U.S. patent application number 13/549597 was filed with the patent office on 2012-11-01 for online survey spawning, administration and management.
Invention is credited to Stephen Jepson, Jody Francis Powlette, Michael Queenan.
Application Number | 20120278131 13/549597 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 40133201 |
Filed Date | 2012-11-01 |
United States Patent
Application |
20120278131 |
Kind Code |
A1 |
Jepson; Stephen ; et
al. |
November 1, 2012 |
Online Survey Spawning, Administration And Management
Abstract
A method and apparatus for spawning and management of online
surveys is provided. An administration and redirector subsystem
(ARS) is used manage ongoing surveys for a plurality of sites.
Surveys can be added to or removed from individual sites using the
ARS. The ARS also tracks statistics for individual surveys.
Redirector tags invite users to participate in surveys and track
user survey participation through cookies. The system can be used
to conduct advertisement effectiveness studies. Tracker tags and
corresponding cookies are used to track users who have viewed
content containing the tag. Each study is issued a unique content
tag, but uses the same redirector tag.
Inventors: |
Jepson; Stephen; (Patterson,
CA) ; Powlette; Jody Francis; (Bellbrook, OH)
; Queenan; Michael; (Ridgefield, CT) |
Family ID: |
40133201 |
Appl. No.: |
13/549597 |
Filed: |
July 16, 2012 |
Related U.S. Patent Documents
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Application
Number |
Filing Date |
Patent Number |
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11811963 |
Jun 12, 2007 |
8234152 |
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13549597 |
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Current U.S.
Class: |
705/7.32 |
Current CPC
Class: |
G06Q 30/02 20130101;
G06Q 30/0203 20130101; G06Q 30/0201 20130101; G06Q 30/0243
20130101; G06Q 30/0245 20130101; G06Q 30/0242 20130101; G06Q
30/0244 20130101 |
Class at
Publication: |
705/7.32 |
International
Class: |
G06Q 30/02 20120101
G06Q030/02 |
Claims
1. A method of administering surveys, the method comprising:
including, in a web page provided by a publisher to a client, a tag
that causes cookie information stored at the client to be provided
from the client to a redirector in response to the web page being
decoded at said client; wherein the cookie information was placed
by tags associated with content items that were sent to the client
before the web page was provided to the client; wherein the cookie
information includes an identifier of a first ad campaign, of a
plurality of ad campaigns, that is associated with the content
items that were sent to the client before the web page was provided
to the client; the redirector using the identifier of the first ad
campaign in said cookie information to select one of a plurality of
surveys; wherein a first survey of the plurality of surveys is
associated with the first ad campaign and a second survey of the
plurality of surveys is associated with a second ad campaign of the
plurality of ad campaigns; and causing an invitation to the
selected survey to be displayed; wherein the method is performed by
one or more computing devices.
2. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing one or more
sequences of instructions which, when executed by one or more
processors, cause performance of: including, in a web page provided
by a publisher to a client, a tag that causes cookie information
stored at the client to be provided from the client to a redirector
in response to the web page being decoded at said client; wherein
the cookie information was placed by tags associated with content
items that were sent to the client before the web page was provided
to the client; wherein the cookie information includes an
identifier of a first ad campaign, of a plurality of ad campaigns,
that is associated with the content items that were sent to the
client before the web page was provided to the client; the
redirector using the identifier of the first ad campaign in said
cookie information to select one of a plurality of surveys; wherein
a first survey of the plurality of surveys is associated with the
first ad campaign and a second survey of the plurality of surveys
is associated with a second ad campaign of the plurality of ad
campaigns; and causing an invitation to the selected survey to be
displayed.
Description
PRIORITY CLAIM
[0001] This application claims the benefit as a Continuation of
application Ser. No. 11/811,963, filed Jun. 12, 2007, titled
"Online Survey Spawning, Administration and Management", the entire
contents of which is hereby incorporated by reference as if fully
set forth herein, under 35 U.S.C. .sctn.120. The applicant hereby
rescinds any disclaimer of claim scope in the parent application or
the prosecution history thereof and advises the USPTO that the
claims in this application may be broader than any claim in the
parent application.
