MXPA99008956A - Method and system for providing a presentation on a network - Google Patents

Abstract

A presentation system (50) is disclosed for distributing a performance of a presentation to a plurality of client sites (54) comprising client nodes on a network such as the Internet. The presentation system (50) distributes presentation content data to a plurality of network server nodes, and during a performance of the presentation, the client nodes receiving the presentation determine a particular variation of data presentation to retrieve from the network server nodes. In particular, the retrieval of presentation data depends upon the transmission characteristics of the network such as data transmission rate. Thus, if a low transmission data rate is detected at a first client node,presentation elements of a reduced size can be retrieved. Alternatively, if a higher transmission rate is detected at a second client node, presentation elements of greater size (and corresponding enhanced quality of presentation) can be retrieved. Thus, within a single performance, client network nodes with varying available network bandwidths can be utilized for synchronously performing the presentation.

Description

METHOD AND SYSTEM TO PROVIDE A PRESENTATION IN A NETWORK FIELD OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a presentation system in the network to provide a presentation to a plurality of client nodes in a communication network such as the Internet, and more particularly to a presentation system where they are used. the transmission characteristics of the network to determine the presentation materials in each client node during an embodiment of the presentation.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Interactive or live presentations via a telecommunications network (ie, "telepresentations" such as teleconferences, etc.) are becoming a viable alternative for face-to-face meetings, due to the greater effectiveness for the cost of these telepresentations. However, there is still substantial expense to conduct that telepresentation, particularly when the members of the presentation (ie, presentation leaders and audience members) reside in a large number of geographically scattered sites. In particular, each of the sites may require specialized video teleconferencing systems with high data transmission lines to connect the members of the telepresentation. Therefore, due to the expense to provision and maintain those teleconferencing systems in the network, corporations typically have only a small number of such teleconferencing systems in strategically located telepresentation centers to conduct those telepresentations. However, there are numerous drawbacks to this approach, such as: (1.1) Telepresentació centers? dedicated are expensive to maintain; (1.2) Participants in the presentation are still required to travel to these centers; and (1.3) The potential members of that presentation who are unable to access that center are excluded from the presentation. In accordance with the above, it would be convenient to have a network presentation distribution system that alleviates these problems, where that system allows individuals to access and / or participate in a presentation, using the standard telephony connections and the network of Internet that are found in most offices and many homes.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention is a distribution system for presenting the network to provide a presentation, by means of one or more communication networks, to a plurality of members of the presentation simultaneously. That is, the present invention distributes a presentation synchronously to members of the presentation, by means of one or more communication networks, wherein a communication network is defined as both the physical components and the protocol (s). ) of communication used in the components of the network, and where the term "members of the presentation" (also called "users"), includes both the members of the audience (also called "clients") and the members of the audience. leaders of the presentation. On the other hand, the present invention provides interactive and / or real-time presentations to the members of the presentation that are geographically scattered, when each of those members has access to one or more commonly available communication networks, such as the Internet and a conventional telephone network for telephone-to-telephone voice communication. For example, the present invention can communicate the video portion of a presentation to a user's site through the Internet (more generally, by means of any TCP / IP network), while a corresponding portion of audio can be communicated to the user's site by means of a conventional telephone network and a conventional telephone at the user's site. However, other embodiments are also within the scope of the present invention. For example, both the video and audio portions of the presentation can be provided only via a TCP / IP network such as the Internet, assuming there is sufficient bandwidth of communication to synchronize the transmissions of the presentation with the members of the presentation. The present invention distributes a presentation (also referred to synonymously as an "exhibit") to members of the presentation by means of a novel distribution of the presentation materials between the nodes of the network server of a TCP / IP network (which from here on it will be assumed that it is the Internet for simplicity). That is, due to the typically "bursts" nature of the transmissions between the nodes of that network, a version of the presentation can be accessed synchronously from different nodes of the network server, or different versions of the network can be accessed. presentation synchronously from one or more of the network server nodes. Thus, in one embodiment, the present invention allows a plurality of at least one of: (2.1) One or more network server nodes (each also hereinafter synonymously denoted as a "server of the network"). network "," content Web server "," content supply node ", and" supply node "), by means of which audience members receive presentation materials; and / or (2.2) Different versions of the same presentation, accessible from one or more of the content Web servers, where each version may be for a different group of audience members, such as a group for members of the audience to speak Japanese, or members of the audience affiliated with a particular organization. Note that each of the one or more presentation versions includes one or more presentation segments (denoted hereinafter also simply "segments") that provide different portions of the presentation. More precisely, subcollections, each having one or more segments, are provided as "elements" of the presentation in the sense that each sub-collection is intended to be an indivisible portion of an embodiment of the presentation. On the other hand, each version of a presentation typically has its sub-collections of segments (i.e. elements of the presentation) arranged in accordance with its presentation sequence. In addition, substantially every segment (or sub-collections thereof) in a version corresponds to a segment (or sub-collections thereof) that has the same order of presentation, in each of the other versions. In this way, assuming corresponding segments (or subcollections thereof) in different versions have approximately the same duration of presentation, any corresponding alternative segments (or subcollections thereof) of different versions can be presented as a replacement for another. corresponding segment (or sub-collection) during the presentation. Thus, it is an aspect of the present invention to provide corresponding alternative segments (or sub-collections thereof) that have substantially different network transmission requirements, so that those alternative segments (or sub-collections thereof) can be substituted. corresponding to each other, depending on the operation of the communications network. For example, the segments (subcollections) of a first version of a presentation may require a sufficient transmission speed in the network for real-time or animated video, and the segments for another version of the presentation may only require a sufficient transmission speed for graphic slides. In this way, from a set of corresponding segments (sub-collections), a segment (sub-collection) can simply be an audio presentation by means of a telephone, while a segment (sub-collection) alternative may be a multimedia presentation element that is a combination of one or more of the following types of multimedia data HTML: audio, images, animation or video, wherein the multimedia element is reproduced during a period of established time, and can be as simple as a single image, or as complex as a combination of images, audio, animation and video. In addition, segments can include interactive questions that are answered by audience members by, for example, selecting an object on their visual display screens. Note that it is also an aspect of the present invention that an ordering of previously defined segments (or subcollections thereof) be capable of being presented and archived, and subsequently represented. On the other hand, this ordering can take into account alternative segments for presentation. In this way, multiple sequentially ordered manuscripts can be created, in such a way that the leader can choose to change the manuscripts in the middle of a presentation, based on the user's feedback. In accordance with the above, a presentation leader has the ability to stop the submission of a particular manuscript and its sub-collection of ongoing segments, and change to a different sub-collection of segments that > they are going to be sent to the audience. Subsequently, the leader can then resume the initial manuscript at any time. In accordance with the foregoing, to take advantage of this novel distribution of presentation materials, the present invention coordinates and controls calculations and presentations at each node of the client's network for each audience member of the presentation (hereinafter each Network node can also be synonymously denoted as a "client node", "user network node" or simply "user node") substantially simultaneously. In particular, one or more nodes connected to the presentation control network (each also denoted hereinafter as a "host node") are provided, to transmit the control commands of the presentation to the client nodes, such as so that there is recovery of the presentation segments from one or more versions of the one or more nodes of the content server of the network, depending on, for example, the operating characteristics of the network transmissions. Thus, it is an aspect of the present invention to dynamically and adaptively switch between the content Web servers and / or the presentation versions, in accordance with the transmission characteristics of the network at each node of the customer's network, of Such a way that customers in the client nodes have been presented to them simultaneously, synchronously and in real time, corresponding segments (in content) of the presentation. For example, a first client (in a first client node) may experience the presentation as an ordered series of presentation segments, wherein the first and second ordered segments are presented in full animation, wherein the first of the ordered segments it is obtained from a first content Web server, and the second segment from the ordered segments is obtained from a second content Web server. On the other hand, synchronously with the presentation to the first client, a second client (in a second client node) can experience the presentation in a slide show format of a third content Web server, wherein the two initial segments presented are alternative segments corresponding to the first and second segments presented to the first customer. Additionally, a third client may synchronously experience the first segment of the presentation by means of network transmissions from the first content Web server, but subsequently experience the alternative slide show corresponding to the second segment from the third content Web server due a, for example, network transmission delays. It is another aspect of the present invention to synchronously provide audio and video portions of the presentation, through different communication channels (a communication channel being a physical signal transport path together with a particular signal protocol). For example, in one embodiment of the present invention (denoted hereinafter the "Telephony / Internet mode"), the audio portion of the presentation is audibly communicated directly to a standard telephone using telephony transmissions of degree of conventional voice, and the corresponding video portion of the presentation is transmitted by means of a different network, such as the Internet (referred to more generally herein as a "communication network") using, for example , a modem to interpret transmission signals. It is another aspect of the present invention to provide the same portion of the audio presentation to each client, and in this way, to maintain the continuity of the presentation between clients. In this way, regardless of the version of the video presentation that is provided, customers have their presentations synchronized by at least simultaneously experiencing the same audio presentation. It is also an aspect of the present invention to allow the members of the presentation to communicate with each other. For example, in the Telephony / Internet mode, a client can communicate with other members of the presentation (including the leader of the presentation) during the presentation by means of the telephone and / or by Internet messaging. To provide the above capabilities of the distribution system of the presentation of the network of the present invention, one or more of the nodes in the network ("host nodes") that control the presentation are used, where these nodes direct the flow of the presentation data among the members of the presentation. For example, in the Telephony / Internet mode, that host node, after receiving the instructions of the presentation from a leader of the presentation, indicating the following one (s) segment (s) of the presentation that is presented. they will present, transmit the Internet presentation control signals to each of the client nodes that identify the following collection of corresponding versions of video segments, from which each client node will select a video segment for presentation. Additionally, the host node coordinates any portion of accompanying audio for this segment, in such a way that timing is synchronized for the presentation of these audio and video portions of the segment (s). On the other hand, during a presentation a host node provides a presentation leader with the ability to establish and control the involvement of the audience in the presentation. In particular, in the Telephony / Internet mode, this aspect of the invention is provided by the leader who controls the functionality of one or more telephone bridges, through which all audio communication can be routed during the presentation. In accordance with the above, at any point the leader can speak into a microphone and transmit his voice live to the members of the audience, through the telephone bridge (s). This live voice audio is automatically mixed with any audio segment that is being provided concurrently by means of the telephone bridge (s). The leader can control the volume of the audio segment routed through the telephone bridge (s), by means of controls in a leader control station (or simply "leader station"). When enabled by one of the telephone bridges, the leader can also control the relative volume of his microphone. Otherwise, the portion of the audio presentation routed through the telephone bridge (s) is balanced by automatic gain control on the telephone bridge (s). It is also an aspect of the present invention that any member of the audience can "request the microphone" from the leader, to speak to the audience of the presentation. In accordance with the above, the leader has the ability to allow a member of the audience to speak to the entire audience. The leader can also, of course, choose to stop that audience participation at any time. In this way, the leader of the presentation can enable and disable the involvement of the audience member during the presentation.

It is also an aspect of the present invention that whenever the audience members answer a question on the screen, the results are immediately gathered and graphed. The leader may choose to visually display the graphical results to all members of the audience.

