WO2001013251A1

WO2001013251A1 - Network system and method for facilitating users to browse the internet

Info

Publication number: WO2001013251A1
Application number: PCT/IB2000/000537
Authority: WO
Inventors: Ping Yan Lee
Original assignee: Ping Yan Lee
Priority date: 1999-08-13
Filing date: 2000-03-31
Publication date: 2001-02-22
Also published as: AU2807601A; CN1284674A

Abstract

A network system for facilitating users to browse the Internet, and providing a dynamic web directory service to the users is disclosed. The network system is comprised of distributed information facilities such that the users can retrieve information from the nearest facilities so that a frequently occurring network bandwidth bottleneck problem can be minimized. Moreover the network system provides a dynamic web directory service showing the interests of a community to the user by collecting the usage statistics and generating the directory in a dynamic fashion. Generally, a community is a group of people living in the same geographical location, or having common interests. On the Internet, a virtual community is the group of Internet users having common interests or culture.

Description

NETWORK SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR FACILITATING USERS TO BROWSE

THE INTERNET

BACKGROUND

The present invention relates to a computer and Internet network facilities. More particularly, the present invention relates to system and method for facilitating users to surf the Internet using a dynamic and interactive model based on the users' preferences.

The information available and the audience reach of the Internet are growing in an unprecedented and exponential rate. People are using the Internet for a wide variety of purposes such as getting information, buying products, planning trips and playing games. The personal computing in the home market grows very substantially and a large percent of those computers are dialing into the Internet. The World Wide Web facilitates user access to the information resources in an easy way.

However the penetration of the Internet is still small comparing with the percentage of the population, particularly in those countries where computers are not popular or too costly. Many people hesitate to use computers because they may not have the knowledge or skill to handle the computers. To many, it is still too complicated to use computers when compared to other home appliances. The cost of a personal computer is also relatively high for most people. The introduction of Internet appliances such as TV Set Top Box removes the barrier for those who want to access the Internet, but do not want to use or purchase a separate personal computer.

The amount of information on the Internet is enormous. To explore the Internet today, a user runs a Web browser in one's computer and connects it to the web sites around the world to search for the desired information. The user may connect it to a portal site as an anchor site and start searching the information there. Some portals allow users to tailor their targeted information. Users mostly would select information related to his favorite and local community.

However there are two major drawbacks. Firstly, the user can only tailor his own profile of information but does not know or have access to the information selected by others with similar interests or within the same community. While most portals have at least one portal administrator to select the sites that the administrator prefers, the portal administrator limits the number of the sites based on his preference. Furthermore, as the World Wide Web evolves continuously with thousands of new web sites coming on line every day, the portal administrator may not be aware of the newest popular sites that are coming on line. Secondly, the Internet bandwidth may affect the performance of retrieving the requested information due to the physical geographical locations of the web site and the user.

Hence, there is a need to develop an information exchange network with built-in intelligent method to gather and provide information to the users in an interactive and dynamic way. Additionally it is desirable to respond to the users' requests faster and more directly without having the sites being predetermined by the network or portal administrator, but by the users of the community. Finally, it is most desirable to have a live, dynamic network that offer listing of choices of web site that changes in real time based on the community user's changing preferences. SUMMARY

The present invention satisfies these needs. This invention is a computer network system for connecting information servers to users. This network system has various user nodes that include a client for receiving and displaying information of a selected web-site as targeted by the user and transmitting the web-site target information of the user; an anchor site that includes a master locator, and a plurality of directory services nodes, each directory services node comprises a database server containing web- site target information of the users connecting to the directory services node; a web server connected to the worldwide web; a dynamic Internet directory display and management software to simultaneously compile web-site target information of the users and generate a listing of web-sites based on frequency of the web-site target information; such that the user node connecting to the anchor site will process through the master site to connect to a user pre-selected directory services node and the listing of web-sites is transmitted to the client.

In a preferred embodiment, the computer network system contains a dynamic Internet directory display and management software. The software then ranks the most frequently targeted web-site by the users within the directory services node, such that the listing of web-sites is updated continuously based on selections of the current users.

In another preferred embodiment, the computer network system has various directory services nodes that are distributed to a number of different locations that are in close proximity to the users, such that communication delays between the user node and the information servers are minimized.