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
[0002] The present invention relates to web survey recruitment
systems.
BACKGROUND
[0003] The approaches described in this section are approaches that
could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been
previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise
indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches
described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of
their inclusion in this section.
[0004] A number of internet publishing business models exist. One
publishing business model includes three players: advertisers,
market researchers and publishers. Publishers create web sites that
provide content which generates user traffic. User traffic attracts
advertisers and allows publishers to sell advertisement space.
Advertisements are typically stored on a central ad server. The ad
server can either be part of a large advertisement network, or
managed by the publisher. User traffic also attracts market
researchers, who also may use advertisement space for conducting
surveys.
[0005] For the purpose of explanation, reference shall be made to a
hypothetical web publisher WePublish. In order to maximize revenue,
the web site of WePublish can run a number advertisement campaigns
and research initiatives concurrently. One such advertisement
campaign AC1 could be created by a hypothetical advertiser
WeAdvertise, hired by a car manufacturer. The WeAdvertise ad
campaign for the car manufacturer may include three advertisements:
AD1, AD2 and AD3. To measure the effectiveness of the advertisement
campaign, the car manufacturer may hire a hypothetical market
research firm WeResearch to conduct a survey SV1 to measure the
effectiveness of the ad campaign.
[0006] Advertisement effectiveness can be measured by administering
a survey to two groups of people: a test group and a control group.
The test group has seen one or more advertisements from the ad
campaign under study, while the control group has not. The
difference between how the two groups answer the survey indicates
the advertisement campaign's effectiveness. An ad campaign whose
effectiveness is being measured by a survey is referred to herein
as "measured campaign".
[0007] To test the effectiveness of survey SV1, WeResearch must
accurately assign the takers of the survey SV1 to either the
control group or the test group. One technique that market research
companies may use to determine whether to assign a survey taker to
the test group or the control group is to use a "tracking tag" to
place "tracking cookies" on the machines of users that have been
exposed to the advertisements of a measured campaign.
[0008] A tag is a snippet of executable code. When a tag is
included in a page that is sent to a browser, the executable code
of the tag typically executes when the browser decodes the page. In
the case of a tracking tag, execution of the code places a tracking
cookie on the machine on which the browser that decoded the page
that contains the tag is executing.
[0009] For example, WeResearch may issue to WeAdvertise a tracking
tag TT1 for the ad campaign AC1. Typically, one tracking tag is
used per measured campaign, but sometimes multiple tracking tags
are used. If an advertiser has ads for multiple measured campaigns,
each measured campaign would typically have a unique tracking
tag.
[0010] Advertisers insert the tracking tag for each particular
measured campaign into the ads that belong to the measured
campaign. In the present example, WeAdvertise would place the
tracking tag TT1 into advertisements AD1, AD2 and AD3. The
advertisements, including the embedded tracking tags, are then
served to publishers by the ad server. The publishers include the
ads in web pages sent to users by the publishers.
[0011] In the present example, WePublish would include AD1, AD2 and
AD3 in web pages sent by WePublish to users. Whenever a user sees a
web page that contains an advertisement that has a tracking tag for
a particular ad campaign, the tracking tag places on the user's
machine a cookie indicating that a user was exposed to an
advertisement that belongs to that particular ad campaign. Thus,
when a user views a web page from WePublish that includes any of
ads AD1, AD2 and AD3, the tracking tag TT1 embedded in the ad
causes a tracking cookie TC1 to be placed on the user's machine.
The tracking cookie TC1 indicates that the user has been presented
with an advertisement from ad campaign AC1.