You can create a profile database of the audience with the data obtained from each member of the audience. Note that the profile database of the audience is kept beyond any presentation if that is desired. It is still another aspect of the present invention that, in parallel with all other types of interactions between the members of the presentation, text messaging is done between the leader and any or all members of the audience, through a window of Messenger service. In addition, members of the audience can send private messages to the leader, as well as to each other. These messages can be read during the presentation without interrupting the flow of the presentation. In another embodiment of the present invention, note that portions of both video and audio for a presentation can be provided via the Internet. On the other hand, during a presentation the present modality and the Telephony / Internet modality described above can be interspersed, in such a way that some clients can receive the whole presentation through the Internet (more generally, through a communications network). that has physical transport and protocol (s) to support multimedia presentations), while others may receive the audio portion of the presentation by means of conventional voice communication telephony transmissions, through a combined handset. In this way, members of the audience can simultaneously receive a coordinated sequence of multimedia data, controlled by the leader, to be displayed visually, for example, through an Internet browser such as Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer. On the other hand, the present invention supports standard media types, for example, GIF animation, as well as plug-in components such as Java and Shockwave to present the data (audio, graphic images, animation and video) in real time in a member browser of the audience. In addition, many variations of the content of the presentation can be sent based on, for example, the available bandwidth in progress and the server (s) of the affiliated network (s) of the client. In accordance with the foregoing, the following advantages are provided by the present invention. (3.1) Assigned Bandwidth for Availability of Server Data: The present invention allows the leader to selectively organize the number of audience members who "draw data from a server of the particular communications network." By limiting the number of audience members on that server to no more than 75, and controlling the presentation services that are provided to audience members, the availability of presentation-related data is improved for audience members. (3.2) Improved Reliability Through Distributed Components: The The present invention supports the content of the presentation that is being distributed to any number of servers in the communications network (web) for improved reliability.Thus, if one of these servers in the network becomes inaccessible during a presentation, the. present invention uses a concept of "virtual servers" (ie, a collection of a number of servers in the network of communications, from which data of the presentation can be selectively transmitted) to determine a server of the alternative communications network. In accordance with the above, this allows the clients (members of the audience) that use the server of the affected communications network to be switched to another server in the network in the collection of virtual servers during the presentation. (3.3) Level the "Bursts" of the Data Through the Distribution of Your Shipment: Although each segment of a presentation is treated as a single multi (media) element, the present invention is capable of sending an entire collection of presentation segments to a client node, while the presentation is being made. This enables a smoother data flow during presentation, although segments can be transferred to client nodes in bursts. (3.4) Monitor Transmission Bandwidth and Alternative Data: Even with the availability of improved presentation data and distributed network (for example, web) network servers, there is still the possibility of data delays from a server from the slow network of a saturated network (for example, Internet) service provider. In accordance with the foregoing, the present invention monitors: (a) the characteristics of the network transmissions of the presentation materials to the client nodes, eg, the bandwidth of the transmission network (e.g. speed of data transmission), and (b) the amount of data stored in the cache on each client node. In this way, when the data required for a segment is not stored in the cache on time, before its intended operation in a client node, data of the alternative segment of the communication network is immediately requested by means of the client's node. In particular, the client node can request the segment data from a server of the alternative communications network, through the selection of addresses (URL) of the network of the alternative communication network server. (3.5) Allow Participants of the Presentation to Reconnect and Synchronize with a Presentation in Progress: If the participant of a presentation is disconnected from the network (for example, Internet) of communications during a presentation, there is an option of simple reconnection to put the participant back in the presentation, synchronized with the rest of the participants. Note that since the audio portion can be provided by means of a separate (telephony) communication network, it is likely that the disconnected participant will be able to maintain the continuity of the presentation. (3.6) Use Controlled Customer Requests: For a given presentation, the present invention directs each client node to request the content of the presentation from a given set of communication network servers, instead of having those servers pushing the content of the presentation to the client's node. Among other advantages, this allows the dynamic control of the rhythm of the presentation, by means of a leader of the presentation, while each client node selects specific visual display materials to achieve that rhythm. On the other hand, this strategy of requesting the content of the presentation is typically not blocked by network fire barriers such as those that are common when communicating with secure corporate intranets. (3.7) Allows a Presentation in Many Languages to Be Simultaneously Provided: The distributed network processing architecture of the present invention makes it possible to concurrently present a presentation with content, provided in the native languages specific to audience members. For example, for the same performance of the presentation, different members of the audience may have the audio portion of the presentation presented in different languages, for example, English and Japanese. On the other hand, the video content can be specified (for example, in HTLM pages), in such a way that the written text provided in the presentation can be displayed visually in different mother tongues, depending on the preference of the audience member. (3.8) Cooperates with Fire Barriers: The present invention allows the confidential data of the presentation to be maintained within a corporate intranet behind a fire barrier (ie, a security feature of the network that restricts communications with devices that are not included in the intranet, and in partic, that restricts access to data stored inside the intranet). In this way, the present invention allows an exhibition or presentation to be externally controlled from the fire barrier, while at least the confidential data remains within the fire barrier, and is presented only to those within the fire barrier, under the direction of a leader who is potentially outside the fire barrier. In addition, because the present invention employs a "customer request" technology, where each browser of the presentation member requests information from a communication network server, typically most fire barriers do not block transmissions of data in response to those requests. Other features and benefits of the invention will be apparent from the detailed description and accompanying figures herein.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS Figures 1A and IB are a block diagram showing the functional components of the present invention such as the Internet. Figures 2A-2D present a flow diagram of the steps that are performed (by the modality of Figures 1A and 2B) to present a multimedia presentation to a plurality of clients, each in a different client node. Figure 3 is an illustration of a presentation manuscript for the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED MODALITY Figure 1 provides a block diagram illustrating the components of the presentation system 50 of the present invention, wherein the solid line arrows denote the flows of the presentation data and the arrows in lines Stripes denote the control data flows. I feel that. the presentation system 50 uses the following high level components: (4.1) Client Sites 54: Client sites 54, where the audience members receive a presentation. Typically, at least some of the client sites 54 are geographically dispersed enough, so that a face-to-face presentation is not possible. Additionally, note that each client site 54 has at least one of a client node 56 (eg, a personal computer), and a telephone 62, where the client node 56 can receive video information (and possibly also from audio) from a communication network 70 such as the Internet, and telephone 62 can be used to receive an audio portion of the presentation, routed separately through one or more voice-grade telephony networks (collectively labeled 74). ). In accordance with the above, if the client node 56 is resident in a client site 54, then a network interface software package is required to receive, for example, video presentation information from the communications network 70. (for example, that includes the Internet). For many networks (such as those that include the Internet), this software package includes a browser 78 of the network, such as the network browsers offered by Microsoft and Netscape, together with a system 88 of customer presentation software that it coordinates with the browser 78 to request, receive and visually display the presentation segments (from the network 70) as appropriate during the presentation. (4.2) Leader Stations 92: One or more stations 92 from the leader of the presentation that provide the leader (s) of the presentation with the ability to control the content of the presentation, the rhythm of the presentation, and any communication interactive with, and among the audience members of the presentation. Note that each station 92 of the leader includes the client presentation software 88 and a browser 78 of the network, such that each leader can also view the presentation as the audience members observe it. Additionally, the leader station (s) 92 also have 94 application software for the leader's specific presentation, to allow a leader to control and direct a presentation. Note that each station 92 of the leader is connected to components of the operations center 58 either through the communication network 70, or directly using a switched telephone connection of 28.8 kilobits per second or 128 kilobits of ISDN. The operations center 58 amplifies the control range of the leader of the presentation using standard Internet protocols (eg, TCP / IP, FTP, etc.) to simultaneously transmit commands to a large group of clients. There may be one or more stations 92 of the leader per performance of the presentation. Leader tasks can • be divided among a plurality of leader stations 92 to create, for example, leader moderator, presenter, and display control stations. These leader stations 92 may be colocalized or geographically dispersed. (4.3) Operations Center 58: A 58 operations center to coordinate, at least at a high level, the beginning of the presentation and the communication of the presentation under the direction of a leader of the presentation in a station 92 of the leader. (4.4) Content Web Servers 96: One or more server sites 96 of the content network (also called content web servers 96a, and alternate web content servers 96b) to provide presentation data to client sites 54 request that data through the client nodes 56. Note that for the illustrated client sites 54, the 96a web content servers represent the first choice presentation information providers. However, if difficulties (or expected difficulties) are encountered in one of the client sites 54 with respect to receiving segments of the presentation, before its time for visual display, then the software 88 for presenting the client to the site of the The client is able to request, by means of the browser 78 on the client's site, segments of the presentation from a web server 96b of alternative content, before, or during the presentation. (4.5) Telephone Bridge 100: One or more telephone bridges 100 are provided to support voice communication during a presentation. The telephone bridges 100 route the audio portion of a presentation to certain client sites 54, thereby providing communications between the leader (s) and audience members, and also provide communication among the members of the audience. hearing themselves. Each telephone bridge 100 receives its commands via a direct dial telephone connection from a telephone bridge control 240 (described later herein). The present invention can use a variety of telephone bridges 100 to send audio and gather responses (for example, vote by the audience members on the matters presented in the presentation). Note that each telephone bridge 100 is enabled either directly through an application program interface (API), or by simulating a remote operator for the telephone bridge. Some embodiments of the present invention utilize the following features provided by telephone bridges: an interactive mode, an audio-only mode, a return call mode, and a subconference mode (virtual conference table), wherein these terms may be define respectively as: the leader and members of the audience are able to speak simultaneously to all participants of the presentation (interactive mode), the leader speaks to all members of the audience, while all the telephones of the members of the If the hearing has silent microphones (audio only mode), the telephone bridge calls the members of the audience (using a telephone number provided by means of the presentation record and / or a connection to the client's presentation software 88 in the client client node) to connect for the audio portion of the presentation (through, for example, the telephone network 'public switched' mode (return call mode), subgroups of the audience and / or leaders are in interactive mode with one another, while in audio mode for the realization of the presentation (virtual conference table ). In cases where the presentation audience is mixed, with some members participating via teleconference or video conference, and others are watching the presentation, the vote for those who do not have an interactive network connection can be obtained with the impulse responses from the telephone 62 to one of the telephone bridges 100. In particular, these votes may be transferred to the operations center 58, and (as with any responses from the audience members) optionally transferred to the profile data base 120 described hereinafter. Note that at the discretion of the leader, a telephone bridge 100 can be used to implement a help desk, where audience members requesting help before or during a presentation can connect with a help desk operator for technical support or customers. The leader can also use the telephone bridges 100 to implement sub-conferencing chat groups for localized question and answer sessions after a representation of the presentation. (4.6) Content Manager 104: A content manager system 104 to manage the manuscripts and presentation data. The content manager 104 registers and confirms the locations and addresses of the content web servers 96, where the content will reside for each presentation. The content manager 104 distributes the presentation data, such as the manuscript information for a presentation, providing by the same: »(a) initial groupings of audience members in accordance with, for example, preferred mother tongue, affiliation of organization, geographic location, and / or network connections and devices involved (eg, fire barriers and other security features, local area network connections), and / or (b) sequencing the segments of the network. presentation to the operations center 58 (and more particularly, the host (s) 200 described later herein). Additionally, the content manager 104 distributes the content of the presentation (eg, the presentation segments) to the web content servers 96, and verifies that the content is capable of being presented to the members of the audience immediately before the content. the time of a presentation. Note that the verification process makes sure that all the links in the presentation or exhibition can be properly determined. Finally, at the end of one embodiment of the presentation, the content manager 104 can remove the content of the presentation from one or more of the content web servers 96. Also note that the content manager 104 includes a reservation system 108 to maintain a plan for submitting and reserving resources from the operations center 58, and any support from the presentation leader such as leader stations 92. The content manager 104 also includes an invitation subsystem 112 that is capable of maintaining lists of invitations of candidate audience members-along with the corresponding addresses (e.g., e-mail addresses) for different representations of the -presentation. Additionally, the invitation subsystem 112 is able to access the customer's profile information for past audience members residing in database 120 of profile data. In accordance with the foregoing, by comparing the profile information of the client in database 120 of profile data with the information in different lists of invitations and / or descriptions of the presentation (e.g., keywords, etc.), You can notify prospective audience members for a particular presentation of similar future presentations by, for example, email.

