System for Controlling and Optimizing Information Distribution Between Users in an Information Exchange

A method for using a computer system for determining inclusion of an information item to an information stream of an information consumer comprising:

• determining for the information item a producer priority relating to the information consumer;
• determining for the information consumer a consumer priority relating to the information item;
• determining whether to include an information item into the information stream of the information consumer for the producer priority and the consumer priority according to a decision matrix;
• obtaining a participation prediction map relating expected item value for the information consumer and predicted participation;
• obtaining a distribution of information items over a range of consumer priority and producer priority;
• adjusting the decision matrix, wherein an include region for the decision matrix is determined, such that (a) any item from the distribution of information items in the region is more preferred to an item not in the region according to an exchange value function (b) a participation metric related to the number of items from the distribution of information items in the region is approximately equal to a predicted participation from the participation prediction map for a derived expected item value.

A method in a computer system for assigning priority to an audience target for use with at least one information item comprising:

• obtaining multiple audience targets;
• obtaining an order for the audience targets wherein the audience targets are ranked;
• obtaining a derived audience size relating to each audience target;
• determining the priority for each audience target using the derived audience size for said audience target and an audience size limits map, wherein the audience size limits map relates audience size and priority;
• whereby the multiple audience targets are assigned a priority.

A computer system apparatus for regulating the exchange of at least one information item between an information producer and an information consumer comprising:

• an information exchange;
• an information stream;
• a decision matrix;
• a decision matrix control loop;
• a means for determining inclusion of the information item in the information stream of the information consumer, wherein the means for determining inclusion uses the decision matrix;
• a means for predicting participation of an information exchange user;
• a means for determining a success metric, wherein said success metric is derived from predicted participation;
• and
• a means for controlling the information stream, wherein the means for controlling uses the decision matrix control loop to adjust the decision matrix to improve or maintain the success metric.

A computer system apparatus for assigning a priority to an audience target comprising:

• a means for obtaining the audience target;
• a means for obtaining a derived size for the audience target;
• an audience size limits map relating audience size and the priority;
• a means for ordering multiple audience targets;
• a means for determining the priority for the audience target using the derived size and the audience size limits map.