In yet another preferred embodiment of the computer network system, the directory services nodes are distributed according to the same interests of the users, such that communications between users having the same interests are facilitated. In another embodiment of the computer network system, the dynamic Internet directory display and management software connects the user to the selected web-site.

In yet another embodiment of the computer network system, the dynamic Internet directory display and management software further register the status of the web-site to indicate whether the site is active or outdated in order to avoid providing links that are outdated or inactive.

In yet another preferred embodiment of the computer network system, the dynamic Internet directory display and management software further registers the interest category of the web-site. In a another preferred embodiment of the computer network system, the dynamic Internet directory display and management software catalogs the web-sites based on frequency of user targeting and by interest category, such that the listing of web-sites are displayed to the users based on frequency and interest category. In one embodiment of the computer network system, the client is a personal computer. Other preferred embodiments include the client being an appliance, a personal digital assistance device (PDA) or even a cellular phone.

In one embodiment of the computer network, the user node has established connection to the directory services node, such that the listing of websites for that directory services node is displayed. In yet another embodiment, the listing of web-sites is hyperlinked to the web-sites.

DRAWINGS

These and other features, aspects, and advantages of the present invention will be better understood from the following drawings, description and appended claims, where:

FIG. 1 is the high-level block diagram showing the general way of user browsing the Internet.

FIG. 2 is the high-level block diagram of a system in accordance with the invention.

FIG. 3 is the block diagram showing the architecture of the Information Dynamic Exchange & Allocation Platform (IDEAL) with Internet Exchange Facilities including the Master Locator (ML), the Directory Service Nodes (DSN) and the databases.

FIG. 4 is the block diagram showing the ML as the starting point of the IDEAL for the user to select the DSN according to the user's locality and interests.

FIG. 5 is the block diagram showing the DSN presenting the categorized web directory to the site visitor.

FIG. 6 is an example showing the data captured by the database at the DSN indicating the frequency of various sites being selected.

FIG. 7 is an example showing the DSN presenting a dynamic categorized web directory to the visitor according to the analyzed result from the previous history captured by the database as in FIG. 6 DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The following discussion describes in detail one embodiment of the invention and several variations of that embodiment. This discussion should not be construed, however, as limiting the invention to those particular embodiments. Practitioners skilled in the art will recognize numerous other embodiments as well. For a definition of the complete scope of the invention, the reader is directed to the appended claims.

FIG.1 is a simplified block diagram showing a general and common way of hour a user surfs the Internet. A web navigating program installed in a computer, or an Internet client or appliance 1 is connected to the Internet 2 via a communication link and the user visits various Internet sites such as portal service site 7, electronic commerce site 8 or online multimedia site 9.

According to the invention (as shown in FIG 2), the user is connecting the computer or the Internet client or appliance to the Information Dynamic Exchange & Allocation Platform (IDEAL) 3 as an anchor site as a starting point to browse the Internet at the IDEAL. The Internet client may be a cellular phone or personal digital assistant (PDA) such as the Palm VII that has Internet access capability. Other preferable embodiments for the Internet client may include PDA that runs with the Windows CE operating system. FIG. 3 is the IDEAL 3 comprising a Master Locator (ML) 4 and Directory Services Node (DSN) 5. At the Master Locator 4, the user can jump to the desired DSN based on the user's interest or locality as shown in FIG. 4. The Directory Service Nodes are distributed over the Internet and their physical locations are chosen to be placed in close proximity to the target user's community. The information in each DSN is initially tailor-made by selecting sites to meet the interests of the virtual community. Since the DSN is in close proximity to the users' location, the network bandwidth problem is minimized. The DSN provides a categorized web directory 10 service to the user as shown in FIG. 5. According to the invention, a database 6 (as shown in FIG.6) is used to compile and record the usage pattern of all the different users visiting the same DSN. The listing order of the web directory 12 (as shown in FIG. 7) is displayed based on the result of the usage analysis 11 (as shown in FIG. 6). The most popular or frequently visited sites are then selected based on the highest visiting frequency of all the different users and are placed to the first or top place. The listing is changing in a dynamic fashion because the DSN will present the most updated information learned from the user who visited the site before. The rearranging of the listing order is an automatic process and demonstrates the most popular common interests of the particular locality or virtual community. The statistics collected at the DSN provides a reference or direction for new future content development for the DSN. Users in the community will then return to the DSN frequently because the information is updated and meets their interests. New and popular sites based on the entire community users' frequent visits will be introduced quickly to the community by having the most popular sites being placed highly in the listing order.