Additionally, the content manager 104 is also responsible for accessing and maintaining a database 126 of file data of the content of the exhibit. In this way, after a representation of the live presentation, using the present invention, the content manager 104 is able to download the content of the presentation from the different web servers 96 of content, as well as information of the presentation held in the the operations center 58, within the database 126 of file data of the content of the display for storage and / or possible repetition. Note that the audio portion of a presentation is stored as a single continuous recording made by one of the telephone bridges 100 during the presentation. Also note that the presentations stored in the database 126 of file data of the display contents are capable of being transmitted to different sites of the network 70 for sending with time delay in a subsequent manner if desired. (4.7) Software Download System 130 v Client Support: The present invention includes a system 130 for downloading software and supporting the client to provide software that enables presentation (e.g., the client presentation software 88) to both the customer sites 54 and the leader stations 92. Additionally, the software and client support download system 130 provides presentation software to leader stations 92, which allows leaders to control and direct their representations of the presentation. Finally, the system 130 provides support to the customer by means of, for example, the telephone network 74. (4.8) Prior Display Control System 136: A prior display control system 136 to provide audience members and potential audience members with information related to the presentation, both to register for the presentation representations, and to establish initial connections with the network (70 and / or 74), immediately before a performance of the presentation, so that the content of the presentation can be provided to each client site 54 of the audience member. In this way, the prior display control 136 provides audience members and prospective audience members with booking information of the presentation, such as presentation themes, presentation completion dates, hours, identification of the leaders and / or participant lists. In addition, the preview control 136 also provides the content of the presentation and information of the manuscript to the operations center 58, within the subscreen 136 of the pre-display control, there is a registration module 140, and an interface (not shown). associated network, where the members of the audience confirm their registration for an embodiment of the presentation, by means of, for example, the network 70. Note that the confirmation of the registration of the completion of the presentation includes, if necessary, a download of the specific presentation software that provides the client with an icon in the customer's client node 56 as a reminder of the scheduled date and time of the presentation, for which the customer has registered. In addition, if the presentation for which the client has registered requires one or more audio software systems or video software, then the software of the downloaded application checks to see if there are these systems in the customer's client node 56. , and subsequently notifies the client if one or more of the required software systems must be downloaded, before the presentation is made. Also note that the application application software downloaded to a client node 56 from the registration module 140 can be used to: configure the client node 56 appropriately for the subsequent presentation, run tests on the node of the client to ensure that the embodiment will be presented properly, allow the client node to preload certain portions of the content of a presentation, and / or allow the client access to the lobby system 144 (described later herein) to establish the ( s) initial connection (s) to the network (70 and / or 74), immediately prior to a performance of the presentation. Note that the software application downloaded from the registration module 140, in a modality, also allows a client to preview the highlighted web pages of the next presentation. On the other hand, this software may allow the client to reconfigure and retest his client node 56, to determine whether a desired configuration has been provided for a presentation realization. With respect to the lobby system 144, also contained in the preview control 136, the vestibule system provides the initial connection point (s) for audience members, immediately prior to a performance of the presentation for the which members of the audience have registered. In accordance with the above, once the connections with the network 70 and / or 74 have been established, the connections of the lobby system 144 to the operations centers 58 are transferred at the beginning of the presentation realization. (4.9) Accounting System 150: In one embodiment, an accounting system 150 for the present invention is provided to manage its financial operations. In particular, the accounting system 150 includes a billing system 154 for maintaining an account diagram both for billing clients (and / or their affiliated organizations) who have received a presentation, and for billing presentation leaders (and / or its affiliated organizations), which request the services of the present invention to distribute the embodiments of their presentations. Additionally, the accounting system 150 also includes a report subsystem 158 that outputs the reports related to the presentation embodiments, to the clients and to the leaders of the presentation. Referring now to operations center 58, a high-level internal structure of this component will now be described. This component includes one or more modules 200 hosts to coordinate: (a) the dissemination and timing of the content of the presentation, under the direction of the leader (s) of a presentation, (b) the interactions between the (s) leader (s) and audience members, as well as among members of the audience themselves, (c) gathering feedback information from audience members in accordance with, for example, answers to questions posed to members of the audience during a performance of the presentation; and (d) provide the results of the audience participation responses to the leader (s) and / or members of the audience. In accordance with the above, note that in one embodiment of the present invention, the computer in which a host 200 is resident has the following characteristics: 64 megabytes of RAM, 166 MHz Pentium processor, NT operating system, network card Ethernet, in a configurable CUBIX backplane, available through CUBIX, Inc., 2800 Lockheed Way, Carson City, Nevada. Each of the hosts 200 is capable of managing one hundred or more interactions with the clients and / or the subordinate hosts 210, where the subordinate hosts are distributed in the network 70 to thereby increase a control space of the host of the host. operations center in 100 or more clients and / or additional subordinate hosts per subordinate host, to create an unlimited audience. Note that each host 200 receives the manuscript information from the content administrator 104 presentation, in preparation for initiating a presentation. In addition, each host 200 receives from the lobby system 144 the identifications of the members of the audience for each performance of the presentation, controlled by the host, immediately before the presentation is made. Note that each of the identifications of the audience members typically includes: (a) a unique six-digit customer identifier, which is encoded within the client's presentation software 88 for each client of the embodiment of the presentation, and (b) a three-digit group identifier to assign one or more web servers 96, to provide the content of the presentation. Note that the software 130 and customer support system 130 encodes these two identifiers within the client presentation software 88, before distribution to the client nodes 56. The host 200 also receives the identifications of the web content servers 96, and the identifications of the manuscripts of the presentation from a display planner 204. This scheduler 204 provides the functionality of the present invention to plan the hours and resources of the presentation embodiment that are needed to make each presentation. In this way, the display scheduler 204 provides control 136 of the previous display, with planned times and dates of the display, and, as mentioned above, provides a host 200 responsible for a presentation with the identifications of the 96 web content servers and the identifications of the manuscripts of the presentation, immediately before the presentation of the corresponding presentation. Note that in the embodiment of Figure 1, the display scheduler 204 can be used to reserve resources on different servers 96 of content websites, as well as telephone bridges 100, in addition to other resources of the operations center 58. Note also that the display scheduler 204 provides display programming data to a security system 208, the latter system described later herein. However, in other embodiments of the display scheduler 204, the resources for a presentation can be allocated in accordance with the number of geographic locations of the customers who wish to participate in a particular presentation. For each embodiment of the presentation, the host 200 of the presentation controller also receives, from a file or base 212 of specific resource data to the presentation realization: (a) the web addresses of the web server 96 of the content ( for example, for the Internet, these addresses being the URLs) that identify the sites of the network 70 that have data of the content of the presentation; (b) the lists of the members of the audience of the clients who have registered to make the presentation and who, therefore, can become members of the audience, if they so decide; (C) clusters of registered customers; and (d) the names and locations of the manuscripts from which to retrieve the manuscript of the presentation from the administrator 104 of content. In accordance with the above, note that the records of the corresponding resource file 212 associate the identifiers of the presentation with the URLs of the web server 96 and the names of the paths in these web servers where the data of the content of the web reside. presentation. In this way, since the manuscripts of the presentation received by the hosts 200 from the content manager 104 are generic in the sense that the manuscripts have variables or portal sites for the identities of the web server 96, each host 200 uses the information of the corresponding resource file 212 (retrieved in accordance with the identification of the presentation) to determine the undefined variables of the web server of the generic manuscript contents, and by means of the same, to concretely exemplify the manuscripts of the presentation and the data of the presentation with specific references of the web server 96 of content. Note that the resource file 212 can be created from the information in a database (not shown) of populated planning with, for example, groupings of 96 web content servers (each grouping to supply the content of the presentation to a particular group of audience members), and group identifications of the members of the audience. Both the grouping of the web servers and the groupings of the members of the audience are indicated by the three-digit group identifier, also encoded in each copy of the client presentation software 88 distributed by the software and support download system 130 to the customer, as is. described earlier.

