Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput – Remote data accessing
Reexamination Certificate
1998-09-22
2001-04-24
Millin, Vincent (Department: 2165)
Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput
Remote data accessing
C709S203000, C709S218000, C709S224000, C709S245000, C707S793000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06223215
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates generally to electronic commerce and, in particular, to interactive network session tracking from inbound source to net sale.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The World Wide Web (WWW) has become an increasingly popular entertainment and information medium for consumers. The popularity of the WWW has led to the commercialization of this new medium. As a result, the WWW has become a significant new medium for commerce, which is referred to as electronic commerce or E-commerce. Vendors offer goods and services for sale via various WWW sites. For example, a vendor may sell computers, entertainment media, or computer software over the WWW via an online store. Security mechanisms, such as the well-known Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol standard have been developed to provide secure electronic transactions of sensitive data (e.g., encryption of financial data) over the Internet.
Advertising on the WWW represents another strategy for generating revenue through the popularity of the WWW. For example, a WWW site can sell advertising space on its frequently visited home page (e.g., www.yahoo.com). Statistics on the number of hits on any given static HTML page of the WWW site can be maintained to determine the popularity of the WWW page.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
As the revenue generated from E-commerce and advertising on interactive networks, such as the WWW, continues to increase, interactive network session tracking of origin-through-sales series of actions is needed. For example, an origin-through-sales series of actions includes a customer's (e.g., a WWW user of an online store) origin, such as a unique source ID (identifier) of a banner (advertisement) on a search engine WWW site (e.g., using standard name-value pairs passed via HTTP protocol). The origin-through-sales series of actions can also include the customer's browsing path through an interactive network site, such as a WWW online store site, and optionally the amount of time spent by the customer at the network site. The origin-through-sales series of actions further includes the customer's net sales information, such as goods or services purchased through the online store.
Tracking the origin-through-sales series of actions is referred to as session tracking from inbound source to net sale. Session tracking from inbound source to net sale advantageously associates a user's inbound source data with actual net sales data. For example, the session tracking data gathered can be analyzed offline and used to measure the effectiveness of media (advertisement) placements to maximize allocation of media budget resources.
In a traditional WWW site using static HTML (HyperText Markup Language) pages, session tracking can be performed through analysis of WWW server logs using commercially available tools. However, the commercially available tools cannot perform session tracking in a dynamically generated WWW site in which the contents of the site exist as sets of data in a database rather than as static HTML pages, such as an online store that maintains an online catalog in a database. Moreover, the commercially available tools cannot perform session tracking in a WWW site that provides a (secure) purchase subsystem (e.g., using SSL protocol instead of HTTP protocol), because the desired information is encrypted.
Accordingly, the present invention provides interactive network session tracking from inbound source to net sale. In one embodiment, a method includes storing a unique session ID in an entry in a session tracking database, and associating the session ID with a user's browser, such as via a transient HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) cookie. The user's origin, such as a unique source ID of a banner (advertisement) on a search engine WWW site (e.g., using standard name-value pairs passed via HTTP protocol), is stored in the session database associated with the session ID. The user's actions, such as page views, product detail views, and additions and deletions of items in a virtual shopping cart, can also be stored in the cession database associated with the session ID. Further, the session ID is embedded in a field of a transaction database of a (secure) purchase subsystem. For example, the purchase subsystem can be implemented using the commercially available Open Market TRANSACT database. The Open Market TRANSACT database maintains the net sales data associated with the session ID. Thus, the net sales data can subsequently be extracted using the session ID as a key. Reporting and correlation of user action data stored in the session database and net sales data stored in the transaction database can be performed offline to analyze sale transaction patterns and traffic patterns.
A “seam” between the catalog (presentation) subsystem and the purchase subsystem represents another problem with secure transactions over interactive networks, such as the WWW. For example, the catalog subsystem includes a shopping cart database that maintains the session ID, all items added in the shopping cart associated with the session ID, and in-stock status for each added item (e.g., back-ordered items can be determined using the value of the in-stock status). If the user decides to purchase the items in the shopping cart, the shopping cart data is passed to the purchase subsystem. However, if the user subsequently decides to return to the catalog subsystem, the shopping cart data stored in the shopping cart database of the catalog subsystem may not be consistent (may be out of sync) with the shopping cart data of the transaction database. For example, the user may have deleted items from the shopping cart while interacting with the purchase subsystem.
Accordingly, in one embodiment, the seam between the catalog subsystem and the purchase subsystem is eliminated. The shopping cart database of the catalog subsystem is updated to reflect any shopping cart modifications performed by the user while interacting with the purchase subsystem. As a result, the shopping carts of the purchase subsystem and the catalog subsystem are effectively synchronized. Thus, if a user returns to the catalog subsystem from the purchase subsystem, the shopping cart database provides the appropriate shopping cart data associated with the user's unique session ID.
Other aspects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description and accompanying drawings.
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Hunt Simon R.
Wisner Steven P.
Butt Richard H.
Fujii Harold T.
Millin Vincent
Nguyen Cuong H.
Sony Corporation
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