TRAVEL GUIDES FORMED BY AGGREGATION OF LOCATION-AWARE CONTENT FROM MULTIPLE PUBLISHERS THROUGH A UNIFIED INTERFACE

摘要

The present invention relates to the field of publishing and distributing information on a network. More particularly, the present invention relates to systems, methods, and devices for identifying multiple published entities each having electronic-based content of interest for a user, selecting portions of the e-content based on user preferences, aggregating the portions of e-content into a virtual compilation of e-content (e.g., virtual book) in a manner such that the portions of e-content appear to originate from the compilation and not the original source. The present invention is particularly advantageous in the travel guide industry where now portions of several larger travel guides can be aggregated together to provide mobile device users information tailored to a mobile device user's actual, exact, approximate, or anticipated location and optionally further refined in combination with the user's personal preferences. Even further, one of the key business implications of the aggregation scheme is that a publisher can take an existing work and divide it down into a set of smaller guides, even with some overlaps in content. Then the publisher can market those smaller guides at a lower price than the single complete guide to generate higher revenues than with publishing the indivisible discrete content alone (original complete travel guide).