A method of managing and delivering consumer product information to consumers enabling the purchase of consumer products at points of presence along the World Wide Web (WWW), said method comprising the steps of:
- (a) serving a plurality of Web-sites from a plurality of Web-based information servers, operably connected to the infrastructure of the Internet, wherein each said Web-site includes a plurality of HTML-encoded pages;
- (b) serving a plurality of consumer product information (CPI) resources from a plurality of Internet-based consumer product information (CPI) servers, operably connected to the infrastructure of the Internet, wherein each said CPI resource has information content related to a particular consumer product or group of consumer products registered with said Internet-based system and being marketed along the WWW;
- (c) operably connecting a first Internet-based subsystem to the infrastructure of the Internet, and allowing manufacturer team members associated with said particular consumer product or group of consumer products, and/or authorized parties, to use said first Internet-based subsystem to implement a plurality of consumer product information (CPI) requesting and graphical user interface (GUI) displaying subsystems for said plurality of consumer products being marketed along the WWW, so that each said CPI-requesting and GUI-displaying subsystem is accessible by consumers at points of presence along the WWW, using a client subsystem supporting a Web browser;
- (d) operably connecting an object-oriented server to the infrastructure of the Internet and said first Internet-based subsystem;
- wherein each said CPI-requesting and GUI-displaying subsystem is implemented by (i) a consumer product information request (CPIR) enabling servlet stored on and executed within said object-oriented server independent of the operation of said Internet-based CPI servers, and (ii) an HTML servlet tag embodied with a unique URL referencing said CPIR-enabling servlet, and embedded within at least one of said plurality of HTML-encoded pages, at a point of presence on the WWW;
- (e) operably connecting a database to said object-oriented server, for storing and managing a link structure for each consumer product registered with said Internet-based system,
- wherein each said link structure includes
- a product identifier assigned to the consumer product registered within said Internet-based system, and
- a set of URLs for a set of said plurality of CPI resources being served from said plurality of Internet-based CPI servers;
- wherein said CPIR-enabling servlet stored on said object-oriented server, for each said consumer product, includes code stored on a medium operable to execute on the object-oriented server, and specifying:
- (i) a connection to said database;
- (ii) a CPI query to be executed on said database, dependent on the product identifier assigned to said consumer product, and for returning a set of URLs stored in said database and associated with said product identifier;
- and
- (iii) a CPI GUI, object-oriented controlled, for displaying the results of the product identifier dependent CPI query at the point of presence where said corresponding HTML servlet tag is embedded within at least one said HTML-encoded page along the WWW;
- wherein said HTML servlet tag embodies the unique URL referencing said corresponding CPIR-enabling servlet;
- (f) operably connecting a second Internet-based subsystem to the infrastructure of the Internet, and allowing manufacturer team members associated with a particular consumer product or group of consumer products, and/or authorized parties, to use said second Internet-based subsystem to program said set of CPI resources for display in the CPI GUI of each said CPI-requesting and GUI-displaying subsystem;
- and
- (g) upon the Web-browser of the consumer encountering said HTML servlet tag installed in said HTML-encoded page,
- (i) the CPIR-enabling servlet corresponding to the HTML servlet tag is automatically executed,
- (ii) the CPI GUI of the corresponding CPI-requesting and GUI-displaying subsystem is automatically generated by said object-oriented server,
- (iii) said object-oriented controlled CPI GUI is served to the Web browser at the point of presence where said HTML servlet tag is embedded, and
- (iv) then said object-oriented controlled CPI GUI displays information content that is (1) associated with one or more CPI resources having URLs returned by said product identifier dependent CPI query, and
- (v) served from one or more of said plurality of Internet-based CPI servers, for display and review by the consumer at the point of presence along the WWW where said HTML servlet tag has been encountered by the Web browser.