Each host 200 also sends commands to an audio system 220 to control the content of the audio presentation that has been previously recorded for the performance of the presentation with which the audio content is associated. In particular, a host 200 that controls a particular presentation sends audio presentation coordination commands that direct and control the audio system 220. The audio client 224 provides the following functionality, in response to the host commands. The audio client 224 may (a) use a plurality of specialized audio players 236, depending on the audio compression of the audio portion of a presentation to be provided to the client sites 54, by means of the bridge 100. of telephone, and / or through the network 70 in an alternative mode, (b) establishing a connection with the audio server 228 at a specified location in the network 70 (note that in one embodiment the audio server may be accessible as a steerable node in the network 70), and (c) start, pause, resume, position within, and stop an audio playback with an identified file or audio stream. Note that when performing the functionality described above, the audio client 224 can receive the following types of commands from a host 200: an address (URL) of the network node 70 that contains the location and name of a file or stream of audio, and the current state, where the possible states are: play in a particular position, paused, or stopped. The audio client 224 controls at least two other modules of the audio system 220, in particular, the audio server 228 and the audio player 236. For a presentation to be made, the audio server 228 is previously loaded with the data of the audio presentation, through the content administrator 104, before the presentation is made. The audio server 228, in turn, supplies the audio portion of the selected display segments to the audio player 236, as directed by the audio client 224. in accordance with the above, the audio player 236 prepares the audio information to output one or more of the telephone bridges 100. More particularly, the audio player 236 performs the following functions: (a) receives audio IP from the audio server 228, (b) places the IP packets received from the audio server in buffer zone, (c) decodes compressed audio data from the IP audio package; (d) controls an audio device (computer card) to create analog signals, line level, or direct, audio output from the public switched telephone network (PSTN). In this way, on the request of the audio client 224, the audio player 236 outputs the audio segment information to a telephone bridge (s) 100 designated by the audio client 224, for subsequent transmission to the sites 54 of identified clients, providing by means of the same the presentation of audio to the clients in real time during a realization of the presentation. In this way, the hosts 200 and the audio system 220 are coordinated, such that the audio portions of each previously recorded presentation are sent to the telephone bridge (s) 100, and distributed to the sites 54 of client in a coordinated manner with the video segments and / or graphs of the corresponding presentation. It is important to note that many variations of the content of the presentation can be provided to the clients, based on the available bandwidth in the network 70, as well as attached networks of different classes that are coordinated with the network 70, to transmit information of the presentation to client sites 54; for example, these attached networks can be local area networks, virtual private networks, and corporate intranets. further, note that the audio client 224 can direct the audio server 228 and the audio player 234 to supply the corresponding audio versions previously recorded from the presentation segments in different languages. In accordance with the foregoing, the audio player may simultaneously output one or more of the telephone bridges 100, to a plurality of different audio versions of materials previously recorded for a presentation, which are in different languages. Each host 200 also directs the operation of the one or more telephone bridges 100, by means of a telephone bridge control module 240. The telephone bridge control module 240 provides an interface control system between the host 200 and the telephone bridges 100, so that details of the commands and details should not be inserted into the host system software 200. of 100 bridges of telephone control 100 bridge of particular telephone. In accordance with the above, under the direction of the commands from the host 200, the telephone bridge control module 240 is capable of directing one or more telephone bridges 100, to provide the following types of audio transmissions during a presentation : (5.1) Direct telephone bridge (s) 100 to route different portions of the audio presentation to individual client site 62 phones, as well as to leader stations 92; (5.2) Establish appropriate telephone connections, in such a way that a member of the audience can address all the participants of the presentation; (5.3) Establish one or more audio subgroups based on the collection of audience members of a presentation. In particular, for some types of presentations where the conference between the subgroups is considered convenient, these subgroups can be considered as a vehicle to provide subconference capabilities; (5.4) Assuming that the sub-groups of the audience members are able to be provided by means of the telephone bridge (s) 100, the telephone bridge control 240 is capable, if indicated, of configure the telephone bridge (s) to allow a sub-group to address all members of the audience, and subsequently return to the private conference among the members of the sub-audience; (5.5) Indicate the telephone bridge (s) 100 that supervises (s) the telephone lines of the members of the audience to introduce answers regarding questions posed to the members of the audience, and whose answers are provided by means of pressing the digits on the telephones 62 at the client sites 54; (5.6) Enable full interactive audio to all members of the audience, where each member of the audience is able to talk to other participants about the presentation. (5.7) Place a single member of the audience or the entire audience in audio mode (listen only), without deactivating the audio presentation of the 220d audio system. Each host 200 is also in communication with the security subsystem 208 referred to hereinbefore. Note that all external communications from third parties to a host 200 are routed through security subsystem 208. This subsystem provides different kinds of communication security measures, such as: (6.1) A filtering router (not shown) of data packets for filtering network communications 70 from unknown sources of the network 70; (6.2) A communications protocol and port specific firewall (not shown) to reject certain communications directed to specific ports, unless communications are provided in a particular protocol such as HTTP, HTTPS, or FTP; (6.3) A tunnel (not shown) for encryption to code the communications to be transmitted in the network 70 (by means of the internal web servers that have interface with the network 70), and to decipher the communications received from the network 70 (by means of the internal network servers); (6.4) A validation subsystem (not shown) to validate the participants requesting access to the resources of the operations center 58. Validations performed here include validation of presentation completion identifiers that provide the addresses of the network 70 of the customer site 54, keywords provided by the customers, and inserted identifiers of the client's presentation software 88; and (6.5) Virus detection software. Note that the security subsystem 208 resides in a computing device separate from that of the host 200. Also, note that the security subsystem 208 can transfer the communications received from the network 70 within a proprietary protocol, before sending those communications to other components of the operations center 58. On the other hand, for communications of the network 70 that are intended for processes different from the operations center and / or related to different embodiments of the presentation, different levels of security can be implemented. In this way, the communications of the network 70 for one embodiment of the presentation may include only minimal protection, such as virus protection and protocol translation, before transmitting communications to, for example, the host (s) 200, or to the internal server (s) 248. Alternatively, at an opposite extreme, where high security is desired for a presentation, all features (6.1) to (6.5) can be performed for the communications received from the network 70, and at least the encryption is performed for the communications transmitted through the network 70 to, for example, the client sites 54. The present invention also provides and / or facilitates other security features. For example, for corporations that want to ensure the security of their data during network presentations, the distributed server architecture of the present invention allows web content servers 96 to be placed inside a secure corporate intranet 260. More particularly , those web content servers 96 may be behind a fire barrier 264, such that the fire barrier is between those content web servers and the host (s) 200 that controls the presentation. In this way, proprietary corporate data can reside behind the fire barrier 264 while control of the presentation can be performed externally. Additionally, the security of data access may vary in accordance with the needs of the participants of the presentation and / or its affiliated organizations. Thus, at one extreme, there is substantially no data security for the presentation data. In accordance with the foregoing, the data may be available to anyone who knows an address of the web 70 of the content web server. This level of security is similar to the publication of the data by creating World Wide Web (WWW) pages on the websites and, in fact, presentations made using the present invention can use World websites. Current Web, as a source for the presentation data. A simple physical security capability can be used by means of the present invention, to protect the presentation data by controlling the time lapse for which the data is accessible to the clients. This involves keeping the data inaccessible when a presentation is not being made. For example, the presentation data can be maintained on provados content web servers, or in private directories until close to the time of the exhibition, making that data available at the time of the exhibition, and removing the data after that. the presentation is finished. Different aspects of this time-based data management capability are addressed through the display plan 204 for the operations center 58 and the content manager 104. In particular, the display scheduler 204 may keep the presentation data residing inside the operations center 58, inaccessible to other components of the operations center, as well as the preview control 136. Additionally, content manager 104 may prohibit access to presentation data on content web servers 96, by providing data on web servers substantially only during presentation, and / or by changing accessibility permissions on the presentation data provided previously in the web servers, such that they are substantially available only during one embodiment of the presentation. For an intermediate level of physical security, the presentation data can be located on the web servers 96 of the operations center (either internal to the operations center or external to it) that require keywords, which do not allow overwriting of the data, and that they do not use for insecure data. For high security, intermediate security measures can be improved by recording the identity of each client and / or the address of the network 70 as they connect to a host 200. In addition, high security measures can allow only connections of the network 70 from pre-approved network addresses, using a specified protocol and the port number for the duration of a particular presentation for which the client is registered. In addition, for any physical security methods as described above, the presentation data can be keyed in before the network transfers, from. a way they can decipher - the client's browsers 78 (with plugs). Assuming that network 70 is the Internet, servers 248 of the operations center support the common access gateway interface (CGI) and the Internet Information Server (IIS) extensions to process the URLs, and a presentation can implement standard web data security through the use of Internet protocols, such as the file transfer protocol ( FTP) with the user identification plus the keyword, and the secure hypertext transport (HTTP) protocol. Also note that the security measures for the present invention are not restricted to providing communications on the numbers of commonly used ports (for example, communication between the host and the leaders or audience members can occur at any port 60 or port 80, in any combination for a single embodiment of the presentation). Note that special security presentation embodiments can be executed, using any desired number of ports, when the servers 248 are used in the operations center, or in intranets (for example, secure corporate intranet 260). For dynamic data generated during a presentation (for example, data gathered from the responses of audience members), the HTTP protocol is useful, even in an otherwise insecure presentation, to convey questions, gather answers, and return results to through a secure plug protocol. In particular, the HTTP protocol provides a method of encryption generally accepted as sufficiently secure for the transmission of sensitive financial data through public networks. In accordance with the above, this provides security for the gathered customer information, because the response data is transferred to the host 200 in a coded format. In addition, the host 200 for controlling the presentation performance protects the received data by not sharing it, and the host does not support the data access protocols of the standard network (Internet). Additionally, note that the host 200 that controls the presentation is secured separately from the security of the presentation data. In particular, each host 200 is executed on a server inside the operations center 58, where the host will only accept a network connection 70 from a client node 56 having the appropriate version and / or identification for a presentation that is controlling the host. On the other hand, the client and / or the presentation software 88 of the client must be able to access the host 200 through this address of the network 70, and present the correct identification of the presentation at the time of the presentation. . Since the display scheduler 204 selects host 200 from a plurality of those hosts, and also selects the time window for each embodiment of the presentation, many other security measures can be implemented for an embodiment of the presentation, including: restricted access to the software 88 for the presentation of the client, uniqueness of each identification of the realization of the presentation, coding of the address of the network 70 (Internet) of the host for the presentation and planning of the date and time of the presentation. Note that the display registration system 140 facilitates these security measures in the display scheduler 204, by providing the addresses (URLs) of the coded presentation invitation network to the clients and / or their nodes 56 of client. In addition, the addresses of the clients for a particular presentation can be sent to each of the content servers 96 that have data for the presentation. In this way, when that content server 96 receives a request for presentation data from a client node 56, the customer's address, the identification of the presentation, and the scheduled time of completion of the presentation can be validated. presentation, in each 96 web server of accessed content. The degree of security placed in the distribution of invitations to the completion of the presentation, and the verification of the participants of the presentation invited by each server 96 web content, is selected by a sponsor of the presentation. Note that the invitation system 112 does not have a direct data connection to the display scheduler 204. In this way, the accidental release of sufficient information from the presentation is unlikely to allow unauthorized access to the presentation. Additionally, to allow double-path information security (for example, to and from the operations center 58), the presentation software 88 may also require a keyword for activation, where the keyword is unique to the client and / or unique to a particular configuration of client client node 56, and where the keyword can be entered manually immediately before a presentation connection to a host 200. Note that for presentations using secured data within a corporate intranet 260 secure, the client's host connections can transmit 70-key network addresses. Since each host 200 does not have access to presentation resources (for example, guest client lists, web server 96 web addresses, condensed images of the presentation, signed keywords, type of telephone bridge 100 and manuscripts of the presentation) until the display scheduler 204 sends them to the host 200 with the start-up commands of the presentation, or a leader for the presentation adds resources to an active presentation realization, the presentation data sensitive and unlikely is unlikely / or owners can be accessed through a host 200. On the other hand, a sponsor can create and make a presentation without the content of the presentation data that always reside in the operations center 58. In addition, in cases where the interactive response data that is received during a performance of the presentation is considered extremely sensitive, the sponsor may process the client's responses at the sponsor's controlled network sites, and subsequently, if desired, send the statistical summaries to host 200 that controls the presentation for any desired distribution to audience members. Regarding security and presentation leaders, the leader (s) of a presentation can be verified by the use of one or more keywords in addition to the address of host 200, port number, identification of the presentation, and time of the realization of the presentation for its realization of the presentation. Note that those leader keywords may be unique to each embodiment of the presentation, and may be provided to the host 200 who controls the presentation by means of the exhibition planner 204, immediately prior to the start of a presentation performance for, through the same, validate the leader (s) of the presentation. Additional information from the leader can also be provided to enable multiple leaders for a single embodiment of the presentation, and also to allow different presentation control functions to be distributed among the leaders, in accordance with their presentation key words. The leader software 94 can be distributed to the leaders of the presentation and / or the leader stations 44, by means of a diskette or by means of a download of the network 70. This software can be generated with inter-built addresses and numbers of presentation identification, as well as particular ports to connect to the host 200 that controls the presentation. Note that since presentation leaders have access to different usage capabilities, supply and change of resources, additional security measures can be applied to the leaders and the leader's software 94. In particular, for leaders connecting through the 70 (Internet) network, a tunnel (not shown) can be set up in the leader's host connection, where that encryption tunnel provides the encapsulation of a proprietary high security protocol within the IP protocol. In addition, to provide secure, high-reliability connections directly to a leader, the operations center 58 maintains many tuned lines that can be used at 28.8 kilobits per second or ISDN speeds (eg, up to 128 kilobits per second). Note that the connections on those tuned lines can also be used by members of the presentation audience at the discretion of the leader, if their client identifiers are available to the operations center 58 from the content manager 104, after they are accept the leader's connection. If the present invention uses the security features described above, then it is capable of sending an embodiment of the presentation with any mixture of security levels between the two extremes of: (a) no security processing of the responses of the member of the hearing, content of the exhibition data, or locations of transmitted presentation data, and (b) total security processing with only invited audience members, assuring all responses from audience members, storing and protecting the content of the presentation data, and ensuring the connection between each leader or member of the audience and the host 200 that controls the presentation. In addition, the security of operations center 58 can be audited using hacking prevention tests and virus detection and prevention methods, as will be understood by one skilled in the art.

