System and method for record and playback of collaborative Web browsing session

A computer system comprising:

• a first computer, a second computer including a web browser, and a control site computer including a control module enabling said first computer to control said web browser, thereby enabling a collaborative web browsing session with a user of said second computer, wherein said first, control site, and second computers are coupled together through a computer network;
• an initiator for creating audio and visual events;
• a first transmitter coupled to the first computer for transmitting said audio and visual events to the control site computer;
• an archiver coupled to the control site computer for storing said audio and visual events in a presentation file;
• a second transmitter coupled to a requesting computer for sending a request to the control site computer;
• a third transmitter coupled to the control site computer for sending the presentation file to the requesting computer;
• wherein the requesting computer comprises a display for displaying the visual events and a player for playing the audio events.

A system comprising:

• a first computer;
• a second computer including a web browser;
• means enabling said first computer to control said web browser, thereby enabling a collaborative web browsing session with a user of said second computer, said web browsing session comprising audio and visual events created by said first computer;
• and
• means for allowing a control site computer to record the session and for allowing a selected computer to playback the recorded session, said means for allowing comprising:
• at the first computer, means for creating the audio and visual events and transmitting them to the control site computer;
• at the control site computer, means for storing the audio and visual events for later replay on the selected computer;
• and
• at the selected computer, means for requesting the recorded session, playing the audio events, and displaying the visual events of said session.

A computer system comprising:

• a first computer, a second computer including a web browser, and a control site computer including a control module enabling said first computer to control said web browser, thereby enabling a collaborative web browsing session with a user of said second computer, wherein said first, control site, and second computers are coupled together through a computer network;
• an initiator coupled to the first computer for creating audio and visual data;
• a selector responsive to a target selection operation made by a user of said first computer for selecting a region on a first display;
• a first transmitter coupled to the first computer for transmitting audio and visual data including at least one image associated with said region to the control site computer;
• an archiver coupled to the control site computer for storing audio and visual data;
• a second transmitter coupled-to the control site computer for transmitting audio and visual data including said image to a requesting computer;
• and
• a requestor coupled to the requesting computer for requesting the transmission of said stored data from the control site computer.

A storage medium encoded with machine-readable computer program code for configuring a first computer and a control site computer of a network-based computer system for recording a collaborative web browsing session and for playing back the recorded session, the computer system comprising:

• the first computer;
• a second computer capable of executing a web browser application;
• the control site computer comprising a control module enabling the first computer to control the web browser application executing on the second computer, to create a collaborative web browsing session between the first computer and the second computer;
• wherein:
• the first computer comprises an initiator for creating visual data elements in the course of the collaborative web browsing session, and a transmitter that transmits the visual data elements to the control site computer;
• the control site computer further comprises:
• an archiver for storing the visual data elements transmitted from the first computer in the course of the collaborative web browsing session;
• and
• a second transmitter for transmitting the stored visual data elements to a requesting computer in response to a request received from the requesting computer.