[0012] To invite survey takers to take survey SV1, WeResearch
creates a "survey-invitation tag" SIT1 for the survey SV1 for the
ad campaign AC1. WeResearch then embeds the survey-invitation tag
SIT1 in a banner B1 that does not contain any information relating
to ad campaign AC1. Banner B1 may then be added into the
advertisement rotation. Such empty advertisements are known as
house advertisements or PSA. If a user is exposed to a house
advertisement, the survey-invitation tag in the banner (1) presents
to the user an invitation to take the survey associated with the
survey-invitation tag, and (2) reads the user's cookie information
to determine whether the user has been exposed to ads from the
corresponding campaign. For example, when user are exposed to
banner B1, SIT1 present the user with an invitation to take survey
SV1, and read the user's cookie information to determine whether
the user has been exposed to advertisements from ad campaign
AC1.
[0013] At any given time, the ads that are included in the web
pages that are being served by a publisher may belong to many
concurrently running measured campaigns. For example, in addition
to advertisements AD1, AD2 and AD3, WePublish web pages may include
advertisements from many other measured campaigns AC2-AC50.
Unfortunately, the existence of large numbers of
concurrently-running campaigns, each of which have their own
corresponding survey-invitation tag and survey, presents a number
of challenges to the publisher.
[0014] For example, separate research initiatives are typically
unaware of each other. Therefore, the survey invitation for each
measured campaign is presented to users without regard to whether
the users have received survey invitations for other measured
campaigns. Consequently, some users may be served a
disproportionately large number of survey invitations, while others
none at all. Further, a single web page may have multiple survey
invitation tags. This would make the site appear as having a large
number of popups and reduce perception of site quality.
[0015] The integration and management of survey-invitation tags
also presents a large burden on the web site publisher. Because
every advertisement campaign and research initiative requires
distinct house advertisement and survey-invitation tags, the
management burden increases with the number of studies and
advertisement campaigns. Moreover, because every study requires a
house advertisement to embed the survey-invitation tag and recruit
survey takers, there is a loss of a revenue stream to the
publisher.
[0016] There is clearly a need for a system that allows efficient
management of advertisement campaigns, research initiatives and
their corresponding tags to reduce the programming and maintenance
burden on the publisher, to allow for controlled spawning of
surveys and to eliminate house advertisements to increase revenue
for the publisher.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0017] The present invention is illustrated by way of example, and
not by way of limitation, in the figures of the accompanying
drawings and in which like reference numerals refer to similar
elements and in which:
[0018] FIG. 1 is a flow diagram of survey recruitment, according to
an embodiment of the present invention;
[0019] FIG. 2 is a flow diagram of survey selection, according to
an embodiment of the present invention; and
[0020] FIG. 3 is an example computer system computer system,
according to an embodiment of the present invention.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
[0021] In the following description, for the purposes of
explanation, numerous specific details are set forth in order to
provide a thorough understanding of the present invention. It will
be apparent, however, that the present invention may be practiced
without these specific details. In other instances, well-known
structures and devices are shown in block diagram form in order to
avoid unnecessarily obscuring the present invention.
Overview
[0022] Techniques are provided for replacing survey-invitation
tags, which previously had to be created and managed on a
per-campaign basis, with a single "redirector" tag. The redirector
tag recruits survey participants, facilitates proper grouping for
each participant, and tracks which surveys have been completed. A
single redirector tag handles these functions for multiple surveys
on a site.
[0023] The redirector tag is not tied to any particular survey,
research initiative, or campaign. Instead, the redirector tag has
code which, when executed, selects an appropriate survey among a
pool of currently-active surveys. The redirector tag then causes
the survey, or an invitation to the survey, to be presented to the
user whose machine decoded the page that contained the redirector
tag. The redirector tag may be distributed to publishers in the
same manner as survey-invitation tags, such as continuously ad
served, or ad hoc ad served. However, unlike survey-invitation
tags, the redirector tag may also be disseminated by hardcoded
placement within the web pages of a publisher. Further, unlike the
survey-invitation tags, the redirector tag may be placed in web
pages without regard to which advertisements those web pages
contain.