Figures 2A to 2D represent a flowchart of the high-level steps performed by the presentation system 50 in the network of the present invention. In particular, this flowchart illustrates the high-level steps that are taken to both initiate and operate a presentation for the members of the audience on the client sites 54. In accordance with the foregoing, in step 404, before the scheduled time of one embodiment of the presentation, the display scheduler 204 supplies the host 200 assigned to control the display • an identifier that uniquely identifies the performance of the display. presentation, and provides with this identifier one or more key pal-abrasives that can be used by the host 200 and / or the security subsystem 208, to identify the leader (s) and clients that attempt to connect with the host 200 as participants of the presentation. Note that those connections to the host 200 will typically be through the security subsystem 208 and, therefore, will be subject to different security measures described hereinabove, to which the presentation and its participants are subjected. Subsequently, in step 408, the host 200 uses the presentation realization identifier to request the one or more manuscripts for the presentation of the content manager 104. Note that the manuscripts of the presentation provide: (a) the identification of segments that will be presented during the presentation, (b) the sequence information regarding the order of the presentation of the segments, (c) the alternative versions of different segments and / or collections of segments that could be through the leader (s) of the presentation. Note that a further description of the manuscripts of the presentation and its representations is provided hereinafter. Also note that the content administrator 104 uses the presentation completion identifier to retrieve the manuscript (s) of the presentation from the content file 126 of the display to thereby return the manuscript (s) (s) of the presentation to the host 200. In step 412, each leader for the presentation is registered in the host 200 by means of supplying the appropriate validation information, such as a keyword and the identifier of the embodiment of the presentation . Also, if there is more than one leader, then additional leader identification information may be required to differentiate the roles of the different leaders in the presentation. In step 416, the pre-show control system 136 accepts the connections of the network 70 and / or the network 74 by the candidate clients for the realization of the presentation. Note that it is assumed that the clients have previously registered for the presentation with the registration module 140, and therefore they have been provided with validation information (for example, an identifier of the presentation presentation and / or keyword) to validate each client as a member of the audience for the presentation. Subsequently, in step 420, the pre-show control system 136 makes a determination as to whether each member of the audience of the candidate presentation is connected to the pre-show control system via the communication network 70, or by the 74 telephone network. If it is determined that the client of the candidate presentation is connected via the communication network 70, then step 424 is performed, wherein the candidate client registers in the preview control 136 with a previously provided identification entry. Note that this identification entry can include an identifier of the presentation performance for the presentation, and a keyword to identify the candidate client as being registered for the realization of the presentation. Also note that in one modality, this step is carried out by the lobby system 144. Subsequently, in step 428, the pre-display control system 136 (or the lobby system 144) makes a determination as to whether the entered identification entry is valid. If it is determined that the identification entry is invalid, then step 432 is performed, where the connection to the prior display control system 136 is terminated. Note, however, that it is within the scope of the present invention that different retries may be provided, as will be understood by one skilled in the art. Alternatively, if it is determined that the identification entry of the candidate client is valid, then step 436 is performed, wherein the preview control determines whether the customer's client node 56 is properly configured to perform the presentation. In particular, the preview display control system 136 determines whether the client presentation software 88 is operable in the customer's client node 56. In addition, the pre-show control system 136 can also determine whether the client's client node 56 has the addresses (e.g., URLs) of the appropriate network 70 of the web content servers 96, available to supply segments of the presentation to the client node. Subsequently, assuming that the customer's client node 56 is appropriately configured to perform the presentation, in step 440, the prior display control system 136 transfers the client's customer identifier and the address of the network 70 to the host 200. After this step, in step 444, when the time for presentation arrives, the client presentation software 88 of the client, via the network 70, establishes a connection with the network 70 between the client node 56 of the client and the host 200 that controls the completion of the presentation. Note that activation may be performed during the customer identification entry session with the prior display control system 136, if it occurs within a few minutes after the start of the presentation. After the 200 host is contacted, the host is instructed by the client presentation software 88 to establish a connection to one of the internal 248 web servers for dynamic content. Additionally, note that the lobby system 144 substantially provides the functionality for the present step (step 444). In particular, the lobby system 144 can maintain the connection of the identification entry session until the time for the performance of the presentation to begin. On the other hand, the lobby system 144 can provide the customer with summaries for other presentations, as well as advertisements and / or other informational material. After the activation of a connection between the client node 56 and a host 200 controlling the presentation, in step 448 the client presentation software 88 is indicated by the host 200 (referred to herein) hereinafter for simplicity as the "host 200") that controls the presentation, which retrieves and caches, through the network 70, one or more initial presentation segments from the identified web content servers 96, where The segments of the presentation have been previously stored. Note that the initial presentation segments (as well as the subsequent presentation segments) may be different for clients at different client sites 54. In particular, the segments provided may depend on the transmission speeds of the network 70, the preferences of the customer's native language, the unique visual displays of organization and / or the data (corporate logos and / or confidential financial data), and the configurations of client nodes 56 (e.g., software and / or hardware). Returning now to decision step 420, if this step determines that the client connection is via the telephony network 74, then in step 450, the pre-show control system 136 requests that the customer enter an acoustic identification entry by means of the digits in the telephone 62, in the customer's client site 54. Note that customers who register through the telephony network 74 may pretend to participate only in the audio portion of an embodiment of the presentation. However, the clients that are registered in this manner can subsequently be registered in the preview display control system 136, via a network connection 70, and obtain an embodiment of the multimedia presentation. In step 452, the pre-show control system 136 determines whether the acoustic identification input is valid. If not, then in step 456 the call is terminated. Alternatively, if the identification entry is considered valid, then the prior display control system 136 determines the level of presentation to which the client has been assigned. In particular, the client can be assigned to an audio presentation, or alternatively to an embodiment of the multimedia presentation. In this way, if the client has been assigned to obtain a multimedia presentation via network 70, then in step 464 the pre-show control system 136 immediately performs any pre-display maintenance tasks for, by means of same, allow a faster registration to the network 70 by the client, to obtain the realization of the presentation in mutlimedios. Note that, in particular, during the present step you can also make any financial transactions before the presentation, such as credit card number transfers and / or changing the location of the customer's site 54. On the other hand, it is also an aspect of the present invention that language recognition modules can be used to interpret the client's input. Also, note that the tasks performed in step 464 can also be performed by the registration module 140, during the registration for the presentation, that record potentially occurring substantially before the presentation is made. Additionally, regardless of the flow of the control path taken from step 460, there is step 468, wherein, at the time of commencement of the presentation, the pre-show control system 136 requests that the host 200 transfer the control of the telephony call of the client, in such a way that it is controlled by the control bridge controller 240, to receive the audio portion of the performance of the presentation. Subsequently, regardless of whether the client is to receive the presentation performance via network 70 and / or network 74, step 472 is performed, where host 200: (a) activates software 94 of the leader in the station (s) 92 of the leader that is used to control the performance of the presentation; and (b) activates the client's presentation software 88 at the leader's station (s) 92, to see the performance of the presentation as a member of the audience will see it. Subsequently, steps 474 and 476 are performed concurrently, wherein each client having a client node 56 has its client presentation software 88 in a wait state for a presentation command (s) from host 200, by means of the network 70, while in step 476, the leader (s) for the realization of the presentation determines (n) the first collection of corresponding presentation segments, and transmits (n) the identity of the collection selected to host 200. Note that there may be more than one version of the presentation from which the leader may select segments to present to the members of the audience. Also, note that of the versions that are being selected, the present invention can automatically select the subversions to be provided to different members of the audience, depending on, for example, the data rate transmissions through the network 70 from the web servers 96 content. However, it is also an aspect of the present invention that the leader (s) can override the automatic selection of the subversions of an embodiment of the presentation and / or instruct that a particular subversion be provided to different members of the presentation. the audience. In particular, this can be achieved by: providing only a delivery of the source material such as a high-resolution corporate logo, and leaving all the alternative resource fields of the manuscript blank, and providing only a "level" of resources posts in manuscript for that collection of the presentation, as will be described in more detail later herein with reference to Figure 3. In step 480, if the leader's station 92, which provides the identity of the presentation segments, is external to the operations center 58, then the security subsystem 208 checks the leader's input to see its validity by, for example, determining the address of the network 70 from which the identity of the segments of the network has been transmitted. presentation selected. Assuming that the transmission from leader station 92 is considered valid, at step 490, a determination is made as to whether the leader (s) has determined a next collection of one or more segments, whose identities have been provided to the host 200. In particular, the leader (s) may either select to identify those segments to the host 200, or indicate that the completion of the presentation will end. In accordance with the above, if no other segment is determined and / or the leader (s) indicated the completion of the performance of the presentation, then step 494 is performed, where the presentation software 88 is removed. of client nodes 56. Alternatively, if an additional collection of segments is determined, then in step 500, the host 200 accesses the manuscript (s) of the presentation with the identifications supplied from the leader for the segment collection, obtaining by the same additional data items, with respect to the segments of the collection, as will be further described later herein. Subsequently, in step 504, the host 200 accesses the resources file 212 to determine the names of the virtual web server in the collection of accessed segments, by means of the same providing the addresses of the real web server network 70, which have at least the video versions of the presentation. Additionally, note that it is within the scope of the present invention that the resource file 212 can also be accessed to determine the identifiers and, by the same, identifying a corresponding portion of audio to be presented to the members of the audience, through the audio system 220 and the bridge (s) 100 of the telephone. After step 504, in step 508, the host 200 sends one or more commands to each copy of the client presentation software 88, indicating both the next collection of segments that will retrieve the client nodes, and the addresses of the client. network 70 of the 96 primary and alternative web servers from which to recover the collection of segments. It is important to note that the host can send substantially a different set of commands to different client sites 56, depending on the features that are desired for presentation at each client site. Since the processing, in accordance with the present invention, occurs in a host host controller 200, and simultaneously in the client nodes 56, during the processing steps 476 to 508, performed remotely from the client nodes 56, the nodes of client as for step 474, can be prepared to accept the following presentation commands, transmitted by means of host 200 in step 508. However, those host nodes 56 can also concurrently provide different portions of the embodiment of the presentation to their respective audience members. In any case, when step 516 is found, the client nodes 56 have received the transmitted commands from the next host 200 and, therefore, the client nodes now enter a processing state, by means of which these nodes attempt ensure a point-in-time cache storage of your next collection of segments, for the timely realization of your portion of the presentation. In step 516, the client presentation software 88 makes a determination, at each client node 56 on which the software is loaded, as to whether the next collection of segments indicated by one or more commands transmitted by the host that controls the presentation, they are stored in the cache at that moment in the customer's client node 56. Note that this next collection of segments could have been previously stored in the cache in a client node 56 because: the directory cache instructs that an entire file directory that was previously issued in the cache be stored in the cache embodiment of the presentation, provided by fixed means such as CD-ROM in the client node (s) 56, or by using the presentation segments again such as HTML page formats, background images, or logos. In accordance with the above, if the following segment collection is not stored in the cache in a client node 56, then step 524 is performed, where the client presentation software 88 in the client node 56 uses its more recent network data transmission features 70, together with the transmitted list of the host 200 of the current network addresses 70 for the web content servers 96, to select a web server of appropriate content and an appropriate version of the Next collection of segments that are going to recover. Note that the selections that are determined in this step are made with the goal of ensuring that there is a high probability that this next collection of segments will be sent to the client node 56, before the time when this collection will be used in the realization of the presentation in the client node. In particular, the following is a description of the steps that are performed to determine, from the data transmission characteristics of the network 70, the web server 96 content and the (sub) version of the following collection of segments that they are going to recover. The selection of the web server may depend on the time allocated for the transfer and the transmission characteristics of the network 70, such as the speed of data transmission. The host 200 controls the time for each transfer of the network 70 from a collection of segments (eg, one or more presentation elements, each of those elements having one or more segments therein). Host 200 designates the time in accordance with at least one of the following categories: (a) no time, where the item (s) will be visually displayed immediately; (b) undefined, where the amount of time for the transfer of the item (s) of the presentation is indefinite; and (c) a specific time interval indicated in a manuscript command for the presentation, for example, a "virtual time" command as indicated by the commands (rows) of the manuscript shown in Figure 3, having values in column 620, as will be described later herein. Note that as the expected amount of time is lengthened to retrieve one or more elements of the presentation, longer groups of presentation elements can be recovered and / or elements of the presentation of better presentation quality can be recovered (for example, example, you can improve the quality of the presentation of limited or absent animation to full animation). Additionally, the selected element (s) of the presentation depends on network protocols such as HTTP and FTP. For example, as the size of the presentation data and the time for recovery increase, the present invention tends to use FTP for transporting the network 70. Alternatively, as the size of the presentation data and the time for recovery, the present invention tends to use HTTP. ' In accordance with the foregoing, in a mode of step 524, the size of each candidate collection of one or more elements of the presentation of web servers 96 is determined by, for example, requesting those sizes. On the other hand, note that you can determine an indication of the available bandwidth with each of those web servers if it is not available otherwise. In this way, if there is a primary web server 96a and an alternative web server 96b, and each has versions of the presentation for both HTTP and FTP, as well as both have animated and non-animated interchangeable display elements, then it is determined an expected time to recover each available combination. Subsequently, the selected candidate collection first provides the highest quality presentation, and second, the largest possible amount of presentation data. Accordingly, the expected times are used to select the web servers 96, the collection of presentation elements, and the transfer protocol to be used to provide the selected collection to the client node 56. In a modality, the following selection process is used to determine the expected times: for each candidate collection of elements of the presentation: (a) The size of the collection is determined. (b) The size is divided by the average bandwidth for the last two minutes as measured from any transmission source of the network 70. If the average bandwidth is not available, then a bandwidth is used of the most recent web server. (c) A general protocol load factor is added to the result of (b) to respond for the different general loads for each of the different protocols available in the network 70 that can be used (for example, FTP and HTTP). (d) The highest quality collection of available presentation elements is selected, and the largest collection that can be transferred in the available time is selected. Note that it is assumed that an indefinite time designation by host 200 is seen as sufficient time for any transfer size. It is worth noting that in other embodiments of the present invention, additional network characteristics apart from bandwidth may be used, as will be understood by one skilled in the art. In particular, features such as network error rates 70, fluctuations in bandwidth, or a statistical expectation of bandwidth prediction can be used. Additionally, note that those candidate collections of the elements of the presentation can also be resident in the client node 56, since some portions of a presentation can also be distributed on CD-ROMs. In accordance with the above, step 524 of Figure 2C (as well as other steps in the flowcharts of Figures 2) can also access a CD-ROM disk drive or other transportable storage media for different portions of a presentation . Also, it is worth mentioning that. if the network 70 supports multicasting, then a plurality of client nodes 56 may have its presentation elements selected in accordance with a single access speed (i.e., propagation of data from the server to the network) and a single transmission rate of the network, instead of making selections of individual presentation elements. Subsequently, in step 528, the client node 56 provides the identity of the selected web server and the next collection of segments to the browser 78 of the client node, and the browser, in turn, sends a request from the network 70 to the server web selected for the selected (subversion) of the segments. After this step, the client presentation software 88 monitors the elapsed time before transmission of the selected collection of segments is complete, and determines whether these segments are provided within an appropriate time window that allows them to be presented during the realization of the presentation. In this way, in step 532, the client presentation software 88 determines whether the requested collection of segments is stored in the cache in the client node 56 within a desired time, before the proposed implementation of the collection of data. segments. In particular, to determine this desired time, a function depends on one or more of: (a) different measures related to one more of other client nodes 56 receiving the presentation realization, (b) a time lapse by default previously determined, for example, specified in the manuscript of the presentation, and (c) a time period determined by the leader of the performance of the presentation, for example, during the performance. Regarding (a) above, note those measurements such as; (7.1) transmission speeds of the network 70 for each of one or more previous requests of segments of the presentation; (7.2) for each one of the one or more previous applications of segments of the presentation, a lapse of time elapsed between the moment of the request of the segments of the presentation, and the reception of the segments; (7.3) for each of the one or more previous requests of segments of the presentation, one size (for example, in bits) of the segments received from the request. Note that there are different functions that depend on one or more of (a) - (c) immediately above, which can be used, as will be understood by one skilled in the art. Also note that this function can be as simple as a comparison of network transmission speeds 70 corresponding between (a) the client node 56 and the web server (s) to which it is communicating, and ( b) other client nodes 56 and the web server (s) with which they are communicating. Alternatively, that comparison can be made in the elapsed time as in (7.2). Note that there are at least two possible alternatives here: (8.1) the present invention may attempt to recover the same collection of segments from a web server of alternative content; (8.2) The present invention may attempt to recover an alternative segment collection that can be used as a replacement for the segment collection initially requested either from the same web server 96 for which the original request was addressed, or from a server 96 alternative website In accordance with the foregoing, if the segment collection has not been stored in the cache within this time, then step 536 is performed, where the client's presentation software 88 determines whether there is sufficient time to retry obtain the collection of segments or another collection of alternative segments, before the estimated time of completion. If at step 536 it is determined that insufficient time remains, then step 474 is activated again, where the client node 56 (and more particularly, the client presentation software 88) is prepared for the next set of one or more presentation commands from the host 200. Note, however, that although the portion of the presentation corresponding to the collection of segments is not recovered in time for realization, it is an aspect of the present invention that if the audio portion of the the presentation is provided through the separate telephony network 74, then there may be substantial continuity in the presentation, regardless of whether a portion of the video is displayed visually or not for presentation. Alternatively, if in step 536 the client presentation software 88 determines that there is sufficient time to attempt a retry to obtain the requested collection of segments, then step 524 is performed again, where the client presentation software 88 it again evaluates the transmission characteristics of the network 70 to select a web server 96 content, and the subversion of the collection of segments, so that again there is a high probability that the newly selected segment collection is sent before the the time at which these segments will be presented in the client node 56. In accordance with the above, in those subsequent iterations to determine an alternative way to present a particular portion of the presentation, the following steps can be performed: The original calculation is performed again with the new times and the current bandwidth information usually resulting in the selection of collections of alternative segments that are smaller. A global limit of three retries of any URL will force the selection of smaller alternative segment collections, or a message to the audience member declaring that the network is not functional. Returning now to step 532, if in this decision step it is determined that the requested collection of segments has been stored in the cache in client node 56 in time, then step 544 is performed, where an evaluation of the transmission characteristics of the 70 network that occurred during the transmission of the segment collection. In particular, the following characteristics are determined: average network data rate, the probable range of the expected data rates (for example, within a standard deviation of the most likely data rate), measurements with respect to errors of the network and / or transmission quality, the total elapsed time that was taken to complete the transmission of the collection of segments, and / or the size of the transmission. Subsequently, in step 548, a determination is made as to whether an interruption of the host 200 is detected, requesting a stop to the presentation of the current collection of segments. Note that this step is provided as an illustration of the interrupt processing that the client presentation software 88 can perform. Note, however, that such interrupt processing may be performed between or during substantially any of the processing steps described herein, which occurs at the client node 56. Also note that the host 200 interrupts are likely to be initiated by a leader for the presentation, when the leader determines that, for example, there must be a deviation in the manuscript for the presentation to be made. In this way, no matter where an interrupt step of the host 200 is performed, within the processing steps for the client presentation software 88, after detecting this interruption, the control flow of the present flow chart returns to a point in the processing where the following steps are performed in steps 474 and 476 that are performed in: (a) the client nodes 56, and (b) the station (s) 92 of the leader and the 200 host of presentation control. Assuming no interruption of the host is detected in step 548, then steps 552 through 560 are iteratively performed, until all segments of the current segment collection are presented to the client. In accordance with the above, where there are no more segments in the current collection, step 560 routes the control flow back to concurrent steps 474 and 476, as previously described hereinbefore. Referring to Figure 3, an illustration of a simple manuscript description 600 is shown. Each of the rows 608 after the first column header row describes a presentation action to be performed during one embodiment. Each column entry in each row 608 provides information related to the action of the manuscript that the row performs. Then there is a description of the data capable of being contained in each column. A column 612 of Manuscript Level to identify alternative variations of the presentation. For example, a first variation may be directed to the clients of one corporation, direct another variation to the sales representatives of the corporation, and still direct another to the investors of the corporation. In this way, a single manuscript can be used for a plurality of related presentations that have at least some overlapping content. In accordance with the above, in column 612, each digit in each row of the column identifies a variation of the presentation to which the row applies. In this way, row 608a is performed only on the variation of the presentation that has an "I" in this column; for example, rows 608a, 608d, 608e, 608g to 608o. Similarly, a second variation of the presentation is performed using the rows: 608b, 608d, 608f to 608o. Additionally, a third version is provided by means of the rows: 608c, 608e, 608f 608n. Note that the "END" identifiers in 608q designate the end of the manuscript. An item number column 616 is provided to label the rows, such that a leader of the presentation can be transferred to the rows having a value in this column, and proceed sequentially through the manuscript from the tagged row to which the leader is transferred. This allows the leader to ignore and / or re-arrange portions of a presentation realization. In accordance with the above, there are three rows to which the leader can transfer control, namely, the rows: 608a, 608e, and 608o. A "virtual time" column 620 is provided, wherein the values in this column establish and reset a presentation completion timer, so that, for example, some portions of a presentation will be automatically skipped if an embodiment of the presentation is running in delay of a previously determined * execution program. In the description 600 of the manuscript, there are four rows 608 where the presentation completion timer is reset, that is, rows 608a, 608e, and 608j. Thus, for a performance of the presentation corresponding to manuscript level I, in row 608a, the chronometer is set to 0.00 and subsequent rows 608 for manuscript level I are sequentially performed until it is 608e, in where a determination is made as to whether the chronometer has a value greater than one minute and one second. If this is the case, then the presentation control host 200 interprets the sequential rows (for manuscript level I) down to row 608j, but no host commands are transmitted to any of the client nodes 56. , or the telephone bridge control 240. In this way, it is as if the actions for these rows of the manuscript are ignored. However, in row 608j, the timer is reset and each subsequent row 608 (of manuscript level I) is performed.

