Questionnaire network for mobile handsets and a trading system for contracts on user commitments to answer questionnaires
View Patent ↗A questionnaire network makes it possible to create, disseminate, conduct questionnaires or surveys on mobile handsets and to collect results for processing and storage. The questionnaire network is powered by a questionnaire creation tool and a questionnaire trading system. A questionnaire trading system for QTime makes it possible for producers of QTime, such as carriers, and consumers of QTime, such as product manufacturers and advertising companies, to buy or sell QTime in bulk and to trade in QTime as a commodity. In one embodiment, supplementary information and preambles that are part of a questionnaire are captured in audio form using the questionnaire creation tool and are stored selectively along with the questionnaire in a carrier's questionnaire repository or separately at a hosted repository.
1. A questionnaire time (QTime) trading system for facilitating trading in QTime, the QTime trading system comprising:
a QTime Supply database for storing and managing a dynamic supply of QTime Supply;
a QTime Pricing engine communicatively coupled to the QTime Supply database; and
a trading activity manager communicatively coupled to the QTime Pricing engine and the QTime Supply database.
2. The QTimc trading system of claim 1 further comprising:
a QTime demand forecasting component communicatively coupled to the QTime Supply database;
the QTime Pricing engine employing a demand forecast provided by the QTime demand forecasting component to compute a QTime price for a unit of QTime;
the trading activity manager employing the QTime price in a trading activity.
3. The QTime trading system of claim 2 further comprising:
a QTime producer interface for receiving QTime supply information and for providing QTime demand information; and
a QTime consumer interface for providing at least one of a QTime supply irilbrmation to, a QTime pricing, and a QTime trading information.
4. The QTime trading system of claim 2 further comprising:
a QTime trading interface for facilitating QTime trading.
5. The trading interface of the QTime trading system of claim 4 further comprising:
an interface for buying and selling QTime.
6. The trading interface of the QTime trading system of claim 5 further comprising:
an interface for retrieving a QTime quote and a QTime trading information.
7. The QTime trading system of claim 6 wherein the QTime trading system facilitates the purchase of QTime in bulk via the trading interface.
8. The QTime trading system of claim 7 wherein the QTime trading system facilitates the selling of QTime in bulk via the trading interface.
9. The QTime trading system of claim 8 wherein QTime availability information is populated into a Qtime Supply database that is received from a QTime supplier system communicatively coupled to the QTime trading system.
10. The QTime trading system of claim 9 wherein the Qtime Pricing engine computes a price for a unit of QTime based on the amount of QTime currently available and the a forecast of the demand for QTime provided by the QTime demand forecasting component.
11. A questionnaire creation tool that facilitates creation and storage of questionnaires for mobile device, the questionnaire creation tool comprising:
an audio capture component that is used to create an audio preamble;
a GUI screens to provide a user screens to create a plurality of questions and associated answers for the questionnaire; and
a storage interface that is used to store the questionnaire in a carrier's questionnaire repository to be disseminated to a mobile device.
12. The questionnaire creation tool of claim 11 wherein the storage interface is used to store the questionnaire in an external hosted repository.
13. The questionnaire creation tool of claim 11 wherein the questionnaire is digitally signed before it is saved.
14. The questionnaire creation tool of claim 13 wherein the digitally signed questionnaire is uploaded to an external repository.
15. The questionnaire creation tool of claim 13 wherein the questionnaire comprises audio preamble as well as a textual preamble.
16. The questionnaire creation tool of claim 13 wherein the questionnaire creation tool facilitates the creation of the questionnaire that comprises an audio preamble, a textual preamble, and a plurality of questions, each of the plurality of questions comprising an audio question preamble and a textual question preamble.
17. The questionnaire creation tool of claim 13 wherein the questionnaire created comprises an audio supplementary information for at least one question in the questionnaire.
18. The questionnaire creation tool of claim 13 wherein the questionnaire created comprises a plurality of questions, each of the plurality of questions comprising multiple choices for an answer.
19. The questionnaire creation tool of claim 18 wherein the GUI screens comprise a preamble creation screen that comprises a start recording audio button and a stop recording audio button to capture real-time audio inputs.
20. The questionnaire creation tool of claim 11 that comprises a preamble creator for creating at least one of textual, audio or video preambles.
21. A questionnaire network comprising:
a wireless carrier network;
a mobile device that operates in the wireless carrier network;
a customer attributes associated with the mobile device, that is determined based on the mobile device specifications;
the wireless carrier network employing the customer attributes to determine a participant in a survey;
the wireless carrier network targeting the participant for the survey and communicating a questionnaire that is retrieved from a questionnaire repository.
22. A questionnaire network of claim 21 further comprising:
the carrier network tracking the record of the participant in completing the questionnaire;
the carrier network determining if the participant makes a good target for subsequent surveys and questionnaires.
23. The questionnaire network of claim 22 further comprising:
a questionnaire creation tool that makes it possible to create questionnaires and surveys;
the wireless carrier network disseminating and conducting questionnaires and surveys on the mobile device;
the wireless carrier network collecting, from the device, a results for processing and storage.
24. A method of trading in questionaire time (QTime) comprising:
contracting, by a telecom network with a plurality, of subscribers, to participate in a minimum number of questionnaires in exchange for a rebate or a payment, wherein the contracting commits each of the plurality of subscribers to a QTime contract that specifies a QTime quota;
aggregating the QTime contracts from the plurality of subscribers to create a QTime aggregated contract;
supplying the QTime aggregated contract to a QTime trading system for trading purposes; and
receiving trading requests from at least one QTime consumer to buy or sell the QTime aggregated contract; and
executing the trading request.
25. The method of trading in questionaire time (QTime) of claim 24 wherein executing comprises:
computing a quote price for QTime based on a current supply of QTime and on forecasts of demand for QTime;
buying of QTime based on selling requests and the quote price; and
selling of QTime based on buying requests and the quote price.