[0024] In addition to selecting and presenting a survey invitation,
the code of the redirector tag may perform other functions to
improve user experience. For example, the code of the redirector
tag may gather information upon which survey selection may be
based. Thus, the redirector tag may signal to the AR to read the
cookie information placed by previously-executed tracking cookies,
as well as indicate information about the web page in which the
redirector tag was embedded. In addition, the redirector tag may
store cookie information that is used by later-executed redirector
tags. The cookie information stored by the redirector tag may be,
for example, a timestamp indicating the most recent time that the
user was presented with any survey invitation. A later-executed
redirector tag may cause the AR to read the timestamp, and
determine that it is too soon to present the user with another
survey invitation. In another embodiment of the present invention,
the functionality of the redirector tag can be incorporated into
the tracker tag. Therefore tracking of advertisements as well as
spawning and tracking of surveys is handled by a single tag.
The Recruitment Process
[0025] FIG. 1 illustrates steps in a survey participant recruitment
process. The components involved in the recruiting process are
collectively referred to herein as the administration and
recruiting (AR) subsystem. The recruitment process begins when a
user visits a web page that contains a redirector tag 101. The
redirector tag causes the AR subsystem to determine whether any
survey invitation should be presented to the user. This decision
may be based on information provided by survey administrators and
publishers.
[0026] Specifically, survey administrators and publishers may have
previously provided the AR subsystem with data that specifies the
conditions upon which invitations are spawned. For example, in an
embodiment, invitations are spawned at a predetermined sample rate
102. The rate could be based on loading of a particular page, or a
page loading for a predetermined number of times, or a count of
unique users visiting a page. If spawning conditions are met, then
survey recruitment process progresses to select an appropriate
survey (step 103), otherwise the recruitment process exits.
[0027] A survey is picked based on a variety of factors, including
the information that the redirector tag provides to the AR
subsystem. Such information may include, for example, a "referring
URL" of the page whose display cause the redirector tag to execute.
The referring URL may indicate, for example, that the user was
viewing a sports-oriented web page. Based on this information, the
AR subsystem may decide to select a survey that is related to
sports. On the other hand, the AR subsystem may decide not to send
any survey invitation at all, based on the referring URL.
[0028] Additional factors may include the priority, participant
eligibility, and whether a quota has been met. The survey selection
may also be based on which tracking cookie information retrieved
from the user by the redirector tag. Such tracking cooking
information may indicate, for example, that the user has been
exposed to certain ad campaigns. If it is particularly important to
find members of the test group for a particular campaign, then the
tracking information may be used to pick a survey for which the
user would be in the test group. On the other hand, if it is
particularly important to find members of a control group for a
particular ad campaign, then users that were not exposed to the
advertisement can be selected. The survey selection process by the
AR subsystem is outlined in greater detail in FIG. 2.
[0029] Once a survey is selected and a user is placed in the
appropriate group, the redirector tag generates an invitation for
the user to take the selected survey 104. The invitation may be
presented in a variety of forms. For example, the invitation may be
a banner, a pop-up, etc. According to one embodiment, the
redirector tag is placed in the "footer" portion of a web-page, to
allow for a "polite" download. That is, content of the Web site is
loaded first, and the redirector tag is only executed after the
user is seeing the content of the requested web page.
[0030] If user completes the selected survey 105, then the AR
subsystem creates or modifies a redirector cookie on the client to
note survey participation 106. The AR subsystem updates its count
of participants for that particular survey and group 107. The
survey is shut off once the quota for number of respondents for
each group has been met.
[0031] The AR subsystem manages ongoing surveys for multiple
sites/publishers. In an embodiment, each site has a unique
redirector tag. The AR subsystem has a secure web interface. The AR
subsystem keeps various statistics for each survey group, such as
study, control and view through. View through is to exposure to
brand advertising but not the specific campaign which is being
tested. For each group, a count of the number of impressions as
well as completions is kept. The priority of each survey can be
set, as well as start and expiration time.