An Action column 624 is provided to designate an action to be performed (if any) during the execution of a row 608. In this way, for row 608a, host 200 tells all client nodes 56 that a resource (for example, a content file, or Web page) is available to download. Subsequently, for manuscript level I, row 608d instruct client nodes 56 to cause their browsers 78 to visually display the resource. A list of actions that can be designated in action column 624 is as follows: (9.1) client_Load - Tells all client nodes 56 that a resource is available for download in background processing. - (9.2) free_client - Instructs all client nodes 56 to delete a previously downloaded resource. (9.3) client_Download - Instructs all client nodes 56 to cause their browsers 78 to visually display a resource. This command implements "Extended" parameters when the Resource Location column 636 has a corresponding entry of "TWFTP". The extended parameters are a second set of resource locations to retrieve the resource to which the corresponding action is to be applied on the same row 608. For example, the client node 56 may use a second set of r resource locations when determines that the data transfer rate of the FTP network 70 is unlikely to provide a particular presentation content file (e.g., presentation elements) at a client node 56 in time for visual display. (9.4) client_reproduce - Instructs all client nodes 56 that receive the audio content of the presentation via a network 70, to reproduce a resource. (9.5) leader_Retain - Causes host 200 to suspend interpretation of the manuscript until a next command is received from the leader, who designates a next row 608 to perform it. (9.6) time_Establish_En - Forces a clock (that is, chronometer) of virtual time of the manuscript to a known value. (9.7) time_Retain_A - Causes host 200 to suspend the interpretation of a manuscript until a particular state is reached. For example, all clients report that a visual display element command is complete; for example, the visual display of a corporate logo. (9.8) child_Manuscript - Suspend this manuscript, read and process another manuscript in a manner analogous to a program subroutine invocation. (9.9) End_Home - Defines the last line (that is, row 608) of a manuscript, and restores the execution of the first line. (9.10) FIN - Defines the last row 608 interpreted from a manuscript. Regarding column 632 of "Resource type" of description 600, the fields in this column provide an indication of the data types and / or the organization of the collections of presentation segments to which the action of the field applies of "Action" corresponding to the same row. In particular, the following types are available (hereinafter also denoted as "resource types"): (10.1) FTP_File - A single file that is to be previously stored in the cache or downloaded from a server (s) 96 web to client nodes 56 in the background, using FTP or HTTP when FTP is blocked by security measures. (10.2) FTP_Dir - A complete directory of files that will be previously stored in the cache or downloaded to the background using FTP or HTTP when FTP is blocked by security measures. (10.3) HTML_Arc ivo - A single HTLM file containing the content of the presentation. . (10.4) MC_Question - An HTML_File to which a response from the client is requested to the questions presented. (10.5) MC_Response - An HTML_File to visually display the results of an MC_Question. (10.6) Info_Form - An HTML_File to gather data for base 120 of profile data. (10.7) Audio_RaArchivo - An audio file prepared before the presentation, can be downloaded to the client nodes 56 through the network 70. (10.8) Audio_RaVivo - The recording and continuous live reading of an audio file, through the network 70, requires storage in the area of real-time dynamic buffer in client nodes 56. (10.9) THIS LINE - Causes host 200 to refer to row 608 of the manuscript that has this value (ie, "THIS LINE") . In this way, the action for the row that has this value can be seen as requiring no presentation resource. (10.10) TWmanuscript - Other manuscript resource using the current manuscript resource. In column 636 of "Resource Location" of description 600 of the manuscript, each row entry indicates a location of the presentation resource to which the action for the row is to be applied. Fields in this column can provide descriptions of a number of alternative locations to obtain different versions and / or sub-versions of a collection of presentation segments; that is, the alternative locations have a separator "|" between them. The types of values that can occur in this column are: (11.1) SN - Denotes the Name of a 96 web server, it can also be a physical address of the network 70 or the name of a domain of the Internet, as an expert will notice in the technique. (11.2) TWFTP - Denotes the directory in the client nodes 56, created to contain the resources of the presentation (for example, presentation segments) downloaded from the web server. (11.3) CD - Denotes a CD-ROM disk unit attached to a client node 56; note that during the preparation for a performance of the presentation, the client determines the letter of the disk unit corresponding to the CD-ROM disk drive in its client node 56. (11.4) LOCAL - Denotes any place in a client node 56, except the CD-ROM drive or the location designated by TWFTP. (11.5) END - Denotes a moment when clients have used a called resource, for example, all clients have downloaded and visually displayed the logo image file, as the name resource. (11.6) OBTAIN - Denotes a moment when clients have accessed the named resource, such as a moment after all the clients have downloaded a corporate logo file. (11.7) this - Denotes that no external resource such as files, web servers, etc. is required for the command that has this value. Note that in the locations designated at least (9.1) above, variables or "portal-places" can be provided in a manuscript, so that a development of a manuscript does not need to have at its disposal all particulars as to where they will be stored the resources of the presentation (for example, collections of segments) for access during the realization of the presentation. For example, variables or portal sites for web servers 96 of hitherto unidentified content can be provided as part of a location for a collection of segments. For example, each grouping of clients of the registered hearing audience members for one embodiment of the presentation has the following portal places in the presentation manuscripts defined within a resource file 212 of the corresponding presentation: (a) the portal site , "BBA-Principal" to be determined as the identifier of the network 70 for the web server 96 that provides access to sub-collections of the presentation segments in real time and / or of smaller size, (b) "BBA- Ftp "to be determined as the identifier of the network 70 for a file server (Internet) containing large presentation files suitable for the background download to client nodes 56, (c)" BBA-Ra "which it will be determined as the identifier of the network 70 for an audio server (Internet), or another location that provides access to the audio data for the audio player 236, and (d) "BBA-QA" which is going to determine com or the identifier of the network 70 for the web server 96 that is used for the visual display sequences of questions and answers. Regarding column 640 of "Resource Name" of manuscript description 600, the entries in this column provide an identification of a resource of the presentation (for example, file of data segments of the presentation) regardless of the address of the network 70 or the node on which the resource resides. In this way, a complete specification of a resource location requires the corresponding resource location and the resource name entries from the same row of the manuscript description 600. The following types of data are available for the fields in this column: (12.1) Trajectory - Denotes a path name to a file directory related to the location of the resource. It is assumed that a nested or hierarchical file directory notation is used to identify the resource of the presentation that resides in the location denoted by "Trajectory". (12.2) File - Denotes the name of a resource file. (12.3) Encoder Task - Identify a specific audio stream in real time, accessible from the web server 96 identified in the corresponding Resource Location 636 column. The above description of the invention has been presented for purposes of illustration and description. In addition, the description is not intended to limit the invention to the form described herein. Accordingly, variations and modifications coextensive with the above teachings, within the experience and knowledge of the relevant art, are within the scope of the present invention. It is also intended that the embodiments described hereinabove explain the best known manner for practicing the invention, and to enable others skilled in the art to use the invention as such, or in other embodiments, and with the different modifications required by its particular application or the uses of the invention. It is intended that the appended claims be interpreted to include alternative modalities to the extent permitted by the prior art.

