Patent Application
20110010737
Various embodiments relate generally to mobile advertising. More particularly, various embodiments relate to realizing fully customized advertisement services for based on notifications.
This section is intended to provide a background or context to various embodiments recited in the claims. The description herein may include concepts that could be pursued, but are not necessarily ones that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated herein, what is described in this section is not prior art to the description and claims in this application and is not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Digital Video Broadcasting Convergence of Broadcast and Mobile Services (DVB CBMS) has developed a notification framework for Internet Protocol Datacast (IPDC) over Digital Video Broadcasting-Handheld (DVB-H). The notification framework will enable the delivery of different types of notification events, e.g., about forthcoming and unscheduled events, to a large population of receivers. Notification events are delivered in the form of notification messages that may be carried over the broadcast channel DVB-H or over an interactivity channel (e.g., a 3G network). Additionally, the notification messages may typically comprise a number of parts.
It should be noted that notification messages may also be delivered over an interactive channel (e.g. a 2G or 3G network or WLAN). For this purpose, a receiving terminal may need to register its coordinates to get the information about new notification messages pushed to the receiving terminal. The receiving terminal may then access the notification service in poll mode to check periodically for new notification messages.
Mobile advertising, for example, is anticipated as becoming a key revenue generator for network operators and content providers in the near future. Mobile TV may become one of the most important distribution channels for driving mobile advertising. Mobile TV offers an opportunity for providing mobile advertisements to a growing user population.
Various embodiments are directed to a method, apparatus, and computer program product, embodied on a computer-readable medium, for encoding an advertisement content, into a media file, according to a target usage environment, assigning filtering information to the media file to enable customized selection of the said advertisement, transmitting an audio/visual (A/V) stream carrying media data of the advertisement and transmitting a notification stream synchronized to the audio/visual stream wherein the notification stream carries messages regarding at least one of an announcement of availability of the advertisement, information regarding scheduled advertisement periods, and trigger information regarding presentation of the advertisement.
Other embodiments are directed to a method, apparatus, and computer program product, embodied on a computer-readable medium, for receiving a notification message regarding at least one advertisement, at a terminal, arranging, by the terminal, for presentation of an advertisement, selected from the at least one advertisement, and presenting the selected advertisement to a user of the terminal. The notification message comprises information regarding at least one of a scheduled advertisement period, announcement of availability of the at least one advertisement and a trigger of presentation associated with an advertisement.
These and other advantages and features of various embodiments, together with the organization and manner of operation thereof, will become apparent from the following detailed description when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, wherein like elements have like numerals throughout the several drawings described below.
Embodiments of various embodiments are described by referring to the attached drawings, in which:
a is a flow chart illustrating network processes performed for delivering advertisements in accordance with various embodiments;
b is a timeline illustrating the utilization of a trigger for the presentation of an advertisement in accordance with various embodiments;
Systems and methods for realizing fully customized advertisement services associated with media services, e.g., mobile TV, based on notifications are disclosed in various embodiments. Such systems and methods in accordance with various embodiments allow for full customization of advertisement content, display time, and location.
The procedure(s) for realizing and implementing user-targeted advertisement have not yet been defined. Solutions for such user-targeted advertising would preferably allow flexible time and location-based advertisements. Many of the mobile devices supporting broadcast media services, e.g. mobile television (TV), are also endowed with an interactivity channel and other functionalities such as location information. The interactivity channel and/or the other functionalities are used to pave the way for more targeted advertisements that directly address the needs and interests of users as will be described in greater detail below.
Notification messages may either be synchronized to some audio/visual (A/V) content or notification messages may comprise a stand-alone service. Synchronized notification messages describe events that are related to some A/V service, e.g., requests for voting or contextual advertisements. Additionally, notification services may be aggregated, e.g., when carrying multiple notification messages that are close/similar to each other in their presentation time and small in size. Standalone notification services carry notification messages that are grouped by certain criteria but are not related to an A/V service. Furthermore, notification services may be “default” or “user selected.” Depending upon the type of the notification service at issue, the delivery of the notification messages may differ.