Claims

CLAIMS What is claimed is:

1. A computer network system for connecting information servers and a plurality of users comprising: a. a plurality of user nodes including: a client for receiving and displaying information of a selected web-site as targeted by the user and transmitting the web-site target information of the user; b. an anchor site including: a master locator, and a plurality of directory services nodes, each directory services node comprising: i. a database server containing web-site target information of the users connecting to the directory services node; ii. a web server connected to the worldwide web; iii. a dynamic Internet directory display and management software to simultaneously compile web-site target information of the users and generate a listing of web-sites based on frequency of the web-site target information; such that the user node connecting to the anchor site will process through the master site to connect to a user pre-selected directory services node and the listing of web-sites is transmitted to the client.

2. The computer network system of claim 1 wherein said dynamic Internet directory display and management software ranks a plurality of the most frequently web-site as targeted by the user within the directory services node, such that the listing of web-sites is updated continuously based on selections of the current users.

3. The computer network system of claim 2 wherein said directory services nodes are distributed to a plurality of locations to be situated in close proximity to the users, such that communication delays between the user node and the information servers are minimized.

4. The computer network system of claim 2 wherein said directory services nodes are distributed to the same interests of the users, such that communications between users having the same interests are facilitated.

5. The computer network system of claim 2 wherein the dynamic Internet directory display and management software connects the user to the selected web-site.

6. The computer network system of claim 2 wherein the dynamic Internet directory display and management software further register the status of the web-site.

7. A computer network system of claim 2 wherein the dynamic Internet directory display and management software further register the interest category of the web-site.

8. The computer network system of claim 7 wherein the dynamic Internet display and management software catalogs the web-sites based on frequency of user targeting and by interest category, such that the listing of web-sites are displayed to the users based on frequency and interest category.

9. The computer network system of claim 1 wherein said client is a personal computer.

10. The computer network system of claim 1 wherein said client is an appliance.

11. The computer network system of claim 10 wherein said client is a personal digital assistance device.

12. The computer network system of claim 10 wherein said client is a cellular phone.

13. The computer network system of claim 1 whereupon the user node has established connection to said directory services node, the listing of web-sites for that directory services node is displayed.

14. The computer network system of claim 1 wherein the listing of websites is hyperlinked to the web-sites.

5. A computer network system for connecting information servers and a plurality of users comprising: a. a plurality of user nodes including: a client for receiving and displaying information of a selected web-site as targeted by the user and transmitting the web-site target information of the user; b. a plurality of directory services nodes, each directory services node comprising: i. a database server containing web-site target information of the users connecting to the directory services node; ii. a web server connected to the worldwide web; iii. a dynamic Internet display and management software to simultaneously record and process web-site target information of the users to generate a categorized listing of active web-sites based on frequency of the web-site target information in the database server; such that the user node connecting to the directory services node receives the categorized listing of active web-sites.

16. The computer network system of claim 15 wherein said dynamic Internet display and management software ranks a plurality of the most frequently web-site as targeted by the user within the directory services node, such that the listing of web-sites is updated continuously based on selections of the current users.

17. The computer network system of claim 16 wherein said directory services nodes are distributed to a plurality of locations to be situated in close proximity to the users, such that communication delays between the user node and the information servers are minimized.

18. The computer network system of claim 15 wherein the dynamic Internet display and management software further register the interest category of the web-site.

19. The computer network system of claim 18 wherein the dynamic Internet display and management software catalogs the web-sites based on frequency of user targeting and by interest category, such that the listing of web-sites are displayed to the users based on frequency and interest category.

0. A computer network system for connecting information servers and a plurality of users comprising: a. a plurality of user nodes including: a computer for receiving and displaying information of a selected web-site as targeted by the user and transmitting the web-site target information of the user; b. a plurality of directory services nodes, each directory services node comprising: i. a database server containing web-site target information of the users connecting to the directory services node; ii. a web server connected to the worldwide web; iii. a dynamic Internet display and management software to simultaneously record and process web-site target information of the users to generate a categorized listing of active web-sites based on frequency of the web-site target information in the database server; such that the user node connecting to the directory services node receives the categorized listing of active web-sites.