Systematic control and processing to monitor and manage contestant entry dispersion of single and multiple session internet contests over the estimations and predictions of future events

Abstract

An information and synchronous communications computer system and process displays (i) contingent and non-contingent promotional offers or contest rewards, and (ii) data relating to future events with uncertain outcomes, where the realization of contingent promotional offers and rewards is based upon a contestant's successful predictive balloting (through interactive computer interface of the system) over future events with uncertain outcomes. Balloting involves the submission of one or more predicted choices or values relating to single or multiple future events with uncertain outcomes. Through real-time processes, the system creates, validates and modifies balloting interface and related processes to control dispersion of contestant entry selections in order to maintain a forecasted aggregate amount of awards within a statistically predetermined range. The system and process makes extensive use of sample population data, survey data, social graph data, and contestant entry data for management of contestant pool and contest space within which contestants ballot.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . An information management and synchronous communication system, comprising: a processor linked to a specialized computer system running a process of an internet or network based computerized contest over rewards or promotions whose realizations are based on successful predictions or estimations over events with uncertain outcomes; and a memory including instructions, which when executed by the processor, cause the processor to implement at least one subsystem where the computer system modifies contest parameters on a real-time basis to cause contest entries to be dispersed such that contestant entries are controlled from over-populating one or more contest selections such that contestant entries, after system processing, occupy more than one mutually exclusive selection and where the modification of the contest space is triggered by system monitored deviations between realized contestant selections and a priori statistical process estimates or a priori expected values. 
     
     
         2 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein dispersion control is accomplished by either system range control or contestant control. 
     
     
         3 . The system of  claim 2 , wherein dispersion control is accomplished by both system range control and contestant control. 
     
     
         4 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the processor further runs a process of identifying, selecting, and tracking contestants from a population for an internet or network based computerized contest which utilizes a combination of social graph data and survey data where the system runs statistical processes to measure the selection dispersion tendencies of one or more subset combinations of a population, and where the system constructs one or more contestant pools from one or more population subsets where the system measured statistically expected dispersion of an identified contestant pool's selections exceeds the expected dispersion of selections from both the overall population and other subsets of the population. 
     
     
         5 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein dispersion control mechanically controls contestant selection dispersion with a specialized computer system running processes to select contestants based on social graph attributes and contest selection dispersion expectations where the linking system produces a material reduction in the potential aggregate contest reward amounts compared to reward outcomes without the disclosed system. 
     
     
         6 . A process of initiating an information management and synchronous communication system, comprising a specialized computer system linked to the communication system, the computer based system running a process of an internet or network based computerized contest over rewards or promotions whose realizations are based on successful predictions or estimations over events with uncertain outcomes, the process comprising the computer system:
 modifying contest parameters on a real-time basis to cause contest entries to be dispersed;   controlling contestant entries from over-populating one or more contest selections such that contestant entries, after computer system processing, occupy more than one mutually exclusive selection, and   modifying contest space that is triggered by system monitored deviations between realized contestant selections and a priori statistical process estimates or a priori expected values.   
     
     
         7 . The process of  claim 6 , further comprising a process which identifies, validates, and stores selection concentration limits, for one or more of the selections presented to an initial contestant, where such contestant selection concentration limit is expressed as a percentage of total contestant count or as an absolute number of contestants where the system has applied statistical procedures for the measurement of dispersion of outcomes of contestant selections utilizing sample population or survey data in addition to an administrator selected confidence level, and where the system stores a contestant selection concentration limit for access by the system to automatically trigger system modifications of the contest space. 
     
     
         8 . The process of  claim 6 , further comprising a process which actively aggregates incoming contestant selections into sequential groups for processing, where the number of contestant selections aggregated in a group is based on a sufficient sample size to control for type I and type II statistical errors relating to a compliance comparison with a preset contestant selection concentration limit or a selection dispersion distribution and where the aggregated group selection distribution is compared for consistency with preset stored and accessed concentration limits or selection distributions and where the system measures group selections using statistical tests from a collection of statistical tests consisting of (i) one or more contest selections indicate concentration in excess of a preset limit, and (ii) the distribution of selections indicated in a group indicates non-conformity with a preset distribution as measured by a parametric or non-parametric statistical test performed at a specified confidence level. 
     
