Patent Application
20090254424
1. Technical Field
The disclosed embodiments relate to a system and methods for enhancing user advertising experience, and more specifically, to providing advanced features, including additional web content, delivered in conjunction with advertisements to benefit users, advertisers, and publishers.
2. Related Art
Internet advertising is a multi-billion dollar industry and is growing at double digits rates in recent years. It is also the major revenue source for internet companies, such as Yahoo!® or Google®, which provide advertising networks that connect advertisers, publishers, and Internet users. New and creative ways to attract users' attention to advertisements or to the sponsors of those advertisements help to grow the effectiveness of online advertising, and thus increases the growth of sponsored advertising. Publishers partner with advertisers, or allow advertisements to be delivered to their web pages, to help pay for the published content, or for other marketing reasons, and to synergistically develop their web space into a meaningful online market for users. Simultaneously, users desire information they seek and tools they find useful to be effectively delivered while not being overwhelmed with unwanted advertising or unnecessary browsing or searching.
By way of introduction, the embodiments described below are drawn to a system and methods for enhancing user advertising experience, and more specifically, to providing advanced features, including additional web content, delivered in conjunction with advertisements to benefit users, advertisers, and publishers.
In a first aspect, a method is disclosed for enhancing user advertising experience, the method including operatively integrating advertising content of an advertisement to be displayed on a web page with additional web content different from web content displayed on the web page; displaying an indicia in conjunction with the advertisement to indicate to a user that the advertisement includes a portal to the additional web content; sensing a browsing action by the user that engages the indicia; and altering the advertisement so that a space occupied by the advertisement displays the additional web content for viewing and engagement by the user.
In a second aspect, a method is disclosed for enhancing user advertising experience, the method including operatively integrating advertising content of an advertisement to be displayed on a web page with additional web content different from web content displayed on the web page; displaying an indicia in conjunction with the advertisement to indicate to a user that the advertisement includes a portal to the additional web content; automatically animating the indicia to draw attention to the additional web content; sensing a browsing action by the user that engages the indicia; and altering the advertisement so that the space occupied by the advertisement displays the additional web content for viewing and engagement by the user.
In a third aspect, a method is disclosed for enhancing user advertising experience, the method including sending a web page over a network to be displayed on a client device, the web page including an advertisement and an indicia to be displayed with the advertisement to indicate to a user of the client device that the advertisement includes a portal to additional web content different from web content displayed on the web page; receiving an indication from the client device that the user has engaged the indicia; and sending the additional web content to be displayed in an advertising space occupied by the advertisement in response to receiving the indication that the user has engaged the indicia.
In a fourth aspect, a server is disclosed for enhancing user advertising experience, including a memory to store instructions as executed. A database stores the instructions and sponsored web content. A processor is operable to execute the instructions and to access the sponsored web content, wherein the processor operatively integrates advertising content of an advertisement to be displayed on a web page with sponsored web content different from web content displayed on the web page; serves the integrated advertising and sponsored web content to the web page; displays an indicia in conjunction with the advertisement to indicate to a user that the advertisement includes a portal to the sponsored web content; senses a browsing action by the user that engages the indicia; and alters the advertisement so that a space occupied by the advertisement displays the sponsored web content for viewing and engagement by the user.
In a fifth aspect, a system is disclosed for enhancing user advertising experience including a processor operable to send a web page over a network to be displayed on a client device. The web page includes an advertisement and an indicia to be displayed with the advertisement to indicate to a user of the client device that the advertisement includes a portal to additional web content different from web content displayed on the web page. A receiver is operable to receive an indication from the client device that the user has engaged the indicia. A transmitter is operable to send the additional web content to be displayed in an advertising space occupied by the advertisement in response to receiving the indication that the user has engaged the indicia.
Other systems, methods, features and advantages will be, or will become, apparent to one with skill in the art upon examination of the following figures and detailed description. It is intended that all such additional systems, methods, features and advantages be included within this description, be within the scope of the invention, and be protected by the following claims.
The system may be better understood with reference to the following drawings and description. The components in the figures are not necessarily to scale, emphasis instead being placed upon illustrating the principles of the invention. Moreover, in the figures, like-referenced numerals designate corresponding parts throughout the different views.
By way of introduction, the disclosed embodiments relate to a system for leveraging space on a web page reserved for advertising to display, at least part of the time and generally in response to a user engagement, additional web content that may be of use or interest to the user. Various forms of animation or signaling may be used in conjunction with an indicia in order to indicate to the user that presence or accessibility of such additional web content.
The ad server 104, the web server 124, and the advertiser broker server 144 may each include a processor 150 and a memory 160 and other hardware that would be associated with a computer server. For instance, a computer server may include communications modules such as a receiver and a transmitter (not shown), and/or a transceiver (not shown), to communicate through the network 110 with other computers or machines, such as with the client connection devices 132.
