A method which enables a credit cardholder to make a donation to a cardholder-selected charity any time he makes a purchase using the credit card. The method comprises a credit/charge card which identifies on its magnetic strip, charities to receive a donation, and a bank expedited system which processes the card user's purchase transaction, pays a previously decided amount to the charity or charities and also bills the cardholder. In this system, the donated amounts may be paid by the bank or card issuing organization, or the cardholder may add an amount which he pays to the selected charity. The proposed system may be described as being a bank expedited charity donation, (abbreviated to BAX) approach for credit/charge cardholders.

Participants in a virtual world in an interactive, virtual environment implemented by computer networks and other interactive media such as interactive television are recruited to advertise products and brands to the other participants and viewers in the virtual world. Each user entering the virtual world may select from a set of available advertisements, which can be displayed in association with the user's avatar, virtual space and virtual objects in the virtual world. Users are incentivized to do this by the availability of rewards, such as coupons, real or virtual money or other resources, which are provided by the advertising sponsors, based on adoption of the advertising by the user, as well as on factors such as exposure of the selected advertisements to other users in the virtual world. Allowing the consumer to exercise advertising choice, this embodiment also facilitates collection of data regarding consumer preferences.

A method and system for providing an investment fund, such as a long term investment fund which may be suitable for retirement purposes, comprising the steps of establishing a credit based account with a credit card issuer for the benefit of a credit card holder, providing an investment account with a financial institution for the benefit of the credit card holder, funding the investment account by the credit card issuer with a predetermined amount of money on a periodic basis, and charging an amount of money so funded against the credit based account of the credit card holder. In addition, disclosed is a method and system providing an investment fund is based on purchase rebates, comprising the steps of establishing a credit based account with a credit card issuer for the benefit of a credit card holder, providing a long term investment account with a financial institution for the benefit of the credit card holder, ascertaining the total amount of money charged by the credit card holder in subscriber merchants in a particular period of time, and providing a rebate by the credit card issuer to the credit card holder by funding the investment account of the credit card holder with a predetermined percentage of said total amount so ascertained.

In an advanced intelligent network based information distribution system including a central office switching system connected to communication lines including at least one service switching point for selectively providing switched communications between the communication lines, a network controller arranged for selectively providing control data to effect land line communications, and arranged separately from the central office switching system, an incentive award computer system provides an award to users participating in an incentive award program. The incentive award computer system includes a request transaction processing computer system receiving an electronic transaction by a user, determining whether the electronic transaction is a reward eligible transaction, and generating a transaction request when the electronic transaction is determined to be the reward eligible transaction. In addition, a points calculator processing computer system is provided that determines a reward responsive to the reward eligible transaction represented in the transaction request, assigns the reward to a user record responsive to reward criteria, and generates a reward record representing the reward. The incentive award computer system further includes a points assigning and reporting processing computer system that generates reports and provides access to the user record and the reward by the user responsive to predetermined criteria.

The present invention is an apparatus for providing and managing a customized reward offer to an affinity group sponsor based on the aggregate performance of members of the group. The apparatus includes a processor configured to accesses historical aggregate data associated with the affinity group. The processor is further configured to determine a performance target associated with the affinity group. The processor is also configured to determine aggregate performance data based on the historical data and determine a performance target based on the aggregate performance data.