Distributed system to enable dynamic, on-demand sales force with merchant, seller and buyer networked

Abstract

A distributed system that includes a merchant application, a buyer application and a seller or drummer application. The applications reside and run on personal computing devices and operate together to allow a merchant to create an offer, drummers to select, present and share the offer with buyers, and buyers to receive and save the offers in anticipation of a conversion. Upon a conversion, revenue derived from the transaction is provided to the merchant but, some of revenue is shared with one or more drummers involved in pushing the offer.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A distributed system that operates to implement conversion services on behalf of a plurality of entities, the distributed system comprising:
 a benefit defining engine configured to receive a parameter definition of one or more benefits on behalf of an entity and provide the one or more benefits for being accessed;   a plurality of distributed devices that are communicatively coupled to the benefit engine, wherein each of the distributed devices: (a) is associated with a particular drummer, (b) is configured to access one or more benefits on the benefit engine, (c) is configured to access a conversion hook on the benefit defining engine, wherein the conversion hook is generated by the benefit defining engine and uniquely identifies a particular benefit that is being accessed and a particular drummer associated with the accessing distributed device, and (d) is enabled to share the conversion hooks with one or more customers;   a settlement engine that receives a conversion notification when a customer utilizes a conversion hook to convert the benefit associated with the conversion hook, the settlement engine configured to respond to the reception of the conversion notification by:   converting the benefit;   extracting from the customer a conversion value required for converting the benefit; and   directing a compensation value to the drummer associated with the conversion hook.   
     
     
         2 . The distributed system of  claim 1 , further comprising a control engine configured to allow an entity to define a domain of drummers that can access benefits of the entity. 
     
     
         3 . The distributed system of  claim 1 , further comprising a control engine configured to allow an entity to define classes of drummers and selectively enable and disable one or more classes for accessing the benefits of the entity. 
     
     
         4 . The distributed system of  claim 1 , further comprising a control engine configured to receive a marketing definition for an entity and then select the number and type of drummers that have access to the benefits of that entity. 
     
     
         5 . The distributed system of  claim 1 , further comprising a control engine configured to allow an entity to enter parameters that define a marketing effort for the entity, the parameters comprising: the geographic region to target, the number of drummers for each geographic region and the demographics of customers. 
     
     
         6 . The distributed system of  claim 1 , wherein the benefit defining engine is configured to receive a parameter definition of one or more benefits on behalf of an entity by receiving an identification of a class of drummers that can access the benefits. 
     
     
         7 . The distributed system of  claim 1 , wherein the benefit defining engine is configured to receive a parameter definition of one or more benefits on behalf of an entity by receiving a description of the benefit, a consumer cost for the benefit, and a conversion share for the drummer. 
     
     
         8 . The distributed system of  claim 1 , further comprising a monitoring engine, wherein the monitoring engine comprises a drummer interface to convey information pertaining to the compensation value received for a particular drummer accessing the monitoring engine. 
     
     
         9 . The distributed system of  claim 1 , further comprising a monitoring engine, wherein the monitoring engine comprises a user interface to convey information pertaining to activity related to the benefits. 
     
     
         10 . The distributed system of  claim 1 , further comprising a monitoring engine, wherein the monitoring engine presents statistics related to the activity of each of the benefits for an entity, comprising the number of shares, the number of conversions, and the demographics of the customers. 
     
     
         11 . The distributed system of  claim 1 , wherein the distributed devices share the conversion hook by transmitting it to a customer device. 
     
     
         12 . The distributed system of  claim 1 , wherein the distributed devices share the conversion hook by displaying the conversion hook on a display of the distributed device to enable scanning by a customer device. 
     
     
         13 . The distributed system of  claim 1 , wherein the benefit defining engine, the settlement engine, the control engine and the monitoring engine are at least partially embodied in an app that is downloaded to mobile devices, wherein the users, the drummers and the consumers gain access to the functions of the distributed system using the mobile devices. 
     
     
         14 . The distributed system of  claim 13 , wherein the benefit defining engine, the settlement engine, the control engine and the monitoring engine are at least partially embodied on a network accessible server. 
     
     
         15 . A networked distributed system that operates to implement conversion services on behalf of one or more entities, the networked distributed system comprising:
 a plurality of benefit sources, each benefit source including a benefit source app that is configured to (a) receive definitions for one or more benefits offered by an entity, (b) publish the benefits within the networked distributed system such that the benefits can be accessed and (c) maintain statistics pertaining to activity related to each benefit;   a plurality of drummer devices that are communicatively coupled to one or more of the plurality of benefit sources through a network, wherein each of the drummer devices includes a drummer app that is configured to (a) be associated with a particular drummer through a login procedure, (b) is configured to access one or more benefits from one or more of the plurality of benefit sources, (c) is configured to access a conversion hook, wherein the conversion hook unique identifies a particular benefit that is being accessed and a particular drummer associated with the accessing distributed device, and (d) is enabled to share the conversion hooks with one or more customers;   a server that is communicatively coupled with the plurality of benefit sources and the plurality of drummer devices, the server configured to receive a conversion notification when a customer utilizes a conversion hook to convert the benefit associated with the conversion hook, the server configured to respond to the reception of the conversion notification by:
 converting the benefit; 
 extracting from the customer a conversion value required for converting the benefit; 
 directing a compensation value to the drummer associated with the conversion hook; and 
 notifying the benefit source associated with the converted benefit. 
   
     
     
         16 . The networked distributed system of  claim 15 , wherein the benefit sources are further configured to allow an entity offering one or more benefits to define which drummers can access the benefits of the entity. 
     
     
         17 . The networked distributed system of  claim 16 , wherein the benefit sources are further configured to define a marketing strategy for the entity, the marketing strategy comprising: the geographic region to target, the number of drummers for each geographic region and the demographics of customers. 
     
     
         18 . The networked distributed system of  claim 15 , wherein the drummer devices are configured to share the conversion hook by transmitting it to a customer device. 
     
     
         19 . The distributed system of  claim 15 , wherein the drummer devices share the conversion hook by displaying the conversion hook on a display of the drummer devices to enable scanning by a customer device. 
     
     
         20 . The distributed system of  claim 15 , wherein the drummer devices are configured to search a domain of available benefits based on one or more of the following parameters: geo-location of the customer, time of day, and category of benefit.