Two different transport protocols may be used for the delivery of notification messages over the broadcast channel (DVB-H): Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) and File Delivery over Unidirectional Transport (FLUTE). FLUTE may be used for the delivery of un-synchronized/standalone and default notification messages. RTP is used mainly for the delivery of synchronized, service-related notification messages. Alternatively, a combination of RTP and FLUTE may be used, where the bulky payload of a notification message (e.g., the application-specific message part and media objects, if any) may be transported using FLUTE, while, e.g., only the generic message part of the notification message is delivered using RTP. Various message parts, other than the generic part, may be carried over FLUTE, in a session that is referred to by the generic message part. A similar extension to the File Delivery Table (FDT) of FLUTE has been defined to provide identification and fast access to information fields that are necessary for the selection of notification messages. The notification message parts may then be encapsulated and carried as a single transport object, or as separate transport objects. The generic message part will usually provide a list of the message parts that constitute the corresponding notification message. The references to media objects as well as a description of how they are to be used are generally provided by the application-specific message part.
In an example embodiment, a user may define his/her preferences and interests for the content of the advertisements that he/she wishes to receive. For example, the receiving terminal may send/be queried for certain data or information useful for better targeting and customizing of advertisements as illustrated by the dashed arrows between the receiving terminal 220, the advertisement inserter 230, and the advertisement provider 240. A network operator or the terminal 220 may determine the interests of the user based on the user behavior when using the terminal 220 or network. For example, the network or the terminal may analyze a web searching/search history of the user to determine user behavior.
a is a flow chart illustrating a method performed at the network side in accordance with various embodiments, for delivering advertising content. At 300, content of an advertisement is encoded according to a target usage environment. For example, the advertisement content is encoded to have a similar or the same resolution and quality as the media content, e.g., mobile TV content and/or video content, being delivered to the user. The encoded advertisement content may be stored as media data, e.g., in the form of audio and/or video files or clips. At 310, filtering information is assigned to the advertisement or advertisement clip. For example, the network may define a set of filtering characteristics/criteria. A corresponding identifying value may be associated with each filtering characteristic or criterion. For at least one of the filtering characteristics/criteria the corresponding value(s) is assigned to the advertisement or advertisement clip.
At 320, at least one notification message, associated with a media stream, is transmitted, e.g. within a notification stream, to user terminals. The notification messages relate to one or more advertisements available to users during the consumption of a media stream, e.g., audio/video streams and/or mobile TV streams. The notification stream is defined to carry notification messages comprising information regarding at least one of scheduled advertisement period(s), an announcement of availability of the at least one advertisement and a trigger of presentation of an advertisement. Notification message(s) may further comprise information about the duration(s) of the at least one advertisement. The filtering information, for example, is carried within the notification message(s). Alternatively, the filtering information may also be included with the advertisement clip to which the filtering information is assigned, e.g., within corresponding metadata.
It should be noted that a service operator may transmit the advertisement content over the same channel as the media stream, e.g., the same channel over which the mobile TV content is being transmitted such as broadcast channel like DVB-H. Alternatively, the audio and/or video clips for the advertisement may be delivered over an announced channel. In another example embodiment, the network provides access to the advertisement content, for example, by informing users of the location of the advertisement content. At 330, access to advertisement content is provided. Users may then download advertisements that are of interest to them based at least in part pon received location information from the network.
In an example embodiment, a notification message, or the notification stream, is synchronized to the media stream, e.g., mobile TV media stream, an audio stream, a video stream and/or the like, being transmitted to user terminals. Alternatively, a notification message, or the notification stream, may also be synchronized to a media stream carrying the media data representative of advertisement content. In another example embodiment, a notification message, or the notification stream, is synchronized to both media streams carrying, respectively, media content data, e.g., mobile TV content, and advertisement content data.