[0032] Significantly, a survey administrator can add or remove a
survey to the active survey pool without sending to publishers any
tags for the new survey. Rather, if a survey is to be fielded at a
site that already has an embedded redirector tag, the tag remains
unaltered and an additional redirector tag does not need to be
issued. The AR subsystem adds the survey to a list of ongoing
surveys for a site, and the existing redirector tag redirects users
to the newly added survey. Conversely, if a publisher or
administrator disables a survey, the survey is removed from the
active list of surveys on a site automatically, without having to
communicate to the sites that the survey is no longer active.
Survey Selection
[0033] Referring to FIG. 2, the redirector tag communicates
information to the AR subsystem 201. As mentioned above, the
information may include the referring URL, tracker cookies, and
redirector cookies. Based on the site communicated by the
redirector tag, the AR subsystem determines a list of ongoing
surveys 202. Participant eligibility is determined from tracker and
redirector cookies.
[0034] Content of redirector cookies is examined to determine which
surveys a user has participated in, if any 203. If a user has
already participated in any of the ongoing surveys, those surveys
are removed from the list of candidate surveys for the user. The AR
subsystem also determines what advertisements the user has been
exposed to from tracker cookies 204. The AR subsystem then consults
its internal records to see whether each group (test/control) in
the survey list requires additional participants 204. The AR
subsystem combines the exposure and participation information to
determine final eligibility. The survey is picked from the list
based on study priority 206. The AR subsystem proceeds to place the
user in the appropriate group 207 which can be test or control or
any other group used in the study.
EXAMPLE
[0035] For the purpose of explanation, consider a scenario in which
WeAdvertise has agreements to run various advertisement campaigns
on WePublish. One of the advertising campaigns may be advertising
campaign AC1, which includes a series of ads for a car company to
promote a new coupe. WeAdvertise creates a set of advertisements
depicting the coupe and begins rotation of the ads on
WePublish.
[0036] Assume that WeResearch has been engaged by the car
manufacturer to determine the effectiveness of the campaign AC1.
The car manufacturer may specify the target completion date for the
effectiveness survey SV1 and the number of respondents needed for
each group (control and test) of potential survey takers.
[0037] WeResearch registers the awareness survey SV1 with the AR
subsystem. The registration information may specify the survey
trigger condition, which could be based on multiple factors, such
as target completion date, an acceptable rate of invitations, and
specific pages from which invitations can be spawned. Once the
survey is enabled, it is added to the list of available surveys for
a redirector tag.
[0038] If WeResearch has already provided a redirector tag to
WePublish for other surveys, WeResearch need not provide WePublish
with any new tags. The new survey SV1 automatically becomes a
candidate survey to show to visitors to the WePublish site. If
WePublish does not already have a redirector tag from WeResearch,
WeResearch would issue a single redirector tag to WePublish.
WePublish may statically embed the redirector tag into the footers
of the web pages that WePublish sends to users. WeResearch also
issues tracking tags to WeAdvertise. WeAdvertise embeds the tracker
tags in each ad of the car manufacturer advertisement campaign
AC1.
[0039] Another survey SV2 may be added to the WeResearch pool for a
sporting goods company who wants to learn from sports fans about
their designs. Specifically, the sporting goods company contacts
WeResearch to conduct the survey. WeResearch adds the sports
opinion survey SV2 to the list of active surveys that are
associated with a redirector tag previously provided to WePublish.
The active survey list for WePublish will now include two surveys:
SV1 and SV2.
[0040] The sporting goods manufacturer may require a very fast
turnaround time for their survey, and request that WeResearch
prioritize the study. Because a single tag controls spawning of all
surveys, the trigger conditions for surveys are adjusted to provide
an acceptable rate of survey takers for SV2.
[0041] When a visitor retrieves a web page from WePublish, two
events occur. First, the redirector tag determines whether
conditions to trigger an invitation to take a survey have been met.
Second, if there are advertisements for the coupe present on the
page, the tracker tag embedded in the advertisement places or
modifies a tracker cookie on the user's machine to indicate that
the user was exposed to the advertisement.