Claims (40)

1. A presentation distribution system in the network for presenting a presentation, comprising: one or more content delivery nodes of the presentation of a communication network, the nodes providing content to provide access, by a first user in a first client node of the communication network, to a collection of data segments of the presentation, using the communications network, wherein the collection includes first and second subcollections of one or more of the segments; a display control node for transmitting to at least the first client node, via the communication network, the presentation control information that is used to identify the first and second sub-collections; a computing component for determining the operation information of the network, of the communications network, wherein the computing component determines the operating information of the network, of the communications network, wherein the computing component determines said information of network operation using network data obtained from the network transmissions detected in the first client node; a first segment selector, activated after the first client node receives the presentation control information, to select, using the operating information of the network, one of the first and second sub-collections to transmit from one of the nodes of content supply of the presentation, to the first client node; and a presentation component in the first client node to present the selected one of the first and second subcollections to the first user.

2. A network display distribution system, as claimed in Claim 1, to determine which of the first and second sub-collections to transmit to the first client node, the computing component includes a network analyzer to determine the information of network operation, using one or more of the following types of said network data: (a) a data transmission rate of the communication network in the first client node; (b) a fluctuation in the bandwidth of the communication network, in the first client node; and (c) a statistical prediction of a bandwidth of the communication network in the first client node.

3. A network presentation distribution system, as claimed in Claim 1, wherein the first segment selector is activated in response to the first client node that receives the presentation control information, and is activated without a manual entry that intervenes on behalf of the first user to request one of the first and second subcollections.

4. A network presentation distribution system, as claimed in Claim 1, wherein a bandwidth of the presentation transmissions in the communication network to the first client node varies sufficiently to affect the representation of the presentation, and the variable bandwidth is substantially uncontrollable from the first client node, and said nodes providing the content of the presentation.

5. A network presentation distribution system, as claimed in Claim 1, wherein at least one of the first and second sub-collections is accessible from the first and second of the content supply nodes, by means of first and second routes: where: (a) the first route includes the first content supply node and not the content supply node; and (b) the second route includes the second content delivery node and not the first content delivery node.

6. A system as claimed in Claim 1, wherein the first sub-collection includes video with motion, and the second sub-collection includes video with one of reduced motion and no movement., and the first sub-collection is presented to the first user in the first client node, simultaneously with the second collection presenting to a second user in a second client node.

7. A network presentation distribution system, as claimed in Claim 1, wherein the communication network includes a portion of one of: the Internet, and a network using TCP / IP for communication between at least one from: (a) one of the content delivery nodes and the first client node; (b) the presentation control node and the first client node, - (c) one of the content delivery nodes and the presentation control node.

8. A network display distribution system, as claimed in Claim 1, wherein said first client node includes the first segment selector and a first display visual display component, to visually display the first user in the first client node, a first selection of one of said first and second subcollections, made by the first segment selector.

9. A network presentation distribution system, as claimed in Claim 1, wherein the first sub-collection includes a first portion of video, and the second sub-collection includes a second portion of different video that corresponds in content to the first portion of video, and wherein the first and second video portions have substantially different expected data transmission rates, to be transmitted to the first client node, and wherein the first segment selector uses the expected data transmission rates different to select one of said first and second subcollections.

10. A network display distribution system, as claimed in Claim 1, wherein an audio portion for the first sub-collection is transmitted to the first client node separately from the first sub-collection, by means of a bridge phone.

11. A display system in the network, as claimed in Claim 1, wherein the first segment selector is resident in the first client node, and a second segment selector, activated in response to a second node. of client receiving the presentation control information, is resident in the second client node, wherein the first and second segment selectors select, each without the user's selection entry, one of the first and second subcollections , for the simultaneous presentation of the same corresponding portion of the presentation.

12. A presentation distribution system in the network, as claimed in claim 1, characterized in that it also includes a network interface component, which resides in the first client node, to receive the presentation control information, and transmitting a request for a sub-collection of the collection of data segments to one of the content delivery nodes, wherein the network's interface component includes a network browser for communication with the communication network.

13. A network presentation distribution system, as claimed in Claim 1, characterized in that it also includes a content manager to distribute, through the communication network, at least a portion of the video of said first and second sub-collections different from the presentation, to the nodes of content supply before a beginning of a presentation embodiment, wherein during the performance of the presentation, the first sub-collection is presented in the first client node when it is received from the first content supply node, and the second sub-collection is simultaneously displayed on a second client node when it is received from the second content supply node, after said second client node receives the information controlling the presentation.

14. A network presentation distribution system, as claimed in Claim 1, wherein there are first and second versions of the presentation performed synchronously, respectively, at the first client node and a second client node receiving the presentation control information, where there is correspondence in the content between at least a majority of segments in said first version with segments of the second version, and where the first and second versions have their corresponding audio portions in different mother tongues.

15. A network presentation distribution system, as claimed in Claim 1, characterized in that it also includes a leader node accessing a leader to control an embodiment of the presentation, wherein the leader directs a rhythm and content of the embodiment of the presentation that is provided to the client nodes by means of the node of the network controlling the presentation, which synchronizes an embodiment of the presentation on the first client node, with an embodiment of the presentation on a second node of client, in such a way that a particular one or more of those segments are presented in the first client node, synchronously with an alternative one or more segments that are leaving by means of one of the nodes of content supply to the second client node, where the alternative or more segments correspond in content with the particular or more segments.

16. A presentation system in the network to present a presentation, comprising: a first and second content supply nodes of the presentation of a communications network, the first and second content supply nodes to provide access to one or more collections of data segments of the presentation, using the communications network; a display control node for transmitting to at least a first client node, the presentation control information that is used to identify a first sub-collection of the segments for presentation to a user in the first client node; and a content node selector, which is activated after the first client node receives the presentation control information, the content node selector to select one of the first and second content supply nodes to transmit one of : (a) said first sub-collection to the first client node, using the communication network; and (b) an alternative sub-collection of one or more of the segments previously determined as a replacement for the first sub-collection, for presentation in the first node; wherein the first client node transmits a presentation request to a selected one of the first and second content supply nodes, the presentation request including at least one of: (a) an identification of a version of said presentation, the version for a pre-determined group of members of the presentation audience, (b) an identification of one of the first and second sub-collections identified in a previously determined manuscript for presentation; and (c) information to identify an alternative segment determined by the leader of an embodiment of the presentation, where the alternative segment in the manuscript is not identified.

17. A network presentation distribution system, as claimed in Claim 16, wherein the content node selector changes from selecting the first content delivery node to selecting the second content supply node, in accordance with a value that depends on a measurement related to a previous data transmission rate between the first client node and at least one of said first and second content supply nodes, where the value is expected to be indicative of a speed of data transmission in progress between the first client node, and at least one of the first and second content supply nodes.

18. A presentation system in the network, to present a presentation, comprising: one or more nodes of the content supply network, capable of providing a plurality of segments to a first one of a plurality of client nodes of the network, by means of a communications network, wherein each of the segments provides a portion of a particular presentation; a node of the presentation control network for transmitting presentation control information that provides segment identities in a collection of the segments, when the presentation is made in the first client node; a presentation component of the network in the first client node, wherein, after receiving the presentation control information, the presentation component of the network transmits segment selection information, obtained using the control information of the presentation, to a first one of the content supply nodes to obtain the collection in the first client node; a segment selector using one of: (a) the display control information, and (b) the segment selection information to identify a first collection to transmit it from the first content supply node to the first client node; wherein the control node of the network presentation synchronizes an embodiment of the presentation in the first client node, with an embodiment of the presentation in a second client node, such that one particular or more of the segments is present in the first client node, synchronously with an alternative one or more segments that are leaving by means of one of said content supply nodes to the second client node, wherein the alternative or more segments' correspond in content with the particular or more segments.

19. A network presentation distribution system, as claimed in Claim 18, wherein the selection information depends on the data transmission characteristic to the first client node from one of the content delivery nodes.; wherein the data transmission characteristic depends on one of a data transmission speed of the network, and a measurement of the data transmission errors in the network; and wherein the data transmission characteristic is expected to be indicative of an ongoing transmission rate to the first client node from the content delivery node.