In an example embodiment, the presentation of the advertisement is triggered by the user terminal, or user. For example, the user terminal, or user, decides the time instance(s) at which the advertisement is to be played based at least in part on the information within the received notification message(s). In another example embodiment, the presentation of the advertisement or advertisement clip is triggered by the server/network based on other criteria. In one particular embodiment, the server triggers the presentation of an advertisement for a product or service that is currently being shown in or is related to the content that is being consumed. Alternatively, presentation of an advertisement may run in parallel with actual TV content, such as a picture-in-picture implementation. The notification stream, or notification message(s), may also comprise information regarding a trigger for presentation of the at least one advertisement. Trigger information may also be sent to a user terminal, by a network server separate from notification message(s). Information about trigger of presentation of an advertisement comprises at least one of; information about when the advertisement to be played to the user and information about where the advertisement to be inserted within the media stream, and/or the like. A network server, for example, sends trigger information based at least in part on the content of the advertisement, the media content being transmitted in the media stream, the duration of the advertisement content, the location of a user terminal and/or the like. In yet another example embodiment, the advertisement content, e.g., advertisement clip(s), is inserted into media stream by a network server. The network server decides where to insert the advertisement content based at least in part on the content of the advertisement, the media content being transmitted in the media stream, the duration of the advertisement content, the location of a user terminal and/or the like. The network server, for example, decides to insert one or more advertisements in the
b illustrates the use of a trigger for the presentation of an advertisement in accordance with various embodiments. A timeline is shown in
From the perspective of a user terminal/device, advertisements, e.g., audio and/or video clips, based at least in part on the corresponding filtering information, e.g., classification/identification tags and/or other criteria, and the preference(s) and interest(s) of the user. The selected clips are stored within the receiving terminal's memory. In an example embodiment, the user terminal fetches the filtering information included in the notification message(s) and decides/determines which advertisement(s) are to be received by the user terminal. For example, the user terminal processes the filtering information, e.g., within notification message(s), and determines which advertisements are to be downloaded or requested from the network. The user terminal then downloads/receives the determined advertisements. In another example embodiment, the user terminal receives one or more advertisements. The user terminal filters the received advertisements based at least in part on the filtering information, e.g., in the notification message(s), metadata of the advertisement clips, and/or the like, and the user preferences to determine which advertisements may be of interest to the user. The determined advertisements are played to the user, for example, within announced scheduled advertisement periods.
Advertisement clips may have a “validity” time that gives control to the service provider over a particular set of advertisements that are currently being used or presented. Different mechanisms may trigger the display of a specific advertisement depending upon information contained in the advertisement, user preferences, and/or terminal implementation. Additionally, the terminal keeps track of displayed advertisement/advertisement clips and their total duration to ensure that this duration does not exceed the signaled/announced scheduled advertisement period(s). In an example embodiment, during display of the advertisement, local recording of the channel media streams may be performed to allow for later, “time-shifted playout” to catch up with a live transmission. Moreover, periodical reporting about consumed advertisements may be defined and generated for improved charging of the commercials provider. Reporting can also be used to accurately measure the effectiveness of the mobile advertisements.
A receiving user terminal/device may filter received advertisement clips. The filtering of advertisement clips may be realized based on, e.g., location information associated with a user, in order to enhance the relevance of the information that is provided together with the video clips. For example, when a user is currently located in/near a particular establishment or area, an advertisement relevant to the establishment or area may be transmitted to the user to, e.g., increase the impact of the advertisement. Each advertisement clip may also be bound to a display time in order to control the appropriate consumption of the advertisement. Further still, a priority may also be established between the different mobile advertisement clips to provide a differentiated service for the advertisements providers.
At 425, it is determined that the received notification comprises advertisement clip announcement. A notification is received in the announcement message(s) indicating the availability of an advertisement clip. At 430, it is determined whether or not to receive/store the advertisement clip, where the determination may be based on, e.g., an associated uniform resource locator (URL), version number, and/or filtering information. If the advertisement clip is to be received/stored, at 435, the user terminal tunes to a file download session (e.g., FLUTE) and retrieves that advertisement clip.
At 440, it is determined that the notification message received comprises an indication of upcoming advertisement periods. At 445, information for available advertisement broadcast time(s) and a respective schedule(s) is updated.
