Patent Application
20090319374
Some embodiments pertain to the selection of advertisements (ads) for presentation to users of mobile devices. Some embodiments pertain to systems and devices that operate in accordance with one or more of the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) standards or specifications. Some embodiments pertain to wireless networks and wireless communications.
In conventional networks, one entity generally selects advertisements to present to users. This entity is generally the entity that has a relationship with advertisers, such as an advertising service provider or a network service provider that operates the network. Application service providers, on the other hand, which operate and service applications that operate on mobile devices, are generally not involved with ad selection and presentation. The application service providers are generally not able to inject or associate ads into/with applications or content at the most relevant context (place, time) due to technical and/or contractual restrictions by the network service provider and/or the advertising service provider. As a result, some advertising use cases may not be satisfied.
The following description and the drawings provide various embodiments. Other embodiments may incorporate structural, logical, electrical, process, and other changes. Examples merely typify possible variations. Individual components and functions are optional unless explicitly required, and the sequence of operations may vary. Portions and features of some embodiments may be included in, or substituted for those of other embodiments.
Advertising service provider 104 may operate with network service provider 108 to provide advertisements (ads) selected from advertisers 106 to mobile devices 112 when, for example, network services are provided. In some embodiments, advertising service provider 104 and network service provider 108 comprise a single entity, while in other embodiments, advertising service provider 104 and network service provider 108 are independent entities. When independent entities, the connection between advertising service provider 104 and network service provider 108 may be optional.
Applications service provider 102 may service and operate applications 113 that run on mobile devices 112. In some embodiments, applications service provider 102, mobile devices 112 and/or advertising service provider 104 may service and operate applications in accordance with one or more of the standards or specifications of the OMA, such as the OMA mobile advertising standard. Examples of applications 113 that may be serviced and operated by applications service provider 102 may include multimedia content delivery applications, email applications, calendar applications, and scheduling applications, although other applications may also be serviced and operated.
In accordance with embodiments, applications service provider 102 may send a query to advertising service provider 104 for ads. The query may include ad-selection criterion or criteria, and an indication of whether broadening of the criterion or criteria is permitted. In some embodiments the query may include multiple sets of ad selection criteria, each set corresponding to a different context (user context, contexts related to different content items). For example the application service provider may present 10 news items on a page. The query may provide a request for two advertisements, and 10 sets of criteria; each set corresponding to each news item. The returned two advertisements may be associated with the news item to which the advertisements correspond. Applications service provider 102 may receive and cache the ads provided by advertising service provider 104. Associated relevancy information received from advertising service provider 104 may also be cached. In some embodiments, the associated relevancy information may indicate to which set or sets of ad-selection criteria the associated relevancy information corresponds. Applications service provider 102 may select some of the received ads for distribution to mobile devices 112 based on the relevancy information and based on applications 113 operating on mobile devices 112 being serviced by applications service provider 102 and used to present the advertisement. In some embodiments, applications service provider 102 may select ads for distribution to mobile devices 112 based on additional information that includes user location and analysis of user content present in mobile devices 112. For example, the user content that may be analyzed may include information pertaining to the content the user accesses or information discussed (e.g., if the user talks about red sports cars with this friends), user contact information (e.g., whether the user has predominantly male or female contacts in an address book), etc.
In some embodiments, applications service provider 102 may include ad selector 103 to send the query to an advertising service provider 104 for ads, and ad cache 105 to receive and to cache the ads provided by advertising service provider 104 including the associated relevancy information. Ad selector 103 may additionally select the cached ads for distribution to mobile devices 112. In some embodiments, advertising service provider 104 may include ad selector 107. Although not shown in
In some embodiments, ad cache 105 is optional. In these embodiments, the selection of ads or the insertion of ads in association with a given content or in a given display area by applications service provider 102 for distribution to mobile devices 112 may happen immediately after ads are received from advertising service provider 104. In these embodiments, selection may happen based on user-specific selection criteria, which may include the types of applications the user has installed on the mobile device as well as current and historical user preference context information derived by an analysis of the user's content (e.g., analysis of email content) and behavior (e.g., analysis of a user's past and present geographical locations).
In some embodiments, the received ads are selected and distributed by applications service provider 102 based on the ad-selection criterion, criteria or sets of ad-selection criteria that was met or the ad-selection criterion, criteria or sets of ad-selection criteria that was not met. In some embodiments, the relevancy information includes a relevancy index, and applications service provider 102 selects and distributes the received ads based, at least in part, on the relevancy index. In some embodiments, when distributing the received ads, applications service provider 102 may inject selected ads into applications 113 operating on mobile devices 112 that are being serviced by applications service provider 102. In these embodiments, the received ads may be further selected based on the location of a mobile device 112 and an analysis of user content present in a mobile device 112.
Unlike conventional systems, the relevancy information provided by advertising service provider 104 is used for ad selection or ad positioning by another downstream entity, such as applications service provider 102. In this way, applications service provider 102 or another downstream entity may make its own decisions regarding distribution or positioning of ads with content to users depending on what the provider/entity believes a user is going to respond to.
