Abstract: A smart delivery system is provided for transmitting video, audio, hyper-text and web documents to end users via the internet over telephone lines, fiber optics, satellite links, or other direct communications on a non-realtime discontinuous basis in which the server providing the information periodically ascertains whether the end user terminal is busy. If so, the transmission to the end user is terminated and the information is stored until such time as the “busy” indication is terminated. In one embodiment, the indication for the end user of incoming information is in the form of an icon generated on-screen on which the user can click to obtain the sought-after information.

Abstract: In an Internet-based client/server application, a system is provided which detects demographics of a client including CPU power, hard disk space, applications installed, network connectivity and log-in history so as to provide this infrastructure related information detailing client usage of the Internet to the service provider. In one embodiment, each user is provided with software having a unique serial number. Having the serial number, infrastructure data is checked at the client side and reported to the server periodically, with the server updating a database with the infrastructure data from each PC. In one embodiment, the database is filtered by factors such as location of the client and an indication of which providers delivered software to a client. After filtering, the service provider can obtain various demographics such as the demography of hard disk space, CPU power and viewers.