In arranging for the presentation/display of the advertisement, a terminal checks if sufficient advertisement time is available, within next scheduled advertisement period. For example, if remaining advertisement time, e.g., not reserved for displaying other advertisements, is longer than the duration of the selected advertisement then advertisement time within the next scheduled advertisement period is reserved for displaying/presenting the selected advertisement. If there is no sufficient time, within the next scheduled advertisement period, the display/presentation of the selected advertisement is scheduled at a later time, e.g., within a later advertisement period. An announcement of the availability of an advertisement file(s) comprises, for example, an indication of the location of the advertisement file(s), e.g., a uniform source locator URL. The announcement may further comprise other information such as the format(s) and/or the size(s) of the advertisement file(s).
In accordance with one embodiment, the DVB notification framework is used to convey the media data (e.g., video clips) for advertisements and the notifications about the advertisement periods. A notification application is defined for this purposes, where notification messages are identified by a specific Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension (MIME) type (e.g., “application/org.dvb.notif.mobads+xml”). The mobile advertisement clips are transmitted over a dedicated FLUTE session for all associated mobile TV channels (e.g., in the electronic service guide (ESG) Default Notification channel). Alternatively, a session may be associated with a specific mobile TV channel.
At least two notification message sub-types may be defined in accordance with various embodiments. A first sub-type is referred to as “AD_ANNOUNCE,” which comprises an announcement of the availability of an advertisement media clip. The AD_ANNOUNCE message is used to provide a link to, e.g., a video clip, that contains the desired mobile advertisement. The AD_ANNOUNCE message also contains information about the filtering criteria that apply to the advertisement clip. A second notification message sub-type is referred to as “AD_PERIOD_INFO,” which comprises an indication of the start of an advertisement period and its duration. Yet another notification message type may be referred to as “AD_PRESENT,” which comprises the trigger for the presentation of an advertisement which may be sent by the server/network.
The media clip announcement message (i.e., AD_ANNOUNCE) may contain the following information including, but not limited to: validity of the mobile advertisement clip; the expiry of the advertisement clip validity time for triggering removal of the advertisement clip from the receiving terminal's storage; suitability information that comprises information regarding, for example, an appropriate time and/or location, during which and/or where it is preferable to display the advertisement clip. Additionally, the media clip announcement message may further contain the following information: filtering information that contains the filtering information relevant to the filtering criteria used by the terminal to select the appropriate advertisement content, where user preferences may be collected in the form of filtering information to a predefined set of filtering criteria; clip duration, which includes information about the duration of the given advertisement clip; and a pointer to the media clip(s) to be downloaded for the particular advertisement clip.
The Ad period indication message (i.e., AD_PERIOD_INFO) contains the start and end, or the start and duration of a next advertisement period(s). The start and end times may be indicated as 64-bit network time protocol (NTP) timestamps to allow for accurate synchronization to the relevant mobile TV channel streams. Alternatively, the RTP timestamp of the AD_PERIOD_INFO notification message may be used to achieve the desired synchronization.
The following is an example of an XML schema for the application-specific message part that is designed in accordance with various embodiments. The XML schema defines the two message types, AD_ANNOUNCE and AD_PERIOD_INFO.
As indicated in the exemplary XML schema above, an indication of the geographic location in which a current advertisement clip is appropriate is given by the (Latitude, Longitude, Perimeter) tuple. It should be noted that other forms of indicating a target geographic area could also be used, e.g., the Cell-ID in a broadcast network, street location, etc.
Information about the server to which consumption of an advertisement is to be reported may also be determined in order to enable accurate collection of advertisement viewing statistics. The generated load may be limited by reporting rules that limit reporting frequency, reporting fraction of receivers, aggregation of reports, etc.
