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Providing real time information in a visual information unit

Providing real time information in a visual information unit description/claims

The popularity of the Internet has caused many people to create websites and webpages. A person that has created, owns, administers, or otherwise controls a webpage or a website will be hereinafter referred to as a webpage publisher or publisher. Simple webpages usually consist of a single HTML file whose content stays constant until the webpage publisher “manually” changes it. However, more complex websites and webpages may be designed to provide real time information. Such webpages are configured to display “dynamic” content or to automatically change their content without explicit involvement from the publisher or any other person.

Dynamic webpages are usually very complex. In order to automatically provide new content in real time, they usually require complex software which periodically accesses various databases and modifies the content of the webpage according to the accessed data. Thus, a webpage may automatically provide information about the world in real time by continuously accessing changing databases of that information. The real time information may be, for example, stock quotes.

An important development in the popularization of the Internet is the emergence of the amateur webpage publisher. That is, persons without deep or professional knowledge of web programming have been able to start and maintain various webpages or websites. Basic HTML authoring tools have made webpage creation accessible to persons with little or no knowledge of HTML. Furthermore, there are websites such as BLOGGER.COM which allow users to create webpages very easily, without having any knowledge of HTML.

However, the amateur web publisher usually does not have sufficient knowledge of databases and automatic content creation to create webpages which change their content automatically (dynamic webpages).

Remotely hosted elements are elements of a webpage which are not provided as part of the webpage from the computer that hosts that webpage. Instead, the remotely hosted element is hosted by another computer. That other computer is usually controlled by a different entity than the one controlling the webpage. The webpage includes a reference to the remotely hosted element. When a browser displays the webpage, it notes the reference and uses it to access the other computer and retrieve the remotely hosted element.

Most known remotely hosted elements are advertisements. The advertisements may change over time, i.e. a different advertisement may be displayed after each webpage reload. However, advertisements are usually manually prepared before hand. Therefore, advertisements do not provide real time information.

Another type of remotely hosted element is a search box. A search box is a field which allows a viewer of the webpage to send web search requests to remotely hosted search engines. The search box itself usually provides no real time information.

What is needed is a way to allow a person that does not have the knowledge, ability or desire to deal with the complexities of generating dynamic content to configure his/her webpage so that it automatically provides real time information.

Embodiments of the invention enable a person to easily and without having any specialized knowledge configure a webpage to automatically provide real time information.

More specifically, embodiments of the invention are directed to a remotely hosted element which may be easily configured and placed in a webpage by an unsophisticated publisher. The remotely hosted element provides the real time information. In certain embodiments, the real time information may include stock quotes, charts and associated news items.

In certain embodiments, the real time information unit is interactive. In other words, it allows webpage viewers to interact with it in order to cause it to show additional or differently organized information. In certain embodiments, the real time information unit can be placed in a visual information unit other than a webpage.

FIG. 1 is a diagram of an overall environment of operation of embodiments of the invention.

FIGS. 2A and 2B are flowcharts showing a method of operation of an embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 3 is a diagram of an example badge according to embodiments of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a conceptual diagram of the electronic representation of a badge according to an embodiment of the present invention

FIG. 5 illustrates a computer system that may be employed to implement embodiments of the invention.

• Provisional Patent
• Utility Patent

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