System and method for providing a referral network in a social networking environment

Abstract

A user-content generated network is provided for presenting business listings, as well as commentary and reviews of businesses, by participants of the network. In an embodiment, businesses can participate in the network and receive referrals from members of the network. The network can track and monitor referrals that individual businesses receive as a mechanism for promoting the business to other users in the network's user base.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A method for promoting an organization on a social network environment, the method being implemented by one or more computers and comprising steps of:
 associating a network resource to an organization, the network resource providing a medium on which the organization can provide information about itself and/or its products or services;   associating each participant in a population of participants of a social network with a corresponding network resource;   enabling the organization to request (i) individual participants in the population who have a relationship with the organization, and/or (ii) other organizations, to link their respective corresponding network resource with the network resource of the organization;   storing information that identifies (i) a plurality of organizations, (ii) individual participants in the population, and (iii) links between each of the plurality of organizations and individual users in the population and/or other organizations in the plurality of organizations, wherein the links between each of the plurality of organizations and the individual users include referral links.