Various embodiments allow for the fully customized consumption of advertisements. A receiving terminal/device can decide to display an appropriate advertisement based on user preference, location, and actual time, among other considerations. Given the duration of an upcoming advertisement interruption on a regular broadcast, the receiving terminal is able to display advertisements in advance of the upcoming advertisement period. This allows higher efficiency to be achieved with regard to advertisements by selecting the appropriate time of display to a user. Moreover, it should be noted that various embodiments described herein are not restricted to a mobile TV context. For example, various embodiments may be applicable to any type of linear broadcast TV context.
The system 10 shown in
The example user terminals/devices of the system 10 may include, but are not limited to, an electronic device 12 in the form of a mobile telephone, a combination personal digital assistant (PDA) and mobile telephone 14, a PDA 16, an integrated messaging device (IMD) 18, a desktop computer 20, a notebook computer 22, etc. The user terminals/devices may be stationary or mobile as when carried by an individual who is moving. The communication devices may also be located in a mode of transportation including, but not limited to, an automobile, a truck, a taxi, a bus, a train, a boat, an airplane, a bicycle, a motorcycle, etc. Some or all of the communication devices, or user terminals, may send and receive calls and messages and communicate with service providers through a wireless connection 25 to a base station 24. The base station 24 may be connected to a network server 26 that allows communication between the mobile telephone network 11 and the Internet 28. The system 10 may include additional communication devices and communication devices of different types.
The user terminals/devices may communicate using various transmission technologies including, but not limited to, Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA), Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS), Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA), Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA), Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), Short Messaging Service (SMS), Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), e-mail, Instant Messaging Service (IMS), Bluetooth, IEEE 802.11, IEEE 802.16, LTE (3GPP Long-Term Evolution) etc. A communication device involved in implementing various embodiments may communicate using various media including, but not limited to, radio, infrared, laser, cable connection, and the like.
Various embodiments described herein are described in the general context of method steps or processes, which may be implemented in one embodiment by a computer program product, embodied in a computer-readable medium, including computer-executable instructions, such as program code, executed by computers in networked environments. A computer-readable medium may include removable and non-removable storage devices including, but not limited to, Read Only Memory (ROM), Random Access Memory (RAM), compact discs (CDs), digital versatile discs (DVD), etc. Generally, program modules may include routines, programs, objects, components, data structures, etc. that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types. Computer-executable instructions, associated data structures, and program modules represent examples of program code for executing steps of the methods disclosed herein. The particular sequence of such executable instructions or associated data structures represents examples of corresponding acts for implementing the functions described in such steps or processes.
Various embodiments may be implemented in software, hardware, application logic or a combination of software, hardware and application logic. The software, application logic and/or hardware may reside, for example, on a chipset, a mobile device, a desktop, a laptop or a server. Software and web implementations of various embodiments can be accomplished with standard programming techniques with rule-based logic and other logic to accomplish various database searching steps or processes, correlation steps or processes, comparison steps or processes and decision steps or processes. Various embodiments may also be fully or partially implemented within network elements or modules. It should be noted that the words “component” and “module,” as used herein and in the following claims, is intended to encompass implementations using one or more lines of software code, and/or hardware implementations, and/or equipment for receiving manual inputs.
Individual and specific structures described in the foregoing examples should be understood as constituting representative structure of means for performing specific functions described in the following the claims, although limitations in the claims should not be interpreted as constituting “means plus function” limitations in the event that the term “means” is not used therein. Additionally, the use of the term “step” in the foregoing description should not be used to construe any specific limitation in the claims as constituting a “step plus function” limitation. To the extent that individual references, including issued patents, patent applications, and non-patent publications, are described or otherwise mentioned herein, such references are not intended and should not be interpreted as limiting the scope of the following claims.
The foregoing description of embodiments has been presented for purposes of illustration and description. The foregoing description is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit various embodiments to the precise form disclosed, and modifications and variations are possible in light of the above teachings or may be acquired from practice of various embodiments. The embodiments discussed herein were chosen and described in order to explain the principles and the nature of various embodiments and its practical application to enable one skilled in the art to utilize various embodiments and with various modifications as are suited to the particular use contemplated. The features of various embodiments described herein may be combined in all possible combinations of methods, apparatus, modules, systems, and computer program products.