An internet user, with the browser 136, may connect through any number of connection devices 132 such as a personal computer, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a cellular phone, a laptop, a mobile device capable of browsing or searching the internet, etc. The connection goes through the network 110 and pulls down web pages (e.g., publishing content) from the web server 124. Such publishers usually partner with any number of advertisers 120. An advertiser broker 144, such as Google of Mountain View, Calif. or Yahoo! of Sunnyvale, Calif., may be used as a go-between publishers (e.g., of the web server 124) and advertisers 120 to deliver ad content sponsored by the latter to web wages of the former. The ad server 104, which may be owned and operated by the advertiser broker 144, has ready access to advertisements paid for by the advertisers 120, and may store them locally or in a distributed manner in the advertisement database 108. When a user clicks on a link to a website from either a search results page or through a browsing action (including direct entry of a uniform resource locator (URL) in the browser 136), the website and affiliated web content are delivered to the browser 136 for viewing together with (hopefully relevant) advertisements from the database 108. Note that the advertiser brokers may also be considered publishers, and indeed, do publish much of their own content together with which advertisements may be served.
In addition to the advertisements available for delivery through the ad server 104, the advertiser broker server 144 may store additional web content/features in its database 148 that may be local or distributed as well. The database 148 for the additional web content/features may be the same as or in communication with the advertisement database 108 of the ad server 104. Accordingly, the ad server 104 may be combined with the advertiser broker server 144 as a single server. The advertiser broker or a third-party partner of the advertiser broker may supply advanced features or additional web content (together “additional web content”), which is different than the web content already delivered to a web page, to be bundled or integrated with these advertisements when delivered to the web page. The advertisement space used by this integrated web and advertising content is intended to be shared, but either one may include part of the space of a web page not common to the other.
Likewise, that the additional web content is bundled or integrated with advertising content does not imply that the additional web content has to be delivered to the Web browser 136 at the same time; to the contrary, the additional web content may be delivered or served separately after the web page is loaded with the advertisement and the original web content of that page. Note that the additional features or web content are delivered or served automatically with or after the advertising content of the advertisement, and therefore, the user need do nothing extra to access the additional web content, such as downloading a plug-in or toolbar, etc. The user need only engage the indicia, or in some cases, set up the system 100 such that the additional web content is automatically loaded and presented for viewing a predetermined period of time after the web page is loaded. The latter may be accomplished, for instance, through use of a pre-loaded plug-in or toolbar, etc.
The additional web content may provide additional benefits to the users, the advertisers, and the publishers. That is, the additional web content may give users tools to interact with an advertising space to quickly access timely information specific to the user. As will be seen in
The indicia 210 may be designed to attract the attention of users browsing the internet, and accordingly, may be animated in various ways to draw such attention. For instance, the indicia 210 may be made to blink, rotate, change shape, change color, pulsate, dissolve, shrink to nothing, bubble, evaporate, and/or move around or act in some way to draw attention. The indicia 210 may also read “click me for useful tools” or “click here for additional content” or some other descriptive term or phrase to grab the attention of browsing users.
As discussed in more detail below, when a user drags an input (such as a mouse cursor) over the indicia 210 or clicks on the indicia 210 to engage it, the advertisement 230 transitions to become movable or somehow disappears or fades away. What is exposed is additional web content (310 in
The additional web content 310 may also include some action buttons 316, such as refresh, stop, and close to help the user interact with and use the tools or content provided therein. If the “close” option is selected, the additional web content 310 may be again concealed by the same or a different advertisement. Accordingly, a user may advantageously access and interact with the additional web content 310 much more quickly and conveniently than if the user had to open a new browser 136 or tab to make such access, and then track multiple browsers or tabs to continue accessing information. For instance, the user may want to track his or her stock quotes in real time through the additional web content 310 while catching up on various news items on the web page.
The additional web content 310 may be displayed with a button 320 that enables the user to configure the additional web content 310, e.g., from previous advertising experience, so that the user knows what content he or she will get when engaging the indicia 210 on or near subsequent advertisements on other web pages 204. Such configuration may require entering a username or password to login so that the additional web content 310 may connect directly to the desired content, such as the personal assistant displayed in
The indicia 210 may be engaged by dragging a mouse cursor over and/or selecting the indicia 210 with an input selector, such as with a mouse click, so that a piece of code associated with the indicia will be executed. This may be performed with Java script code, for instance. The action the code may take includes a number of different options. For instance, the indicia 210 may be fashioned as a bent corner of a page, engagement of which allows a user to peel the advertisement 230 back to expose the additional web content 310. Furthermore, engagement of the indicia 210 may also cause the advertisement to “pop-off” and float so that the user may click and drag the advertisement 230 to another place on a screen of the user's connection device 132, including into another location of the browser 136, into another compatible program, or to a desktop location. In the alternative, the advertisement 230 may be made to be transparent so that the additional web content 310 may be seen through it enough so that the user may adequately read and interact therewith.