     
         9 . The process of  claim 8 , further comprising a process which identifies and monitors divergences between stored and accessed selection distributions and stored and accessed selection concentration limits with the contest selections received from real-time contestant groups and where a statistical test result or expected value result is a statistically significant divergence from a priori values such a divergence triggers a real-time modification to the contest space for all contestant balloting coincidental and following the imposition of the divergence trigger. 
     
     
         10 . The process of  claim 6 , further comprising automated real-time system modifications to the contest space alter contest space parameters where the parameters modified are selected by the system from a group consisting of (i) selections available for choice by a contestant, and (ii) the selection submitted by a contestant. 
     
     
         11 . The process of  claim 6 , further comprising contestant balloting the contestant balloting precedes the event over which balloting is conducted, using real-time monitoring of contestant balloting by using active system comparison of the a priori system stored and accessed expected distribution of selection choices with the realized selection choices, and where the system automatically and actively modifies the available selection choices for an incremental contestant entry, the system will modify the available selection choices based on preset instructions from an administrator. 
     
     
         12 . The process of  claim 11 , wherein the system contest process is controlled with respect to automatic active modification of the selection choices with respect to a group of preset instructions programmed by the administrator and automatically executed at system determined times where the group of non-mutually exclusive instructions consists of: (i) closing a previously available selection, (ii) splitting or bifurcating a previously presented single selection, (iii) adjusting the boundary between selections, (iv) add a selection not previously presented, and (iv) adding a round of balloting. 
     
     
         13 . The process of  claim 6 , further comprising contestant balloting the contestant balloting is concurrent with the event over which balloting is conducted and where contestant entries are queued by the system as received, using real-time monitoring of contestant balloting by using active system comparison of the a priori expected distribution of selection choices with the realized selection choices and where the system automatically and actively modifies the raw selection made by a contestant by changing the value of the submitted selection to an alternate value to increase the dispersion of system processed contestant entries where the effect of the system modification on a modified contestant selection is to shift a raw selection to an adjacent value or time where the adjusted value or time is less represented in previously received contestant selections. 
     
     
         14 . The process of  claim 13 , further comprising a process which modifies raw contestant selections based on insufficient dispersion with respect to two or more contestant selections and where modifications to a raw contestant selection will retain the original queue sequence of unprocessed contestant submissions. 
     
     
         15 . The process of  claim 13 , wherein contestant balloting is coincidental with the uncertain event over a contest of one or more rounds where contestants ballot through handheld devices or desktop devices and where the uncertain event is based on a group consisting of
 i. the level of a traded market where the indication of success for a contestant is the identification of or more a priori unknown outcomes of such traded market from a group consisting of (i) the high-point of the traded market and the coincidental time thereof, (ii) the low point of the traded market and the coincidental time thereof, and (iii) an inflection point in direction of the traded market and the coincidental time thereof where in all instances time is based on the system's internal clock and the system measured time of a contestant entry where such time is raw or system modified.   ii. the points in a sporting contest where the indication of success for a contestant is the identification of one or more a priori unknown outcomes from a group consisting of (i) the aggregate points for one or more participants in the sporting contest, (ii) the differential in points between two or more participants in the sporting contest, where in all instances a ballot processed by the system and subject to system modification is the combination of the contestant's point indication and the time the system received such indication as measured by the system's internal clock.   
     
     
         16 . The process of  claim 6 , further comprising validating the efficacy of the system modifications to the contest space and the effect the modifications have had on contestant selection dispersion, and system modifications to the contest space have been ineffective in controlling contestant choice dispersion; applying a pari-mutuel adjustment to successful contestant entries, where a system calculated factor between zero and one will be applied to contest rewards attributed to successful contestant entries. 
     