20. A method for presenting a presentation on the network, comprising: storing a plurality of segments of a presentation for access to the network by means of one or more content supply nodes of a communication network, wherein subcollections of one or more of the segments, each sub-collection having a previously determined order of presentation, and there are a first and a second of the sub-collections, wherein the first sub-collection can be replaced with said second sub-collection when the presentation is presented; identify a plurality of client nodes of the network to present the presentation; transmitting, by means of the communication network, information of control of the presentation to a- first and second of the client nodes; first identify the first sub-collection to • present at the first client node, using the control information of the transmitted presentation; secondly identifying the second sub-collection to be presented in the second user node instead of the first sub-collection, using the control information of the transmitted presentation; first retrieve the first sub-collection from said content supply nodes to present in the first client node; second, recovering the second sub-collection from the content supply nodes to present at the second client node, substantially simultaneously with the presentation of the first sub-collection at the first client node.

21. A method, as claimed in Claim 20, wherein the step of transmitting to the first and second client nodes is performed substantially simultaneously, using the Internet as at least a portion of the communication network.

22. A method, as claimed in claim 21, characterized in that it also includes a step of synchronously presenting the presentation in the first client node with the representation of the presentation in the second client node, in such a way that each the subcollections presented in the first client node are present substantially simultaneously with one of the second subcollection in the second client node.

23. A method, as claimed in Claim 22, wherein the synchronizing step includes obtaining, by means of said first client node, a measurement of network operation of a transmission in the network, starting from a first one. from the nodes providing content from the network to the first client node.

24. A method, as claimed in Claim 20, wherein the step of first recovering includes retrieving the first sub-collection by means of the first client node, from a first one of the content delivery nodes; and the second step of recovering includes recovering the second sub-collection by means of the second "client" node, starting from one second of the content delivery nodes different from the first content delivery node. as claimed in Claim 20, characterized in that it also includes the synchronization of the presentation of the first and second sub-collections in the first and second client nodes with a corresponding audio portion of the presentation that is provided in the first and second sites. client nodes, wherein the corresponding audio portion is provided to the sites using a network protocol different from a protocol used in the step of transmitting via the communication network 26. The method, as claimed in Claim 20, wherein the step of first identifying occurs before the step of first recovering, and the step of first identifying icar includes: obtaining one or more measurements related to an expected time to transmit said first sub-collection to the first client node, through the communications network; wherein one or more measurements are indicative of one - or more of: (a) a site of the first sub-collection; (b) a bandwidth of prior transmissions via the communication network to the first client node; (c) a general load indicative of a protocol that is used in transmissions via the communication network to the first client node; (d) a time allotted for the first customer to receive the first sub-collection; (e) a fluctuation in the bandwidth of the communications network; (f) an error rate for the first client node from the communication network; (g) a predictive statistical expectation of a bandwidth in the communications network. The method, as claimed in Claim 20, characterized in that it also includes: establishing whether the first sub-collection was stored in the cache in the first client node, within a desired time before an embodiment of the sub-collection stored in the cache The method, as claimed in claim 27, characterized in that it also includes determining said desired time by comparing one or more of: (a) a measurement related to performing the presentation on the second client node that receives; (b) a previously determined time period; and (c) a time period determined by a leader for the presentation. 29. The method, as claimed in claim 27, characterized in that it also includes determining the desired time by comparing: (a) a transmission speed of the communication network, between the first client node and at least one of the content supply nodes; and (b) a transmission speed of the communication network, between the second client node and at least one of the content delivery nodes. 30. A method for presenting a presentation put on the network, comprising: storing a plurality of segments for a presentation, wherein the segments are accessible in the network from one or more nodes of content supply of the network, to present the presentation, and wherein for a first sub-collection of one or more of the segments, said first sub-collection is capable of being accessed from a first of the content supply nodes, and at least one of: (a) the first sub-collection has a second corresponding different subcollection of one or more of the segments, which has been identified as a replacement for the first subcollection, and (b) the first subcollection is capable of being accessed from a second of the content delivery nodes; provide a first [and second] client node [s] for a transmission in the presentation network [to the client nodes], where [at least] the first client node has access in the network to at least one of: the first and second subcollections, and the first and second nodes of content delivery; determining, for the first client node, a measurement indicative of an expected operation of the network of a transmission network to transmit the first sub-collection from the first content supply node to the first client node; selecting at least one of: the second subcollection and the second node of content delivery, when the measurement is indicative of an undesirable operation of the embodiment of the presentation in the first client node. 31. A method, as claimed in Claim 30, wherein the step of providing includes accessing, by means of the first client node, the segments: (a) from said first content supply node by means of a first route through the communication network, and (b) from the second content supply node by means of a second route through the communications network; wherein the first route does not include the second content delivery node, and the second route does not include the first content delivery node. 32. A presentation system for presenting a multimedia presentation having portions of video and audio, corresponding in content, comprising: one or more network video supply nodes to communicate one or more video portions of the presentation of multimedia, with one or more client nodes in the network; a telephone bridge controller to provide commands to one or more telephone bridges to route the audio communication related to the presentation, to a corresponding telephony device in each site having one of the client nodes, where: (a ) each of one or more portions of the related audio communication corresponds in content to one of the video portions, and (b) the telephone devices in the sites transform the audio communications related to the presentation to an audible form that have mother tongue language included in it; a presentation controller to synchronize a presentation, in the client nodes, of some previously determined portions of video and audio that correspond in content, where for each of the client nodes, the presentation controller: (a ) communicates with the client node to provide information that is used to identify a particular portion of the video for transmission, from one of the video supply nodes of the network to the client node; and (b) communicates with the telephone bridge controller to route, to the client node, the audio portion corresponding in content to the particular video portion. 33. A method for presenting a multimedia presentation: storing a manuscript of one or more presentation commands to make multimedia segments of said presentation, wherein one of the first or more commands refers to one or more indeterminate identifiers of one or more more network content supply nodes that provide access to at least a video portion of a first sub-collection of one or more of said segments, by means of a communication network; storing an identifier of the communication network for each of the one or more of said content delivery nodes that provide access to the network to the first sub-collection: identifying one or more client nodes to receive an embodiment of the presentation; determine the indeterminate identifiers of a first of the commands that use the identifiers of the stored communications network, by means of the same obtain a specific command; performing the determined command in each of the client nodes, during the execution, by requesting the first subcollection of the first content supply node; request, by means of a first one of the client nodes, when the first client node does not receive the first sub-collection within a predetermined time, one of: an alternative sub-collection of one or more of said segments, instead of the first one sub-collection, from one of the content supply nodes, and the first sub-collection from an alternative one of the content supply nodes. 34. A method, as claimed in Claim 33, characterized in that it also includes transmitting the determined command from a display control node to each of the client nodes, by means of at least a portion of one of: Internet, and a network that uses TCP / IP as a communication protocol. 35. A network presentation distribution system for presenting a presentation, comprising: one or more content supply nodes of the presentation of a communications network, said content supply nodes to provide access to a collection of segments of presentation data, using the communications network, wherein the collection includes first and second subcollections of one or more of the segments; a presentation control node for transmitting to at least a first client node, via the communication network, the presentation control information that is used to identify a group of sub-collections of said segments, the group including the first and second subcollections; and a first segment selector, activated in response to the first client node that receives the presentation control information, to select one of the first and second subcollections to transmit the selected subcollection from one of the content delivery nodes of the presentation to the first client node; wherein the first segment selector includes a comparator to compare (a) a value indicative of an expected time span to receive one of the first and second subcollections, and (b) a value indicative of: (i) a time lapse related to one or more of other client nodes that receive one or more subcollections of the collection, (ii) a default time lapse determined by a leader of the performance of the presentation. 36. A network presentation distribution system to present a presentation, comprising: one or more content supply nodes of the presentation of a communications network, the content supply nodes to provide access to a collection of segments of presentation data, using the communication network, wherein the collection includes first and second subcollections of one or more of the segments; a display control node for transmitting to the at least one first client node, via the communication network, the presentation control information that is used to identify the first and second sub-collections; a first segment selector, activated in response to said first client node that receives the presentation control information, to select one of the first and second subcollections to transmit the selected subcollection from one of the content delivery nodes of the presentation to the first client node; and a telephone bridge controller for controlling one or more telephone bridges that provide audio communication during one embodiment of the presentation, through a telephone at a customer site having said first client node, wherein the telephone provides audio communication to the client site different from the communications network. 37. A network presentation distribution system to present a presentation, comprising: a first and second content supply nodes of the presentation of a communications network, the first and second content supply nodes to provide access to one or more collections of data segments of the presentation, using said communication network; a presentation control node for transmitting to at least a first client node, presentation control information that is used to identify a first sub-collection of said segments for presentation to the first client node; a content node selector, activated in response to the first client node receiving the presentation control information, to select one of said first and second content supply nodes to transmit one of: (a) said first sub-collection to first client node, using the communications network; and (b) an alternative sub-collection of one or more of the previously determined segments, as a replacement for the first sub-collection; and a telephone bridge controller for routing the audio communications related to the presentation to a customer site having the first client node, by means of one or more telephone bridges, wherein a telephone at the customer site transforms Audio communications related to the presentation to an audible communication that has spoken in the native language included in it. 38. A presentation system in the network to present a presentation, comprising: a first and second content supply nodes of the presentation of a communication network, said first and second content supply nodes to provide access to one or more collections of data segments of the presentation, using said communications network; a presentation control node for transmitting to at least a first client node, presentation control information that is used to identify a first sub-collection of the segments for presentation in the first client node; a content node selector, activated in response to the first client node receiving said presentation control information, to select one of the first and second content supply nodes to transmit one of: (a) the first sub-collection to the first client node, using the network. of communications; and (b) an alternative sub-collection of one or more of said previously determined segments, as a replacement for the first sub-collection; and a telephone bridge controller for routing the audio communications related to the presentation to a customer site having said first client node, by means of one or more telephone bridges, wherein a telephone at the customer site Transforms the audio communications related to the presentation to an audible communication that has spoken in the native language included in it. 39. A network presentation distribution system to present a presentation, comprising: a first and second content supply nodes of the presentation of a communications network, the first and second content supply nodes to provide access to one or more collections of data segments of said presentation, using the communications network; a presentation control node for transmitting to at least a first client node, presentation control information that is used to identify a first sub-collection of the segments for presentation in the first client node; a content node selector, activated in response to said first client node that receives the presentation control information, to select one of the first and second content supply nodes to transmit one of: (a) the first sub-collection to the first client node, using the communications network; and (b) an alternative sub-collection of one or more of the previously determined segments, as a replacement for said first sub-collection; wherein the presentation control node includes a processing component of the presentation manuscript to generate display presentation commands from a manuscript for said presentation, wherein for the first client node, the generated commands synchronize a visual display of a video content of the segments with a related audio content; and wherein the presentation control node includes a telephone bridge controller for directing a telephone bridge to provide audio communications between a client site having said first client node and one of: the control node of the client. presentation and a leader of the embodiment of the presentation, wherein the telephone bridge routes the audio information related to the presentation presentation differently to the communications of the network between the control node of the presentation and the first client , by means of said communications network. 40. A network presentation distribution system for presenting a presentation in a communications network that has unexpected network operation fluctuations in a user node, comprising: one or more content supply nodes of the presentation of a communication network, said content supply nodes to provide access, by means of a user in the user node of the communication network, to a collection of data segments of the presentation, using the communication network, wherein the collection includes first and second subcollections of one or more of the segments; a computing component for determining the information of the operation of the network, of the communications network, wherein the computing component determines the operating information of the network using the network data obtained from the transmissions of the network, detected in the user node; a segment selector, activated during the presentation, for selecting, using the network operation information, one of said first and second • subcollections for transmission from one of the content delivery nodes of the presentation to said user node; and a component of the presentation in the user node to present the selected one of the first and second subcollections to the user.