All of these options will advantageously help the user engage positively with the advertisement knowing that he or she will be able to access additional utility or content of interest in the additional web content 310. The system 100 may also cause the advertisement, once engaged, to transition to a different advertisement or message to catch the moment of user engagement to again grab the user's attention. The additional message may include a discount or free offer, a link to an educational marketing script, or an animated advertisement, etc. In the alternative, a plug-in or other script may be employed by the system 100 to automatically engage the indicia 210, without user intervention, to dispose of the advertisement. The user may be allowed to configure the additional web content 310 to be automatically displayed upon browsing to a web page that displays the advertisement. After a predetermined amount of time, the indicia may be automatically engaged such that the advertisement is disposed of, revealing the additional web content 310.
A sponsored link (or indicia) or other secondary advertisement 330 may be included in the content space 220 together with the additional web content 310. In
Similar to an embodiment previously discussed, the advertisement 230 of
Likewise, in alternative embodiments, creative animation that use special effects may be used when transitioning from displaying the advertisement 230 to displaying the additional web content 310. For instance, the advertisement 230 could be animated for a set period of time. The indicia 210 (or additional web content 310, if the same) may also be animated, such as made to appear as an animal that walks up from a side of the browser 136 and devours the advertisement 230. The animal or animated indicia 210, as it approaches the advertisement 230, may be engaged by the user to cause the advertisement 230 to disintegrate by fire or the like. The advertisement 230 could also explode into several pieces over the browser 136 and/or the display screen of the connection device 132, and then fade away.
The transition may include a sound effect that is played during the transition as the advertisement 230 is disengaged or made to disappear. The volume level could be set by the user, with the default setting being silent. These transition effects could also be randomized so the user is encouraged to play with the advertisement 230 to see what happens. Numerous other ways of animating the indicia 210 and/or the advertisement 230 may be apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art such that users take interest in the advertisement 230 and the additional web content 310 accessible through engagement of the indicia 210.
Note that each page view of the web page on which the integrated advertisement 230 and additional web content 310 is served may include a different advertisement 230 to provide a variety of advertising to the user, in addition to extended ad exposure for the same or different advertisers. Additionally, part of the transition discussed above during which the advertisement 230 disappears or becomes movable, may include allowing the advertiser a small time window of approximately one to three seconds to display a special offer or an additional advertisement. The secondary advertisement 330 remaining in the additional web content space 220 may then be engaged by the user to access such special offer or advertiser's web page even after the advertisement 230 disappears or is relocated.
In the foregoing description, numerous specific details of programming, software modules, user selections, network transactions, database queries, database structures, etc., are provided for a thorough understanding of various embodiments of the systems and methods disclosed herein. However, the disclosed system and methods can be practiced with other methods, components, materials, etc., or can be practiced without one or more of the specific details. In some cases, well-known structures, materials, or operations are not shown or described in detail. Furthermore, the described features, structures, or characteristics may be combined in any suitable manner in one or more embodiments. The components of the embodiments as generally described and illustrated in the Figures herein could be arranged and designed in a wide variety of different configurations.
The order of the steps or actions of the methods described in connection with the disclosed embodiments may be changed as would be apparent to those skilled in the art. Thus, any order appearing in the Figures, such as in flow charts, or in the Detailed Description is for illustrative purposes only and is not meant to imply a required order.
Several aspects of the embodiments described are illustrated as software modules or components. As used herein, a software module or component may include any type of computer instruction or computer executable code located within a memory device and/or transmitted as electronic signals over a system bus or wired or wireless network. A software module may, for instance, include one or more physical or logical blocks of computer instructions, which may be organized as a routine, program, object, component, data structure, etc. that performs one or more tasks or implements particular abstract data types.
In certain embodiments, a particular software module may include disparate instructions stored in different locations of a memory device, which together implement the described functionality of the module. Indeed, a module may include a single instruction or many instructions, and it may be distributed over several different code segments, among different programs, and across several memory devices. Some embodiments may be practiced in a distributed computing environment where tasks are performed by a remote processing device linked through a communications network. In a distributed computing environment, software modules may be located in local and/or remote memory storage devices.
Various modifications, changes, and variations apparent to those of skill in the art may be made in the arrangement, operation, and details of the methods and systems disclosed. The embodiments may include various steps, which may be embodied in machine-executable instructions to be executed by a general-purpose or special-purpose computer (or other electronic device). Alternatively, the steps may be performed by hardware components that contain specific logic for performing the steps, or by any combination of hardware, software, and/or firmware. Embodiments may also be provided as a computer program product including a machine-readable medium having stored thereon instructions that may be used to program a computer (or other electronic device) to perform processes described herein. The machine-readable medium may include, but is not limited to, floppy diskettes, optical disks, CD-ROMs, DVD-ROMs, ROMs, RAMs, EPROMs, EEPROMs, magnetic or optical cards, propagation media or other type of media/machine-readable medium suitable for storing electronic instructions. For example, instructions for performing described processes may be transferred from a remote computer (e.g., a server) to a requesting computer (e.g., a client) by way of data signals embodied in a carrier wave or other propagation medium via a communication link (e.g., network connection).