[0042] Assuming that the survey invitation trigger conditions are
met, the redirector tag also sends to the AR subsystem any tracker
or redirector cookie information, and the URL of the page. From the
tag identity information, the site redirector determines a list of
ongoing surveys on the site: car and sports manufacturer.
[0043] Because the sporting goods manufacturer obtained higher
priority, the sporting goods survey invitation is selected for
presentation. The web surfer may refuse to participate in that
particular survey. If the surfer refuses, the redirector tag will
place or modify the redirector cookie on the user's machine to
indicate the user did not want to participate in the survey. In the
event that the user participates in the survey, the redirector tag
modifies the redirector cookie to specify that the user took the
survey. In either case, the redirector tag will not issue survey
invitations for that particular survey to that user again.
[0044] The same web surfer may continue browsing the sports web
site and eventually successfully trigger another survey invitation.
As described earlier, the redirector tag sends web site identity
information and as well as a redirector cookie and tracker cookies
from all of the ongoing advertisement and research campaigns to the
redirector and administration subsystem. The redirector produces a
list of ongoing surveys for that particular redirector tag: car
coupe and sporting good manufacturer.
[0045] The redirector examines redirector cookie information and
determines that the user has refused to take the sporting goods
survey. The redirector removes the sporting goods survey from the
available list of surveys. In our example the only survey that is
left is by the car company. The tracker cookies are examined by the
redirector, and it is determined that the web surfer was already
exposed to the car advertisements.
[0046] The web surfer is placed in the test group. A web page is
generated with a survey invitation. The invitation is tied to the
car company survey. Upon completion of the survey, the redirector
tag modifies the control redirector that the user has completed the
survey. In this example, because the user has completed every
survey that was administered on the site, even if triggering a
survey invitation, the redirector will no longer generate web pages
with survey invitations because the user has completed all the
surveys.
Hardware Overview
[0047] FIG. 3 is a block diagram that illustrates a computer system
300 upon which an embodiment of the invention may be implemented.
Computer system 300 includes a bus 302 or other communication
mechanism for communicating information, and a processor 304
coupled with bus 302 for processing information. Computer system
300 also includes a main memory 306, such as a random access memory
(RAM) or other dynamic storage device, coupled to bus 302 for
storing information and instructions to be executed by processor
304. Main memory 306 also may be used for storing temporary
variables or other intermediate information during execution of
instructions to be executed by processor 304. Computer system 300
further includes a read only memory (ROM) 308 or other static
storage device coupled to bus 302 for storing static information
and instructions for processor 304. A storage device 310, such as a
magnetic disk or optical disk, is provided and coupled to bus 302
for storing information and instructions.
[0048] Computer system 300 may be coupled via bus 302 to a display
312, such as a cathode ray tube (CRT), for displaying information
to a computer user. An input device 314, including alphanumeric and
other keys, is coupled to bus 302 for communicating information and
command selections to processor 304. Another type of user input
device is cursor control 316, such as a mouse, a trackball, or
cursor direction keys for communicating direction information and
command selections to processor 304 and for controlling cursor
movement on display 312. This input device typically has two
degrees of freedom in two axes, a first axis (e.g., x) and a second
axis (e.g., y), that allows the device to specify positions in a
plane.
[0049] The invention is related to the use of computer system 300
for implementing the techniques described herein. According to one
embodiment of the invention, those techniques are performed by
computer system 300 in response to processor 304 executing one or
more sequences of one or more instructions contained in main memory
306. Such instructions may be read into main memory 306 from
another machine-readable medium, such as storage device 310.
Execution of the sequences of instructions contained in main memory
306 causes processor 304 to perform the process steps described
herein. In alternative embodiments, hard-wired circuitry may be
used in place of or in combination with software instructions to
implement the invention. Thus, embodiments of the invention are not
limited to any specific combination of hardware circuitry and
software.
[0050] The term "machine-readable medium" as used herein refers to
any medium that participates in providing data that causes a
machine to operation in a specific fashion. In an embodiment
implemented using computer system 300, various machine-readable
media are involved, for example, in providing instructions to
processor 304 for execution. Such a medium may take many forms,
including but not limited to, non-volatile media, volatile media,
and transmission media. Non-volatile media includes, for example,
optical or magnetic disks, such as storage device 310. Volatile
media includes dynamic memory, such as main memory 306.