In some embodiments, radio access network 110 may operate in accordance with the IEEE 802.16(e) standard (e.g., WiMax), one of the 802.11 WLAN standards, one of the LTE (4G) standards, one of the 3G standards, or another wireless or mobile communication standard. Mobile devices 112 may be configured as various wireless communication devices including wireless portable and hand-held devices. Mobile devices 112 also include Blackberry or smartphone-type devices that operate various applications thereon. Although distributed ad-selection system 100 is illustrated as having several separate functional elements, one or more of the functional elements may be combined and may be implemented by combinations of software-configured elements, such as processing elements including microprocessors, microcontrollers, digital signal processors (DSPs), and/or other hardware elements. For example, ad selector 103 and ad cache 105 may comprise one or more microprocessors, DSPs, application specific integrated circuits (ASICs), radio-frequency integrated circuits (RFICs) and combinations of various hardware and logic circuitry for performing at least the functions described herein.
In operation 204, applications service provider 102 sends a query to advertising service provider 104. The query includes an ad-selection criterion, criteria or sets of ad-selection criteria. Furthermore, as shown, operation 204 may include sending an indication of whether broadening of the criterion, criteria or sets of ad selection criteria is permitted. The query may be constructed in a way to allow the sending of multiple sets of ad-selection criteria. In some embodiments, a binary flag may be used in the request or query to indicate whether broadening is permitted.
In operation 205, ads, provided by advertisers 106, are pooled by advertising service provider 104. The pooled ads may include metadata and other information including relevancy information. Operation 205 may be performed by advertising service provider 104 to pools ads independent of the operations performed by applications service provider 102, and may be performed prior to receipt of the query sent in operation 204. Accordingly, advertising service provider 104 may have a database of pooled ads available.
In operation 206, advertising service provider 104 may search the ads pooled in its database based on the ad-selection criteria and, in some instances, based on whether or not broadening is permitted. When broadening is not permitted, only ads meeting the ad-selection criterion or criteria are selected from the database. Ads identified by advertising service provider 104 including relevancy information are provided to applications service provider 102.
In operation 208, applications service provider 102 receives the ads including relevancy information provided by advertising service provider 104. The relevancy information may include an indication of any ad-selection criterion, criteria or sets of ad-selection criteria that was met, or an indication of the ad-selection criterion, criteria or sets of ad-selection criteria that was not met. In some embodiments, the relevancy information may include a relevancy index based on a percentage of the ad-selection criteria or sets of ad selection criteria that was met. In some embodiments, the relevancy index may be the ratio of met to unmet criteria or sets and may be expressed as a percentage.
In operation 210, applications service provider 102 caches the received ads and the relevancy information in ad cache 105. The caching of ads and the associated relevancy information may be optional.
In operation 212, applications service provider 102 selects and distributes the received ads, or a subset of the received ads, based on the relevancy information and other information to applications 113 operating on mobile devices 112. The ads may be selected based on information related to a specific application 113 being operated by mobile devices 112, as well as other information that may be specific to the user. In some embodiments, at least one subset of the received ads may be selected based on the relevancy information and may be distributed to an application configured to present ads on a mobile device. In further embodiments, at least one subset of the received ads may be associated with content when distributed to an application. In some embodiments, the ads may be distributed directly from applications service provider 102 through radio access network 110 to mobile devices 112. In some embodiments, the ads may be distributed directly from applications service provider 102 through radio access network 110 using one or more techniques optimized for mobile communications and specific to the particular application that is being run. For example, a UDP type of protocol may be used, rather than an HTTP and TCP/IP type of protocol that is conventionally used for communication of advertisements. These techniques optimized for mobile communications may provide increased battery life through more efficient communications. For example, the number of packets may be reduced and/or the information may be compressed more efficiently.
In operation 214, mobile devices 112 may present the ads to users, may collect metrics related to user interaction with the ads, and may provide the metrics to applications service provider 102. The metrics related to user interaction with the ads may, for example, include ad consumption metrics, ad impression metrics, ad interaction metrics, and click-through-rate (CTR) metrics.
In operation 216, applications service provider 102 may provide metrics related to user interaction with the ads to advertising service provider 104. This information may be used by applications service provider 102 and advertising service provider 104 in many ways and may help facilitate, among other things, revenue sharing from the ads, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect.
In some alternative embodiments, additional or different elements of the distributed ad-selection system 100 (
Unless specifically stated otherwise, terms such as processing, computing, calculating, determining, displaying, or the like, may refer to an action and/or process of one or more processing or computing systems or similar devices that may manipulate and transform data represented as physical (e.g., electronic) quantities within a processing system's registers and memory into other data similarly represented as physical quantities within the processing system's registers or memories, or other such information storage, transmission or display devices. Furthermore, as used herein, a computing device includes one or more processing elements coupled with computer-readable memory that may be volatile or non-volatile memory or a combination thereof.
Embodiments may be implemented in one or a combination of hardware, firmware and software. Embodiments may also be implemented as instructions stored on a computer-readable medium, which may be read and executed by at least one processor to perform the operations described herein. A computer-readable medium may include any mechanism for storing or transmitting information in a form readable by a machine (e.g., a computer). For example, a computer-readable medium may include read-only memory (ROM), random-access memory (RAM), magnetic disk storage media, optical storage media, flash-memory devices, and others.
This non-provisional patent application claims the benefit of the filing date of U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 61/059,525; filed Jun. 6, 2008; and entitled, “DISTRIBUTED AD-SELECTION SYSTEM AND METHODS FOR DISTRIBUTED AD SELECTION,” the content of which is incorporated by reference herein.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 61059525 | Jun 2008 | US |
