Abstract: Systems and methods establish a virtual points clearinghouse. The clearinghouse redeems heterogeneous digital micro-payments-such as bonus points received from various points issuers-across diverse service providers. Points meant for exclusive redemption at one service provider may be directly redeemed for non-corresponding goods of a different service provider. In one implementation, the clearinghouse includes contracts between points issuers, service providers, and a clearinghouse, including intervening conversion rates. A user interface enables a user to manage multiple point balances from a computing device, cell phone, or other mobile device. The user interface enables the user to find diverse goods and to directly obtain the goods by redeeming diverse heterogeneous points. The clearinghouse includes an invoicing engine to enable money flow between users, points issuers, service providers, and the clearinghouse.

Abstract: Architecture that leverages enabling technologies for tracking offline activity of a user, and rating performance of offline/online publishers of content and/or advertisements. Knowledge about user offline interests can be accumulated and used to target the user with smart advertisements when offline or online. Moreover, the performance of publishers of the offline content computed by merchants who contract with publishers to provide the best exposure. In support thereof, rate information in the form of response rate and conversion rate can be computed and analyzed for each offline publisher. A publisher referral ID for a publisher is inserted into detectable indicia associated with offline media such as print media, audio media, video media, etc. When a user interacts with the offline content using a cell phone, the captured information is forwarded to an online advertisement component framework for responding to the user interaction (e.g., a purchase transaction or request for further information).