Distributed commerce system

Abstract

A networked system for managing commercial interactions is providing. In some embodiments, the system includes: a bundle-passing interface between a plurality of networked users including distribution logic including a distribution control input responsive to machine-readable information in the bundles; and a statistics collection engine including a control input responsive to machine-readable information in the bundles.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A networked system for managing commercial interactions, comprising:
 a network service for distributing information bundles between nodes of a network,   data stores at the nodes of the network, wherein the data stores include areas for data bundles and security information identifying entitled accessors associated with each of the data bundles, and   a security enforcement system, operative to access the security information and permit only authorized accessors to access data bundles from each nodes based on the security information.   
     
     
         2 . The apparatus of  claim 1  further including an application component having an interface to a stand-alone software application and an interface to the programming interface of the bundle processing logic. 
     
     
         3 . The apparatus of  claim 1  further including peer-to-peer transfer logic to enable peer-to-peer access to data elements referenced in the bundles. 
     
     
         4 . The apparatus of  claim 1  further including invitation reception logic for receiving invitations and relationship establishing a relationships between owners and accessors. 
     
     
         5 . The apparatus of  claim 1  further directory logic responsive a list of networked users. 
     
     
         6 . The apparatus of  claim 1  wherein a format for the security information allows for organization identifiers to be included in the security information. 
     
     
         7 . The apparatus of  claim 1  further including nesting logic to nest at least some of the bundles in superbundles that include additional information, wherein each bundle includes security information identifying entitled accessors of the data, and wherein only accessors with entitlements to both a bundle and its superbundle can see both the bundle and the superbundle. 
     
     
         8 . The apparatus of  claim 1  wherein the bundle and the superbundle have different owners at different nodes and wherein the network service distributes the bundle and the superbundle from the different nodes. 
     
     
         9 . The apparatus of  claim 1  further including a version identifying signals generator operative to issue version identifying signals to the different nodes of the network. 
     
     
         10 . A networked system for managing commercial interactions, comprising:
 means for distributing information bundles between nodes of a network, means for storing data bundles and security information identifying entitled accessors with each of the data bundles data stores at the nodes of the network, and   means for accessing the security information and permitting only authorized accessors to access data bundles from other nodes based on the security information.   
     
     
         11 . A networked commercial interaction management method, comprising the steps of:
 distributing information bundles between nodes of a network,   storing data bundles and security information identifying entitled accessors associated with each of the data bundles data stores at the nodes of the network, and   accessing the security information and permitting only authorized accessors to access data bundles from other nodes based on the security information.   
     
     
         12 . The network system of  claim 1 , further including an application negotiating component negotiating different levels of trusted relationships between different ones of a first plurality of different networked users and different ones of a second plurality of different network users, and distributing the information bundles from the different ones of the first plurality of different networked users to the different ones of the second plurality of different network users according to the different levels of trusted relationships. 
     
     
         13 . The network system of  claim 12 , wherein the application negotiating component distributes different versions of a first bundle to different users based on their different levels of trusted relationships with a sender of the first bundle. 
     
     
         14 . The network system of  claim 12 , wherein the application negotiating component distributes different levels of alerting of recipients of the bundles based on different levels of trusted relationships with senders of the first bundle. 
     
     
         15 . The network system of  claim 12 , wherein the application negotiating component provides feedback information to senders of particular bundles from recipients of the particular bundles about the particular bundles received, and wherein amounts of the feedback information depend on the levels of trusted relationships between the sender and recipients. 
     
     
         16 . The network system of  claim 12 , wherein the application negotiating component distributes marketing messages between the networked users before the step of negotiating, and wherein the marketing messages include machine readable transaction-type information includes market sector information describing the types of transactions a sending user is capable of providing. 
     
     
         17 . The network system of  claim 12 , wherein the application negotiating component publishes profiles accessible over the network that include machine-readable transaction-type information describing the types of transactions a publishing user is capable of providing. 
     
     
         18 . The network system of  claim 12 , further comprising:
 an invitation passing interface operative to transmit invitations to a plurality of networked users,   relationship status storage for storing the status of a relationship between users and responsive to a relationship status event to access the storage, and   a bundle passing interface operative to transmitting the bundles to the plurality of the networked users and having an input responsive to the relationship status storage.