On-line method and apparatus for collecting demographic information about a user of a world-wide-web site and dynamically selecting questions to present to the user

摘要

An on-line method and apparatus for collecting demographic information from a user of a home WWW site and for dynamically selecting questions to present to the user. A plurality of sponsor symbols are displayed for the user on the home WWW site. Each of the sponsor symbol corresponds to an entity that has paid an owner of the home WWW site for the right to be presented to the user on the site. A signal is received at the home WWW site from the user indicating a selection of one of the sponsor symbols by the user. In response to the selected sponsor symbol, a first set of one or more prize symbols are displayed for the user on the home WWW site. Each prize symbol corresponds to a prize that the user can register to win at no cost to the user. A further signal is then received at the home WWW site from the user indicating a selection of a prize symbol from the first set of prize symbols by the user. Next, the system determines whether the user is a registered user of the home WWW site and, if the user is not a registered user of the home WWW site, the system collects demographic information about the user during registration of the user on the home WWW site. In response to the demographic information, at least one question is selected from a first plurality of candidate questions, wherein each of the first plurality of candidate questions is associated with the entity corresponding to the selected sponsor symbol. The selected question is displayed to the user on the home WWW site. Next, a signal is received from the user indicating an answer of the user to the selected question, and the answer is stored in a database. Finally, after the user answers the question, the user is redirected from the home WWW site to a further WWW site associated with the selected sponsor symbol.