Targeting to users with seeded or discounted credits in a virtual currency system

Abstract

A virtual currency system keeps track of virtual credits, which can be owned, transferred, purchased, and sold by participants in a virtual economy. Each virtual credit has an internal value and an external value, which define, respectively, the exchange rates for creating and redeeming the virtual credits. Upon creation of new virtual credits, the internal value for those credits is the rate for which real currency was paid per credit. The external value sets the rate at which the virtual credits can be redeemed for real currency. Each virtual credit may further have a face value, which is an apparent value of the virtual credit within the virtual economy, giving users a baseline impression for valuing the virtual currency. These features of the virtual currency enable a number of useful actions within the virtual economy, including currency seeding, couponing, and chargebacks.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A computer-implemented method comprising:
 storing an account for each of a plurality of participants of a virtual economy;   receiving a request to create new credits of a virtual currency;   recording a plurality of created credits and a set of attributes of the created credits in a data store, the created credits associated with their attributes;   identifying a set of the created credits, each credit in the set having an attribute indicating that an amount of real currency provided when a credit in the set is redeemed is greater than an amount of real currency used to fund the credit in the set;   assigning the created credits to one or more accounts of participants in exchange for receiving an amount of real money from a participant;   identifying accounts of participants assigned one or more credits from the set of created credits; and   targeting a communication to one or more of the participants based on the participants' being associated with an identified account.   
     
     
         2 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 1 , wherein the communication comprises an invitation to transfer one or more of the credits from the set of created credits to an additional participant in exchange for a good or a service. 
     
     
         3 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 1 , wherein presenting the communication to participants associated with an identified account comprises:
 transmitting the communication to one or more devices associated with the one or more participants associated with one or more identified accounts.   
     
     
         4 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 3 , wherein the communication is transmitted using one or more selected from a group consisting of: a multi-media messaging service, a text message, a web page alert, and any combination thereof. 
     
     
         5 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 1 , wherein the communication comprises a notification of a change in an amount of credits transferred from an identified account to one or more additional accounts. 
     
     
         6 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 1 , wherein identifying accounts of participants assigned one or more credits from the set of created credits comprises:
 identifying accounts of participants assigned one or more credits from the set of created credits having an amount of real currency used to fund the one or more credits is zero.   
     
     
         7 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 1 , wherein identifying accounts of participants assigned one or more credits from the set of created credits comprises:
 identifying accounts of participants associated with an account including at least a threshold number of credits from the set of created credits having an amount of real currency used to fund the one or more credits is zero.   
     
     
         8 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 1 , wherein identifying accounts of participants assigned one or more credits from the set of created credits comprises:
 identifying accounts of participants associated with an account including at least a threshold number of credits from the set of created credits.   
     
     
         9 . A computer-implemented method comprising:
 storing an account for each of a plurality of participants of a virtual economy;   creating a number of credits and a set of attributes of the credits;   recording, by a processor, the number of created credits and the set of attributes of the created credits in a data store, the created credits associated with their attributes;   assigning the created credits to one or more accounts of participants;   identifying one or more accounts including one or more credits having a specified attribute; and   presenting a communication to participants associated with an identified account.   
     
     
         10 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 9 , wherein the specified attribute comprises an attribute indicating that an amount of real currency provided when a credit is redeemed is greater than an amount of real currency used to fund the redeemed credit. 
     
     
         11 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 9 , wherein the communication comprises an invitation to transfer one or more of the credits having the specified attribute to an additional participant in exchange for a good or a service. 
     
     
         12 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 9 , wherein presenting the communication to participants associated with an identified account comprises:
 transmitting the communication to one or more devices associated with the one or more participants associated with one or more identified accounts.   
     
     
         13 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 12 , wherein the communication is transmitted using one or more selected from a group consisting of: a multi-media messaging service, a text message, a web page alert, and any combination thereof. 
     
     
         14 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 9 , wherein the communication comprises a notification of a change in an amount of credits transferred from an identified account to one or more additional accounts. 
     
     
         15 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 9 , wherein the communication comprises a notification of a change in an amount of credits having the specified attribute in an identified account. 
     
     
         16 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 9 , wherein identifying one or more accounts including one or more credits having the specified attribute comprises:
 identifying accounts of participants assigned one or more credits having an attribute indicating that an amount of real currency used to fund a credit is zero.   
     
     
         17 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 9 , wherein identifying one or more accounts including one or more credits having the specified attribute comprises:
 identifying accounts of participants including least a threshold number of credits having the specified attribute.   
     
     
         18 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 17 , wherein the specified attribute is an attribute indicating that an amount of real currency used to fund a credit is zero. 
     
     
         19 . A computer-implemented method comprising:
 storing an account for each of a plurality of participants of a virtual economy;   creating a number of credits and a set of attributes of the credits;   recording, by a processor, the number of created credits and the set of attributes of the created credits in a data store, the created credits associated with their attributes;   assigning the created credits to one or more accounts of participants;   retrieving prior actions associated with the one or more accounts of participants;   identifying one or more accounts based at least in part on their associated prior actions; and   presenting a communication to participants associated with an identified account, the communication including an invitation to transfer one or more of the credits from the set of created credits to an additional participant in exchange for a good or a service.   
     
     
         20 . The method of  claim 19 , wherein identifying one or more accounts based at least in part on their associated prior action comprises:
 identifying one or more accounts associated with a threshold number of a specified type of prior action.   
     
     
         21 . The method of  claim 19 , wherein identifying one or more accounts based at least in part on their associated prior action comprises:
 identifying one or more accounts including one or more credits having a specified attribute and associated with a type of prior action.