)) tend to
be more
influential than people with a smaller acceptance rate.

The rewards provided to the user may comprise one or more of the following:
permitting
a user to create one or more charitable or social justice campaigns on the
social
network; displaying a user level of a user (including, rank and/or title) in
association with
the user's activities on the social network, the user level (including, rank
and/or title)
awarded by the system to the user based upon the level of the user (including,
rank
61


CA 02736282 2011-04-04

and/or title); providing a user with an accreditation; providing a user with
free access to
the social network; providing a user with wares, services or opportunities;
providing a
user with virtual currency useable on the social network; providing a user
with virtual
items useable on the social network (the virtual item may comprise displaying
a tag in
association with the user's activities on the social network); permitting a
user to sell
virtual items on the social network; permitting a user to create virtual items
on the social
network; permitting a user to nominate other users as having leadership
potential for
charitable and social justice campaigns; permitting a user to upload and host
user
content on the social network; invite friends to join the system or campaigns;
explore,
purchase items, plan and attend events; decorate and hang virtual items up on
their
rooms which they can dynamically drag and drop; upload videos, photos, text,
music
etc.; access new locked door features; access to tagging features; produce
wiki's or
blogs on hosted on the system; sell their own personal goods or User generated
content
(UGC) through a garage sale option; meeting with celebrities and inviting them
as
friend; create multiple new campaigns and send out invitations to one or more
members
or non-members to join the campaigns; and rewards such as plasma TV, concert
tickets, vouchers etc.; and other rewards described or referenced in this
disclosure.
While particular embodiments of the present invention have been described in
the
foregoing, it is to be understood that other embodiments are possible within
the scope
of the invention and are intended to be included therein. It will be clear to
any person
skilled in the art that modifications of and adjustments to this invention,
not shown at
this writing, are possible without departing from the spirit of the invention
as
demonstrated through the exemplary embodiments.

62

Representative Drawing
A single figure which represents the drawing illustrating the invention.
Administrative Status

For a clearer understanding of the status of the application/patent presented on this page, the site Disclaimer , as well as the definitions for Patent , Administrative Status , Maintenance Fee  and Payment History  should be consulted.

Administrative Status

Title Date
Forecasted Issue Date Unavailable
(22) Filed 2011-04-04
(41) Open to Public Inspection 2011-10-02
Dead Application 2016-04-07

Abandonment History

Abandonment Date Reason Reinstatement Date
2015-04-07 FAILURE TO PAY APPLICATION MAINTENANCE FEE
2015-09-18 FAILURE TO RESPOND TO OFFICE LETTER
2016-04-04 FAILURE TO REQUEST EXAMINATION

Payment History

Fee Type Anniversary Year Due Date Amount Paid Paid Date
Application Fee $200.00 2011-04-04
Maintenance Fee - Application - New Act 2 2013-04-04 $50.00 2013-02-04
Maintenance Fee - Application - New Act 3 2014-04-04 $50.00 2014-04-03
Owners on Record

Note: Records showing the ownership history in alphabetical order.

Current Owners on Record
THINKECO POWER INC.
Past Owners on Record
None
Past Owners that do not appear in the "Owners on Record" listing will appear in other documentation within the application.
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Representative Drawing 2011-09-09 1 8
Cover Page 2011-09-27 1 38
Abstract 2011-04-04 1 13
Description 2011-04-04 62 3,369
Claims 2011-04-04 4 134
Correspondence 2011-08-12 1 34
Correspondence 2011-08-25 1 18
Correspondence 2011-08-25 1 29
Correspondence 2011-09-19 2 76
Correspondence 2011-09-28 1 18
Correspondence 2011-09-28 1 17
Assignment 2011-04-04 4 128
Correspondence 2011-10-26 1 51
Drawings 2011-04-04 13 471
Correspondence 2012-12-10 2 96
Correspondence 2013-01-14 2 94
Correspondence 2012-12-17 1 18
Correspondence 2012-12-17 1 24
Correspondence 2013-01-22 1 18
Correspondence 2013-01-22 1 21
Fees 2013-02-04 1 163
Fees 2014-04-03 1 33
Correspondence 2015-06-03 2 47
Office Letter 2015-06-18 1 25
Request for Appointment of Agent 2015-06-18 1 36
Correspondence 2015-11-23 2 79
Correspondence 2015-12-15 2 139
Correspondence 2015-12-16 2 54