Data processing: software development – installation – and managem – Software installation – Network
Reexamination Certificate
1999-09-15
2002-08-13
Morse, Gregory (Department: 2122)
Data processing: software development, installation, and managem
Software installation
Network
C717S174000, C345S215000, C707S793000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06434745
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to browser software to access the World Wide Web (WWW) and, more particularly, to customizable browser software to access the Web and multi-media files and applications on an end-users computer and provide marketing data about the end-user.
2. Discussion of the Background Art
Business marketing is very desirable of targeting their customers needs and interests as part of their effort to sell products and services. The advent of the global network termed the Internet, called the World Wide Web (WWW or WEB) has opened up an entire new medium for marketing in conjunction with entertainment, educational and business information and services available to end-users. Marketing goals on the Internet, as is true elsewhere, is to collect useful information about potential or actual customers and to provide customers with useful tools, applications, and information to enhance the customers dealings with the business. Such information and tools can lead to future sales. From an end-user's viewpoint, visiting a myriad of websites is interesting, but, the only way to store such sites is to store them in a bookmark list which is not searchable and often is long and unwieldy and does not help the end-user to return to that site.
Businesses market products and services by advertising such as by placing a classified advertisement on a computer database system. These networks and on-line services like Prodigy and AOL offer these classified services. These systems usually place the advertisement into a category or sub-categories. This method allows the client (client is interchangeable with end-user, workstation, terminal or browser and server is interchangeable with host or mainframe) of the system to browse through a certain category to view the classified advertisement. Some systems will even allow the client to search for keywords in the subject of the classified advertisement. These types of systems dont't target customers well enough to increase the customer's interest or opportunity to view, participate in the business's marketing research, and targeted advertising efforts. It is, therefore, highly desirable to have a seamless and easy system of gathering marketing information based on the end-user's or customer's browser use both on-line when connected to a network such as the World Wide Web (Internet) or intranet and off-line when not connected to a network. It is also desirable to provide up to date sales and marketing information and useful utilities and functions as well as advertising information to the customer in a fashion that will not interfere with the end-user's operations, will not unnecessarily use his time, and will enhance the customer's experience of using the Internet and encourage the end-user to use the browser.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Customizable software is stored in machine readable format for distribution by a third party publisher to be used by an end-user on an end-user computer having a fixed storage means and interface with a web server using a network. The software is stored electronically, typically, in a compressed format and loaded onto the end-user computer. A preferred embodiment of the software includes a graphical user interface (GUI) component for controlling a browser on the end-user computer. The GUI is installed on the end-user computer with an installation software program and the GUI includes means for displaying at least one customized screen display area on the end-user computer which is customized for the publisher third party. The customizable software includes publisher content that is at least partially installable on the end-user's computer. The publisher content preferably includes multi-media files.
The installation software program includes means for installing a customized icon operable to launch the GUI such that the icon is viewable on a start-up screen on the end-user's computer. The software further includes a means for changing a name of the browser that appears in a title bar on a viewable screen on the end-user's computer.
The software includes a means for monitoring end-user behavior and maintaining a local event statistics database of the end-user behavior including event data related to end-user events. Such end-user behavior includes end-user behavior on-line and viewing locally stored files on the end-user computer off-line. The software includes a means for detecting a network connection and transmitting at least a portion of the local event statistics database to the web server. The software includes a means for compiling summary information from the local event statistics database wherein the summary information comprises the portion of the local event statistics database.
The end-user events includes logging-on to URLs and the end-user event data includes at least one of a title, a last modified date, a keyword located in a <META> tag, and submitted data via an HTML <FORM> including end-user data entered by the end-user in data fields of the form and an entry date and an entry time the end-user event occurred. A graphing means provides graphical representations of the end-user event data stored in the local events statistics database.
The software includes a means for detecting a network connection during program start-up and executing a transaction with the web server to determine if the publisher content should be modified. The software further includes a means for updating the publisher content that is installed on the end-user's computer. Updating the publisher content includes downloading new files from the server and storing them on the end-user's computer and deleting existing files which are stored on the end-user's computer. The transaction with the web server includes transmitting at least one of a set of identifying data, the set of identifying data comprised of a unique identifier for the browser, a zip code of the end-user, an area code of the end-user, a set of keywords, and end-user demographic data. A search means is provided for allowing the end-user to search the events statistics database to locate Web pages which contain the keywords in a URL, Title, or as a keyword in a <META> tag.
A password manager means allows the end-user to record a script of a sequence of keystrokes performed to log-in to a password secured URL, to save the script to a local script database, generate a log-in script which the browser will run whenever it detects the end-user navigating to the password secured URL with a defined script, and automatically log the end-user in to the password secured URL.
The software includes an E-mail grabbing means for automatically examining each URL loaded in the browser to locate E-mail addresses and save the Email address, the URL, the title of the page of the URL, the URL's last modified date, and any keywords present in a <META> tag of the URL to a searchable local E-mail database on the end-user's computer. An E-mail interface means allows the end-user to search the E-mail database with one or more search terms and display E-mail information for E-mail addresses stored in the E-mail database which satisfy a query. The E-mail interface also allows the end-user to click-on a displayed E-mail address and invoke a default E-mail program stored on the end-user's computer to send an E-mail to the displayed E-mail address. The E-mail interface includes a button to activate a reporting means for saving the E-mail information to an E-mail file.
The software includes an image grabbing means for allowing the end-user to selectively save an image with an image associated URL displayed on the end-user's computer into a searchable image database. A title of the page of the URL, a last modified date of the URL, and keywords in a <META> tag of the URL are also stored in searchable fields in the image database.
A touring means allows the end-user to selectively save tours, each tour having a p
Conley, Jr. Ralph F.
Maier Jeffrey A.
Direct Business Technologies, Inc.
Morse Gregory
Nguyen-Ba Hoang-Vu Antony
Rosen Steven J.
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