Online social networking system for conducting commerce

Abstract

An online social networking system for conducting commerce utilizes a grid environment, a widget architecture including a widget operating system, and semantic integration technologies to provide personalized bundling of products and services tied to an individual's life, emergent marketplaces that support collaboratively-based product and service development, merchandising, and recommendations, emergent user experiences, emergent gaming, emergent behavior predictions, collaborative discover, i.e., social searching, and content and/or people voyeurism. These features are achieved through the use of various techniques including emergent programming, emergent widget processing, emergent computations, emergent applications, widget composition, data integration and exchange, complex system management, security graphs, trust/reputation management, intersecting graphs, database sharding, use of fractal graphs (which may be thinned and expanded), and content mashups.

1 . A computer-implemented method for allocating royalties to vendors, comprising:
 providing a database of data items including a first data item and a second data item, the second data item having a particular vendor and a particular product or service associated therewith, and the first and second data items being connected to each other through a number of links;   providing a graphical representation of a plurality of the data items including the first data item but not including the second data item;   enabling access to the second data item via the first data item and the links;   facilitating a purchase of the particular good or service; and   charging the particular vendor a royalty that is based at least in part on the number of links connecting the first data item to the second data item.   
     
     
         2 . The method as recited in  claim 1  wherein the particular vendor is a second vendor and the first data item has a first vendor associated therewith, the method further comprising:
 paying the first vendor a portion of the royalty charged to the second vendor based at least in part on the number of links separating the first data item and the second data item. 
 
     
     
         3 . The method as recited in  claim 2  wherein each of the links have associated link strengths, and wherein further the royalty is also based at least in part of the associated link strengths of the links between the first data item and the second data item. 
     
     
         4 . A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions stored thereon for causing a computer to perform a method for allocating royalties to vendors, the method comprising:
 providing a database of data items including a first data item and a second data item, second data item having a particular vendor and a particular product or service associated therewith, and the first and second data items being connected to each other through a number links;   providing a graphical representation of a plurality of the data items including the first data item but not including the second data item;   enabling access to the second data item via the first data item and the links;   facilitating a purchase of the particular good or service; and   charging the particular vendor a royalty that is based at least in part on the number of links connecting the first data item to the second data item.   
     
     
         5 . The computer readable medium as recited in  claim 4  wherein the particular vendor is a second vendor and the first data item has a first vendor associated therewith, and wherein the method further comprises:
 paying the first vendor a portion of the royalty charged to the second vendor based at least in part on the number of links separating the first data item and the second data item. 
 
     
     
         6 . The computer readable medium as recited in  claim 5  wherein each of the links have associated link strengths, and wherein further the royalty is also based at least in part of the associated link strengths of the links between the first data item and the second data item. 
     
     
         7 - 13 . (canceled)