Transmission media includes coaxial cables, copper wire and fiber
optics, including the wires that comprise bus 302. Transmission
media can also take the form of acoustic or light waves, such as
those generated during radio-wave and infra-red data
communications. All such media must be tangible to enable the
instructions carried by the media to be detected by a physical
mechanism that reads the instructions into a machine.
[0051] Common forms of machine-readable media include, for example,
a floppy disk, a flexible disk, hard disk, magnetic tape, or any
other magnetic medium, a CD-ROM, any other optical medium,
punchcards, papertape, any other physical medium with patterns of
holes, a RAM, a PROM, and EPROM, a FLASH-EPROM, any other memory
chip or cartridge, a carrier wave as described hereinafter, or any
other medium from which a computer can read.
[0052] Various forms of machine-readable media may be involved in
carrying one or more sequences of one or more instructions to
processor 304 for execution. For example, the instructions may
initially be carried on a magnetic disk of a remote computer. The
remote computer can load the instructions into its dynamic memory
and send the instructions over a telephone line using a modem. A
modem local to computer system 300 can receive the data on the
telephone line and use an infra-red transmitter to convert the data
to an infra-red signal. An infra-red detector can receive the data
carried in the infra-red signal and appropriate circuitry can place
the data on bus 302. Bus 302 carries the data to main memory 306,
from which processor 304 retrieves and executes the instructions.
The instructions received by main memory 306 may optionally be
stored on storage device 310 either before or after execution by
processor 304.
[0053] Computer system 300 also includes a communication interface
318 coupled to bus 302. Communication interface 318 provides a
two-way data communication coupling to a network link 320 that is
connected to a local network 322. For example, communication
interface 318 may be an integrated services digital network (ISDN)
card or a modem to provide a data communication connection to a
corresponding type of telephone line. As another example,
communication interface 318 may be a local area network (LAN) card
to provide a data communication connection to a compatible LAN.
Wireless links may also be implemented. In any such implementation,
communication interface 318 sends and receives electrical,
electromagnetic or optical signals that carry digital data streams
representing various types of information.
[0054] Network link 320 typically provides data communication
through one or more networks to other data devices. For example,
network link 320 may provide a connection through local network 322
to a host computer 324 or to data equipment operated by an Internet
Service Provider (ISP) 326. ISP 326 in turn provides data
communication services through the world wide packet data
communication network now commonly referred to as the "Internet"
328. Local network 322 and Internet 328 both use electrical,
electromagnetic or optical signals that carry digital data streams.
The signals through the various networks and the signals on network
link 320 and through communication interface 318, which carry the
digital data to and from computer system 300, are exemplary forms
of carrier waves transporting the information.
[0055] Computer system 300 can send messages and receive data,
including program code, through the network(s), network link 320
and communication interface 318. In the Internet example, a server
330 might transmit a requested code for an application program
through Internet 328, ISP 326, local network 322 and communication
interface 318.
[0056] The received code may be executed by processor 304 as it is
received, and/or stored in storage device 310, or other
non-volatile storage for later execution. In this manner, computer
system 300 may obtain application code in the form of a carrier
wave.
[0057] In the foregoing specification, embodiments of the invention
have been described with reference to numerous specific details
that may vary from implementation to implementation. Thus, the sole
and exclusive indicator of what is the invention, and is intended
by the applicants to be the invention, is the set of claims that
issue from this application, in the specific form in which such
claims issue, including any subsequent correction. Any definitions
expressly set forth herein for terms contained in such claims shall
govern the meaning of such terms as used in the claims. Hence, no
limitation, element, property, feature, advantage or attribute that
is not expressly recited in a claim should limit the scope of such
claim in any way. The specification and drawings are, accordingly,
to be regarded in an illustrative rather than a restrictive
sense.
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