     
         17 . A process for initiating an information management and synchronous communication system comprising, a specialized computer system linked to the communication system and running a process of identifying, selecting, and tracking contestants from a population for an internet or network based computerized contest which utilizes a combination of social graph data and survey data where the system runs statistical processes to measure the selection dispersion tendencies of one or more subset combinations of a population, and the system constructs one or more contestant pools from one or more population subsets; the system measured statistically expected dispersion of an identified contestant pool's selections exceeds the expected dispersion of selections from both the overall population and other subsets of the population. 
     
     
         18 . The process of  claim 17 , further comprising identifying, selecting, and tracking contestants from a population for an internet or network based computerize contest collects social graph data from prospective and actual contestants by direct entry or by an opting in process or a linking to internet sites or networks containing the contestants social graph data where the social graph data is used by the system to construct the contest space. 
     
     
         19 . The process of  claim 17 , further comprising supplying by prospective and actual contestant social graph data or otherwise facilitates access to social graph data as full or partial consideration for participation and standing in the contest. 
     
     
         20 . The process of  claim 17 , further comprising drawing real-time aggregation of the social graph data of a contestant pool from a target population, the real-time identification of one or more common social graph linkages shared by a subset of the contestant pool, and the subsequent process of a web crawl using a social graph programming interface and utilizing the identified social graph commonalities for the purpose of increasing the number of contestants. 
     
     
         21 . The process of  claim 17 , further comprising real time aggregation of reality mining data in the construction of a contestant pool where one or more patterns in individual behavior or group activity is indicated as correlated with a priori predicted selections within a contest space and where a process, using reality mining data, is used to select contestants from a population such that a desired level or selection dispersion can be expected and where contestant predictive entries are likely to be dispersed among two or more mutually exclusive choices. 
     
     
         22 . The process of  claim 6  further comprising having context of a contest over a continuous variable event space, and running an analytic or numerical process based on binomial or poisson statistical distributions where the system will apply an administrator identified confidence level and where system will identify a boundary of maximum expected concentration of selection for a particular time or value within the contest space and where such boundary of maximum expected concentration will be used in an automated system contest space modification trigger. 
     
     
         23 . The process of  claim 6  further comprising having the context of a contest over a discrete variable event space, and running an analytic or numerical process based on parametric or non-parametric statistical distributions where the system will apply an administrator identified confidence level and where the system will identify a boundary of maximum expected concentration of selection for one or more selections within the contest space and where such boundary of maximum expected concentration will be used in an automated system contest space modification trigger. 
     
     
         24 . The process of  claim 17 , further comprising creating an internet contest on a specialized computer system; the system utilizes sample population estimates, survey data, aggregate social graph data and reality mining data prior to a contest to measure and optimize contestant pools such that contestant pools are constructed from a subset of a larger target audience in a systematized manner to control the expected dispersion of contestant predictive choices during contest game play where a larger contestant pool is expected to exhibit a dispersion distribution more consistent with a priori system selection expectations. 
     
     
         25 . The process of  claim 6 , further comprising running the system which supplements initial sample population and survey data with the statistical measures from realized contestant selection balloting for revisions to selection or choice concentration limits and contest range or choice probabilistic positioning in subsequent rounds of the contest. 
     
     
         26 . A non-transitory computer readable medium storing computer-executable program instructions which when executed by a processor, perform a process of initiating an information management and synchronous communication system linked to a specialized computer system, the computer based system running a process of an internet or network based computerized contest over rewards or promotions whose realizations are based on successful predictions or estimations over events with uncertain outcomes, comprising the steps implemented by the computer based system of:
 modifying contest parameters on a real-time basis to cause contest entries to be dispersed;   controlling contestant entries from over-populating one or more contest selections such that contestant entries, after computer system processing, occupy more than one mutually exclusive selection, and   modifying contest space that is triggered by system monitored deviations between realized contestant selections and a priori statistical process estimates or a priori expected values.