ENABLING VIEWERS OF TELEVISION SYSTEMS TO PARTICIPATE IN AUCTIONS

摘要

Enabling the viewers of television systems to participate in auctions. Data identifying an item (e.g., description of the auction item and a unique code) offered for sale in an auction and an access address (e.g., universal resource locator of a web site) may be encoded (210) in a television signal and broadcast (220) to various television systems. The data may be recovered (240, 260) by a transaction enabler which enables a viewer to bid for the auction item (280). Other information such as highest present bid price may also be encoded in the television signal and displayed for the viewer.